What SA can learn from Mugabe’s ruin
This week’s events in Zimbabwe have focused the mind on urgent pointers for that country and for South Africa
It is hard to rejoice at the ouster of Zimbabwe’s nonagenarian dictator, Robert Mugabe, without feeling a sense of sadness for the people of that great country and the big challenges that lie ahead. But we should also take time to ponder the lessons that Zimbabweans — and South Africans — might take from the experience of the past three decades.
We know these lessons, but generally fail to act on them until a leader has inflicted irreparable damage on a country.
The first and most important lesson is that it does not have to take a military coup to remove a wayward leader.
All it requires is that good men and women, inside and outside government, should know when it is time for a leader to go and act on that knowledge through the ballot box before it is too late for their country.
It is even better when leaders leave voluntarily. Twenty years ago, the late Mwalimu Julius Nyerere spoke about his decision to step down as prime minister of what was then Tanganyika after only about a year in office: “People thought I had been pushed out of the party. The idea that you could voluntarily resign as chief minister was simply unbelievable — you must have been pushed out.”
Nyerere stepped down because, as he put it, he was afraid of power. The same fear of power can be seen in George Washington, who stepped down after two terms in office, even though he could have stayed longer. Nelson Mandela also feared power, and stepped down after only one term in office.
Charles de Gaulle honoured the wishes of French voters after his defeat in 1946 and packed his bags for his home in Colombey, where he waited patiently until he was called back by popular demand 12 years later.
The problem now is we have leaders who do not fear power, who seek it by hook or by crook, for themselves, their families and their friends.
This is what Mugabe did in Zimbabwe for three long decades.
He was the classic example of a prebendal leader, one who collapsed any distinction between private and public resources.
Jacob Zuma is giving the departed Bob a good run for his money in the record books.
The second lesson is the urgent need to rid ourselves of what Muthobi Mutloatse once called “liberation handcuffs”, referring to how Mugabe used his status as a liberation hero to destroy his country’s future.
The fact that people were soldiers in a long-gone war does not make them wiser or entitle them to a nation’s resources.
We can begin by banishing from our vocabulary terms such as “big chief” and “No 1”. These are ordinary human beings to whom we have given the privilege to lead, a privilege we are at liberty to withdraw when they do not meet their end of the bargain.
The third lesson, a related one, is that we must reject rule by racial blackmail. Leaders treat us as stupid when they use race to justify their malfeasance.
This is what happened during what Mondli Makhanya memorably called “that darned arms deal — the deal that poisoned our souls and turns our heroes into grubby mortals”.
The arms deal birthed Zuma as the poster child of post-apartheid corruption.
Out of some warped notion of black nationalism, our government cheered Mugabe on as he murdered his people and plundered his country in broad daylight, while turning around to excite some of our people with a black power salute.
It was as cynical and nauseating as the use of race to cover up for the Guptas’ plunder of our own society.
The fourth lesson from Zimbabwe’s tragedy is Out of some warped notion of black nationalism, our government cheered Mugabe on as he murdered people and plundered his country that we must stop shooting the messengers.
Those of us who criticised the arms deal and Mugabe’s terrorism against his own people were called “foot lickers” of the white man.
It was suggested that we were Uncle Toms who did not want to see black governments succeed. Sadly, they succeeded only too well in legitimising naked graft.
That Zuma and his pirates should have gone a long time ago has long been obvious. What is less obvious is why members of his party did not stop him from getting a second term in office.
The fifth lesson, also related to the above, is the need for the cultivation of tolerance of different viewpoints.
We need to discourage the name-calling and argument by insult that have become part of the public square.
The insults chase good people away and leave the square to the villains and thugs who can shout the loudest.
It is a short hop from that crudeness in our public discourse to the violence that Mugabe perpetrated against his critics.
The experience of Zanu-PF under Mugabe should make obvious the importance of the sixth lesson, which is the need to put country before party.
It is indeed rather ironic that with all the talk about decolonisation, there is no discussion of the corrosive influence of political parties in our national life.
And yet we have enough evidence of how political parties have become nothing more than sites of corruption by those located around the centres of power in the ANC.
We must make parties serve our needs, instead of us serving their needs, which means serving the interests of party bosses.
The last three lessons deal with Zimbabwe and South Africans in the future. The seventh lesson is that the task of rebuilding will belong to every Zimbabwean, and to every South African after Zuma has left office.
No political party will ever be up to the task of single-handedly running any country.
Talent does not come dressed in black, green and gold, or in blue and white, or in red overalls and red berets. It comes through hard-earned qualifications and training, and leadership integrity.
As an eighth lesson we should place institutions such as the judiciary and parliament beyond the reach of party hacks.
Democracy is not so much the rule of the people as it is the rule of the people through institutions led by capable people.
We need to protect our institutions by staffing them with men and women of integrity.
As a ninth lesson we must develop a strong civil society, not only as a bulwark against dictators, but as a site of democratic socialisation.
This suggests understanding that we can make contributions to the democratic project from different institutional sites, not just through party political membership.
We need to develop the think tanks that informed much of our thinking as we hurriedly prepared for the transition to democracy in the late 1980s.
Unfortunately, our universities, which were once the training ground for democratic citizenship, have been a dismal failure in this regard. Sadly, they are all run as certification centres, not institutions of civic education.
Which brings me to my 10th and final lesson: that democracy is not just an instrument for delivering services or growing the economy.
It is a process of continuous and free public deliberation about the values that hold us together as a society.