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South Africa should handle its supremacy responsibly

[ Posted On: 2007-09-30 ]

Compared to the rest of the continent, the story of South Africa is a play in four acts on the stage of history. It is a play about South Africa's triumph, its emerging leadership, and its hazards as a new continental power.

Put in another way, South Africa's impact on Pan-Africanism has included at least four distinctive roles. These roles are what might be called the four 'v's of South Africa's destiny. One is V for Victim — South Africa as a victim and racial martyr; V for Victor — the country's triumphant success in avoiding a large-scale racial war, and instead establishing the most progressive democracy on the continent.

V for Vanguard — South Africa in a continental leadership role, eager to open up new horizons, and V for Villain — the country at a risk of becoming a villain, with the potential of evolving as a regional hegemony.

The country's tragic suffering during apartheid was a resource for Pan-Africanism. The martyrdom of the people of colour generated passions among black people worldwide. Events like Sharpeville and the brutalities of Soweto, especially in 1976, struck a powerful chord of sympathy.

From 1948 to the 1990s, South Africa had evolved as the most systematic and institutionalised form of racism in history. The country's martyrs included Nelson Mandela in prison and Steve Biko in his grave.

Apartheid also strengthened trans-Saharan Pan-Africanism and Afro-Arab relations. The idea that White and Black people needed separate homelands was akin to the Zionist idea that Arabs and Jews needed separate homelands.

Bantustans in South Africa were the equivalent of the Occupied Territories in Palestine, separate and brutally unequal. Both Zionism and macro-apartheid were forms of ethnic cleansing. Africans and Arabs were brought together in the joint struggle, against the background of nuclear collaboration between Israel and apartheid South Africa.

Most of us expected a racial war before apartheid could be dislodged. But a great Faustian bargain was struck between the two races. The Whites said to the Blacks: "You take the Crown and we will keep the Jewels."

Blacks were to receive the political crown while Whites kept the economic jewels. Since then, there has been progress in political democratization. But despite efforts by the Black Economic Empowerment, enough progress has not been made in economic democratisation. Economic apartheid is still intact. In any case, is Black empowerment the answer?

Perhaps the preferable expression is 'economic democratisation' instead of 'Black empowerment.' Economic democratisation would seek not just racial equalisation but also gender equity. Politically, South Africa introduced the most liberal constitution and progressive system in Africa, if not in the entire Third World. But full implementation has been slow.

The triumph of South Africa created opportunities for the country to be a vanguard and pacesetter in the world. It all began with South Africa's voluntary disarmament, setting the precedent of giving up weapons of mass destruction.

But the motives of the West in pressuring Pretoria to disarm were dubious. In reality, the West believed nuclear weapons were not for Africans, Muslims and children under sixteen. Nevertheless, South Africa's renunciation of nuclear weapons set a precedent of South Africa as a voice of global peace and justice.

Included in South Africa's peace policy is its support for the Palestinian cause, its opposition to the American war in Iraq, its efforts to find peaceful solutions to the problems in the Congo, Burundi, Liberia, Ivory Coast and other African flashpoints.

Both Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki have tried to give Africa a voice on global issues. The vision of an African Renaissance is another potential vanguard role in the quest for reactivating Africa's creative energies. South Africa's vanguard role has included its contribution to the birth of the African Union, the most ambitious form of institutionalised Pan-Africanism so far. Another vanguard role for is mid-wifing the New Partnership for Africa Development (Nepad), a risky enterprise but worth attempting.

Finally, South Africa has the requisite qualifications to become a regional super power. It is the continent's premier industrial state, easily the richest member of the African Union. Its immense capacity to invest in other African countries could be an engine of continental development, but it could also degenerate into intra-African colonisation.

Lord Acton, a British aristocrat of the 19th century, formulated the dictum "Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely." This may even happen among former victims who are now newly empowered.

Israelis have proven that even former victims of the Holocaust could commit crimes against humanity when in power. They have been narrowing the moral gap between themselves and the Nazis.

It was a liberal Israeli Professor Yashayau Leibovitz, who coined the term 'Judeo-Nazism.' Noam Chomsky, himself also a Jew, has warned about the emergence of 'Judeo-Nazism.'

The Jews, pre-eminent victims of history, have been learning how to victimise an almost defenseless people, and complain when their victims try to fight back. Is this not a classic case of 'blaming the victim syndrome?' We are asked to believe that Israeli homicide bombers are morally superior to Palestinian suicide bombers.

If you fight by killing yourself, it is supposed to be morally worse than if you kill without harming yourself. If you fight by killing yourself, it is supposed to be more cowardly than if you fire a missile from a speeding aircraft at a man in a wheel chair without hurting yourself. South Africa should learn from Israel that being a former victim is no guarantee that you will not victimise those weaker than yourself.

South Africa, as a society of former martyrs, should learn not to make martyrs of others.

I would like to believe South Africans will find the will and resolve to be a vanguard of leadership without becoming villains of power, to be former victims without becoming new perpetrators, to be Nelson Mandela's heirs without becoming Niccolo Machiavelli's successors.

Article Source: http://www.afroarticles.com/article-dashboard

About The Author(s): Prof. Ali Mazrui is Chancellor of Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture, Kenya.

| View Profile & All Articles By: Ali A. Mazrui |

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