Tony Leon possibly hates African people

When Tony Leon addressed a policy conference recently, his diatribe was as loaded as his political irrelevance.

He says that he had perceived Thabo Mbeki to be an efficient backroom manipulator, but was proven wrong (and possibly disappointed even though he had said that a Mbeki bid for presidency of the ANC would be bad news for democracy) by the ANC Polokwane conference-where Mbeki (of 'narrow Africanism') was pipped for presidency by his former deputy president in the SA government, Jacob Zuma. Can a politician's manipulation of events or anything be a virtue?


Then there is the African kleptocracy that Jacob Zuma will foster when he assumes office, couple that with unwanted redistribution in the economy (because Zuma, the 'demagogue', will be pleasing his union and communist friends)? Knowing that John Vorster and PW Botha, under whom his father served as a judge and Tony as a soldier, were born in Africa, does this kleptocracy refer to them as well as previous heads of state? How about Nelson Mandela?

He does not want Zuma to travel the world and reassure investors about South Africa's economic policies going forward. The reason is that 'the demagogue' holds no view on such things. Leon warns the world to be aware (and very afraid) because this uncivilised and needing-restraint Zuma will (like all Africans who are on a wild binge for acquisition of power and property) steal, loot and ...name the vice!


South African workers have for years been championing an onslaught against economic policies of the government and had found no less equal an opponent to them as central government and the DA that was led by Tony Leon. Speed up the GEAR macroeconomic policy and its austerities, he demanded. He charged that the country had a bloated civil service that needed to be trimmed down. How? Privatize state assets! Reduce the head count! For the private sector: the 'harder it is to fire, the less inclined employers will be to hire,' he would exclaim. He was in charge, the leader of the opposition. In the run-up to the 2001 local government elections in South Africa, he had announced that the ANC government could not ignore an opposition that has a defined and important constituency, whether it is a 'political or racial one.' He still saw the country in terms of races. But say affirmative action then he charges reverse racism?

Now the jobs are gone and he is no longer the DA head. Like a Wizard he has found his soul? "Why did we lose jobs in the economy?" he asked, though not in such exact words but in his usual roundabout way. I had penned a letter to the editor of a newspaper wherein I expressed my reservations about Leon's concern for the poor. Maybe I did not understand then that he admired manipulators. It is a twisted thing when a racist pronounces pity for the poor when the expression rests on a desire to aggravate their circumstances. A writer, and liberal for that matter, Pierre Manent said," Pity is selfish...Moreover, pity does not necessarily bring with it the idea of action designed to put an end to the pathetic situation that aroused it in the first place...Pity's chief limitation can be summed up briefly; it does nothing to get us out of the state of nature." In a nutshell, poor people do not ask to be pitied and they detest hypocrisy. Work with them to change their lot in action, not words!!

He tries to atone for himself by praising Zuma for his stance on crime. Yeah!? We are backward and need to be jailed, the xenophobia attacks probably prove his case? He praises Zuma for his stance on Aids. Yeah!? Remember how the slave masters called us an oversexed and promiscuous lot? People are dying of HIV/Aids...and the better the management of the disease then the better it will be for the SADC region. It is altruistic and human to want that but Leon just does not give a damn!

South Africa is going for elections in 2009, and all kinds of things are likely to be said. I bet Leon would not want to be left out of the limelight? How he pines for the 'screen of power.' But, what does it say about his successor?