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Mbeki, the Bull in the China Shop, and Jeering Nabobs

Yes, Mbeki’s “quiet diplomacy” and “hand-holding” worked.
We must give him credit.

Going by the snide remarks being made by some foreign observers, one would think that President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa instigated the present crisis in Zimbabwe. A welter of critical voices, mostly Western and some Africans too, continue to bash Mbeki's facilitator role, and his so-called “quiet diplomacy” on Zimbabwe; however, he has been nonplussed, if not totally indifferent to such criticisms. Mbeki has continued with his facilitators’ effort, which on 21 July yielded its first dividend, with the signing of an MOU by ZANU-PF and the two MDC factions.

Well before the breakthrough, many believed, as was pointedly expressed by a representative of the United States, that Mbeki was on the wrong side of history. How imperceptive? Perhaps, it is either that when it comes to Africa many Westerners no longer read history or that they just do not care. If they did, they would recall that Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai, the two key players in the Zimbabwe saga, despite living in the same city, had not met face-to-face since 1999. President Mbeki made the long elusive meeting a reality.

It is a matter of deep irony that Westerners continue to query the efficacy of Mbeki’s efforts. First, they overlook the fact that his involvement in Zimbabwe was a moral imperative. Second, they neglect the fact that Mr. Mbeki has been acting on behalf of the SADC, which asked him to undertake the task in 2007, and clearly, without any established timeframe. Third, those jeering nabobs who have become latter-day champions of good governance in Zimbabwe act as if it is only they that appreciate Zimbabwe’s dyspeptic mood. Finally, it is evident that many of those who chastise President Mbeki do not exactly know the man.

It should be understood, that for Mbeki, diplomacy like politics, will always be a counterintuitive act, due to personal insights and deep-seated convictions. Whereas public opinion matters, in the end, the political actor is responsible for his decisions and their eventual outcome. Mbeki’s critics also seem to forget, proximity aside, that South Africa and Zimbabwe are two nations bound by a common destiny in that they share the historical legacy of apartheid. But there is more about Mbeki, which might shed some light on his approach in Zimbabwe. Here, a backgrounder is perhaps inevitable.

Thabo Mbeki is not Nelson Mandela. He would also not aspire to that role. Though fate conspired to force him into Mandela’s shoes, he knows too well that he could never fill it or match the size and giant footprints of iconic Mandela. But certainly, Thabo Mbeki is his own man; a fact many seem to grudgingly refuse to accept. Behind his quiet mane and near docile facade, is a well-honed and politically savvy mind and a strong but deceptive mettle.

Thabo Mbeki prizes the value of persuasion, listening and acting with cautious haste. Those who misinterpret such deliberateness, do so at their own peril. He is also a very dogged negotiator and a patient one at that. Many find this trait very frustrating, especially in a former freedom fighter. But it also goes to show that they do not know the man they are dealing with.

For most of his professional diplomatic career, and well before active politics, Mbeki was a petitioner for the African National Congress (ANC). Often treated as a supplicant than as a genuine interlocutor and representative of his oppressed and disenfranchised people, he had no choice but to learn the value of tenacity and patience. Frequently hiding behind his ubiquitous pipe and the smoke it vented, he became over the years, an adroit listener as his interlocutors pontificated, lectured, commiserated and sometimes patronized him and his ANC colleagues and their cause. But in the main, Mbeki remains a consummate diplomat and consensus-builder – a fact that is lost to some who believe that he is a vacillator, but only shy from publicly calling him such, least they offend the sensibilities of his much valued nation.

One thing Thabo Mbeki is not is a pretender. He is also not a panderer. He will not do things to please the major powers, his compatriots, admirers and adversaries. Rather, he will do the things that he believes in. Often, he would shut up, plugging his mouth and voice with his pipe. At other times, he would drum his fingers on the table top or side, while giving his audience his rapt attention. To misread such a demeanor as ambivalence or not being engaged is fatally dangerous, politically speaking.

Mbeki knows that peace, like victory is priceless. Hence, the cost or the time it takes to achieve a negotiated and sustainable settlement is therefore immaterial. He also knows, that to achieve ones ultimate end, you have to fully allow the opponents to show their hands, reveal their thoughts and unveils their strategy. More importantly, he understands the imperative of collaborative negotiations and the role of a facilitator, which inevitably, includes allowing the parties to have a sense of ownership of the process as well as the end results. If there is one other critical variable that Mbeki is good at, it is dealing with his Western interlocutors. He understood fully, that for them, critical engagement on any issue is driven primarily by national interest, and hardly any altruism.

I first met Mr. Mbeki many years ago - 1981 to be exact, when he was an assistant to Oliver Tambo. We met again in 1984, by then he had become the Director of the Department of Information and Publicity. He was the counterpart to my late friend Comrade Johnstone “Johnny” Mfanafuthi Makatini, Director of ANC's Department of International Affairs and its de facto Foreign Minister. Johnny Makatini was vivacious, bohemian and a gifted orator, who held his audience spellbound with his anti-apartheid rhetoric and persuasive skills. Makatini and Mbeki were the twin arrowheads of ANC’s international engagement. While Makatini was the postulator and spin master, Mbeki was the follow-up fellow whom you asked to parse and decipher the anti-apartheid strategy and plot. It was therefore hardly surprising, that he would step into Makatini’s position in 1989, after the latter died on 3 December 1988 from diabetic complications. It was a role cut out for him.

In the succeeding years, we met at different conferences and rallies. Mbeki was cool, quite and inwardly hard as steel. He was a man on a mission. If he had any singular value for the ANC, it was his renown as mediator, policy shaper and his conversance with the global field of play. Yet, he was not as charismatic as Chris Hani; not as seemingly dogmatic as Joe Modise was, and certainly not as fiery and feared as Patrick “Terror” Lekota -- all these men, his ANC comrades who were deemed successors to the aging gang of Albert Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu, and the goaled Nelson Mandela.

It is, therefore, hardly surprising that Mbeki became president of South Africa. He knew Africa well. Likewise, Africans knew and trusted him. Ditto his compatriots and more importantly, Nelson Mandela, his mentor and predecessor.

Many years ago, during negotiations on the international roadmap to end apartheid, I watched Mbeki finesse and run rings around Western diplomats who were unreceptive of Africa’s proposals, contained in the Harare Declaration. A frustratingly deliberate but collaborative negotiator, he believes in navigating around hurdles, while whittling down barriers including the stoic defenses and considered logic of his interlocutors. In the end, he almost always got his way, yet hardly ever showing anger, frustration or raising his voice. It should not surprise anyone, therefore, that he has adopted the same modus operandi in dealing with the Zimbabwe crisis.

This is not the first time that Mbeki has come under severe criticism for his policy options or style. Some international observers have criticized his HIV policy. Indeed, such critics believe that his HIV policy and stance on Zimbabwe will negatively define his legacy. Unfortunately, they are dead wrong.

On the HIV issue, Mbeki knew the score, far better than he would publicly admit or wanted his critics to know. He knew also, that while Western politicians frothed about solving the HIV/AIDS pandemic, their private sector counterparts consistently made HIV drugs unaffordable to peoples in Third World countries, South Africa included. Confronted with that paradox, Mbeki played the West like a fiddle. If they believed in what they preached, he surmised, they should make HIV drugs and treatment not just available, but affordable to South Africans. There were no takers. Hence, he had unmasked Western hypocrisy and double standards on the matter. All talk but no walk!

On Zimbabwe, some Western observers see Mbeki’s ongoing effort as lackluster. Even some within South Africa’s media have decried what The Citizen recently referred to as “Thabo Mbeki’s hand-holding persuasive skill”. Those who do not appreciate or fathom Mbeki’s working methods miss the point, totally, I might add. In addition, they reveal that they hardly know the man.

Mbeki’s role in Zimbabwe should be viewed in the context and with the analogy of someone dealing with a bull in a China shop. Those who seek and therefore push for a quick fix solution, happen also to be the ones that unapologetically push for a regime change by any means. The UK and the US, no longer mask their desire to oust President Mugabe with the usual diplomatic niceties. However, some still do. However, for Mbeki, the question is how to rid the China shop of the bull with minimal collateral damage. The alternative is the total ruin of the shop.

Zimbabwe, admittedly, is in a crisis, but not at war. This really, is what informs Mbeki’s perceptibly gingerly and patient negotiations. Moreover, very few are as cognizant as Mbeki, that the core issue in this crisis –which seems almost forgotten—is land reform. If a crisis of legitimacy exists in Zimbabwe, it did not come from the so-called flawed elections of 27 June. Also, the interlocking crisis has its roots - not in the absence of democracy and good governance, which Zimbabwe always had - but from the domestic land reform dispute, into which the UK had self-servingly insinuated itself. As Mbeki noted recently on BBC’s Hardtalk Show, “There is a land problem in Zimbabwe, there is a need for land redistribution, but it must be handled differently, without violence, without conflict, within the context of the law - bearing in mind the interests of all Zimbabweans, both black and white."

If there is one thing Mbeki learned from Nelson Mandela, it is not to enter any debate or negotiations too early. This was the sure way of building consensus, but also one that allows others to claim ownership of the process and the successful outcome. Apropos Zimbabwe, after what critical jeering nabobs had characterized as Mbeki’s dithering and pussyfooting over an eighteen-month period, he delivered on 21 July, when the parties did the unthinkable and signed an MOU. Mbeki had against all odds, fulfilled the first major role of any facilitator; but the agreement belonged rightly, as it should, to the Zimbabweans.

Yes, Mbeki’s “quiet diplomacy” and “hand-holding” worked. We must give him credit. If the West will not salute him, we in Africa will. Mbeki has our gratitude for navigating with safe hands, the maze and minefield of Zimbabwe’s politics, when already some Westerners were proposing peacekeeping troops. Moreover, he brought the Zimbabweans together to talk about their common destiny. More importantly, thanks to Mbeki, the bull is on its way out of the China shop, and the shop is still intact, even if economically messy. What he has done is save Zimbabwe from implosion, which more sanctions and Western highhandedness would not have readily done. That is reality and reality bites.