As Africa grapples with the strenuous task of finding lasting solutions to her problems under the mantra “African solutions to African problems”, we should perhaps retreat a little and adorn microscopic lenses to focus on particular problems, understand them and be able to suggest what could potentially set Africa on a successful trajectory towards development and prosperity.
Africa is confronted with a myriad of depressing problems: corruption, poverty, violent crime, HIV/Aids, underdevelopment, kleptomania, famine, civil conflicts and all manner of imaginable ills. When we attempt to address these problems generally the common mistake we commit is to exert our limited energy towards dealing with consequences of some of these problems under the misguided impression that we are dealing with the causes. Our default approach is to employ what is commonly believed to be the best approach. The nature of global geo-politics is varied. Circumstances vary from one country to another. No common approach can be employed though there may be a common thread among all these varied continental problems.
It is best that one specifically look at South Africa where all her poblems are what currently define our conflicting existence. The dawn of freedom ignited intense flames of passion and hope for a better, united and prosperous South Africa and ordinarily with such freedom arose the challenge of striking an optimal balance with responsibility and accountability, be it by society in general or those entrusted with the duty of governance. Though the ideal of liberation was the complete removal of the shackles of apartheid, the agonising reality is that at such infancy of liberation we may have perhaps hastily moved to emancipate toddlers before reaching their maturity. Our liberal Constitution, though lauded as one of the most progressive, had unintended consequences such as breeding an unfortunate dependence on the state through the guarantees of basic services such as housing (get an education, work and build your own house!). Promoting and safeguarding the welfare of the people is a primary and fiduciary duty of the state, which it cannot and should not abrogate.
There may be instructive lessons we can draw from China. This is a nation that has managed to transform itself from an inconsequential communist state to the second most biggest and powerful economy in the world. Communist China has achieved its success not through accident of circumstances but through a clear vision to regain her fu qiang (wealth and power), dignity, international respect and territorial integrity. Chairman Mao rose to power through a successful revolution that overthrew the Chiang Kai-shek Nationalists and established the People’s Republic of China in 1949. An important part of the spectrum of Chinese political outlook is still deeply rooted on Mao’s vision and ideology of socialism.
George Orwell in his classic novel 1984 said: “Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.” The revolution, led by Mao, as Orwell aptly put it, established in China what we know today as the “people’s democratic dictatorship”.
Contrary to popular belief that democracy is the easiest pathway towards prosperity, China has propelled herself to unimaginable economic growth through the “people’s democratic dictatorship” as defined in the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China. This is premised on the belief that under such benevolent dictatorship the state “represents and acts on behalf of the people, but possesses and may use dictatorial powers against reactionary forces”. A benevolent dictatorship does not in any measure equate to tyrannical rule under which the people are terrorised and live under permanent fear of the state. It may perhaps be viewed similar to strict parenting where love and care is unconditionally offered to children in full knowledge that their delinquency would result in drastic consequences.
Benevolent dictatorships are an intrinsic part of our modern existence and have led great human achievements and transformed the world as we know it today. Global corporations are totalitarian institutions that turn the wheels of the global economy. They are benevolent dictatorships governed through a set of hierarchies, which define the chain of command. There is no democracy in corporations. What the board of dictators says, goes! Failure to abide by the rules and operate within the set corporate guidelines, including failure to achieve set objectives, would result in drastic consequences. However, greater reward generally awaits those who outperform and achieve desired results. It is within the strictures of such benevolent dictatorship that wealth has been generated and social progress indirectly benefited.
It may sound preposterous to those driven by individualism rather than common good to grasp benevolent dictatorship as an alternative to transforming society, the economy and normalising their structural faults. The obvious concern by fanatical proponents of democracy is the abuse of power. Sadly, the abuse of power is not an exclusive preserve of dictators and tyrants. Even men such as former US president Abraham Lincoln, a dictator who history has been too kind, abused power during the American Civil War.
Lincoln’s name is hardly mentioned along with murderous tyrants such as Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Joseph Stalin, despite documented evidence on his despotic and murderous escapades in the south where he waged war against defenceless civilians. Today US President Obama, an unquestionable democrat, appears to draw some greater measure of inspiration from the same Abraham Lincoln.
Power has the potential to corrupt any individual in the absence of all necessary controls. Unethical lapses and abuse of power by politicians within the confines of a benevolent dictatorship generally appear to be condoned, so long as such dictatorial benevolence does not threaten their lives. A problem often arises when a benevolent dictatorship is based on the cult of personality rather than an established governance framework. It is under such cults of personality that political misfits and murderous tyrants are born.
China’s constitution appears to provide a framework within which her rulers can operate towards realising a common ideological goal. China has grown steadily at an average of about 9.7% a year in the last 28 years and the list of the super-rich is ever expanding. World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz on his visit to China in 2005 said: “China, as we all know, has been the fastest growing economy in Asia for the past 20 years and has lifted more than 400 million people above US$1 a day poverty levels in that time.” The lives of millions of Chinese have changed for the better. While the international community is rightfully concerned about China’s human-rights abuses it should equally acknowledge the discipline and commitment by the people of China towards realising their nation’s aims. Closer to home, Botswana is the most successful benevolent dictatorship that masquerades as a democracy.
No system is without its flaws. Our individual circumstances should dictate what is best applicable and aligned with our common goals. South Africa has no long-term economic strategy. Any nation’s collective hope can only be sustained by meaningful and discernable progress towards realising her noble aims. Once we have outlined that which binds us as a nation, we can chart the path through which we could, side by side, travel towards a unified and prosperous South Africa. Our current state of lawlessness, chronic idleness, poverty and dependency on the state does not require a general one-size-fits all. Our problems may possess striking similarities with the rest of the developing nations, but circumstances differ and require tailored solutions.
No we don’t. The ANC would certainly never, ever be a “benevolent dictatorship”. Our “toddlers” would be well on their way to maturity if the ANC had been anything remotely like competent and honest.
Upon reading the first paragraph, I thought Sentletse was going to suggest a return to a nanny state, which the previous Apartheid regime essentially was.
A nanny state takes away the right of ordinary people to partake in the affairs of state. Doesn’t say much for Africans, does it?
The problem with Dictatorships is that you can never tell just when they will move from Benevolent to homicidal. I agree a righteous benevolent dictator may be a good thing but I challenge your assertion that the present Chinese government meets these criteria in any shape or form. The fact that estimates place state executions at over 1500 per year should nullify any claim to benevolence. I also find it hard to square censorship and lack of free speech with any kind of rosy tinted strict parent metaphor. Perhaps the students killed at Tiananmen square would offer a different view as to how wonderful the government was for them.
South Africa and the ANC has sold it’s soul to China for economic benefit, ignoring that the freedoms it worked so hard to win are still very much lacking in China.
Democracy has been a largely failed experiment. This question remains however. Who chooses the dictators?
powerful, and brave argument. However, I dont fully agree.
While I agree that the ability of the state to act decisively is hampered by our cut-and-past model of democracy, I disagree that ‘dictatorship’ is the answer.
I think we need to give greater power to the President, Premiers and Mayors through direct election. They way they are not bound by this silly notion of ‘party discipline’ and the equally ridiculous ‘democratic centralism.’
I disagree with the idea that the ‘collective’ can function effectively for all it’s members’ benefit. Some will always loose. Once individuals, are given authority (with checks and balances) as opposed to committees and parties, and if held accountable, they perform.
Oh ja, one other difference: SA is too diverse to expect all of us to easily garner around a common goal and work as hard as the Chinese have toward the attainment of that goal. The Chinese are bound by thousands of years of common history, South Africans barely know each other, in comparison.
Greater authority for executive members of government, direct election, and letting go of romantic (but irrelevant) notions of social unity and group identity is more likely to see us prosper.
On the one hand, I quite agree that the vast majority of SA’s population could do with some nannying. Someone to hold their hand and tell them that human lives are precious, rape is not acceptable, and voting for the ANC is not always a smart thing to do.
Unfortunately, there are still plenty of people in this country who are a) contributing most to the economy and b) capable of living their own lives without interference from the state. I am intelligent enough to read ‘blasphemous’ content in newspapers and view ‘damaging’ pornography if I choose. The only way you can deny me those rights is to say that it’s for the greater good.
And we all know what “the greater good” means, don’t we?
That said, if a government instructional video entitled “How not to think of China as a role-model” were produced, I would call for it to be made required viewing for everyone on the African continent…
There is no such thing as a ‘benevolent dictatorship’ and by no stretch of the imagination could one describe either the mega-corporations of the world or China as ‘benevolent’– though I agree they are dictatorships!
And Mao was no hero in the cause of human rights. Have you never heard of the ‘cultural revolution’, Sentletse? Are you unaware of the massacres in Cambodia in the 70s inflicted by Pol Pot, self-described as a devoted Maoist? Did you not know that the Khmer Rouge murdered nearly one fifth of the population through slave labour, starvation, and execution? Have you never heard of Bhopal, India? Or Chernobyl in the former USSR?
I am amazed–and horrified–by your ‘reasoning’, Sentletse. On the one hand you praise the corporate model of economic development and in the same breath praise regimes that were devoted to destroying capitalism. China’s ‘state capitalism’ is an obscenity. It is just another form of exploitation of the labouring classes and the enrichment of Triad-type ‘corporations’ with no Boards of Directors–or token ones–and no accountability.
Democracy is hard work, Sentletse. You don’t just write a Constitution and sit back and wait for things to improve. It is insulting in the extreme to suggest as your article clearly does that Africans are incapable of adjusting to self-rule as opposed to unaccountable ‘collectives’ or unaccountable dictators.
Do you agree with Angie Motshege that ‘democracy is a western luxury that we can’t afford’?
Refreshing arguments all around by SD and the contributors.
So far, the history of dictatorships in Africa has clearly illustrated that “power is not a means but an end in itself” for the corrupt/ corruptible few. Surely then, the key to a so-called “benevolent dictatorship” is finding and electing into power those seeking power as a means to enhance the greater good for all. This would require, the electors (i.e. all voters) to be willing to sacrifice those bits of their individual interests which do not fit into the overall “common-good” framework. And as is the case with shareholders running corporations, the real power for such a dictactorship must of necessity lie with the electors. That way we would then have a benevolent dictatorship which is democractically elected! Who ever said, you can’t have your cake and eat it too?
Corporations aren’t totalitarian organisation since their membership and patronage is voluntary.
On the other hand there is nothing voluntary about a benevolent dictatorship. You do what government tells you to do.
We can copy the Chinese model but than we can also kiss goodbye our media freedom, trade unions, civil society, human rights, private industry etc…
The Chinese has done well to lift its population out of poverty. But it is also noticeable how the model has shifted from central planning to a type of state capitalism.
With economic prosperity there is also increasing pressure for political reforms in China. With more diverse centers of powers developing in China (because of economic liberalisation) it is likely to lead to more pressure on the political system. How will the Chinese leadership responds to this?
If you believe in central planning well then I can only say look at the spectacular failures of where this fallacy was implemented and that you should vote ANC – since they still believe that socialist mumbo jumbo.
@Sentletse, I don’t see why you think China is a success story when they are not. China under went wide spread turmoil under Mao and this led to millions of people being killed and many died from famines. After Mao dies all of his forces were kick out of the government and China look to the West to help them build China. The western countries like the US open her market up to China and China was allowed to shipped goods to the US. China pegged her currency to the US dollar this gave them a unfair trade advantage with the US. However, since the Chinese paid their workers very small wages to make goods to trade with the west these workers have can’t buy any of the goods they make. Life is hard in China and many workers are becoming restless and demanding a piece of the pie.
Moreover, you said that Lincoln abused his power during the civil war. However, you didn’t give any examples of how he abuses his power during the civil war in the US. The only defenseless people who suffered during the civil war were the black slaves and the slave owner got everything the they deserved. I say thank god for Lincoln for freeing the slaves that the Africans trade to the Europeans for junk.
@Malusi, In 1949 China was unified for the first time in a thousandth years. China is made up of a group of nations that speak different languages.
@Sentletse, the the thinking among most African leaders is that Africa has unlimited natural resources and all they have to do is sell them for finished goods. There were never an attempt to create industries around their natural resources.
And other reasons why I will never live in England, Australian or the USA for that matter.Sentletse you seem to have marked capital growth as the only end goal to a societies success. But have in the process forgotten that china much like many of these other economically successful nations has won its success off the back of gross human rights violations, exploitation of the poor. And general disregard for the future weal fair of the planet, or any innocent by standers in the way of resources. Is this truly what we want for our nation? If we cannot be humane in order to create wealth, I’d rather be poor. The question is does the end justify the means? we would be wealthy but we like them would become to morally and ethically bankrupt there would be little point to our wealth at all. Of course some one would have to be expoileted, so who would we pick?
What you are basically saying Sentletse is what the old apartheid government said, that Africans cannot govern themself and need a master to do so. The fact that the majority of people in any society does not have leadership qualities or even wish to lead does not mean that they should have no say in how they are governed. The mistake the ANC made was to ignore our fine democratic Constitution and to bring back apartheid in the form of AA, BEE, etc. They moved even further away from democracy when they reinstated a non-benevolent autocracy, what Helen Zille so inelegantly call “cronyism”. The ANC got away with this because we let them. If Africa wants to sort out its problems it needs to let go of its fondness for kings. How long can any despot stay in power without the support of the people? The French proved that royalty bleeds the same colour as ordinary people. Why do we allow a “leader” to act as if he is above the law? Is justice for all not the foundation of a democracy?
China is not a benevolent dictatorship. There is no real commitment from the people to improving their country. If you don’t toe the party line in China you might get off with imprisonment or you might get tortured and murdered. And if you do toe the party line you can expect near non-existent pay in a dangerous workplace. That is the reality for the majority. In many ways China has replicated the few with capital killing the many for profit, anything goes, pre-union days of the capitalist world. South Africa could certainly benefit economically from following those principles, but in the short-term, meaning quite likely the entire lives of almost everyone currently living, the workers will have to accept much worse working conditions and pay. It’s probable that anyone with advanced skills will do very well, but they may also prefer to take those skills to somewhere they’ll still do well and have freedom. No-one currently alive in China really has much experience with freedom and they’re as cut off as the government can manage from finding out, so they likely have less incentive to take their skills out of China.
The law of sowing and reaping. The Good Book teaches us that in order to reap you must sow. Everything is defined and controlled by this law and it is not, a religious principle, it is the law of survival. We cannot have some sowing so that others may reap, as the time will come when the sowers will stop their sowing as they do not get just compensation for what they do. We have established a nation of reapers and the sowers are frowned upon. Take note of the hatred that is aimed at our farmers who are the food sowers. Many of them have been killed and now there are no reapers either to plunder the crops of the sowers. Zimbabwe with the support of the ANC have destroyed their crops and now they cry for aid. How long before we in South Africa follow suit?
Entitlement? Yes if you sow, you may reap. If you do not sow you cannot reap. Life owes us all a chance to do better – nothing more. That free lunch has to be paid for by someone.
All men are born equal but that is where it ends. Education, drive and work will bring in the harvest.
Africa in general can only work under Dictatorship. Amazing how few actually rise up and topple dictators. Benevolence maintains the power base. The ANC is seen as benevolent and wields great power in being so.
China is the worst example of Dictatorship or Nanny state. I think you should read a little more to understand exactly why this is so.
Nice article, SD. The real confusion seems to lie in the replies.
The ethical rule is really simple – individual coercion is bad, individual choice is good. For all its benefits, democracy leads to coercion of the 49% minority, and must be viewed as bad. Dictatorship leads to coercion of the 99.9% majority, and is disastrously bad. You CHOOSE to join a corporation, or to buy its products, and that is good, no matter how crappy the corporation. You don’t CHOOSE to join the country you’re born in, and that is bad.
What South Africa needs, and what the ANC govt denies us, is CHOICES. We should experiment with many approaches, many ideologies, in diverse geographical areas, rather like the Chinese have done (1 country, 2 systems). Let this municipality experiment with no labour laws, directly elected officials, minimal licensing, independent of central govt control and funding. Let that municipality experiment with massive funding of local industry, huge social benefits, 90% taxation. Then let people choose with their feet where they want to stay and work. The successful concepts will quickly emerge, the disastrous ones quickly submerge.
Of course, for people who know that their ideas are fashionable but unsustainable, like Siobhan, and the ANC NEC, this is the kiss of death – public repudiation of your most cherished prejudices and ideologies.
Roll on the Free Cape Zone.
The Chinese dictatorship is only benevolent to one ethnic group, the Han, to the detriment of the others. It is actually worse than apartheid, since it doesn’t even have free elections for the ruling minority nor does it recognize the other ethnic groups’ right to independent statehood.
In a democracy you’ll get the government you deserve.
So Sentletse you want to return to the old apartheid days? Where the state tells you what to think, what to observe, what to read what to do and how to act. So you have proved the old school white south africans right, black africans are not mature, educated and well behaved enough to enjoy individual freedom, but need a strong dictator to rule them. You will make people like Hitler, Stalin and Idi Amin proud
China may be succesful, but there you can be executed for taking a bribe, to be gay is unnaaceptable, the people are censored, they are not free. They cannot vote. Do you really want to give up the freedoms of democracy to live like that?
Sentletse,
You appear to be labouring under a number of misapprehensions…
China is not one homogeneous country with one uniform political system.
Whilst there is autocratic central planning there are vast differences in policy applied to different regions.
Most of China’s booming and competitive economic output derives from the ‘Special Economic Zones’ (SEZ’s) in which very high levels of market freedom prevail
There is no ‘protective’ labour and environmental legislation, wages are determined by supply (very great) to the market and some entrepreneurs (and no doubt bureaucrats) become extremely wealthy.
By way of example,
One reason solar panels be can produced at approx. 1/3 of the cost in the West is that a major byproduct, silicon tetrafluoride, is stored in drums on storage lots or dumped, apart from the obvious factor of wages not being artificially inflated by pressure from unions or fiat of central planners.
In the West the stuff must be recycled at great cost, an ever increasing range of invasive regulatory mandates complied with, and a growing range of entitlements paid, rendering the industry totally uncompetitive…this IS ‘nannying’ by the state, and has never produced capital growth and economic efficiency or competitiveness.
Contrast this with China’s rural population, which lives in relative poverty under a yoke of feudalism and enforced collectivism and severe human rights abuse, which is the product of the dictatorial element of policy.
They’ve simply expanded the elite who enjoy freedom from repressive hectoring of their lives
Sentletse be serious now. There’s no country that is successful in the world. Every country has its challenges to grapple with. The call that we should all make is that people should never forsake their rights, because rights are always contested. They should always put up a fierce contest, be it at workplace, in society and in government.
Democracies have failed all around the world …mainly because none of them practise true democracy, as defined by those ancient greeks, promoted Earned Freedom, not Bestowed Freedom.
True democracy requires that the right to vote is earned through qualification and productivity. The primary reason democracies fail is not because of poor leadership, but because of poor quality voters, who elect bad leaders.
Sentletse,
One must commend you for trying to gain a new perspective. I just want to correct a misconception about China. Mao was a totally corrupt leader who almost ruined China with his Giant Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, a man who fits in well with the likes of Stalin and Hitler. The brutalising of sections of the population, e.g. the intelligentsia, is beyond comprehension. Post-Mao, the Communist Party has apparently been able to re-invent itself and its policies and it has been following a radical modernisation tack with truly unbelievable results, although one tends to forget that the majority of the population is still eking out a living in an agrarian subsistence economy. Paradoxically, the leadership still pay homage to Mao, mainly for the benefit of the older generation who remember a greater equality (even if it was in relative squalor) and who have not benefitted much from the upswing. The phenomenal development in China during the past two or three decades has IMO only an equivalent in the rebuilding of more than fifty (West-) German cities in ten to fifteen years after WW2. China has unleashed a capitalist-type economy in which entrepeneurs can become wealthy; phenomenal investments in manufacturing plant by the West and Japan and Taiwan to exploit cheap labour has certainly kickstarted the development. It is a moot point whether the workers were exploited. Cushy jobs for all is simply not a formula for great strides forward. Adequate investment ist most important.
@Chris2, thanks for a very good article about China. The workers in China are becoming restless and there have been many strikes in China. The workers in China are housed in group homes by the factories. The pay is one tenth of what a US workers makes doing the same work. This country has pegged their currency to the dollar and control what’s come in that country. I don’t understand why the leaders in SA are throwing praise on China when this country has destroyed the manufacturing sector in SA. The big question will COSATU wake up to what’s going on?
You raise very good points. The status quo in SA is a disaster, and for most, poverty is endemic. Most of our political parties are defending vested interests of elites, not proposing radical change. SA’s desperately needs a Marshall Plan to completely open up the economy and cut all the red tape that is destroying jobs – however the Dept of Labour and Trade Unions may be the greatest job destroyers of all. Is there really salvation in an even more nannying state? China is in fact not a socialist or communist state but a National Socialist state a la Germany 1937 – order, control, discipline, no labour movements, no class distinctions, Volksgemeinschaft, enormously productive. But on the other hand, controlled and repressed. It works for a culture of discipline and a ‘volkisch state’ like China. But in SA? With our culture as you note of “lawlessness, chronic idleness, poverty and dependency on the state .” Would an even more controlling state not just make things even worse?
@Fergie – The Chinese can afford to pay our leaders bigger bribes for prod. orders, of course they are popular.
China is not a communist country, despite official labels.
And more people died under Mao during the disastrous Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution then under any other leader, ever, including Stalin. Mao was a seriously bad dude with wrongheaded ideas that the country only began recovering from after his death.
Sentletse, you make an interesting argument but your faulty grasp of China and Chinese history lets you down.