Introduction

Abstract

Eskom is one of the world’s largest electricity utilities and the national power company in South Mrica (see box on pages 6–10). This book emerges from the experience of transforming Eskom from a statutory entity that existed in terms of a special act of Parliament! into a state-owned enterprise incorporated in terms of South Mrican company law.

“ … the truth is that we have not travelled very far with regard to the projection of frightening images of savagery that attend the continent of Africa.

… And as we speak of an African renaissance, we project into both the past and the future.

I speak here of a glorious past of the emergence of Homo sapiens on the African continent.

I speak of African works of art in South Africa that are a thousand years old. I speak of the continuum in the fine arts that encompasses the varied artistic creations of the Nubians and the Egyptians, the Benin bronzes of Nigeria and the intricate sculptures of the Makonde of Tanzania and Mozambique.

I speak of the centuries-old contributions to the evolution of religious thought made by the Christians of Ethiopia and the Muslims of Nigeria.

I refer also to the architectural monuments represented by the giant sculptured stones of Aksum in Ethiopia, the Egyptian sphinxes and pyramids, the Tunisian city of Carthage and the Zimbabwe Ruins, as well as the legacy of the ancient universities of Alexandria of Egypt, Fez of Morocco and, once more, Timbuktu of Mali.

When I survey all this and much more besides, I can find nothing to sustain the long-held dogma of African exceptionalism, according to which the colour black becomes a symbol of fear, evil and death.

I speak of this long-held dogma, because it continues still to weigh down the African mind and spirit, like the ton of lead that the African slave carries on her own shoulders, producing in her and the rest a condition which, in itself, contests any assertion that she is capable of initiative, creativity, individuality and entrepreneurship.

An essential and necessary element of the Mrican renaissance is that we all must take it as our task to encourage her, who carries this leaden weight, to rebel …”

Thabo Mbeki (Mbeki 1998:240–2)