Former South African president, Thabo Mbeki
It's been more than 10 years since former President Thabo Mbeki was recalled as President of South Africa. This move would lead to weakening Mbeki's position not only on national affairs but on continental affairs as well.
Since Mbeki became the president of Africa's most advanced economy in 1999, he immediately took charge of the renewal of the continent in a more appealing way than any other leader had done, at least in the modern era.
It was not long from the time Mbeki
ascended to the South African presidency that the Organisation of African
Unity (OAU) would convert to become the African Union (AU) in 2002; the whole
process was spearheaded by Mbeki.
Mbeki would become the first Chairman
of the African Union. Many remarks that during Mbeki's reign at the AU, coups
ceased to exist on the African continent, and Africa enjoyed more democratic,
free, and fair elections.
Add to the list Mbeki-led initiatives
like the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), which is responsible
for the socio-economic development framework for Africa, and the African Peer
Review Mechanism (APRM), then you have Africa's renewal in motion. Even more
powerfully, the African Renaissance was firmly in place to produce, as Mbeki is
fond of exclaiming, 'Africa's Rebirth'.
Mbeki's legacy remains part of our
culture and possibly the long-term future. His capacity in planning,
organizing, strategy, and tactics led to a commodity boom on a scale
unprecedented in SA. Under his reign, South Africa's economy grew by 5%.
At some stage, the country's economic
growth had reached the 6% mark. Jobs were created in the middle sectors due to
this growth.
And the Mbeki-inspired Expanded Public
Works Programme (EPWP) has led to many jobs in Black areas of South Africa. The
fall of Mbeki from political power could be described as the end of the African
Renaissance philosophy.
Although there are still institutions
and projects that are meant to carry forward the program of 'Africa's Rebirth'.
The spark of the African Renaissance mission disappeared with the recall of
Mbeki as South Africa's second democratically elected president.
Much was lacking in the articulation
of the philosophy from Mbeki's office as the president of South Africa, I would
argue. Although Mbeki succeeded in promoting the concept of an African
Renaissance, there's a lack of understanding as to the nitty-gritty of the
philosophy, so that the various sectors that form Africa are daily implementing
the programs and projects of renewing Africa.
In its essence, the African
Renaissance is the concept that the African people shall overcome the current
challenges confronting the continent and achieve cultural, scientific, and
economic renewal. First articulated by Senegalese historian Cheikh Anta Diop in
a series of essays he wrote between 1946 and 1960.
And later collected to produce a book
titled Towards the African Renaissance: Essays in Culture and Development, 1946–1960.
Diop had written this series of essays on charting the development of Africa as
a student in Paris.
Diop's ideas were further popularized
by Mbeki during his tenure when he was South Africa's Deputy President. Today, the
African Renaissance has been pinned more largely as a philosophical and
political movement to end the violence, elitism, corruption, and poverty
believed to plague the continent and to replace them with a more just and
equitable order.
Mbeki proposes achieving these goals
by primarily encouraging education and reversing the "brain drain"
of African intellectuals to foreign lands; hence, the African Renaissance is
meant to play a key role in South Africa's post-apartheid intellectual agenda.
Mbeki further encouraged Africans to
take pride in their heritage and to take charge of their lives, rather than
depending on outside factors to be able to re-create their destiny. However,
according to Noel Moukala, the African Renaissance cannot exist without first
achieving African Unity.
Professor W.A.J. Okumu compiled a list
of perceived African traits that he believes are worthy of preservation and
continuation.
These include aspects of interpersonal
relations, such as "social inclusion, hospitality, and generous
sharing," as well as attentive and perceptive listening. He additionally
argues that social acceptance is not based on wealth, but on relationships with others.
Okumu's perspective perfectly joins
the African Renaissance with the philosophy of Ubuntu/Botho, which is about
'Humanity Towards Others'.
When giving his famous "I Am an
African" speech in Cape Town, celebrating the adoption of a new
Constitution of South Africa in Parliament on May 8, 1996, Mbeki said: “I am
born of a people who are heroes and heroines.
With patient because history is on
their side, these masses do not despair because today the weather is bad. Nor
do they turn triumphalist when, tomorrow, the sun shines.
Whatever the circumstances they have
lived through and because of that experience, they are determined to define for
themselves who they are and who they should be.”
This was followed by the April 1997
Mbeki articulation on the elements that comprise the African Renaissance, which
include social cohesion, democracy, economic rebuilding and growth, and the
establishment of Africa as a significant player in geopolitical affairs.
Vusi Mavimbela, an advisor to Mbeki,
two months later, wrote that the African Renaissance was the "third
moment" in post-colonial Africa, following decolonization and the spread
of democracy across the continent in the early 1990s.
Later on, Mbeki would codify
Mavimbela's beliefs and the reforms that would comprise them in the
"African Renaissance Statement" given on August 13, 1998.
All this would culminate in the
African Renaissance Conference in Johannesburg in 1998, where 470 participants
attended. And in 1999, the book titled African Renaissance was released, with 30
essays arranged under topics corresponding to the conference's breakout
sessions: "culture and education, economic transformation, science and
technology, transport and energy, moral renewal and African values, and media
and telecommunications.
It needs to be mentioned that in the
field of technology, this area needs close monitoring, as in many instances it
has led to replacing people's jobs with machines. A strong stance needs to be
made in ensuring that only technology that creates more jobs and improves
people's lives will form part of our fabric.
And in Pretoria on October 11, 1999,
Mbeki then led the formation of the African Renaissance Institute (ARI, with
its initial focus on the development of African human resources, science and
technology, agriculture, nutrition and health, culture, business, peace, and
good governance.
In his book The African Renaissance,
Okumu wrote that "The most important and primary role of the African
Renaissance Institute now and in the coming years is to gather a critical mass
of first-class African scientists and to give them large enough grants continuingly, as well as sufficient infrastructure, to enable them to
undertake meaningful problem-solving R&D applied to industrial production
that will lead to really important results of economic dimensions."
Various analysts still credit much of
this growth to the increase of employment in the middle sectors, which, up until
Mbeki's tenure, was difficult to come by. Commenting generally on Mbeki's
leadership and vision, Khisimusi Sipho wrote: "Going through former
president Thabo Mbeki's 2007 political report at Polokwane, he said nothing but
the vicious truth.
Our anger, impatience &
frustration engulfed many of us that we couldn't listen to him properly at that
time. "The distinguished African scholar Professor Patrick Loch Otieno
Lumumba remarked, "Thabo Mbeki should have been afforded more time to lead
because he had a clear direction as to where South Africa and Africa should go,
South Africa lost a man in him."
Mbeki's vision and his pioneering of
an African Renaissance led to the successful bid to host the 2010 FIFA World
Cup. In acknowledging Mbeki's contribution, Business Day newspaper said in its
editorial opinion, "The fact is that it was the former president's vision
of an African renaissance, with South Africa leading the charge to prove to the
rest of the world that the continent was not destined to disappoint in
perpetuity, that resulted in us persisting in our bid to host the
tournament."
Another newspaper, The Citizen, commented: "Now we know he was correct in that assessment of South
Africa's ability to stage the greatest show on earth." Africa must look at
the possibility of allowing Mbeki to contribute to the renewal of the
continent's fortunes.
Furthermore, the African Renaissance
is now part of the International Decade for People of African Descent from 2015
to 2024, in which the Door of Return Initiative seeks to bring members of the
African Diaspora back to the continent.
This initiative is spearheaded by the
historical Maroon community of Accompong, Jamaica, in cooperation with
Zimbabwe, Nigeria, and Ghana. The associated Renaissance revival is led by
Accompong Finance Minister Timothy E. McPherson Jr., and Nigeria's Senior
Special Assistant to the President on Diaspora and Foreign Affairs, Abike
Dabiri.
That should make us wonder why Mbeki's
predecessors in South Africa have turned to the African Renaissance
philosophy, including Mbeki's successors, too. Continent, figures associated
with the African Renaissance are President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, President
Paul Kagame of Rwanda, and President Emmerson Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe.
What about the others, and what about
the men and women on the African streets? The promotion of African literature
and promoting the stories of the forgotten heroes & heroines of the
Liberation Struggle publicly and in our schools, colleges, and universities to
decolonize the mind would be a good start.
And building Public Participation in
communities, governmental, AU structures, programs, and projects will strengthen
Africa's case that we are serious about making the 21st century an African
Century.
By Thandisizwe Mgudlwa
