President Thabo Mbeki, in responding to Archbishop Desmond Tutu's well-reasoned address, has eloquently demonstrated the veracity of Tutu's charge - that those who dare to raise their heads above the parapet get cruelly clobbered, and that in the new South Africa, it pays to grovel. Tutu was well and truly clobbered.

Tutu has now resorted to irony. But he did not need a rejoinder. In defending himself Mbeki has made the case for the prosecution. Mbeki's was not even a response.

It was a denunciation, smouldering with anger and contempt. Mbeki literally called Tutu a liar. That is no way to talk to an archbishop, not one with Tutu's pedigree. Mbeki would have offended a lot of people by the manner of his response.

This is a very religious country. You do not refer to an archbishop as a liar. People look up to them for moral leadership.

The irony is there is nothing new in what Tutu said. These things have been mentioned and written about before. The difference this time is the person who said it and the occasion. Tutu was giving a Nelson Mandela Lecture, two Nobel laureates - a formidable combination - both icons with something of a rebellious streak.

Mbeki will do well to have a word with P W Botha. He tried - and failed miserably - to rein in Tutu. He was not called the troublesome bishop for nothing.

It should also be said that the reason why Mbeki is now lording it over the Union Buildings is partly because people like Tutu spoke out at a time when discretion would have been the better part of valour.

Tutu spoke like a statesman, pointing out realities without fear or favour. Mbeki spoke like the politician that he is, spinning and leaving out inconvenient facts that did not accord with his own reality.

Reading Mbeki's response, one is reminded of a line from one of Shakespeare's characters: "The lady doth protest too much methinks."

But it is good this debate is taking place, even if they seem to be talking past each other. We should not be too hard on Mbeki. He is under pressure. He is struggling to hold together a fractious party.

Sometimes one wonders whether he speaks for his party, as the party takes a position contrary to his. It happened with his spat with Tony Trahar. This time too his party seems eager to make peace, contrary to the stance he has taken.

Divisions

But Mbeki is presiding over a party that is riven with divisions - divisions that have been so dramatically exposed by the Scorpions' investigation into Jacob Zuma's messy affairs on the side. For the first time Cosatu is openly talking about splitting from the tripartite alliance. That has always been an improbable marriage of convenience. Time and reality will ultimately rend it asunder. But what is hidden from public view is the fact that Mbeki is slowly losing his grip on his party, and the alliance.

He has hardly begun his second term, and talk within the movement and the country at large is not about how his agenda will be fulfilled, but about who his successor will be. He is already yesterday's man. He may not yet be history, but people are already factoring him out of their future calculations.

Jacob Zuma is campaigning unashamedly, abusing state resources as he crisscrosses the country as he consolidates his position as heir-apparent, Schabir Shaik notwithstanding. Zuma as number two is in pole position.

Those who want to succeed Mbeki as party leader will have to take him out first - that is if Schabir Shaik does not do it for them. The divisions may not point to Mbeki's weakness, but to Zuma's fight for survival. For Zuma, it's either he succeeds Mbeki or it's bust. And the wilderness is just not an option.

Civil war within the ANC has never been this bad, even in the dark days of exile. The leadership has always been able to impose control. But the new ingredient in the mix is political power. We may be 10 years into democracy, but that still feels like virgin territory.

There is no script on how to navigate its realities, especially the human frailties of people, who for a long time have been denied the good things in life, and, who suddenly find themselves with the power to open and shut doors.

The irony of Mbeki's inability to deal with divisions in the family is that globally he is unchallenged as the spokesman of the underdogs of this world - and that is despite Aids and Zimbabwe - and the patient peacemaker in Africa.

Will he suffer the same fate as J C Smuts, lauded abroad and rejected at home?

But Zimbabwe may be feeding into his perceived weakness at home. Why, for instance, should Zwelinzima Vavi take him seriously when Robert Mugabe - who after all cannot survive even for a day without Mbeki's protective embrace - disregards him almost with disdain? Cosatu's still-born delegation to Zimbabwe was a warning to Mbeki that his whispering diplomacy was a failure.

But reading Mbeki's text, one is struck by the anger of his language. It is the language of the street. Its tone, its timbre, comes across as that of an angry demonstrator hollering at some illusive power. But it sometimes seems as though those who spent long years in exile have yet to deal with their anger and often find it difficult to accept a contrary view.

Dissidents

Robust and open debate in exile could only be allowed up to a point, for obvious reasons. And unlike dissidents inside the country, exiles did not have the pleasure or satisfaction to tell the oppressor, in his face or on home soil, what they thought of him or his machinations. They, therefore, missed out on the opportunity to work the anger out of their system. They come back home, get into power and find themselves in the dogbox, lambasted like the old apartheid regime. The anger lingers on. They are still caught up in the language of Radio Freedom, where cheering your side and hurling insults at the enemy sometimes pass for political discourse or commentary. To them, dissent is not always the hallmark of democracy, but a sign of disrespect.

We have to appreciate the fact that we have been propelled to where we are right now via different trajectories. The fact that people are members of the same organisation does not mean they share the same values in every respect. They are products of different traditions, different cultures. In a sense the divisions within the ANC and the alliance are as a result of a collision of these cultures.

Many ANC members understand the wisdom of Tutu's words, and will disagree with their president. They share Tutu's values because they marched with him against mass removals; they were with him when he threw himself into an angry mob in Duduza to prevent the necklacing of man suspected of being a police informer. They were with him when he was vilified and hounded by the apartheid state.

How the wheel has turned! Whatever mud is flung at him won't stick because the people know better about this man.

Tutu's words are worth repeating: "We want our society to be characterised by vigorous debate and dissent where to disagree is part and parcel of a vibrant community, that we should play the ball not the person and not think that those who disagree, who express dissent, are disloyal or unpatriotic."

It is quite a mouthful, but that should do as our national anthem.

Barney Mthombothi is the Editor of the Sunday Tribune in Durban

With acknowledgements to Barney Mthombothi and The Mercury.