Writes: Njogu Ndungu

The issue of leadership and governance in Africa raises more questions than answers. It is tragic that many leaders have failed in their duties. It has been argued in a maxim that a country gets the leaders it deserves. Africa’s case is, however, mind-boggling. It is shrouded in mystery, political intrigue and an unrivalled trail of governance accidents.

One wonders what ails our leaders, making most selfish, merciless, greedy, corrupt, power-hungry and human rights abusers. Ideally, leaders should be caretakers or stewards who steer the people towards collective prosperity.

But on attaining power, most African leaders become ‘deities.’ They seek to be worshipped by the people they lead. They consequently lose touch with the electorate and do absurd things with far-reaching consequences.

One common method the leaders use to cement their god-like status is acquire lengthy titles and other symbols of honour to separate themselves from the masses.

Several literary writers have examined this “power syndrome.” And they have few kind words for this “worship-me-disease” that mostly infects leaders in the Third World.

Congolese writer, E B Dongala, in his short story, The Man satirises a rogue leader in an unnamed country. Dongala sarcastically describes the leader in countless names of adulation, such as invincible, infallible and worthy of great honour. One description reads: “the-beloved-father-of-the-nation-the-supreme-and-enlightened-guide-the-commander-in-chief-of-the-armed-forces-and-beneficent-genius-of-mankind.”

The same leader is further described as “the founding father of the nation, the president-for-life, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces and beloved father of the people.” Although these generous praise names are satirical, they still reflect reality, where one leader holds so many titles and posts.

It is despicable that a leader would hold so many posts in a country that has talented, educated and able-bodied people. Leadership by a sole individual only results in grave mistakes, which translate into misery for the ruled majority.

Chinua Achebe in A Man of the People also talks of the numerous praise names for a Prime Minister character. They include “the Tiger,” “the Lion,” “the One and Only,” “the Sky,” and “the Ocean.”

Achebe says in one of his short stories that most Third World leaders use their office to amass wealth and honorary degrees among others. Kenya’s Ngugi wa Thiong’o, in Wizard of the Crow, too ridicules rogue leaders. He narrates about a character named, the Ruler, who has no other name. He says “The Ruler had sat on the throne for so long that he could not even remember when his reign began.”

Many African leaders dread leaving office and cling to power, at the expense of the masses.

Ngugi gives the Swahili words like “Mtukufu Rais”, which depicts the leader as worthy of praise. This is then changed to titles like “Mtukufu Mtakatifu,” (His Holy Mightiness) which is both wild and untenable.

Power, the maxim goes, corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Despots, oligarchs and autocrats have ruined many countries around the world.

Nigerian Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka laments in his memoir, You Must Set Forth at Dawn, on the abuse of power by the late dictator Sani Abacha. In mourning the execution of fellow writer Ken Saro-Wiwa in 1995, he writes: “Power had mounted the head of the dictator; it needed its periodic nourishment in blood.” Soyinka describes Abacha as “a monster (that) had reduced (Nigerians) collectively, into a plantation of slaves.” He says leaders drunk with power have little regard for human life because they kill and maim with glee.

Africa’s leadership tragedy deserves serious attention. Leaders should realise people who give them a chance to lead them do so because they hold them in trust.

These lessons offered by our writers, thinkers and philosophers should be taken seriously. It is a privilege to be a leader, and leaders should put self-interest behind the agenda of the people who elect them. Any person who negates this rule is unworthy of holding any leadership position.

Leaders must endeavour to offer selfless services and not pursue personal interests like wealth, power and honour at the expense of the people they are supposed to lead.

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Post-colonial Africa must diversify the foreign cultures from which it seeks to learn. There is excessive reliance on the West as the only source. What is there in Japanese culture that has enabled the Japanese to beat the West at their own industrial game?

In 1868, the Japanese asked themselves: ‘Can we economically modernise without culturally Westernising?’ They embarked on selective industrialisation under the slogan of ‘Western technique, Japanese spirit.’ Fifty years later, they had become an industrial power to reckon with. What was there in Japanese culture that enabled them to remain Japanese culturally and still pull off an industrial miracle before World War II?

Then, Japan was briefly occupied by the Americans after WWII. When the occupation ended, Japan embarked upon its second industrial miracle, less culturally selective than the first, but even more technologically triumphant. What was there in Japanese culture that made such miracles possible?

Africa needs to look eastwards towards the Japanese experience for cultural insights relevant to modernisation and development. Africa’s post-colonial condition is full of the baggage of the old colonialism. How do we decolonise post-coloniality? What is the exit strategy out of dependency?

Africa should look more closely at countries like South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and others in Asia that had the same per capita income as Ghana in 1957. They have since left most of Africa far behind in per capita income and industrial growth. To what extent are the economic achievements of the ‘Asian Tigers’ due to cultural factors? Can foreign cultures be studied for lessons that are relevant for others?

Of course, Africa has been studying Western culture for decades in the hope of stimulating its development. It is time that it diversified the cultural models it examines for developmental lessons. Such diversification may help reduce our dependency upon the West in other areas of endeavour as well.

One strategy in the fight against that dependency is horizontal integration. It involves not only national integration within each country, but regional integration as well. Pan-Africanism then becomes an instrument of horizontal integration; and Pan-Africanism is partly rooted in cultural and racial identification.

In reality, Pan-Movements are born out of a combination of nightmare and dream, anguish and vision. What was the nightmare and dream that released the forces culminating in the formation of the European Union as a success story?

Pan-Europeanism had two parents: poetry and war. Poetry provided the vision and the sensibilities of being European; war provided the practical impetus, either through conquest (as European nations expanded and contracted) or through a desire to avoid future wars. That was EU’s combination of nightmare and dream.

After World War II, the Schuman Plan and the European Coal and Steel Community illustrated the creation of deliberate Pan-European interdependence to avoid future risk of war.

The Cold War simultaneously divided Europe between East and East and united Europe within each camp. Once again, nightmare and dream played their paradoxical integrative roles.

Two schools of thought

The poetry of Pan-Europeanism goes back at least to the European Renaissance, as Europeans were stimulated by a new sense of shared civilisation. By the time of the French Revolution, William Wordsworth could proclaim passionately:

• Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive

• But to be young was very heaven.

However, the French revolution was also a combination of both poetry and war, the two major stimuli of Pan-Europeanism. The French revolution was both nightmare and dream.

Does Pan-Africanism have a comparable stimulus of poetry and war?

The real stimulus for Pan-Africanism has been the combined power of poetry and imperialism, rather than poetry and war. The poetry includes legends of past heroes and makers of history. There have been two schools of Pan-African cultural nationalism: romantic primitivism and romantic gloriana.

Romantic primitivism celebrates what is simple about Africa. It salutes the cattle-herder, rather than the castle-builder. In the words of Aime Cesaire:

• Hooray for those who never invented anything.

• Hooray for those who never discovered anything.

• Hooray for joy! Hooray for love!

• Hooray for the pain of incarnate tears.

• My negritude is no tower and no cathedral.

• It delves into the deep red flesh of the soil.

Conversely, romantic gloriana celebrates Africa’s more complex achievements. It salutes the pyramids of Egypt, the towering structures of Aksum, the sunken churches of Lalibela, the brooding majesty of Great Zimbabwe, the castles of Gonder. Romantic gloriana is a tribute to Africa’s empires and kingdoms, Africa’s inventors and discoverers, great Shaka Zuku, rather than the unknown peasant.

Both forms of Pan-African cultural nationalism were a response to European imperialism and its cultural arrogance. Europeans said that Africans were simple and invented nothing. That was an alleged fact. Europeans also said that those who were simple and invented nothing were uncivilised. That was a value judgment.

Romantic primitivism accepted Europe’s alleged facts about Africa —that it was simple and invented nothing, but rejected Europe’s value judgment — that Africa was, therefore, uncivilised. Simplicity was one version of civilisation. Romantic primitivism said:

• Hooray for those who never invented anything.

• Who never discovered anything…

Romantic gloriana, on the other hand rejected Europe’s alleged facts about Africa —that Africa was simple and invented nothing; but it seems to have accepted Europe’s values that civilisation is to be measured by complexity and invention.

Same African countries can produce both types of Pan-African nationalists. Senegal’s Leopold Senghor had been a major thinker and poet of the Negritude school. Negritude is associated with romantic primitivism. Senghor’s most hotly debated statement is: Emotion is black…Reason is Greek.

Cheikh Anta Diop, Senegal’s Renaissance man, belonged more to the Gloriana School. He spent much of his life demonstrating Africa’s contributions to global civilisation. And he was most emphatic that the civilisation of Pharaonic Egypt was a black civilisation.

This was all in the grand Pan-African tradition of romantic Gloriana.

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About The Author(s): Prof. Ali Mazrui is Chancellor of Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture, Kenya. Additionally, he is the Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities, Professor in Political Science, African Studies, Philosophy, Interpretation and Culture and the Director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies (IGCS). Mazrui also holds three concurrent faculty appointments as Albert Luthuli Professor-at-Large in the Humanities and Development Studies at the University of Jos in Nigeria, Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large Emeritus and Senior Scholar in Africana Studies at Cornell University. [MORE >>] [Personal Website] [More Articles By Prof. Mazrui].

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G8 leaders enjoy 18-course meal as they discuss “how to solve the global food crisis.”

The leaders of the richest nations of the world sat down to an 18-course gastronomic extravaganza at the G8 summit in Japan to discuss world hunger.

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The dinner and lunch included:

1. Caviar,
2. Milkfed lamb,
3. Sea urchin and tuna,
4. Champagne and wines flown in from Europe and the U.S.
5…..and a lot more

The extravagance of the menus drew disapproval from critics who thought it hypocritical to produce such a lavish meal when world food supplies are under threat, and some parts of Africa are so war ravaged that famine is killing thousands of Human Beings daily:

Bush and company would rather lie themselves into fighting the “Oil Wars,” to promote “Peace” and “Democracy,” while conveniently forgetting that the real “humanitarian” war should be fought in places like Darfur, in the Sudan — where Arab tribes have been slaughtering black Africans mercilessly, with the help of the Arab dominated Sudanese government.

The G8 summit is a colossal waste of time.

It is nothing but an expensive “Country-Club” meeting place of “Golfing-Buddies,” where they discuss who to fleece next or who to “bomb” next or who to “sanction” next.

The “aid” that the G8 group provides Africa, for instance, is largely wasted by the numerous NGO’s “accompanying” the aid — the NGO officials live “rich” in Africa, waste resources and in many cases have been known to share the “loot” with corrupt African leaders.

Don’t get me wrong — there a many credible charities doing great work in Africa.

If it’s not these NGO’s, then it’s the World Bank or the IMF — imperialist tools which have been used for many years to “control” corrupt African governments. Add these two organizations to badly managed African governments and you have the potent-mix that has crippled many economies in Africa.

Helen Caldicott states in her book titled — “If You Love This Planet:”

Africa needs to wake up and “feed itself” — these frequent G8 “photo-ops” and grand “gastronomic extravaganzas” have never been in Africa’s best interests!.

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In his speech, Douglass delivered a scathing attack on the hypocrisy of a nation celebrating freedom and independence with speeches, parades and platitudes, while, within its borders, nearly four million humans were being kept as slaves.

   Frederick Douglass (1817-1895)
Frederick Douglass (1817-1895) was the best known and most influential African American leader of the 1800s. He was born a slave in Maryland but managed to escape to the North in 1838.

He traveled to Massachusetts and settled in New Bedford, working as a laborer to support himself. In 1841, he attended a convention of the Massachusetts Antislavery Society and quickly came to the attention of its members, eventually becoming a leading figure in the New England antislavery movement.

In 1845, Douglass published his autobiography, “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: an American Slave.” With the revelation that he was an escaped slave, Douglass became fearful of possible re-enslavement and fled to Great Britain and stayed there for two years, giving lectures in support of the antislavery movement in America. With the assistance of English Quakers, Douglass raised enough money to buy his own his freedom and in 1847 he returned to America as a free man.

He settled in Rochester, New York, where he published The North Star, an abolitionist newspaper. He directed the local underground railroad which smuggled escaped slaves into Canada and also worked to end racial segregation in Rochester’s public schools.

During the 1850s, Frederick Douglass typically spent about six months of the year travelling extensively, giving lectures. During one winter — the winter of 1855-1856 — he gave about 70 lectures during a tour that covered four to five thousand miles. And his speaking engagements did not halt at the end of a tour. From his home in Rochester, New York, he took part in local abolition-related events.

In 1852, the leading citizens of Rochester asked Douglass to give a speech as part of their Fourth of July celebrations. Douglass accepted their invitation. On July 5, 1852, Douglass gave a speech at an event commemorating the signing of the Declaration of Independence, held at Rochester’s Corinthian Hall. It was biting oratory, in which the speaker told his audience, “This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.” And he asked them, “Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day?”

Douglass proceeded to deliver a scathing attack on the hypocrisy of a nation celebrating freedom and independence with speeches, parades and platitudes, while, within its borders, nearly four million humans were being kept as slaves.

Within the now-famous address is what historian Philip S. Foner has called “probably the most moving passage in all of Douglass’ speeches.”

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.

The Speech follows:

REFERENCES:

1. Document - United States Declaration of Independence

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2. United States Declaration of Independence — Wikipedia

3. From AfriqueOnline: America is a country born of hypocrisy and nurtured in racism and oppression. How stupendous a hypocrite do you have to be to write a document that declares “All men are created equal” while at that very moment you have two hundred human beings chained in your back yard working as your slaves? America’s political system (which was designed by these hypocrites) is no better that a shell game which gives rich people control and the rest of us the shaft…..[MORE >>]

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