South Africa's Brave New World: The Beloved Country Since the End of ApartheidBy RW Johnson (Allen Lane, £25)
After Mandela: The Battle for the Soul of South AfricaBy Alec Russell (Hutchinson, £18.99)
From afar, South Africa is often viewed through a fog of pessimism. After the heroic transition from apartheid under Nelson Mandela many see the country as bedevilled by rampant corruption, unreliable water and power supplies, an Aids emergency and shockingly violent crime.
In 2008, moreover, political crisis added to this toxic cocktail. In September, President Thabo Mbeki was unceremoniously ejected from office, after his opponents, many from the hardline left secured control of the African National Congress (ANC). This April, their candidate, Jacob Zuma, a controversial polygamist who has faced corruption allegations for much of the past ten years, was swept to office in a landslide election victory.
For sceptics, South Africa seemed to be well on the road to repeating the disaster of neighbouring Zimbabwe. "This fast-approaching catastrophe is a source of shame and apprehension to millions of honest people…" wrote Peter Hitchens in one particularly shrill version of this narrative. And yet, to the confusion of the doomsayers, two months into Zuma's presidency South Africa is calm. The economy may be in recession, but it is not as deep as that of the US or Britain. Moderates have been given key jobs in Zuma's government. Many returning white emigrants, tempted back by bleaker outlooks abroad, are starting to compare South Africa to developing countries such as Brazil or India—places where cultural dynamism and economic opportunity outweigh worries about crime or unreliable services.
What is happening? Two books published recently in Britain help put things into perspective. RW Johnson, a veteran observer of the country's affairs and correspondent for the Sunday Times, is author of the longer and more comprehensive volume: South Africa's Brave New World. Alec Russell, my colleague at the Financial Times, has produced the more readable and accessible work: After Mandela.
Despite its relative difficulty, there is much to commend Johnson's book. It offers a meticulously researched survey of the last 15 years, covering the hopeful years of the Mandela presidency, the initial promise and controversial conclusion of the government of Mbeki, and the rise of Zuma. For Johnson, the villain of the piece is not Zuma but Mbeki. In exile during apartheid, Mbeki was the architect of the negotiations strategy that brought the ANC into democratic politics. And, after the elderly Mandela was elected in 1994, it was Mbeki who began to run things behind the scenes, securing his grip on the party apparatus and slipping into the presidency five years later.
On the surface, things were running smoothly. Mandela's cautious economic policies, adopted in order to stabilise the country and attract foreign investors, were continued and social reforms implemented. But Mbeki also combined his pragmatism with black nationalism and gave his backing to a particularly exclusive process of black empowerment, under which chunks of white controlled corporations were handed over to party loyalists, many of them the president's own allies.
Johnson describes how a "narrow elite of a few score ANC families" enriched themselves, concentrating wealth and power in a way that alienated many ANC supporters. Worse still, Mbeki refused to delegate, steadily concentrating power and quashing criticism. If that were not bad enough, an increasingly arrogant president then campaigned against the orthodox medical treatment of a disease that was already beginning to tear apart South Africa's social fabric: HIV-Aids. The resultant failure to provide anti-retroviral medicines effectively condemned thousands to death.
As criticism mounted, Zuma, then Mbeki's affable and accessible vice-president, became something of a point of contact for worried ANC leaders. Sensing the emergence of a rival, Mbeki moved to crush Zuma. A bit player in a questionable multi-billion dollar arms deal in the late 1990s, Zuma was charged with corruption, as Mbeki and his allies began to manipulate the judicial system for political ends.
Russell's book is a better guide, partly because it reflects the complexity both of the development process and the political transition from dictatorship to democracy. Russell gets his hands dirtier. While Johnson tends to pontificate from on high, Russell talks to people in black townships, Boer dorps (small towns), farms and company boardrooms.
Russell has also interviewed many of the protagonists, enjoying such close access to Mbeki in particular that he is able to convey a real sense of the former president's eccentricity. So Russell describes how, while attending Zuma's 65th birthday, he received an email from Mbeki drawing attention to inaccurate reporting of his government; an email that began with a bizarre mock news item: "Last night, while on routine patrol at about midnight, a unit of the police service found President Mbeki riding a goat on the grounds of the Union Buildings stark naked…." The email, Russell writes, "encapsulated the thoughtful, inquisitive man who had been groomed from his youth as a future leader and yet whose hypersensitivity was to destroy his reputation." It also highlights "the contrast with his ebullient, larger than life-successor," who—while Mbeki toils away—takes to the dance floor, clad in his black and gold Nehru suit.
Russell argues that one of the keys to understanding Zuma can be found in his background. Born to a poor family in rural KwaZulu-Natal, Zuma herded cattle as a child rather than attending school and only learned to read and write as an adult. He has spent all his adult life in the ANC, being imprisoned alongside Mandela for ten years on Robben Island before heading the intelligence operations of the ANC's armed wing. As Zuma said at the same birthday party, he has "lived a lot."
All this means that Zuma is a more natural, less intensely intellectual leader, than his predecessor. The risk is that he is ill-prepared to lead South Africa as it confronts the daunting challenges ahead. But there is hope. If South Africa is lucky, Zuma could turn out to be like Brazil's once feared but now lauded working class president, Lula. Or—as Russell puts it—Zuma could even become the country's Ronald Reagan: a man who "is in many ways ideally suited to reassure South Africa's disparate citizens in the way that Reagan's folksy charm heartened Middle America after the uncertainties of the Nixon and Carter years."
After Mandela: The Battle for the Soul of South AfricaBy Alec Russell (Hutchinson, £18.99)
From afar, South Africa is often viewed through a fog of pessimism. After the heroic transition from apartheid under Nelson Mandela many see the country as bedevilled by rampant corruption, unreliable water and power supplies, an Aids emergency and shockingly violent crime.
In 2008, moreover, political crisis added to this toxic cocktail. In September, President Thabo Mbeki was unceremoniously ejected from office, after his opponents, many from the hardline left secured control of the African National Congress (ANC). This April, their candidate, Jacob Zuma, a controversial polygamist who has faced corruption allegations for much of the past ten years, was swept to office in a landslide election victory.
For sceptics, South Africa seemed to be well on the road to repeating the disaster of neighbouring Zimbabwe. "This fast-approaching catastrophe is a source of shame and apprehension to millions of honest people…" wrote Peter Hitchens in one particularly shrill version of this narrative. And yet, to the confusion of the doomsayers, two months into Zuma's presidency South Africa is calm. The economy may be in recession, but it is not as deep as that of the US or Britain. Moderates have been given key jobs in Zuma's government. Many returning white emigrants, tempted back by bleaker outlooks abroad, are starting to compare South Africa to developing countries such as Brazil or India—places where cultural dynamism and economic opportunity outweigh worries about crime or unreliable services.
What is happening? Two books published recently in Britain help put things into perspective. RW Johnson, a veteran observer of the country's affairs and correspondent for the Sunday Times, is author of the longer and more comprehensive volume: South Africa's Brave New World. Alec Russell, my colleague at the Financial Times, has produced the more readable and accessible work: After Mandela.
Despite its relative difficulty, there is much to commend Johnson's book. It offers a meticulously researched survey of the last 15 years, covering the hopeful years of the Mandela presidency, the initial promise and controversial conclusion of the government of Mbeki, and the rise of Zuma. For Johnson, the villain of the piece is not Zuma but Mbeki. In exile during apartheid, Mbeki was the architect of the negotiations strategy that brought the ANC into democratic politics. And, after the elderly Mandela was elected in 1994, it was Mbeki who began to run things behind the scenes, securing his grip on the party apparatus and slipping into the presidency five years later.
On the surface, things were running smoothly. Mandela's cautious economic policies, adopted in order to stabilise the country and attract foreign investors, were continued and social reforms implemented. But Mbeki also combined his pragmatism with black nationalism and gave his backing to a particularly exclusive process of black empowerment, under which chunks of white controlled corporations were handed over to party loyalists, many of them the president's own allies.
Johnson describes how a "narrow elite of a few score ANC families" enriched themselves, concentrating wealth and power in a way that alienated many ANC supporters. Worse still, Mbeki refused to delegate, steadily concentrating power and quashing criticism. If that were not bad enough, an increasingly arrogant president then campaigned against the orthodox medical treatment of a disease that was already beginning to tear apart South Africa's social fabric: HIV-Aids. The resultant failure to provide anti-retroviral medicines effectively condemned thousands to death.
As criticism mounted, Zuma, then Mbeki's affable and accessible vice-president, became something of a point of contact for worried ANC leaders. Sensing the emergence of a rival, Mbeki moved to crush Zuma. A bit player in a questionable multi-billion dollar arms deal in the late 1990s, Zuma was charged with corruption, as Mbeki and his allies began to manipulate the judicial system for political ends.
Russell's book is a better guide, partly because it reflects the complexity both of the development process and the political transition from dictatorship to democracy. Russell gets his hands dirtier. While Johnson tends to pontificate from on high, Russell talks to people in black townships, Boer dorps (small towns), farms and company boardrooms.
Russell has also interviewed many of the protagonists, enjoying such close access to Mbeki in particular that he is able to convey a real sense of the former president's eccentricity. So Russell describes how, while attending Zuma's 65th birthday, he received an email from Mbeki drawing attention to inaccurate reporting of his government; an email that began with a bizarre mock news item: "Last night, while on routine patrol at about midnight, a unit of the police service found President Mbeki riding a goat on the grounds of the Union Buildings stark naked…." The email, Russell writes, "encapsulated the thoughtful, inquisitive man who had been groomed from his youth as a future leader and yet whose hypersensitivity was to destroy his reputation." It also highlights "the contrast with his ebullient, larger than life-successor," who—while Mbeki toils away—takes to the dance floor, clad in his black and gold Nehru suit.
Russell argues that one of the keys to understanding Zuma can be found in his background. Born to a poor family in rural KwaZulu-Natal, Zuma herded cattle as a child rather than attending school and only learned to read and write as an adult. He has spent all his adult life in the ANC, being imprisoned alongside Mandela for ten years on Robben Island before heading the intelligence operations of the ANC's armed wing. As Zuma said at the same birthday party, he has "lived a lot."
All this means that Zuma is a more natural, less intensely intellectual leader, than his predecessor. The risk is that he is ill-prepared to lead South Africa as it confronts the daunting challenges ahead. But there is hope. If South Africa is lucky, Zuma could turn out to be like Brazil's once feared but now lauded working class president, Lula. Or—as Russell puts it—Zuma could even become the country's Ronald Reagan: a man who "is in many ways ideally suited to reassure South Africa's disparate citizens in the way that Reagan's folksy charm heartened Middle America after the uncertainties of the Nixon and Carter years."
