Mbeki changes tack on globalisation

By M.S. Prabhakara

CAPE TOWN, SEPT. 20. Belying the `self-fulfilling prophesies' of the opponents of the Tripartite Alliance who have been gleefully anticipating `the mother of all battles' among its components at the Seventh National Congress of Cosatu which began its four day session in Johannesburg on Monday, the President, Mr. Thabo Mbeki, speaking in his capacity as ANC president said that the `first and most important task' facing the Alliance is to strengthen each of the Alliance partners. The strength of the Alliance depended on the strength of each of its components, he said.

Mr. Mbeki's conciliatory approach was in sharp contrast to his polemical attacks on the stand of Cosatu and the SACP on the government's macroeconomic policy, as well as what he sees as their unfair, indeed ill-informed, criticism of the Government on globalisation. Barely two months ago, he was admonishing critics of globalisation in his address to the ANC's National General Council, endorsing globalisation unreservedly as ``an objective outcome of the development o productive forces that creates wealth''. On Monday, however, he spoke of the need to ensure that ``the process of globalisation does not further impoverish all of us and create an even wider gap between Africa an the rest of the world in terms of the standard of living, levels of education and technological development and humane conditions of life''.

Earlier, the President of Cosatu, Mr. Willie Madisha, in his address reiterated Cosatu's stand on these contentious issues: the `conservative economic policies' incorporated in the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR), the macroeconomic policy adopted by the Government in June 1996, globalisation which, ``contrary to what its salesmen want us to believe is increasingly proving to be a force of destruction than development''.

Differences over the economic and political direction of a future democratic South Africa, deeply rooted in the different perspectives of history and ideology, very broadly a socialist perspective and a capitalist perspective, have always co-existed in the ANC. This is even more so with the components of the Tripartite Alliance which, despite the overlapping of membership in a manner not very easy for those outside the Alliance to understand, remain independent entities. However, these could be reconciled when the most important task of the liberation movement was the defeat of the apartheid regime and its replacement by a democratically elected government. That task, having been accomplished in April 1994, it was inevitable that these differences would again come to the fore.

But have they become so irreconcilable of the national democratic revolution that an end to the Alliance is inevitable? For the partners of the Alliance, that stage has not been reached. Indeed, the two lines continue to be in contestation not merely between the ANC and its other two partners, but even within the ANC itself. This is something that every component of the Alliance understands only too well.

For one observing the events since the country attained freedom, it seems that the dissolution of the Alliance, demonised by the apartheid regime, remains even now a top priority for a variety of forces, including a powerful and resourceful section of the media, united by one strategic objective - the delegitimisation of the liberation movement. Much has already been achieved in this regard in terms of the dilution and discarding of some of the founding principles of the liberation movement; and the dominant position that the ideologues of the old order have retained in the direction of the economy. However, a most dramatic advance in this process will be the break-up of the Alliance itself. Mr. Mbeki put his finger on the nub when he spoke of those who ``want us to become a house divided against itself''.

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Section  : International
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