Mandela,+Mbeki,+and+the+end+of+humanism,+Vukani+Mde,+Weekender

Business Day Weekender, 2006/08/05 12:00:00 AM
=Mandela, Mbeki, and the end of humanism=


 * Vukani Mde**

LAST Saturday I listened to President Thabo Mbeki delivering the fourth annual Nelson Mandela lecture, in which he renewed Nelson Mandela’s call for an “RDP of the soul”.

“I believe I know this as a matter of fact, that the great masses of our country every day pray that the new SA that is being born will be a good, a moral, a humane and a caring SA, which, as it matures, will progressively guarantee the happiness of all its citizens. I say this as I begin this lecture to warn you about my intentions, which are … to convince you that because of the infancy of our brand new society, we have the possibility to act in ways that would, for the foreseeable future, infuse the values of ubuntu into our very being as a people.”

The president went on to lament the cold, acquisitive value system of market economies as opposed to our collective desire for a society driven by humanist values. In other words, and somewhat ironically, his was a long requiem for the age of Mandela, which has rapidly been supplanted by the ethic of Mbeki. Or as Edmund Burke had it: “The age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists and calculators has succeeded.”

Since then the entire nation has been talking about Mbeki’s speech. This, I suppose, is what leadership should in the main be about: setting the agenda for self-examination. I have also thought very hard and spoken to others about Mbeki’s message, but the more I think about it, the less satisfied I am with what he said.

Stated simply, my dissatisfaction hinges on this: Mbeki's lecture posits a thoroughly modernist and contradictory desire for a capitalist body politic with a humanist soul. Indeed, in order to engage in the debate that the president wants about “our collective soul", we must make many assumptions.

We must assume that he is sincere in his concern. We must assume that the policies pursued under his direction since 1996 have nothing to do with the “get rich or die trying” phenomenon he decries. We must assume that the contents of the lecture have nothing to do with the succession battle, despite his insistent rendition of our post-liberation dilemma as an instalment in the biblical struggle of good and evil. (This dovetails quite nicely with the popular portrayal of one Jacob Zuma and his alleged profligacy as representing the latter.)

Most generously, we must overlook the fact that Mbeki seems to have only four sources to quote from: the Holy Bible, Shakespeare, the Irish poets and, last but not least, himself. But that's another story.

Judging by the lecture as well as government’s recent preoccupation with our emotional — as opposed to material — wellbeing, Mbeki and co have rediscovered their Cartesian souls.

We can only guess at why this, now. But what is certain is this: you cannot have a Gear economy and an RDP soul.


 * From: http://www.businessday.co.za/Articles/TarkArticle.aspx?ID=2167463**

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