Obama ascendancy – Africa not ready in the time of her visitation.
I once wrote a poem on why I am ashamed to be a Zimbabwean, why we all Africans should be ashamed of ourselves. Not that I am very poetic, but you know how anything particularly negative gets most Africans singing. Such was the mood.
On 20th January, I should have been proud to be African as I watched Barak Hussein Obama, a man of undoubted and not too distant African roots take possibly the office most mortals consider to be the highest on earth – that of the President of the United States. But I had a bag of seriously mixed emotions. It was the kind of feeling you have when your son or daughter weds a week after you bury your spouse. You want to rejoice, but you think of how it could have been all the merrier if he/she had been alive to share the joy.
So it was when I saw the triumph of democracy as it uplifted arguably one from the most oppressed race of people on earth – blacks, to the pinnacles of utmost power as it is know to man. The challenge I would have wanted to advance with some indignation is, “Stand up those who would have us believe the black man is no good, and can never amount to much? Raise your hand those that believe the black man is of somewhat inferior intelligence, a creature to be led rather than to lead self and others?”
In the end, it left me with a sour taste in the mouth that at arguably the finest hour of triumph for the black race in politics, we have in our African backyard a myriad of atrocities and political intransigence perpetuated by black men upon fellow blacks. To add insult to injury, other black neighbours who should know better seem at a loss and are indecisive on the course of action to take to guide fellow black leaders on the ‘paths of righteousness’. African leaders have a collective responsibility on how Africa turns out, and so far it’s not looking good at all.
While they are busy convincing themselves that the West is bent on suppressing the black man, the West could not have proved them more wrong by uplifting one of their kind to one of the loftiest seats possible for man on earth, without any signs of rancour.
I therefore could not celebrate much before remorse set in. It is very much like having a feast while raw sewage is running under your table, the pungent smell fighting and drowning the aroma of your food. Those two pictures are difficult to reconcile in the limited human brain – the one part embracing the aroma to satisfy hunger and the other suppressing the nausea to throw up what has been taken in.
So if a man of first generation African descent could be voted by the ‘wicked West’, White and Black alike, to lead such an awesome nation like the United States of America, it must be true that they are committed to democracy. When the West therefore supports democratic voices elsewhere in the world, why is it viewed as an attempt at regime change? Why are democratic movements that espouse the ideals of democracy illustrated no better than in the West labelled puppet movements of the same?
Barak Obama’s ascendancy to me is proof that the problem is not the African himself. The problem could be the systems that surround the African, shaped by his culture and history. Firstly, Africans are obsessed with possession. Mwai Kibaki and Robert Mugabe and many others of their ilk believe the political leadership they have is a God given right, the ‘Zimbabwe is mine’ mentality. Mugabe means it not in the sense that he is a Zimbabwe who belongs to the same, but that he has this large piece of land he took from the whites which is his to do as he pleases. Remember the greatest problem we have with Mugabe is transfer of power, not only to the opposition, but even to his own party faithfuls.
Another African system that must be overcome is mediocrity. Obama is where he is simply because he is the best of what was on offer, not because he is African-American. He is also squeaky clean on character and integrity. In Africa, someone does not necessarily have to be the best candidate, nor must he be clean. Jacob Zuma’s battle to ascend the South African presidency quickly comes to mind. In the West, such a candidate who has such a prima facie case of corruption against would not last the very early rounds of a party’s candidate selection. In Africa, the ANC have now said they are adopting Zuma’s corruption and fraud issues as a party, in defence of their candidate.
Then there is this system of going into politics as one gets into a get-rich-quick scam. Again the reason a person like Zuma cannot countenance anything other than a politically powerful position is that, well that is all he is qualified to do. With his many responsibilities, many spouses and countless children (at least his are official), he would be doomed financially if he failed to land the top job in his country. Can you imagine that? How cruel can that be, most African leaders and aspiring leaders are basically what we would term failures in the sphere of financial and material achievement, yet we entertain such to lead us. I find it very depressing.
In America, a presidential candidate has to be a man of great wealth or at least have great potential to organise and gather it. There is no state sponsored budget to finance a campaign, the candidate has to basically market his ideas and get supporters and sympathisers to support him or her financially, not necessarily on the promise of a return when the candidate gets into power.
One of the attributes we lack as Africans is frankness. We have a system of see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil. Our brothers from the West are blunt and very frank, and although I find it very disconcerting at times, I admire that greatly. If I get an unsolicited call from an Insurance salesman, it is not my natural disposition to tell him to go find the nearest tree and hang himself; but not so with my Caucasian friends.
So it is then that, when SADC and AU leaders should simply have told Mugabe he was the loser, to go pack his bags and leave State house pronto, they began to make excuses for him. They cannot tell him straight to his face that he is being unreasonable. Mbeki even found a term for this African shortcoming and called it “quiet diplomacy”. Africans do not tell each other the truth, which is what they truly think and feel about a situation.
This system works closely with another of cowardice and self preservation, where for the fear of making a mistake or for as long as it is not affecting them directly, a person would rather not speak, act or commit on anything. African despots therefore exploit this tendency and make sure there is always a section of the population well taken care of. They operate a serious patronage programme based on this trait and thereby avert popular uprisings. There is no “One for all, All for one” approach by African brothers to their problems.
My sadness is that this political milestone for the black race finds us as the biblical five foolish maidens, unprepared for the bridegroom’s coming. There was a lot of benefit to be gotten for Africa by the momentum of a black president at the helm of the most powerful nation on earth – but alas, our lamps have no oil. Proper self-governance is in the intensive care over most of Africa yet it is the minimum requirement when a nation expects others to engage it for mutual benefit.
Posted by Patrick Huni
on January 23, 2009. Filed under Opinion.
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