Now and then we hold extravagant and bloated ideas about ourselves. The problem arises, however, when the ideas become fixed and we remain impervious to reason. We become paranoid and suffer from delusions of grandeur. It becomes futile for others to argue with us. Instead, what we need from others is emphatic reassurance — to quell our feelings of insecurity, confusion and frustration at our unfulfilled ambitions.
These thoughts came to mind as I read John Matshikiza’s description of President Thabo Mbeki’s performance on the occasion of Walter Sisulu’s 90th anniversary. Irritated by the president’s predilection to appeal to inappropriate texts, Matshikiza writes: “When President Thabo Mbeki rose to speak, many of us breathed a sigh of relief that he was not apparently going to lean on his old favourite WB Yeats as his co-speechwriter. Instead, he chose to quote from a poem by my old pal Ben Okri, a London-based Nigerian. Beautiful as the poem is, it was an odd choice for the celebration of a long life that was still there for us all to share. The poem was entitled An African Elegy — and elegies, as we all know, are usually recited at a moment of sadness.”
After quoting from Thomas Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, Mbeki had to drag Yeats along. He quoted from a poem A Dream of Death whose first line ran: “I dreamed that one had died in a strange place”. Understandably, Matshikiza was provoked into asking whether the new African National Congress is subliminally burying the old while the latter is still on its feet!
This indiscretion is easy to understand. Mbeki has become a prisoner of the misconception he has of himself, or that he believes we should have of him. That is that he is erudite, an intellectual, a philosopher-king. Where the faintest invitation may be construed, he has to display his intellectual capacity and erudition. The problem is that in most cases he gets it horribly wrong.
Mbeki attempted a similar stunt on the occasion of Nelson Mandela’s 80th birthday by quoting from Shakespeare’s King Lear. Those familiar with the play found it odd — or ironic — that Mbeki, as heir apparent to Mandela, would appeal to this play.
Briefly stated, the plot goes thus: aware that their father had reached retirement age, two of King Lear’s three daughters conspire to endear themselves to him. The youngest and most faithful decides not to. The upset king abdicates his throne and bequeaths his entire wealth to the two, leaving nothing for his youngest. Instead of appreciation, the devious daughters treat their father with cruelty and contempt. This contributes to the king’s madness. The king and the wronged daughter die. The possibility is that the kingdom will degenerate into civil strife.
In appealing to King Lear, was Mbeki suggesting that Mandela is mad, or it would be a grave mistake for Mandela to transfer his kingdom to him? Could it also be that Mbeki is one of the treacherous daughters, and will not, in fact, “look after” Mandela in his old age — that he will indulge the elder statesman only for as long as it takes to assume power himself? Given the perception prevailing about Mbeki being given to conspiracy, could this be another of his Freudian slips?
Always eager to display his passion for the classics, Mbeki employed Shakespeare’s The Tempest to insult his opponents. During the Oliver Tambo Lecture at the National Institute for Economic Policy, he compared the native petit bourgeoisie and Tony Leon to Caliban and Antonio respectively. This provoked a devastating rebuke in the Mail & Guardian (“Mbeki misinterprets the Bard”) from Howard Barrell, now this paper’s editor, who holds a D.Phil from Oxford University. Barrell wrote: “For Mbeki, Prospero, the slave owner, represents the oppressed.” He continues: “Mbeki’s interpretation of the play becomes more nonsensical when he portrays Prospero’s slave, Caliban, as ‘the native petit bourgeoisie in pursuit that has no object beyond itself’.” He concludes: “The quality of the research Mbeki is content to employ in insulting an opponent is abysmal”.
Prominent writers from Africa and the Caribbean in whose work Prospero is cast as the coloniser would be similarly surprised at Mbeki’s usage.
Mbeki has, at times, little regard for historical contexts. Responding to the charges of intellectual intolerance, Mbeki invoked the slogan: “Let a hundred flowers bloom! Let a hundred schools of thought contend!”
This is the very slogan that Mao Zedong used when he promised freedom of speech. Those who sought to take advantage of this freedom were later rounded up, systematically silenced and eliminated. These words are associated with this chilling experience.
Not surprisingly, there has not been any flowering of ideas in response to Mbeki’s invitation. A deafening silence hangs over the ranks of the ruling party. Plots have been hatched against colleagues who dare display any form of political and intellectual independence. They have been hounded into political oblivion, sometimes using taxpayers’ money.
Patrick Bond, a Wits professor of political economy, skillfully demonstrates in Thabo Mbeki and Nepad: Breaking or Shining the Chains of Global Apartheid that, while Mbeki generously cites revolutionary thinkers like Frantz Fanon, Amilcar Cabral, Walter Rodney and Malcom X in his speeches, he seems to have learned little from them. Bond maintains that, unlike Mbeki, these intellectuals “would have called for the revolution against, not reform of, the Washington-centred world economy”. Bond adds: “The question arises whether Frantz Fanon would have [applauded] or criticised Mbeki for shining the chains of global apartheid at a time when opportunities are emerging to break those chains.”
Invariably, Mbeki finds himself at loggerheads with millions of anti-privatisation strikers in the trade union movement, against thousands of community residents suffering from unaffordable services because of privatisation pressure, and leading opponents of his Aids policies.
Mbeki’s dubious grasp of the classics, and his penchant for misquoting or quoting out of context are a source of ridicule in many circles, where he is regarded as the embodiment of an intellectual poseur and a fraud.
Ironically, this has become a source of his strength, and has infected members of his party.
His appointees, many with no intellectual and scholarly ambition, seem to believe that aping his behaviour is the way to leapfrog from ignorance to literary excellence.
For his part, Mbeki can always count on the intellectual ineptitude and academic handicaps of many of his followers. The thunderous applause from ANC parliamentarians following his infamous declaration that “a virus cannot cause a syndrome” is a case in point.
Mbeki, the naked emperor, has found himself some new clothes: they are styled in the form of literary pretension.
The obvious needs to be said. Ignorance is not a sin. Nor is it a mark of stupidity. I hold nothing against those who are not versed in the intricacies of quantum physics and Shakespeare, or even Aids science. But trouble comes when ignorance and mediocrity either supplant or pose as knowledge and excellence.
Let us free Mbeki from the illusions he has about himself.