Greene County Democrat

Tag: former President of South Africa

  • Newswire: African National Congress faces party members demanding change

    Jacob Zuma, former President of South Africa, in green shirt, with supporters at pollical meeting in South Africa

    Dec. 18, 2023 (GIN) – The historic African National Congress, leader of the decades-old struggle against apartheid, governing party of the Republic of South Africa since 1994, is having a family feud.
     
    Deep divisions are coming out into the open as when former South African president Jacob Zuma recently declared he would not vote for the ruling ANC in national elections in 2024.
     
    “I have decided that I cannot and will not campaign for the ANC of Ramaphosa in 2024. My conscience will not allow me to lie to the people of South Africa and to pretend that the ANC of Ramaphosa is the ANC of Luthuli, Tambo and Mandela,” said Zuma, referring to previous leaders of the ANC.
     
    Zuma said he would vote for the radical new left-wing Umkhonto We Sizwe (MK) party, named after the ANC’s old armed wing, and urged all South Africans to reject the ANC.
     
    “I call on all South Africans to join me in taking the important step and to vote for the MK Party and any other progressive party which seeks total liberation,” he said.
     
    Zuma’s remarks added to a growing pile of critiques – often from former ANC officials such as ousted ANC secretary general Ace Magashule who recently announced the formation of a new party – the African Congress for Transformation (ACT).
     
    A close ally of ex-president Zuma, he was expelled from the ruling party in June for allegedly personally benefiting from money meant to be used to remove asbestos from the homes of people in the Free State province where he was the premier from 2009 to 2018. He also faces charges of corruption in a criminal case.
     
    Another breakaway was announced last month by seven opposition parties including the country’s main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, and a string of small parties who agree on what they call a Multi-Party Charter for South Africa.
     
    Support for the ANC has slowly waned over the years amid criticism that it has failed to provide basic services and ease poverty for millions of the country’s Black majority. Widespread corruption in state-owned institutions and local and national government has further eroded its popularity.
     
    Other problems include the highest levels of unemployment in the world, a failing electricity supply that’s led to regular blackouts, a broken public transport system and high violent crime rates.
     
    In an effort to bring the opposition together, a multiparty national convention was organized, led by William Gumede, founder of the Democracy Works Foundation and assoc. professor, School of Governance at the University of the Witwatersrand.
     
    Participants at the first meeting included party leaders from the Democratic Alliance, Inkatha Freedom Party, Freedom Front Plus, among others.
     
    Herman Mashaba, president of ActionSA, explained his presence at the convention.
     
    “ANC will lose its majority, and all South Africans know this, but they have never seen opposition parties putting aside differences to give them hope,” he said. “We must define this agreement with a positive vision for South Africa, not against other political parties.”
     
    Freedom Front Plus leader Pieter Groenewald asked the parties to set an example by paving a way forward to help to save South Africa.
     
    “I don’t think there is anyone in South Africa who will not agree that we are not at a good point in the history of our country. There must be change,” Groenewald said.
     
    Prof William Gumede, who is chairing the discussions, encouraged party leaders to rise above egos and squabbles.
     
    “Every decision the group makes has to be in the best interest of South Africa. It has to be for the future of all of us and for those still to be born.” w/pix of J. Zuma in green shirt
     

  • Newswire : Mixed emotions stirred in Africa at the passing of UK monarch

    Queen Elizabeth II riding in carriage with Nelson Mandela, former President of South Africa


    Sep. 12, 2022 (GIN) – The passing of Queen Elizabeth II has not gone unremarked in Africa where local television and radio stations interrupted normal broadcasting in order to relay events happening in the United Kingdom.
     Across the world, nations are paying tribute to the 96 year old monarch. President Biden described her as “a stateswoman of unmatched dignity and constancy who deepened the bedrock alliance between the United Kingdom and the United States.”
     Queen Elizabeth embodied a profound, sincere commitment to her duties, observed Harvard Professor Maya Jasanoff.  “She was a fixture of stability, and her death in already turbulent times will send ripples of sadness around the world.”
     But we should not romanticize her era, Jasanoff cautioned. “For the queen was also an image: the face of a nation that, during the course of her reign, witnessed the dissolution of nearly the entire British Empire into some 50 independent states and significantly reduced global influence.”  
     Britain “lost an empire, and (has) not yet found a role” – commented American statesman Dean Acheson. The deep and painful traumas and confusions that the loss of empire produced helped many years later to produce Brexit, and enduring and dangerous British fantasies about playing the role of a great power on the world stage.
     Others showed little sympathy for the fallen empire and demanded amends for colonial-era crimes. Carnegie Mellon professor Uju Anya had the sharpest criticism of the queen. The Nigerian-born professor wrote, “If anyone expects me to express anything but disdain for the monarch who supervised a government that sponsored the genocide that massacred and displaced half my family and the consequences of which those alive today are still trying to overcome, you can keep wishing upon a star.”
     “I guess it depends what you think a good job of being queen is,” opined Birmingham City University Professor Kehinde Andrews of British African Caribbean heritage. “So, if a good job of being queen is to represent white supremacy and to represent that link to colonialism, then, yeah, I think she’s done a very good job.”
     “Let us remember,” added University of Cambridge professor Priya Gopal, “that when she became queen at Treetops (Hotel) in Kenya, Britain had just commenced a brutal, vicious insurgency that carried on for several years. In recent years, we have had Kenyans who were tortured by the British raise lawsuits, successfully in some cases, around the vicious violence of the British state at that point.
     “I do wonder whether we actually live in a deeply different world,” she continued. “We live in a world where formally the British crown is no longer an imperial crown, but Elizabeth II was, in a sense, obsessed with the Commonwealth, made sure that Charles III would also be head of the Commonwealth.”
     Gopal said she found herself appreciating the circumstances in which Elizabeth passed – good medical care, in a secure shelter in a place she loved. But how many British retirees would have the same easeful passing this winter? She answered her own question. “I think many will be in insecure housing, without heat, potentially without food, and certainly without access to good medical care.”
     Amid the strait-laced protocols of the position, the Queen enjoyed one rare privilege – a relationship on a first name basis with Nelson Mandela. The Queen did support the sanctions which led to the end of Apartheid in South Africa.
     The exchanges between these two great figures were warm, recalls this statement of the Mandela Foundation.  “They spoke frequently on the phone, calling each other by their respective first names as a sign of mutual respect and affection,” said the statement, issued the day after the British monarch died at 96.
     “In the years following his release from prison, he cultivated a close bond with the Queen,” the text said. “He received her in South Africa and visited her in England, not shying away from exploring Buckingham Palace.”
     He also gave the Queen the nickname “Motlalepula” – “come with the rain” – after a state visit in 1995, when Elizabeth arrived with torrential rain, “the like of which had not been seen for a long time”.  It is now a song by the world renowned artist Hugh Masekela.
     The Mandela foundation “joins the multitude around the world in saying +hamba kahle+ (go in peace) to the Queen”.