Dlamini-Zuma brings a refreshing note of self-reliance to the AU, but it's premature to declare UDI
It would probably be safe to say that Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, chairperson of the African Union (AU) Commission, does not brim over with charisma. Of her three cabinet posts before she was elected to her present position after a bruising campaign by South Africa last year, Foreign Affairs was probably the least suited to her personality.
Being a medical doctor she was evidently competent as Health minister in President Nelson Mandela's cabinet. And as Home Affairs minister in President Jacob Zuma's cabinet she brought the necessary steel to stiffen the efficiency of what had been a hopelessly inept department.
As Foreign Affairs minister to President Thabo Mbeki, though, Dlamini-Zuma was not widely or wildly popular among diplomats, certainly not Western diplomats (admittedly an important qualification). She was regarded as dour and unsympathetic, certainly to Western governments, which are usually very eager to improve relations with South Africa. They viewed her as especially prone to the propensity of many in her government - to regard any Western overture as masking a hidden neo-colonialist agenda. In short, she was not very diplomatic.
One might have thought that diplomatic skill was an essential requirement for someone sitting in the hot seat in Addis Ababa, especially one who had to repair the damage and divisions in the continent caused by South Africa's aggressive election campaign even before getting down to the routine business of reconciling widely disparate continental interests. But it was clear from the start that Zuma had not despatched his ex-wife to Addis Ababa for her charm, but, first, for the administrative efficiency she had displayed at Home Affairs - to tighten up a flabby AU Commission bureaucracy. And second, for the same scepticism regarding Western motives that she had displayed at Foreign Affairs. After all, her main election plank was that she would keep in check the Western interests that her rival, Gabon's Jean Ping, had allegedly allowed to ride roughshod over the AU.
Some observers believe those qualities are not serving her entirely well in Addis Ababa. She is evidently improving efficiency, but there have been rumblings for some time that she is battling to win the loyalty and willing support of much of the bureaucracy she inherited - and their home governments.
Rumours that she has created resentment because she has ‘hijacked' the commission by bringing in so many South African and other South African Development Community officials surfaced last month when outgoing United States ambassador Michael Battle reportedly confirmed them in an interview with a South African newspaper. According to good sources, Battle immediately called several South African officials to strongly deny the remarks attributed to him. But others have corroborated those observations anyway.
Naturally, the South African view is that any resentment Dlamini-Zuma's management of the commission might have caused largely stems from the Francophone countries, as she has curbed their excessive influence (and thereby, Pretoria would have it, also the influence of Paris).
Certainly Dlamini-Zuma dismayed Western governments when she barred them from the corridors of the AU summit in May. Since they provide most of the AU Commission's budget, they felt that that was biting the hand that fed her. She had earlier complained that the AU was too reliant on foreign funding, suggesting this was compromising Africa's independence. There is, of course, an essential truth and considerable virtue in this message; that Africa needs to kick its long dependency on foreign handouts.
The positive side of that sentiment was evident when Dlamini-Zuma addressed the ANC Youth League at the University of the Witwatersrand on 1 October. ‘Self-reliance' was the implicit theme of much of her address to the students. For example, when she was asked what Africa should do about the fact that it was still not permanently represented on the United Nations Security Council, the essence of her reply was that Africa's destiny was in its own hands. African - and other -countries without permanent seats were often their own worst enemies, she said. It took nine votes to carry a resolution on the council and so the five permanent members couldn't do it alone. ‘But because they're so powerful, they can often twist our arms.'
However, if Africa became economically strong, a ‘model continent', it would no longer be possible for the powerful nations to ignore its voice, she added. The same sentiment underlay her answer to a suggestion that African governments should legislate against the brain drain from the continent. That would not help, she said. Instead Africa should greatly increase its skills, so if it lost some skilled workers, the loss would not be so severe.
Likewise she advised the students that the way for Africa to avoid being marginalised in the world was to become more democratic, to increase its skills ‘and to believe in ourselves'. Africa should learn to tell its own story, to displace the narrative of poverty and conflict that most outsiders told with a new one about growing economies, more democracy and healthy children. She complained that humanitarian organisations only perpetuated the image of starving African children with flies on their faces to elicit sympathy and money for food aid.
In all, Dlamini-Zuma showed a refreshing reluctance to whine about Africa's problems. Maybe it would be going too far to say that she also avoided the tendency to blame others for Africa's woes. Her message was rather that, whatever the causes, only Africa itself could, ultimately, solve its own problems.
That was, essentially, a good message, of course. But with this important caveat; that one should be careful not to put the cart before the horse. The time to complain that too much of the AU's budget is being financed by Western donors is when you can finance it yourself. The time to tear down the posters of starving African children is when you don't need the foreign food aid they generate.
In short, the time to issue a Unilateral Declaration of Independence is when you are truly independent.
Peter Fabricius is Foreign Editor, Independent Newspapers, South Africa.
This article first appeared in ISS Today, the weekly online newsletter of the Institute for Security Studies.
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