Thabo Mbeki: The retired firefighter who arrives at the scene of his own fires
There is a trend, uniquely South African, with retired politicians. Unlike retired teachers, retired engineers or retired surgeons, they never seem to retire. They merely disappear for a season into comfortable obscurity before emerging from their political hibernation to remind the nation how it ought to think.
Former president Thabo Mbeki has done precisely that. In recent weeks, Mbeki resurfaced to caution South Africans against anti-immigrant sentiment. His argument was familiar. Foreign nationals are being scapegoated for unemployment, crime and economic decline. South Africans, he said, should remember the spirit of Pan-African solidarity that sustained the liberation struggle.
On the matter of scapegoating, Mbeki is partly correct. Every failing society eventually searches for convenient villains. Foreigners are often easier to blame than corruption, easier to blame than collapsed municipalities, easier to blame than failed economic policy and easier to blame than political incompetence.
Yet what is remarkable about Mbeki’s intervention is not what he said. It is who said it. The old statesman arrived to lecture the nation about consequences while carefully avoiding discussion of his own.
Pan-African solidarity might have been a noble idea during the struggle years. It carried emotional weight when African nations opened their borders, housed exiles and funded liberation movements. South Africans owe a historical debt of gratitude for the sacrifices. But solidarity is not a blank cheque.
The generation standing in unemployment queues today did not experience Lusaka, Dar es Salaam or Harare as liberation capitals. They experience Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town as cities struggling under the strain of unemployment, crime, failing infrastructure and economic stagnation. History might explain sentiment. It does not erase present realities.
Mbeki argues that migrants are not responsible for South Africa’s problems. The statement is simultaneously true and incomplete. Migrants did not create Eskom’s collapse. Migrants did not loot state-owned enterprises. Migrants did not engineer cadre deployment. Migrants did not hollow out municipalities. Migrants did not create the world’s highest youth unemployment rate.
Yet neither can serious observers pretend that uncontrolled migration creates no pressures whatsoever. Undocumented migration places demands on housing, healthcare, education and policing. Informal labour markets often favour workers willing to accept lower wages. Organised criminal syndicates have undoubtedly exploited porous borders. The realities are neither racist nor xenophobic to acknowledge.
The real question is why South Africans should receive lectures from a man whose political legacy remains one of the most contested in democratic history. This is, after all, the same Thabo Mbeki whose administration became internationally notorious for its handling of HIV and Aids. While scientists pleaded for urgency and treatment, intellectual vanity entered the debate. The result was one of the darkest chapters of post-apartheid governance. History has rendered its verdict with brutal clarity.
This is also the same Mbeki who practised quiet diplomacy while Zimbabwe descended into economic catastrophe under Robert Mugabe. Millions fled a collapsing economy. Many came to South Africa. While citizens could see the crisis unfolding before their eyes, Pretoria often seemed more interested in diplomatic choreography than confronting uncomfortable truths.
Then there was Polokwane. Mbeki’s bitter struggle with Jacob Zuma split the governing party and unleashed forces that would reshape South African politics for decades. The political earthquake that followed did not emerge from nowhere. It emerged from factional warfare inside an ANC leadership class that had become increasingly detached from people.
The irony is impossible to miss. Today Mbeki speaks of deeper causes. Yet many of the deeper causes matured under his watch. One need not subscribe to the crude slogans of anti-immigrant movements to recognise the contradiction.
Indeed, many of the loudest anti-migrant protests suffer from their own intellectual poverty. Crowds can chant. Crowds can march. Crowds can vent frustration. Yet few can articulate the complex relationship between economic failure, border management, organised crime, labour markets and governance collapse. The result is noise rather than analysis. But the weakness of their argument does not automatically strengthen Mbeki’s.
South Africa’s migration debate has become trapped between two dishonest extremes. One side insists that foreigners are responsible for virtually everything. The other insists that foreigners are responsible for virtually nothing. Neither position survives serious scrutiny. A nation can have a governance crisis and an immigration challenge simultaneously. A nation can reject xenophobia while demanding effective border control. A nation can honour African solidarity while insisting that immigration occurs within the framework of law.
What South Africans need is neither hysteria nor nostalgia. They need honesty. And honesty requires acknowledging that Mbeki’s presidency was not the golden age some imagine. His intellect was formidable. His command of policy was impressive. His speeches often soared above the mediocrity of contemporary politics. Yet intelligence is not wisdom. Eloquence is not foresight. Vision is not vindication.
There comes a point in public life when elder statesmen must decide whether they are contributing insight or merely seeking relevance. Mbeki has earned the right to speak. He has not earned immunity from scrutiny. When a retired firefighter arrives to explain the causes of a blaze, it is perfectly reasonable to ask whether some of the matches belonged to him.
Perhaps it is time for South Africa to stop treating every intervention from its former leaders as a revelation. Sometimes the wisest contribution a statesman can make is silence. There is a reason they have been relegated to pasture: to live out their remaining days.
