If you haven’t read the latest issue of the ANC Today, you must. In his weekly letter to the country, President Thabo Mbeki responded to an outrageous statement from COSATU general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi. Speaking at the 20th anniversary of the foundation of the National Union of Metalworkers Vavi compared Mbeki's claims of an economic boom in South Africa to propaganda similar to that used by Adolf Hitler's regime in Nazi Germany.
President Mbeki correctly responded to this abominable comparison by accurately rendering a brief description of what Nazism really is.
The problem I have with his response is threefold.
(1) What’s good for the goose should be good for the gander. President Mbeki had no problem when a member of his cabinet Ronnie Kasrils likened Israelis to Nazis.
(2) President Mbeki now speaks of the horror of the Nazi perpetrated Holocaust yet when he had the opportunity to join a UN resolution condemning Holocaust denial, he basically declined.
(3) President Mbeki ruined his scholarly response by falling victim to his “you’re either with us, or against us” mindset. So afflicted is he with South Africa's official opposition party the Democratic Alliance (DA) that he came dangerously close to alleging that COSATU were acting as agents of the DA.
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