Unlikeable Mr. Roberts fit to write a biography?

Quote of the week

It seems that the more places I see and experience, the bigger I realize the world to be. The more I become aware of, the more I realize how relatively little I know of it, how many places I have still to go, how much more there is to learn.

Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life — and travel — leaves marks on you.

The journey is part of the experience — an expression of the seriousness of one’s intent. One doesn’t take the A train to Mecca.

Anthony Bordain

PREVIOUS QUOTES OF THE WEEK

20 June 2007

Unlikeable Mr. Roberts fit to write a biography?

I bought Ronald Suresh Roberts’ biography of President Thabo Mbeki today. Called Fit to Govern: The Native Intelligence of Thabo Mbeki, the book contains a spirited defence of Mbeki and even more spirited or even vituperative attacks on many of Mbeki’s (and Roberts’) critics.

I am very much looking forward to read the book because I am rather confident it won’t be boring. It would be refreshing to read another view on Mbeki and to see how successful Roberts is in defending some of Mbeki’s most controversial (and in m

y opinion disastrous) policies, such as the HIV/AIDS fiasco.

I am not a great fan of Mr. Roberts and have written on this Blog about his unfortunate defamation case, but I suspect he is correct when he predicts that the liberal white establishment is going to pull the book to pieces for all the wrong reasons.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Alliance aligned James Myburg has already weighed in with a kind of review or debunking of the book in his Moneyweb column. He reminds us that Essop Pahad lied to Parliament when he denied that the Presidency facilitated a R1.5 million grant from Absa Bank for Roberts to write the book.

Myburg conclude his “review” as follows:

One oddity of the book is that very little of it is taken up with documenting and elucidating Mbeki’s own views, which do not seem to be of particular interest to the author. It is divided instead between “a theoretical dogfight in ideological outer space” (as Rian Malan put it) and vindictive attacks on Mbeki’s critics and opponents. At one stage Roberts writes (p. 125) that The Discourses by Niccolò Machiavelli’s are what really “illuminates Mbeki’s statesmanship.” Yet, in that work Machiavelli advised:

I hold it to be a proof of great prudence for men to abstain from threats and insulting words towards any one, for neither the one nor the other in any way diminishes the strength of the enemy; but the one makes him more cautious, and the other increases his hatred of you, and makes him more persevering in his efforts to injure you.

“It is the duty”, Machiavelli continued, “of every good general or chief of a republic, to use all proper means to prevent such insults and reproaches from being indulged in by citizens or soldiers.” This is advice the presidency has clearly chosen to ignore. By supporting this project, in the way that they did, the presidency were clearly hoping to buttress Mbeki’s position, both morally and politically. Yet they may find that this book – which manages to direct “harsh sarcasms” against so many different people – has precisely the opposite effect intended.

After reading more of the book, I will weigh in with my own two cents worth. I suspect the book will become the talk of the town and that many words will be written about it. Sadly, I am not so sure much of it will be interesting or relevant. Let’s see.

SHARE: