Thabo Mbeki

 

I’m about a third of the way through Thabo Mbeki’s biography, The Dream Deferred, and I’m riveted!

I’m in awe of Mbeki. It’s more than how much he gave up that strikes me. He was so totally committed to his cause and worked tirelessly towards his role. He is obviously brilliant in so many ways. Everyone who knew him well, friend or foe, acknowledge his charm and intelligence. In his early twenties he was leading anti-aparteid initiatives and meeting world leaders.

There’s a sense of gravity and purpose to him that I envy. He seems to have known his destiny from early childhood, and more impressive, how to attain it. Granted, his heritage was such that he always had incredible mentors around him, but they wouldn’t have taken him on were it not for the potential they saw in him. Neither Mandela nor Tambo’s children got the kind of attention that Mbeki received because they didn’t have the qualities he had.

Why has Thabo Mbeki struck such a chord in me? I want my life to have the kind of meaning his has had. I want to help build my country and continent as he has tried to do. I want to spend time with leaders and future leaders and discuss ideas on governance, society, justice and how to make the world a better place. And I want to have a mentor.

Thabo had Oliver Tambo. What I would give for a little time and some direction from Thabo Mbeki…

The Dream Deferred

 

I’ve found lately that my opinion of people changes drastically when I find out a little more about them. It happened with Nelson Mandela, Barack Obama and now, Thabo Mbeki.

 

Mark Gevisser’s The Dream Deferred is a fantastic book. It’s a pretty in depth look into Thabo Mbeki’s soul. More than just following the life of South Africa’s president, Gevisser tries to see and understand who he is as a person. Although I’ve only read a small part of the book, I am engrossed.

 

There is something about being a black man. It is as though at birth your identity is stolen and you have one of two choices, spend your life seeking it, or claim another. There is such an assault on us by the media and public perception. There’s an incredible pressure to conform to an identity created by mass media. So much so, that trying to figure out and then just being who you are will at the very least get you marked out as a non-conformist at best.

 

In reading Mandela and Obama’s autobiographies, I was stuck by the recurring theme of the search for identity. Mark Gevisser’s perception of the same struggle in Mbeki really has really impressed me. I am a little jealous of him. I would have loved to have spent that much time researching, distilling and then putting one of my fathers’ lives onto paper. It might have helped me on my pilgrimage. Maybe one day.

 

Already, I have a new found respect, as well as compassion and maybe even a little affection for President Mbeki.

Waiting

I submitted my third article to an editor on Sunday. My wife, Becky, read it and thought it was just okay. So when Monday came and went without a response, I worried that the editor agreed with her.

I hate waiting. I spent a lot of yesterday checking my email every 20 minutes or so. I get so unproductive – it’s silly. To use Becky’s phrase, when I get a bee in my bonnet, there’s no getting rid of it. I know the smart thing is to just get on with life and write something else, but for some reason, I find that really hard. Oh well…

I recently came across this poem, A Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes: 

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore–
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

 I’m not really into poetry, mainly because I often just don’t get it. I really like this one though. Apparently, it’s (South Africa’s president) Thabo Mbeki’s favourite. I know I’m blowing things a little out of proportion, but waiting to find out the fate of that article, the poem grew in meaning for me.