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Go Home Oh My God: A Comeback For Winnie Mandela

THE SPINE DECEMBER 22, 2007

Oh My God: A Comeback For Winnie Mandela

BY JAMES KIRCHICK

South Africa has been in a volcano, what with the political detritus rising up and swallowing the surrounding country.Let's start with the man whom no one dares to criticize, Mandela. No, not his wife, Winnie.  Nelson himself.  He couldn't stand her.  After all, she was involved in various murders of opponents and in other depredations.  But he could tolerate all kinds of monstrous political leaders.  To him, Castro, Khaddafi, Arafat and the usual despots from sub-Saharan Africa were all in what was termed "the progressive camp."  The non-aligned bloc.  The fact is that, aside from Pandit Nehru, they were all tyrants and unabashed tyrants, at that.  But give Mandela his due.  The U.S., under a Republican president or a Democratic one, effectively tilted towards apartheid Pretoria.  And the Kremlin titled toward the A.N.C.  What was Mandela to do?Thabo Mkebi was Mandela's designated successor, a succession lubricated by the Rockefeller Foundation which has not yet apologized to anyone -- and especially not the South Africans -- for paving the way for president who forced the country to take his wisdom on AIDS.  As it happens, his approach to HIV was that of a witch doctor, and he has still been interceding against the rational protocols that have to some extent limited the virus' death statistics.Then, in the last few weeks, Jacob Zuma has wrested control of the African National Congress from Mbeki who, in comparison to his opponents, is a very civilized man.  Cry, the beloved country.  Also a gangster and a crook, Zuma has inflicted on Mbeki "humiliating defeats," as William MacNamara reported to the weekend FT, and then went on to elevate Winnie Madikizela-Mandela to the ruling national executive of the Congress with the greatest number of votes of any candidates.  The trajectory of South Africa, once again, is tyranny, tyranny by election.

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97 comments

Rational protocols for AIDS?  I would say that more people have died from AIDS drugs than from the disease itself.

- nbarry

December 22, 2007 at 6:37pm

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It is sad that a party with as esteemed a history as the ANC ended up choosing between a corrupt rapist and an HIV revisionist in their leadership race (and probably chose the wrong one). A sad day for Africa.

Nbarry, what on earth are you talking about? In 1995, when the first protease inhibitor came on the market, there were 51,000 AIDS deaths in the US. By 1998, that number had fallen to 19,000 even as the total number of infected individuals rose. And the death toll is even lower today, meaning that the drugs greatly prolong life and don't just fend the virus off a few years. Right now I volunteer at AIDS Action, a lefty organization where no one would profess a love of drug companies, but we all know that these drugs work.

- WillPastor

December 22, 2007 at 7:07pm

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You know, Mr. Peretz, it's fascinating to watch your racism so obviously on display. You just can't encompass the idea that - in Palestine or in South Africa - some member of the Lower Orders might make an electoral decision that you disapprove of, and so that obviously must mean that the whole place is going down the tubes.

Twenty years ago, every white supremacist in the USA was predicting that South Africa was going to go to hell, after those dumb kaffirs were allowed any say in government. Today, you're still doing it. 'Witch doctors'! What do you think, Mbeki's jumping around with a bone in his nose, because he's too damn stupid to understand what AIDS is?

In the 1980s and early 1990s, no whites in government in South Africa gave a damn about AIDS, because it was an 'African disease'. Then you had a bunch of racists from North America telling lies about how Africans brought AIDS on themselves, because they were stupid and violent and promiscuous. Now South Africa reaps the results of that, with its leaders utterly unwilling to accept scientific data on AIDS... because that data has in the past been used to make claims about the inferiority of Africans. And it comes full circle to folks like you, entirely willing to accept such claims - just as you eagerly accept the racial inferiority of Arabs - because it's convenient to your arguments.

What do the lives of Africans really mean to you, anyway, except for easy exemplars in The Spine?

- scottmaceachern

December 22, 2007 at 11:09pm

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We have no need of a trip to South Africa to find Governmental stupidity with regard to AIDS.  A couple of weeks ago Andrew Sullivan wrote:

-- Mark Dybul is the Bush administration's Global AIDS Coordinator, and an openly gay man, much liked and respected, not least by Laura Bush and Condi Rice. He is also, alas, required to enforce the policies created by Jesse Helms almost two decades ago to hound, stigmatize and discriminate against anyone with HIV who is not an American and wants to visit, travel or immigrate to the US. Unlike every other civilized country, unlike even China, the US still retains 1980s-era policies that treat tourists and visitors with HIV as if they have malaria, barring them from ever coming in the country, or getting waivers that require them to provide invasive details on their health, be monitored by the government, be subject to deportation, and treated more brutally than anyone with any other medical condition. The other countries with the same policy: Iraq, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Sudan. Is that the company America really wants to keep? Is that part of the AIDS legacy the Bush administration wants to leave? andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/.../jesse-helms-liv.html

Sullivan also wrote that his HIV status makes it impossible for him to become a US citizen.  There's compassionate conservatism in action.

- ndmackenzie

December 23, 2007 at 12:53am

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Wow, I feel really ignorant not having known that Sullivan was HIV-positive. And man is that awful that he can't get citizenship because of that. As if he couldn't be trusted to vote because of the disease.

- rozenson

December 23, 2007 at 3:31am

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You are the racist scottmaceachern. The idea that a people that will hugely suffer from the absurdities of their unprepared government but that all should be accepted just as it is, since one should not impose on others the standards that make one's own life worth living is a plain racist one. That's the idea that supposes the "inferiority" of Africans.

As if scottmaceachern was not immensely pleased to live in an enlightened democracy where some things are unthinkable. And as if the culture that turns that enlightened democracy into a possibility hadn't take centuries to build. And as if no one had the slightest responsibility in exporting that culture to countries where all the wrong aspects of modernity were imported, but none of the good.

The main problem going unacknowledged: the old social and political structures of Africa (just 100 years ago they lived in hierarchical tribes) are broken without remedy. In order to implement other social and political structures that bring some sort of collective well being and fairness, one must export the culture that is underneath these other social and political structures. Not to do so, is a sign of "Western supremacy", if not of "White supremacy". It's like saying: they will never get it, so just let them be tyrants and murderers...

- luispc

December 23, 2007 at 3:43am

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You're right ndmackenzie. The persistence of those policies in the US is simply disgusting.

- luispc

December 23, 2007 at 3:48am

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luispc... yeah, right, such things are absolutely unthinkable in Western democracies. After all, Americans would never accept a creationist President, or a political party where prospective candidates would have to pledge fealty to the fables of the Old Testament in order to be nominated, right? Americans would never tolerate a religiously-inspired abstinence-only sex-ed curriculum - with all of the tragedy that such nonsense entails - promulgated by their government, would they? Nor would they try to foist such policies on African countries....   And no Western country would ever find itself with a rapist President... except perhaps Israel, of course. Peretz can wax indignant about Jacob Zuma, but he's been remarkably silent on Moshe Katsav.

And, to reiterate: for the last 20 years, white racists have been predicting the imminent descent of South Africa into chaos, after blacks there had the temerity to want self-determination. Chaos hasn't happened yet, but that doesn't stop folks like Peretz from continuing to predict it. People may not like Mandela or Mbeki - gawd knows Peretz doesn't - but despite sometimes-nutty policies, those folks are a long, long way from being tyrants and murderers.

So, the ANC had a meeting, and democratically elected a populist who is certainly not the guy who should have been elected. That's bad, but it's also a side-effect of democracy. So what element of Western culture would you have imported into South Africa to evade that outcome?

(Incidentally, the reason that Mandela had good relations with Castro et al was because those folks supported black South Africans during the apartheid period, when the American and Israeli ranks of Peretz's People-I-Know were busy supporting the apartheid government.)

- scottmaceachern

December 23, 2007 at 12:57pm

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nbarry, willpastor has already responded to your lunatic post, but as in infectious diseases physician currently living in Namibia, a country affeted by HIV/AIDS to more or less the same degree as South Africa, I cannot let your remark go by without comment.

The standard for proof of efficacy of any drug is the randomized, double blind, controlled clinical trial.  Literally hundreds of such trials have been conducted on antiretroviral drugs proving their benefit, in terms of increased survival beyond a reasonable doubt.  

The natural history of HIV infection which was well observed in the developed world in the 1980s and early 90s and is still observed in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa is as follows: progression to clinical AIDS within 5-10 years of infection and death from opportunistic infections or malignancy within 2-5 years of AIDS diagnosis.  In Africa tuberculosis and other infections such as Salmenellosis and Pneumococcal pneumonia which don't need to wait for clinical AIDS to cause HIV infected persons strife all too often hurry this process along.  The beneficial effect of ARVs seems to be somewhat blunted in Africa as compared to the West due to multiple factors including cultural and economic factors limiting patient adherence to medical regimens, limited facilities for the diagnosis and treatment of complications of AIDS and its treatment, and limited alternatives for patients who are failing or intolerant of first-line antiretroviral regimens.  Still, again and again even in resource poor settings in Africa the benefit of ARVs as compared to no ARVs has been demonstrated experimentally.  To deny as much is dangerous, anti-scientific nonsense and plays into the hands of leaders such as Mbeki who in the name of combating cultural imperialism would allow millions of their countrymen to die prematurely.

- aeromonas

December 23, 2007 at 1:34pm

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Did Peretz support apartheid? Do you know that for a fact? I don't believe it.

- luispc

December 23, 2007 at 2:47pm

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This is intolerable. I sent a post, answering to Scott (rather long) and it hasn't shown. You should be ashamed of the quality of the site you run.

Anyway the main point was that within the mess Scott makes mixing religious conservatives in America with African tyrants, he forgets that those religious conservatives only have space since Scott takes his positions (for instance on sexual morality) as absolute and unchallengable. And who's intolerant and autochratic? Is it more wrong to teach in schools that sexuality is an important dimension of human existence and that comes with moral norms precisely because of that or that we are free to take the standards we please (that we don't "please" after all, since they are imposed on us by movies and lately porn sites)? For me this sounds at least disputable...

And on the "side effect" of democracy, I think it's extraordinary that Scott is able to accept these precise "side effects" so placidly. Simultaneously accepting the idea of democracy that these tyrants accept. An idea that has nothing to do with western democracies (governments not only of the people, but FOR the people in which there are checks that, if unable to avoid mistakes, at least minor their consequences and allow the possibility of these to be corrected).

I said many other things in my lost post. Damn it TNR!

- luispc

December 23, 2007 at 2:58pm

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And the main point was that Scott feels so confortable within the political system he inhabits that he is completely unaware of the moral and intellectual roots of that same system. And in an incredible selfish way, feels that those roots should not be understood by those that are today experimenting all the worst consequences of modernity without having, at least, the possibility to experiment the best.

- luispc

December 23, 2007 at 3:03pm

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Hey, totally off topic but....

for those of you hardy Spine regulars who do celebrate Christmas, a Merry one to you all.

For those you celebrate Hanukkah, hope you had a blast...my kids did..

for those of you who live in the Romney/Huckabee poison pot of 'secularism", enjoy the time off while you plot further atrocities in the War on Christmas...

Happy New Year....this past month has been one of the busiest in my life....got my prospectus approved and landed a new job to start in February. I hope to continue to dive bomb in and out of the Spine and tnr in 2008 but my profile, here and on the Plank, may go down to a scant screed or two every fortnight...

just remember that I still think about youse all...

Ken

- thejauntyboulevardier

December 23, 2007 at 3:34pm

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Merry Christmas to you too Ken! And congratulations on the approval and the new job!

- luispc

December 23, 2007 at 3:46pm

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Merry Christmas and a peaceful and prosperous New Year to everyone in TNRLand.

- The Ignorant Populist

December 23, 2007 at 4:26pm

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luispc: I've been working in various parts of Africa for about 25 years now, so I have a fair background on democratisation processes there, their successes and their pitfalls, thank 'ee. And sorry, but your dichotomization of a democracy that's good for us Westerners but dangerous for those benighted Africans doesn't actually work. Western democracies - America above all - have the resources to pay for their own mistakes or to make their mistakes happen to other people, in other places (take the Iraq invasion as a signal example). Thus, that 'minor' mistake of invading Iraq, arrived at in good democratic fashion, caused hundreds of thousands of lives - luckily for you and yours, they've been almost entirely Iraqi lives.

In Africa, that doesn't happen so easily. As an example, if you want to know why a populist - and a dangerous, crooked man - like Jacob Zuma was elected a few days ago, look to the experience of most black South Africans, who may have benefited from democratization, but have not notably benefited from the neo-liberal economic nostrums that the ANC has put in place to convince Westerners that they are not a bunch of Godless commies

As I said, if you think that Thabo Mbeki, with all of his faults, is a 'tyrant', than you're merely displaying your ignorance of South Africa. More generally, bad policies are bad policies, whether they occur in Africa or America, and democracy - real democracy, the kind where people sometimes make mistakes that can have catastrophic consequences - has the same values in both places. Neither place is immune to the lure of bad policies or bad decisions. But the post-imperial nostalgia that Peretz indulges in, this _assumption_ that, because it's ruled by Africans, South Africa is going to hell in a handbasket, uses those decisions systematically to cast doubt on Africans' ability to govern themselves.

That's racist, in my book. I have no idea whether Peretz supported apartheid: apartheid is like Naziism - post-1990, it seems that every white person in the world remembers being out on the front lines, valiantly fighting the good fight. But his Friends List - and Peretz defines himself by who his friends are - certainly involved lots of people who supported apartheid. Which is what I said.

- scottmaceachern

December 23, 2007 at 5:09pm

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"Peretz can wax indignant about Jacob Zuma, but he's been remarkably silent on Moshe Katsav."

As if Katsav wasn't driven from the Presidency and may still face criminal charges.

Mac is in great form again, I am happy to say. I love it when he posts nonsense with conviction.

Hey, Mac you friend Putin had some nice things to say about Katsav. Take a look at this:

"On October 19, 2006, Russian President Vladimir Putin was quoted as saying to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert regarding the allegations surrounding Katsav, "Say hello to your president. He really surprised us... turned out to be quite a mighty man. He raped 10 women. I never expected it from him. He surprised all of us. We all envy him."["

He probably admires Jacob Zuma almost  as much as you do.

- jacksondyer

December 24, 2007 at 1:02am

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Hmmm, I seem to have stepped on a few hypersensitive toes.  So where do I begin?

Thabo Mbeki has at least one good reason to be skeptical about AIDS.  In 2000, he hosted the international AIDS conference in Durban.  A reporter for Newsday, whom no one could possibly mistake as a critic of the HIV=AIDS theory, covered it from beginning to end. In one of his last dispatches, he reported the observations of proprietors of Durban's escort agencies and massage parlours that business had doubled during the conference.  Who'da thunk it that pharmaceutical hucksters, abstinence preachers and public health bureaucrats could be such dyed-in-the-wool party animals?  And right in the very bowels of the epidemic, no less?

Much more recently, "60 Minutes" ran a segment on a program by Doctors Without Borders that restores the immune systems of African children swiftly, safely and at low cost.  It consists of putting them on a diet of nutritionally-fortified peanut butter and purified drinking water.  While it very carefully avoided mentioning the magic initials, "60 Minutes" did point out that severe malnutrition could devastate an immune system and open the door to fatal infections.  Sort of like a certain retrovirus.

Less than two weeks ago, a Boston jury awarded $2.5 million to a woman who had been misdiagnosed as HIV-positive for nine years until she got herself tested in a different hospital.  During that time, she suffered serious side effects from the antiretrovirals that had been prescribed to her.  It could very well be that new drugs have been recently approved that effectively treat AIDS patients without subjecting them to the risk of, say, liver failure.  However, this still leaves the medical profession and the pharmaceutical industry playing CYA with respect to 20 years of trial and error.

- nbarry

December 24, 2007 at 1:42am

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Let's see what Peretz actually said

- that Nelson Mandela kept company with various "non-aligned movement" leaders most of whom were tyrants, but that was kind of understandable given US'  bi-partisan leaning towards the apartheid white S. African regime

- that  Mandela's successor, Thabo Mkebi, has weird anti-scientific views on AIDS that he imposed on his country

- that  just elected new ANC leader Jacob Zuma is a gangster and a crook

- that Mandela's ex, Winnie, who was involved in various murders of opponents and in other

depredations, is now being promoted in the ANC by Zuma

- that S.Africa is now headed towards "tyranny by election"

All but the last point (which is a  prediction) have been widely reported and are common knowledge.  So, why cry "racism, post-imperial nostalgia" and otherwise blow hot air, maceachern?  You yourself admit (albeit in a roundabout way) that Zuma is a "a populist - and a dangerous, crooked man", and Mbeki enacted bad policies, but then you  insist that black S. Africans (and other non-whites in general) must be judged by standards lower than those for Western democracies.  Because of the latter, Luis called *you* a racist.

I won't go as far,  I'll just call you a pseudo-intellectual crook - based solely on the quality of your argument and your demagoguery.

- sabaka

December 24, 2007 at 2:26am

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Tyranny by election? Oh brother, you got to love a Spine post related to southern Africa, it brings out the the nuts. Who knows where Marty gets this stuff from? Does he have friends there? Spent time there? Where does this bullshit come from? Yes, Jacob "bring me my machine gun" Zuma is a fool, but he's not a tyrant. This is the type of thing you hear over and over from white South Africans; a pathological need to know that they were right about the blacks. I swear some of them are hoping that South Africa collapses so they can tell the world "we told you so." Marty isn't going to wait, he is saying it now.

Happy holidays, folks.

Pat

- mpatrickhendri

December 24, 2007 at 8:44am

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I actually was born in Africa, son of a very commited marxist, very commited with the emancipation of the explored peoples against all the ties of colonizers. And even met Winnie Mandela in person. I remember her, at my early years, discussing with my father and their friends the wonderful world it would be builted as soon as their radical methods would be applied. We would have peace on earth and happiness for all.

Of course, for my father (that was white) , it was a shock to learn, some years after the "revolution" and the expulsion of evil colonizers, that white idealist lawyers were not welcome in the wonderful new regime (a "black" revolutionary regime, of course) that was being builted. We had the chance to flee for a country that was still ours (since my mother, unlike my idealist father had not renounced to her original nationality - many hadn't been as prudent and ended up rotting at "reeducation camps")  What I find most strange is that my father kept his faith in the emancipatory qualities of all that. It was a natural reaction of a long oppressed people. They would turn into angels as long as they had stopped all the murderous brutality they allowed themselves...

For me the question that I ask is how he could he possibly think about the possibility of paradise on earth in a people that had no political culture whatsoever (least of all, western democratic culture). And thought to myself that their evil doing should not be considered "natural". On the contrary: if there would be any possibility for those countries to succeed and some sort of collective well being to be established, well a massive export of european made culture was still in order. But perhaps that's just me. Since I don't think Africans are naturally inferior or that all their murderous actions in these last decades are to be condoned with at taken to be as natural. But that's just me...

And on Winnie Mandela, I know for a fact the woman is a murderer.And I do share Peretz fears on the grim future that South Africa may experiment if she and her friends are back in power...

- luispc

December 24, 2007 at 9:31am

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luispc: Well, that above explains a lot of your attitude toward Africa today: rejection of and resentment for your father's political beliefs, resentment of those Africans who took away that nice colonial lifestyle, but still making use of your father's beliefs, to establish your non-racist credentials today. Convenient, that...

From what you said, I'm guessing Mozambique. I suppose that some whites might have ended up in the re-education camps, but almost all of them had hied back to Portugal when it looked as if independence was coming (sounds like that was your families experience) or gone across the border into Rhodesia or South Africa and supported the proxy war from those countries that Renamo carried out. No mention of any of that in your post, of course.... just the murderous brutality of those Africans, natural and without context.

- scottmaceachern

December 24, 2007 at 12:39pm

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jacksondyer: Jacob Zuma may face further charges as well, or so the national anti-corruption agency says. he's rather more likely to face such charges than in Katsav... but then, a plea-bargain is such a civilised way to make a rape case go away, isn't it?

- scottmaceachern

December 24, 2007 at 12:41pm

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sabaka: I think that mpatrickhendri just answered your question. There's the assumption that, without the guiding hands of the whites, South Africa is going to slide toward tyranny and ruin... a claim that has been made with clockwork regularity by, as I said, whites afflicted with post-imperial nostalgia over the last 18 years. This 'slide toward ruin' is supposedly the result of democratic elections, which are apparently good for Westerners but not for Africans. There is the assumption that political stupidity and political malfeasance in South Africa is different in kind from - and intrinsically more dangerous than - such behaviours in the West. Is that enough to be going on with?

- scottmaceachern

December 24, 2007 at 1:08pm

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"Well, that above explains a lot of your attitude toward Africa today: rejection of and resentment for your father's political beliefs, resentment of those Africans who took away that nice colonial lifestyle, but still making use of your father's beliefs, to establish your non-racist credentials today. Convenient, that... "

This is so so revealing of what you are scottmaceachern that it doesn't need commenting. Anyway no one could ever achieve the degree of moral certitude and of inquisitorial analysis of others beliefs and motivations as yourself. So "Grand Inquisitor", have a nice life.

- luispc

December 24, 2007 at 1:38pm

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scottmaceachern said: "jacksondyer: Jacob Zuma may face further charges as well, or so the national anti-corruption agency says. he's rather more likely to face such charges than in Katsav... but then, a plea-bargain is such a civilised way to make a rape case go away, isn't it?"

We don't know yet how the Katsav case will be adudicated.

The man was forced to step down and even if won't fave criminal charges he can till be sued by his victims.

I don't know and neither do you what will happen with the Zuma case. If he is installed as president I doubt that he will face any charges at all.

As for Winny, I am with Luis on this one. The woman is a murderer, period, end of story.

Your attack on Luis, btw, is pretty shabby and a new low, even for you.

- jacksondyer

December 24, 2007 at 2:52pm

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What mpatrickhendri said was that even to suppose that there could be "tyranny by election" in SA is a nutty idea.  This to me as good as the Peretz's original assertion - ie, remains to be seen.  

However, given the well-known history of some former national-liberation movements, one has to be a bit cautious in ruling that possibility out of hand.  

Re "whites afflicted with post-imperial nostalgia", Peretz's "racism", do you, maceachern, have any evidence of that in Peretz's  particular case?  As I wrote above, on the particular points re Zuma and Mbeki, you and Peretz don't seem to be far apart, ditto on Mandela's Cuban friends, so where do your grand accusations come from?  Seems like from his unnamed "racist" friends - "tell me who you keep company with, and I'll tell you who you are"?

And how can you be so certain about Luis - "he's obviously resentful of his marxsist father and the loss of his nice colonial life"?  Which, as any crude Marxist would testify, explains everything about  Luis?

I guess you are so certain because you are one.

- sabaka

December 24, 2007 at 3:02pm

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Why would anyone take Marty Peretz or Luispc seriously on matters related to Africa? A few weeks back luispc insisted that Mandela was a terrorist and a Communist. What side of the aisle must one be on to believe that Mandela was a terrorist?

And why the Manichean view on South Africa? It seems that people believe that imperfections are tantamount to tyranny. South Africa is, right now, a thriving democracy. The ANC did not habe great options at Polokwane, but the country's elections are not until 2009 and there are lots of politics to be played out between now and then.

I write about South Africa for the Foreign Policy Association, keep their South Africa Blog -- southafrica.foreignpolicyblogs.com -- and followed events at Polokwane closely. The reality is that South Africa's democracy is, all in all remarkable, yet it also has its flaws. I realize that the virtue-or-tyranny paradigm has a nice, simlistic flow to it for people who know fuckall about Africa, but it does not reflect current realities on the ground.

dcat

- derekcatsam

December 24, 2007 at 3:53pm

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"What mpatrickhendri said was that even to suppose that there could be "tyranny by election" in SA is a nutty idea. "

Well, is spectacularly wrong.

The 20th century is full of examples of elected tyrannies.

Hitler came to power through an election and so recently did Hamas. Let's also not forget that Chavez too was elected by the people.

- jacksondyer

December 24, 2007 at 4:04pm

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"Why would anyone take Marty Peretz or Luispc seriously on matters related to Africa? "

I would take Luis more seriously on Africa than I would you, Derek.

Peretz has his point of view and I would adjust my perceptions accordingly.

As for Mandela's past it seems as if the SA leader would have agreed with Luis:

"Guerrilla activities

In 1961, Mandela became the leader of the ANC's armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (translated as Spear of the Nation, also abbreviated as MK), which he co-founded. He coordinated a sabotage campaign against military and government targets, and made plans for a possible guerrilla war if sabotage failed to end apartheid. A few decades later, MK did wage a guerrilla war against the regime, especially during the 1980s, in which many civilians were killed. Mandela also raised funds for MK abroad, and arranged for paramilitary training, visiting various African governments.

Mandela explains the move to embark on armed struggle as a last resort, when increasing repression and violence from the state convinced him that many years of non-violent protest against apartheid had achieved nothing and could not succeed.[6][2]

Mandela later admitted that the ANC, in its struggle against apartheid, also violated human rights, and has sharply criticised attempts by parts of his party to remove statements supporting this fact from the reports of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.[7]"

en.wikipedia.org/.../Nelson_Mandela

"

- jacksondyer

December 24, 2007 at 4:13pm

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Scott--hate to disappoint, but Katsav has been indicted.  

- MOLLYSIMON

December 24, 2007 at 4:19pm

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jackson --

That's great that you'd take luis more seriously on Africa than me. I'm just a professor and writer on African issues. Luis gets rudimentary facts wrong.

Thanks for the pedantry on MK. The question is not whether Mandela was involved with MK, but rather whether MK was a terrorist organization. And the excerpt you provide (to Wikipedia! Brilliant scholarly acumen!) bolsters my argument/ MK attacked strategic targets. It attacked government installations. It waged guerrilla warfare. Mandela never intended it to be a terrorist organization. Yes, the ANC at times violated human rights. And the ANC stepped up to the plate before the TRC far more often than the Nats, who oversaw the apartheid tyranny.

No, Nelson Mandela was not a terrorist. And nothing you've shown here indicates otherwise.

Take luis as seriously as you want on Africa. You're backing the wrong horse. Or perhaps luispc has  arecord on writing about Africa other than what he splooges out here in the comments section? I'd be happy to see that record. It would make for entertaining reading, I'm sure.  But keep bringing that Wikipedia wisdom, jackson. It shows so much intellectual depth.

dcat

- derekcatsam

December 24, 2007 at 4:33pm

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Derek,

how can I take you seriously when you say this:

"MK attacked strategic targets. It attacked government installations. It waged guerrilla warfare. Mandela never intended it to be a terrorist organization. Yes, the ANC at times violated human rights."

While as a matter of fact we have this:

"A few decades later, MK did wage a guerrilla war against the regime, especially during the 1980s, in which many civilians were killed. Mandela also raised funds for MK abroad, and arranged for paramilitary training, visiting various African governments."

If Mandela owned up to this fact,  why not you?

- jacksondyer

December 24, 2007 at 5:20pm

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Jackson --

What am I not "owning up to"? You place my words next to those of Wikipedia, the two do not conflict, and then you ask me why I'm not owning up to, well, to something. The ANC, MK, and other libaration groups fought for freedom against a totalitarian state. Doing so does not make them terrorists, and your continuing to cite Wikipedia articles that also do not assert terrorism are not exactly helping your case.

I agree largely with the paragraph in question, though chronologically it is all over the map -- how could Mandela have visited African countries in the 1980s? The answer: he did not. He was in prison. That paragraph does not argue that Mandela was a terrorist. The very act of civilians being killed does not make for a terrorist organization. (As a supporter of israel you should now this better than anyone. And I agree with you on that point.)The intentiuional targeting of civilians does. Guerilla war is not terrorism. In fact serious scholars of terrorism have intentiuonally excluded the idea of lumping in guerrilla fighters as terrorists. Mandela was vital to the establishment of MK, which was not a terrorist organization -- perhaps you might want to read his speech from the dock -- but you have yet to show Mandela engaging in any terrorist activity.

I don't know what you are trying to argue. That any sign that Mandela embraced the use of force against the state is evidence of terrorism? If so, then you simply don't grasp what terrorism is.  Since I believe that you do know what terrorism is, I have to conclude that the fact that we have had run-ins in the past mean that you decided to come after me here independent of the merit of the argument or the need to do so. In so doing you are trying to cite as evidence for your case arguments that bolster mine.

It's the Christmas season. Have some egg nog. I'm not your enemy.

dcat

- derekcatsam

December 24, 2007 at 5:47pm

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"A few weeks back luispc insisted that Mandela was a terrorist and a Communist. "

What?!?!?! Never said that! Never even remember discussing Mandela or South Africa here. Mandela is a much different person from his ex-wife.

And unlike many think here the fact that one was born in Africa doesn't make one resentful  (anyway, never actually knew any "colonial lifestyle", having been born in 1973 and not being responsible for any colonial rule, unless I was political active from 0 to 1 year old).

I do hope that African countries have all the luck in the world and are able to establish their democracies. And I do recognize that South Africa is in many ways exemplary. My fear is that it will stop being so under these new leaders. And what I find unthinkable is that some are so able to tolerate the most gigantic attacks on the most basic values as if everything had to be puten up with, instead of actually making an effort to promote criticism and also self-criticism. This, for me, is the racist and superiority attitude...

Under these guys dogmas and toleration for African political diatribes, what we have is justification for the suffering of peoples in a completely unacceptable degree.

A little bit of honesty and humbleness would be very good for us all.

- luispc

December 25, 2007 at 3:15am

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Its really not that hard to understand the frames of mind of guys such as scottmaceachern and derekcatsam, guys that even allow themselves to tell plain face lies and to immediately picture as suspicious the motivations of those that in any way challenge their positions. Everything comes down to the friend-enemy distinction. And God knows that this kind of thought was largely responsible for the suffering of zillions in the 20th century.

And whats worst is that these guys still dominate the intellectual atmosphere. Subtely or not so subtely.

So the world is divided in black and white, in emancipators and explorers, in colonialists (or colonialist deluded persons) and in colonized... One thought that in 2007, these people had already learned something...

And if one dares to talk about ones own hard felt experience (and if that, in any way, challenges the black and white perspective these guys are used to look at the world in, and even if it is necessary to lie in the most shameful way), they will surely try to discredit and attack in the most vicious manner. Even reaching the absurd to call someone born in 1973 for colonialist resentment...

And what sacrifices have these guys made for Africans? What exactly, besides exposing African peoples to the most unthinkable forms of suffering, have these guys made? What's unbelievable: they continuously offer cover for whatever happens and endorse self justifications for the tyrants and murderers (of which, there are many, many, in contemporary Africa).

- luispc

December 25, 2007 at 12:58pm

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Of course, after false accusations and shameless lies, these guys disappear. Care to discuss anything in a concrete way, taking into account actual events and the actions of any concrete persons? No, of course not!

One is so well established in one's own image of the world that that would be unthinkable! One is even a "professor" (strange that in America, these days, being a professor turned into something that gives naked status, independently of the defensibility of one's own positions and the ability to argue them...)

It is also unthinkable to retraw what one accused luispc of saying when he had never said it (when he had never even discussed Mandela here). An apology would not only be unthinkable, it doesn't even belong to one's vocabulary.

- luispc

December 26, 2007 at 11:51am

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luispc: Let me get this straight. On the one hand, your claim for knowledge about the situation in southern Africa starts with the observation that you were born there and then immediately segues into your father's views on decolonisation - views that you make it obvious you think misguided, deluded even. But neither of these statements is open to comment from anyone else? Sorry, man, you brought your family dynamics up here, as part of your claims of knowledge of the area: I just commented on it.

As for the absurdity of colonial resentment... I'm not sure that that's any more absurd than talking about your hard felt experiences one the one hand and noting that those experiences came at the tender age of a year, or two years, on the other. You appear to have hit the sweet spot: too young to have had anything to do with colonialism, but old enough to be a victim of decolonisation. I know instances of second- and even third-generation resentment among the children of colonists: it's not that strange to find such among people who were children at the time.

In any case, and more importantly...  You made _two_ claims about democracy in Africa, in your first post on this thread. The first was that democratic processes should be judged by the same criteria in Africa as elsewhere. No argument from me on that. The second, however, was that culturally and historically Africans are not equipped to do democracy, and that even functioning democratic institutions in Africa are going to inevitably lead to ruin... because of that lack of Western cultural resources. Western countries can be trusted with democratic institutions, but African ones can't. That's a fine, old late-phase colonial claim on the continent, deployed to put off the moment of decolonisation: "Democracy!... but not yet".

_That_ I disagree with drastically, because of the history of the claim on the continent (especially in South Africa), because it does not recognise functioning democratic institutions when they exist, and because it is in fact a way of evading the work of supporting such institutions on the continent.

- scottmaceachern

December 26, 2007 at 3:08pm

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mollysimon: Moshe Katsav's _brother_ has been indicted for sexual harassment. There is supposed to be a High Court review on Katsav's plea bargain, but as far as I know that hasn't happened yet.

- scottmaceachern

December 26, 2007 at 3:21pm

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First, Scottmaceachern, this thread is viciated by your first aggressiveness towards Peretz, accusing him of being a racist because he made a remark, signalling his great suspicious about the new leadership of ANC and even worst, it's entourage (oh God, Winnie Mandela is back...).

I answered saying that Peretz was not a racist. That you were the racist if you were prepared to accept no matter what African leadership (and the leadership Peretz is criticizing is obvisously suspicious for anyone with plain sight) and no matter what African democratic malfunctioning, implying that things should be tolerated to a degree which for me is hard to accept.

You answered, saying that you live in Africa and implying that I didn't know anything about Africa. And I answered that I was born Africa, knowing very well what I'm talking about when talking about Winnie Mandela and her friends and saying (after my father's experience) that many times the bien pensant position has been based on a deluded idealism that won't solve anything and that will keep African peoples from getting what they most need: not paternalism but a demanding attitude that asks for compliance with real democratic standards (beginning with basic respect for human dignity). Only this will eventually get Africans to build what they are still building: a real democratic culture, which unfortunately, for historical reasons of different nature, they still don't have.

You answer, accusing me of sharing some sort of colonist resentment that spreads over generations. This, coming from a supposed democrat (you probably picture yourself as a democrat) is at least suspicious. And you surely wanted to end the discussion by accusing me of awfull beliefs and grim motivations which you cannot possibly know if I have or not, since I'm not marked from birth (I think). And actually, I have no colonist resentment at all. How could I envy my grandfather's life? An agronomous engineer, living 10000 miles away from everything, without electricity or running water, under absurd heath, sending his sons to far away schools, while my grandmother tried to create a school where there was none? Is this to envied? You surely watched Out of Africa too many times and think people like my grandfather and grandmother were all Barons and Countesses attending tenis parties and drinking cups of tea in private clubs in Nairobi...

And anyway to immediately assume, out of the blue, that one would always "look back in anger" (and even that this would spread amongst generations) can only be seen as a manifestation of a dishonest perspective of the world that marks people by origins. Which is most undemocratic and reveals exactly the same kind of racist attitude that informed many "progressive" African governments (and that still informs it: take Mugabe's example, if you want one of declared racist policies: happily, Mozambique, today, is much more advanced and is taking in many of the white farmers that are being expelled from Zimbabwe).

And I never said "democracy, but not yet!" What I said was the exactly the opposite: "DEMOCRACY, NOW!". Saying simultaneously that democracy means something more than government by election, no matter what. Even used Lincoln's words (the best the definition of democracy I know): Government FROM the people, BY the people and FOR the people. You won't have democracy within an elitist ANC Congress, that now is endorsing thesis that have been destroying any possibility of hope in Africa in these last decades. And you won't promote democracy if you adopt a paternalistic attitude. For me that paternalistic attitude means the same as "democracy. not yet". We'll accept all your diatribes, since you're supposedly young, is what you are saying...

- luispc

December 26, 2007 at 4:17pm

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luispc: "...to immediately assume, out of the blue, that one would always "look back in anger"..."

Hardly out of the blue, but from your own posting, dismissing your father's attitude toward emancipation of Africans. If you think that there's no anger there, I suggest that you read that post. As I said, you brought that up: I didn't. And as for 'Democracy now!': wonderful. Your claims about the centuries it takes to build 'enlightened' democracy (of the sort that we see, fpresumably, in the United States...), of the irredeemable brokenness of all African institutions, of the "massive export of european made culture" required for 'enlightened democracy' to work, are the words of those late colonialists, but if you meant something different by them, great.

As I said at the beginning of this, every colonial nostalgist has been busy predicting the ruin of South Africa since the end of apartheid, on the flimsiest of bases... and this case certainly is flimsy. As if the occasional choice between the evil of two lessers wasn't endemic to democracies all over the world! I have no idea what you mean by "..an elitist ANC Congress, that now is endorsing thesis that have been destroying any possibility of hope in Africa..." In this case, you had an election to the leadership of the party... an election that worked, with the incumbent ousted. How is that elitist? And exactly what thesis is supposed to be destroying any possibility of hope in Africa?

- scottmaceachern

December 26, 2007 at 4:45pm

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Yes, Scottmaceachern, export of european made culture. Yes. It may sound politically incorrect, but democracy is a european invention, builted after a long lineage of thinkers. And Europeans themselves have only lived up to real democratic standards after WWII. Since only after that, they widespreadly internalized the basic value underneath democracy: "our fundamental equality in our common humanity". Took them two millenia to learn the spirit of the thing. Can you believe it?

Americans arrived there earlier after the reunion of exceptional circumstances (things like the tradition of self-government in the colonies, experience of democratic assembleys and so on) and the impetus of exceptionally enlightened men. And most important of all: a religiously internalized belief in the fundamental equality of men. Read Tocqueville's Democracy in America to get the precise idea.

On nothing of this being builted out of nature but requiring nurturing: an education that promotes those basic values (and that erradicates the idea of enmity within a society, which is something marxists simply can't understand), Locke said it all on the "Two Treatises"...

And the occasional choice between to lessers may be endemic to all democracies in the world. But fortunately, it is not, in general, an endemic choice between two lessers one of which may challenge (considering the historical curricula of the involved) the very idea of democracy...

And on those thesis, that 30% state ordered redistribution of land that Zuma announced, and in the way he announced it (simultaneously praising "revolutionary measures" taken in other African countries) sounds very suspicious to me. Have any precise idea about this? Would you possibly appease  my worries on this? Since, I admit, he could be announcing a benign agricultural reform.

And on my initial post showing "colonist resentment" it's your eyes that saw it there. My post only showed piety for forms of deluded idealism that have not contributed in any way for Africa's well being.

- luispc

December 26, 2007 at 5:31pm

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Luis,

derekcatsam's  claim that you called Mandela a terrorist struck me right away as strange (having read your many posts, I didn't recall anything like that and thought it would've been rather out of character for you).  You asked hem to back his claim up - and he promptly disappeared.

Re scottmaceachern:  

he's one of those whose world view is pure black and white.  On the black side are US/Israel/West responsible for all the wrongs in the world, both past and present; on the other side is everybody else, non-white,  who is also a victim of those dark forces.  If you press him hard on specifics, he may admit, here and there,  that the "victims" occasionally commit some wrongs too, but that is always either an understandable reaction of long-oppressed people or is no worse than what Bush/neocons/whoever else from the dark side routinely did or do.  As for those on the "dark side",  they are racists or or white supremacists or Nazis or bloody psychos or just plain Likudnics.

In  this discussion, scottmaceachern starts out briskly by branding Peretz a racist who cares not about African lives. Here's what he said: "You know, Mr. Peretz, it's fascinating to watch your racism so obviously on display."  So which points in Peretz's post indicate his alleged racism?  I asked maceachern about that (pointing out that he, in fact, later agreed with Peretz on Zuma, Mbeki and Mandela's friendship with Castro), but he evaded the question.  

Well, maybe maceachern knew something about Peretz's support for the SA apartheid regime?  That's what you asked him, and  he responded: "I have no idea whether Peretz supported apartheid... But his Friends List - and Peretz defines himself by who his friends are - certainly involved lots of people who supported apartheid. Which is what I said."  

A little dishonest,  no?

On another - larger - point, I do agree with you that a nation - any nation - that never had democratic traditions needs to learn from those who "invented" (or, rather, actually developed) them.  I don't pretend to know how the SA democracy will evolve but dismissing any worries about it as "white supremacist" or "racist" diatribes is both dishonest and mindless.

- sabaka

December 26, 2007 at 7:40pm

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Scott:

Posted January 23, 2007:  "Israel's President Moshe Katsav will be indicted on rape charges[.]"  Sorry once again--hate to kill your dirty little fantasy of Israelis letting an old Jew lech get away with rape.

"Now South Africa reaps the results of that, with its leaders utterly unwilling to accept scientific data on AIDS... because that data has in the past been used to make claims about the inferiority of Africans."  Uh, so a half-way responsible president encourages his people hold onto this suspicion--despite the cost in human life?  And you really believe this?  Because you're painting yourself as the great white savior here, one who would never patronize . . . .  Has so-obvious-its-genius idea occurred to you that one efficient way to rule is to divide--us versus them?  And that Mbeki may not be as stupid as you think?

"Voo-doo witch doctor":  An unfortunate choice on Marty's part, but hardly demonstrative of out-and-out racism. Let's just call it unself-aware.  Even the best-intentioned can't always root it out.  Just like you, with that on-line photo of yourself in the bush followed by smiling-faced Africans.  Iconic colonialism at its best.

"Western democracies - America above all - have the resources to pay for their own mistakes or to make their mistakes happen to other people, in other places (take the Iraq invasion as a signal example). Thus, that 'minor' mistake of invading Iraq, arrived at in good democratic fashion, caused hundreds of thousands of lives - luckily for you and yours, they've been almost entirely Iraqi lives."  Here I will agree with you.  Though it's sort of like taking an unusually painful shit.

"[T]he experience of most black South Africans, who may have benefited from democratization, but have not notably benefited from the neo-liberal economic nostrums that the ANC has put in place to convince Westerners that they are not a bunch of Godless commies" (sic.).  So the ANC policy is responsible for South Africa being one of the rape capitols of the world?  The breakdown of law and order in Johannesburg?  

"I have no idea whether Peretz supported apartheid[.]"  Yes, I can just hear Marty telling all the friends on his "friends list"--make that cabal--that we have to keep the bleddy blixen down.  Peretz has not been scared to criticize Israel re. Sudanese refugees.  Even if it may not be in Israel's best interest.  But please do assume.  I don't want to take away your shiny little toy.    

"I know instances of second- and even third-generation resentment among the children of colonists: it's not that strange to find such among people who were children at the time . . . " That's your argument?  A bitch-slap?  Jesus, I heard better yesterday in a Burger King when some punk said, "Don't you fucking tell me what to do."  No pretense, no sissy smirks.  

- MOLLYSIMON

December 26, 2007 at 7:41pm

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Luis:

"And on those thesis, that 30% state ordered redistribution of land that Zuma announced."  My parents left South Africa in '60, but I won't take pride in their moral conviction--Scott might yell at me.  Anyhoo, as a proud racist and nostalgic colonist-by-relation, I feel a sort of smug satisfaction, just as Scottie boy said I would.   More proof that those bloedig "non-Europeans" (posted on beaches, bathrooms, and everywhere else whites wouldn't deign to go) can't be trusted to rule themselves.  

- MOLLYSIMON

December 26, 2007 at 8:07pm

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Er, I "promptly disappeared"? Hey, guys, look at the damned date. I wrote my comment on December 24 sometime in the late afternoon. I "promptly disappeared" on December 25th and December 26th. Hint: For the overwhelming majority of Americans, something happened between late afternoon on December 24 and the night of December 26. So rather than sabaka pulling oput the dickish accusation that I disappeared, how about showing a little sense of perspective. I "disappeared" on Christmas. I guess I should have feverishly been checking marty peretz's blog for what some anonymous people had to say rather than spending time with my wife and her family on Christmas. My bad.

If it was not Luispc who called Mandela a terrorist two months ago in a discussion on Zimbabwe, I apologize, though i could swear it was him, and will see if I can find the link (though the old archived comments have disappeared.) Interestingly, jackson insisted on the Mandela as terrorist meme when I levied the accusation, so some of you folks here agree with that.

Meanwhile, as for whether black South Africans "never had democratic traditions" -- could you explain to me what the Freedom Charter" embodied? I'm going to make the stand here that the Freedom Charter embodied democracy far more so than did the apartheid regime. Of course so does South Africa today. No reasonable person could disagree. but then again reasonableness is not the stock in trade of many folks here.

dcat

- derekcatsam

December 27, 2007 at 1:54am

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I did my best to track down what I thought I remembered in the archives. While plenty of folks have said plenty of noxious things about Mandela and others related to southern Africa, I cannot find any such reference from luispc, and since he denies believing any such thing, i apologize. And I guess I will apologize to sabaka for not making this apology on my Christmas day.

I especially anticipate jackson's response: Does he still think that Mandela was a terrorist?

In any case, South Africa since 1994 is categorically more democratic than at any time before in the country's history, or in the colonial history before that. Pick your measurement, I'll happily discuss. (It also has one of the most succesful economic growth rates in the world, but that's another issue for another time.)

In any case, I once again apologize for misrepresenting luispc.

dcat

- derekcatsam

December 27, 2007 at 2:15am

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Hey, dcat, welcome back - hope you had a great time with your in-laws.  Now, on the substance of your contribution here.  Here's what you first said

"Why would anyone take Marty Peretz or Luispc seriously on matters related to Africa? A few weeks back luispc insisted that Mandela was a terrorist and a Communist."  Did he really?  Now you are not sure.

Then you said, "Luis gets rudimentary facts wrong."  Which facts?

Your current line is

"jackson insisted on the Mandela as terrorist meme when I levied the accusation, so some of you folks here agree with that."  Agree with what - that Mandela's a terrorist or with your accusation of Luis?  And is it all the same to you who said what?

As to your last "stand" against "many folks here" in defense of SA as democracy today, who on this thread said it's not?  Which "folks"?

And finally, what's "pulling oput"?  Would it be too much bother for you as "a professor and writer on African issues" to read and write, um, a little more carefully?

- sabaka

December 27, 2007 at 2:53am

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Apologie accepted Derekcatsam. And for the record. I never said anything of the sort, and never would. You can even look with a candlelight all over TNR and you won't find any remark of mine on Nelson Mandela. And if you want one now: he is actually a man I respect very much and it's a piety South Africa hasn't got many as him.

And also for the record, I never suggested the "irredeemable brokenness of all African institutions". What I did say is that if these institutions are to succeed, there must be a spreading of western democratic culture (perhaps a generous Western effort on education, which has been lacking on the basics, even when it hasn't on strictly technological things).

And there's no way these peoples will ever succeed (for great piety of mine, since I feel a great sympathy for them, having been born in their Continent and all) if that very democratic culture keeps being continuously bashed by many African leaders (even elected ones), somewhat tolerated by Westerners that should, instead, point out their vices in name of the well being of those very peoples.

- luispc

December 27, 2007 at 3:08am

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Luis, my last comment was meant as pure sarcasm.   I realized the biting irony intended didn't leave too many tooth marks.  

- MOLLYSIMON

December 27, 2007 at 2:46pm

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"(It also has one of the most succesful economic growth rates in the world, but that's another issue for another time.)"  Where do you get this stat.?  Definitely it's true for the continent, but currently China's rate of growth is at 8.5 percent.  But I don't think S.A.'s going to hell, despite its leaders' best intentions.  

- MOLLYSIMON

December 27, 2007 at 3:00pm

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Yes, I got that Molly. Unfortunately, in my case, this thread left me with such a bad mood that I couldn't keep the ironic vein alive.

- luispc

December 27, 2007 at 3:32pm

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Sabaka --

First off, do we really want to get into the spelling/grammar game on the comment boards? I'm a lousy typist. I could ask about your punctuation (a lack of colons, or whatever)  but it seems to be pretty lacking to come after me for a typo. Never make an error here, my friend, if that's your game.

I apologized already and disavoed my accusation. I guess we can keep revisiting that point if you would like. The responsible thing to do when onje makes a mistake is to own up to it and then apologize. I did as much. If you want to continue to harp on it, it will be in keeping with pointing out typographical errors -- not especially edifying.

I guess what I meant by the idea that "spoke of you agree with that" is that in a series of comments in which there was a great deal of Afro-pessimism no on stepped up to the plate to say "I disagree with any assertion that Mandela was a terrorist." It would not have been that hard to do.

You're being pretty pcayune in your criticisms, which leads me to believe that on substantive points you have little to say.

As for the question of South Africa's growth rate, Molly, you pointed out one country that has a higher growth rate, China, hardly an open market economy. South Africa has had sustained, steady growth for more than three years now, and a key factor is that the growth has been uninterrupted. As for sources, I extrapolated from several:A May 2005 report in Africa Focus, Trevor Manuel's June 2005 comments to the International Monetary Council, reports in the BBC and Economist,  and a number of others (A Google search was all I really needed). Now we certainly can discuss what measurements we think are best -- South Africa's numerical growth has been modest in some ways and perhaps insufficient  given the gap between the haves and have nots. But I believe that the emphasis on the growth continuing -- the US, for example, has not had a comparable string of months of uninterrupted growth.

 But now that I've apologized for my faux pas, i think it's fair for maceachern and me to ask for an apology from luispc as well. He wrote the following ina  diatribe aimed squarely at the two of us: "And what sacrifices have these guys made for Africans? What exactly, besides exposing African peoples to the most unthinkable forms of suffering, have these guys made? What's unbelievable: they continuously offer cover for whatever happens and endorse self justifications for the tyrants and murderers (of which, there are many, many, in contemporary Africa)."

First off, anyone who bothered to check would know that I have condemned tyranny across the continent. I have written thousands, indeed tens of thousands of words on Mugabe in particular, but also on events ranging from Rwanda to the Sudan. This sort of accusation is every bit as irresponsible as anything I have said here. As for "what sacrifices" we have made for Africans, if you'd like we can run off our respective resumes on the issue. And what "suffering" have "we" exposed anyone to? In this discussion of South Africa, who exactly has suffered from our words? Please cite examples, luispc. What's good for the goose, etc.

dcat

- derekcatsam

December 27, 2007 at 5:58pm

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mollysimon: "Posted January 23, 2007:  "Israel's President Moshe Katsav will be indicted on rape charges[.]"  hate to kill your dirty little fantasy of Israelis letting an old Jew lech get away with rape...."

Errrrmmmmm... do you have any idea what has happened in that case _over the last year_? Any clue at all? The rest of that phrase is just stupid, but let it pass.

'Followed' by Africans? One guy beside me, one behind me and we're _all_ grinning for the camera, and you're making 'iconic colonialism' out of it? Man, nice to see you demonstrating the strength of your own convictions! How about the other photos on the site? There's one there of three guys holding a rain cape over me while I record an archaeological site... and only one of them is white. Iconic colonialism again? And there's at least two where I'm in the middle, with a Cameroonian guy behind me and another in front! Man, it's just like a caravan, isn't it! Busted!

What is it you were saying about me over-interpreting, again?

As for South Africa... I know, I know, it's all rape, all the time, whites can't survive in Jo'burg these days such a shame yeah yeah yeah. That's all the country consists of, right? Just out of curiosity, how do you link those things to policies associated with the ANC? You think that the rape rates attained their present level only when apartheid ended? Would you like to talk about the socioeconomic status of both urban and rural Africans, and where their futures lie? How about the ways in which a poor country like South Africa can ensure a decent life for people who spent decades having their rights systematically stripped from them, and who now feel hopeless and enraged by the fact that things aren't going to change in their lifetime?  Care to give everyone the magic formula that the ANC is supposed to deploy to change all that?

And you know what else? I hear so bloody much naked racism, and so much soft racism, directed against Africa and Africans that I get sick of all of it. More importantly, all that stuff just acts as a justification for people who want to write off not merely South Africa, but the whole continent.  So, all that AWB bittereinder nonsense that rolls so trippingly off your tongue as 'biting irony'? It's actually not very funny, and not very ironic. Whether you mean it or not, I have no idea... not do I care. But lots of folks do, and it kills people in Africa.

- scottmaceachern

December 27, 2007 at 9:45pm

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derekcatsam: mollysimon has managed to find my web page, and a photo on it that he/she thinks iconic: for anyone else interested, the URL is www.bowdoin.edu/.../index.shtml. There are a variety of academic articles and records of work in African on there, and it's correspondingly easy to find writings that I've placed on the Web on these topics. Just how those activities are supposed to have involved Africans in 'unthinkable forms of suffering', I have no idea... nor do I really care much about the opinions of the folks who make such claims.

- scottmaceachern

December 27, 2007 at 9:54pm

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Scott --

Obviously our work is quite different, and I'm in little position to judge anthropology, but I'm impressed. Didn't realize you're at Bowdoin. I did my undergrad at Williams. Ran several track meets at Bowdoin, including winning an ECAC triple jump crown there my senior year!

I agree with you fully on the idea of soft racism aimed at Africa. I tend to try to avoid the Afro-pessimist school while still being fyully aware of the socio-political realities. But this is why I am perplexed by the way people discuss South Africa. Of all of the countries to dump on -- and of course much of the justification is pretty slim. Most critics of Zuma could not name five concrete policies of his -- he's far more centrist in his political outloook than his critics recognize, but he's riding a populist wave that has made him a darling of the left.

Zuma reminds me most of Howard Dean in the US -- and in fact many of the people (not necessarily here on the comment boards) most critical of him seem to forget that he was just elected president of the party. He is not yet president of the country, and much can change between now and the scheduled 2009 elections. And like Dean, Zuma has ridden a wave of populism that masks what was once, anyway, a pretty centrist political platform.  

As I've been writing at the Foreign Policy Association, Polokwane was less the culmination of anything than the opening salvo of what will prove to be a tendentious year in politics. I wonder what might have happened had Mbeki chosen not to pursue the party leadership. Would someone like Tokyo Sexwale or Cyril Ramaphosa allowed themselves to be drafted? Would  Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma have garnered more support? It seems that Mbeki handcuffed potential successors by standing in the way. He usually is not that politically tone deaf, even if his leadership has been all over the map.

Again, I earnestly apologize to luispc -- I was sloppy and relied on memory and not what should have been easy research. I still disagree with him on most of what he writes, but I should have stuck to what he wrote here and not to what i believed wrongly that he had written in the past.

dcat

- derekcatsam

December 27, 2007 at 10:15pm

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luispc: There's a major difference between claiming that someone _might_ threaten democracy in the future and assembling the evidence that a threat to democracy exists right now, right here. The former's easy, the latter's harder. As for land reform... what exactly do you expect? In what other area of the world would people be expected to submit quietly and meekly while their property was stolen from them, and then - when the regime of the thieves had ended - to equally quietly and meekly forget about ever getting it back again? Would that be tolerated in Europe... after the Nazis, perhaps, or after the Communists? If not, why should we expect black South Africans to oh-so-quietly accept it? The 30% figure has been a target for at least 4 years now, Zuma was re-stating it, and they are not going to make it... but it sure makes a good scare quote.

Now, if you want to argue that that target is not good _policy_, go to it. That's an argument worth making, although it would be interesting to know what degree of land redistribution would be acceptable to you... 2%? 5%? 10%?... and what claims you think should have legal and moral weight in those cases. But if you're simply saying that democracy is threatened in South Africa because Zuma is proposing a policy _that would be popular with the electorate_, while you ignore the real issues of poverty and landlessness that afflict important segments of the black population - and that were never, ever addressedin Zimbabwe, for example - the question becomes: what alternative would you offer? If South Africa suffers a democratic deficit, one must raise the question of what parties and what policies would better address the needs of the country than the party in power. Any ideas on that one?

And sorry, as a non-American and a citizen of a state that managed to get to democracy through a somewhat less dramatic route, I'm less impressed by the transfigurative nature of American democracy than you perhaps are. I've read de Tocqueville, thank 'ee, and also Johnson's observation, somewhat more concise: "How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?" 'Eradication of enmity within a society', something we commies can't understand... yeah, America was founded in a wonderful example of that.

So, let's take you at your word: all this stuff about the long time-scale of building democracy is something more than a delaying tactic. Great. How do you want to apply it to South Africa? Land redistribution is off the table, apparently... landless South Africans don't have that to look forward to. What's your new take on teh whole situation, then?

- scottmaceachern

December 27, 2007 at 10:23pm

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derekcatsam: I get the racism, both hard and soft, all the time... perhaps in part because I work in Central, not southern Africa primarily, and in part because I do anthropology and archaeology, where there's a nexus of this sort of nonsense. And, man, there have been such a variety of vultures ready to pick over the corpse of South Africa since 1990....

I haven't lived in South Africa for any extended amount of time since 2002, but my impression of Ramaphosa then and now is of someone who at this point doesn't want to get involved in national politics at this level at all. At this point, Zuma seems to be better at the politicking part of politics than Mbeki, but that's always been my impression of him. He seems like someone who can deploy populism when needs be, but I don't see any evidence that he's going to disturb what has been - from the ANC's point of view - a winning formula for almost 20 years.

- scottmaceachern

December 27, 2007 at 10:36pm

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Wow, Scottie, I obviously hit a raw nerve with the icon stuff.  Busted, indeed.  A little "I won't dignify that" would have done just fine.

Re. Katsav: The man is facing impeachment, he's been asked to resign, he's about to be indicted.  People are protesting in the streets.  What more do you want?  Continued, obsessive harping on Israeli malfeasance, even when Israel is not under discussion, leads one to assume that the harper is in the grip of a fantasy--in this case anti-semitic.  I apologize for psycho-sexual route.  That is meant sincerely.  I did go too far.    

Racism:  Sabaka has asked you to supply precise examples of Marty's racism.  Thus far you've failed.  I don't doubt you've observed subtle forms of bigotry for twenty years--as you say, "[In] anthropology and archaeology . . . there's a nexus of this sort of nonsense.."  In Marty's case, I  found one example, though as you read, I pretty much discounted it.  Marty doesn't need my defending.  He's immune.  But I  remain curious about your sightings of his racism peaking through.   Maybe you can enlighten.  

"As for land reform... what exactly do you expect? In what other area of the world would people be expected to submit quietly and meekly while their property was stolen from them, and then - when the regime of the thieves had ended - to equally quietly and meekly forget about ever getting it back again?"  Do go on with the Jews.  Because I'd love to see my mother-in-law, who barely got out of Austria alive, get her hefty share of 30 percent.  Nowhere in the world has that happened.  Except in Zimbabwe, where "land reform" has worked beautifully.  And India, where the masses starved to death because the laborers didn't know how to run a farm.  Furthermore, you say that we must make allowances for a people who've been exploited and oppressed for so long.   Like, what can you expect?  But then you say, let's give them all that farmland.  Because, I guess, in this case they will make it happen?  There's idealism, which is necessary and good, but then there's also real life.  Which translates to people getting fed.   Sorry, I think your average black South African, when faced with starvation, might disagree.

Rape stats: "Yeah, yeah, yeah"?  And you have a problem with my tone?  My parents, their friends, and countless others  know of at least one person who's been killed, raped, beaten up.  My aunt won't go into an elevator.  She won't walk down the street alone.  She won't stop at lights at night.  She's been held at gunpoint twice.  Her story's not unique; the stats back me up.  But you think the prevalence is "minor" stuff?   Because if you do, you're essentially saying that in Africa there's no exceptionality with Joburg.  Or Capetown, for that matter.  The country has undergone a major brain drain.  I denied South Africa was going down the tubes, but these aren't minor troubles.  

I don't know of one South African who ever licked their chops over the possibility of the country's possible demise.  Really, I don't.  I do know plenty, however, who were heartbroken at having to leave their homeland, not because blacks came into power, but because the situation became untenable.  I won't deny there are plenty who do resent the blacks and would love to have their Afrikaner nation back. But really, who are these multitudes of which you speak?  Maybe Marty and his cabal.  His "list of friends."  (Who are you, Joe McCarthy?)

The sad thing is, I've enjoyed and learned from many of your posts.  You've helped me understand the distinctions that run throughout Africa, that it's not one undifferentiated mass.  Ideas and facts and hard stats I'd never considered or known.  Though you'll probably sneer at that one.  But then you introduce so much nastiness.  That's not chutzpa speaking.  Just someone who finds the reflexive aggression insufferable, and responds accordingly.

- MOLLYSIMON

December 28, 2007 at 12:12am

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Catsam:  I don't doubt South Africa's growth.  It's exciting.  And it's one of the things that makes me believe the country will be O.K.  But don't change the rules mid-game and announce you're only speaking of open market economies.  Also, why does it matter if it's an open market economy?   Does that translate to more mouths being fed?  I'm curious to read your opinion.

- MOLLYSIMON

December 28, 2007 at 12:23am

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Scott --

Obviously the NPA's decision to pursue the dormant corruption charges against Zuma could be the big x-factor in all of this. If that happens do not be surprised to see Ramaphosa almost called to serve. I think he sees politics as something of a dead end, a viper's pit. And yet I also think he is still smarting from Mandela choosing Mbeki as his chosen successor. If the charges stick, it will, sadly, embolden some supporters who will see a conspiracy, biut also should end his serious political hopes. I like a lot anbout Ramaphosa, and you know he'd love the opportunity to come in on a  wave of good feeling and maybe even as something of a hero. This is all speculation, of course.

As for whether there are "multitudes" of white South Africans who want their country back, well, there are a lot of them, though "multitudes" might be strong. It's amazing to be in South Africa and talk to whites, none of whom ever supported apartheid despite the fact that the Nats always received 85% or so of the vots. The one time the support dipped significantly was after the proposed introduction of the tricameral parliament when enough whites defected from the party to make the Conservatives -- which were well to the right of the Nats with white supremacy as the driving issue -- the official opposition in parliament. There are still plenty of regte Afrikaners who dream of their Oranje and their Anglo allies who would prefer the old master-servant relationship. there are also many, many whites who have gone along, of course, and who love the new South Africa, and their earnestness should not be doubted, but it does not take long to figure out which are which once you know South Africa well enough.

The break in South African politics will come not from a challenge from without, not from a challenge from the right, and not from a challenge of verkrampte white supremacists, however. It will come when the pressure of the ANC's multiple constituencies fall apart, when COSATU/SACP decide that they can no longer go along with the ANC's approach to liberal politics and economics. The rumblings grow louder with each passing year, and I simply do not see it as a coalition that will endure forever except for two factors: 1) the pull of history and tradition and the liberation alliance, which is a powerful narrative and 2) the allure of being the party in power, which for now means the ANC is the only game in town until the trade unionists and the communists think they can exert enough pull to form a legitimate autonomous constituency.

Trust me though, when I say that there is a lot of gamesmanship, politicking, and machinations to go before 2009. Polokwane has not necessarily settled anything definitively.

dcat

- derekcatsam

December 28, 2007 at 1:02am

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Molly --

How am I "changing the rules mid-game"? What were the rules? I gave a simple one sentence aside in which no rules were laid out. But I do think that command economies are rather different from liberal economies. That said, when I was in China last year I certainly got a fell for their go-go economy. To quote (or misquote) Homer Simpson: "China is communist? Then why do I see the emergence of rudimentary free markets?"

The biggest problem with South Africa's growth, as with most economic growth, whether in the US, in a mid-level power like South Africa, or in a much smaller economy, is that the trickle down effect is marginal at best. And so South Africa has this in many ways impressive growth made all the more so by its sustained nature, and yet poverty, unemployment, and the societal factors that accompany them, seem pretty immune. So more mouths being fed? Likely not. For now. But the key difference for me is that a liberal democracy is fundemantally different, and yes, better, than any sort of authoritarian state, no matter how smiling a face the despots put on it.

Ultimately, my work is in politics and history, and not economics, so I'm going to priviledge certain political systems over others, believing them to be better for those who live under them, more transparent, more responsive, and the like. Of course that might make my economic analysis suspect.

dcat

- derekcatsam

December 28, 2007 at 1:31am

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Dcat,

Grammar and spelling and typos - I'm not really picky about them provided I can still understand the meaning of one's writing.  So, when you, as  "a professor and a writer",  write  "pulling oput",

or when you have to "clarify"  yourself with this line

"I guess what I meant by the idea that "spoke of you agree with that" .."

then I'm still having a problem.

But  your other  posts are written quite well, without any of that garbling, so I don't know what to make of all that.

On a more substantive note,  you invented Luis's quote "Mandela's a terrorist", later properly apologized for that, claimed that "Luis gets rudimentary facts wrong" (but never said which facts),  in the meantime, got in argument with Jackson on Mandela's role, then berated others on this thread for not standing up with you in proclaiming "Mandela's not a terrorist".  All together is  a bit confused, no?

Well, from what (little) I know about SA, Mandela's a great man and I wish the SA democracy the very best.  We'll see how it turns out.

My real problem was, and is, with scottmaceachern.  Specifically, with him wildly accusing Peretz  of racism and white supremacism - based, as I can only conclude from his refusal to answer my basic  questions, on nothing.

- sabaka

December 28, 2007 at 3:17am

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Derek, no hard feelings kept. I'll retraw my words above on your non-commitment with Africans, and only say that that commitment must be a demanding commitment.

Maceachern: if you read Tocqueville, you surely did understand that democracy supposes a moral discipline internalized at the conscience of individuals (a moral discipline very much shapen within the Judeo-Christian tradition). Without that moral discipline, which is a cultural reality (it is not given to us by nature, but by nurture) democracy is impossible. African societies have of course traditional kinds of moral discipline, but still very much tied to traditional, hierarchical modes of society that in the 21st century are unviable. So in order to make democracy a possibility, a culture/education process must occur. This is politically incorrect according to many. But it's no lesser true because of that.

And, for me, the worst way to promote democracy is to tie those peoples to a superficial ideal of justice (very much shapen within a marxist perspective) according to which this justice should be opposed to the centuries old enemy. You must have a moral foundation on those societies. And surely a moral foundation within a friend-enemy distinction will always be a profoundly damaging moral foundation.

I do know that there are imbalances inherited from the past that call for correction. But those will never be adequately corrected within a frame of enmity. With other kind of moral frame, you can achieve long-standing results of fairness through gradual processes (such as inheritance laws, taxation, etc.) that don't sound like ones of ostracization and hostilization of a part of the population.

I ask you to read what I say in good faith. I am writing in good faith. Not trying to sell anything and least of all, not trying to win a discussion. But expressing here what I most honestly believe to be in the best interested of African societies and their future well being. And if I feel deeply suspicious about the new ANC leadership (and share Peretz perspective on Winnie Mandela) it is because these new leaders and their proposals (considering very much the way they present their proposals) are precisely endorsing a very damaging "friend-enemy distinction" that always dilacerates political societies, leads to incredible violence and doesn't produce any good results in the long run.

- luispc

December 28, 2007 at 6:42am

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Sebaka --

But everyone here at times writes confusing sentences or makes typoes -- why single me out? Or is "All together is  a bit confused, no?" actually a sentence and I'm just missing the noun? And is "got in argument with Jackson on Mandela's role" proper? Ordinarily an article, "an" would go in between "in" and "argument." Etc.

Luispc has made some factual errors, although looking back what I'm seeing are fact-free arguments and accusations -- largely lacking substance and based on philosophical assertions. But let's give one example: "The main problem going unacknowledged: the old social and political structures of Africa (just 100 years ago they lived in hierarchical tribes) are broken without remedy." There is not one serious historian of African history who would agree that 100 years ago all Africans lives in hierarchical tribes -- trabalism in this context was largely a construct of colonialism. There is and was no single "social and political order" of Africa and it is retrograde to refer to any such thing.

I think Marty pops off on Africa without half a clue as to what he is talking about. I don't respect his views on Africa. I have no idea if he is a racist or not, but he sure is quick to resort to tropes and stereotypes. And I may as well make this argument here as anywhere: he has now twice referred to the Rockefeller Foundation as determininbg the succession of Thabo Mbeki to the presidency. Where does he get this? The Rockefeller Foundation, for example, warrants exactly one reference in Anthony Sampson's biography of Mandela. Mbeki, meanwhile, was the son of one of the crucial figures in ANC history, was himself climbing the ranks of the ANC, and held a number of crucial positions in the ANC hierarchy long before the Rockefeller Foundation was ever on the scene. The implication seems to be that Mandela and the ANC were incapable of determining their own political makeup without western intervention. This may not be a racist view, exactly, but it almost assuredly is a wrong one and makes me wonder Marty's motivations. I'd welcome actual evidence that the Rockefeller Foundation greased the skids for Mbeki's ascension, and if the spate of new bios and other books on Mbeki argue as much I'll demure, but I think Marty is fantasizing on this one.

I disagree wholeheartedly with luispc, meanwhile, that the ANC is creating a friends-enemy distinction in the country. Hell, the country has at least one Cabinet Minister who was once the leader of the New National Party. South Africa has a vibrant political climate. There is lots of division. Where, other than in totalitarian countries, is there not vibrancy and division? I simply don't buy his assessments. And I'd ask for a body of evidence for where those sentiments derive.

dcat

- derekcatsam

December 28, 2007 at 1:02pm

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I never said that there was a "single social and political order" in Africa. The word tribalism was used to describe hierarchical societies, of smaller or wider scale, very much organized around primitive cults, no matter how different they are (not used in the negative sense you give the word). There are these of zillion qualities and kinds in Africa. And some are very benign and anthropologicaly interesting, but still very different from the ones that can sustain a democratic egalitarian society.

And what I said was that, anyway, those social and political structures were irredemably damaged and irrecoverable. Very much a work of colonialism, perhaps, independently of value judgments. And independently now of historical responsibilities, what I said was that the kind of culture that can sustain a democratic society must be spread in Africa (and that won't happen if everyone persists on a freedom of explored against explorers rethoric that won't do anything for the "explored" except to make them forget that they are expected to run for themselves a democratic society as grown ups).

I see again the tone in which Derek chooses to address me and to refer to what I say is insufferably pedantic and perhaps deliberately unconsiderative of the dimensions I'm trying to consider here. Which are dimensions that transcend mere facts. But, again, Derekcatsam implied that my "sentiments derive" from grim places. Perhaps "racism" or "colonist resentment"? It must be that, for Catsam...

On the friend-enemy distinction, what I suggest is exactly that this persisting explorers-explored rethoric in societies in which everyone today is South-African, Mozambiquean, etc.,etc., whether black or white, is very much that distinction. And it means to work on that distinction to present "revolutionary measures" specifically (even if not explicitly) intended against long time "explorers".

This doesn't mean to suggest, as Catsam implies I suggest, that SA is "totalitarian" or anything close to it. But again, Catsam, unable or unwilling to understand my argument, disfigures it, suggesting that I am accusing SA of being a totalitarian society.

God, I'm fed up with this. Have it your way guys: you're discussing with Cecil Rhodes!

- luispc

December 28, 2007 at 2:09pm

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I never said that there was a "single social and political order" in Africa. The word tribalism was used to describe hierarchical societies, of smaller or wider scale, very much organized around primitive cults, no matter how different they are (not used in the negative sense you give the word). There are these of zillion qualities and kinds in Africa. And some are very benign and anthropologicaly interesting, but still very different from the ones that can sustain a democratic egalitarian society.

And what I said was that, anyway, those social and political structures were irredemably damaged and irrecoverable. Very much a work of colonialism, perhaps, independently of value judgments. And independently now of historical responsibilities, what I said was that the kind of culture that can sustain a democratic society must be spread in Africa (and that won't happen if everyone persists on a freedom of explored against explorers rethoric that won't do anything for the "explored" except to make them forget that they are expected to run for themselves a democratic society as grown ups).

I see again the tone in which Derek chooses to address me and to refer to what I say is insufferably pedantic and perhaps deliberately unconsiderative of the dimensions I'm trying to consider here. Which are dimensions that transcend mere facts. But, again, Derekcatsam implied that my "sentiments derive" from grim places. Perhaps "racism" or "colonist resentment"? It must be that, for Catsam...

On the friend-enemy distinction, what I suggest is exactly that this persisting explorers-explored rethoric in societies in which everyone today is South-African, Mozambiquean, etc.,etc., whether black or white, is very much that distinction. And it means to work on that distinction to present "revolutionary measures" specifically (even if not explicitly) intended against long time "explorers".

This doesn't mean to suggest, as Catsam implies I suggest, that SA is "totalitarian" or anything close to it. But again, Catsam, unable or unwilling to understand my argument, disfigures it, suggesting that I am accusing SA of being a totalitarian society.

God, I'm fed up with this. Have it your way guys: you're discussing with Cecil Rhodes!

- luispc

December 28, 2007 at 2:09pm

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Er, luis, at what point did I say that your sentiments derive from "grim places"? The only time I used the word "grim" was in explicit reference to Marty. I also never said that you suggested that SA is totalitarian. Not once -- I used the word totalitarian in a specific context and did not aim it at you.

Seriously -- you did not read my comment closely and so you are attacking it sloppily. And then you whinge with nonsequiters about Cecil Rhodes. If you don't want pedantry, don't make it so evident that you need to be taught. And on those lines: is "unconsiderative" a word? And what the hell does the following paragraph mean? :

"On the friend-enemy distinction, what I suggest is exactly that this persisting explorers-explored rethoric in societies in which everyone today is South-African, Mozambiquean, etc.,etc., whether black or white, is very much that distinction. And it means to work on that distinction to present "revolutionary measures" specifically (even if not explicitly) intended against long time "explorers"."

Utterly incoherent.

As for your qualification of your view on tribaliam, that's all well and good. But what yopu wrote earlier was without that nuance, and so was wroing then. That you have made it somewhat better now is fine, but does not change what you did write. And yet in that qualification you insert the line "very much organized around primitive cults," which is, once again, so gallingly wrong and partronizing as to reinforce my sense of your understanding of Africa, which seems to lean hevily on having been born there, an argument akin to claiming a mastery of gravity because in the past you have fallen down.  

dcat

- derekcatsam

December 28, 2007 at 2:42pm

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"Er, luis, at what point did I say that your sentiments derive from "grim places"? The only time I used the word "grim" was in explicit reference to Marty. I also never said that you suggested that SA is totalitarian. Not once -- I used the word totalitarian in a specific context and did not aim it at you."

READ THIS CATSAM (YOUR WORDS!):

I disagree wholeheartedly with luispc, meanwhile, that the ANC is creating a friends-enemy distinction in the country. Hell, the country has at least one Cabinet Minister who was once the leader of the New National Party. South Africa has a vibrant political climate. There is lots of division. Where, other than in totalitarian countries, is there not vibrancy and division? I simply don't buy his assessments. And I'd ask for a body of evidence for where those sentiments derive.

"On the friend-enemy distinction, what I suggest is exactly that this persisting explorers-explored rethoric in societies in which everyone today is South-African, Mozambiquean, etc.,etc., whether black or white, is very much that distinction. And it means to work on that distinction to present "revolutionary measures" specifically (even if not explicitly) intended against long time "explorers"."

"Utterly incoherent."

WHERE IS THIS INCOHERENT CATSAM? TO SAY THAT TO ANNOUNCE MEASURES SPECIFICALLY ADDRESSED AT A SEGMENT OF POPULATION, PRAISING "REVOLUTIONARY MEASURES" (MUGABE'S?) TAKEN AGAINST WHO? (LONG TIME "EXPLORERS") IS NOT TO WORK SOMEWHAT IN A FRIEND-ENEMY DISTINCTION? THEN IT IS WHAT? AND DO YOU KNOW THE MEANING OF THE WORLD INCOHERENT?

"As for your qualification of your view on tribaliam, that's all well and good. But what yopu wrote earlier was without that nuance, and so was wroing then."

I SUGGEST YOU RE-READ WHAT I SAID ABOVE, THE NUANCES THAT LACKED WOULD NOT PROVOKE YOUR READING IF YOU DID NOT ASSUME THAT YOU WERE DISCUSSING WITH CECIL RHODES OR SOMEONE WITH A FRAME OF MIND VERY SIMILAR TO HIS.

P.S. USED CAPITAL LETTERS TO DISTINGUISH QUOTATIONS FROM MY WORDS. IT MAKES THE READING MORE EASY, I PRESUME.

- luispc

December 28, 2007 at 2:53pm

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Those forms of social organization, existent in Austral Africa 100 years ago, are not organized around "primitive cults" ? I suggest you read anything worth reading about forms of religious experience Catsam an then come back to me.

But then, I'm "gallingly wrong and partronizing". Yeah! I'm Cecil Rhodes!

- luispc

December 28, 2007 at 2:58pm

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And Molly is Lady Macnamara!

- luispc

December 28, 2007 at 3:04pm

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Luis --

Ahhh, writing in capital letters. The last refuge of the lost argument.

First off, what the hell does Australia have to do with Africa? Second: The term "primitive cult" is simply an unacceptable term to describe African societies -- both are pejorative terms. So if you want to cite "anything worth reading" about African history in which that term is used today, please do reference it for all of our edification.

Luis, I'm sorry, but this sentence: ""On the friend-enemy distinction, what I suggest is exactly that this persisting explorers-explored rethoric in societies in which everyone today is South-African, Mozambiquean, etc.,etc., whether black or white, is very much that distinction." is incoherent. It just is. You might have a point, but that point is impossible to glean. It is poorly written. Grammatically it is a run-on, syntatically a disaster. Diagram it. What is the subject? It seems to have a tautology as well. Augmenting it with a paragraph all in capital letters in which you try to explain what you mean is amusing. But it sheds little light. And the whole thing lacks any specificity. To what are you referring? Please cite for me a speech in which anyone in power in the ANC says that Mugabe's approach in Zimbabwe is the way to go in South Africa. And again, what the fuck does Cecil Rhodes have to do with anything? What an inane nonsequiter. I am arguing with you, and you are making some monumentally dumb arguments. I don't need the Cecil Rhodes strawman when I have such a pleasuredome as the very real luispc with his remarkable expertise in language, African history, and "primitive cults".

You are scattering random half thoughts that have nothing to do with anything, they make no sense, and then you compound it by engaging in the online equivalent of a screaming temper tantrum. Oh, and what does the following mean: "THE NUANCES THAT LACKED WOULD NOT PROVOKE YOUR READING" The nuances that lacked would not provoke my reading? What is this, from babelfish?

And I know those were "my words," and I know that i used the word "totalitarian," but so what? In what way does that paragraph reference you as having compared South Africa to a totalitarian state? Please show how. In fact, what I did (and pay attention) is to say: "where, other than in totalitarian countries, is there not vibrancy and division?" How is that a reference to you at all?  

I guess I'm just being "unconsiderative." I hope the nuances that lack don't provoke your reading.

dcat

- derekcatsam

December 28, 2007 at 3:23pm

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I'm not going to discuss further with you Professor Derek Catsam! I'm longing at your feet! I love dishonest pedantic ignorant people! Specialist in any field of study!

And on the capital letters, my lord, I used them to distinguish what I was saying from your quotations and signaled that. But I suppose that I lost the argument because of that. Pardon! Pardon me!

And the subject of that phrase (that syntatically and gramatically is a disaster) can obly be understood by very dumb people like me, that dare to read within contexts and allow for some mistakes of non-english speakers writing fast. But please Professor, let me try again: I wanted to say, as I've said many times before (even Maceachern understood) that this new leadership is implicitly invoking a distinction between "explorers" and "explored" and thus legitimating his announced "revolutionary measures".

How could I even dare try to explain what I said in this thread 200 times and try to sound coherent. I'm so sinful.

And without the help of some good soul that helps me sound a little bit coherent I could never explain that the lack of those nuances that you said were lacking in my original speech about "tribes" would never provoke your reading of what I said if you were not convinced I shared the frame of mind of Cecil Rhodes.

HELP! Will someone help me?

- luispc

December 28, 2007 at 3:36pm

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Luis --

Where have I been dishonest? And I'm sorry, but I'm not accepting accusations of ignorance about Africa from you. And what does "specialist in any field of study" mean? We've only discussed Africa here. My work is on race and politics in the US and Africa with an emphasis on the US South and South Africa. I'm currently at work on a book on boycotts in the US and South Africa in the 1940s and 1950s. I also am working on a manuscript on South Africa in the 1980s. outside of my work as a historian I write regularly on issues ranging from politics to sports. Most recently my work has been focused on South Africa specifically and Africa generally for the Foreign Policy Association. If you have issues with that 'specialization," please tell me what it is. Now, what are your particular credentials? other, I mean, than being born in Africa? (I came from a  birth canal. Remarkably, luispc, I don't use that to tell gynecologists their business.)

As for the capital letters, you know what? the English language has this neat little thing called the "quotation mark." You'll note that when you read a book (I may well be speaking in the abstract) when the author quotes someone, they use those neat little marks rather than capital letters. You can sometimes see this in such media as newspapers and magazines as well. It's a cool trick. Try it at a party sometime!

You keep using this "explorers" and 'explored" dichotomy as if it is a prevalent usage. In South Africa you might be talking about 'settlers" I suppose, but you keep using it as if it is common. You say that South African leaders are doing this -- do you have a reference? It's not something I've commonly seen. And don't try pulling the non-native speaker nonsense on me. You've been more than willing to insult and attack in English. Now that you're on the ropes, you want the pity party. If i get involved in a discussion in another language, you'll be damned sure that I'm going to be wary about what I write. You don't get to call me "pedantic" and 'ignorant" and "dishonest" and then hide behind language barriers when called out.

Again with the Rhodes. I'm simply baffled by this invocation. I'm convinced not that you share the frame of mind of Cecil John Rhodes. You, luispc, are sui generis.  

dcat

- derekcatsam

December 28, 2007 at 3:57pm

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Yes "sui generis". And great great Derek Catsam that writes in things ranging from politics to sports, congratulations! If you need any, since you are so filled up with yourself, I simply cannot understand how you don't simply explode all around!

And the quotation marks are something existent in the English language? Really?!?! I didn't know! It was stupid of me to use capital letters within a post in which that was only supposed to mark the very limited new words introduced against what had already been said. So, so, so stupid.

My dear, dear Derek Catsam, I'm not going to challenge you anymore. And it's such a piety for you to be loosing your time with someone like me and keeping your attention from the many important issues from politics to sports that you cover, that I wouldn't dare.

And Derek Catsam (oops, sorry, Professor Derek Catsam) the words used in the political world are what matters! It is really very relevant if, instead of the word explorer, they use the word settler. It is absolutely crucial to the development of this argument that such a precision is made and for me to think otherwise and to dare use words that are now outdated or out of fashion only reveals that it was extremely daring of me to even considering addressing you, Professor.

And of course I'm not only "on the ropes". I'm completely beaten up. Done! How could I not be? How could that possibly fail to happen when someone is discussing with you, the great Professor!

- luispc

December 28, 2007 at 4:24pm

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luispc, you keep saying that you are done. By my count you have announced at least three times that you were taking your ball elsewhere and playing. And each time you come back and grace us with your presence.

You say that "the words used in the political wold are what matters" and I think are trying to be sarcastic, and yet if 'in the political world" the word "settlers" is used and not the word "explorers," which you keep insisting is part of the South African political dialogue, Yeah, that makes a difference. To couch your screwup as somehow my flaw is remarkable even for you.

I'm not certain why you keep obsessing on the areas in which i write. You made the sarcastic comment about me, I responded by trying to outline a bit of who I am and what I do, and somehow this too ends up as a character flaw on my part.

I suppose the sarcasm is intended as wit. At least you've jumped off the Cecil Rhodes invocation. So you have that going for you. Which is nice.

Oh -- and I actually just prefer "Derek" and tend not to be picky about people using "professor" or "doctor." Even when they think they are being cutting by using it.

What I find interesting is how quickly the people who are anonymous are to cut down the names of those of us with the intellectual integrity to write under our own names. So somehow my name and my title are being used, in luispc's Cloud Cuckooland, to insult me.

In any case, I very much forward to you not writing again, and not bothering to engage, and cannot wait, absolutely cannot wait, for more information about those primitive cults and the little known "explorer"/"explored" dichotomy that is all the rage in South Africa's political dialogue. Of course who cares, when talking about South African politics, what South African politicians are saying? Facts and evidence -- that's so professorial.

dcat    

- derekcatsam

December 28, 2007 at 4:44pm

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Luis:  I've googled Lady Macnamara.  But did you mean Lady MacBeth?  Now that's a comparison I can live with!

- MOLLYSIMON

December 28, 2007 at 7:56pm

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Catsam:  What other languages do you speak?  Xhosa (did you find the mastery of clicking difficult?) or maybe Zulu.  Or maybe Afrikaans.   And how fluent should we expect you to be?  Just asking.  Because it's my impression that Ph.D.s who study another culture need to be--or at least should be--able to communicate  effortlessly in that language.  

With much fondness,

Molly

- MOLLYSIMON

December 28, 2007 at 8:24pm

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I can read to the point where I can research in Afrikaans, and can get by speaking. I was far more fluent a few years back -- it's faded somewhat, though once I'm back over in South Africa I can get it back reasonably quickly. I am learning Zulu and Xhosa, and the clicks are a bear, though the vocab is probably the toughest for me, as I am not an easy learner when it comes to languages.  Keep in mind that my work is primarily on the anti-apartheid movement, and the lingua franca for that was English. South Africa has 11 official languages, so there is no "that language," and English is of course one of those languages. I'd also like to get better at French, in which I can muddle through, given its role in West Africa.  

Your impression is generally correct, although the standard is in reality that you should have the language skills to do the work you need to do. But to write about current South African politics, English is the crucial one. Afrikaans is useful when I look at police and government docs, and of course in Afrikaner communities. Zulu and Xhosa are important conversationally, which is why I am trying to develop in those areas.  

dcat

- derekcatsam

December 28, 2007 at 9:48pm

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luispc: "....democracy supposes a moral discipline internalized at the conscience of individuals (a moral discipline very much shapen within the Judeo-Christian tradition). Without that moral discipline, which is a cultural reality (it is not given to us by nature, but by nurture) democracy is impossible. African societies have of course traditional kinds of moral discipline, but still very much tied to traditional, hierarchical modes of society that in the 21st century are unviable. .... The word tribalism was used to describe hierarchical societies, of smaller or wider scale, very much organized around primitive cults, no matter how different they are..."

Sorry, but here again I agree with derekcatsam. You simply have no idea of the variety of African societies, and of their attitudes toward individualism and, as a corollary, toward social hierarchy. I work primarily in Central Africa, in the southern Lake Chad Basin.... and in that area you will find every variation on those themes, from centralised, hierarchical states (not tribes) to societies where the rights of individuals - and especially the adult male, head-of-household individuals who also counted in the West until very recently - trump everything else. _Every_ variation, and that in one area.

I've said about that for Peretz, Africans are instruments. For you, they are ciphers, cardboard cut-outs that just fit one model, nothing else. So OK, you've made statements in good faith, and I will make one in good faith back: you do not know enough about the cultural and social variability that exists in Africa to make the claims you are making. Because if you did, you would know that you can't substantiate those claims.

Two other things: (1) It's precisely this attitude that underlaid the late colonial mentality that I mentioned earlier, one that claimed a recognition that Africans deserved a right to self-determination but hastily adds that such self-determination should be far, far in the future... because Africans 'weren't equipped' to handle it yet. You may be coming at this from a different starting point, and you may be arguing in good faith, but the result is the same- 'Democracy!... but not yet.' . (2) You need to learn a lot more about the early engagements of Africans even with _Western_ models of democracy... because in both South and West Africa, those began well over a century ago. Where do you get the idea that democracy even as a concept, even with all the Americanised moral freight that you load it up with, is that unfamiliar on the continent?

And finally, I remain less than impressed by that moral baggage for my own part. There are other countries that became democracies under models different than the American one. I'm writing from an area of Canada where escaping slaves fled while de Tocqueville was writing, and I think that for the most part they probably appreciated the concrete reality more than the oh-so-fine theory of freedom. Canadians didn't feel that democracy was America-or-nothing, and there's no reason why Africans should necessarily do so, either... especially if what's supposed to be holding them back are 'tribal' images that were obsolete 40 years ago.

- scottmaceachern

December 28, 2007 at 10:38pm

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OK, three attempts on a post to mollysimon... we'll see if it appears tomorrow, or ever.

- scottmaceachern

December 28, 2007 at 10:41pm

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derekcatsam: I had the same experience in South Africa at various times between 1995 and 2002: who ever voted for the Nats anyway? No one would ever admit to it. (There's been a fair amount of political humour on that account as well, of course....) And quite right I think that the potentially major political development would be breakup of the ANC, because there certainly are enough factions involved. I will be there next at some point in 2009, I think, at University of the Western Cape and in Durban, so it will be interesting to see this play out.

- scottmaceachern

December 28, 2007 at 10:47pm

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Let's try it this way...

mollysimon: I introduce such nastiness to The Spine? Perhaps. You might note again the initial exchange between the two of us on this thread. I do appreciate the apology, but at the same time you must remember that nastiness on The Spine works in both directions. I've been accused of being a Nazi and an anti-semite in the vilest of terms, for example, even beyond what you said. So please... this is a two-way street.

Please note as well that the reason I mentioned Katsav in the first place was because the second post on this thread described Zuma as a rapist (he was acquitted at trial, of course), and when luispc postulated his great gulf fixed between Africa and the West ("...enlightened democracy where some things are unthinkable..."), the parallels between he and Katsav were too striking to ignore. I could have as easily mentioned the long-standing saga of corruption investigations into the Olmert and Sharon clans - but it would have been with the observation that corruption can happen in even vital and open democracies. Or would saying that constitute anti-semitism on my part as well?

As for Peretz himself... Africans are instruments for him, to be deployed for rhetorical purpose, not actual people. Almost exactly a year ago (http://tinyurl.com/2kbayh) he was burbling about the 'exhilarating' news of Ethiopia's invasion of Somalia, a Christian country finally on the way to really kicking some Islamic ass.  Thousands of Somalis, and hundreds of Ethiopians, have died since that 'exhilarating' invasion, and to what end? Over the year since then, Africa and Africans appear on the Spine only as the targets of a sneer (the African Union forces in Darfur, Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, Kofi Annan) or instruments to be used to attack Peretz's Usual Suspects... Darfurians, for example, who - except in two posts, count 'em two, that you have already mentioned - are only mentioned on The Spine when they are deployed as clubs to beat on the UN, the Democrats, Jimmy Carter or the Arab world. That's the extent of Peretz's interest in Africa... and yes, that's the interest of a racist, a soft racist, if you like, a some-of-my-best-friends-are and so on.... but still a racist.

- scottmaceachern

December 28, 2007 at 10:47pm

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And part 2...

I lived in South Africa last, with my wife and daughter, in 2002, traveled pretty widely across the country with them, and now periodically teach about the place. You think I wasn't, and am not, conscious of the importance of sexual assault, and other kinds of assault, there? But don't you think there's something a wee bit strange about the way in which, today, rape and sexual assault dominate the international news about black-run South Africa, where the phenomenon was  utterly unreported in the media - but still well-known in epidemiological and law-enforcement studies - when whites were in power? Every colonial nostalgist - and yes, there are plenty, though you may not believe that - when they bring up South Africa starts off just the way you did, with rape and crime: that's what the country means to them, although it's really a concern for _their_ wives and daughters and aunts, and not for the African women who actually bear the brunt of this. (Take a look at http://tinyurl.com/2aep28 for a vintage example) You meant something else when you immediately brought rape up as emblematic of the state of the country? Fair enough, but you'll forgive me for having assumed otherwise.

As for reparations....  I find it a bit funny that you make an assumption that I am simply referring to Jews in Europe, when I specifically mentioned processes both post-Nazi and post-Communist. In any case, there are in those cases all least some forms of recognition that people illegally and immorally deprived of their goods are entitled to recompense. They may not all get it, as your mother-in-law didn't, but there's a recognition that a problem exists. But not in Africa....  where such recognition is, according to luispc for example, simply the province of diehard Marxists.  Note two things about this: as I said, the 30% figure by IIRC 2015 has been out there for at least four years and was _restated_ by Zuma at the ANC convention - and they are not going to make it.

Second, it probably is not a realistic figure even post-2015, in  terms of the country's economy. But in the long run, there has to be some way forward to alleviating the lot of poor and landless South Africans. The ANC has spent the last 18 years successfully proving to the West that they are not Commies, but the situation for those folks has not gotten much better. Something needs to be done for those people, in part because doing something for them will _lessen_ the likelihood that they will support demagogues. (People tend to forget the failures of Zimbabwe's land distribution programmes in the 1980s and 1990s, and the way in which that contributed to initial support for Muagabe's forcible redistribution.) I asked you this before: what do you suggest the ANC should do in this situation? What policies are they not following that would work?

- scottmaceachern

December 28, 2007 at 10:52pm

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Scott, I reply earlier because my Firefox program couldn't get into this talkback.  It kept showing up gray and then blank. Apparently, using Safari and not Firefox is what works.  

In any case, a dialogue here is far easier for me when I drop the pugilistic  tone.  

". . .  the parallels between he and Katsav were too striking to ignore. I could have as easily mentioned the long-standing saga of corruption investigations into the Olmert and Sharon . . . ."  Please give it a rest, okay?  Unless, of course, you enjoy driving us Zionists crazy.  Maybe you do, but your understanding of Africa is way too important to alienate Talkbackers like me.  One of the reasons I love the Spine is the ability it gives me to post to people who are, say, tenured professors in central African culture and society.  I live in a very small world.  In a big city, albeit, but a small crowd of people who mostly do the same thing. To have access to many of the posters here is mind-blowing.  

Re: Rape and law-and-order.  Believe me, I know about/am horrified by the African toddlers who've been raped.  And their mothers and sisters.  Forgive me if I sounded cavalier about anyone who wasn't white.  Are these numbers the same as they were pre-Apartheid?  Are you saying black-on-black violence has always been this bad?  In other words, that white law enforcement failed to take care of its African population?  That's tragic.  But it still overlooks the fact that the current regime now fails everyone, not just those they sought to give more protection to.  And not just in the capital but in other major cities.  People, yes white people, who have the means, have fled.    Brain drain.  The medical school, which I know something about, is now considered a joke, where once it conferred a degree that enabled graduates to do post-doc work at Cambridge and Oxford.  Others were lured away by Harvard University's health care system.  That's just one profession, but a crucial one when you're talking standard of living.  

I haven't gone to South Africa since apartheid.  Even as a small child I could see the horror of the country, and frequently heard the refrain from my parents and their friends that "It could have been so great."  Meaning, that had it not been for apartheid . . . .

I'm going to say something horrifying, I'm sure.  Re.:  "It's precisely this attitude that underlaid the late colonial mentality that I mentioned earlier, one that claimed a recognition that Africans deserved a right to self-determination but hastily adds that such self-determination should be far, far in the future... because Africans 'weren't equipped' to handle it yet."  I wouldn't have said far into the future, but when I heard about the final end to apartheid, I did shudder. I said as much to other South Africans the night of the election, all of them liberal.  They were horrified by my concern, but none have returned.  "Far, far into the future."  No.  But I'm wondering whether things could have gone better had they had some sort of five- or ten-year plan, with a definite end date.  A slow revolution, if you will.  I've no idea of what that would have looked like.  And it certainly doesn't mean I think blacks are incapable of self-rule.  It means that a people who've been so long oppressed and denied such basic rights as education are not the best candidates for immediate self-rule.  Forgive me if that has racial overtones.  I may be biased, but that's the nature of bias. One doesn't see it in oneself.  

As for reparations:  What exactly would land distribution look like?  And why does reparation need to come in the form of land redistribution, which, as I said, hasn't exactly worked in Zimbabwe. I've no idea of what their previous policies were, but if you want self-rule you don't go scaring the neighbors and people in your own household out of their wits.  Whatever Zimbabwe did, they did on their own.  And how exactly is putting Zuma into power a good thing?  How does it prove that self-rule is always for the best (it should be, after all)?  And why must white South Africans feel collectively responsible for that kind of mess?  

I don't know that anyone's ever made a completely successful reparations program.    What would it look like to you?  And how exactly do you de-deed land from a farmer?  Does the government pay the white farmer for land at a cut-rate price?  And then what happens to that land?  If Zimbabwe is any indication . . . .

One idea I have, re. reparations:  Give black miners a share in the mines.  But that involves publicly held companies.  Privately held property on the other hand . . .  

Hopefully you'll catch this reply.  If not, I'll alert you the next time I see you on the boards.

- MOLLYSIMON

December 30, 2007 at 2:47pm

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Molly --

Although you aimed your comments at Scott, I'd like to addressa  couple of your points --

Regarding crime statistics or just about anything else: keep in mind how South Africa gamed the system: They established the "homelands" and then, voila -- those were no longer a part of South Africa. Of course the police ignored a huge swath of the black population -- that is, when they were not actively terrorizing that population in the townships.

re your argument that "things could have gone better" and your own horror on the end of apartheid: Again, I ask -- by what measurement is South Africa not far better off than it was in the fifteen years preceding the 1995 elections? By 1994 the South African economy was in virtual freefall. The police and security forces were neck deep in human rights violations. democracy? For about 10% of the population, which is to say, there was no democracy at all. I just see no measurement by which this negative viewpoint can hold up. Perhaps corruption? Remind me again of why John Vorster left office? The fears of a socialist or statist economy? For all of its blathering about communism, the apartheid securocrats oversaw an economy in which far more was run by the state than now -- privatization in South Africa today far surpasses that in 1987, for example. So by what standard could things "have gone better" vis a vis what came before it? It seems that you've established a narrative that you simply refuse to let go of, all evidence to the contrary. And I think that is the worst element of much of the white mindset with regard to South Africa today. There are lots of reasons to oppose Thabo Mbeki, as there are lots of reasons in almost every democratic state in the world to oppose the current leadership. That's sort of the nature of democracy. He is open to criticism from the left and the right. And yet, not to put too fine a point on it, he is almost inarguably the second-best President/PM the country has ever had. Malan, Verwoerd, Vorster, Botha? Criminals. Stewards of a murderous regime. De Klerk? Did many fine things, but things that should have been done decades ago, and of course his hands are covered with blood from Third Force and Dirty Tricks of the 1990-1994 period. You say that the current regime has failed everyone, which is dubious at best, and which is seriously undercut when we think of what came before "the current regime." One might be able to argue that South Africa has never had a golden age, but if it has, this is it. or at least this era is better than any that has ever preceded it.  

You ask how putting Zuma into power is a "good thing," though I'm not certain who has made that case here. (Actually I am sure: No one has). But as of right now, Zuma is not the country's president or president elect. he is the head of the ANC. If he is found guilty on corruption charges and the country still supports him, you'll have a case. But so far people are very vague about what, precisely, is so bad about Jacob Zuma's politics. And I suspect, and I may be wrong, that's because so many of the critics weighing in here could not write a single paragraph delineating concrete elements of Zuma's politics.  But they know that he is appealing to populist elements in the ANC, and, well, that must be bad.  

dcat

- derekcatsam

December 30, 2007 at 3:54pm

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mollysimon et al: My apologies for a short reply, but I'm out of steady email context for a couple of days. And you may be right, the pugilistic tone may not work well in some cases, for all of us... but The Spine seems to bring it out.

As for references to Israel (or America), all I can say is that many of the posters on this site come from these countries, and there's a certain rhetorical economy in making reference to things that everyone knows about. I could have mentioned l'affaire UIMM (France) or Karl-Heinz Schrieber and Airbus (Canada) as political corruption cases, but that would merely have involved people looking those things up. For what it's worth, I _don't_ think such cases are unique to Israel, or America, or African countries.

More when I get a chance....

- scottmaceachern

December 30, 2007 at 8:42pm

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mollysimon et al: My apologies for a short reply, but I'm out of steady email context for a couple of days. And you may be right, the pugilistic tone may not work well in some cases, for all of us... but The Spine seems to bring it out.

As for references to Israel (or America), all I can say is that many of the posters on this site come from these countries, and there's a certain rhetorical economy in making reference to things that everyone knows about. I could have mentioned l'affaire UIMM (France) or Karl-Heinz Schrieber and Airbus (Canada) as political corruption cases, but that would merely have involved people looking those things up. For what it's worth, I _don't_ think such cases are unique to Israel, or America, or African countries.

More when I get a chance....

- scottmaceachern

December 30, 2007 at 8:42pm

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mollysimon: Dunno if you will catch this or not, but in any case... I've been to South Africa a number of times now, and - besides saying that it is not all bad news there, not at all - I'd just note that I know a fair number of white South Africans who are still there, who could leave but have not. Their reasons are probably various, and I haven't interrogated them on them, but there is more optimism in the country than you might think. I think as well - and this will sound somewhat offensive, but that i snot why I am saying it - that folks who left often have, and promulgate, a picture of the country that is absolutely horrendous. (I was told, for example, by a white South African expat of my acquaintance that I was criminal for going there with my wife and daughter, as they would inevitably be robbed or worse.) That may make it easier to have left, perhaps.

And I'll merely disagree entirely with what you said about an extra ten years before the end of apartheid, for a whole number of reasons. In the first case, it would not have been ten years: like everywhere else on the continent, it would have stretched to whatever the white rulers could have gotten away with, because this has always been just a delaying tactic. In the second place... well, read what derekcarsam said. South Africa under the Nats was neither efficient nor was it honest, and the welfare of black South Africans was never a priority to them. What evidence do we have that they would have been interested in a peaceful transition to a more prepared black government ten years on? Third, it would have been simply the perpetuation of an unjust situation, the deprivation of rights and freedoms for the vast majority of the population.

I've been thinking about this, as we come up close to the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet empire. And so we could see the state of the fUSSR today as comparable to that of African states in, say, 1980. Paragons like Belarus, Turkmenistan, Ossetia, Transnistria.... Yet I rarely here people say that the breakup of the Soviet union was a mistake - not would I say that. So I am always puzzled by similar expressions about Africa.

As for why white South Africans should feel responsible for the place today... they bear responsibility to the extent that they ruled South Africa for centuries, and ruled it just for their own benefit. Remember, in both South Africa and even more so in Zimbabwe, it's not as if much of the dispossession happened back in the mists before recorded history. In both cases, there are people alive today who were deprived of land, and in the case of Zimbabwe, if it was not them it was their parents or grandparents. As for what you can do about it... that's the problem. Simply waiting for farmers to decide to sell their land at fair value - the Zimbabwe "willing seller, willing buyer" arrangements - didn't work, in part because white farmers in Zimbabwe in the 1980s thought that scuppering the programme would destabilise Mugabe's rule. (Didn't work, obviously...) So you need a lot more resources in order to make it attractive for people to be bought out. Trouble is, where do you get those resources?

- scottmaceachern

January 1, 2008 at 5:56pm

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Hi Scott.  I'm glad you got back to me.  Listen, you can theorize whatever you like about whether ex-pats are sour graping it, but that's like telling Luis he has issues with his father.  i.e. your contention is spurious. Would be interesting to know current immigration versus emigration statistics.

About the only person I know who'd go back is my dad.  But he's yearning for a South Africa that no longer exists.   Though I'm sure the the sensory experience is still there.   I can still get whiffs of toasted bread (do they have our horrible packaged stuff yet?) and certain plants or catch a glimpse of a certain kind of light, and be transported back.  

Ultimately, I'm surprised the revolution wasn't bloody.  I remember being driven through downtown Joburg early one morning.  Our car was inching forward in a sea of black workers coming into town.  I just sat and wondered why they didn't overturn our car and murder us.  

Re.:  A slower transition.  If Hong Kong could be handed back to China with an agreed-upon deadline, why not a NATO-brokered or UN treaty mandating a turn-over.  Start with desegregation.  The government may have been corrupt and inefficient, but perhaps a less drastic change would have meant initial chaos, in the form of crime stats, to say the least.  Now I'm pipe-dreaming here, because you're probably right, that just wouldn't have happened, and who knows whether it would have been effective.  But if you're talking corruption, what's the diff. between now and then?

Re:  Land redistribution. I'm not arguing here, just mulling.  Because you're right--not doing anything could bring about destabilization big time.  There's got to be some kind of calculus which inflicts the least pain.  Not no pain, but the least.  Tax incentives to sell?  Or maybe one-time reparations made by the mining cartels. They're really guilty of exploitation.  It was done with the Swiss banks and Mercedes.    In the end, this problem may be unsolvable.  However, what percentage of S.A.'s GNP is still agricultural?  Is it shrinking?  

Vis a vis that bozo Zuma.  I believe you yourself said that our version of democracy doesn't necessarily belong elsewhere--though perhaps I'm misinterpreting.  In any case, he could be the difference between South African's democracy surviving or not.  Their democracy is only 15 years old. Luis is right here; he's a divisive presence.  Not helpful at all.  Why won't Mandela come out and endorse someone reasonable?

All in all, I'm grateful for this exchange.  It was like getting a free tutorial.  Feel free to answer or not.  

- MOLLYSIMON

January 2, 2008 at 8:00pm

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Molly --

I guess you're only interested in Scott's views, not, but nonetheless:

I wish I understood why you keep insisting on this narrative that South Africa needed a slower, more gradual transition. Why? You hint that this main issue is crime, and yet the very apartheid state was criminal. We don't know crime figures from the townships and "bantustans" in the apartheid era because the state could not be bothered, and above that, the state was actively involved in killing those who opposed it. By most any measure South Africa in the last 15 years has been better than it was in the equivalent time before 1994. I have no idea why you would wish for the apartheid state to have held ongiven the gross humen rights violations for which it was responsible and the heinous regime it perpetrated. I can think of no measure by which the Mbeki regime is not better than that of die Groot Krokodil, say. And however divisive Zuma is, and I'm hopeful that something will intervene so that he does not succeed Mbeki, he enjoys popular support many times greater than that of the most popular Nat leader after 1948. Zuma is a far more legitimate leader of South Africa than FW de Klerk, and yet you continue to argue that de Klerk's regime ought to have held on, delayed, and otherwise impeded the transition. I simply don't get that argument.

dcat

- derekcatsam

January 2, 2008 at 11:01pm

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Derek:  

"I guess you're only interested in Scott's views . . . .":  Quite honestly, I found your treatment of Luis so distasteful that I didn't feel like engaging you anymore.  You fought dirty.  Don't bother arguing, because you won't convince me otherwise.  That expressed, I'll keep my tone civilized and hope you'll grant me the same courtesy.  

So,  "Zuma is a far more legitimate leader of South Africa than FW de Klerk, and yet you continue to argue that de Klerk's regime ought to have held on, delayed, and otherwise impeded the transition. I simply don't get that argument."  Factually, you are correct.   But, and make that a big BUT, let's take a look at Kenya this morning.  People barricaded in a church while roving gangs try to machete the doors down.  Hmm, you see, a fledgling democracy is a delicat thing.  Yes, Kenya's situation is not completel analogous to S.A.'s.  But put a man like Zuma in power and you may start getting rigged elections, destabilization.  Maybe you're right; morally and practically South Africa's transition couldn't have gone better.  Maybe their economy's fundamentals are stronger.   But law and order is a big thing, especially in big cities, for obvious reasons.  And that has devolved, regardless of stats in the townships and bantustands. Some oil on this fire--political unrest--could prove disastrous.  So, you see, Luis's pessimism was actually quite reasonable.

Of course, the hows of grafting I'm not sure of.  But perhaps a slower transitio--overseen by the west--would have made sense after all.  Because Kenya, a model of African stability, is hitting the fan as I write.  

Pick away.  

- MOLLYSIMON

January 3, 2008 at 2:06pm

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mollysimon: The difference between the South African and Hong Kong cases is that in the latter case there was widespread support from all parties - and in fact the agreement was for the status of the territories after China's takeover, not the timing of the takeover itself. In the South African case, where the third-class status of the great majority of the inhabitants was the issue itself, this would not apply.

I have very little to add to what derekcatsam has said on the status of the apartheid government itself, except that the perception of the Communist Threat meant that the state felt justified in engaging in a whole set of deeply corrupt financial and administrative manoeuvres, both internal and international, some of which were exposed in the course of TRC testimony and some in more recent sources like the Apartheid Grand Corruption Report www.ipocafrica.org/.../apartheidgrandc.pdf). There's always the assumption (from where it comes I have no idea) that a white government in South Africa must have been more efficient and less corrupt than a black government there, but in fact that is not the case.

IMHO, democracy is democracy, and it either works or it doesn't, so no, I think that everyone has a right to the same version. Its characteristics and practises are pretty easy to understand, and certainly accessible to an African farmer or labourer. I don't have much patience with attempts to mystify it, by luispc or anyone else. In part, this prejudice comes from being a Canadian (where the history of democratization is pretty boring) living in the USA (where the magical elements of democracy, with ritual invocations of de Tocqueville, the Federalist Papers and the spiritual emanations of the Founders, are often front and centre).

- scottmaceachern

January 3, 2008 at 4:41pm

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Scott,

Didn't you, in an earlier post, accuse Luis of an idealism that would make no difference to Africans actually on the ground?  Can't remember the context, but the bottom line is if Zuma takes the country to Kenya-land, I think you'll find the average African farmer or laborer questioning this thing called Democracy.  And this is where I agree with Luis.  Democracy is democracy, but frankly, I think it was a stupid thing to bring to Iraq, to the Palestinian territories

Now, I'm curious about your thoughts on the situation in Kenya, and how this might differ from a potential volatile instability in South Africa.

Also, why the hell can't Mandela annoint someone.  Obviously, you could keep a free and fair election, but an elder stateman's input isn't always a bad idea.  So has he spoken out, and if not, why not?

- MOLLYSIMON

January 3, 2008 at 7:20pm

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mollysimon: Kenya isn't Somalia yet, nor is South Africa Kenya. I wouldn't write either place off yet. In general, Kenyan politicians since independence have to a great degree relied on large ethnic blocs, in a way that really doesn't have South African parallels beyond the Nats under apartheid and perhaps the Inkatha Freedom Party in the 1980s and 1990s. This started with Jomo Kenyatta and his Kikuyu support (and a lot of hat has to do with colonial policies, first of land confiscation, then reactions to anti-colonial activity among the Kikuyu that led to teh Mau Mau rebellion). Mwai Kibaki is also Kikuyu. There are no absolutes in this - Kenyatta's successor, Daniel arap Moi, was Kalenjin - but in general Kenya's politics is more driven by relationships between political parties that are divided ethnically, while South Africa's divisions are I think more based on class and race.

- scottmaceachern

January 4, 2008 at 11:55am

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mollysimon: Oh, and I accused luispc of mystifying democratisation in an attempt to argue that it was not applicable to Africans, not of any excessive idealism.

- scottmaceachern

January 4, 2008 at 11:57am

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Molly --

You found my treatment of luis so distasteful that you don't want to engage me any more? Really? You are the one who when angry in the past has attacked both mine and scott's sexuality. I'm not certain where you get to ride the high horse. And why you feel the right to ride it in the name of others'.

As for violence being worse in SA now than pre-1994: Nonsense. That is simply nonsense. Natal alone was a catastrophe in the period from 1992-1994. The langa Massacre? The Sharpeville Massacre? The killing of the Cradock 4? The PEBCO 3? The ASthlone Trojan Horse Incident? I could go on. And on. And on . . .  

dcat

- derekcatsam

January 8, 2008 at 11:54am

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