South Africa

The Foreign Policy Association’s own Robert Nolan has been reporting on the African Union Summit in Accra. His recent FPA piece on early steps to establish a United States of Africa can also be found at allAfrica.

The African Union’s (AU)  predecessor, the Organization of African Unity (OAU), established a process called the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) as part of the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD). The AU has moved forward with APRM, which, whatever its shortcomings, holds great promise to help African nations spur one another toward good governance, best practices, and accountability. So far 26 African countries have signed on to the process, with others soon to follow. In keeping with the spirit of the African Renaissance that Thabo Mbeki has long championed, the APRM theoretically will enable Africans to develop African solutions for African problems, further moving the continent away from both the burdens of the colonial past and the dependence of the neocolonial present.

South Africa is now in the final stages of dealing with its review, which consisted of a combination of criticism, suggestions, concerns, and praise. The South African response has run the gamut from incensed to dilatory to resigned to determined. Initially, the word was that the South Africans were outraged and that Pretoria was set to reject the entire report summarily. But now that South Africa is participating in the African Union summit in Accra, Mbeki’s administration seems more acquiescent and even accepting of the APRM. Mbeki savvily sidestepped most of the most ardent (some Africans might say “strident”) criticisms of what he called  ”a positive report that acknowledges the huge strides made by South Africa in transforming the country into a vibrant democracy with one of the most progressive constitutions in the world”.

I think I understand both the harsh initial response and the more conciliatory recent indications from Mbeki’s government. In the first place it must have been difficult for South Africa to swallow criticisms — some rather harsh — from a body that consists of many nations that have not achieved South Africa’s successes, from countries that, right or wrong, South Africa sees as being its lessers. South Africa sees itself as a continental leader and regional power. Hearing criticisms from countries that enjoy the fruits of operating from within South Africa’s penumbra surely must have galled Pretoria, which likely expected a rubber stamp and pats on the back from the continent’s leaders. It is perhaps reassuring that such obeisance did not emerge from the APRM.

But South Africa’s change of tone also stands to reason. After all, South Africa fancies itself as the driving force behind the continent’s hoped-for future direction. Any African Renaissance that occurs will have South Africa’s imprimatur and South Africa’s fingerprints all over it. For South Africa to scuttle one of the chief mechanisms by which the continent can achieve its goals would be churlish, impetuous, and self destructive.

But there is another possible explanation for South Africa’s newfound change of heart: Initially the government was stung, in a sense, by the criticisms, which surely seemed harsh and highly critical. But the passage of time has allowed South Africa to take a step back, to find the positive in the report, to look at the negatives as constructive criticism, and as importantly, to look at that criticism as being largely accurate. The truth sometimes hurts, it is said. But that pain makes it no less true.      

The ANC Policy Conference in Midrand wraps up today after three days of political dialogue that the Mail & Guardian has described as “robust.” Despite Thabo Mbeki’s protests that things have not been too robust, certain issues that we have discussed here before — succession, the linkage between the party leadership and the national presidency — demand serious, and thus sometimes intense discussion. Mbeki’s desire to downplay internal division makes sense from the vantage point of the party. That same division, however, is healthy for the country. When that debate falls silence is truly when the time to worry will have arrived. Viva contentiousness.

Incidentally, Mbeki has been busy these days. In addition to dealing with feisty ANC politicians he also is the head of the South African delegation to the African Union summit in Accra that, as I reported yesterday, might be pushing toward the establishment of a United States of Africa.

 Meanwhile officials have announced that the main South Africa-Mozambique border crossing at Ressano Garcia is extending its hours from 10 pm until midnight. Anyone who has crossed that border knows that anything that might alleviate congestion represents a welcome change.

Your faithful scribe is almost but not quite back home and thus to something resembling normalcy. Full-scale blogging should resume next week. In the meantime, here are some Africa-related links:

In Zimbabwe the Interception of Communications Bill only awaits Robert Mugabe’s signature. My guess is he’s thrilled to do so, helping seal Zimbabwe’s totalitarian status. Meanwhile MacDonald Dzirutwe avers in the Mail & Guardian that Mugabe’s newest get-tough economic policies are likely to represent only a short-term palliative with deleterious long-range effects.

It is now Congo-Brazzaville’s opportunity to hold elections that raise all sorts of questions about probity, organizational skills, effectiveness, and the like.

In the category of “this comes as news to whom, exactly?” we must place a refugees International report that asserts that Sudan’s rape laws are making the human rights catastrophe in Darfur worse. I do not aim my sarcasm at Refugees International, but rather at a crisis that is so far gone that such obvious accounts still qualify as being significantly newsworthy.

In Accra we might soon find out if we are closer to seeing the emergence of a United States of Africa. Just five years after its inception as a new and better organization of African states, the African Union (AU) debates tightening their confederation even more.  

 In South Africa:

Petrol prices continue to pose problems, with recent price drops in some areas accompanied by price hikes in others. 

As the ANC meets to debate future directions, the party’s succession battle accelerates, with a question that has been a subtext for some time now rising to the fore – does the party leader of necessity have to be the political standard bearer? Meanwhile, Thabo Mbeki has not so subtly hinted to the South African Communist Party (SACP) that it might be time for the comrades to steer their own separate course. I have argued for years that the only serious challenge to the ANC will come from the left, not the right, from black politicians, not disenchanted whites. Apparently Mbeki is willing to accelerate the process.

The mass action strikes are finally over. A South African cabinet minister and a prominent labour leader weigh in on their meaning.

Finally, the Springboks have had their luggage pilfered.  Is this another angle for the South African crime epidemic? Not exactly. The thefts appear to have occurred in Australia, where the South African ruggers are preparing for the next part of their Tri-Nations away leg.