Lindiwe Mabuza: South Africa's first black ambassador to Germany

Ebony, May, 1996 by Hans J. Massaquoi

LINDIWE Mabuza became South Africa's first Black ambassador to Germany the old-fashioned way: she earned it. Long before assuming her post in the German capital of Bonn last May, she was active in her country's liberation struggle during nearly 20 years of self-imposed exile as chief representative of the African National Congress, first in Sweden, then (from 1989 to 1994) in the United States. Her mission - organizing opposition to doing business with apartheid South Africa.

Today, Ambassador Mabuza's primary mission is exactly the opposite - attracting as much trade with South Africa as possible to overcome the staggering economic problems in her homeland, especially among Black people. Appealing to a democratic Germany for help to make democracy work in South Africa, she stresses the need for trade because, as she puts it, "Democracy without housing, without health and without food is meaningless." In addition, the ambassador hopes to build lasting bridges between Germany and South Africa through cultural exchanges from which, she is convinced, both countries will benefit.

Although soft-spoken and exceedingly gentle in her approach, Mabuza is neither a softy nor reticent about her objectives, as people who work with her on a daily basis have come to realize. They say that beneath that gentle exterior is a strong-willed woman who knows what she wants and how to get it. Right now, she wants nothing more than have Germans give South Africa the consideration she feels it deserves. Explaining that Germany is already South Africa's second largest trading partner (after the United States), the ambassador feels that there is still plenty of room for more trade and investment. Toward that end, she is constantly on the go, crisscrossing Germany by limo, train or plane in her unending quest of winning friends and influencing people on behalf of her homeland.

Already, her efforts are beginning to pay off. Last September, she scored a diplomatic coup when she accompanied German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who rarely ventures abroad, during his visit to South Africa on a major trade mission.

The ambassador's extensive travels have left her with little time to spend at the embassy, a fact which, exasperated embassy staffers say, makes trying to catch up with her comparable to trying to hit a moving target. She readily concedes that she is not the easiest person to work for. "I'm a compulsive worker," she admits. "They call me a workaholic. I don't know how to budget time for anything other than work. Because I demand a lot of myself, I sometimes unfairly put people on the same ladder as myself, although they are not. So I don't think I make an easy boss."

In the few months she has been on her post, the ambassador has become genuinely fond of Germany and its people. "I consider being posted anywhere in the world a great honor, a vote of confidence from my country," she says, "but I did not realize how fortunate I am until I was placed on the banks of the Rhine, the birthplace of Beethoven, with its legends, images and friendly people."

Not at all by coincidence, the feeling is mutual. The ambassador's relaxed and warm manner in meeting people, which frequently invites hugs instead of formal handshakes, has made her the darling of diplomatic circles in Bonn and beyond. So far, all of her discourses with Germans have been in English, but linguist Mabuza, who already speaks four languages, including Zulu, Afrikaans and Swedish, is determined to change that by taking a crash course in German.

"Was fur eine charmante und intelligente Frau! ("What a charming and intelligent woman!")," gushed a German official recently after one of many receptions in her honor. The occasion was her signing of the prestigious Goldene Buch (Golden [guest] Book) in the Karlsruhe Rathaus (city hall), an honor reserved for heads of state and other VIPs. The official had been duly impressed by the ambassador's impromptu speech in which she nimbly pointed out the special meaning of Karlsruhe as the seat of Germany's Constitutional Court. The court, she said, which helped transform Germany from a dictatorship to a democracy, could teach South Africa valuable lessons in its own transformation to democratic rule.

The ambassador feels that Germany's military could serve a similar purpose for South Africa. "Our previous military," she explains, "was geared toward defending the indefensible system of apartheid. In a democratic society, we need a military that responds to the need of that democracy. That means a re-education, a new mind-set. We think that the example of Germany, which just transformed its military from a fascist Nazi orientation into a democratic instrument that is subject to the dictates of democracy, becomes very important to us."

With only two Blacks on her staff of 25 South Africans and 36 locally hired Germans, the ambassador is painfully aware that the present racial makeup of the embassy staff is woefully unrepresentative of a country in which Black majority rule has become a reality. But she explains that - for the moment at least - little can be done to change the situation because of legally binding employment contracts that are still in force and must be honored. Be this as it may, the not@so@subtle symbolism of a Black African woman in colorful African attire being chauffeured around Bonn by a White driver in a huge Mercedes-Benz limousine displaying the South African flag has hardly been lost on the German people. When reminded of the irony that she, a Black woman, is now a person of considerable prestige and respect in the country which only a little more than 50 years ago was the citadel of Nazi racism that inspired South Africa's brutal apartheid system, she simply calls it "poetic justice."