JonZu News

When Thabo Mbeki was South Africa president, especially in his last two years, he virtually never smiled. He is in Nairobi, and on Friday he went for a long walk around Nairobi streets – and the masses gathered gathered to behold this complex man. But he is a very different Mbeki–he was smiling all the time, and that stiffness that the was mark of his presidency was gone. He even went in, no surprises there, into a bookshop and bought a book. The man is addicted to reading (which, ironically, is what got him into political trouble because he fell in love with some of the very alternative and controversial ideas he encountered in books, and carried them into policy). If life outside the presidency can be so fruitful and bring out the sunny side of a humourless man like Mbeki, why you wonder do others cling to the job and kill and arrest opponents whom they think threaten their seat?

A smiling Thabo Mbeki (CENTRE) and South Africa’s High Commissioner to Kenya Tony Msimanga walk along Nairobi’s Wabera street on February 6, 2010. Photo DAILY NATION/WILLIAM OERI Thabo Mbeki walks along Nairobi’s Wabera street after shopping at Prestige Bookshop on February 6, 2010. Photo DAILY NATION/WILLIAM OERI

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