Was support of Thabo Mbeki Nelson Mandella's biggest mistake?

Question

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/249680.stm

Answer 1

No, but I think Europe is in for a rough ride now on that continent. It may lose any influence it has.

Mbeki is no fool and he is looking to other countries for support.

Answer 2

Mbeki has been a disaster for Africa. For years he denied there was any link between HIV and AIDS: as a consequence of his intransigence millions of Africans contracted the disease. His appeasement of his hero, the tyrannical and murderous Mugabe, is as astounding as it is disgraceful! With weak and spineless leaders like this what hope is there for that continent.

Answer 3

Mandela is not the man everyone thinks he is.

Answer 4

Mbeki is not well regarded among African leaders. While Mugabe and his like were fighting guerilla wars against colonial powers, Mbeki was safely in exile, studying at Sussex University. He lacks the "street cred" of some other African leaders. Which is, of course, why he feels intimidated by Mugabe and finds it difficult to be too critical of him.

But Mandela had little option but to support Mbeki who had been groomed for ANC leadership from an early age.

As for Mandela's biggest mistake, have you forgotten Winnie?

Answer 5

Mbeki was the favourite not of Mandela but of Oliver Tambo who led the ANC in exile. Mandela inherited Mbeki rather than actively supported him. He could have blocked Mbeki's succession but he couldn't foresee Mbekei's flaws as president.

I have to sympathise with Mbeki, 'up to a point, Lord Copper'. He spent 28 years in exile; he lost his son to the Apartheid thugs in the 1980s. His brother also lost a son. But the fact is, the man's a disaster right across the board,

He's authoritarian. He has not sorted out the ANC's ideology, which is muddled between communism and liberalism. And he is harmfully anti-Western.

The West's record in Africa, past and present, is nothing to be proud of, but Mbeki's support for Mugabe is of a piece with his denial of 'Western' science's HIV/AIDS link. He's pro-African but he's even more anti-Western. The West is most vocal in its criticism of Mugabe and he sees this as yet another example of the West's telling Africa what to do, just as it told and still tells South Africa what to do about AIDS. The real tragedy is that it's Africa that's suffering most from his attitudes.

As for Mandela, I admire him immensely as a person; and he did a very great thing politically in looking for reconciliation rather than vengeance when the Apartheid regime fell. He was in some ways an untested leader, though. He saw the country through the exceptional times of new democracy but the day to day business of dealing with the stress and mess of later events after the euphoria of freedom - this had to be left to others. I don't admire anyone who doesn't admire Mandela but Mbeki has faced and failed challenges that Mandela never had.

Mike : Thanks for the comment back. Aren't you maybe shifting away from the question though ? You're pointing out, quite rightly, that there are puzzling and even disturbing concerns about Mandela's 'quietness' about Mugabe and about Mbeki's p***y-footing approach to events in Zimbabwe; I say 'quietness' because he hasn't been totally silent. Your question, I thought, was about whether Mandela made a mistake in letting Mbeki succeed him. In hindsight, yes; at the time, given what he knew and the limited choices open to him, probably no. Whether he should condemn Mbeki now and whether he should have let Mbeki have the job in the first place are separate issues, aren't they ?

If I'm making heavy weather of this and your question really means : shouldn't Mandela be more vocal now and shouldn't he and the rest of us see Mbeki's appointment as a disaster in the light of events, then 'yes'  I'm totally with you. And I'm glad you've brought things out in public. We should praise Mandela for his immense greatness but still criticise him when we think he's wrong.

I always felt, by the way, that Mugabe resented Mandela's upstaging him as the hero and father figure of black freedom at the end of Apartheid. Maybe Mandela is sensitive about not wanting to boot out a past black hero. Mandela's probably living too much in Mugabe's past and not enough in his awful present.