Joel Netshitenzhe

Article: Zimbabwe - Complex problems require nuanced responses

20 February 2004

In his article on Zimbabwe, Mugabe plunders regardless, in The Star of 18 February, Barney Mthombothi repeats the principle that values we stand for at home "should be reflected in our foreign policy. After all, foreign policy is nothing but an extension of your domestic policy."

But what should the government do about Zimbabwe? Mthombothi's only proposal is: "[Mbeki] is not asked to send troops across the Limpopo. What people want is for him to express his and his country's displeasure at what is happening in Zimbabwe".

It is precisely this simplistic approach to a complex problem that sends Mthombothi on a journey of sheer vitriol and wilful distortion of facts.

For maximum effect, he borrows liberally from dinner-table talk in sections of our suburbs to weave a canvass of stone-hearted leaders in our country: President Thabo Mbeki is described as "Mugabe's nanny".

According to Mthombothi, having facilitated "Mbeki's entry into the G8's inner sanctums, [UK Prime Minister Blair] was hoping for a quid pro quo from Mbeki on Zimbabwe. Instead he had Mugabe let loose on him at the Earth Summit …". Further, "along with AIDS, [Zimbabwe] will unfortunately define the Mbeki presidency." And "…Nkosazana Zuma - like Manto Tshabalala-Msimang on AIDS - is merely doing as she is told, and in the process making an ass of herself."

It all does sound familiar, doesn't it, having just emerged from the sound and fury of Opposition responses to the President's State of the Nation Address? The question is: where do these assertions originate from and is there any truth in them!

Left unchallenged, urban legend can assume the status of conventional wisdom. Regurgitated ad nauseum, the hatred that spews from a small fraction of the country's elite can become the dominant intellectual view. Relied on as a substitute for analysis, shallowness can become the paragon of profundity.

This is more so where the nation is day-in and day-out fed only a staple of sensational sound-bites.

It would be to underestimate the intelligence of readers to make an effort at exposing the fairytale about the role and expectations of the UK Prime Minister with regard to NEPAD, the G8 and Zimbabwe. Let alone the suggestion that President Robert Mugabe's statement at the United Nation's World Summit was engineered from some other quarter, presumably our government.

The same applies to the strange proposition that we do not have a collective Cabinet decision-making process; that Ministers cannot think for themselves and whatever they say and do is merely at the bidding of the President. This is besides the distortion of pronouncements by the Ministers on AIDS and Zimbabwe.

One could also pose the question, in whose mind are the issues of AIDS and Zimbabwe to define the Mbeki presidency: does this conclusion derive from any objective research, by whom and where is this recorded?

But this is beside the point. At the core of Mthombothi's confusion is the simplistic premise, so often heard in recent months in global politics, that you are either with us or against us: so you are either with the Zimbabwean government or against it; you either condemn them publicly at every turn or you support them. This is the dumbing down to which the likes of Mthombothi have reduced discourse on this issue.

But governments can hardly be expected to conduct foreign policy as a ritual of letting off steam.

As we have often said, South Africa does recognise the depth of the problems afflicting Zimbabwe. These problems cannot be divorced from the country's colonial past, including land dispossession and a post-liberation reform process that sought to use as much state resources as quickly as possible to rid the country of that legacy. Attached to this is what we in South Africa call the danger of "social distance" that can develop between former liberation fighters in government and their mass constituency.

Once these problems accumulate, and are aggravated by Structural Adjustment Programmes imposed from the outside, the possibility of mass revolt and ensuing reliance on repression to deal with them can become a reality.

With this kind of mix, and with no decisive resolution in sight, the choice for any leadership is a simple one: scorched-earth confrontation or negotiations and accommodation in the interest of all the people. The latter is what South Africa seeks to achieve in interacting with the Zimbabwean leadership.

Government does get disappointed when things go wrong. We do get frustrated when at times there are signs of reluctance on either side to move quickly towards resolution. We do condemn laws that limit free political activity and narrow the space for freedom of expression; and publicly or privately, bilaterally or through SADC and other fora, our concerns on these and other issues have been raised.

But given all this, government still has to find answers on an ongoing basis to questions such as: How do we incentivise both sides to talk? How do we ensure that such persuasion makes the maximum impact? How do we avoid a situation in which our public stance achieves the opposite of our objectives, including popular mobilisation against South Africa as Big Brother trying to impose its will on others? How do we discourage the tendency towards total collapse and the emergence of a "failed state" of ethnic fiefdoms, attached to which would be complexities of a 19th century history which has close and emotional ethnic connections to South Africa?

It may be unfair to expect Barney Mthombothi to examine these strategic questions. But as government we have to continue trying, not as empty vessels, but driven by principle as well as practical considerations to achieve the best results.

The rest we can only leave to the Zimbabweans themselves. As Mthombothi himself says: "Their fate is in their own hands. Outsiders can only lend a hand."

Joel Netshitenzhe
CEO: Government Communications (GCIS) and Head: Policy Unit (PCAS) in The Presidency

Published in The Star

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