Africa, humanity's oldest home, has, over the past few decades, been frequently cited as the "next big growth story". Unfortunately, those hopes have been consistently dashed; in fact, Subsaharan Africa's GDP per capita has seen almost no net growth since the 1970s.

South Africa is emblematic of Africa's potential, as well as its challenges. Amongst all African countries with populations over 10 million, it has the highest GDP per capita. Unfortunately, it has also seen zero net growth since 2008, and has been beset by issues such as the AIDS epidemic, high inequality and water shortages.

In order to overcome current challenges facing Africa, South Africa's former President Thabo Mbeki strongly promoted the concept of "African Renaissance", which calls for a cultural, scientific, and economic renewal across the continent. He has been a strong advocate for the cooperation amongst countries in the Global South, which he continues to do today as the Chairman of the South Centre.

Guancha's interview with Mr Mbeki

Guancha recently sat down with Mr Mbeki for an interview on these topics, as well as his views on the Sudan conflict, the Ukraine War and Nelson Mandela's legacy. Below is a lightly edited version of this interview:

Guancha: Mr Mbeki, you have been a champion of South-South cooperation and an “African Renaissance”. What are the greatest challenges to this vision, especially in Africa?

Thabo Mbeki: When the South-South cooperation process was visualized, and where we are today, the challenge still remains that, for the countries of the south to succeed, they must succeed together, they must act together, because there are all of these issues that need to be addressed. If, for instance, you look at the Sustainable Development Goals that we must achieve by 2030, and nobody must be left behind; the people who would be left behind, if anybody is going to be left behind, are from countries of the South. And in order to ensure that doesn't happen, we need that South-South cooperation.

So that's a continuing challenge. It's related to the matter you were raising of an African renaissance, a rebirth of the continent, because all of the legacy of the past, legacies of slavery, legacy of colonialism remains, that legacy remains on the continent. You need to overcome that, which means addressing matters of under-development, matters of poverty, matters of internationally marginalization. Those challenges remain. The African renaissance has got to address all of those issues. Africa's renaissance would contribute to the same matter of South-South cooperation.

Guancha: A specific example of the challenges that African renaissance faces would be the conflict in Sudan. How do you think this can be resolved?

Thabo Mbeki: There's a specific current matter of the conflict that's going on between two state formations, these armed groups, the Sudan armed forces and the (Rapid) Support Forces. They are both official organs of state. The first thing to do then is to address the concerns of the civilian population, because the conflict has resulted in disaster for the civilians. Reportedly, the capital city Khartoum, where a lot of the conflict is taking place, is running out of water. So a humanitarian ceasefire is very important, so that the needs of the civilian population can then get addressed. That's the first step.

The ongoing conflict in Khartoum, Sudan (PHOTO/VCG)

The second step of course is to address the conflict itself, which has to do in part with effecting a security sector reform. It's an old problem of Sudan, has come with Sudan over the years, but we need to reform the security sector, and the matter has been raised correctly that you should not have the two armed formations. The Rapid Support Forces must be integrated with the Sudanese armed forces. That matter has to be done, but it requires a negotiation among the armed forces, but that will follow after this matter about humanitarian assistance has been addressed. Altogether, you then have to come to this matter of the democratization of Sudan, a negotiated process in Sudan, which must address the establishment of Sudan as a democratic country, which this transitional process since the removal of president Bashir has been about. We must go back to that. But it requires a ceasefire in the first instance.

Guancha: Do you think this reflects broader challenges with Africa's development or just specific issues with Sudan?

Thabo Mbeki: It's a specific matter regarding Sudan, there's no other African country which has got two official armies.

Guancha: But recently, a number of Sahel countries have seen military coups and attempted military coups, for example, Burkina faso, Mali, etc. On military usurping civilian government, there does seem to be a broader pattern.

Thabo Mbeki: You've got a challenge on the continent. It's also facing Sudan, this democratization matter, (and) the countries you mention, whether it's Mali, Niger or Burkina Faso and so on. The matter that arises out of these military coups is that we have not established stable democratic systems. The African Union has got all manner of policy positions on the same question. It means the continent must then act decisively to implement what are already established positions about the democratization of the continent. And the African union must lend its weight to each of these African countries to implement existing policies of the African union on the matter of democracy, so that we don't have military coups and all of that.

Guancha: Your successor as South Africa's president, Mr Zuma, building on the foreign policy foundation that you had laid, formally joined BRICS in 2011. As two institutions both focused on promoting the interest of developing countries and the global south, how should the work of BRICS and the South Centre intersect and interact in your view?

Thabo Mbeki: The South Centre is a is a resource center for the countries of the south, in a sense a think tank of the countries of the South, to be able to make and elaborate the positions that countries of the south should take mainly in their interaction and negotiations within, for instance, the UN context, whether it's trade matters or intellectual property or human rights issues. The South Centre is that kind of resource center, to feed into the countries of the South, as they engage these negotiations with the WTO, WHO globally. It's a specific role to the South Centre and a very important role.

BRICS addresses same questions on a practical basis. For instance, you have the BRICS bank (New Development Bank, NDB), which has got a particular mandate which countries of the South can access and do access for their development purposes. That kind of experience needs to feed into the South Centre, that our experiences with regards to meeting these development processes from our own banks as exemplified by the BRICS bank’s experience.

The South Centre, for its own purposes, needs to be watching very closely what BRICS is doing in order to feed the positive experiences of BRICS into the rest of the countries of the South. So that connection is important.

Dilma Rousseff takes office as the new President of the NDB in Shanghai, China on April 13, 2023. (PHOTO / AFP)

Guancha: South Africa has consistently voted to abstain in numerous UN resolutions on the War in Ukraine, and was criticized by Western media and governments for it. What is the reason for South Africa’s abstain vote? What is your view of this conflict?

Thabo Mbeki: I think the position that the South African government has taken is correct. There's a war that's going on between Russia and Ukraine. It's an African experience: when a conflict breaks out in any African country, like Sudan, the first thing that we do as Africans is to say, stop the guns, stop shooting, so that we can then look at the matter, what caused the shooting, find a solution. We never ever on the continent start those processes by blaming one side or the other. There is a conflict to be resolved. And you don't start off by saying, no, you are wrong and you are right. We start with saying let's stop the shooting. It's in the course of the negotiations that we discuss the matter of what was wrong, what was right, what should be done, what should not be done. It's in a sense instinctive. What South Africa says with regards to Russia and Ukraine, it has said with every conflict on the African continent. Stop the fighting. Let's bring about peace. The matter of attributing blame for that comes later.

Guancha: You were the primary mediator in the conflict between Zimbabwe’s governing ZANU-PF and the opposition, and what was known as the “quiet diplomacy”. What were the most important guiding principles of your approach? Do you think similar thinking could be applied to resolve the international conflict between Russia and Ukraine?

Thabo Mbeki: Zimbabwe's got serious problems: political, economic (etc). And the way to solve those problems is to get the Zimbabweans themselves to engage one another, to define the future of their country. So our task, facilitate the Zimbabwe negotiations, was to make sure that the government and the opposition, they get together, between them identify what the problems are, and together find a solution. That's the only way you are going to find a permanent solution. South Africa cannot come from the outside and say, Zimbabweans, sit together and we are going to tell you how to solve your problems. That agreement would never last. You need an agreement from the belligerents. That's why the conflict in Ukraine has got to be dealt with in the same way, it’s not going to be resolved by a use of force, it's got to be resolved by the Russians and the Ukrainians and other people concerned, like the Americans, sitting together and saying, what is it that caused this war? What's the problem? How do you resolve it? And so the belligerents, together with whoever else, they must be the ones to produce a solution. That is what is necessary with regards to the conflict in Europe.

Guancha: China has recently published a twelve points plan outlining how to move towards peace in Ukraine. Do you think this might be a good starting approach for peace? What is your view of this?

Thabo Mbeki: It’s a very good starting point. And nobody should be requiring that the People's republic of China should say anything which suggests a commitment, more support from one side or the other. But to say we need to stop this conflict, why don't we follow this basis at the start? I think it's correct. And I think actually China would be a very good facilitator of a process like that. But I think some people are politicizing this matter, in this sense of requirement China to take sides. No, China is saying that we need to stop this war. We've got certain proposals to make to the belligerents. Let's take that route. And I think that is correct.

Guancha: Recently, there has been increased talk of decoupling and confrontation on the global stage. Key to this seems to be America's desire to see all countries adapt a more Western model of democracy, while China believes that development is the most important democratic right. What do you think of these narratives?

Thabo Mbeki: I think the current discussion, which has emerged very sharply, is this issue of multipolarity versus unipolarity, multilateralism vessels unilateralism. And clearly what is correct, is a multipolar approach, multilateral approach, which means therefore that nobody should be able to dictate from a unipolar position what the rest of the world should be doing. The world has got to develop, take different paths of development, because China will have a particular perspective about what it needs to do to develop. And another country may have a different point of view. That's got to be allowed. So I'm saying that at the center of it, is a need for the whole world, including the US, China, Russia, South Africa, everybody, to recognize this reality that we want a world that is governed on a multilateral basis and on a multipolar basis. If we can get all of that together, then it would be possible to achieve global stability and a shared perspective about the future of the world, of the globe. I think that is centrally what we need to do.

Guancha: This had also been emphasized by your predecessor, former President Nelson Mandela. You had previously been his Deputy President. What do you think are some aspects of Mandela that aren't so widely known? And given that South Africa's recent economic growth has been disappointing, with GDP per capita essentially flat since you left office, some have tried to pin the blame on Mandela. What do you think? How do you think he should be remembered by us all?

Thabo Mbeki: I think the way that people speak about Mandela is largely correct. This was a leading liberation fighter, for the liberation of South Africa from apartheid and all that. That's why he ended up in jail for 27 years, never broke, never surrendered. He’s an outstanding figure for liberation, was quite correct, together with ANC, to say South Africa has got a proportionally very large minority population who are settlers. If you look at the history of the continent, Algeria had a very big French settler population. At independence, they all left and went back to France. Look at the Portuguese colonies, Angola, Mozambique, the Portuguese left and went back to Portugal. Or the English from Kenya.

Mandela at Mbeki's 1999 presidential inauguration (PHOTO/AFP)

But in South Africa, no, they are not going anywhere. Those white original settler population, they’re South Africans. And therefore the issue arises in South Africa of this national reconciliation. People had been oppressed and oppressed, but they are citizens of one country. How should they live together? And I'm saying Nelson Mandela played a very important part in the process of addressing that particular challenge, which is very South African. And out of that situation of conflict and division, you still have to build that democracy which belongs to all the people of South Africa. And again, Nelson Mandela was a front line figure in that context.

The South African economy is in bad shape, as you indicate. It has nothing to do with Mandela, it has to do with the history of South Africa, its related to that same process of national reconciliation, because the effect is that the wealth of the country was and is in the hands of the people that colonize us. So they control the economy, the black population contains the politics. Now, what is it that you need to do? You need to get these people who control the wealth to have the same commitment to the future of the country as the black people who control the politics. That's been that disjuncture. For many years after South Africa's democratization, a lot of the capitalist class, which is white, had no confidence in the future of South Africa. And therefore they didn't want to invest, because (they’re worried) tomorrow is going to be bad.

Fundamental to it, it's the history. The history of South Africa produces dichotomy of white wealth, decision making about the economy being very much in the hand of the whites, and investment you need in the economy was also in white hands. So we need to persuade them, you have a responsibility as South African citizens to invest in your own national economy, instead of saying you're afraid of the future. That's what lies at the center of the economic crisis. There is a changed atmosphere in the country, such that the owners of wealth are now saying were ready to invest in the South African economy. (The poor economic situation has) Nothing to do with Nelson Mandela, it’s the history of South Africa.

Interviewer: Jersey Lee

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