No African leader in the most recent times has sought to fight for the continent in the manner that Thabo Mbeki has done.
The former South African president used every tool at his disposal to put the “Dark Continent’ back to where he thought it belonged.
It proved a vain effort.
In the end it cost him his job.
Who would forget Mbeki’s seminal and lyrically laced “I am an African” speech! And also his loaded African Renaissance philosophy that handsomely borrowed from Africa’s romanticized past, including from such civilisations like the Timbuktu.
Thabo Mbeki was always looking at Africa in rose tinted glasses.
He used his oratorical skills to get his audience to see Africa his way.
Mbeki, we have to point out, was not a lightweight.
Whenever he got a chance, he used his self-appointed African emissary position to fight the case for Africa be it in the United States, in Europe or in China.
Africa was a sleeping giant that was about to wake up, he said on numerous occasions.
Almost singlehandedly at the time, he fought the stereotypes against Africa and the Africans.
When at one time a journalist asked him about the “crisis” in Zimbabwe, where he was a chief negotiator, Mbeki feigned surprise – “What crisis? There is no crisis.” The world was astonished.
Zimbabwe was on fire.
But that was typical Mbeki. He could not bring himself to blame another African country.
He wrote a long letter to Morgan Tsvangirai, the then opposition leader chastising him for seeking help outside of Africa.
Mbeki was convinced that African problems needed African solutions.
Africanism was for him a phenomenon that the white controlled media was failing or perhaps unwilling to grasp.
During his presidency he fought non-stop with NGOs that sought to portray South Africa as the rape capital of the world.
For him it was all bias and prejudice.
Of particular annoyance to him, he said was a belief among “all white people” that Africans were corrupt and totally unable to govern any country.
His instinctive default position was always to impugn motives for anybody including those who questioned Africans, however slightly or well mannered.
He told Gordon Brown live on television that Africa did not like Britain poaching nurses and doctors from the continent.
Mbeki used his presidency not only to showcase his intellectual sophistry but also to argue Africa’s case,
Peace in Africa was his recurring theme. And he wanted Africa to get a fair share of space in the global media coverage.
At one point I attended the opening of the Kalahari Transfrontier Park where he was officiating together with our Festus Mogae.
Quite predictably, in his speech Mbeki complained that the launch of the Kalahari Transfrontier Park, which was for him a big African success story would not make it to CNN or BBC. This filled him with both anger and despair.
And indeed, it did not.
His speeches were always full of prose and poetry – W.B Yeats being his favorite.
His favorite abodes were the Sudan, the Great Lakes and of course Nigeria.
He courageously did Africa’s bidding.
Yet we later learnt that his party in SA was either not listening, or may be listening but not liking what he was saying.
Apparently for many of them he was no longer their president.
Spending too much time focused on Africa meant he was not able to attend to his own backyard.
Many South Africans got frustrated that Thabo Mbeki had turned himself into Africa’s president while not setting aside enough time aside to tend his own garden, South Africa.
They opted to give him a boot before he could complete his term.
Foreign policy, Mbeki’s biggest strength was to be his downfall.
Many South Africans were angry that their intellectual leader had left the people too far behind as he waxed lyrical about his philosophy riddled speeches across the African capitals.
Memories of Thabo Mbeki have been coming to my mind over and over again over the last few months as I observed our Mokgweetsi Masisi’s forays on the world stage.
He is clearly getting taken in by the international stage. And he enjoys it.
He seems to relish the attention he’s getting there. He is assured that there are no uncomfortable questions there. His overall demeanour has been to show his international audience that after a decade of self-isolation Botswana is back where she belongs. That may well be so.
The preceding ten years of isolation were indeed bad for Botswana’s standing abroad.
We lost in our attempts to lead the African Union and also to lead the Commonwealth – among others.
The feeling abroad, best captured, by Robert Mugabe at the time was that our president was nowhere to be seen.
But that can also be misleading. Botswana’s outlook remains subdued.
If he is not careful, Masisi could very easily give the game away. It would be fiction to think success abroad wings affection at home.
It is the other way round. At the moment Masisi’s to do list, at least based on his own electoral pledges remains full to the brim.
A good section of the official opposition insist that Masisi is an imposter who did not win an election.
Thabo Mbeki has very easily been the finest president South Africa ever had. But he was not allowed to complete his tenure after his own party sacked him, chiefly because he had grown to become a detached and sentimental intellectual who cared more about Africa than South Africa.
It is a big lesson Masisi should always have in mind.
Foreign policy is only as good as it protects Botswana’s domestic interest.
Once people need convincing why their leader is all focused abroad, then you know that like Mbeki, you have left the people behind.
Fears abound about creating an authoritarian and vindictive Masisi that could turn out to be worse than Ian Khama he has replaced. Too many questions remain unanswered about the extent to which Masisi is prepared to go to be a defender of genuine rule of law.
Insiders says the signs are already reaching worrying levels. They say the president is growing defensive by the day. His attitude hints at the siege mentality. Intolerance coupled with eschewing different views are getting admirers worried, giving rise to suspicions of possible insecurity.
APOLOGY: Last week on this space, appearing under the headline “BNF will emerge the biggest loser in the unfolding opposition rearrangement” a mistake happened when the name of the late AOBAKWE SEKGWA was used instead of that of the WATCHDOG. The mistake happened during Graphics Design stages. The Watchdog takes full responsibility of that article. Sunday Standard apologises to the family and friends of the late Aobakwe Sekgwa who in his life was a close friend, reader and contributor to this newspaper. May his soul continue to rest in peace. Internal Processes are being reviewed to ensure that such a mistake does not happen again.
