Mbeki says it’s time for introspection
South Africans must have a critical review in terms of what Mandela stood for
FORMER president Thabo Mbeki has called on South Africans to use Nelson Mandela’s death to have a “critical review” of where the country is in terms of what Mandela and his comrades stood for.
In an interview yesterday, Mbeki said Mandela’s memory would be best honoured by assessing whether South Africa was still in line to realise his vision for a nonracial society.
“I think what is important is that we should use this moment of the passing away of Madiba indeed to reflect on the same question. What did he stand for, what did his generation stand for? What are the outcomes they wanted out of the struggle? What are the values which informed them? And then to ask the question: Are we staying true to those values? Are the things that we are doing consistent with what they stood for?
“I think it’s necessary to do that, because we shouldn’t just say that we are celebrating the life of Nelson Mandela. It’s not just to celebrate a past, but also to say what, then, do we do about the future?” he said.
Although Mandela would be proud of what South Africa had achieved over the past 20 years, Mbeki said, he would be disappointed by the challenges that still faced the country.
“The fact that we haven’t created this nonracial society he and the others stood for, this nonsexist society, issues about national reconciliation and . . . about the eradication of poverty that we are still quite a long way [from achieving]. I am quite certain he would have been very unhappy about many of those things — about the lack of progress.
“We need a kind of critical review . . . I think it would be good to also have a look at whether our expectations were justified, because it may very well be that at a certain point we set our expectations too high.”
Mbeki, whose father Govan did time with Mandela on Robben Island, spoke of how he first became close to Mandela as a teenager in the 1960s.
Mandela would invite the then 19-year-old Mbeki to lunch at his Orlando West home in Soweto.
The two would spend hours discussing a range of issues relating to the then already banned ANC.
“What I didn’t know then, though I discovered it later, is that the reason he was doing that [was that] it would be after meetings of the leadership of the ANC. By this time the ANC is illegal, it’s banned but it’s operating underground . . .
“What I then discovered later was that the reason he was doing it was to check the opinion of the youth about the things that they had discussed to find out how the youth would respond to whatever action they were thinking about,” Mbeki said.
That was the beginning of a long political relationship between the two men.
Throughout those lunchtime discussions, Mbeki recalled, Mandela
I think it would be good also to have a look at whether our expectations were justified
never made him feel like a junior despite being a contemporary of Mbeki’s father. “I never got any sense that he was talking to me as a senior or superior person. He wouldn’t talk down to you, but really engage you as a comrade despite the age difference.
“That’s been my experience of working with him — it’s been that we are comrades together in the common struggle. He would respect your view despite the fact that you are young. He would disagree and you could also disagree with him without any problems,” he said.
Mbeki, who served as Mandela’s deputy in South Africa’s first postapartheid cabinet, described Mandela’s passing as the end of an era. “With regards to Madiba as a person, we grew up under him, as under the rest of that generation. We were very inspired by the things they did, the defiance campaign, etcetera . . . Here are people who say we are going to defy unjust laws and go to jail and were ready to make that kind of sacrifice.”