African liberation Movements and the 'end of history'
Henning Melber (2008-10-02)
When liberation movements take power, their governments are often marked by
military mindsets, categorising people as winners and losers and operating
along the lines of command and obedience. Such trends are evident in southern
Africa. Democratic discourse in search of the common good would look quite
different.
A knee-jerk reaction of 'Tiers-Mondisme' is to show solidarity with the
struggle for freedom among the 'wretched of the earth'. Sometimes, struggles
are glorified, as was the case back in the 1960s. Frantz Fanon's book 'Les
damnés de la terre' (the wretched of the earth) was paradigmatic. His manifesto
became a call to battle for the Algerian resistance movement against France,
the colonial power.
Jean-Paul Sartre wrote the introduction. He was quite selective in his
argumentation, tending in some spots to glorify violence as an act of
emancipation. Indeed, he seemed to see violence as a purifying force that would
turn the colonised into full citizens. Fanon himself however spoke out against
excessive post-colonial authoritarianism. In penetrating analyses and withering
criticism, he described what he had seen, mainly in West Africa, up to his
death in 1961.
Fanon critisised the authoritarian attitudes of the African elite, which
usurped young states in the course of decolonisation, and their abuses of power
when securing privileges for themselves and turning entire states into
instruments of control. His early warnings went largely unheeded, however. Not
until the 1990s, when the shortcomings of revolutionary movements could no
longer be ignored, did Fanon's analyses come back into the foreground.
VICTORY IN PEOPLE'S STRUGGLE?
When liberation movements in the so-called third world took up arms, they
enjoyed support from the socialist countries as well as solidarity movements in
the West. Organisations such as the PAIGC, MPLA, and FRELIMO challenged
Portugal's colonial power. Their resilience in Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde,
Angola, and Mozambique even had repercussions in the Lisbon metropole. They
triggered the Carnation Revolution, bringing an end to Portuguese colonialism
in Africa in the mid-1970s.
In Rhodesia - today's Zimbabwe - the ZANU and ZAPU liberation movements fought
the white minority regime under Ian Smith, which had declared unilateral
Independence (UDI) from the British Empire. Colonial rule came to an end in
1980 when the Lancaster House Agreement was signed and ZANU subsequently won
the elections.
In Namibia, the United Nations negotiated a transition period for independence,
which was ultimately implemented in 1989-90. South Africa had occupied the
country in violation of international law. SWAPO fought against this illegal
occupation for a quarter of a century.
Four years later, the Namibian model of controlled change helped South Africans
hold their first free elections, which were won by the ANC. The former
liberation movement thus assumed political responsibility, and it did so in a
legitimate fashion.
One must bear in mind that armed resistance was part of the solution both in
South Africa and Namibia. It led to negotiations for transitional arrangements
towards majority rule. The compromises required from all sides contributed to
the transitional periods working out. At the same time, a decidedly patriotic
form of writing history turned the independence struggle soon thereafter into a
myth.
ZIMBABWEAN TRAUMA
It bears repetition that the unscrupulously violent character of Zimbabwe's
ZANU regime already revealed itself in the early to mid-1980s, when a special
unit killed an estimated 20,000 people, mainly in Matabeleland, where the
opposition ZAPU had most of its supporters.
The soldiers of the fifth brigade trained by North Korea, took no prisoners.
They killed, tortured, raped and humiliated anyone who seemed suspicious (and
it was enough to be Ndebele); men, women, and even children. The only
organisation to protest was the local catholic church, which raised its voice
to protect the victims. The rest of the world, including those who had
originally shown solidarity, had little to say; after all, it simply couldn't
be true.
The violence did not stop until ZAPU agreed to sign a pact with the ruling
party. ZANU basically took them over. None of this hurt the Mugabe government's
bilateral and multilateral standing. To the contrary: up to the late 1990s,
Zimbabwe was considered a success story, an example of successful transition.
Indeed, in 1994 Queen Elizabeth II personally bestowed knighthood upon
President Mugabe, who had assumed comprehensive executive powers in the
meantime. Not until June of this year was his knighthood revoked.
WOUNDS OLD AND NEW
When a new opposition party, the MDC, took to the political stage in Zimbabwe
and turned out to be a serious competitor at the end of the 1990s, the
'Chimurenga' (struggle) became a permanent institution. Violence became the
customary response to political protest. As political power shifted away from
Mugabe after he lost a referendum in 2000, his regime became only more violent.
In 2005, Mugabe and his people launched Operation 'Murambatsvina' (Drive Out
Trash) in raids on pockets of opposition in Harare and other major towns: more
than 2 million people are estimated to have lost their already meagre
livelihoods in the process. There is no need to delve into the recent
escalation of violence, since the election troubles were reported in detail
worldwide.
An estimated third of Zimbabwe's people has fled the country for political and
economic reasons; from exile, they try to support family members who have
stayed home. All of this is sad proof that life under a liberation movement is
not automatically better than it was under colonialism. The human-rights
violations of SWAPO have also been downplayed. In the 1980s, the organisation
imprisoned thousands of its own members in dungeons in southern Angola,
accusing them of spying on behalf of South Africa. These people lost their
liberty in spite of never having been proven guilty; indeed, they were not even
brought to trial. Many of them did not survive the torture. Those released are
scorned even today.
It could have been different in South Africa. The ANC government's Truth and
Reconciliation Commission talked about human rights violations committed by its
own members. But the final report containing these findings was never published
in its original form. So far, ANC omissions have not been discussed openly.
VICTIMS BECOME PERPETRATORS
There is nothing new about military movements that are supposedly justified in
ethical and moral terms quickly losing their legitimacy. Since the French
Revolution, liberators have often turned into oppressors, victims into
perpetrators. It is not unusual for a new regime to quickly resemble an old
one. That has happened time and again around the world.
The Indian psychologist and sociologist Ashis Nandy, one of the founders of
critical post-colonial studies, has dealt with this issue in depth. The
Intimate Enemy, his book of 1983, discusses how liberators tend to reproduce
the past rather than offering genuine alternatives. In this light, the
"anti-imperialist" Robert Mugabe turns out to be merely the final executor of
the policies of the racist colonists Cecil Rhodes and Ian Smith. Armed combat
merely created new repressive institutions of the state for the dominant group
within anti-colonial resistance. Former PLO activist Yezid Sayigh argued 1997
in Armed Struggle and the Search for State that this was also happening in the
Palestinian liberation movement.
Such power structures often revolve around individual commanders who act to the
benefit of their crony supporters. Resistance movements normally adopt rough
survival strategies and techniques while fighting an oppressive regime. That
culture, unfortunately, takes root and is permanently nurtured. In sum, it
becomes questionable whether there is a true difference between the political
systems they manage to throw out and what they establish in their place.
In May 1990 Albie Sachs had already spoken of this trend in respect to South
Africa. In a lecture at the University of the Western Cape, this South African
lawyer, who was crippled by a parcel bomb in Mozambique during his 24-year
exile, expressed his doubts about ANC activists being ready for freedom. He
worried about the habits they had cultivated. As Sachs put it, the culture and
discipline of resistance may have served a survival strategy in the
underground, but these skills were certainly not those of free citizens.
Maybe this is why Nelson Mandela became a global icon in his lifetime; the many
years he spent in prison kept him away from the daily intrigues and power plays
prevalent in an organised liberation movement. Mandela preserved a spirit of
human compassion and tolerance that a life of struggle and exile might not have
afforded him.
This may sound cynical but might be close to reality. Jacob Zuma, a product of
the struggle, cultivates a 'Zulu warrior culture'. He emerged as a populist
alternative to the more intellectual, somewhat aloof Thabo Mbeki, and will
probably soon be South Africa's next president. Zuma has an international
reputation for various allegations of corruption, charges of sexual abuse and
martial rhetoric (his favourite song is 'Bring me my machine gun').
Disappointed by the limits of the liberation they have experienced, many people
are looking for substitute saviours. Fortunately, the number of those for whom
fundamental values of democracy, liberty and human rights matter more than
submissive loyalty to an organisation is growing.
Raymond Suttner is an example. He used to operate underground in South Africa
as a member of the ANC, and spent years in solitary confinement as a political
prisoner. As a member of parliament and later as ambassador, he represented the
ANC government before returning to the academic world from which he originated.
In November 2005, he pointed out that ANC ideology and rhetoric do not
distinguish between the liberation movement and the people. He thus argues that
the liberation movement is a prototype of a state within the state, one that
sees itself as the only legitimate source of power.
'END OF HISTORY'
As we now know, post-colonial life looks a lot like the colonial era did in
respect to day-to-day life, the reason being that socialisation factors and
attitudes from armed struggle have largely shaped the new political leaders'
understanding of politics, and their idea of how to wield power.
In governmental office, liberation movements tend to mark an 'end of history'.
Any political alternative that does not emerge from within them will not be
acceptable. This attitude explains the strong sense of camaraderie between the
Mugabe regime and the governments of Angola, Mozambique, Namibia and South
Africa over many years. Typcially, any political alternative cropping up in
these countries as a result of disillusionment with post-colonial life will be
discredited as part of an imperialist conspiracy designed to sabotage national
independence.
These governments never seem to even consider the possibility that their own
shortcomings may be the reason why opposition forces are becoming stronger.
Instead, they only think along the militaristic dichotomy of friend/foe,
leaving no legitimate alternative to their own hegemony.
At the same time, the sad truth is that the opposition forces that do stand up
against such governments tend to only add to the problem, rather than to
provide a solution. All too often, they only want to share the spoils of the
state apparatus and its bureaucracy among their cronies once they are strong
enough to constitute a true power option. Again, the relevant categories of
thought are only winners and losers.
Democracy however is about something completely different: compromise, and even
the search for consensus, in pursuit of the public good. To achieve that, one
does not need military mindsets, but rather a broad political debate.
* Henning Melber is Executive Director of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation in
Uppsala, Sweden. This text was published first in Development and Cooperation,
October 2008.
* Please send comments to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or comment online at
http://www.pambazuka.org/
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