Mbeki’s ‘ANC Today’ letters shed light on SA’s democracy
Listening to former president Thabo Mbeki on the occasion of the launch of a book about his “ANC Today” letters, and on the eve of the 30th anniversary of South African freedom, it became apparent that his recall or departure from our politics was a loss to the ANC and its intellectual tradition.
He powerfully articulated what informed his decision to take up “the megaphone” and communicate the ANC’s message from the party’s highest office, as well as the impact the letters had on collaborative policy co-ordination between the office of the ANC president and the state president’s office.
His words clearly indicated how influential his presidency was when one considers the postapartheid narrative about SA.
How Mbeki harnessed the power of online media at a time the ANC needed to manage the transition from the Nelson Mandela era — characterised by a government of national unity, political transition and drafting a new constitution — to the second democratic administration that was concerned with consolidating the new constitutional order, will be regarded by future scholars as a political science marvel.
The letters presented at the launch represent a reintegration of Mbeki into the heart of political discourse in SA.
The growing uncertainty about how the ideational future of the ANC will derive its functionality from its perceived changeability is the issue the book addresses.
The letters explain why the ANC, the undisputed giant in SA politics, stopped thinking about the changeability of the future and failed to imagine itself comprehensively altering it.
One of the advantages of living in a democracy where past leaders, as elder statesmen, continue to influence the present discourse as opposed to being regarded as sources of societal polarisation or brazenly counter-revolutionary figures, is that their accumulated wisdom is experienced in a non-partisan and beneficial way by society.
The risk of leaders and their wisdom being perpetually partisan in the national scheme of things is minimised without the legacy claims of parties that made them voices of wisdom being undermined.
Going through some of the letters in the first volume, it is clear Mbeki saw the first administration falling under the 1996 constitution as having a mandate to heal the divisions of the past and establish a functioning democratic order based on the fulfilment of the fundamental rights in the bill of rights, such as human dignity and equality.
A feature of the letters is the notion that, as the frontiers of knowledge of the cohort of leaders and thinkers around Mbeki were extended, new objectives other than the pursuit of a better life for all came into sharper focus.
The growth of aggressive forces inside the ANC and in SA politics, which started to blur the pursuit of the National Democratic Revolution, permeated the thematic thrusts of Mbeki’s letters.
Even if current leaders and members of the
ANC do not deliberately take note of the core leadership themes in the messages, the book advances them as theoretical constructions that will influence society long after Mbeki is no longer with us. The repetition of these themes in schools and universities will make them more credible and persuasive. They are now curated in a published work.
As a synopsis of what he sought to communicate to us during his terms in office, these letters emphasise the strength of the policies held by those who led with Mbeki.
The Gear [Growth, Employment, and Redistribution] policy, for instance, helped SA reduce its debt to manageable levels and, as a result, extend the fiscal capacity of the state to fulfil its constitutional obligations.
The letters allowed the nation to accompany Mbeki on the policy journeys that characterised his leadership. His letters contained observations that were both codes and directives to our society.
Only those privy to the bitter contestations within the ruling party, which came into public view at Polokwane in 2007 and Nasrec in 2017, would have had the ability to decode and understand them.
The launch was a convergence point for several abavikel’shlaloes (defenders of the throne) and abavikela usihlalo (defenders of the one on the throne), who were there to listen to Mbeki as an elder statesman who had metamorphosed into an impeccable abavikela ikusasa lombutho (defender of the ANC’s legacy or future).
It is a pity that, as a society, we could not witness all who served in the presidency as an institution gracing the occasion and writing a letter to the nation.
In the absence of a cohesive story narrated to Tintswalo, except one that celebrated what it meant to be Tintswalo, the Mbeki book has been written for the next generation.
The book clears away the clutter of personal aggrandisement and factional battles within the ANC. In his speech, Mbeki subtly announced a series of publications he and his colleagues were working on to put in place the necessary guardrails for Tintswalo to hold on to.
Global practice and convention dictate that every historical epoch will be remastered, whether the incumbents do it, the new entrants do it or the battle between them does it. However, it cannot be done unless those who led, or those who were there, ensure it happens. Mbeki’s book is a remarkable non-biotic and yet organic Tintswalo. ✼ Mathebula is a public policy analyst and founder of a Tshwane-based think-tank, the Th!nc Foundation