South Africa: A fading rainbow?

Democracy is not an easy thing to do. It is not something that can be implemented over night nor does the ability to vote mean that things will immediately turn out for the better. For democracy to work, institutions need to be in place and civil society must work together to grow something organically.

Notions of idealism have often ignored the fundamentals of rationalism and pragmatism. In effect, just because something may seem right, it doesn’t mean it is going to work. To a large extent, this forms the building blocks of modern Conservatism and many of the views of the 18^th century politician Edmund Burke. Societies don’t become something overnight, they evolve through history and culture. The lessons of revolution and visionary leaders have often led to mass murder and the brutality of totalitarian regimes.

The problem with democracy is that when it is in place, citizens expect results immediately. Yet, when things don’t, old habits often die hard. One only has to look at Russia. Western critics of the current Russian leadership may have some salient points regarding Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian style, yet let us remember that democracy as we know it has never existed there at all. Before Stalin and Lenin, Russia was ruled by hereditary Tsars. Authoritarianism and the security blanket of socialism are the systems that Russians know; it may be some time before the framework of democracy beds-in.

(NY Times)

The same can be said of South Africa. The pressure for the country to flourish remains intense, almost on the verge of burdensome. The peaceful legacy of Nelson Mandela’s leadership was a platform for countries overcoming long legacies of discrimination to aspire to, any step backward is deemed a desecration of Mandela’s legacy.

The current crisis involving the South Africa questions not only the stability of the economy, but the essence of its democracy. The shooting and subsequent killings of protesting miners at a platinum mine near Rustenburg asks not only questions of the police, but questions about politics and society.

Since 16 August, South Africa’s platinum mines have become inoperable. Mass demonstrations by several unions have prevented workers returning to the pits and have put future operations in doubt. The protests have continued to gain momentum and not just in Rustenburg, miners from across the country have joined in wild-cat strikes. The return of the banished former ANC Youth Leader Julius Malema has only stoked the fire further.

Malema is no stranger to controversy. A fierce critic of South Africa’s current leadership, Malema has openly stated his admiration and friendship of Zimbabwe’s ageing tyrant Robert Mugabe, discredited the Government of Botswana and called for the South African mining sector to be renationalised. The 31-year-old raised headlines initially for singing the infamous ‘Shoot the Boer’ at ANC rallies, Boer being the white farmers who settled in South Africa in the 17^th and 18^th century, now a looser term for white South Africans. In April 2012, Malema was finally banned for calling President Zuma a dictator. Yet, it does not appear to have curtailed his opinions. Malema this week was talking to the South African army, in what has been perceived as a threat to national security.

Malema's speeches draw in the masses (Guardian)

Whilst Malema’s rhetoric can be deemed as absurd and opportunistic, to what extent does it echo with many of the workers in South Africa’s mining community? Since the end of Apartheid, are they materially better off? Life expectancy has dropped to 52 years old, over a tenth of the population is living with HIV, on top of poor educational standards, crime remains an inherent problem with high murder and violent crime rates. Figures also put the unemployment rate at 25%, though many believe it to be around 40%. Has freedom from Apartheid brought opportunity? For the masses living in black townships, how many would argue that much has changed?

Whilst many poor black South Africans have suffered, the political elite have prospered. 100 years since the ANC was born, to what extent does it really represent its constituents? Why has it introduced a secrecy law that critics believe to be akin to Apartheid-era politics. Why were the miners in Rustenburg arrested under an obscure Apartheid law?

South Africa has struggled like any country whilst it attempted to re-emerge from its bleak past. South Africa is held up as a beacon because what was enshrined in its constitution made it the world’s most equal society. Yet the strikes and gaps in wealth tell another story. A new black elite has managed to develop from the seeds of freedom. From what should have been an opportunity for liberation and new beginnings has led to greed, corruption and a failure of the masses. Whilst the miners may return to work this week, what remains is a seriously inequal society and the fault lines that will only become wider.

Next stop, Mugabe.

Lord Palmerston, one of Britain’s most influential Foreign Secretaries in the nineteenth century is often remembered for his famous dictum:

“We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.”

This is true of any nation. The US delegation that visited Mao’s China in 1972 was treading on dangerous ground. History Professor David Reynolds from the University of Cambridge said at the time it is like comparing ‘America opening talks with Al Qaeda’. Every story has a context and President Richard Nixon was pursuing a policy of containment from Soviet influence with his mandarin Henry Kissinger. China, under the insular rule of Chairman Mao, were political pariahs. They had contributed in World War 2 to help defeat Imperial Japan, but several years later (after the Mao’s succession) sent forces against the West on the Korean peninsula. The US decision to open talks was made easier by the Ussuri River conflict agaisnt the USSR three years previously. Communist China and Soviet Russia were now sworn enemies. This not only allowed the US to start talks with China, particularly about containing the Vietnam War but it opened up a diplomacy that would transform the two nations economically.

It is the same within the Middle East. The peace treaty between Israel and Egypt was transformative, after decades of war, it showed the ability to negotiate over trade and ultimately co-exist. This asks the question of Britain and whether it is willing or able to move on and talk to the wasp’s nest in the loft, Zimbabwe and its belligerent and ailing leader Robert Mugabe.

British history in Africa is grey. Comparing it to other nations and their empires such as Belgium or Portugal then you could mistake the British for saints. The ‘Scramble for Africa’ saw land divided between other countries with the line of a ruler. Unlike places like India or Hong Kong where institutions were laid down, a loose form of indirect rule was placed with strong tribal leaders to control affairs on site, whilst decisions were made from the Colonial Office in Whitehall.

The 1960s and the ‘winds of change’ speech uttered by PM Harold MacMillan saw swathes of British Africa declare independence; The Gold Coast, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa. All these nations elected their own governments and power was truly handed over from London. Yet the British exit from Rhodesia did not change much in terms of politics. Ian Smith, a white militant, took charge and retained the apartheid system that subjugated Black Rhodesians. The guerrilla war that ensued finally ended in 1979 through the signing of the Lancaster House Agreement in London that ended Smith’s unilateral declaration of independence. It also introduced to the world the wily and implacable Robert Gabriel Mugabe, a product of the British Colonial system.

Why does Mugabe in particular revile the British establishment? Zimbabwe has a shocking human rights record; but what of the genocide in Darfur or the habitual rape of women and children in DR Congo? Freedom of the press – it is hardly a model system but compared to Eritrea. The dispute over land distribution is probably worse in neighbouring South Africa. If Mugabe is going to win an Oscar then it will be for his economic mismanagement, but the picture is often presented more fiendish than it is in comparison. Yet Zimbabwe, behind Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran, still features highly for UK press concentration. It ultimately boiled down to the fact that Mugabe, with his agile political skills and connivance, managed to defeat the British who left an Africa unfavourably for black Africans.

Yet despite his brazenness and ferocity, Mugabe still admires his ‘mother country’. He is known to enjoy afternoon tea and like Idi Amin, the Ugandan tyrant, wistfully respects the Queen and the Royal Family. Travel bans to the EU and US not only prevented his wife from trips to Harrods but separated him from the Establishment. This of course is entirely different to his revulsion towards the British Government, they only made things worse.

This is a man that oversaw an operation translated from Shona (the majority ethnic language) meaning ‘drive out the filth’ that saw bulldozers smash through homes of voters of the MDC (now in government with Mugabe’s Zanu PF) and Zimbabwe’s other ethnic group. This is a man that caused great instability across the whole of Southern Africa. A Black African killing black Africans, driving millions of refugees into neighbouring countries and overseeing the disastrous appropriation of white farm land to black natives that caused the whole region to suffer economically and without food.

We hear rumours that Mr Mugabe, now 87, is terminally ill with prostate cancer, yet still clutching to power. His latest economic policy is to see that all foreign owned enterprises must be have least 51 per cent ‘native’ Zimbabwean investors, a policy that is unsettling big firms such as Barclays Bank. The US and EU sanctions have also seen Mugabe flirt towards the Chinese, trading diamonds for military hardware. With a breakdown in relations between Mugabe and Prime Minster Morgan Tsvangirai the elections scheduled for next year could turn out as farcical and bloody as 2007.

Is this the opportunity for Britain, like Nixon all those years ago, to reach out an olive branch to Mugabe and reset relations? Not only could it possibly heal fractious wounds and generate a new relationship akin to somewhere like Sierra Leone; but it could prevent trouble in the short term. Who is to say that when Mugabe finally releases power (probably through death) that there will not be a power struggle from rapacious generals creating more unrest ; or alternatively a backlash against Mugabe’s ‘vets’ (war veterans who are in effect work as a paramilitary, yet they were probably not old enough to have participated in the independence war.) This would not be akin to an Arab Spring but another Rwanda, with consequences across the region.

Yet both parties are too stubborn to think along these lines. Mugabe will never give way and Britain would see this as submission. However; after its mismanagement since the 1890s and post independence, this could be the Empire’s medicine and redress after decades of mistakes, and ultimately an avenue for economic cooperation as Palmerston said.