Let's Have Common Citizenship in Africa - Thabo Mbeki
President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa will, this evening at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja, receive the Daily Trust African of the Year Award 2012 for his work last year in bringing peace to Sudan and South Sudan. In this recent interview in South Africa with Professor Tandeka Nkiwane, Member, African of the Year Advisory Committee, he comments on his panels work, the challenges it faced, unfinished matters in Sudan as well as South Sudan, issues facing heterogeneous African states, and how his ANC background prepared him for a lot of the work he is doing today on the continent. Excerpts:
First of all Mr President on behalf of the advisory board of the Daily Trust African of the Year Award, I would like to congratulate you on being our 2012 award recipient. First of all for the purpose of an audience primarily external to South Africa, we will perhaps begin by telling the audience a little about yourself, perhaps something we won't find in Wikipedia.
You know many of us here grew up during the period of the struggle against Apartheid. So, I think that to understand people like myself, I think you have got to put us in that context, because the system of Apartheid was so pervasive, affecting all elements of life. It really was inevitable that we should grow, really into the struggle, and therefore that's what happened. I think what formed us is that involvement to end the system of Apartheid, which fortunately succeeded, and then, of course, came the task after that, which was what to do with this freedom. In other words, the task of reconstructing South Africa, as a non-racial democracy. So that's what I would say about myself, and that, really largely defines what people of my generation would be. We were born into an engaging struggle against Apartheid, and afterwards to help to rebuild South Africa.
Your leadership of the ANC, and your leadership of South Africa, to what extent did this background influence your work in terms of mediating in Sudan?
I would imagine, not directly. At a certain point the regime understood that it could not defeat the ANC. It could not defeat the liberation movement, and that the Apartheid system itself was in deep crises, and therefore agreed with what ANC had been saying for many years, that it was possible to find a peaceful, negotiated resolution of the conflict. So, in the end the regime agreed with this, because it could see that it was being defeated in a sense, and therefore that meant we then had to engage in quite a long process of negotiation with people who were by definition, our enemies. But in order to make peace, to save lives, to create this possibility, for South Africa to transform itself into a non -racial democracy, it became necessary to engage in those negotiations.I suppose that that experience would have helped with regard to the work we were to later help to facilitate, that is, the resolution of various conflicts on the continent, including the conflict in Sudan. I imagine that that experience would have helped somewhat. But of course, you are dealing with different sets of circumstances, in terms even of the negotiations. Here in South Africa, we were negotiating among ourselves, but with regard to the rest of the world, and these other engagements on the continent, we were facilitating negotiations,not only between us and other people, but among the belligerent forces in each of these countries in which we had engaged.
First of all Mr President on behalf of the advisory board of the Daily Trust African of the Year Award, I would like to congratulate you on being our 2012 award recipient. First of all for the purpose of an audience primarily external to South Africa, we will perhaps begin by telling the audience a little about yourself, perhaps something we won't find in Wikipedia.
You know many of us here grew up during the period of the struggle against Apartheid. So, I think that to understand people like myself, I think you have got to put us in that context, because the system of Apartheid was so pervasive, affecting all elements of life. It really was inevitable that we should grow, really into the struggle, and therefore that's what happened. I think what formed us is that involvement to end the system of Apartheid, which fortunately succeeded, and then, of course, came the task after that, which was what to do with this freedom. In other words, the task of reconstructing South Africa, as a non-racial democracy. So that's what I would say about myself, and that, really largely defines what people of my generation would be. We were born into an engaging struggle against Apartheid, and afterwards to help to rebuild South Africa.
Your leadership of the ANC, and your leadership of South Africa, to what extent did this background influence your work in terms of mediating in Sudan?
I would imagine, not directly. At a certain point the regime understood that it could not defeat the ANC. It could not defeat the liberation movement, and that the Apartheid system itself was in deep crises, and therefore agreed with what ANC had been saying for many years, that it was possible to find a peaceful, negotiated resolution of the conflict. So, in the end the regime agreed with this, because it could see that it was being defeated in a sense, and therefore that meant we then had to engage in quite a long process of negotiation with people who were by definition, our enemies. But in order to make peace, to save lives, to create this possibility, for South Africa to transform itself into a non -racial democracy, it became necessary to engage in those negotiations.I suppose that that experience would have helped with regard to the work we were to later help to facilitate, that is, the resolution of various conflicts on the continent, including the conflict in Sudan. I imagine that that experience would have helped somewhat. But of course, you are dealing with different sets of circumstances, in terms even of the negotiations. Here in South Africa, we were negotiating among ourselves, but with regard to the rest of the world, and these other engagements on the continent, we were facilitating negotiations,not only between us and other people, but among the belligerent forces in each of these countries in which we had engaged.
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