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Bring Me My Machine Gun: The Battle for the Soul of South Africa, from Mandela to Zuma

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"South Africa's negotiated transition from white rule to democracy was one of the wonders of the late twentieth century. But it was only the first chapter of the postliberation narrative."

In Bring Me My Machine Gun Financial Times journalist Alec Russell skillfully chronicles the new struggle underway in South Africa: that of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) to deliver on its democratic promise and avoid the tragic trend of African liberation movements--and dominant political parties from Mexico to India--of descending into corrupt, stagnant, and ultimately dysfunctional states.

In this way, Bring Me My Machine Gun echoes Andrew Feinstein's After the Party, an inside account of the ANC's disastrous arms deal, and Justin Arenstein's exhaustive 2004 investigative report on corruption in South Africa. If, as Arenstein writes, the ongoing saga symbolizes "a painful dissection of the South African psyche," Russell's book is a timely travelogue of this trauma.

On April 22, just two weeks after narrowly escaping prosecution for corruption, Jacob Zuma will take the world stage as President of the Republic of South Africa. The question is whether this marks the beginning or end of the ongoing battle for the country's democratic soul--a complex battle which Russell covers with great depth and detail, borrowing heavily from the insights and high-level sources acquired during his two tours as a foreign correspondent in South Africa.

"Building a new society out of the rubble of an unjust system is invariably an ugly and harsh process," concludes Russell. "But fifteen years into their task, the time for excusing the ANC is over." As it eventually came to do of the apartheid regime, the world must hold the ANC accountable before it's too late. Given South Africa's powerful position on the continent, at stake is nothing less than the outcome of calamities from Zimbabwe to Sudan to Somalia. Anyone with an interest in Africa's stability should take an interest in South Africa's fragile future, starting by reading this book!

As a South African Ex-pat, it was great to read, it brought me up to speed on the goings on that the news never reports. I Love it!

I'm only 21 years old, so it seems like apartheid is ancient history. This book reveals that it is most definitely not. My impression of the country - what I learned from movies - is that South Africa is that oxymoronic country in Africa with all the white people. After reading this book, I realize how simplistic that view was.

If you're at all interested in African geopolitics or you're curious about this Jacob Zuma guy you keep reading about in the international section of the newspaper, pick up this book. It's packed full of first-hand information and does a great review of South African history for those of us who don't understand how it is that a bunch of Europeans got down there in the first place.

I think we'll see South Africa become a very important country in the next several decades, as Europe, Asia and the USA venture further in to the continent of Africa for mineral and energy resources. The South Africans will have a lot to say about what goes on in their neighborhood.

It's so refreshing to read a well-written book from a person who had access to everyone he needed to talk with to tell a story that was worth telling. This is that book.

Russell has interviewed everyone who is anyone in the ANC: Mandela, Zuma, Mbeki, Terror Lekota, Cyril Ramaphosa, and countless others. He also spoke with unreconstructed Boers, people in the trenches protesting, and all sorts of other characters necessary for a full picture of South Africa. He puts together a story that makes sense: it would have been tough for anyone to follow Mandela but Mbeki didn't make it any easier on himself, and Zuma could bring South Africa back from the precipice of one-party big-man rule or jump off with both feet. There is no idol-worshipping here - Russell even has critical things to say about Mandela - but at no time do I think he's being unfair or unjust in his comments or analysis. The chapter on Zimbabwe is particularly insightful, showing how everyone expects South Africa not to follow Zimbabwe's path but also showing that no one has any real reason to think it won't happen, just a national myth that it's impossible.

In short, Russell is an analytical journalist. These days it's so rare to find someone with this skill that I almost want to stand up and applaud. Instead I encourage you to buy this book.

South Africa's political economy continues to revolve around an odd combination of new political power (and patronage) without money and old money without power, each needing the other to advance its interests. This is structurally disposed to advance corruption and nepotism, which has become an 'incestuous relationship'. This is the theme of Alec Russel's important new book [elsewehere, the book is sold as: "After Mandela: The Battle for the Soul of South Africa, Hutchinson", London, 2009].

Alec Russel was a correspondent of the London Financial Times, who first come to South Africa in 1994 and whose interviews and on-the-spot reports makes his one of the more illuminating of the books named above. His focus, not surprisingly, is on the economics of the current transition process and he presents much in the way of statistical evidence to bolster his arguments. In the end, he can be described as a "pessimist". His "solutions" to some of South Africa's economic woes may be summed up by a 'social liberal' philosophy where a 'regulated market' predominates.

At the onset of 'Liberation/Freedom", a new African kleptocracy was being born while "Die Stem" was still hanging in the air! The rest is history, as they say. Sleaze, undercover operations and character assinations (and 'real' ones) became part of the ANC's modus operandi in power. "Ideology" and the once professed goals of poverty amelioration and a "Better Life for All" (ANCs election slogan of 1994), was soon pushed aside as monetary "self-interest", or plain "greed", took its place as an (African) nationalist bourgeoisie was simply replacing an old (Afrikaner) nationalist bourgeoisie at the helm of the state.

And for the common man/woman/family on the street there has been only slight improvement: "Between 1994 and 2007 the ANC built 2.6 million houses. The number of homes with electricity doubled to 8.8 million. By 2007, over 87 per cent of people had access to clean running water. As of March 2008, 14.1 million people in South Africa were benefiting from the largest social welfare programme in sub-Saharan Africa" [Alec Russel, p. 93, 2009].

Now, although there has been a substantial improvement in African housing, however, the mass building of low-cost RDP houses ["kennels"] being built by the ANC: "were smaller and of poorer quality than the houses built by the apatrheid government. Under apartheid [the people] had fought against the building of five-hundred-square-foot houses. 'They were an insult. Now the [ANC] government is building us even smaller ones'" [Russel, p.95]. Residents complain about inferior, substandard housing and of a huge demand, despite attempts at the the 'upgrading' of many squatter camps: tarred roads, proper sanitation and electricity provision, however patchy, uneven and insufficient.

There has been noticeable slides in the standards in public health and education (which already started at a low level). Life expectancy has fallen sharply among Africans and South Africa has actually fallen backwards in the UNDP Human Development Index.

The huge burgeoning squatter camps outside most urban core regions are a volatile mix of rural internal migrants, foreign refugees and small-scale entrepreneurs ["street vendors"] with the occasional flaring-up of so-called xenophobic slaughter of 'the usual suspects' by necklacing, burning down of shacks and revenge killings. Much of this remains hidden and hence unreported. Township residents are genuinely angry at the lack of better housing, sewrage, schooling and roads and the huge increase in crime and lalessness. There is little sence of civic responsibility or even of the need to obey the law - a Wild West scenario that overspills the squatter camps into the more respectable middle class suburbs where the 'pickings' are greater.

The man-in-the-street bribes policemen and Home Affairs officials and bureaucrats; makes illegal telephone, water and electricity connections; refuses to pay for television licenses or rates. It is a culture of non-payment for services that has a long history in the townships. Steps to reverse this trend have not been very successful.

Township citizens defend his/her 'right' to do so by accusing fingers pointed at 'The Fat-Cat Politicians' "who are openly stealing", the culture of 'enrich yourselves' of the new black elite who have physically moved from the overcrowded, dangerous ghettos and of the 'culture of entitlement' that followed on the post-apartheid dispensation.

It is unlikely that Jacob Zuma and his erstwhile Leftist allies can change this situation. The slogan: "Phansi ngo Mbeki, Phambili ngo Zuma" ["Down with Mbeki, Up with Zuma"] had become popular with the downfall of the former unpopular, defeated and deposed President Thabo Mbeki in 2007. Little has been heard of the latter who once spoke boldly of an "African Renaissance" and an African Inititive to Africa's problems. His seminal role in initiating and closing the Arms Deal is still to be investigated. Hopefully he will not escape the juridical net, where powerful political forces, as described by Feinstein (2009) and Crawford-Browne (2007), and F.A. Johnston (2009) are at play to block a proper investigation.

The ANC contained many things: principled heroism, Stalinist appartchicks, political opportunists and plain thuggery. The poisoning of Thami Zulu [real name Muziwakhe Ngwenya, known as "TZ"] was not an isolated incident. With many competing ideological influences, political and social forces to balance and appease it will be a stormy and petulant period in South African politics we will now witness. ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema, backed up by Zwelinzima Vavi, chief of the Congress of Trade Unions, two of Zuma's strongest backers, have recently called for the "nationalisation" of the mining industry (they possibly mean its total "statization"), sparking off a debate that is as old as the Freedom Charter of 1956. But "Politics in Command!" eshews such serious discussion, where "quick-fix" solutions and "slogans" are the order of the day. Reason and rationality will be the first casualty.

The South African economy the next. The South African economy is likely to shed half a million jobs in 2009, especially in manufacturing and mining. January 2009 alone witnessed a 36% crash in new car sales and a 50% production cut, the worst ever recorded, according to the National Association of Auto Manufacturers. The anticipated rise in port activity has also reversed, with a 29% annualised fall in early 2009. House repossessions increased by 52% in early 2009 from a year earlier, as house prices are down 11% with much greater falls ahead. Most minerals are 70% off their peak of a year ago. The stock market lost nearly 50% last year.

But on the other side of the coin the media speaks of a 'new Zulu kleptocracy', of the Nkandla Mafia (Zuma's homelands base in the rural Midlands of Natal), businesmen based in KwaZulu Natal who hope that the State's partonage and reward system will now 'trickle down' towards Zulu's and not Xhosas only this time. We will see! The South African police measured more than 30,000 'gatherings' - 15 or more people in some form of protest, for which permission is typically applied for a week ahead of time -- from 2004-08. Of these, 10 per cent generated 'unrest'.

The centralization of power under the President's office was well under way under Mbeki and now the Big Man has asssumed power, can we now expect a corresponding development of "African Despotism" as the ANC struggles to maintain political hegemony in a disintegrating social environment, through thuggery, authoritarianism and a semi-militarist dictatorship?

The South African police measured more than 30,000 "gatherings'' - 15 or more people in some form of protest, for which permission is typically applied for a week ahead of time - from 2004-08. Of these, 10 per cent generated "unrest''. At the time of writing [24 June 2009], there have been renewed unrest with demonstrations against "non-delivery" and police heavy-handed action: "Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at township protesters demanding improved services and more jobs on Wednesday, in one of the biggest challenges to President Jacob Zuma since he took office. Thousands marched in a show of anger, saying they would escalate demonstrations if local officials from the African National Congress failed to deliver swiftly on promises to provide jobs, housing, and medical care. Some burned tyres and hurled stones at police in armoured vehicles, who responded with tear gas. The violence increased uncertainty after a wave of strikes in Africa's biggest economy, where Zuma took office in May." [Mail&Guardian Online, 23 July 2009]

As a bemused and bewildered Tata Nelson Mandela celebrated his 91st birthday recently, surrounded by the leaders of Zuma's New Team of the ANC, he might just have been wondering: "Now just where is South Africa heading with these guys?".

Fascinating insights into the political motivations and characters behind South Africa since the end of apartheid. Opened my eyes to many new facets of politics - the fact that the fall of Communism in Europe recast the ANC into a party that the white apartheid government believed that it could deal with (they were more afraid of communism than black nationalism) - the Reagan-like qualities of Zuma, an uneducated glad-hander on the surface, with political skills beyond any of his contemporaries - the scale of the AIDS denial disaster propogated by Mbeki who was responsible for a wave of death on the scale of the Holocaust - the mechanics and consequences of BEE (Black Economic Empowerment)and the resulting new, small band of black "oligarchs" in South Africa.
Be sure to read Meredith's "Diamonds, Blood and War" to learn how the events of just 40 years since the discovery of diamonds shaped the country.

This book gives a great background of the current problems facing South Africa. Russel left no stone unturned in his research for this!

In post apartheid South Africa, only the color of one's skin matters. It was that way under the Afrikaners. So what has changed? Alex Russell's well written dissection of modern South Africa suspends most moral judgments in describing the African National Congress' corrupt political control of South Africa. The facts speak; the ANC's "trade of political contacts for shareholding;" how "politics could be expected to take primacy over law;" and how "affirmative action compound[s] a shortage of skilled workers." The emigration of young educated whites and the daily flight of engineers can not bode well for this country, seriously in need of "a new business culture." South Africa's crime statistics overwhelm the reader. Chose your adjective when it comes to Russell's condemnation of Mbeki's AIDs policy; "putting politics over science . . . outlandish . . . deranged." Jacob Zuma's elevation to power is Capone's Chicago, circa 2009. Russell's treatment of the Zimbabwean issue fascinates; at the end, he asks if the Mugabe experience is the future of South Africa. His ANC to Zanu-PF comparison is worthy of Pol Sci 301 on the fate of revolutionary movements at Oxford or Georgetown. He does not mention the coming World Cup to South Africa in 2010. His prototype of the present day white south South African is a khaki clad racist spouting apartheid gibberish. This may be a journalistic penchant to characterize the extremes of society as Russell is fair and reasonable in his views. His book takes the reader many places and is a worthy and welcome addition to the public affairs' book shelf.

Russell creates a great template for understanding South Africa since 1994. The book is a bit newsy -- Russell has been a frequent journalist covering South Africa -- but it contains great information for a reader seeking to understand a complex country. Where this country is headed is always a discussion of interest and changes by the hour, day, week, year.

They sent me a completely different book about Iraqi politics with the cover ripped off and the cover of the book I wanted taped on, Never buy from them!