Talk:Thabo Mbeki/Archive 1

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Archive 1

Jama

The Jama information seems good, thought I don't know about Lesotho. In verifying it, [1] [2] I notice he also lost a son Monwabise Kwanda in the struggle. Wizzy…☎ 08:12, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Mbeki and the Internet

I removed the horribly condescending section on Mbeki and the internet. It seemed to imply that it was laughable and quaint for an African to utilize technology in such a way. No one would write an section in an encyclopedia called, "Gerhard Schroeder Utilizes Internet." I disagree with Mbeki about the AIDS dissident stuff as much as anybody, but that is hardly the way to approach it. Most youth in most major cities in Africa know how to use the internet--is Wikipedia's view of Africa so shaded that they think it worth note the president of the most wealth country on the continent can use the freaking internet? I can't fathom what possessed the author of this section. 65.15.79.49 03:54, 1 February 2006 (UTC)jkuzuz

I don't see the paragraph as condecending at all; it seems fairly balanced. Internet usage is *not* a fact of daily life for most of the South African population; it is an "apples and oranges" situation to try and compare Mbeki and Schroeder. I suggest that you rather work with the offending part (about AIDS dissidents) and rework it, instead of just scrapping a whole section. dewet|™ 04:40, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
I can explain the thinking behind that paragraph since I wrote most of it: many world leaders are NOT comfortable with the internet, or if they are, don't make a point of it. Maybe this is because I live in the United States but it seemed to me that the paragraph illustrated the article's larger theme that Mbeki is a somewhat inward-looking and very intellectual man. Our own US president would likely never admit to spending any time on the internet for any serious reason (he proudly stated that he doesn't even read newspapers) and he certainly would not cite Wikipedia in a radio address or some written communication. Nor would he read the equivalent of Indian Country Today for some other country--even a large and powerful one. I mean, that Hurricane Katrina column is like if George Bush wanted to address the issue of AIDS in South Africa, and said to American constituents, "I'm worried about South Africa, because last week I was reading in the Treatment Action Campaign newsletter that..." and then said, "I was reading a column in the Mail & Guardian, and it had a very interesting point"--it's basically inconceivable. This is part of what makes Mbeki such an interesting person by contrast.
Anyone who reads Mbeki's columns in ANC Today, as I try to, has to be struck with how diverse its sources are and how wide and eclectic the man's reading is--and as the examples in the article suggest, some of that seems to come from a search-engine-driven way of using the internet that many wikipedia readers also share, but most world leaders would not. Finally, his internet use is an important political theme both in the example he sets in ANC Today--often citing internet sources--and as part of the controversy over his AIDS dissident theories. (Some of that controversy was likely unfair--one source suggests that he originally heard about AIDS dissident ideas from people in his circle and from a book--but it is clear that he spent some time on the internet looking up information on the topic, and this did become an important political theme for some elements of the opposition.) I actually added this section with a quite different agenda than the one you suggest--in part because the previous version of this article, which I helped to expand, was mostly pejorative, focusing on controversies and with a large emphasis on the AIDS stuff. I felt that along with expanding info about his political and economic views, the internet portion was one way to humanize him for wikipedia readers--and show that if wikipedia readers had somewhat demonized him in the past, they might be interested to find that he was actually much more like them than the previous biography of him would have acknowledged. I'd like to think that if he made edits to his own page it wouldn't be to this section.
Still, I can appreciate that others outside the US, who are accustomed to somewhat more technologically-savvy leaders, might read this section differently than I intended it, so I'd be glad to work with anyone on how to improve this section (while hopefully keeping it brief). Joewright 05:13, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
I also did not interpret the article as being condescending and crux of the matter is that most politicians of his age probably do not know how to use the Internet, so it is a notable fact that should be included in the article. After first reading that section I was actually a bit proud that we had a president that knew how to use the Internet (unlike, for example, George Bush) ... so, User:65.15.79.49, I think we each read an article through the glasses of our own preconceptions, yes? Elf-friend 07:45, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Dead or missing? Which is it?

The article states that his "brother Jama Mbeki, son Kwanda Mbeki and cousin Phindile Mfeti disappeared without a trace during the apartheid era, and the family to this day does not know what happened to them" but just below in the next paragraph it says that his brother was murdered in 1982 and that later his son was also killed. So what's right here? Are they still missing or dead? Doofuz 16:49, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Was De Klerk deputy president?

I don't think FW De Klerk was ever deputy president, so he shouldn't be listed as a predecessor here. Dewet, can you confirm your source for this? Greenman 23 June 2005

This was only during the period of the transitional government.
  • In April 1994 racially inclusive elections were held for the first time ever. De Klerk ran a largely ceremonial and uncompetitive presidential campaign against Mandela, in which Mandela was soundly elected. He went on to serve for two years as deputy president in Nelson Mandela's government, but announced his retirement from politics in August 1997 in order to dissociate the National Party from the policies he had once implemented. (from F.W. de Klerk)
  • De Klerk was appointed deputy president in the Government of National Unity. (from Nelson Mandela)
For that reason I've listed him as being D.P. from '94-'96, and Mbeki from '97-'99, after the disbanding of the Government of National Unity. Dewet 11:52, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
OK thanks. Probably should be included in the main De Klerk article too. Greenman 23 June 2005
Hmm. I note that on fr, they list both acting concurrently as D.P., with FW being "2nd deputy". Maybe that makes more sense? dewet|™ 07:02, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
They were both deputy president simultaneously, until the NP pulled out of the Government of National Unity. Although De Klerk was sometimes referred to as "second deputy president", there was no such official designation (both were of equal rank), and if I recall correctly, this usage would annoy the NP a great deal. Park3r (talk) 07:22, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Original research removed

I have substantially trimmed the "economic policies" section, which contained a lot of unattributed material, much of which seemed like it might be original research and personal opinion. Below is the full version I removed, posted here for review and improvements (I left in the one cited mini-paragraph:)

Some South African political analysts see a split within the ANC between the "prisoner" generation of leaders, like Nelson Mandela, who studied political theory together in prison, and the "exiles" like Mbeki, who studied economics in Western universities and helped the ANC-in-exile gain credibility with Western nations and corporations. Because Mbeki and his counterparts represented the ANC to the West when the ANC worked to isolate the apartheid government internationally in the 1980s, they may have been more conscious of the compromises that the ANC would have to make once it gained power.

Few ANC members anticipated the economic shambles of the sanctions-hobbled and high-spending apartheid government. Rather than redistributing an inheritance of white economic power, the ANC was forced into austerity measures and deficit reduction.

To many, Mandela represents the emotional warmth of the older brand of socialist politics of the ANC. But even during Mandela's presidency and certainly after it, Mbeki and his allies in the government emphasised market-oriented economic approaches. Even beyond the difficulties of inheriting the debts of apartheid, Mbeki appears to believe that economic growth must occur before redistribution. He also emphasised avoidance of debt as a way of maintaining political and economic independence for the new state. Mbeki has emphasised that any policy that would redistribute wealth at the expense of economic growth and deficit reduction would ultimately put the nation into a downward spiral of market shrinkage and debt accumulation. He has pointed to Zimbabwe's post-liberation direction as an example of the dangers of an overly redistributive approach.

The CIA Factbook says: "South African economic policy is fiscally conservative, but pragmatic, focusing on targeting inflation and liberalising trade as means to increase job growth and household income."[1]

Like many things in South Africa, this policy choice has difficult racial implications. The ANC must balance to keep its promises to its core constituency, the impoverished black majority, while pleasing the white-dominated businesses who can take their capital elsewhere if the regime is explicitly socialist. Mbeki explains his policies in Africanist terms, and believes deeply in the idea of black empowerment. But he does so by tuning his policies to the constraints of market forces rather than attempting to overturn capitalism's organising principles, as earlier generations of liberation politicians might have attempted to do.

This policy direction, embodied by the Growth, Employment And Redistribution (GEAR) program, was often unpopular with leftist constituencies inside the ANC and outside it, including ANC-affiliated labor unions within the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the non-party-affiliated "social movements" which have protested Mbeki's policies on AIDS, land redistribution and service delivery (e.g., the government's insistence on payment from the poor for utilities like electricity and water).

The more free-market-oriented Democratic Alliance (the largest opposition party) and smaller political groups have sometimes criticised affirmative action efforts such as aspects of Batho pele, for other policies oriented towards redressing apartheid's inequalities. But the business community inside and outside South Africa has retained faith in the ANC government to a degree that defies many pre-democracy predictions.

Although unemployment remains high and black poverty remains the rule rather than the exception, the economy overall has grown. Perhaps as a result, most South Africans remain loyal to the ANC and to Mbeki's government, and are willing to see economic transformation and redistribution of wealth as a long process.


"Born and raised by Charles": this doesn't make sense. Please amend. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.110.121.6 (talk) 22:45, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Grandmasterka 03:32, 10 September 2007 (UTC) --- This says Mbeki likes to quote from the Internet--including Wikipedia, I wonder if he edits his own page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.172.214.125 (talk) 06:25, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "South Africa". The World Factbook. CIA. Retrieved 2006-11-22. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)


AIDS Denialism Material Problematic

}} There seems to be POV problems here. There's perhaps a lot of material on AIDS in South Africa relative to the length of this biographical article. More problematic is a subsection called denialist that has reference to him accepting HIV causes AIDS, when the AIDS denialism article defines denialism as either denying HIV exists or that HIV causes AIDS. Gallador (talk) 14:27, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Can you point out the problematic reference? I do not think he has recanted his AIDS denialism. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 18:00, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Hi, Orangemarlin and anyone else interested. I have just added a see also link to the HIV/AIDS in South Africa page. That, in my opinion, is the general page on the topic that can be enhanced by much of the general South African HIV/AIDS data on this living person's biography page. The specific point I made above is that this Mbeki article in the last paragraph of the AIDS denialist subsection states, "That is, he accepts that HIV causes AIDS." According to Wikipedia's AIDS denialism article's definition, he is, accordingly, not a denialist. In my opinion, this Mbeki article should be emended to reflect this.Gallador (talk) 02:58, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
But the articles that are used as references to his AIDS denialism indicate that he does not think AIDS is caused by HIV, meaning he is by definition an AIDS denialist. I think the article is using reliable sources that supports the comments. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 03:01, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Hi, Orangemarlin. Actually, the cited Samantha Power's article has this on page three: "But in his keynote address Mbeki declared that extreme poverty, not AIDS, was "the world's biggest killer." Since poverty also broke down peoples' immune systems, Mbeki said, "We could not blame everything on a single virus."
"These statements combined with Mbeki's indulgence of skeptics like Rasnick, gave him a reputation for saying that H.I.V. didn't cause AIDS. In fact, A.N.C. loyalists told me, this was an exaggeration designed to humiliate the President. Essop Pahad, Mbeki's close friend and adviser, said, "He has never said it. You will never produce a shred of evidence that he said any such thing." The article continues with "Whether or not..." and does not invalidate Essop Pahad's statement. Nor does it demonstrate that the statement it quotes on page four from the President's cabinet ("The government's starting point is based on the premise that H.I.V. causes AIDS.") is not his understanding. Whatever inferences some people may draw from his broader attention to addressing poverty, Wikipedia's policy on living persons, I believe, requires focus on sourced facts. I feel this Mbeki article should reflect those sourced facts.
I also feel the HIV/AIDS in South Africa page can be enhanced by HIV/AIDS data from this Mbeki page. Gallador (talk) 04:08, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
You're picking and choosing here. Of course, this politician is backing off from his rather unsupported statements. But a primary source like the one you're using is hardly reliable. And "we could not blame everything on a single virus" sounds like denialism. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 08:08, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Hi, Orangemarlin. I'm a bit busy now, but quickly: I'm sorry for any confusion. Samantha Power's article is one of the main sources used in this wikipedia article's comments about Mbeki and AIDS denialism. You can read it by following the link at footnote number 30. If you follow the link under footnote number 33, you can read the Guardian's article, "Mbeki admits he is still Aids dissident six years on." There it states, "Mr Gevisser says that while Mr Mbeki has never denied the link between HIV and AIDS, he is a "profound sceptic." I think this wikipedia article on Mbeki should have precise language taking this into account. I'll try within a few days to present a suggestion of such wording. All the BestGallador (talk) 14:27, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Pronunciation

Can anyone who knows how Thabo Mbeki's name is pronounced please add an IPA pronunciation to the article? Kairos (talk) 01:15, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Mbeki, AIDS, Africa

The three articles excerpted below are essential for understanding AIDS in Africa, and Mbeki's dissent from the Western corporate line that everyone has been force-fed. These articles are long, detailed, well-documented, and very illuminating about many things, not least the racism combined with Puritanical, anti-sex attitudes inherent in most conceptions of AIDS epidemiology in Africa. Great fun, and rewarding reads, IMO. A well-informed reader will note that the principal causes of the "AIDS epidemic" in Africa are the same as the causes of the low-I.Q. "epidemic". They are: malaria, impure water, parasitic infections, malnutrition (micronutrients and macronutrients), tuberculosis, etcetera, which are in turn caused largely by grinding poverty. The articles cited below are essential for understanding contemporary AFRICA, period -- not just AIDS or I.Q. These articles explain the proximate causes of Africa's backwardness.

The three articles are below, tagged:

DOCUMENT #1: Misconceptions About AIDS in Africa (Geshekter)

DOCUMENT #2: Mbeki's AIDS Orthodoxy Critique (Geshekter et al)

DOCUMENT #3: Nutrition, Parasites, and HIV/AIDS (Stillwaggon)

Just a taste:

"After the distinguished Harvard physician Paul Farmer found himself at conferences where professional colleagues went 'practically purple with rage discussing Mbeki,' even accusing him of genocide, he decided to look dispassionately at the controversy. Farmer concluded, quite sensibly, that Mbeki's message was that 'poverty and social inequality serve as HIV's most potent co-factors, and any effort to address this disease in Africa must embrace a broader conception of disease causation.' Farmer acknowledged, 'this is precisely the point many of us have tried to make... and we haven't been branded as AIDS heretics.'"

I highly recommend the full texts, at the URLs, not just these excerpts. But if you don't have time for that, and would prefer an "easy-listening" version, try the following video of Dr. Charles Geshekter on AIDS in Africa: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qUBagW-xWs -- Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZkrCm9wMKI -- Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l5IDC9bJyE -- Part 3

Here's Geshekter, from Part 2 of that video (at about 1.5 minutes):

"What AIDS has become in Africa is a great distraction. It distracts us from the questions of better food, better clean drinking water, more appropriate ways of getting rid of waste. It puts the burden back on Africans and their alleged promiscuous sexual activities. To that extent it is a wonderful shortcut to avoid the harder, stubborn issues about why is Africa so poor, why are its people suffering so badly."

Enjoy.

Alan

DOCUMENT #1: Misconceptions About AIDS in Africa (Geshekter)

http://www2.units.it/~etica/2007_2/GESHEKTER.pdf

Etica & Politica / Ethics & Politics, IX, 2007, 2, pp. 330-370

Myths and Misconceptions of the Orthodox View of AIDS in Africa

CHARLES L. GESHEKTER

Department of History

California State University, Chico

chollygee @ earthlink.net

"Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood." --- Marie Curie

"To kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes even better than, establishing a new truth or fact." --- Charles Darwin

ABSTRACT

This article rebuts conventional claims that AIDS in Africa is a microbial problem to be controlled through sexual abstinence, behavior modification, condoms, and drugs. The orthodox view mistakenly attributes to sexual activities the common symptoms that define an AIDS case in Africa - diarrhea, high fever, weight loss and dry cough. What has really made Africans increasingly sick over the past 25 years are deteriorating political economies, not people's sexual behavior. The establishment view on AIDS turned poverty into a medical issue and made everyday life an obsession about safe sex. While the vast, self-perpetuating AIDS industry invented such aggressive phrases as "the war on AIDS" and "fighting stigma," it viciously denounced any physician, scientist, journalist or citizen who exposed the inconsistencies, contradictions and errors in their campaigns. Thus, fighting AIDS in Africa degenerated into an intolerant religious crusade. Poverty and social inequality are the most potent co-factors for an AIDS diagnosis. In South Africa, racial inequalities rooted in apartheid mandated rigid segregation of health facilities and disproportionate spending on the health of whites, compared to blacks. Apartheid policies ignored the diseases that primarily afflicted Africans - malaria, tuberculosis, respiratory infections and protein anemia. Even after the end of apartheid, the absence of basic sanitation and clean water supplies still affects many Africans in the former homelands and townships. The article argues that the billions of dollars squandered on fighting AIDS should be diverted to poverty relief, job creation, the provision of better sanitation, better drinking water, and financial help for drought-stricken farmers. The cure for AIDS in Africa is as near at hand as an alternative explanation for what is making Africans sick in the first place.

[...snip...]

DOCUMENT #2: Mbeki's AIDS Orthodoxy Critique (Geshekter et al)

http://www.altheal.org/africa/aidspapergeshekter.doc

AIDS, Medicine and Public Health: The Scientific Value of Thabo Mbeki's Critique of AIDS Orthodoxy

Charles L. Geshekter

Department of History, California State University, Chico, Chico, California 95929-0735 chollygee@earthlink.net

Sam Mhlongo, M.D.

Department of Family Medicine, Medical University of South Africa, P.O. Box 222, Medunsa, South Africa smmhlong@iafrica.com

Claus K”hnlein, M.D.

24103 Kiel K”nigsweg 14, Germany Koehnlein-Kiel@t-online.de

Presented at the 47th Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association

New Orleans, Louisiana

11 November 2004

NOT FOR QUOTATION WITHOUT PERMISSION

1. Introduction

In his installation address at the University of Witwatersand in 1998, Vice Chancellor Colin Bundy reminded the audience that a university "must encourage its academics and students never to take knowledge as given, as fixed: they must recognize that knowledge is `socially sustained and invested with interests and backed by power'."1

This advice was forgotten when scientists and activists gathered in Durban for the 13th International AIDS Conference in July 2000 - then again in Barcelona/2002 and in Bangkok/2004. They ignored the many paradoxes and contradictions that arouse serious concern about the reliability of African AIDS research. In the United States, where AIDS was first identified, an imprecision about the definition of the syndrome and its causation (abetted by a lack of journalistic and social science scrutiny) still clouds the public's understanding of HIV and AIDS.2

This paper evaluates how the assumptions and claims that turned "AIDS is everywhere" into an American clich‚ are being perpetuated in Africa. It scrutinizes the predictions of increased numbers of AIDS cases in Africa to show how conceptual flaws and questionable statistics mar conventional studies. It suggests that western stereotypes, poorly designed research and racist claims about African sexuality have created the untenable conclusions about AIDS now proliferating in Africa.

In a critique of armchair empiricism that applies to much AIDS research, Margo Russell and Mary Mugyenyi showed how analysts often squeeze "African data into inappropriate Western categories" and "international agencies, with their passion for international comparison...exert a strong pressure for just the kind of standardization that sociologists should be well-placed to reject."3

In many ways, AIDS has become a great diversion. The belief that behavior modification will cure poverty disguises the endemic conditions that cause the appearance of the "symptoms" in the first place. Many AIDS activists and researchers ignore the complexity of historical forces that propelled parts of Africa into a downward economic spiral beginning in the late 1970s that set the stage for the appearance of "AIDS."

In the Reagan Era, a "Washington Consensus" dominated official thinking about economic development in the U.S. government, the IMF, the World Bank and private banks and foundations. It called for sharp cutbacks in government spending, financial liberalization, privatization of state-owned enterprises, deregulation and the supremacy of the market over all other values, policies that contributed mightily to the demise of Africa. According to Joseph Stiglitz, an economist formerly with the World Bank, during the 1990s, the number of people living in extreme poverty (less than $2 per day) increased by nearly 100 million, world-wide, with the disproportionate amount being found in Africa.

Countries in east and southern Africa became so indebted to and dependent on international financial institutions that they were no longer free to make basic decisions about which goods and services could be allocated.4 Beginning in the late 1970s, corruption and decay in the public health field, sharp decreases in the prices of exported commodities, severe restrictions on social services due to the IMF and World Bank strictures of "structural adjustment," savage civil wars, declining rates of immunization, and crowded refugee camps were among the major forces afflicting Africa as the 20th century ended. None of these forces were related to sexual promiscuity.

2. Definitions

[...snip...]

DOCUMENT #3: Nutrition, Parasites, and HIV/AIDS (Stillwaggon)

http://www.ifpri.org/events/conferences/2005/durban/papers/stillwaggonWP.pdf

The Ecology of Poverty: Nutrition, Parasites, and Vulnerability to HIV/AIDS

Eileen Stillwaggon

HIV/AIDS continues to spread throughout the developing world, in transition countries, and among poor and marginalized populations in industrialized countries. In some countries the epidemic is still spreading rapidly. And today, in its third decade, even with increased resources, global AIDS policy is still failing to stem the epidemic. HIV prevention fails because it ignores the fundamental causes of the epidemic, it is unscientific, and it attempts to intervene at the last minute with programs limited to behavior change.

The HIV epidemic is not an isolated event. It is the predictable result of declining economies, insecure food systems, and inadequate investment in water and sanitation. The crisis of sustainable agricultural systems, most notably in sub-Saharan Africa but elsewhere as well, has aggravated the health crisis in developing countries and favored the spread of HIV/AIDS. The collapse of agricultural economies caused rapid urbanization, unemployment, and increasing inequality. The AIDS literature addresses, to some extent, the effect of economic crisis on behavior through the disruption of relationships and pressures toward unsafe sex, in particular in the form of commercial sex for survival. Little emphasis, however, has been placed on the direct, biological effects of malnutrition and unsanitary conditions on the vulnerability of individuals and societies to HIV.

The epidemic of HIV cannot be explained by behavioral factors alone, even though a necessary condition is contact through sex, needles or other medical instruments, or mother to child. Scientific evidence demonstrates the role of biological cofactors - malnutrition and parasitic and infectious diseases - in enabling the transmission of HIV. Although AIDS policy organizations use the phrase, "AIDS is a development issue," they do not incorporate scientific information about the diseases and conditions of poverty into their programming for HIV prevention. Consequently, their policies are limited to programs that address only behavioral factors. This paper integrates analysis of poverty with the epidemiology of infectious and parasitic diseases. Combining medical, economic, and geographical data, it demonstrates the specific disease synergies that promote HIV transmission in poor populations.

How diseases spread

[...snip...]

Conclusion

The same conditions that promote high prevalence of other infectious diseases and parasites are responsible for the spread of the AIDS epidemic in poor populations. Programs to prevent HIV transmission will be unsuccessful unless they address the underlying causes of the spread of AIDS. HIV prevention must be based on scientific evidence regarding cofactor conditions, not on unproven assumptions about the primacy of behavioral factors. Poverty eradication is the most important objective in stopping AIDS epidemics. The establishment of food security and investment in sanitary infrastructure and education are integral parts of a program of poverty eradication. Food security, deworming, schistosomiasis prevention and treatment, and malaria control programs must be incorporated into HIV prevention. Inexpensive means are available for achieving these goals and organizational support already exists that can be integrated with AIDS programming.

The biggest constraint on malaria, helminth, or schistosomiasis eradication has been the lack of adequate institutional framework for implementing control programs. But that is the same constraint that discourages investment in myriad complementary programs. A broad program of investment in public health infrastructure, such as clean water, plus health care centers, and health and hygiene education is the necessary base. Then the additional cost of a program for parasite control or other intervention would be minimal. Numerous analyses of HIV-prevention and treatment programs argue that poor countries cannot absorb the billions of dollars of anticipated expenditures. That is only true in a very narrow and shortsighted view of developing country needs. When the agenda is good health, not only HIV-prevention but including that, there is no problem of absorptive capacity in developing countries. There are ample opportunities for investments - in water, sanitation, nutrition, health-care facilities - with known benefits for a broad array of problems.

[...snip...] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alan2012 (talk • contribs) 03:07, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Infobox: Vice Presidents??

In South Africa, the office is called Deputy President. GoodDay (talk) 00:31, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Zimbabwe

This section needs updating but as it has not got a lot of press coverage lately I am having a hard time doing it easily. Would appreciate contributions to expand this section with NPOV, hopefully including Mbeki's views and not just criticisms.

--forgot to sign the above--and thanks, wizzy for working on this. Joewright 16:06, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Hey Wizzy, can you add a footnote for the business response or point me to the ref so I can do it? Also, would you be willing to shorten this? I'm concerned that it overplays the opinion of this one guy within this biographical entry, although I am sure he speaks for many. Joewright 22:06, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I saw it on allafrica.com, but that is a useless link because it needs registration after a week or so. It was from Business Day, bday.co.za, but I couldn't find it on their page. I will look again. I will look at shortening it. Wizzy…☎ 07:02, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
The Zimbabwe section still needs to be made more neutral, and possibly a neutrality template should be put up, or a weasel wording template. See Wikipedia: Weasel Wording. A lot of this is clearly anti-Mugabe, and we need to add in the other side of the story, rather than just read straight out of the "Bush and Blair Corporation" etc. Obviously I am going a bit far here, but it is necessary for NPOV to give both sides. —Preceding unsigned comment added by HandGrenadePins (talk • contribs) 12:25, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

President

As far as I know it, he is still president, until his resignation is formally accepted by the Speaker or equivalent. (Thought this is a formality no doubt)... But just to be accurate. =Nichalp «Talk»= 19:32, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

The resignation letter was delivered to the Speaker today. It has to be accepted by both houses of Parliament. A special session has been called for Monday 22 September. Roger (talk) 20:19, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Umm?

"Mbeki's aim of an African renaissance has attracted criticism from quarters regarding his perceived continued support for President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, despite evidence of Mugabe's use of political violence in his suppression of the opposition movement and mismanagement of economic policies and reforms that have resulted in hyperinflation of the economy, and increased poverty for the broader population."

I'm not sure what information this sentence is trying to convey, but it definitely is mixed up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.234.181.136 (talk) 07:37, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Pronunciation

I was wondering if anyone was able to put an IPA pronunciation of Mr. Mbeki's name at the top as if often done on other sites. In particular, my friends and I were wondering how the initial "Th" was pronounced, if the "o" was diphthongized, if there were any coarticulated sounds, and if the "i" was more like the 'i' in 'police' or the 'i' in 'list.'--Amieni (talk) 07:08, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

The letter

Just created a section on the Mbeki-to-Zuma missive leaked to the press late in October last year: please help me integrate some of its substantial and interesting content into the article, which in general is in dire need of updating and fleshing out. It serves, I think, to illustrate how far to the back of our minds Mbeki has been resigned. Crusoe (talk) 00:02, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Introduction - POV?

The introduction is very POV in my opinion. e.g. lines like this (which is also rather incoherent):

'This, and his failure to continue the progress made under Nelson Mandela in nation-building, his obsession with racist rhetoric, conspiracy eventually culminated in the failure to anticipate and deal adequately with the 2008 Xenophobia Attacks.'

Should judgemental stuff like this really be in the article? I'd leave it to others who have been taking care of the page to decide but to me it seems like it needs paring down.--Lopakhin (talk) 22:28, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Economic Management

Just removed the sentence "Economically he managed a world-beating 4.5% average growth." from the head-section, which sounds as if the economic growth of a country depended exclusively on the president! Surely economic policy is important, but claiming that the president (of any country) "manages" economic growth is a bit over the edge. Replaced the sentence with "During his time in office the economy grew at a remarable average rate of 4,5% per annum." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.54.67.93 (talk) 13:53, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

The AIDS info is garbled and unclear

The two sections on HIV/AIDS (both in the lead and in the body of the article) are completely garbled and unclear. They go around and around in circles and don't say anything definitively -- in fact, the section in the body of the article keeps contradicting itself. Can someone please re-write both of these sections in plain English, stating the facts about Mbeki's actions and position and policies, without trying to second-guess, back-pedal, apologize, or minimize? Pretend you are writing for someone who has no idea whatsoever about the situation/events, knows nothing about South Africa. Don't try to explain or mitigate, just give facts, not opinions. And in the lead section of the article, remove passive voice and deflections onto the pharmaceutical industry and the Health Minister. The lead is just for succint facts, not circumlocution. Thanks very much in advance. Softlavender (talk) 13:23, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Pronunciation

The English pronunciation should be added, i.e., Tahbo Embeki. Varlaam (talk) 06:49, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

That is wrong - there is no sound at all before the initial "M" in Mbeki. Roger (talk) 07:02, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
You're South African?
I am not talking about a theoretical hypercorrect way. I am talking about how Canadians, when speaking to our swarms of expatriate South Africans, say it. I have yet to hear anyone in real life say "No, no, it's not em-beki, it's m-beki."
Varlaam (talk) 07:38, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
http://sports.webshots.com/photo/2788768260034031563SLcEEZ
Here we have a photo of "Embeki" looking very good in his red tie and pinstripe.
Varlaam (talk) 07:54, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
(ec)Yes I am South African. It's not a "theoretical hypercorrect" pronunciation, it is simply the correct one. The inability of (some) Canadians (and some South Africans) to produce the required phonemes correctly is of no interest to this article. By your logic we would have to note the way all foreign words are mispronounced in every possible variety of English - that ain't gonna happen. You don't see South Africans or Sri Lankans or New Zealanders or Scots insisting on having the way they pronounce Tuktoyaktuk or Trois-Rivières added to those articles. Roger (talk) 08:03, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
Agree with Roger. The article is slightly misleading though in that it says "Xhosa pronunciation" rather than just pronunciation, implying there is a Zulu pronunciation, English pronunciation etc. I will correct this. Greenman (talk) 08:52, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Nevirapine: Roll-out or Clinical Trials?

"However, the Treatment Action Campaign and its allies were eventually forced to resort to the South African Courts which in 2002 ordered the government to make the drug nevirapine available to pregnant women to help prevent mother to child transmission of HIV."

This victory that led to "availability" was not for roll-out, but against a government cut down in centres conducting clinical trials NCT00074412 [3], which the opposition (DA) run Western Cape Province defiantly used as a semi-official roll-out despite the apparent dangers of viral mutation (40%) cited by the US Department of Health and Human Services [4]. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 197.109.7.186 (talk) 01:33, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

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Thabo Mbeki

Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki is a politician that was the second president of South Africa. Mbeki was born in 18 June 1942. He is the son of Govan Mbeki and Epainette Mbeki . He was born and raised in Eastern Cape in Mbewuleni. Thank you 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏❤️❤️❤️🌏🌏 

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Bf Aliyah (talk • contribs) 18:02, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
All of those things are already in the article. IAmNitpicking (talk) 04:02, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
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