Ofeibea Quist-Arcton
6 February 2004
(Page 2 of 3)
I was a journalist in Zimbabwe for nearly ten years. As a South African, I had to spend week after week in the library at the University of Zimbabwe to understand the society of Zimbabwe, to understand the relationship, for example, between the Ndebele and the Shona and to understand what the Ndebele - who were South Africans - did in the 19th century when they got to Zimbabwe.
So you have those dynamics, which our government in South Africa, frankly, has no idea about. They don't know who (Zimbabwe's main opposition MDC leader) Morgan Tsvangirai is. They don't know who (Zimbabwe justice minister) Patrick Chinamasa is. They don't know who Welshman Ncube (opposition MDC secretary general) is. But they think they know.
So, in a way, with Zimbabwe we have a bit of something similar to the posture we had with Mobutu. Somehow we think we know, when we really don't.
That's pretty serious isn't it? How can that be rectified, because Zimbabwe is right across the border and whatever happens there inevitably has an impact here in South Africa.
There is one thing that our African governments never seem to understand - and that includes the South African government. The role of research in policy is extremely important. It is not enough to have an ideology that makes you feel good or that is seen to be the right ideology. That doesn't solve the problems. You have to have real knowledge of the situation.
We don't know enough about Zanu-PF as a government in South Africa. But we are not prepared to invest the money in the research to get to understand Zanu-PF and understand what the land issues, for example, in Zimbabwe are.
Our government makes all sorts of pronouncements about land issues in Zimbabwe, which they know nothing about. But they make pronouncements. Just to give you an example, the South African government thinks that the British never honoured the Lancaster House agreement, which was entered into between the Zimbabwe liberation movements and the British. The reality is actually the other way round. It's the Zimbabwe government that didn't honour its agreements with the British over the Lancaster House agreement.
But we're not prepared to do the research to get to the truth.
Why?
I have no idea.
Don't you have the ear of the president? Isn't that something you're talking to him about - as someone who knows Zimbabwe so well?
Look, I write about it all the time. It's in the newspapers, I'm talking to you and it's all over the place. But, you know - what can I say? As I'm saying, our government keeps repeating that it was the British who reneged on the Lancaster House agreement, whereas it was the Zimbabwe government that reneged on the agreement. Now, if they want to believe what they want to believe then there's nothing you can do about that.
But the consequence of that is, when you act on the basis of information that's incorrect, you end up with the disasters that we are faced with in Zimbabwe.
What should be the way forward? What should South Africa be doing and saying about Zimbabwe - not for the benefit of the western world and the rest of the world, but for what could happen here in South Africa?
Look, Zimbabwe is our neighbour. So it's in our interests for Zimbabwe to be a stable society and to be a prosperous society because, right now according to estimates, we have anything up to three million illegal immigrants living in South Africa. So that is not in our interests. Our interest is to have stable democracy in Zimbabwe.
Zanu-PF has no interest in a democracy in Zimbabwe, because they fear they will lose power. Now the question is what should we do as neighbours who are suffering the consequences. To try to keep Mugabe in power merely makes the situation worse and drives Zimbabwe towards a civil war. It isn't a solution.
What should the South African government do? It must look at all the scenarios and not base its thinking on wishful thinking, but on the real practicalities, the reality of the situation in Zimbabwe.
Do you think that will be done? Do you think the South African government is looking that way? I ask because, of course, this is an election year in South Africa, ten years after liberation, and there are lots of other things on people's mind.
Right now the ANC is such a dominant party that being an election year really doesn't make much of a difference in the life of the ANC. So the question of our policy towards Zimbabwe, or our engagement with Zimbabwe, I don't think it's impacted upon by the fact that we have an election this year.
The reality is that Zimbabwe is drifting towards a civil war. Are we going to sit and do nothing? And when the civil war does eventually break out, what are we going to do? Are we also going to be sitting on our hands saying you guys should talk to each other and so on and so forth? So there are very many complex issues about Zimbabwe and South Africa's own position.
In sum, is the government winning, succeeding or failing?
The government is, in my view, if you look at the politics of South Africa, it is definitely succeeding, in the sense that we now have an entrenched democracy. The government makes a lot of compromises with opposition parties. It accommodates the Inkatha Freedom Party. It accommodates the New National Party. The Pan Africanist Congress has been offered cabinet seats. It accommodates, for instance, the smaller parties. Our deputy minister of education comes from a tiny party called the Azanian People's Organsation (Azapo).
In that respect it has succeeded, because the key problem for Africa, not just South Africa, is social instability, is political instability. Once you remove the social and the political instability, the African people can look after themselves. They don't need some handouts from somebody above, whether it's government or foreign aid. The problem we have in Africa is social and political instability, which then makes it impossible for the people to produce, to develop themselves and to plough their fields and so on. So, that is the problem.
In South Africa, our government has succeeded in taking that issue out of our politics, out of our society and out of our social life. So, in that respect, the government has succeeded.
On the economic management, well it's hit and miss. Our government - but again the private sector is a more important player in South Africa than the government.
And where has President Mbeki failed? His critics point to HIV/Aids and Zimbabwe.
Yes, I think on those two issues, the government… You see, again, our leadership - especially those of us who were in exile in the rest of Africa - our notion of being the ruler, consciously or unconsciously, was looking at the likes of Kaunda, Nyerere and the Nkrumahs and so on.
In South Africa, actually, the HIV/Aids issue, the private medical schemes in South Africa - and the private sector - are the people who are managing the antiretroviral regime in this country in the here and now. What the government is being asked to do is for the people who are not employed, to look after the people who are not employed. And the government has been floundering at that level. But it's not the whole country that gets affected. It's those people who are unemployed or whose employers and so on cannot help them with antiretrovirals who are affected.
But that's the poor, that's the masses.
Yes, that's the poor and that's the mass, yes.
You've spoken about the predominance of the ANC in South Africa and that whether or not it's an election year is virtually neither here nor there. But there are of course two provinces in which the ANC does not have an absolute majority. Do you think the governing party will succeed in capturing these two key provinces?
It's very difficult to tell. In terms of KwaZulu Natal, the electorate is more or less split 50-50 between the ANC and the Inkatha Freedom party. Really it's a few votes and it depends on the turnout, I suppose, as to who gets the most of the electorate.
In terms of the Western Cape, the ANC has about a third of the electorate in the Western Cape. Now that we have a partnership with the New National Party, which also has its own following, that might tip the scales.
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