A LEGACY OF LIBERATION

Based on several face-to-face interviews, The Nation Southern Africa correspondent Gevisser offers a critical, fully fleshed look at former South African President Thabo Mbeki.

Mbeki grew up the son of teachers, shopkeepers and activists in Mbewuleni and was educated in England. His education in Sussex, and later at the Lenin Institute in Moscow, were sponsored by the African National Congress (ANC), under the aegis of elder Oliver Tambo. His father Govan’s political activism in the ANC had led to his arrest and imprisonment, along with Nelson Mandela, on Robben Island for more than 20 years. Mbeki and rival Chris Hani were the two youngest members of the ANC leadership working in exile at the headquarters in Lusaka, Zambia. Mbeki served as an envoy to other African countries, political secretary and propaganda chief, until the ANC leaders were allowed to return to South Africa in 1990. Mbeki’s urbane, “seductive” manner proved particularly effective in assuaging whites’ fears about black leadership and violence. Despite his ambivalence about sharing power, Mandela chose Mbeki as his deputy in 1994. Assuming the presidency in 1997, Mbeki ruled by a “workmanlike technocracy,” helping to solidify the black middle class and implement an empowering “African Renaissance.” Yet his woeful mismanagement of the AIDS crisis, advocacy of a disastrous arms deal, support for Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe and oppressive political control led to his fall from power in 2008. Gevisser skillfully examines Mbeki’s legacy within the context of a complicated, still uncertain South African history.

Densely packed research in a well-organized package.