Interview with Moeletsi Mbeki

July 6th, 2009 by Rene

Journalist Percy Zvomuya speaks to the author of Architects of Poverty:

Businessman and political commentator Moeletsi Mbeki launched Architects of Poverty (Picador) at the Cape Town Book Fair. It is a stinging critique of African capitalism, describing how the powerful elite on the continent “sell off its assets to enrich the rest of the world”. This phenomenon, first witnessed during the slave trade, has not stopped with the advent of independence.
Mbeki argues that the “slave trade or oil trade is known as mercantile capitalism” — an earlier form of capitalism in which one “buys cheap and sells dear”. He says Africa is “still locked in the mercantile stage of capitalism”. The Mail & Guardian caught up with Mbeki for an interview.
You seem to be disillusioned with African nationalism.
The book is a critique of nationalism. There’s a contradiction at the centre of nationalism. Nationalism sets out to defeat its perceived enemy. But it sees the enemy’s way of life as its model. This is the contradiction of nationalism. Afrikaner nationalism hated British imperialism. What did it do? It went on to emulate British imperialism. [Likewise] the ANC saw Afrikaner nationalism as its enemy. But what has the ANC done? It set out to emulate, through black economic empowerment, white capital.
Look at the massive salary differences between the ANC officials in government and the masses. In South Africa we now have deep inequality among Africans. This is because of the attempt by black nationalists to live like the enemy. By emulating their enemy, they inherit the contradictions of the social system they take over.