South Africa

In The Star, Mosibudi Mangene wonders about the state of South Africa’s democracy, with Zimbabwe as the looming warning post. The Zimbabwe analogy is, I suppose, a logical one (just as those who wanted to make sense of the Zimbabwe election fiasco looked to Kenya, and those wanting to understand Kenya looked elsewhere as well). But it is also a facile analogy. If South Africa fails — and I do not believe that it will — it will not be because of its correlation with Zimbabwe, but rather because of failings of its own.

Is there hope for an abatement of political violence in Kenya’s ongoing crisis? Despite more deaths in clashes between protesters and police, allegations of banditry, and fears of ethnic cleansing, guarded optimism may be in order as international appeals coupled with Kofi Annan’a active intervention appears to have led to an agreement between President Mwai Kibaki, whose dubious victory in a highly contested election fueled the current nightmare, and the opposition and its leader Raila Odinga. (The Council on Foreign Relations has a useful background primer on Kenyan politics.)

But the emphasis should be on “guarded.” Leaders who allow violence to be unleashed oftentimes find that their ability to marshal that violence becomes limited if nonexistent. Anarchy as a method of control, so popular among Big Men, has a way of spiralling out of control. Once convinced that one group of people is an enemy and violence is the only course of redress, even the most ardent followers will be tough to convince that violence should cease if the alleged enemy is still among them. Demogoguery, cult of personality, the unleashing of terror (and not the hackneyed “tribalism” that some are so quick to attribute when things go awry in Africa) — these things tend to get away from those who choose to use them as means and methods.

It almost certainly comes as a shock to absolutely no one that Robert Mugabe has acted in bad faith and announced unilaterally (even as he has been in the midst of negotiations with the factions of the Movement for Democratic Change) that elections will be held on March 2. Now the MDC is scrambling to figure out what to do. Their options are circumscribed: The opposition can choose to boycott the elections, guaranteeing another Mugabe victory, which the wily tyrant will depict as a mandate, or to participate in elections that are pretty certain to be a sham, in which Mugabe secures victory, thus claiming a mandate. This frustrating hobson’s choice encapsulates the frustration of politics in Robert Mugabe’s brutocracy.

Stephanie Hanson, news editor for the Council on Foreign Relations, recently interviewed Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC’s most visible leader. Tsvangirai gives thoughtful answers to questions on a host of issues, though at time the hopelessness of the opposition’s plight seems almost tangible in his words. He expressed his wish for the world’s response to the situation in Zimbabwe:  “The elections that are forthcoming in Zimbabwe must be raised to the same level like Darfur. There must be an international outcry.” But what has the west’s supposed outcry (which frankly seems rather muted and is by any measure ineffectual) accomplished in Darfur? About as much as it has in Zimbabwe.

Tyrants only know one language, and that is the universal lingua franca of power. Power does not have to mean force, though force is never far from power. Until Mugabe is forced to change, to relent, or to cede control, he will do none of those things. The same can be said for Omar al-Bashir and the thugs he empowers in Darfur. Hand wringing is not enough. It never is.

Tomorrow Kenyans go to the polls. In what is becoming an increasingly intense campaign (in what has almost certainly been the most open election in Kenya’s history) it appears that the opposition, led by 62-year-old Raila Odinga — a  businessman and former political prisoner, is pulling ahead of President Mwai Kibaki, who has held office since 2002, and may well win. Both men are vital figures in the history of post-independence Kenya, and Africa observers are watching closely, even as evidence of strong-armed machinations emerge, to see if the election goes smoothly, and if the loser and his supporters go down without fomenting violence. Certainly it appears that a new, more sophisticated, money-driven politics has emerged in Kenya. It remains to be seen if this has a deleterious effect on the country’s political culture.

There is a subtext to this election, and to the political situation in Kenya generally, which is that as with much of the region, Islam is playing an increasing role in politics. Not problematic in and of itself, the rise of Islam nonetheless has seen accompany it strains of radical Islam, which does warrant scrutiny. Thus the west, and especially the United States, will likely be paying increasing attention to events in Kenya and elsewhere.

The problem is that when the United States and the rest of the West intervenes in Africa out of self interest African interests almost always fall by the wayside. This is yet another reason why many of us wish the United States would develop a comprehensive policy toward Africa, and not one based merely on self-interest, temporal concerns, piecemeal approaches, and half-baked understandings. That is unlikely to happen, of course, and so one can imagine sloppy, divisive, detrimental US policy emerging in response to the perceived threat of Islam in Africa that will inevitably do more harm than good and that will do little to address legitimate dangers of radicalism.

I found the following chart (From the 2007 Pew Global Attitudes Project via Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, and which accompanied this James Traub story) telling, though frankly I’m uncertain what it tells:

The five countries with the most favorable views of American ideas about democracy are Subsaharan African nations. None of the countries with the least favorable views are African. As someone who believes in the American ideals (and thus ideas) of democracy, broadly framed, but who also has serious qualms about gaps between ideals and practices, I think that what we might have here is a case in which Africans see the ideals and hope that the reality will follow while those with a negative view of the United States and its democratic ideals have had recent confrontations with the United States in which those ideals gave way to pragmatic realities that were not so nice. Most of those encounters, though not all, would be directly connected to current American policies in the Middle East. I cannot help but wonder (or perhaps hope) if the ideals don’t endure beyond the temporal manifestations of American policy.

There is a new story about political intrigue, firings, scandal, corruption, and crime reverberating through South Africa with the issue of an arrest warrant and suspension of National Police Commissioner (and head of Interpol) Jackie Selebi. This might represent Thabo Mbeki’s stiffest political challenge yet, which is in itself saying something. 

The Mail & Guardian editorializes hopefully on the prospects of Africans developing African solutions to African problems, using the Ibrahim Index  as a springboard and less hopefully on the Salebi mess.

Meanwhile, recent data from an internal ANC audit of party membership indicates that Jacob Zuma is the front-runner for the party’s presidency. One wonders if this sort of news might not hasten Cyril Ramaphosa to leave the private sector and return to public service. Ramaphosa, who has remained steadfast that he will not run for the ANC leadership, stands as my (mild) upset candidate to emerge with the party and national presidency. 

What are the odds of reforming Nigeria’s corruption ridden oil industry? The Economist lays out the long odds.

The Boston Globe has an editorial about how scientists increasingly can trace DNA — “genetic markers” – to tell us a great deal about not only the origins but also the movement of human beings from our earliest origins in Africa to today.

Is South Africa indifferent to the Darfur crisis? Pambazuka News believes so. There is little question that the country ought to be doing more to address the situation. Also at PN, Rotimi Sankore presents a rather sophisticated cri de couer about the Zimbabwe situation in which, ultimately, Robert Mugabe’s endless reign of power is the crucial problem.

The proposed Constitutional changes to streamline (or consolidate ZANU-PF power, depending on your perspective) the political process in Zimbabwe have come to pass. Under the provisions of the legislation Zimbabwe will change its electoral boundaries, increase the number of MPs and accelerate by two years parliamentary elections.

In a gesture that makes a virtue out of necessity, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) decided not to contest the changes despite widespread opposition, because the party did not have enough votes to stop the vote from carrying in any case. MDC thus can claim that it is facilitating the negotiation process that Thabo Mbeki is overseeing for South Africa on behalf of SADC.  It is easy to detect resignation on the part of the opposition. But without any viable outlet to prevent the changes from taking place, the opposition hopes that the outcome of this Constitutional tinkering will be a more open political process. (The Foreign Policy Association has more links here.)

Acquiescence seems to be the coin of the realm north of the Limpopo these days. Despite the economic crisis (which now includes outbreaks of disease in Bulowayo), unions, for example, have been unable to gain any traction in their call for a general strike this week.

Meanwhile in South Africa retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu has called for more outside pressure on Zim from both the western powers and especially England, but also from South Africa. As long as there is progress, however tentative and cosmetic, an outside world that has been loath even to think about intervening in Zimbabwe is going to continue to stand pat. This is Thabo Mbeki’s roll of the dice. If these reforms prove effective, he will deserve a large proportion of the credit. But if they fail, and it is easy to succumb to pessimism and argue that they will, it all lands in Mbeki’s lap. Let’s hope for Zimbabwe, far more than for Mbeki, that his gamble proves to be a winning one.

If’s a busy news cycle right now in Southern Africa. here are a number of stories that caught my eye in today’s chock-full Mail & Guardian and elsewhere:

As the thirteith anniversary of the murder of Steven Bantu Biko at the hands of the security forces approaches different South Africans remember Biko’s life and death differently.

the Zimbabwe crisis continues unabated. The economic calamity has opened the door for corruption. Some maintain hopes  that South African-brokered talked will lead to a resolution of the political elements of the country’s conflicts, but it seems that  this may not be the time for whistling past the graveyard.

Meanwhile, transformation isn’t always easy. Members of the Democratic Alliance (DA) are up in arms over the Tshwane metropolitan council’s reported ban on white businesses. If the allegations are accurate, the DA would certainly seem to have a case that they will bring before the Constitutional Court. Meanwhile in a  pronouncement that is likely to be equally tendentious, the Black Management Forum  (BMF)  has argued that white women should be removed from the list of groups previously disadvantaged ”in terms of . . . employment equity legislation.” It is a bit hard for white women who benefitted in every imaginable way from apartheid suddenly stepping forward to claim their lots alongside the black South Africans on whose backs the Apartheid system built white privilege.

Finally, the M&G’s longtime rugby columnist Andrew Capostagno has a nifty piece on how this Rugby World Cup represents a “big chance” for the Springboks. He concludes his historically astute article by arguing that if the Boks achieve their considerable promise and “Win this one” South Africans “can forget, for a long, glorious moment, about politics.”

In this week’s New York Times Book Review, John Donnelly, who covers global health and the environment for The Boston Globe, has written a favorable review of Helen Epstein’s The Invisible Cure: Africa, the West, and the Fight Against AIDS. An important book on a vital topic, The Invisible Cure posits that the best solutions to the AIDS crisis in Africa will come from Africans, an argument put forth by many in the development community as well. Of course an Africa for Africans by Africans has been the cri de couer of the continent since independence. But the Pan African dream, the African Renaissance, a solution to the continent’s problems, will not come until good governance, transparency, and democratization are all priorities across the continent, and not just in a few scattered pockets.  

Two months after taking office after a disputed election fraught with irregularities, Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua finally announced the formation of his cabinet yesterday after weeks of horse trading with the Senate, which has to approve the selections. It is difficult to discern whether this represents good news or bad in oft-troubled Nigeria. On the plus side, it seems to represent collaborative democracy in action, with the senate vetting process going forward as required. But there are also whispers that Yar’Adua’s predecessor, Olusegun Obasanjo still wields too much influence over his successor. Nairobi’s East African Standard fears that Obasanjo might still be “calling the shots” in Nigeria.

Hat Tip to the Council on Foreign Relations.