Mark Thatcher & Co: The Blackman's Burden
The arrest and arraignment of Sir Mark Thatcher on allegation of financing an attempted coup in an African country has opened a window of opportunity to revisit some worrying thoughts about South Africa.
Nigerians have had a lot of complaints about how they are treated at the South African Embassy when they are applying for visas and how they are treated within South Africa itself. All I can say about this is thank God I am not the one saddled with the responsibility of defending Nigerians. Such is the abominable behaviour of some of us, behaviour that the rest of us have to pay for, that there is really nothing left to be said.
What has bothered me for quite a while is the pattern of judgement exhibited by South Africa. My most memorable encounter was at a conference held in London sometime in 1996 or 1997. It was during my years in exile when Nigeria was undergoing temporary problems. You can imagine my consternation when the South African delegates offered to teach Nigerians about Federalism as a constitutional and structural way out of Nigerian political problems. I sarcastically replied that Nigeria adopted a federal constitution as far back as 1953, and that the South African constitution was probably reflective of Nigerian previous constitutional experience more than they cared to admit. They apologized rather sarcastically for their presumption. I must add that I further rather irritatingly added that it took Nigeria about six years after independence to get into political trouble and that South Africa might wish to wait some years before they decided that they have some things to teach other people. Obviously I did not work myself into South African good books.
For quite a while, another issue has bothered me. A lot of western office holders who were in the forefront of the battle against the ANC, especially people who served in the Reagan administration, have ended up teaching and doing business in South Africa. Whether this is as a result of lack of background data in the various South African embassies or a lack of security assessment of the implication of unrestricted access to South Africa by certain categories of non-Africans or whether it is a dramatization of what Ali Mazrui has characterised as the African high cultural tolerance for forgiveness, the fact remains that South African immediate post-apartheid immigration policy has often defied understanding. Up till now, all of these could be regarded as the business of South Africa and South Africans.
But, the latest news involving Mark Thatcher and the trial of the South African mercenaries in Zimbabwe throws a totally different light on things. Now that Mark Thatcher has been accused of being implicated in the attempt to overthrow an African government, (he has only confessed to being an arms dealer and procuring or attempting to procure a Russian helicopter for the mercenary leader) and South African mercenaries have been put on trial in Zimbabwe for attempting to overthrow an African government, then the immigration policy of South Africa should become a matter of concern to all of us, Africans.
What bothers me about this episode, and I have not seen this emphasised anywhere, is that even though this attempted coup detat was planned in South Africa, and even though the plane took off from South Africans, this plot was discovered and aborted in Zimbabwe. The evidence that led to the arrest of Mark Thatcher came from the interrogations in Zimbabwe. So, how efficient is the South African security forces in keeping an eye on the non-Africans whom they have allowed in their state?
I will not be the first Nigerian who will express unease at the South African economic penetration of Nigeria. It says a lot about Nigerians that our primary source of information, DSTV, is South African; our primary GSM provider, MTN, is South African; at one time, South African Airways almost took over the Nigerian Airways. Remembering the good old days of the anti-apartheid struggle, Nigeria has transferred the morality of the struggle to the state policies of the new South African state. Nothing from South Africa must be questioned; no policy from South Africa must be questioned. The symbiotic relationship between Nigeria and the ANC has been translated into a symbiotic relationship between Nigeria and South Africa. Hmn!
Of course, intra-African relationship must be nurtured. South-south relationship must be encouraged. But are South African companies more than black masks? If the ANC fought for majority rights in South Africa, to what extent is the South African economy representative of the majority interests in South African economy representative of the majority interests in South Africa? To what extent have multinational companies found South Africa a convenient entry point to Africa? If we are confronting western economic interests in the World Trade Organisation (WTO), are we letting them in through the South African backdoor?
What the Mark Thatcher episode has done is to widen the scope of my concern beyond economic parameters to national security parameters. How many South Africans have we let into Nigeria claiming to be what they are not? If Mark Thatcher had applied to come to Nigeria ostensibly on the platform of a South African company, would we have turned him back?
Until we have a United States of Africa, let us realize that states interests even in Africa can and will be competitive and antagonistic. Yes, they must be accommodated and resolved within a spirit of brotherhood but each state must fight for its corner and not assume that a brotherhood of the struggle will automatically translate into a brotherhood of state interests. That has been the lesson of European history; the lesson of American-European history; the lesson of Nigerian-Angolan history; and the lesson of Nigerian-Zimbabwean history. There is no evidence that Nigerian-South African history well be any different.
Professor Akinyemi, former External Affairs Minister, contributed this piece for THISDAY.
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