Voila! They made inroads in technology, and that became the very foundation of their emergence. Whereas Africans were consolidating their knowledge on communities and positive living (a point I repeatedly emphasize in my annual lecture at the University of Pretoria as part of the well-articulated lectures organized by the super talented Professor Chris Isike), Europeans were developing ideologies and technology of conquest and control. This technology specifically brought them superior power as they invented guns that would be valuable in silencing dissents and objects such as trains, ships, and vehicles that would convey them to a very distant geography in which they spread their influence and expansionist gospel. Millions of people died, civilizations crumbled, and generational accomplishments were shattered at the sight of the ambitious Europeans. In Africa, that colonial dream manifested in the whites settling in some areas of the continent, two examples of which are South Africa and Zimbabwe. Institutionally, they imposed themselves and made frantic efforts to dispossess people of their ancestral heritage: land, homes, culture, and values.

With independence, however, which came very late in the two countries cited above, the black population was gradually getting its feet back, but they both have different ways of handling their historical experience in the current time. Mention should be made of how the white minority had appropriated to themselves the larger portion of land in a proportion that cannot but rupture peaceful minds. A population that was lacking in numerical strength has allocated to itself so much that the population is the larger and natural occupant of the geography. If it was inevitable that the condition of colonialism and apartheid necessitated that Zimbabweans and South Africans would have to live in peace with their white oppressors, it was, however, avoidable to do that in terms of the now-supplanted minority. That perhaps was what motivated the erstwhile Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe, who radically pursued the ambition to have their land retrieved and redistributed back to the rightful owners. Of course, he did not impose a policy to evacuate the white minority. Still, he could not stand the prospect of seeing them having access to larger assets after years of oppression, their blatant epistemicide, and the detention of freedom fighters, among others. Still, Mugabe was indeed not going to allow the West to dictate the tenor of his government, especially how it concerned sharing their ancestral legacy because not only is that act inherently brutal, but they also have now seen the light of freedom after centuries-long maltreatment from the white minority. No wonder Zimbabwe under Mugabe experienced sanctions upon sanctions by the West, who felt he had become uncontrollable and dangerous to the colonial project of the European expansionists.

Meanwhile, the same Yorùbá people have etched another important lesson in their saying that “iku to npa jugba eni, owe loan pa fun ni” (“the death that takes the life of one’s kindred is sending a signal to one”). The white minority in South Africa is perpetually fearful and apprehensive about the development in Zimbabwe, and to alleviate their fears, they have often made alarming propositions that the government of South Africa under Thabo Mbeki should denounce Zimbabwe. They calculated very well that unless such effort was made at the political level, they could not be certain of what was to come to them, especially if South Africa produced a leader such as Robert Mugabe. In denouncing Zimbabwe, they are not particularly interested in the repudiation of the country per se; they are only concerned about the optics it would bring to the political atmosphere, which, at the zenith, would indicate that the black leadership in the country would nurse no interest of dispossessing them of their land and their “hard-fought”economic resources and that they would remain secure in any case of emergency. Of course, the paradox of that cannot elude anyone familiar with the history of apartheid in South Africa, but more than that, it would be a seismic irony that the population of a people who threw morals and empathy through the window when forcefully dispossessing Africans of their ancestral legacy, is now projecting the need for tolerance, integration, and inclusiveness. What a time to be alive!

Athol Fugard will be marveled that the same South Africa where blacks were generally disempowered from having access to decent job opportunities, a fate imposed by the white minority during the apartheid regime, is the place where black African leaders are now gaslit to embrace liberal values in order to accommodate disparate voices and give room for multicultural identity so that the majority would not threaten the interest of the minority. Meanwhile, Thabo Mbeki is direct when he argues that the foundation of tolerance and inclusiveness, which is observable in the South African politics of today, is a brainchild of the efforts made by seasoned black South Africans who gave up their freedom for the emancipation of all. These individuals were subjected to inhuman torture, contempt, and cringing racial discrimination that took away their integrity, but they gave all in the expectation that such sacrifices were necessary if they would see to the rise of their generations to come where decisions are made. Terrible as it appears, the conduct of Robert Mugabe and his very controversial stance towards the white minority reminds everyone of the outrageous processes of dispossession that Africans were forced to go through in their recent history. The proverbial hangman of the white minority abhors people swinging swords over their heads, after all. To unpack my statements, you must read Ndlovu’s book and the Mbeki letters and writings curated in the museum created in his honor.

This is a 12-part series based on the collections edited by Sifiso Mxolisi Ndlovu, titled ANC Today Letters: The Ideas and Thoughts of President Thabo Mbeki, Volume 1, 2001-2004, supplemented by materials in the Thabo Mbeki Museum, UNISA, Pretoria. The series is composed over five weeks in three different countries. The museum’s resources, digitized under 27 categories, can generate over 200 books.

For the original article, visit: The Thabo Mbeki Letters, Part 2: Mbeki, South Africa, and the Zimbabwean Syndrome