Recording December 2007 for history

AT the conclusion of the draft of this article I asked myself if my criteria for selecting December as "Month of the Year" for 2007 were entirely "objective" in the sense of being "non-ideological". My answer was in the negative. The result of the exercise would definitely have been different were I of a different ideological persuasion. So, is this an ideological presentation? Again, I say no, it is not. I shall return to this old question of "objectivity and partisanship".

The events of December, 2007 are award - winning; but not in the usual, celebratory, sense. The events were award-winning in their significance - positive or negative. It is in this sense that Time magazine, for instance, selects its "Person of the Year". Some of the events I have selected will be classified as sad events. Some others are mixed; while others are hard to classify along these lines.

Four countries are featured: South Africa, Pakistan, Russia, and our country Nigeria. In each of the first three countries one event is selected. In Nigeria, several events stand out; but we pick only a few. All the events have been widely and copiously reported and almost exhaustively debated. The objective of the present exercise is to draw attention to, and underline, some links whose significance in my view, has not been sufficiently appreciated in the reports and analyses I have read. A greater appreciation of these links will, I believe, lead to modified analyses and conclusions.

South Africa: In mid-December 2007, the ruling party in South Africa, the African National Congress (ANC), held a national conference to elect a new leadership. The entire national executive committee was to be elected, but the dominant international media focused on just one position: the party's presidency. The reason is that whoever won the presidency of the party was seen as ANC's most likely candidate in the 2009 presidential election. Such a candidate will, therefore, most likely be South Africa's next president - given the political hegemony which ANC presently enjoys in the country. The party election started from the grassroots, the local branches and affiliates. The grassroots elections were called party primaries and, according to the media, they were quite vigorous.

Local branches and affiliates performed two functions: selection of delegates to the national conference, and nomination or endorsement of candidates for party positions, in particular the party presidency. Although branch delegates were given directives by their constituents, I doubt if delegates were forced or could be forced, to vote for particular candidates. Contesting the presidency of the ANC were two veterans: Thabo Mbeki, the incumbent President of the party as well as President of the country; and Jacob Zuma, the embattled Deputy President of the party.

It is important to bear the following points in mind as we appreciate what happened before, during, and after the national convention in the town of Polokwane. Wielding considerable influence in the ANC are certain groups and tendencies which attained this position through the roles they played in the long struggle against apartheid and the roles they have been playing since the historic victory. Their current agenda is to expand the "dividends" of that victory to the millions of poor South Africans, especially the black.

The groups we are talking about include the Confederation of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the South African Communist Party (SACP), the ANC Youth Wing, the ANC Women's League, and the (now disbanded?) Armed Wing of the ANC, the "Sword of the Nation" (Umkhonto). Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, and others, created and led the last group until they were arrested in 1962. The "Sword of the Nation" grew to become the vanguard organisation of ANC as a fighting force. I hope it is not in doubt that it was this "Sword of the Nation", now fondly remembered in the ANC song "Give me my machine gun" - and not a change of heart in Washington and London - that won freedom for the black masses of South Africa and those who stood with them.

The conference opened with the groups listed above standing behind Jacob Zuma. It was on the basis of this that the result was predictable. In the event, Jacob got 2,329 votes while Thabo Mbeki got 1,505. In other words Jacob Zuma defeated President Thabo Mbeki to become the ANC President by 61 per cent to 39 per cent. Mbeki's allies, who included government functionaries, were defeated in the contest for other party positions. It was a historic battle not simply between two coalitions of forces in ANC, but also between two larger coalitions encompassing the whole country. The International Community was vehemently opposed to Zuma, even if this hostility did not translate directly and openly into a support for Mbeki. The anti-Zuma forces in the ANC and the International Community are opposed to Zuma not for the advertised moral reasons (alleged corruption and rape) but for the radical, militant, anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist social forces that are gathered under the umbrella he is holding.

To put this point differently and more directly: The struggle in the ANC is not between Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma. No. The battle is between two gigantic social forces: One for a radical re-direction of the nation for the benefit of the millions of South Africans who continue to live in abject poverty almost 15-years after the defeat of apartheid, and the other for the perpetuation of the status-quo which benefits only a tiny fraction of the population. The party election of December 2007 was only the first round of the present phase of the struggle for post-apartheid South Africa. There will be several more rounds between now and the 2009 presidential election.

The "Zuma camp" has won the first round. But for different reasons everyone agrees that the future is not guaranteed: The "camps" may be transformed in content and form; their leaderships may also change. But the differentiation within the African National Congress, reflecting disagreements over the future of the nation, will grow. A split or splits may even occur. Let me reframe my conclusion into a question: Why, despite the well-publicised rape and corruption charges against Jacob Zuma, despite the opposition of the International Community, and despite Thabo Mbeki "power of incumbency," did Jacob Zuma still emerge victorious in a democratic and transparent leadership contest?

Pakistan: On the day Benazir Bhutto was assassinated (Thursday, December 27, 2007), a political analyst was asked by a television correspondent to speculate on the people who carries out the act. The respondent went to town, as the saying goes. He listed those that should be considered as suspects: Al-Qaeda, Taliban, pro-Taliban elements and Islamic extremists in the army, security agencies, and President Pervez Musharraf's regime. I agree completely. These were her frontline enemies. I would even include the President himself as a suspect. I agree that Bhutto was a courageous and passionate democrat who genuinely wished to see constitutional and secular democracy instituted in Pakistan. I also do not see anything wrong in her party's declaration that she is a martyr.

I endorse all these, but would insist that Benazir Bhutto constructed a wrong alliance to realise her party's immediate and medium term objectives, namely, returning to power in Pakistan through elections, and joining America's "war on terror". Bhutto chose the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom as allies. These governments set up Benazir Bhutto and either killed her or failed to protect her from being killed by her powerful enemies. While Bhutto was genuinely interested in, and working for the institution of democratic rule, her allies - President George Bush and Prime Minister Gordon Brown - were interested only getting her to join President Musharraf as a junior partner in a coalition government in Pakistan - for war against terror. Perhaps mine is an extreme position. I would be prepared to revise it as follows: Even if Bush and Brown were interested in the institution of democratic rule in Pakistan that is simply not their primary objective in making Bhutto return to Pakistan to join Musharraf.

Russia: In December 2007, the Time magazine named Vladimir Putin its "Person of the Year". The magazine carried the report in its last issue for the year, and provided the following citation: "At significant cost to the principles and ideas that free nations prize, he has performed an extraordinary feat of leadership in imposing stability on a nation that has rarely known it and brought Russia back to the table of world power. For that reason, Vladimir Putin is TIME'S 2007 Person of the Year". The magazine conferred on Putin both a disapproval and a recognition. I share the disapproval - but for different reasons. The recognition of Russia (as a rising power), and the reality being recognised, are good for the world. I have no love for Putin; but the Russian resurgence is a welcome counter to the dangerous global dictatorship of the "Triad": America, the European Union, and Japan.

Nigeria: At home, in Nigeria, four events, among others made me sad, very sad: President Yar'Adua's visit to America; the petrol pipeline fire in Lagos; what is happening in the Nigerian state's anti-corruption campaign; and the crisis in The Guardian. I was particularly pained by the last two events because I know they could have ended differently, and more positively.