"Dream deferred" - Mbeki and Mandela (part 2)

Title: Thabo Mbeki - A dream deffered
Author: Mark Gevisser
Page: 702-704

Even if Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki did not find, in each other, some imagined political father and son - or even, more simply, a comfortable intimacy - they developed an effective working relationship. This is evident in the way Mandela handed over so much of the stuff of governance to his deputy, and in their agreement on the key issues: most notably, as we have seen, on economic policy, and on how to manage the political fall-out with their alliance partners.

Inevitably, given Mbeki's history as the ANC's ranking diplomat, their first major public clash happened in the arena of foreign policy, and although it appeared to be a brushfire - lit with callous malice by the Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha - it pointed to a problem that would become the fault line of their relationship, and would eventually cause it to break down almost entirely.

Not suprisingly, given the 'ugly shoes' dynamic, this problem had to do with reputation: specifically, the way the negative press about Mbeki seemed to accumulate in an almost inverse proportion to the adulation heaped upon his superior. Mbeki called it 'Mandela exceptionalism' when he was being polite; 'the one good native' when he was not. It went like this: Africa was a basket case, and Mandela the only good leader ever to come out of it; once he went, South Africa would sink like the rest of the continent into the mire of neo-colonial corruption and decay. It seemed to Mbeki that Mandela was actually colluding in the world's impression that he was 'the one good native', the consequence of which was the perception that all other blacks - Mbeki included - were incompetent.