The plight of the Africans in their big men’s pistol
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By Stephen Par Kuol
With its compact cartographic shape and susceptibility to violent
armed conflicts, Africa, the second largest continent on the globe has
been metaphorically described by some western pundits as a loaded
pistol whose trigger is located somewhere in the Gulf of Guinea
(Western Congo and Southern Cameroon),with its ammunition magazine
somewhere in the extreme Horn of Africa (Somalia) and the barrel on
the southern tip of the continent (Cape Province, SAR). This
literately means that the African people live inside a loaded
automatic handgun ready to fire at any time. Some African gurus of
history and political science have dismissed that as Euro-centric
prejudice. Arguable or not, the home truth is that humanity has never
experienced real peace in the continent since the era of slave trade,
colonial conquest, and scramble for Africa and unfortunately up to the
independence in 1960s. Things have only gone from bad to worse with
liberation and independence. While most of what we have to deal with
today is the aftermath of colonialism, bashing the long gone
colonialists for everything is really shirking leadership
responsibility. Like Asians who have so far overcome the bruises of
colonialism, we are masters of our own destiny to make this continent
a hell or paradise for our people. We have all it takes to make life
fun and liveable in this cradle of humanity. What is missing is the
statesmanship in African politics. The African leaders in their club
of dictators called African Union (AU) talk very big but do very
little in their countries as their own people continue to wallow in
misery.
Today, from Eritrea to Zimbabwe and from South Sudan to Uganda and
Burundi, the African people have been trapped in what Professor
Patrick Lumumba of Nairobi University Law School has called “Martyrs
syndrome”. Martyrs Syndrome is a political psychosis of the liberation
armies/movements turned –ruling parties in post war African countries.
The most common symptom of this psychosis is the paternalistic
conviction on the part of the so-called liberators that they deserve
everything in the country they martyred liberating. This pathological
mentality prescribes that the liberated (the populace) are the ruled
and the liberators are rulers with unquestionable authority over them.
My own sojourn in Post War South Sudan politics has exposed me to the
spectacle of this thing called liberated –liberators discourse. In
this discourse, the liberators see everything in their liberated
country as dividend of their sacrifice and success. This includes
public resources and the political power they earned through bullets
(not ballots). Even the term corruption has by implication gained
virtuous currency in the society where the so-called political leaders
are entitled to loot the country straight faced. One South Sudanese
political scientist at Juba University has called those illegally
amassed resources “SPLA I fought Wealth” That is called “graft” in the
civilized world of sane and sober, but in the world of those goons, it
is called “payback” for the time and opportunities lost during the
liberation struggle. Even the demand for the freedom we all fought for
is now branded as errant nuisance of the west. Meritocracy and
institutionalism have been deliberately eschewed to advance this thing
we have called lootocracy in our Juba English of drinking joints.
Subsequently, South Sudan has been long condemned to the reign of
political ineptitude, mediocrity, ethnic bigotry and corruption of the
ruling overlords. All this is called “payback”, of course, without
term limit!
In Robert Magube’s tradition, revolutionaries can be retired only by
the Mother Nature. In solemn term, African liberation leaders do not
retire without political violence. No wonder, civil wars are raging in
most of the African countries ruled by those hooligans who call
themselves revolutionaries. I call those “wars of liberation from
villainous liberators”. In most of the African countries with former
guerrilla leaders at the helm, those “war made politicians “(in the
word of Prof. Peter Adwok Nyaba ) have created a sterile world of
oppressors. They usurp the rule of law and place themselves above the
law and the whole justice system, to the point where a few
conscientious judges and lawyers have absconded. The rest have been
knuckled down to live with the hollow that even the President can also
be the lawmaker when it comes to his throne. The supreme law of the
land (the constitution) is amended at the behest of His Excellency the
President to extend his own rule of gun. This has been witnessed in
Burundi, South Sudan, Uganda, Zimbabwe and so many other African
countries. Yowery Musveni of Uganda, the guerrilla commander turned
life President has been running his country with iron fist amending
the constitution three times since 1985. He shunned multi-party
democracy through physical elimination and intimidation. Robert
Mugabe, the infamous liberation leader who led his country to
independence in 1980 ordered killing of thousands of people who
refused to vote for him during the last elections he shamelessly
rigged through intimidation and bribery. He has been the only
president Zimbabweans have known since then.
President Isiyias Afiworki of Eritrea has executed many of his former
comrades in arms and introduced a red terror that has cowed everybody
to political servitude in the country. The Red Sea despot has been
leading an anti-intellectual movement that has exiled the national
intelligentsia and the best cadres of the liberation struggle. He has
been the only presidents Eritreans have known since independence in
1991. In truth, what happened in the SPLM of South Sudan, EPLF of
Eritrea, ZANUPF of Zimbabwe and NRM of Uganda is a case of chicken
devouring its own eggs. In Burundi, President Pierre Nkurunziza, the
former guerrilla leader has been violently wrestling with the people
to extend his despotic rule in blatant violation of Arusha Peace
Agreement enshrined in the constitution with clearly defined term
limit. Despite wise counsels of so many world leaders to yield to the
demand of his people, President NKuruniziza insists that there is no
Burundi without him in power. He is thus adamant to glide the country
back to another civil war to ensure that he is made life president
like Mugabe and Musevene. One wonders what President Nkurunziza wants
to do with more years in office after squandering ten years without
accomplishing a thing for Burundi! This is typical of the so-called
African liberation leaders. The typical African dictator will use
every tool at his disposal to cling to morally decayed power.
In South Sudan, the cowboy clown called Salva Kiir Mayardit has turned
his newly independent country into a bestial human butchery to extend
his reign of terror, genocide, widespread insecurity and economic
depression. Kiir’s oppressive regime has reduced to nothing the
meaning of “the rule of law.” It has created a state of affairs in
which “terror” has become its definition of liberation. Anyone who
does not toe its line is treated as enemy of the state. More than
that, he/she may be actually executed by the President’s personal
hoodlums. Salva Kiir has built a violent kleptocracy fighting for its
own survival at the expense of the nascent nation. It is a cult of
mediocrity without any program for nation building, if any, it is
quite the opposite: “subversion”. One ugly scar Kiir’s regime has
inflicted on the psyche of South Sudan is the polarization of the
nation into sectarian cocoons of mutual hatred. In terms of the
quality of life, the economy, morality, culture, justice system,
health facilities, quality of education, have pitifully degenerated.
Suffering, pain, poverty and oppression have become the core
characters of South Sudan independence. Even the freedom of assembly
or speech provided for in the national constitution is thwarted by
Kiir’s Police State. So the question is: where is the freedom we
toiled and martyred for as a people? It is unbelievable but it is
self-evident that “the self-rule “generations of South Sudanese people
have been clamoring for is now synonymous with “self-ruin” under Salva
Kiir. In a word, life is miserable!
I have dwelled more on my native country of South Sudan but what is
happening there is not necessarily peculiar to South Sudan. It is a
common African neo-colonial experience. Although few did well at
governance, majority of the liberation leaders throughout the
continent have been political disgrace. The leap to borrow as models
could be from that of Melese Zinawe and Paul Kagama in term of
institutional reform and the economic development, but the two are
also guilty of dictatorship and prima donna. Only Mandela was the
polar opposite. Most of the rest have reduced the very noble meaning
of the term liberation to what Christopher Clapham of Cambridge
University has called “Curse of the Liberation”. In my book, political
liberation means much more than taking the means of power from a
foreign colonial power or from an ingenious dictator. With specific
reference to South Sudan, the meaning of political liberation goes
beyond hoisting that blue star flag, composing a national anthem;
building mansions, palaces houses and having our own currency. This
is, but a very limited meaning of liberation. Liberation must be
intellectual .It must be found in the minds and the hearts of the
liberated. In another word, it must be holistic for it to mean what we
wanted it to mean in the first place. Ultimately, it must include
getting rid of neo-colonial greed, which illegally exports national
assets off shore.
Historically, there was a time during our liberation struggle when we
thought all we wanted was to rule ourselves. The pioneers of African
independence movements like Khwame Nkhuruma , Mzee Jomo Kenyata,
Emperor Haile Selesia, Mawlimu Nyareer gave it all they had.
Paradoxically, the very heroes of the African independence who
replaced colonial powers emulated their colonial oppressors and made
themselves demigods in their newly independent countries. Preoccupied
with self-aggrandizing projects, they miserably failed to deliver on
democracy and economic development. That is why so many decades into
our political independence, Africa is sinking deeper and deeper into
not only material poverty but also spiritually and morally in the
midst of political sovereignty. Instead of practicing the founding
values of their liberation movements (freedom), the African freedom
fighters became anti-freedom. For the worst part, the big men of
African liberation movements have introduced vicious political
tribalism (politicized ethnicity) which has not only consumed the
sense of nationhood but also tends to promote miss rule and
dictatorship. In African political culture, national political leaders
take refuge in their tribal constituencies whenever the center can’t
hold for them and that has terribly undermined progress toward
democratic transformation in so many African countries. We keep voting
back to power the same few greedy, self-centered, corruption-oriented
individuals because if we do not, the ruling party will murder us.
Even when we do not vote for them, they steal the vote with our
permission, knowing that there are no reprisals against them. This is
humanly much harsher than residing inside a loaded pistol. Hence, it
must not be left to posterity. This continent must be liberated from
the greed of its dictators, poverty, disease and ignorance. This must
commence with ousting inept tyrants like Kiir, Museveni, Mugabe,
Nkurunziza and all their likes. Only then can we realize the true
meaning of liberation and turn this loaded pistol into the Garden of
Eden God meant it to be from the Genesis.
Stephen Par Kuol is a researcher and freelance writer on African
political and humanitarian affairs. He can be reached by e-mail via
kuolpar@yahoo
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30 May 23:39, by sudani ana
Thank you Mr Kuol for this insightful and well written article.
Its a very good diagnosis of the political ills of Africa. It would
have been even better if you included in your article what the
opressed masses could do to address these issues, other than the
vicious circle of dictatorship - rebellion -dictatorship and so forth.
What can we do to lay the foundation of democracy in Africa?
repondre message
30 May 23:39, by sudani ana
Thank you Mr Kuol for this insightful and well written article.
Its a very good diagnosis of the political ills of Africa. It would
have been even better if you included in your article what the
opressed masses could do to address these issues, other than the
vicious circle of dictatorship - rebellion -dictatorship and so forth.
What can we do to lay the foundation of democracy in Africa?
repondre message
1 June 06:23, by Thyinka
Your article is nice and dandy but as a politician who is
supporting a historically murderous Riek Machar for leadership in
South Sudan, I don’t think we would be better under him. So where is
the beef? Are you not perpetuating the same cycle? Just because you
are now outside looking in doesn’t mean you suddenly got the moral
authority to question the system. Granted, the current system...
repondre message
1 June 06:25, by Thyinka
....is rotten. But what good is it to exchange one rot with another?
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