The recent death of Zambia’s President Levy Mwanawasa is a tragedy for not only Zambia but also for the entire African continent.
My understanding is that Zambia has prematurely lost a leader of exceptional calibre who was striving to make a genuine difference to the lives of Zambians, particularly in his determined fight against corruption.
Almost uniquely amongst world leaders, Mwanawasa publicly confronted and then prosecuted his predecessor Frederick Chiluba for corruption and fraud. Mwanawasa’s decision to do so cannot have been easy. Chiluba had, after all, been the one to groom and present Mwanawasa as his successor and there must have been some considerable pressure from within the ruling party not to rock the boat (thereby spilling the cash) and to spare Chiluba public humiliation – to say nothing of Chiluba’s underlings, hangers-on, presumed beneficiaries and possible co-conspirators.
Instead, Levy Mwanawasa chose to be a statesman, deciding – as far as possible in a political environment – to honour his promises to the electorate by adhering to the principles (oft-repeated but rarely practiced by the power hungry) of his country’s Constitution. In so doing he appears to have honoured himself and his country, as well as having set a worthy example to his constituency.
Although Spearpoint never had the opportunity to meet and know Levy Mwanawasa personally, the hope is that Zambia will allow Spearpoint to join (albeit remotely) in their mourning as a fellow African.
For the demise of Zambia’s Mwanawasa is a loss not only for Zambia but is also a loss for the whole of Africa – especially southern Africa.
As at home, Mwanawasa displayed the courage to stand up and be counted in the face of the prevailing antipathy in the southern African region towards corruption, fraud and dictatorship in the form of Robert Mugabe’s tyrannical and outright criminal regime in Zimbabwe.
With the tacit support of Ian Khama, the President of Botswana, Mwanawasa alone named and shamed Mugabe for what he is, what he represents and what he perpetrates against his own country and people.
In so doing Mwanawasa also implicitly named and shamed all those other African leaders who, despite mounting and convincing evidence, have given Mugabe political support and sustenance either directly and openly or through their failure to criticise and isolate Zimbabwe for its current policies and situation.
Principal amongst these has been South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki and his ANC government.
Appointed by SADC to mediate in the Zimbabwe crisis, Mbeki has epitomized the approach of many other African leaders: don’t rock the boat; don’t embarrass Mugabe; don’t expose Mugabe; don’t fracture the façade of imagined African so-called solidarity; don’t further reinforce the global perception of Africa’s inability to identify, address and remedy its own problems, including those of poverty, corruption, crime, ignorance and indolence.
Notwithstanding recent critical comments from Jacob Zuma (as President of the ANC) regarding Zimbabwe, the fact remains that South Africa continues to pussyfoot around the person of Mugabe and the crisis in Zimbabwe and refuses – publicly, at least – to acknowledge that a problem exists. In Mbeki’s own words on the subject, “There is no crisis”. Sentiments echoed by the Minister and the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs.
The ANC must be living in gaga land.
It’s obviously not a crisis when a neighbour of South Africa destroys its economy (inflation admitted by the Zimbabwean government just this month to be running at not less than eleven million percent – that’s eleven followed by six zeroes, folks), and driving no less than four million of its own citizens into South Africa – mostly illegally – to escape starvation and political persecution (and who knows how many into other neighbouring countries).
And how can it be a crisis when even the great ANC, champion of the art of rule by smoke and mirrors, has been appointed (in the person of Thabo Mbeki) by SADC to mediate between Mugabe and the Zimbabwean Opposition.
Yet the appointment of a mediator implies conflict, dispute and actual or potential crisis. That much SADC has got right; where it went wrong was appointing Mbeki and his team as mediators. Not only do the mediators deny the existence of a situation which they have consciously agreed to fix, but they are unsuited and unqualified to carry out such a role since they have consistently and laughably maintained for many years now that within their own borders there are no crises in law enforcement, the judicial system, education, HIV, AIDS, TB and other health matters, housing, and so on.
SADC erred in appointing the ANC and Mbeki. It is patently clear that these guys couldn’t organise an orgy in a brothel, given their record of domestic service delivery and good governance.
The mediation between the parties in Zimbabwe has stalled. Naught has been achieved. Mugabe continues to do as he pleases – even to the extent of re-convening Zimbabwe’s parliament (which, according to Zimbabwe’s Constitution, should have occurred months ago) before there is any clarity and agreement on how power division and sharing will prevail in the new government.
Now, doesn’t that just speak volumes on the dedication and abilities of the so-called mediators?
Excepting Zambia and Botswana, no-one in SADC has had the courage to slap Mugabe silly and to tell him to stop behaving like a spoiled brat and to stop embarrassing all of Africa with his puerile behaviour. Mugabe’s arrogance and assumed impunity – watch his disjointed marionette-like swagger in public – has never been challenged by South Africa and its continental cronies.
Indeed, South Africa has shown great concern over Mugabe’s dignity and has been keen to protect that dubious quality. But at what price? Where is the dignity of those Zimbabweans, forever on the cusp of eviction, arrest and starvation, free-falling into the black hole of faster-than-light inflation who have had to separate from their families and homes in order to cross the borders of neighbours looking for some means of sustenance and to live in the additional and constant fear of deportation as illegal immigrants? Where, in South Africa, is the dignity for those South Africans already suffering under the laissez-faire incompetencies of the ANC dictatorship who now have to make room in already overcrowded cities, townships and squatter camps for swarms of desperate immigrants who also want a share of what is clearly an inadequate, mismanaged and ill-divided political and economic cake?
Does the ANC have no shame? Is it not ashamed that it continues its rhetoric and spin doctoring even though it clearly cannot do its job – either at home or around the table in Harare? Just what are the criteria against which it measures itself and which, obviously, allow it in its collective politburo mind to continue its rule?
Of course, shame and admission of error are not matters for easy admission by any politician even in the normal course of events, much less at any other time. Such is the nature of the beast. (Also, incidentally, such is the nature of those that look for and permit the politicians to rule; populations and electorates tend to be lazy in thinking for themselves and constantly seek the comfort of having someone else do their thinking for them. A contradiction of the human condition is that, of all the creatures on the planet, humans have the greatest ability to deal with change, challenge and chance yet are the most persistent in their – often unconscious and unspoken – drive for certainty and comfort.)
Admission of error in Africa is very difficult. Culturally the strong man must be seen to be strong, even if – especially if – wrong. The advent of colonial rule, with all the embarrassments that that brought, together with the displays of power and material goods by the colonial powers, then provided the need to display to the world that Africa and Africans could achieve the same themselves without outside intervention.
The loss of face when African nations screw things up is immense – far more so than the purported Oriental perceptions of face. This is why, for example, racism and colonialism are frequently used as catchphrases to divert attention away from the true reasons for African failure.
Mugabe blames the racism and imperialism of Britain and America for his devastation of the Zimbabwean economy and social structure. Mbeki and many of his colleagues blame racism in South Africa for the failure of many of the ANC’s policies and programmes. It is far less embarrassing and far easier to fix the blame rather than the problem – particularly where personal political careers and ambitions might be at stake. It’s an African pastime; it didn’t rain enough; it rained too much; we don’t have enough money; foreigners are taking our women and jobs; the Whites don’t share; the British conspire against our sovereignty; the Chinese steal our resources; the Indians are lazy and greedy; the Zulus cannot be trusted and steal everything not nailed down; the World Food Programme gave our starving people the wrong food; it goes on and on.
Spearpoint is not suggesting that there are not grains of truth and reality in some or all of the above excuses. But that is what they are – excuses. Fourteen years after shouldering aside the burdens of apartheid the ANC and its stalwarts still glibly trot out racism, colonialism and imperialism as reasons behind its failures in almost every arena of life in South Africa. They fail to see that history is history; it is past and passé. History is a guide for and to the future, not a Balkan-type motivation for perpetuating old horrors as justification for interminable inefficiencies and inadequacies.
Unfortunately, it is in the past that the ANC finds itself mired. Starting its existence as a protest and liberation movement the ANC has been unable to shrug off that mindset. Fourteen years into government the ANC is trapped in a time-warp, still slavishly employing the same slogans, gestures and thought patterns of its Communist Party origins and history dating back to the October Revolution and the Long March when those who were not for the movement were targetted as enemies and to be treated accordingly. Defunct ideology and the mindless mouthing of Cold War rhetoric serve little useful purpose when the living are here and now in a world that has moved on from what may or may not have happened centuries ago.
The ANC has failed to heed its own ideological teachings and raison d’etre which were to grow, improve and develop. The ANC has fallen at the first hurdle of metamorphosing from a liberation movement into a credible political party and sustainable government. The eyes and thoughts of the ANC remain firmly fixed on the perceived glories of its past where, by virtue of the then prevailing circumstances, it was easy to exhibit and enjoy disciplined solidarity since the goals of the organisation were simple to define and explain and the enemy was easily identified. Now in government the aims and objectives are far fuzzier in the face of the need to be a responsible and credible representative of an entire and diverse population; the temptation for which the ANC has fallen has been that of remaining a lobby group for a narrow and specific segment of the populace. The ANC continues to view everything non-ANC as being ‘the enemy’ and has behaved and responded accordingly.
Thus, for example, ANC officials will blame ‘white mentality’ and resistant racism for poor results on the rugby pitch or athletics field where points are not awarded for ideological or racial purity but for excellence in performance. Excellence cannot be legislated or enforced. It must be scouted, nurtured and developed organically. A fat runner cannot be expected to be able to produce satisfactory results in the marathon, regardless of any racial or socio-economic origins from which the individual may have come; the athlete must be made fit and then trained in his discipline before adequate results can be reasonably expected. Likewise, a school leaver, unable to add, subtract and so on cannot become a computer technician or electrician until he has had the time and resources granted him to master sufficient of the basics to enable him to then progress on to more specialised (and better paid) areas of competence.
Similarly with the Zimbabwe situation. The ANC remains locked in its perennial ‘circle-the-wagons’ mentality of giving greater weight to old loyalties than to recognition of getting the job done and removing those who fail to produce results. The support given the ANC by Mugabe and Zimbabwe during the ANC’s years of opposition to the then South African regime are viewed by the ANC to be perpetual bonds of debt that far outweigh any consideration of the abilities and rationale of the creditor in that relationship. That Mugabe is an egomaniacal despot who has so alienated the people of both his own country and others around the world that the economic and political fabric of Zimbabwe now lies tattered and fallen appears to matter less to the ANC than the perceived debt owed to Mugabe by the ANC. Worse still, the negative impact upon South Africa and other SADC countries stemming from Mugabe’s depredations is clearly considered by the ANC to be of little import; it could be argued that what happens in Zimbabwe is their own affair and they should be allowed to get on with it, but the argument fails if the actions of Zimbabwe directly impact on South Africa. Would the ANC retain its present stance if the Zimbabwean army were to invade South Africa in order to seize assets no longer available in Zimbabwe? Or would the ANC turn a blind eye, again, and insist that no crisis existed?
As the governing party of South Africa the ANC’s prime responsibility is to the country and all the people of South Africa. The ANC’s responsibility to Zimbabwe (or any other country, for that matter) is secondary, at best. Get your own house in order. Only then – not before – and if there is something to spare, can you turn your charitable efforts elsewhere.
Hubris can be a terrible thing. It blinds one to failings and shortcomings which, if pride be briefly set aside, could be corrected with a minimum of fuss and damage. There is no shame or loss of self-esteem in saying “I don’t know” or “I don’t have the skills right now to correct this situation” and then turning to others who possess the requisite knowledge. Knowledge and skills know no skin colours – but where they are claimed when, in fact, they are absent then there is a real and severe humiliation when the deficit is finally revealed.
Levy Mwanawasa’s legacy – in part, at least – will be of declaring to the world that just because fellow black Africans now largely control their own destinies it is still not right or acceptable when laws and principles are broken and cast aside – just as it is unacceptable when ordinary people suffer because their leaders are too proud or ideologically blinkered to acknowledge that they are relatively new to the business of running their own affairs and to bring in the required expertise.
Spearpoint.
26th August 2008
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