The Nature of the beast - concerning leadership

This was a response to an essay question I was given. Please do not be dismayed by the frequent references to "Van Wyk", he really does not saying anything we did not already know, but I needed him as a reference in the essay :D

"We are aware that the white man is sitting at our table. We know that he has no right to be there; we want to remove him from our table, strip the table of all the trappings put on it by him, decorate it in true African terms, settle down and then ask him to join us on our terms if he wishes." Steve Biko

We need to consider that "the architecture of post-colonial Africa is still unfolding" (Van Wyk 2007: 4), and there is a desperate need in this regard, for a new narrative to be spread. A narrative that says, that a government as understood and practised by Africans, is supposed to be more dependent on the people than the people are dependent on it.

Late last year, on my campus (Rhodes University) we had SRC elections, and we only had enough voters to reach quorum. Our quorum is 33 per cent of the student population. Amongst the people I talked to, many told me they do not vote because they do not see the relevance of the SRC.

There is an element of truth to this statement even at a country level. Our leadership needs to become relevant to the people. Democracy has been failing us because it has only allowed us to choose our own dictators. The system is neither structured by us nor for us, it is an illusion of fair governance rooted in a colonial strategy of ‘giving local leadership reign in so far as they comply to the stipulations of some Western power’.

It also brings in a whole economic aspect because the primary reason for the current structure of government; is because of the dictatorship of some world capitalism structures. I will explain this by using an example of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the IMF mandated Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAP) of the 1980’s. This included privatisation, removal of import controls and food subsidies, enforced cost-recovery in health and education, and ruthless downsizing of the public sector (Davis 2004: 18). According to Davis "In addition to the direct SAP-enforced reduction in public spending and ownership" there was an emphasis on the reduction of state control (Davis 2004: 19). So in a fragile political environment, the leadership of about 30 African countries (Davis 2004: 18) implement these SAP’s. This affected the efficiency and/or efficacy of these governments to provide for the needs of the people. Never mind the fact that very idea of ‘decentralisation’ is foreign to the idea of "national representative government" (Davis 2004: 19).

This was capitalism’s foot hold in Africa, and with it came many socio-economic issues and inequalities.

Capitalism in its nature, never provides permanent solutions for those who need them, it only recreates itself. This amongst many other reasons is why we find ourselves gyrating round the same socio-political/economic issues time and time again without a permanent solution to them. In order for African leadership to be effective in dealing with the needs of the people, the current economic systems of our continent (which are predominantly capitalist) need to be looked into.

In the post-colonialism redevelopment strategies implemented in South Africa, there have been many attempts to make the system work for us. However we should maybe begin to consider another system. A system that learns from the methods that worked, both in Ancient Africa (egalitarian) and in other parts of history (the Paris commune for example) instead of the (current) methods that continually abuse the very people that empower them. Van Wyk puts this more clearly when he says: "Africans had little time to prepare for independence and at independence the incoming elite inherited alien structures," (Van Wyk 1999: 7) structures that are perhaps not best for the African context.

Leaders should be put in place insofar as there is a need for leadership, not just for the sake of having people above others. Amongst many other reasons why leadership in South Africa has been irrelevant to many people, is because it has become about one council filling the position of the previous one, perpetuating the same system. Considering the drop in the number of votes for the incumbent government, the masses are not happy with this system. This started from the days of independence, when Western rule was replaced by local rule. However sadly, all that changed was the face of governance (from the colonisers, to the local people) not the structure.

Works Cited:
Biko, S. (1978), I Write What I Like. Pan Macmillan. Davis, M. (2004), "Planet of Slums"
. New Left Review, No. 26. Pp. 5-34. Van Wyk, Jo-Ansie. (2007), "Political Leaders in Africa: Presidents, Patrons or Profiteers?"
Occasional Paper Series. The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD) 2(1). Pp. 1-38.

the education of the african child

Nearing the end of last year I got the opportunity to speak at a TEDx event at Rhodes University. Look, and laugh, and agree, and disagree, and comment :)