My take:
Excuse my French and pardon my vernacular, Thabo Mbeki knows his ‘shit’.
I tip my hat off to him. To get what I’m talking about, watch the video of him reflecting on the passing of our 3rd president, Benjamin Mkapa.
President Mbeki seems to know our [Tanzanian] history better than a whole lot of Tanzanians. That I can tell you.
Not surprisingly, presidents Mbeki and Mkapa, formed a relationship going as far back as the early 1960s, and which continued well into the 21st century.
When it comes to statecraft in our almost 60 years old of self rule, President Mkapa is only second to Mwalimu, in my humble opinion.
Again, excuse my French, but President Mkapa knew his shit, too.
He could hang with the big dogs. He was as good as the best of them.
For maybe a few of us who saw him in action on the international stage, it’s fair to say he rarely disappointed.
Yes, as President Mbeki said, he [Mkapa] was very passionate. Sometimes even combative a la the now infamous BBC HARDtalk interview.
Nevertheless, I don’t recall even a single time when he had a cringeworthy moment.
Even if I disagreed with him, I never felt embarrassed to call him my president.
Not to intentionally date myself here, but I still vividly remember the first and only [I stand to be corrected] presidential debate we’ve ever had in our country.
It pitted the top three at the time against each other: Mkapa, Mrema, and the money man John Momose Cheyo.
Those two had nothing on Mkapa. He won the debate, hands down.
Then in 1996 at some panel discussion in Algiers. It was Mkapa, Mandela, and some others that I don’t remember offhand.
Mkapa being the policy wonk that he was, even left Mandela almost speechless. He was very eloquent. Knew the issues he was talking about. Just downright impressive!
I have tried to scour YouTube to see if I can find a video of that discussion, but to no avail.
Anyway, it’s a sad loss. Play the video to hear what President Mbeki had to say.