Contemporary African opposition, incumbents lack grand vision beyond power
Contemporary African opposition, incumbents lack grand vision beyond power
After the Kenya and Zimbabwe election debacles, progressive forces in Africa and their allies ought to have no illusions about the true drivers of Western, particularly British and American interests-global / African domination. It is clear, the forcefulness with which Bush or Brown invokes democracy, freedom and good governance, have little to do with morality than state realism. This truism was well understood by decolonization generation of Pan-African leaders, from Kwameh Nkrumah, to Robert Mugabe.
However, post-independence generations of African leadership, most coming to power -with Western connivance- by overthrowing nationalist, anti-imperialist leaders like Nkrumah in Ghana or Milton Obote in Uganda, are clueless about the global structures of state power and trans-national modes of production and imperialism. They and post-nationalist opposition leaders have internalised neoconservative theoretical and normative propaganda and taken them as one-size fits-all, standard templates for resolving every socioeconomic question everywhere. In the case of their opposition antagonists, the fight has become not one over grand ideas and vision, or substantive body of policies that are thought to be more responsive to the objective needs and aspirations of their citizens, but over procedural matters of electoral processes. In the end, their only grand agenda is to defeat the incumbent, and for those in power, to hold and retain power at all cost.
Consequently, post-perestroika and post-bipolar global political economy saw opportunistic African leaderships abandon their people's dreams for national liberation and consolidation of hard-won economic and social justice policies, including racial equality, by latching onto theoretical and analytical precepts of development economics –dusted and resold by western neoliberals-as magic panacea to Africa's problems. These problems are perceived simply as lack of or poor economic development, and the solution lies in economic growth. The notion of economic development, by transforming economic conditions and causes of unemployment, subsistence livelihood, low growth, low levels of national incomes / savings, high levels of indebtedness, low levels of domestic investments, high levels of urbanisation, and depleted rural / agricultural sectors, are recited as mantra without normative and theoretical explanations. Faced with expectations that outstrip possibilities, it becomes a matter of faith, rather than theoretical and practical relevance, how these problems are overcome, or national economies are supposed to register economic growth and development, as a result of efficient use of domestic resources, improved levels of economic productivity, accelerated economic growth, which is thought to stimulate rising national income, domestic savings and internal investments.
Obviously, it is not their concern, who benefits and who doesn't. By focusing on the technical aspects of development economics, African leaders and their policy advisers miss the important interconnections between socio-political institutions and economic growth, and the need for the outcomes of development or growth to promote human dignity, wellbeing, and engage the socio-political and moral challenges which are beyond the grasp of market economics, but the prime concerns of political economy of development.
Perhaps, not sophisticated enough to understand that, despite the heralded end of history and the last man, the triumph of neoliberal global capitalism –like mercantile global capitalism before-still operates on largely Darwinian and imperialist assumptions. Humanity still has no common destiny; survival is for the fittest; third world and African natural and mineral resources are open commons, beyond respective African national flags, and to be enclosed and exploited by those with the technological know-how and financial wherewithal. Developing countries that resist penetration and domination and try to assert their independent identities, interests and aspirations- from Cuba, Venezuela to Palestine and Zimbabwe-are labelled as autocrats, terrorists, and enemies of democracy and human freedom. Where direct intervention is deemed too costly, proxies like Zionist and racialist Israel, or puppets like Morgan Tsvangirai, are heavily coddled to do the dirty deeds.
Compromised by self-interests to hold and retain, or acquire power; propped up by neo-colonial interests; and uncritically immersed in the dictates of development economics, contemporary African leaders and opposition –exemplified by dictator Yoweri Musevni in Uganda and Morgan Tsvangirai in Zimbabwe- lack moral and political courage, as well as intellectual probity of their decolonisation era predecessors. They are incapable of exploring alternative policy frameworks responsive to specific, objective material conditions of their peoples; the rural poor; urban derelics, and slave-wage workers in global sweat-shops as primary beneficiaries of any social revolutions and material gains from economic growth and development.
But such concerns are outside the interests of current policies conceived externally in London, Washington or Paris and foisted upon these collaborators by their Western benefactors. These are primarily developmental policy thrusts beneficial to international capital, because it ignores the interplay of politics, power, class, social structures, and the dialectics of change. That is why Uganda's billionaires are people closely connected to the state and political power, while the poor have been left on their own and state-provided social services severely contracted or even eliminated. As a study in contrasts, witness how the USA or China responded the plight of its peoples struck by natural disasters on the one hand, and how Uganda has responded to the plight of inmates of concentration camps in northern Uganda.
Looked at differently from outside the box of development economics, political economy of development teaches us that development must also grapple with the questions of how processes of change in social, economic, and political structures affect the living conditions of urban and rural poor in our societies. In the case of Uganda, the verdict of political economy on the outcomes of so-called 22 years of growth and development, and their impacts on the livelihood of the poor, is damning. The heroes of Luwero War have grown filthily richer and richer, while the "wrong elements" and "bad peoples" of Uganda have grown filthily poorer and poorer, despite twenty-two years of uninterrupted, double digit growth figures.
Undoubtedly, policies made in Western capitals do not benefit the majority of our peoples who need government the most. It is meant to take from those who have the least, and give to those who have the most. And in Uganda, if you did not fight in Luwero, or you have not been co-opted by the regime in power, you do not count.
In the final analysis, collaborator African leaders such as dictator Yoweri Museveni in Uganda, or Meles Zenawi in Ethiopia, have brought to nought, the anti-colonial and national liberation efforts from Omukama Kabalega, Menelik II, to Kwameh Nkruma, Robert Mugabe. More than anything else, they lack moral and intellectual basis for leadership greater than their self-interests, and in comparison, they are morally, intellectually stunted than their anti-colonial predecessors. There is a deep ingenuity gap between Milton Obote's Move to the Left and the Common Man's Charter, and Yoweri Museveni's Ten Point Programme and Prosperity for All development model-in favour of Milton Obote.
In conclusion, it is no longer enough for the NRM/A to proclaim that they fought; they must be challenged to underline what they fought for and how such alleged ideals have become habits of our public affairs and political culture. And for the opposition, it is not enough to want to toss out the incumbent-surprise-with the help of the same foreign interests that facilitate their opponent's death grip onto power. Mere rousing stump speeches on how corrupt and autocratic the current regimes are, should no longer cut the mustard. Whether it is Morgan Tsvangirai in Zimbabwe, or Kiiza Besigye in Uganda, they must be challenged to offer grand vision and seminal policy positions to deal with Zimbabwean or Ugandan deepening poverty, historical, economic, and social inequalities and injustices, and how they intend to return people into the centre of governance.
After the Kenya and Zimbabwe election debacles, progressive forces in Africa and their allies ought to have no illusions about the true drivers of Western, particularly British and American interests-global / African domination. It is clear, the forcefulness with which Bush or Brown invokes democracy, freedom and good governance, have little to do with morality than state realism. This truism was well understood by decolonization generation of Pan-African leaders, from Kwameh Nkrumah, to Robert Mugabe.
However, post-independence generations of African leadership, most coming to power -with Western connivance- by overthrowing nationalist, anti-imperialist leaders like Nkrumah in Ghana or Milton Obote in Uganda, are clueless about the global structures of state power and trans-national modes of production and imperialism. They and post-nationalist opposition leaders have internalised neoconservative theoretical and normative propaganda and taken them as one-size fits-all, standard templates for resolving every socioeconomic question everywhere. In the case of their opposition antagonists, the fight has become not one over grand ideas and vision, or substantive body of policies that are thought to be more responsive to the objective needs and aspirations of their citizens, but over procedural matters of electoral processes. In the end, their only grand agenda is to defeat the incumbent, and for those in power, to hold and retain power at all cost.
Consequently, post-perestroika and post-bipolar global political economy saw opportunistic African leaderships abandon their people's dreams for national liberation and consolidation of hard-won economic and social justice policies, including racial equality, by latching onto theoretical and analytical precepts of development economics –dusted and resold by western neoliberals-as magic panacea to Africa's problems. These problems are perceived simply as lack of or poor economic development, and the solution lies in economic growth. The notion of economic development, by transforming economic conditions and causes of unemployment, subsistence livelihood, low growth, low levels of national incomes / savings, high levels of indebtedness, low levels of domestic investments, high levels of urbanisation, and depleted rural / agricultural sectors, are recited as mantra without normative and theoretical explanations. Faced with expectations that outstrip possibilities, it becomes a matter of faith, rather than theoretical and practical relevance, how these problems are overcome, or national economies are supposed to register economic growth and development, as a result of efficient use of domestic resources, improved levels of economic productivity, accelerated economic growth, which is thought to stimulate rising national income, domestic savings and internal investments.
Obviously, it is not their concern, who benefits and who doesn't. By focusing on the technical aspects of development economics, African leaders and their policy advisers miss the important interconnections between socio-political institutions and economic growth, and the need for the outcomes of development or growth to promote human dignity, wellbeing, and engage the socio-political and moral challenges which are beyond the grasp of market economics, but the prime concerns of political economy of development.
Perhaps, not sophisticated enough to understand that, despite the heralded end of history and the last man, the triumph of neoliberal global capitalism –like mercantile global capitalism before-still operates on largely Darwinian and imperialist assumptions. Humanity still has no common destiny; survival is for the fittest; third world and African natural and mineral resources are open commons, beyond respective African national flags, and to be enclosed and exploited by those with the technological know-how and financial wherewithal. Developing countries that resist penetration and domination and try to assert their independent identities, interests and aspirations- from Cuba, Venezuela to Palestine and Zimbabwe-are labelled as autocrats, terrorists, and enemies of democracy and human freedom. Where direct intervention is deemed too costly, proxies like Zionist and racialist Israel, or puppets like Morgan Tsvangirai, are heavily coddled to do the dirty deeds.
Compromised by self-interests to hold and retain, or acquire power; propped up by neo-colonial interests; and uncritically immersed in the dictates of development economics, contemporary African leaders and opposition –exemplified by dictator Yoweri Musevni in Uganda and Morgan Tsvangirai in Zimbabwe- lack moral and political courage, as well as intellectual probity of their decolonisation era predecessors. They are incapable of exploring alternative policy frameworks responsive to specific, objective material conditions of their peoples; the rural poor; urban derelics, and slave-wage workers in global sweat-shops as primary beneficiaries of any social revolutions and material gains from economic growth and development.
But such concerns are outside the interests of current policies conceived externally in London, Washington or Paris and foisted upon these collaborators by their Western benefactors. These are primarily developmental policy thrusts beneficial to international capital, because it ignores the interplay of politics, power, class, social structures, and the dialectics of change. That is why Uganda's billionaires are people closely connected to the state and political power, while the poor have been left on their own and state-provided social services severely contracted or even eliminated. As a study in contrasts, witness how the USA or China responded the plight of its peoples struck by natural disasters on the one hand, and how Uganda has responded to the plight of inmates of concentration camps in northern Uganda.
Looked at differently from outside the box of development economics, political economy of development teaches us that development must also grapple with the questions of how processes of change in social, economic, and political structures affect the living conditions of urban and rural poor in our societies. In the case of Uganda, the verdict of political economy on the outcomes of so-called 22 years of growth and development, and their impacts on the livelihood of the poor, is damning. The heroes of Luwero War have grown filthily richer and richer, while the "wrong elements" and "bad peoples" of Uganda have grown filthily poorer and poorer, despite twenty-two years of uninterrupted, double digit growth figures.
Undoubtedly, policies made in Western capitals do not benefit the majority of our peoples who need government the most. It is meant to take from those who have the least, and give to those who have the most. And in Uganda, if you did not fight in Luwero, or you have not been co-opted by the regime in power, you do not count.
In the final analysis, collaborator African leaders such as dictator Yoweri Museveni in Uganda, or Meles Zenawi in Ethiopia, have brought to nought, the anti-colonial and national liberation efforts from Omukama Kabalega, Menelik II, to Kwameh Nkruma, Robert Mugabe. More than anything else, they lack moral and intellectual basis for leadership greater than their self-interests, and in comparison, they are morally, intellectually stunted than their anti-colonial predecessors. There is a deep ingenuity gap between Milton Obote's Move to the Left and the Common Man's Charter, and Yoweri Museveni's Ten Point Programme and Prosperity for All development model-in favour of Milton Obote.
In conclusion, it is no longer enough for the NRM/A to proclaim that they fought; they must be challenged to underline what they fought for and how such alleged ideals have become habits of our public affairs and political culture. And for the opposition, it is not enough to want to toss out the incumbent-surprise-with the help of the same foreign interests that facilitate their opponent's death grip onto power. Mere rousing stump speeches on how corrupt and autocratic the current regimes are, should no longer cut the mustard. Whether it is Morgan Tsvangirai in Zimbabwe, or Kiiza Besigye in Uganda, they must be challenged to offer grand vision and seminal policy positions to deal with Zimbabwean or Ugandan deepening poverty, historical, economic, and social inequalities and injustices, and how they intend to return people into the centre of governance.
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