Politics of cult of personality By: Tsekiso Machike
Here we are again trying to give a paradoxical ideological sketch of the most dissolute flattery and an example of making man godhead within the realm of politics of cult of personality, transforming a man to be the “greatest leader “above everybody and anything including the structures they serve lifted by their fiefdoms to heaven and forget the critical importance of the most extraordinary and binding principles and value systems of the movement which are the basis and frameworks within which we must all operate so that we propel the revolution to its inevitable cause selflessly without glorifying leaders more than the organization itself. Let me give you historical accounts on the evolution of revolutions within which the cult of personality found resonance in the variety of revolutionary political parties in the world, so that we deepen our understanding and perspectives around this phenomenon and try not to give the strategic thrust of the article a factional character and vulgarization of certain most admired helmsman leaders of both popular and unpopular political formations because people tend to be narrow in their interpretations when they come across such writings especially under the stratification of the current political discourse both domestic and international alike. Consistent with what I mentioned early that I will give historical account on this political phenomenon cult of personality which we are told arises when an individual uses mass media, propaganda, or other methods, to create an idealized, heroic, and, at times god-like public image, often through unquestioning flattery and praise, this is the historical example of what happened in the French Indochina: Cambodian schoolchildren in French Indochina at one point in the early 1940s began their school-day with prayers to Marshal Philippe Pétain, opening with the words, "Our father, which art our Leader, glorious be thy name... deliver us from evil". This are some of the painstaking experience of cult of individuals which are constructed by political formations in the name of radical political programmes while outcomes are contrary and the so called rallying behind a certain leader depicted as the face of the party whom at a later stage start to develop helmsman tendencies, which by commission or omission impact significantly on the lives of society at large, hence the above mentioned prayer by Cambodian schoolchildren in French Indochina hero-worshipping humankind before learning can resume. Leaders must come and go and their legacy must not be archived outside the confines of structures that elevated them. The study of National Research Council (US) on the Democratization in Africa: African views, African voices: summary of three workshops with Sahr John Kpundeh as the editor made these following and interesting observations about politics of cult of personality in Africa, I am mentioning this because I promised to balance the article with both domestic and international historical examples of our topic “Politics of cult of personality” and this is what they established in the study: African politics has been described as a matter of personality, not programs, especially under a single-party systems. In the Ethopian workshop, one participant indicated that rulers have tended to encourage personality cults by having their portrait prominently and extensively displayed, assuming folks tittle, and encouraging the use of slogan: “The idea of the president as the father of the nation, the big man, or being above the law is prevailing political culture in Africa”. Because of the high level of illiteracy in Africa, many politicians resort to such symbols in order to express their views to the masses. Former President Thabo Mbeki reminded President Jacob Zuma about the danger of cult of personality within the ranks of the ANC and how it affects and frustrate the goals of the National Democratic revolution, he mentioned this when he wrote a letter to him before 2009 national elections and he had this to say: During the decades we have worked together in the ANC, we have had the fortune that our movement has consistently repudiated the highly noxious phenomenon of the “cult of personality’’, which we saw manifest in other countries. It is in this this context why we should at all material times speak against the political phenomenon of personality cult because it opens up for political elitism, corruption, careerism and counterrevolutionary purposes, this reactionary nature of cult of personality never serve the revolutionary cause for the betterment of the lives of the people within which revolutions are founded and propelled, they must be unashamedly exposed for their bourgeois oriented nature and counterrevolutionary intentions and we shouldn’t shy away from the objective reality that gives us an understanding that the theoretical basis for cult of personality is inherently metaphysical- an analysis which attributes events in the material realm as being influenced by forces outside or above material, this greatly happens when the movement or society refer to certain leaders using messiac terms, treating leaders to be more human than others. Let me leave you with the analysis of THE RED PHOENIX, the newspaper for the American Party of Labor which said: In a personality cult, the cult leader’s word is final-it is the pinnacle of their analysis, the chief lens of their historical analysis and the origin of activity. The consistency of the analysis that a movement begins to fade as the cult rises. It is because the standard of the “magic man”, the metaphysical notion that the leader is always right and no other analysis is necessary. Tsekiso Machike is a member of the District Executive Committee and the Spokesperson of YCLSA in Ephraim Mogale and he writes in his personal capacity. Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. 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