Moeletsi Mbeki has made it his business to know what’s going on in Africa and to study the reasons behind the continent’s struggles. His extremely popular and widely recognized work on the subject, Acrhitects of Poverty: Why African Capitalism Needs Changing, provides the backdrop to a recent speech he gave to AFRICOM (U.S. Africa Command) members in Stuttgart, Germany, as part of the AFRICOM Speaker’s Series:
“Security and Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: Looking to the Future”
Africa’s colonial legacy
The challenge facing Sub-Saharan Africa is not State building as many analysts believe. The immediate challenge most of Africa faces is society building.
Building a viable, sustainable and stable society requires the establishment and development of legitimate, socially hegemonic group or groups that can then build a viable state. This was what European colonial powers failed to do in Sub-Saharan Africa before they departed in the mid- 1950s to early 1960s. Instead they left behind a semblance of a state which had no social anchors. This was what led to Africa’s instability during the last half a century. This instability continues to this day in many countries despite a few signs of hope, in a handful of countries.
The most important factor in the creation of a stable capitalist society is the rise of a property owning class that controls extensive assets. On its own, this class of property owners is not sufficient to create a stable society because in order to develop the assets of these property owners and make them profitable, the owners require the technical and managerial skills of professional and artisan classes, generally referred to as the middle class. The bargaining power of this middle class also acts as a restraining influence on the political power of the large property owners.
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Following the African Cup of Nations tragedy in Angola’s Cabinda province, which saw the Togo football team come under attack – three men in the convoy were killed – longtime Africa correspondent Alex Perry calls for the world media to show restraint when tying the development to the FIFA 2010 World Cup. “The distance between Paris and Kosovo is around half that between Cape Town and Cabinda,” he writes:
South Africa’s success or failure shouldn’t be written off five months before the first ball is kicked. But that’s exactly what has happened following a Jan. 8 attack on a bus carrying the Togolese national team in the northern Angolan province of Cabinda, where an Angolan rebel group killed three people — the bus driver, a coach and the team’s press officer —, and injured at least two players on their way to an Africa Cup of Nations match. Even though the attack took place in a country other than South Africa, Britain’s Daily Mirror declared the incident “a disaster for the forthcoming first-ever World Cup in Africa. The machine-gun attack on the Togo players may have taken place in northern Angola last night but the shots would have been heard around the world.” Fox NewsCHK said “the fatal attack on the Togo national team in Angola has increased concerns the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa will be targeted by terrorists as violence continues to rage on the troubled continent.” The London Daily Telegraph told its readers that “Africa’s dream is in tatters.” “It is hard to measure the damage that has been done,” it intoned.
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Moeletsi Mbeki toured to East London last week to participate in the Daily Dispatch’s popular “Dispatch Dialogues” series. His new book, Architects of Poverty, has been making waves and topping the bestseller lists, and was placed under scrutiny as he spoke to Dialogue guest speaker Peter Vale, the chair of politics at Rhodes University.
Here’s a wrap of a fruitful week in the Eastern Cape for Mbeki and his book, starting with a video conversation with the Dispatch’s Msimelelo Njwabane:
Video: Moeletsi Mbeki on his Merc, Thabo and what’s wrong with the ANC
One of the themes of Mbeki’s talk at the Dialogues was how the ANC’s “big spenders” were pitting themselves against their own electorate. Njwabane was there to write it up:
Political analyst Moeletsi Mbeki yesterday took the ANC to task over some of its policies – and the extravagant lifestyle of some of its leaders.
Mbeki, brother of former President Thabo Mbeki, said the ANC had failed to address service delivery during the past 15 years.
He was speaking in an exclusive interview with the Daily Dispatch while in East London to launch his new book, Architects of Poverty – Why African Capitalism Needs Changing.
“These service delivery protests by black masses are a result of them growing impatient because they still live in the black ghettos that were created by the National Party regime,” said Mbeki.
“The black elite is perpetuating the same ghettos that were built during apartheid. The RDP houses are nothing more than the matchboxes that were built during apartheid,” he added.
This Dispatch’s Msindisi Fengu, meanwhile, covered the same talk from a slightly different angle, and captured one of Mbeki’s most contentious opinions – that SA is headed the way of Zimbabwe:
He said during his presentation to the audience that there had been an emergence of “highly pampered elites”, after the democratisation of the country, and that State-owned enterprises lacked competent management.
“Only 20 percent of (monetary) spending goes to investment in South Africa, while other countries like China and India have their highest (percentage of) Gross Domestic Product going to investment.
“Because we are not investing, the country is de-industrialising, and (as a result) we are losing job opportunities.”
He said there were inequalities between the elite and ordinary citizens.
“A lot of people think we are not going the way of Zimbabwe, but we are going that way.”
Finally, the event was prefaced by a “thesis statement” from Mbeki that maps the sources of some of South Africa’s current ills, which are to be found at the confluence of nationalism and industrialisation, he says. You can read his complete opening gambit:
An important question about South Africa that is rarely discussed, is when did South Africa become independent. This question is often dismissed as too pedantic for words and only worthy of primary school history textbook writers. The reality is that it is an emotive issue linked to the complex race issues that define South Africa. And without deciding when South Africa regained its ability to decide its own affairs, it is not possible to understand the political, economic and social processes happening in South Africa today.
To me South Africa became independent 100 years ago this month. This was in September 1909 when the British king signed the South Africa Act into law thus passing political authority over South Africa from the British Parliament to the Parliament of the Union of South Africa.
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One is tempted to ask what former president Thabo Mbeki thinks about his younger brother, Moeletsi Mbeki, and his new, scathingly critical work of Africa’s ruling elite, Architects of Poverty: Why Africa’s Capitalism Needs Changing. Moeletsi takes umbrage at Africa’s leaders and their extravagant indulgences and explores many of the continent’s other undemocratic ills in the work.
In an intriguing response to the book, author Bryan Rostron speculates on the genesis of Architects of Poverty in the context of Mbeki sibling rivalry:
Younger brothers play a large role in the demonology of a friend who has investigated some of the world’s biggest frauds. When a possible suspect emerges, he says, his first question is always: is this person the youngest in their family? His theory would never stand up in court . But my friend reels off examples of huge bank stings and insurances swindles where his rule applies. In fact, in one case, the wife of a suspect convinced her husband to confess, saying, “You’re dealing with the modern Hercule Poirot.”
As an only child, I’m not endorsing this junior sibling hypothesis. But I wonder if SA’s former president Thabo Mbeki feels this way about his younger brother, Moeletsi. Even while Mbeki Snr was state president, Moeletsi was one of his sharpest critics. Yet there’s nothing dodgy about the younger Mbeki. His critique has been consistent, factually rigorous and is now collected in a book, Architects of Poverty: Why African Capitalism Needs Changing. In fact, his criticism is almost a mirror image of my friend’s “younger brother” idea.
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In his new book, Architects of Poverty: Why Africa’s Capitalism Needs Changing, Moeletsi Mbeki discusses the acute challenges Africa faces, with particular reference to self-interested political elites, and poses some suggestions about what needs to be done to overcome them, including the gradual movement from aid toward trade and industrialization.
Join the author in the UK for his London book launch on 9 September:
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Last week, Radio 702’s Redi Direko conducted a scintillating interview with author Moeletsi Mbeki about his new book Architects of Poverty: Why Africa’s Capitalism Needs Changing.
For those of you who missed the show, we’ve tracked it down as a podcast:
Podcast: Redi Direko interviews Moeletsi Mbeki
Redi Direko Interviews Moeletsi Mbeki on Radio 702 [46:05m]:
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Cabinet ministers and their luxury cars have been much in the news of late, for all the wrong reasons. Although the purchase of multi-million rand vehicles is allowed by the ministerial handbook, the question of whether it’s either fiscally or politically responsible to buy and drive them during hard times remains open to debate.
Veteran journalist and commentator Allister Sparks is clear on the issue: politicians’ luxury cars, he writes, amount to the kind of “obscene symbolism” that Africa knows all too well. Quoting Moeletsi Mbeki’s Architects of Poverty: Why African Capitalism Needs Changing, Sparks accuses SA’s new rulers of simply stepping into the shoes of the old:
The addiction of some of our rulers to extravagant luxury, especially in their choice of official cars, is more than just scandalous. It is an obscenity.
Ours is a Third World country with millions of desperately poor people, many living below the breadline. The African National Congress purports to be the champion of those poor people. Why then do so many of our Cabinet Ministers, and even some provincial legislators and mayors, feel a need to flash their status so publicly and ostentatiously? It is grotesquely inappropriate.
Symbolism is an important aspect of politics. Nelson Mandela knew that and used it to great effect with his many shrewdly chosen gestures, such as having tea with Betsie Verwoerd and putting on Francois Pienaar's No 6 jersey to congratulate the Springboks on becoming World champions and thereby cementing a spirit of unity and national celebration that is still seen as a talismanic event in the building of our new democracy.
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You are invited to a key discussion of Moeletsi Mbeki’s Architects of Poverty: Why Africa’s Capitalism needs Changing at the Durban ICC on Thursday, 30 July 2009.
Mbeki will be joined by notables Nobuhle Mthethwa, Patrick Bond and Sipho Shabalala.
Watch a recent video of Mbeki speaking about his book:
Seating is limited, so please call ahead if you plan to book at the door.
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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.
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Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) has not proved to be the fatal blow to South Africa’s oligarchs that Nelson Mandela and black nationalists of his era once envisioned. In fact, it strikes a fatal blow against the emergence of black entrepreneurship by creating a small class of unproductive but wealthy black crony capitalists made up of ANC politicians, some retired and others not, who have become strong allies of the economic oligarchy that is, ironically, the caretaker of South Africa’s de-industrialisation. BEE in South Africa is, in reality, another attempt to siphon savings from private-sector operators in an environment where there are no peasants and where most of the private sector is locally owned.The fact that BEE is an uphill battle for South Africa’s political elite is the result of the ability of the private sector to resist dispossession. But these are early days. Time will tell who will emerge best from what could be a titanic struggle by the political elite – recently joined by organised labour – to confiscate the wealth of South Africa’s current private-sector owners. An even bigger question, however, is what impact these struggles will have on the growth potential of the South African economy.
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