Be the change that you want to see

NO SOCIETY can ever be greater than the sum of the actions of its citizens. The end of each calendar year is like a birthday of a natural person that provides an opportunity to take stock and reflect on past achievements and challenges of the future.
Indeed, when we say many happy returns, we are celebrating life and its renewal because, like water, life makes a difference that cannot be reduced to any monetary value. The quality of life of any people is causally linked to human action and not inaction. It would be unreasonable to wish many happy returns to a dead person or a person who makes no difference to the lives of people.
Hope and faith is all we have as mortal beings, but in both, possibilities and opportunities exist to advance the cause of human civilisation in a manner that defines history and leaves a legacy for future generations.
As Africans, we remain challenged by not only our colonial legacy but by our own inadequacies. For how can we explain that in this year of the Lord, Ghana celebrated its golden jubilee and yet the last 50 years do not show the kind of progress that “uhuru” promised?
With 53 sovereign states, Africa has all it needs to advance its own agenda and it is important for all Africans, however we choose to define who is an African, to seriously and honestly reflect not only the rights that African citizenship confers on them but the obligations to the continent. What is our purpose and have we discharged what this continent expects from us?
The colonial experience provided us with an opportunity to develop a consensus on what we did not want to see in Africa. It spurred our brilliant minds to invest in pain and suffering as a vehicle to change the status quo ante that condemned the majority to an inferior standard of living and political disenfranchisement. That investment created heroes and heroines among us but it also should have challenged us to critically examine why Europeans were so determined to exclude native Africans from governance issues and whether, in fact, the past 50 years have helped the African cause or undermined it.
Each New Year allows people to make resolutions and yet the end of the year rarely is used to reflect on the past. Rather, it is used for different purposes than what it was meant to be.
In engaging in the decolonisation struggle, Africans made a conscious decision that an exclusive Africa is not the kind of Africa that should be allowed to exist. In making this decision, it cannot be said that Africans expected someone to invest in the change they wanted to see in post-colonial Africa.
How much thought did our founding fathers apply to post colonial architectural and foundational issues? Any house that is built on sand will suffer an inevitable fall, compelling any rational builder to think about the foundation. How secure is post-colonial Africa? Whose responsibility is it to make Africa work?
We all can engage in mental gymnastics with no salvation in sight. When I look back at 2007, I cannot help but remember how Nigerians after 47 years of independence handled their own transition. The controversial elections and the manner in which the incumbent President manipulated the process to exclude his own deputy demonstrate our maturity as a people in addressing the leadership challenges that all African states face. Sierra Leone handled its own transition in its own way.
At the party level, we began the year unsure whether President Mugabe would prevail and there was no expectation that Jacob Zuma would end up as the President of the ANC. Many expected Zuma to face the same fate as his Nigerian counterpart but we now know that it is possible for an African ruling party to make choices that are contrary to its leader.
As I write this article, Africa awaits the Kenyan election results and what is significant is that the incumbent President is fighting for his political life. His cabinet colleagues have been tsunamied out of power without resorting to the Pakistan way of resolving political differences.
We have a cause to celebrate and as we look to 2008, we have to be encouraged that the days of exclusive politics are numbered.
Exclusivity in politics can only end if citizens invest in change. Most African leaders believe in elections and surprisingly, citizens who purport to be angry at the lack of change in African politics are the very culprits that do not participate in electoral politics. If Zuma’s supporters did not register as ANC members and proceed to organise themselves institutionally to have a voice, it is common cause that no change of guard would have taken place.
Many of us who pretend that we have the interests of the continent at heart have been missing in action. Isn’t it funny that often the loudest in the room is the weakest? Africa’s armchair revolutionaries often do not participate in electoral politics and yet they expect see a democratic Africa. Through the ballot, many careers have been terminated notwithstanding the fact that many African leaders still believe that a free and fair election must be rigged.
The only power people who do not have power have is the power to organise. As political consumers we have rarely shown the organisation that was displayed by Zuma’s supporters in unseating an incumbent President. In the economic sphere, the last 50 years of post colonial experience has exposed how economically fragile we are, notwithstanding the fact that we purport to be in control of our destinies.
Will 2008 be any different from 2007? Only our actions will answer this question. It is irresponsible for anyone to be angry at something they can do something about and yet we choose to do nothing. We have retreated to the comfort zone of the blame game and naturally, the white world becomes a football for bad leaders while citizens reduce themselves to robots.
The real owners of the African story should be its citizens. However, the future of Africa continues to be on the agenda of non-Africans while we become experts at pursuing our own personal interests in the belief that it is not our responsibility. Our abdication and nihilistic acceptance that we are a helpless lot allows men and women of badwill to undermine our collective interests.
This time next year, we must be able to say that we have made efforts at making ourselves the agents of change that we want to see. We have done it before and there is no reason to believe that we cannot rise to the challenge. A brighter tomorrow is only possible if we do something about it today.

The paradox of African liberation and change

IN 1994, South Africa became the youngest African country that was born from the womb of apartheid and its foundational constitutional order was uniquely informed by not only the experiences of other post-colonial African states but other nations outside the continent.
The deracialisation of South Africa was a costly project principally because the stakes were high and the settler community had invested in making the country an extension of Europe with its own race-based constitutional order underpinned by a balkanisation concept. Blacks were apportioned their own land under the apartheid structure where they were presumed to be free, notwithstanding the unfair resource allocation.
The challenges of nation building that confronted South Africa at birth are no different from the challenges faced by many African states post-colonialism. The architecture of the apartheid state was informed by vested economic and political interests of a small settler population that drew its legitimacy from a constitutional order that was patently unjust and undemocratic.
Democracy was a threat to the colonial order in as much as it has become a threat to the post-colonial one. The apparent divisions and conflicts before and during the just ended ANC’s national conference in Polokwane have to be seen in the context of the contestations for power that have characterised the post-colonial experience.
The struggle against the colonial state was motivated by a collective desire to assert the rights of citizens to determine their own destiny without being manipulated by the few. To what extent has sovereignty been restored to citizens in the post-colonial or apartheid state? Who really owns the national democratic revolution (NDR)?
Until Polokwane, there was a widely held view that South Africa was different from its elder African states and the constitution of the country provided a reliable and predictable guide to citizens in organising themselves through a system that allowed them to assert rights that were denied to them under the apartheid state.
What happened at Polokwane confirmed that South Africa’s experience and prospects may not be fundamentally any different from the experiences of other African states. The challenges are the same and the issues are as complex as they are paradoxical.
The majority of African citizens through their liberation movements sacrificed a lot to bring about what they expected to be a democratic dispensation only to find themselves in an ideological confusion of such proportions as to negate the moral and political justification of the liberation struggle.
Jacob Zuma is now the President of the African National Congress (ANC) after defeating incumbent President Mbeki. In the run up to the elections, President Mbeki had argued that the party had been infiltrated by opportunists and careerists and, therefore, there was a real risk that the motivation for removing him may have little to do with advancing the real objectives of the NDR but the personal exploits of the alleged political mercenaries.
Under this construction, an election of Zuma, given his alleged corruptibility, would necessarily expose the NDR to unintended consequences with the ultimate victims being the very poor that liberation was supposed to change their quality of life. Accordingly, to avoid the revolution from being hijacked, President Mbeki argued that there was need to protect the party by investing in ideological education.
In as much as this school of thought is premised on the belief that people are sovereign and are entitled to make their democratic choices, it is evident that such choices must necessarily be qualified. The mindset that informs this kind of thinking is widespread in Africa and appears to be no different than the colonial mind. What then is the meaning of freedom if choices are to be prescribed and qualified?
The constitutional order of South Africa does not provide a vehicle for citizens electing a President directly, but through their political parties who then nominate representatives to Parliament. Under this order, President Mandela was not elected directly but was first nominated by his party, ANC, as a Member of Parliament and then was nominated and elected as President of the Republic in Parliament. President Mbeki was also elected in a similar fashion. It is only Parliament that can remove him in accordance with the constitution. However, given the majority of the ANC in Parliament it is clear that his removal does not pose any problem for the party and would not require a general election.
When the storm is over, the one who remains standing should be ideally be the winner. However, in the context of ANC, it appears that after Polokwane, President Mbeki has not conceded defeat and has not changed his views about the illegitimacy of the ANC elections.
Writing in his capacity as outgoing ANC president on the party’s website, Mbeki is still of the view that the ultimate winner of the elections was anarchy, opportunism, and careerism. In holding this view, it is evident that he excludes himself and his appointed cabinet ministers as opportunists and careerists.
He makes the point that following the democratic victory of 1994, the second phase of the NDR meant that membership of the ANC did not carry the cost of banning, banishment, imprisonment, torture, exile and death that confronted it during the first phase. He then concludes that instead, membership of the ANC held out the promise of significant personal material benefit.
By holding the view that "the second phase of the NDR opens the way for our members to reap immense personal benefits," President Mbeki is effectively saying that his administration has not been susceptible to corruption and to the extent that Zuma’s personal advisor, Shabil Shaik, is already serving time, the prospect of the government being protected from soldiers of fortune is remote with a Zuma Presidency. The President is also making the point that his administration is clean and free from corrupt tendencies.
The import of what President Mbeki is saying is that the liberation project should be owned by those who sacrificed for it. Anyone who intends to benefit from “uhuru” should necessarily be excluded, begging the question of what precisely is liberation meant to bring to citizens?
President Mbeki had this to say: "We have attracted into our ranks the opportunists and careerists who would never have had the courage and devotion to principle that were required of our cadres during the first phase of the NDR."Thus, though requiring cadres of the highest calibre, it (the ANC) attracts into its ranks people who are contemptuous of all notions of patriotism and serving the people, who are driven by a value system characterised by the pursuit of personal wealth at all costs."
Using this framework, he concludes that some of the internal problems that created the apparent divisions and conflicts before and during the Polokwane Conference originated from this contradiction.
What President Mbeki is effectively saying is that the state should not have any role in transforming the class relationships that were inherited from the apartheid state. The first destination of blacks in the journey to reduce the frontiers of poverty is the state. There is no provision for an intelligent President in the Constitution of South Africa and, therefore, what is being said is that a ruling political party should be impotent in directing the economic agenda of change.
The colonial state was clear about its obligations to the settler community and yet during the post-colonial state, it appears that those who championed the anti-colonial struggle are of the view that the status quo ante should remain. Who benefits from this logic? Why then vote for change if change becomes merely a slogan? Is the thinking of President Mbeki any different from his contemporaries in Africa?
As a solution, President Mbeki recommends the enormous strengthening of the party as an agent of fundamental social transformation capable of carrying out the tasks of the second phase of the NDR. While he grudging accepts and respects the outcome of the conference, he still holds the view that the masses made a mistake by electing President Zuma and his dubious colleagues. He believes strongly that the liberation project can only be protected if genuine revolutionaries like him are at the helm and directing the struggle.
It is significant that President Mbeki said: "We, genuine patriots and members of the ANC, have the unique responsibility and duty to ensure that the ANC is the kind of revolutionary movement that has the capacity to lead the sustained offensive for the realisation of this goal.”
Those who decide to challenge the status quo are easily labelled corrupt, opportunists, careerists, unpatriotic, and agents of imperialism. What is tragic is that while a view is held that the post-colonial state must not benefit its own historically disadvantaged people who are in any event the owners and custodians of the democratic project, no attempt is made to originate a new value system that will democratise the economy.
The interplay between business and politics in human civilisation is widely accepted and many would argue that the primary justification of the colonial state was its ability to confer opportunities and careers to its intended beneficiaries.
No colonial state ever made a mistake of misdirecting benefits to the victims no matter how intelligent they might have been. Although President Zuma in his victory speech was magnanimous, it appears that President Mbeki feels otherwise about the forces that were at play in making him lose the elections.
If one analyses Zuma’s victory speech, questions arise as to why members of the ANC really wanted change when there appears to be no justification for it according to Zuma. Zuma maintained that there are no policy differences between him and President Mbeki and asserted the supremacy of the party in shaping ANC policies. He then accepted the notion of two centres of power when the policy conference of June resolved otherwise. For the next 18 months, it appears that a situation has been accepted that two centres of power will exist.
What may appear to be a victory by Zuma may be illusory as Mbeki believes that the changes that took place at Polokwane have no impact on the government. Now you have a situation where the President and his deputy of the party are neither in Parliament nor in government.
Notwithstanding, President Mbeki is of the view that "I have no reason to assume that there would be anything that would stop the government serving the full term for which it was elected," and yet the real centre of power under the constitutional order of South Africa is the ruling party.
No-one can be a President of South Africa without a party backing him/her in as much as a change of the controlling shareholding in company has direct consequences on the board of directors. Already Mbeki has shot the first salvo by appointing a controversial board to the SABC and the reaction of Zuma’s supporters has been predictable and yet they have accepted that it is okay for Mbeki to carry on. Who really is in charge after Polokwane?
When the Labour party lost confidence in Prime Minister Blair, he had no choice but to resign just like Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher did before him. If Zuma has confidence in Mbeki, then why did he challenge him? If being President of the ANC had no consequence then why did President Mbeki offer himself as a candidate?
The Zuma/Mbeki saga suggests that the level of literacy in South Africa just like in many other post colonial states on governance and constitutional issues is low. Both Mbeki and Zuma agree that there can be a situation where a government can have its own legitimacy without a connecting link to the people. If citizens express themselves through political parties, then how can Mbeki say: "[Zuma] said nothing would happen, as indeed nothing will happen as a consequence of the elections"?
At the conference, Zuma said that relations between the ANC and government would continue to run smoothly. Based on this construction Mbeki was justified in saying that people who had voted Zuma could only have done so because of the perceived differences in their leadership style rather than on substantive policy issues.
Whereas before the elections, allegations were made rather forcefully by Zuma’s supporters that they wanted Mbeki out because of the abuse of state power and the selective administration of justice, it appears that these sentiments evaporated immediately following the elections. Even the ANC Youth League and the Communist Party are now advocating the two centres of power approach when prior to Zuma’s election they appeared to be against the principle.
Was the election of Zuma a product of principles or calculation? Many have argued that the liberation struggle was nothing but a product of calculation by political elites who could not be assimilated in the colonial state. However, when the elites seized power they collapsed into confusion and often became intoxicated with power and reduced themselves to tyrants. Could it be the case that in victory, Zuma is as confused as his predecessors in Africa about why precisely people wanted change?
If Zuma is not angry at how he was fired from government by Mbeki then his supporters should also not be angry why the law should not take its course on the corruption allegations. To confirm the existence of two centres of power, Mbeki had this to say: "All of us in the ANC have insisted, even ... Zuma himself, that the law must take its course."
While Mbeki accepts the notion that a person is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty, on Zuma it is apparent that the test was too high leading him to dismiss him before any court had pronounced him to be guilty.
Whether Zuma and his supporters are naïve or not, only time will tell. What is evident, however, is that if ANC delegates were a jury, Zuma would be acquitted and yet Mbeki is blind to what his power base is saying about corruption. Even Winnie Mandela, with her relationship with the criminal justice system, received the highest votes confirming Mbeki’s view that the party has been sufficiently infiltrated to spur him to do something.

Zimbabwe and the Jacob Zuma factor

AS SOUTH Africa and indeed President Thabo Mbeki digests and reflects on Jacob Zuma’s victory as the president of Africa’s oldest political party, the African National Congress (ANC), there is no doubt that the political actors in Zimbabwe are also challenged by the implications of a Zuma presidency underpinned by strong support by President Mugabe’s strongest and most vocal critics i.e. COSATU and the SACP.

Many will recall that last year after the Zanu PF conference held at Goromonzi, there was a strongly held view that President Mugabe would not secure the support of his party due to factionalism to offer himself as a candidate in the 2008 elections.

Furthermore, it was argued that the harmonisation project mooted by President Mugabe as a mechanism of ensuring the continued hegemony of Zanu PF and no doubt himself would not see the light of day.

The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) also subscribed to the notion that Mugabe was under siege from his own party and the writing was on the wall that he was on his way out. Operating on this assumption, the MDC thought that Mugabe was so weak and beleaguered that he would not last 2007. The events of March 2007 then occurred, resulting in the police brutality and international outcry that then prompted SADC to intervene by appointing President Mbeki to be the mediator.

The appointment of President Mbeki as the mediator was not accidental. Since the dismissal of his Deputy President, Jacob Zuma, President Mbeki was facing a brewing political crisis of his own and his adversaries in the main i.e. COSATU and SACP, were also Mugabe’s nemesis. An objective analysis would have suggested that both President Mugabe and Mbeki were victims of counter-revolutionaries who were thin on liberation/revolutionary values and morality but strong on populism.

It is evident that prior to the SADC summit in Tanzania, President Mugabe may have doubted President Mbeki’s credentials as a revolutionary. What must have happened during the summit was that as President Mugabe briefed the heads of state; President Mbeki could not help but to accept that the same forces that wanted regime change in Zimbabwe appeared to have the same approach in respect of the ANC succession battle. Whereas President Mugabe’s adversaries were outside his own party, President Mbeki’s adversaries were in his party but not under his control.

For the first time, President Mugabe must have felt that he at last had gotten through to President Mbeki who hitherto had not fully appreciated the broader implications of the MDC onslaught on what he perceived to be the objectives of the national democratic revolution and the role of international forces in the struggle. In Mugabe, President Mbeki must have seen a convenient ally in his own struggle for control of ANC and the annihilation of Zuma and his allies.

Having forged an alliance between the two of them, it was therefore most appropriate that President Mbeki be the mediator between Zanu PF and MDC. President Mugabe was acutely aware of the ideological and political challenges facing his opposition and felt that the intervention of a fellow comrade like President Mbeki would help clarify issues with the MDC, with the ultimate aim of alienating the MDC from its purported Western benefactors. If President Mbeki could deliver MDC, then this surely would help expose Zuma’s political backers who are left wing inclined, and populist in approach.

What has unfolded is that President Mugabe has become the ultimate beneficiary and is now the undisputed leader of both Zanu PF and MDC as his stature and standing has not been shaken, unlike that of President Mbeki.

Whereas at the beginning of the year, MDC ruled out the harmonisation project, the constitutional amendment to allow Mugabe to extend his term was passed with the active and constructive support of the two factions of the MDC. The so-called Mujuru and Mnangagwa factions in Zanu PF are missing in action, and on the contrary, were the most visible of Mugabe’s supporters for term extension at the just ended special congress that unanimously endorsed Mugabe as the party’s candidate in the 2008 elections.

How did Mugabe outfox his adversaries and Mbeki fall victim of his own? What is evident is that if Mbeki had won the ANC elections, President Mugabe would have been assisted greatly in burying the regime change agenda. The victory of Zuma presents a problem for President Mugabe in that if President Mbeki can get the boot from his comrades, he also can get a boot from his citizens. The approach to governance and use of state power between President Mbeki and Mugabe may not be different but the difference is that Mbeki’s adversaries were more organised and focused than Mugabe’s adversaries.

It is clear that Zuma has emerged as a great strategist and tactician than many have given him credit for. Without Zuma’s leadership and ability to confront tyranny, the forces against Mbeki would not have executed their mandate with such precision and clarity. At the end of the day, Mbeki’s real adversary was not any third party or shadowy figure but his own deputy. Zuma did not shy away from being counted unlike the so-called Zanu PF faction leaders.

He provided the intelligence and strategic direction to his forces right from the day he was dismissed by Mbeki. Zuma has shown that state power cannot substitute the power of the people to choose their destiny. Without the support of the state, Zuma has demonstrated that change is possible and the only power people who are denied power have is the power to organise.

Equally, Mugabe has shown that he is much smarter than his adversaries notwithstanding the fact that his continued political hegemony may be detrimental to the progress of the nation. What Zuma has shown is that through democratic means, people can endure vilification and intimidation and yet emerge as victors through effective mobilisation.

The Zuma prescription may ultimately be the medicine that the continent needs to unshackle itself from the stranglehold of its tyrannical leaders. If Zuma can do it, there is no doubt that Africa will produce many Zumas like it has done in the past struggles against colonialism.

What will happen to the Zimbabwe conflict resolution efforts of President Mbeki? It is clear that Mbeki has already delivered the MDC to Mugabe but what he may need himself is a mediator. The clean sweep by Zuma and the relegation of Mbeki to a lame duck President must surely be a lesson to many African heads of state that two terms in government is more than enough.

The arguments that have been advanced that without people like President Mugabe at the helm, Zimbabwe cannot protect its sovereignty can now easily be challenged using the Zuma/Mbeki example. In as much as South Africa managed to see the transition from apartheid to democracy with President Mbeki and Zuma playing a critical role, there is no doubt that Zuma working with Mbeki may surprise many people about what is possible.

Time has the tendency of blurring or even erasing important historical events. Some may forget that in order for democracy to be a negotiated deal, contesting political actors had to bury their differences and focus on what South Africa needed. At the time, which is only 14 years ago, South Africa needed a new dispensation and a regime change. To achieve this, it was necessary for reconciliation to take centre stage and construct a post-apartheid state based on new values while at the same time accepting that apartheid was the most race-based corrupt system.

As part of the package, apartheid crimes were forgiven in the interests of giving birth to a new reality. If President Mbeki could accept that those who had committed crimes against humanity could be free people in the interests of nation building, there is no doubt that he will be persuaded that his policies of using the state machinery to pursue Zuma for what has now been confirmed to be politically motivated crimes were misplaced and counterproductive.

The fact that President Mbeki offered himself for election confirms that the root cause of Zuma’s problems with the law may not be far from his confidence to dream that one day he would step into Mbeki’s shoes. It is evident that when Mbeki looked at himself in the mirror in terms of succession, he could only see his face. Now that the branch delegates of ANC have spoken, even President Mbeki would not argue that the same people who elected him could be so wrong in electing Zuma as his natural successor.

If President Mbeki were to be aggressive against Zuma and yet accept that apartheid crimes can be forgiven and forgotten, a danger exists that he may end up being the seed for undermining the very organisation that has given him an address in the state and empowered him with experience that is invaluable in transforming Africa. If Zuma is guilty of receiving money from Shaik, then surely more jails should be built to accommodate all BEE beneficiaries whose claim to fame may not be any different.

The colonial state was built around institutionalised state corruption and yet no attempt has been made by the intellectual giants of Africa like Mbeki to study the nature of the colonial state and how it interfaced with business. A project like this would establish that what Zuma is accused of could hardly be classified as corruption. What is even more disturbing is that Zuma is accused of graft in a procurement project that President Mbeki and his cabinet have defended as above board. Surely, if Zuma abused state power, then it would be the state advancing its case and by now all the tainted contracts would have been cancelled.

For Zimbabwe, what is clear is that Zuma has provided the most potent pill against anyone who wants to cling to power indefinitely. If the ailing Castro has come to the inescapable conclusion that he cannot continue to cling to power, there is no doubt that President Mugabe would read the Zuma victory in its proper perspective. Equally, Zimbabwe needs its own Zuma to lead the revolution with precision and clarity. The followers of Zuma were confident that history will judge them right and they never wavered in their determination to get to the mountain top.

With Zuma at the helm, President Mugabe will have natural disability in communicating with him what President Mbeki failed to communicate to him in his quest to cling to power after a distinguished service to ANC and the nation.

Finally, after Zuma’s victory, a question needs to be posed to Zimbabweans on what time it is. It surely cannot be the time for no change because this runs against the wind of change blowing from both the Indian and Atlantic Oceans.

The EU-Africa relationship post-colonialism

THE controversial EU-Africa summit is now history but will forever be remembered for the Brown-Mugabe debacle that at the safe signified an attempt by former colonies to negotiate a new and just post-colonial engagement with former colonial masters.
Post-colonial Africa’s enduring growing pains have been opportunistically explained to be a consequence of the economically and politically unjust colonial order whose foundation was anchored by a race-based constitutional order and asset ownership architecture.
In Africa today, there is no better ambassador for Africa’s case against its former colonial powers than Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe who has emerged rightly or wrongly as the champion of a colonially injured continent. Land ownership patterns in post-colonial Zimbabwe, like many other African states, still exhibit colonially defined and determined arrangements.
It is a known fact that land ownership in Zimbabwe was race-based and that the ownership of economic assets had not been democratised until the land reform program. The reaction of the British and American government to the alteration of land ownership using non-market instruments has provided the Zimbabwean government with a useful currency to expose the hypocrisy of former colonial powers who are accused of building their own functioning democracies with stolen wealth from the colonies.
The Brown-Mugabe standoff provided an opportunity for Africa to speak with one voice about the real feelings in the corridors of power in the continent about the colonial legacy and its purported debilitating impact on the transformation of the continent. There is a feeling among many Africans that Zimbabwe is a victim of an imperialist conspiracy and the treatment given to Zimbabwe is then seen in a larger context of the north-south dialogue, rich-poor relationship, and finally the lack of accountability and responsibility for the colonial injury meted against colonial subjects for the benefit of the colonial powers.
The generally perceived notion that any rich person is necessarily arrogant and a beneficiary from the suffering of the masses; is no different from how the rich countries are regarded by the former colonial subjects. The poor countries often see their salvation in the poverty of the rich countries and they see their role as that of any government -- of robbing the rich to pay the poor although the poor often end up with no benefit from the state.
Even African heads of state and government who are often accused of being arrogant by their citizens; see the arrogance of the rich nations but are blind to their own arrogance and dictatorial styles. The reaction of African states to the EU on trade, investment, security and human rights issues is no different from the reaction of African citizens to their own governments. Why is it that even the worst African governments are blind to their own abuse of the state but are quick to point a finger at the very countries that they rely upon to reduce the frontiers of poverty in their own countries?
It has been successfully argued and accepted by African heads of state and government that the Zimbabwean crisis has a colonial and bilateral context that should not be ignored in the interests of advancing a new relationship between Africa and Europe.
Some argue that it is futile to advance a historical argument about the ills of colonialism as a basis for advancing the interests of a post colonial Africa. What makes the relationship between Europe and Africa complex even if one accepts the colonial injury argument is that most of the national budgets of post colonial Africa are largely funded by European tax payers!
Even Zimbabwe still relies on donor funds to finance its development challenges. In as much as the Sino-Africa relationship may have spurred Europe to ignore Gordon Brown’s objection to Mugabe’s invitation, it is ironic that China has not emerged as the supplier of the much needed untied budgetary financial support to post colonial Africa.
Africa still needs Europe to address its poverty challenges and it is obvious that Africa and Europe share much more than the economic injury that still overshadows any conversation between the two parties.
Many Africans still have a love-hate relationship with their former colonial masters as would be expected in any master-servant relationship. This kind of relationship is not different from the relationship between slaves and their masters, post-abolition of slavery, when many slaves found themselves electing to remain as slaves because they could not think of any viable alternative.
The outcome of the just concluded Lisbon summit exposed the fundamental problem between Africa and Europe where the former wants to be treated as an equal partner while accepting that it needs the latter to pay its important bills. The development agenda of Africa is still to a large extent premised on foreign direct and portfolio investment and less on domestic capital formation.
Europe is forging ahead with unity and has over the years been able to craft a new order that seems to elude Africa. The historical contribution of Europe to global civilisation even if the ills of colonialism are put in their proper context is quite significant and, indeed, the institutional and legal framework that informs post-colonial Africa is a direct inheritance from Europe. We still are challenged in developing our own institutions to drive Africa’s transformation objectives.
The core principles of equality, social justice and opportunity for all remain the common values that Europe and Africa purport to share and yet European citizens find themselves freer than their African former slaves even after the advent of uhuru. Who will deliver the fruits of these principles to post-colonial Africa? Why are African leaders so insecure even when the opposition is weak, divided, and its constituency rarely stretches far outside the middle class? What is obvious is that the leadership in Africa does not trust citizens to use democracy as a means to achieve these principles. The child (democracy) is judged by many in power to lack maturity to handle such a complicated task without the supervision of the liberators.
Post-colonial Africa has emerged as more authoritarian, paternalistic and corrupt than the colonial system. Europe has functioning institutions and the remnants of European institutions in Africa are still intact to the extent that indigenisation and empowerment initiatives seek to accommodate previously disadvantaged individuals to other people’s functioning institutions rather than creating a new African reality owned and controlled by Africans themselves.
As Africa seeks to define its own agenda as a united formation, the story of the United Kingdom is instructive. It would be simplistic to say that the absence of Brown in Lisbon signifies the end of the British Empire. Zimbabwe may not be a colony again but there are many countries that are grateful for the contribution of the British to their own circumstances and have used the English heritage to advantage.
In 1707 through an Act of Union whose tercentenary was celebrated this year, the United Kingdom was created and forged out of rain-swept islands 22 miles off the European Continental littoral to form a single nation state that has changed the world indelibly. Although the UK’s population of 60 million accounts for less than 1% of the global population, it is nevertheless the world’s fifth-largest economy. The United Kingdom continues to occupy a foremost position in global politics and economics.
The Act of Union was an inspired recipe for giving Britain a critical mass that has allowed it to achieve greater things that the individual constituent nations would not have been able to do on their own. The Scots helped to build the British Empire and the rest is history.
Sterling is one of the world’s greatest currencies and the union ranks as the respected and sought after address of world financial services. The UK contributed to the Industrial Revolution and one of its greatest exports almost ranking with the unicameral and bicameral representative institutions has been the English tongue. Today the English language comprises some of 500,000 words, more than thrice the number of any other tongue. Europeans who speak English now outnumber those who speak French by three to one.
The framers of the modern UK were visionaries who were clearly ahead of their time. They created a military, economic and cultural platform that allowed them to export their values and systems abroad while maintaining a sound and just constitutional order at home that is still prevailing. The British Empire has gone through some fundamental changes in the last one hundred years and yet the British have managed to reinvent themselves without looking back as many of its former colonies are fond of in their attempt to explain away their failure to adjust and reduce the frontiers of poverty in their countries.
Brown could afford to boycott the Lisbon summit not only because the UK is a principal financier of the EU project but also it remains the largest benefactors of Zimbabwe notwithstanding the public grand standing. To the extent that African countries cannot survive without donor support, it would be naïve for African governments to forget who pays the piper.
What is even more shocking is that across the political divide of African states, the financing of political parties is also provided largely from without. The opposition parties are structured and modelled around accessing donor funds than in responding to their citizens. Equally, the ruling parties who receive donor funds through budgetary support often use such funds to entrench themselves in power by pretending they are the source of funds for development.
African citizens have often taken the easy way out after receiving expensive education by going into the Diaspora. The tax base of Africa is daily marginalised by the brain drain and yet such brain trust is not often trusted by African governments who are keener to engage foreign investors than their own investors. Can you imagine a summit of African heads of state and government meeting to discuss how to make African an attractive investment destination for its citizens?
Europe may not have the land and minerals but it has understood what is required to capture the imagination of its citizens. In the final analysis, the success of Europe in the post-colonial era cannot be explained exclusively on the back of simplistic notions of exploitation of colonial resources. If the islands that constitute the UK can be resilient and be relevant in a globally competitive environment, then surely Africa should reflect critically on what it needs to do beyond Lisbon to live up to the expectations of its citizens.

Beyond Lisbon: setting the African agenda

THE EU-Africa summit held in Lisbon last weekend has come and gone but Africa’s challenges will remain.
For the first time, Africa came to Europe as a united block specifically more on the Zimbabwean issue than on the key issues on the agenda of the summit. The Zimbabwean stand-off that has prevented the indaba from taking place for seven years has its own historical significance and provided an opportunity for Africa to take the values debate head on with its former colonial masters.
The boycott by Gordon Brown provided a unique diplomatic coup for Zimbabwe and in a sense exposed the hypocrisy of the United Kingdom government on key governance and human rights issues. Some may argue that President Mugabe may not be the only bad boy of Africa and yet a case seems to have been made by Gordon Brown and not Mugabe that diplomacy must be sacrificed in dealing with the Zimbabwean crisis.
Many pan-Africanists would share the position taken by the African Union about the indivisibility of Africa on the human rights question and the peculiar nature of the Zimbabwean crisis. With respect to the Zimbabwean crisis, there are many who genuinely believe that were it not for the sanctions and the failure by the UK government to honour its commitments made at Lancaster, the Zimbabwean crisis would be non-existent.
In fact, proponents of this thesis argue that it is hypocritical for Gordon Brown, fully cognisant of the colonial experience, to suggest that the crisis in Zimbabwe and the attendant poverty are a direct consequence of post colonial misgovernance.
Brown was right in his assessment that the presence of President Mugabe at the summit would overshadow the summit’s important agenda. However, many Africans believe that it is time that the dialogue between Europe and Africa take a different tone and context. An argument exists that suggests that the relationship between Europe and Africa has never been characterised by equality and justice. To this end, the approach to the economic empowerment question by the Zimbabwean government is no different from what many of the African states would want to pursue in order to tilt the balance in favour of their economically disenfranchised majority.
President Mugabe’s argument about economic justice resonates with many poor people in the developing world in as much as the struggle against colonialism had at its core a civil rights dimension underpinned by an economic rights question that provided its legitimacy. The debate whether the post colonial experience has been equal to the economic justice question ought to be a subject for and among Africans at the first level rather than being a principled position of former colonial masters in their engagement with former colonial subjects.
The unanimity of the African position on President Mugabe’s inclusion at the Lisbon Summit suggests that a position has been accepted that the UK is partly culpable for causing the Zimbabwean crisis. In accepting this position, the futility of the UK foreign policy that is designed to locate the Zimbabwean crisis exclusively in the human rights and governance domain appears to have been exposed. Notwithstanding, it is not clear how the crisis in Zimbabwe will be resolved even if it is reduced to a bilateral problem and the land compensation issue is resolved with financial assistance from the UK government and targeted sanctions are lifted.
The need for a new strategic relationship between Africa and its former colonial masters cannot be overstated. Africa continues to host the resources that Europe needs and had unfettered access to during the colonial era but the continent appears to lack its own post colonial development agenda. Beyond the unity displayed on the inclusion of President Mugabe at the summit, it is not evident that Africa has its own home grown agenda in as much as China, India and other newly industrialised countries seem to have in driving their own economic engines.
In the aftermath of the summit whose agenda was on trade, investment, peace and security issues among others, Africa has to go back to the drawing board. China and Europe as suitors need Africa for the same reasons and yet China and Africa share very little in terms of values and principles. Colonialism was not just about exploitation of resources but it had an evangelical dimension as well, not forgetting the value system that underpinned it.
Many of Africa’s post colonial leaders were molded by colonial experiences and their tastes and appetites are not any different from their former colonial masters. They speak the same language as their former colonial masters to the extent that some of the African heads of state and government speak better English, French, Portuguese, German, Spanish and Italian than their former colonial masters. I have yet to see many of our African youth yearning to speak Mandarin.
If there is more that unites Africa and Europe than trade matters, it is important that Africa draws up its own values charter and determines what kind of civilisation it wants to adopt. Can Africa progress and deliver value to its citizens if its governance follows the opaque Chinese model? What is the future for Africa without a moral and ideological compass firmly grounded on African owned values? Are human rights important for a progressive Africa? If it is, what message can we draw from the position of Africa on this issue at the Lisbon summit?
The implications of Europe taking the lead in defining the morality of a post colonial Africa is evident in the manner in which the standards of living of Zimbabweans have continued to deteriorate with no salvation in sight while undermining indigenous voices for change. To the extent that the regime change agenda appears to be driven by former colonial powers, it becomes difficult for African citizens to negotiate their own protocol on governance and human rights issues.
From Lisbon, President Mugabe will be endorsed unanimously by his party as the candidate for the 2008 elections. Nothing much will change in terms of policy direction and the absence of Brown in Lisbon will play well in domestic politics as a sign that the British agenda has been exposed to the extent that Brown was missing in action.
As Africa looks to the future, there appears to be no-one connecting the dots on key issues that the continent will need to address if it is to radically change its status as the global problem child. The conversations on power, values and succession have not penetrated the African mind to the extent that ownership on the issues that matter to the continent is less located in the continent than in non-state actors who are largely funded by the former colonial masters. For any agenda to succeed, it requires resources to fuel it and I am yet to see Africans invest (rather than leave the task to Bush and Brown) in the change that they want to see.
Even Oprah Winfery has been smart to see that she cannot remain indifferent to the governance question. By aligning herself to Barack Obama, she has raised the bar for many people who are privileged to occupy her profile in the American marketplace that change can only come about if citizens are engaged. It would be naïve for anyone to expect other people to invest in the change they want to see.
The future of Africa will only be secure if Africans take ownership of their destiny than wait for Europe and China to play football on the continent’s future. We have to take responsibility for our own future and there can be no better starting point than start conversations on values.
In the context of the forthcoming African National Congress (ANC) elections, it is instructive that President Thabo Mbeki has begun the values debate in so far as the future of the party will be if he is not elected. It is a good starting point for us to begin our conversations after Lisbon not only because South Africa is the youngest African child but because it’s a strategic platform for projecting a new Africa.
It is my sincere hope that we all will take time to study carefully the arguments for and against a Jacob Zuma presidency, not because it makes a difference to our lives, rather it should inform all of us on what is at stake in the continent. The South African experience is fertile with ethnic, gender, race, and moral issues that are important variables in African politics. The Russian experience also provides with important lessons in as much as the recent Venezuelan referendum.
We have no choice as Africans than to study what is taking place in the global marketplace of ideas in order to make decisions on the future of our beloved continent. After Lisbon, Africa needs to reflect and citizens have no choice but to take the bull by the horns and write their own stories. Our leaders can do so much but their legitimacy can be located no further than what citizens give them.
If Venezuelans can have the courage to say no to excesses, we surely have the residual right to organise ourselves for a better and progressive Africa. All of us have a responsibility and the question is are we up to the challenge in as much as Oprah has shown us that the future of America cannot be taken for granted?

Implications of Zuma winning ANC leadership race

THE colonial state was founded on the notion that natives could not be trusted with the vote and, therefore, they had to be excluded from governance issues. The value system that underpinned the colonial state informed the constitutional order of the day.
The role of the colonial state was to promote, protect and sustain the hegemony of the settler community. At the core of the colonial state was the need to commodify native labour and this was achieved by systematically alienating natives from economic resources.
The debate about the continent’s future cannot be complete without a critical examination of the ideals, principles and morality that should provide a compass to citizens when making choices about who should govern the post colonial state.
In a colonial state, the masses were denied the right to vote because the outcome of such an enterprise would have produced unacceptable monsters whose values would threaten the status quo and thereby undermine the integrity of the colonial state. What has changed, if any, in post colonial Africa?
In as much as the settlers did not trust the masses to make their own leadership choices, the leaders of post colonial Africa appear to share the same sentiment but have invented new and persuasive arguments about why the freedom of choice particularly in deciding on who should lead the national democratic revolution must not be generalised and liberalised.
There are no better laboratory cases of two post colonial states sharing different economic circumstances and yet having a common approach to politics than contemporary Zimbabwe and South Africa.
In South Africa, there is a contestation for power, albeit within the same political formation i.e. the African National Congress, whereas in Zimbabwe it is between an opposition and the incumbent leaders. The contestants are: Zuma versus Mbeki in the South African case, and Mugabe versus Tsvangirai in the Zimbabwean case.
Mugabe and Mbeki are generally perceived to be intellectual giants and their supporters see in them the only reliable custodians of the national democratic revolution. In fact, eloquent arguments are often advanced why change of guard must not be contemplated not only because the revolution will be sacrificed, but that they epitomise the kind of leadership required in a post colonial state notwithstanding their effectiveness in addressing the poverty challenge that confronts the respective countries.
In contemporary Africa, there are many leaders who fit into the Mbeki/Mugabe category. Over the last 50 years, Africa has produced similar intellectual giants and in each and every country where such giants have taken the leadership mantle, the tragedy is that rhetoric has failed to alleviate poverty and entrench democracy.
Mbeki faces opposition from within his ranks whereas Mugabe faces opposition from without. Both Mbeki and Mugabe come from the womb of the liberation struggle with impeccable credentials as leaders who stood against the very principles that their citizens accuse them of promoting and entrenching.
Their respective parties, ANC and Zanu PF, are to hold their congresses in a few weeks time. Whereas Mugabe will be endorsed at the forthcoming congress without any opposition, the same cannot be said about Mbeki who will preside over a conference as an underdog. Nowhere in Africa has an incumbent leader presided over a congress in which his fate is uncertain.
Both Mugabe and Mbeki appear to have addressed the gender issue in government. The only difference is that Mbeki’s deputy in the state is a female and yet in the party it is his foremost opponent. In Zimbabwe’s case, Mugabe has two deputies in both the state and party one of which is a female.
Whereas the Zimbabwean economy is in the intensive care and begging for a doctor with the right medicine, Mugabe is not under any real threat. However, the South African economy is fundamentally sound and Mbeki can rightly claim some credit for it and yet it is evident that his leadership is under a tsunami-like threat.
Despite the many negatives that appear to stick on Zuma, he has emerged as the most trusted person to lead by the rank and file members of the party. What is clear is that the profile of Zuma would not have been acceptable in a colonial state to qualify as a leader. In a strange twist, the forces that appear to be against Zuma are the same people who were champions of the struggle against racism and the denial of civil rights to the majority.
After all, the liberation struggle was about giving people the right to choose without conditioning their choices. In as much as Zuma did not nominate himself, it now appears that he is being crucified by his colleagues for being popular. Although he is acceptable as a deputy to Mbeki in the same party, there are people who believe that he cannot be promoted to number one. It appears that being a President in post colonial Africa has been redefined to exclude so-called populists with little or no regard to the constitution of the party or country.
When will the masses have the freedom of choice in Africa? This question can be best answered by reviewing what President Mbeki in the aftermath of the nominations wrote in his weekly online newsletter. The President in his article entitled: “Defend ANC’s principles”, makes the argument that in nominating Zuma with his perceived populist political baggage, the party risks negating the founding principles and values of the party.
The same argument was advanced by Minister Alec Erwin in an article entitled: “Delegates face test of strength”. Minister Erwin whom I presume has no problem with Zuma being number two in the party, makes the following arguments: “For those who think that the worst is behind us and we can now indulge in the facile electoral politics of the developed world, there will be a rude shock awaiting them should their plans succeed.”
He is arguing that if Zuma is elected as President of ANC, South Africa will turn back the clock of progress and return to the former apartheid days. Naturally, any right thinking member of the party when presented with this logic would not dare elect a person like Zuma.
In other words, Minister Erwin shares the same values as the architects of apartheid who passionately believed in responsible governments. They resisted using the state machinery against the march of freedom of choice and it appears that notwithstanding Minister Erwin’s liberation credentials, he still believes that electoral politics is a luxury South Africa can ill-afford particularly if it produces a leader in the form of Zuma with a popular base.
Who benefits from a leader without a popular base? Although the liberation struggle was underpinned by a collective and popular cause above personal interests, a leader that emerges from the collective is easily regarded as a threat to the very same people who derives his legitimacy from the masses.Minister Erwin then argues that: “The South African society and economy are not yet in a position where nationhood, tolerance and prosperity can be taken for granted. The prospects for these can only be achieved by an effective developmental state.”
In advancing this argument, the risk exists that it may be construed that he is saying that Africa is not ready for democracy and leadership should be reserved for intellectuals or incumbents. Could he be suggesting that if Zuma is elected, the effectiveness of the developmental state will be compromised? How familiar is this argument in Africa? Who benefits from such arguments?On the gender implications of electing Zuma, this is what Erwin had to say: “In the ANC Women’s League, sisterhood and respect were sacrificed to the expediency of electoral politics.”
By getting the nomination of the league, Zuma is now accused of being opposed to the emancipation of women, tribalism, and unprincipled populism.I believe that Erwin is aware that five of the top six positions in the party currently under the leadership of President Mbeki are held by men and yet he makes the accusation that four of the top six nominated by Zuma’s supporters are men. It is only in government that President Mbeki has placed confidence in women. The manner in which the gender issue is now being raised in relation to Zuma tends to dilute the message and leads to the unfortunate suspicion that women are being used as fodder by selfish men. It is not clear whether Erwin is suggesting that democracy should be suspended to allow the assimilation of women into leadership positions.
In a democratic state, how are such women to be selected? Who should they represent? Who benefits from such women being elevated without the blessing of the grass roots?
What is evident in the South African context is a clear value struggle between the contestants, making the outcome of the conference a significant development in the history of the continent. If Zuma wins, the implications are frightening for those that believe state power must be exclusive and the masses must be spared from choosing their leaders.
In the case of Zimbabwe, President Mugabe has made the argument that he does not face any domestic opposition. Rather, he argues, post colonial Zimbabwe has been confronted with a dangerous imperialist-inspired and sponsored opposition led by puppets.
A line has thus been drawn that Zimbabwe will never be a colony again, suggesting that any electoral outcome that produces a leader outside the liberation framework will be resisted and undermined. Accordingly, the masses can only make one rational choice i.e. maintain the status quo at all costs even if that means more poverty.
Whose values should inform a post colonial state? It is evident that the ruling elites have arrogated to themselves the right to choose what is right for the masses.
If the masses want a Tsvangirai as their leader, this will be resisted. The perception in both Zimbabwe and South Africa is that the opposition to the incumbents is being engineered by global capitalism supported by naïve comprador labour movements.
Accordingly, the contestation for power takes an ideological context in which the ideals, principles, and revolutionary morality of liberation struggle are mischievously used to deny competition for the highest offices in Africa, effectively changing the address of sovereignty to the wise leaders of the struggle who see in themselves as indispensable custodians of the revolution.