Mbeki is reaping the whirl wind

The xenophobic mayhem taking place in South Africa was bound to happen sooner or later. That country is in the grip of a crisis as its citizens have embarked on wanton murder of foreigners in protest against the threats to their livelihoods. More than forty people have been killed at the last count, homes have been destroyed and displacement of people is going on as I write this article. So serious is the crisis that the South African government has deployed its army to try and restore order in the affected areas.

This cannot be good publicity for South Africa, especially with the world cup which they are hosting - the first ever African country to do so - just two years away. The events in South Africa will cast a serious shadow on the country’s reputation and credibility as a just and tolerant society. The senseless murder of people whose only fault is that they have decided - for their own various reasons - to adopt South Africa as their homeland, temporarily or otherwise, is entirely unacceptable in the globalised world that we now live in. More so given the fact that during the apartheid era, many black South Africans sought and were granted refuge in many countries including those countries whose citizens they are now violently evicting from the country and butchering in their streets.

In my mind there is no doubt who the author is of this untenable situation which is tragically unfolding in Africa’s strongest economy. It is Thabo Mbeki, the President of South Africa through his flawed policy of appeasing and acquiescing with the dictatorship in Zimbabwe which has spawned the massive refugee crisis in his country. For many years, President Mbeki has either abated or encouraged the brutalising of Zimbabweans by the Mugabe regime through his policy of quiet diplomacy on Zimbabwe. Despite demonstrable, numerous and persistent failure of this policy, Mbeki has not changed course and continued to pretend that there is no crisis to worry about in his country’s neighbourhood.

For a long while I used to suspect that Mbeki was not willing to do anything about the problems in Zimbabwe because South Africa was benefiting economically and politically. Much of the investment in Zimbabwe or destined for Zimbabwe was being diverted to South Africa and this was helping to fuel the economic growth of the country. More importantly, South Africa has been the biggest beneficiary of the brain drain from Zimbabwe and has absorbed the best and brightest talents and skilled workers into its commerce, industry, mining, academic and other public bodies. Because black South Africans lacked the necessary education, training and experience, it was left mainly to the Zimbabweans and, to a lesser extent, other nationalities to assume leadership roles in organisations and present a semblance of “black” ownership.

From a political perspective, Mbeki knew that the fall of Mugabe’s political fortunes would only lead to the rise of his own stock within the continent and thus appeared to be quite prepared to let and encourage his Zimbabwean counterpart to commit political suicide. As the problems in Zimbabwe worsened, Mbeki became more and more in demand as the leading African statesman. The world was beating a steady stream to his doorstep to consult with him and to encourage him to take the leadership in solving the problems faced by his northern neighbour. And while he did not have any intention to do anything to solve Zimbabwe’s problems, Mbeki nevertheless continued to pretend to the world that he was doing something and that he was succeeding. To say that he failed, would be putting it quite mildly indeed. Mbeki’s initiative has been a disaster of the highest magnitude.

While Mbeki continued to fiddle, millions of Zimbabwean refugees were pouring across the border into his country by foot, by road, by rail and by air. Some estimates suggest that more than three million Zimbabweans are working or living in South Africa. This is no small number and it is bound to put a lot of pressure on both material resources and social infrastructure and services of the host country. Imagine, three million Zimbabweans competing for jobs, housing and other services and amenities with their South African hosts. I cannot but feel a weird sort of empathy for the poor South Africans. Sooner or later someone was going to say enough is enough and the South Africans have decided to express their frustration in a disastrous and quite tragic manner.

But the real tragedy is that someone must and should have seen this coming. The South African president has many highly paid advisors and someone should have warned him that the situation was not sustainable in the long term. There is no way that the country, even with its economic muscle, could have continued to cope with this large influx of foreigners without attracting local grievances and discontent. Something had to give and it did. The chickens have well and truly come home to roost and Mr Mbeki’s is reaping his whirlwind.

Are there any lessons that can be drawn from this? Plenty, I would like to think. For me the first lesson is that it is important to maintain good neighbourliness. This means working with your neighbours to tackle and resolve their own problems. If you see your neighbour’s house on fire, it is not a very good idea to stand by watching or, worse, to feed fuel to the fire. The fire may cross the boundary and engulf your own house as well. President Mbeki has had a lot of opportunity to put out the fire in Zimbabwe. He had the fire tender and plenty of water to douse the flames but instead of helping to put out the fire, he decided to water his garden.

The second lesson is that just as no man is an island, no country is an island. There is a close interdependency and interconnectivity between nations and what happens in one country may have significant impact on another. This is the whole basis upon which international institutions such as the United Nations, the African Union, the European Union, etc. exist. Yet our leaders in Africa have blindly and selfishly chosen to subordinate this internationalism to the doctrine of national sovereignty. Many issues which require collective solution are left to fester because the only way to resolve them may be regarded as violating national sovereignty. This was the case in Rwanda in the period leading to the genocide and is the case in Darfur, Zimbabwe and elsewhere. Sovereignty has been used as a convenient excuse for all manner of despotism and dictatorship and is now thoroughly discredited as a political discourse.

The third lesson is that no problem which is left unresolved will solve itself. For almost eight years there has been no effective action to solve the crisis in Zimbabwe and, far from the problem dissipating, it has worsened. Many political pundits predicted long back that the Zimbabwean crisis will have a contagion effect on the region, yet there does not seem to have been urgency in addressing and resolving the issues. South Africa is now feeling the pain of procrastination and so are many other countries in the region whose nationals are residing and working in South Africa. More than 15,000 Mozambicans are reported to have already fled from the violence in South Africa and as the number increases this is likely to place some strain on Mozambican political and economic fabric.

My concern is that the tragic events unfolding in South Africa do not assume a life of their own and divert attention away from the causative factors behind the events. Sending in the army to quell the violence will only provide temporary respite. The long term solution lies in destroying the roots of political, social and economic strife on the continent – undemocratic and dictatorial regimes such as Mr Mugabe’s in Zimbabwe. As Mr Mbeki’s limbs to the finishing line of his tenure in office, he must remember that his legacy, or the bit that is left of it, demands that he stands up and be counted on the side of the oppressed and suffering masses of Zimbabwe. So far he has been quite reluctant.