Mark Gevisser signing, originally uploaded by BOOKphotoSA.
Four of the most eloquent, interesting and analytical South African writers are in my humble opinion, Rian Malan, Xolela Mangcu, Jonny Steinberg and Mark Gevisser.
Of these I have only met the enigmatic wild child Rian Malan. So I was very excited last night when I had the opportunity to listen to and meet Gevisser at London’s School for Oriental and African Studies. Gevisser has just published a shortened version of his magnum opus – A dream deferred – a biography on Thabo Mbeki.
Alec Russell, not South African, but a man that has a lot to say about the country was present as well. His recent book After Mandela: The Battle for the Soul of South Africa has received rave reviews. Although I have to admit I have not read it yet.
So Russell and Gevisser were there to talk about their books and speculate about the Zuma presidency. Speculating about Zuma and what he portends for SA is all the rage right now.
As I pointed out previously Thabo Mbeki and South Africa could have benefited with this kind of critical scrutiny in ’89 and 2004 before he became president. But back then Afro-pessimists were not quiet as visible then as they are now.
And well spoken they were. Gevisser has much of the academic about him, lacing his sentences with words like ‘contestation’ and ‘notion’. Although he constantly seasons his sociologist jargon with creative flourishes. And his lines are energetically delivered. He has a lot to say and one gets the feeling listening to him racing along that he feels he barely has the time to say what he wants.
Russell is the ace journalist, with above average vocabulary and analytical skills for a normal ‘hack’. Russell is not ‘just’ a hack. It’s obvious he is a keen observer and listener. A measured commentator.
No wonder Thabo Mbeki called him regularly. Even late on Saturday nights. Russell recounted the following when he attended Zuma’s birthday party (read from his book):
It was April 2007, and South Africa’s then president Thabo Mbeki and Zuma were in the midst of their tumultuous battle for control of the African National Congress, a fight that threatened to define the future of not just Africa’s oldest liberation movement, but also the post-apartheid state.
A young management consultant on my right was deftly saluting the talents of both men when my mobile phone rang. It was Mahlamba Ndlopfu (“The new dawn”), the president’s residence. Moments later I heard Mbeki’s distinctive deep, mellifluous voice. He had just returned from the Sudan. He wanted to send me an e-mail about a conversation we had had the previous week. Mbeki had long been mocked by critics for his penchant for surfing the internet at night – and here he was at 9pm on a Saturday catching up on his e-mails. “God moves in mysterious ways,” he said in conclusion, although to what I could not quite hear. Back in the ballroom, Zuma was taking to the dance floor for a solo performance.
Jacob Zuma I read Mbeki’s e-mail message late that night. He had wanted to draw my attention to recent cases of supposedly inaccurate reporting of his government. He passed on a friendly message to my family and concluded with a flourish, that to understand the media I needed to know a Xhosa expression, “Alitshoni lingenandaba”. This, he explained, could be translated as, “Each day brings its fresh baggage of news”. I wrote back vowing to bear it in mind. Within hours, back came another e-mail. To help me to understand the saying, Mbeki had composed a mock news item in which “President Mbeki [is found] riding a goat on the grounds of the Union Buildings [the government headquarters] stark naked”. High jinks ensue, with the police who discover the naked president winding up in hospital, treated by a specialist in exorcisms of ghosts and evil spirits. “One might then respond to this news,” concluded Mbeki, “by exclaiming alitshoni lingenandaba! This usage would be akin to the meaning that the ancient Romans attached to the expression Ex Africa semper aliquid novi [Africa always brings something new]!”
It was vintage Mbeki, encapsulating the inquisitive man groomed from his youth as a future leader – yet whose hypersensitivity and desire to be an African intellectual tarnished his and his country’s reputation as he pursued disastrous policies on Aids and Zimbabwe. It also highlighted the contrast with the ebullient, larger-than-life Zuma who would soon be Mbeki’s successor: he won the party’s leadership contest eight months after his birthday celebrations, paving the way for his election as the country’s president at Wednesday’s elections.
Quoting Latin is not Zuma’s style. He only learnt to read and write as an adult, and appears more comfortable telling stories and passing around a vat of sorghum beer with clansmen (though he doesn’t drink) in rural Zululand than discussing policy, one of Mbeki’s favoured pursuits. Mbeki agonised over what it meant to be an authentic African leader. Zuma, it seems, is one. He is the ultimate modern tribal chief, a man who will listen to his people, who understands their concerns and who will not necessarily let the niceties of western political convention impede his plans.
To Russell Zuma had the very real possibility of being a better leader than Mbeki. (Russell had previously even gone so far as to speculate that Zuma could be South Africa’s Ronald Reagan.)
After the talk Russell told me, Mbeki had some character flaws but:
“This did not make him evil, but it did make him a bad leader”.
Gevisser never really came to understand Mbeki fully. I put it to him that his book starts off great but that one gets the impression towards the end that Mbeki is still a bit of a mystery to him. “It’s a fair comment”, he replied.
Nevertheless one senses that Gevisser feels far more comfortable with the mysterious Mbeki than the man of the people that is Zuma.
Gevisser had also read a passage from his book, his was about the revolution that happened at Polokwane. Only in his version the King had been dealt a bad hand, or so he seemed to suggest.
He recounted the run up to Polokwane, and then claimed Mbeki would not have run for president in the first place if he had not been persuaded to do so by others in the ANC. Their aim? To stop Zuma.
I’m not convinced about this argument. Much of Mbeki’s moves early in his presidency seemed designed to ensconce himself as leader. Even by proxy – Putin style – if it must.
Gevisser made it sound as if Mbeki was much the underdog, while I think the smart money, almost right up till the end, was that Mbeki would clinch the Polokwane battle.
What Gevisser was saying last night made him look like a more firm Mbeki defender vis-a-vis Zuma than I would have imagined. Gevissers book does not create the same impression of obvious bias towards Mbeki.
When an audience member and the chair said as much Gevisser retorted that if he had created that impression it was wrong. Neither Mbeki or Zuma woud have been his choice for president.
Still Gevisser pins the blame on the attacks and the undermining of South African government institutions firmly on Zuma. The lack of accountability of Mbeki’s administration and the abuse of state organs during Mbeki’s time, there was no mention of that.
Gevisser has previously been on a panel with Zachie Achmat of the TAC and Ferial Haffajee (now editor of City Press) in which they – not him – had to make the case of Mbeki’s delinquent presidency.
Haffajee described Mbeki’s support for the rule of law by institutions as “reed slim”. Achmat said Mbeki had practised an “executive lawlessness” in which he saw himself “above the law and outside the Constitution”.
Gevisser has perhaps fallen for the charms of his subject.
Be that as it may one could not argue with Gevisser when he said its too early to judge Zuma. But he added quickly, he was a skeptic.
Gevisser clearly does not trust Zuma. He explained this with reference to the next ANC succession. Zuma had initially said he would only stand for one term. But Gevisser was very suspicious about recent news that Zwelinzima Vavi, the head of Cosatu – South Africa’s powerful trade union federation – had declared that Zuma should stand for two terms.
Gevisser seemed to infer that Zuma was in on this. That he had colluded with Vavi to make this statement. I’m not so sure – both Gwede Mantashe (the ANC general secretary) and Julius Malema, (the ANC youth leader) – has taken issue with Vavi on the two terms issue and Zuma has been quiet himself.
I asked Gevisser afterwards whether much of the anti-Zuma sentiment is not firstly middleclass, secondly white, and thirdly an English bias against Zuma. I had previously written on this blog about white and middleclass bias against Zuma.
“Yes”, he agreed. But in particular that there was a middle class bias against Zuma he thought, while race was less important. I don’t think he really registered the third leg of my question.
In his book Gevisser – through meticulous research – rather brilliantly makes the case that Mbeki was some kind of Afro-pessimist himself.
I was left wondering if Gevisser and a few in the audience had not come to share Mbeki’s views.
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Mhambi,
I’m not seeing the claim that Mbeki was an Afropessimist; how does that work? (More like how does Gevisser make it?)
Hi Mhambi,
Your clearly a Zuma fan.
How dare you write about South Africa and your “favourite” South African writers! You are not living the African dream. You are just a fake!
Hi Dolla welcome. I prefer Zuma to Mbeki – that is true.
Daniel, the theme runs like a thread through the whole book. That Mbeki was part of a tribe that had made common cause with the British at the expense of other Xhosa groupings.
That in their village thay had lived on the fault line between the westernised Xhosas and the Africans, and that he did not know how to relate with the latter.
This theme continues throughout the book.