Don’t think ‘philosopher king’ Mbeki was a saint

Nostalgia is not what it used to be. But that hasn’t stopped South Africans from wandering down memory lane during the past week: first with Thabo Mbeki, then with Nelson Mandela.

Conventional wisdom warns against comparisons. Indeed, comparisons can be odious.

However, when the TV interview with “philosopher king” Mbeki was broadcast, there was a collective social media sigh about how much we miss his intellectual, thoughtful approach. I don’t buy that.

Mbeki is no towering intellect. Historian and Oxford don Bill Johnson dismisses the economics degree Mbeki earned at Sussex as “ordinary”.

Yet, back home in the party, Mbeki was often “streets ahead of most others in the ANC”.

In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. This went to Mbeki’s head.

By the time he was president, “Mbeki claimed to write and speak with authority on any subject he chose: the ‘science of Aids’, the biochemical effects of specialised medicines, the economy, international affairs … the arcane calculation of deep level mining costs”, and so on.

Mbeki knew everything, or so Mbeki thought. What a pretentious lot of hogwash we endured.

Perhaps worst of all was the obsequiousness of too many ANC sheeple, meekly accepting his views. So last week it was appalling to watch as the TV audience and Twitterati swooned at his every word.

They even lapped up his morally reprehensible explanations on Aids and Zimbabwe. Have you forgotten?

Harvard researchers reckon 330 000 died from HIV/Aids because of the Mbeki madness. The Zuptas didn’t invent corruption, they merely perfected it. Remember when the arms deal was South Africa’s biggest scandal?

Mbeki was in charge of ensuring that a multi-pronged investigation into the arms deal was scuppered. It was Mbeki who suborned parliament, stripping MPs of their oversight role, coercing them to water down the arms deal findings.

It was under Mbeki that corrupt MPs abused taxpayers’ money in what became known as Travelgate. On our journey down memory lane, let us not forget Oilgate.

R11 million of our tax money was siphoned, via an irregular payment from PetroSA, into ANC coffers ahead of the 2004 elections. On Mbeki’s watch.

Mbeki suspended prosecutions boss Vusi Pikoli in order to protect crooked police chief Jackie Selebi. It’s on record.

Google Pikoli’s predecessor Bulelani Ngcuka, and you may find there’s a prima facie case that Mbeki set in motion the political abuse of state resources that has spun out of control under Jacob Zuma.

Mbeki was no saint. We are well rid of him. Those who airbrush his record cannot fool all of us. Madiba, too, was flawed, but aren’t we all? But Mandela’s legacy dwarfs his successors in ways that leave us yearning for a rewind.

Get over it. Those days are gone. The lesson from all this is that we must be more careful and less trusting when choosing leaders.

Just because a person is in charge, it doesn’t mean you have to agree with everything they say and do. If the emperor has no clothes, say so. Think for yourself.

Or be led astray, again.

DA city councillor for Joburg Martin Williams