Did it just get hotter in here? Maybe it’s the impending Soccer World Cup, but gone are the days when South Africa’s high crime rate was just another story. Like the eye of Sauron, the gaze of the world’s media has been trained on the country and, finally, it seems that the perceptions of the ordinary South African are beginning to be taken seriously.
We have much for which to thank President Thabo Mbeki: the South African economy is thriving and the Treasury is expected to run a surplus. His foreign policy will also leave a lasting legacy of engagement with world leaders over what is to be done to alleviate the plight of the world’s poorest continent.
The Financial Times quoted an unnamed ally of Mbeki this week as saying the president was not a ‘spinner”: “He takes the view that he is a bricklayer, like Pandit Nehru — that you get there one brick at a time.”
It is a pity, then, that Mbeki often comes across as being aloof. To be fair, he does post a weekly letter online, but in person (except at election time) he sometimes fails to judge the mood of the nation’s citizens.
On January 15 Mbeki said in a TV interview that it was just a perception that crime was out of control. Most South Africans would agree, he told interviewer Tim Modise. “It’s not as if someone will walk here to the TV studio in Auckland Park and get shot.
“That doesn’t happen and it won’t happen. Nobody can prove that the majority of the country’s 40-million to 50-million citizens think that crime is spinning out of control.”
So much for having his finger on the pulse.
It could all have ended there, had First National Bank not hatched a cunning plot to jam the mailbox of the Presidency with stories from South Africans about how crime had touched their lives. The bank backed down, but not before government spokesperson Themba Maseko had blurted out that the campaign was a form of incitement against his boss.
“Positioning themselves as an opposition party is not appropriate … Trying to incite people to behave in a certain way towards the head of state cannot be condoned,” he said.
Mbeki has a chance to put all this behind him in his State of the Nation address on Friday. After all, all we really need is the perception that the president cares.
| FULL SPEED AHEAD |
NOT SO FAST |
Manto Tshabalala-Msimang
For all her faults in battling the Aids pandemic, the minister this week did well in ordering an ethics probe into an HIV microbicide trial following concerns about the HIV status of the participants. In our search for an Aids cure, we cannot gamble with the lives of those who need it most. |
 Thabo Mbeki
The president misjudged the mood of the nation with his assertion that crime was not spinning out of control. While it is not entirely clear why First National Bank dropped its anti-crime campaign, it acted as a lightning rod of public opinion, and South Africans have heard about little else this week. Mbeki owes South Africans an apology. |
Most-read stories
February 1 to 7 2007
1. Thabo Mbeki’s new age of denial?
A week before President Thabo Mbeki’s State of the Nation address, his ‘age of hope”, trumpeted in last year’s speech, is at risk.
2. Iran allows rare peek at sensitive nuclear site
Nothing seems extraordinary on the quiet provincial road outside the ancient Iranian city of Isfahan. Then suddenly, nestling beneath the mountains, a tall chimney emerges flanked by an impressive complex of buildings.
3. Thanks, China, now go home
When the foundation stone was laid for the Mulungushi textile factory three decades ago, the project was hailed as another demonstration of communist China doing for Zambia what the capitalist West would not.
4. FNB to go ahead with anti-crime campaign
First National Bank (FNB) will go ahead with its anti-crime campaign but at a later date, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reported on Monday.
5. Pierre Steyn speaks out about the arms deal
Former secretary of defence Pierre Steyn has spoken out for the first time about the arms deal, revealing that he resigned in November 1998 over the decision to force through the purchase of British Aerospace (BAE) Hawk jet trainers at twice the cost of those of the Italian bidder favoured by the air force.
6. Doctor spots MP’s tumour on television
An accurate diagnosis normally requires the doctor examining the patient and maybe tissue samples. An Irish doctor, however, has done it while watching television by spotting that a government minister had a tumour in his cheek.
7. ‘Mugabe should step down now’
Zimbabwe’s main opposition party staged a protest on Thursday against President Robert Mugabe’s plan to extend his rule by two years to 2010, which critics say will worsen the country’s economic crisis.
8. Wal-Mart faces biggest sex-bias case in US history
The biggest sexual discrimination case in United States history advanced against Wal-Mart on Tuesday when a top court ruled that more than a million women could join a suit charging bias in pay and promotions.
9. Rattray funeral hears plea for end to crime
South Africa’s people are crying out to the nation’s leaders to do “whatever it takes” to put an end to crime, Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi said at the funeral of renowned historian David Rattray on Thursday.
10. ‘True heroine’ Ma Tambo dies
Adelaide Frances Tambo (77), widow of former African National Congress president Oliver Tambo, died on Wednesday night, the party confirmed. ANC spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama said Ma Tambo, as she was affectionately known, collapsed at her home in Johannesburg.