GRABBING THE DEMOCRACY DIAMOND

Perhaps it would have paid better if political parties in Africa borrowed from the tradition of intensive dialogue with rural voters initiated by liberation movements, writes Okello Oculi

‘’ The revolution revolutionises the counter-revolution’’, so said Regis Debray. The brilliant bank robbery once witnessed in London forced the global police to invent new measures for fighting future bank robberies. The season of mass demonstrations which started with the one that overthrew the communist government in Ukraine; military dictatorships in Tunisia, Egypt; and are currently rocking Venezuela, Argentina and Nicaragua, may well trace their roots in liberation wars from China, Vietnam and Cuba to Mozambique and Angola.

Chairman Mao Zedung wrote about the guerrilla warfare he led from 1922 to victory in 1949. Che Guevara’s book titled ‘’REMINICENSES’’ told of strategies they used to win support from impoverished rural population. In Africa, an agricultural scientist, Amilcar Cabral, wrote about the vital need to conduct patient face-to-face dialogue with peasant farmers and urban poor to raise their awareness about the importance of joining the fight for a better future.

The common element in their writings was the importance of respecting the human dignity and intelligence of those they talked to while following the iron rule of ‘’telling no lies and promising no easy victories’’.

It is worth noting that leaders of successful liberation fights in Africa were persons whose professional jobs required listening to and talking with all people regardless of their social status. Samora Machel in Mozambique was a nurse. Agustinho Neto in Angola was a medical doctor. Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe was a school teacher. Mandela and Oliver Tambo were trained as court room lawyers. Amilcar Cabral was an agronomist who locked minds with small scale farmers. They knew the futility of talking down at ordinary people; and of keeping a social distance from them. They were, after all, aware that failure to communicate with their client had fatal consequence in death from disease; failure of exams and death from illness.

In Tanganyika, Julius Nyerere trained and worked as a school teacher. He was helped by a countrywide ‘’Maji-Maji War’’ as protest against horrendous forced labour by German colonial officials. This was followed by prolonged and winding skirmishes to defeat a German military commander who refused to surrender during the 1938-45 War. Both his army and those pursuing him looted, slaughtered and imposed carrying their weapons and supplies on local populations. The hellish war made suffering a brewer of nationalism across ethnic and religious differences. When Nyerere stood on top of lorries and mounds in local market, and preached about freedom and self-rule, he was planting into fertile local soils. It was little wonder that the political party he led, the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU) won all seats in parliament. Nobody voted for the MPs because they were ‘’elected unopposed’’ since no opposition candidates submitted nomination paper.

In 1965, Nyerere appointed a Presidential Commission which recommended that a maximum of three members of TANU in each parliamentary constituency should contest among themselves. Private campaigns were not allowed. Appeals for votes by reference to religion, ethnicity, race; and offering financial and other consumer goods were not allowed. Party officials transported contestants to meetings with assembled voters. Candidate sold their personal merit in the presence of opponents. They answered questions from the audience. Election campaigns became classrooms for the education of the intelligence of communities and party leaders. The teacher in Nyerere was at play here. His deputy, Rashid Kawawa, had been employed by colonial officials as an actor in propaganda cinemas.

While Nyerere had the easier task of only travelling on bumpy tracks on top of vans owned by local traders to reach local market days all over a vast territory, Neto and Cabral slept in bushes and trekked across hills while avoiding death from guns and bombs of colonial armies. While Patrice Lumumba (depicted in Aime Ceaser play as followed by Belgian police informers who passively recorded his speeches and noted the hysteria he aroused in crowds), Samora Machel trapped and routed a Portuguese army led by a celebrated general.

It is plausible that political parties in Africa would have borrowed from the tradition of intensive political dialogue with rural voters developed by liberation movements. However, a pandemic of military coups and dictatorships, threw politicians into several decades of electoral unemployment. Military rulers are trained to issue commands to civilians; brutalise, kill or loot and destroy their homes and food supplies.

In this gap came intelligence officers of NATO countries who documented and carefully analysed strategies of communication and political education by liberation movements for adoption and use in their post-Cold War diplomacy. The explosion of mass demonstrations mounted by ‘’pro-democracy groups’’ is telling. An early indication was Morgan Tsvangirai’s “Movement for Democracy’’ whose members adorned strikingly new uniforms in their protests against Mugabe’s government. In Tunisia’s ‘’Arab Spring’’ it felled a military dictator.

Most post-military political parties in Africa rely on ‘’big sons’’ manipulating feelings around religion and ethnicity; buying votes, violence, writing fraudulent results, etc. These are lazy roads to ‘fake democracy’. It ignores the legacy of digging up ‘diamond democracies’ with hard work which liberation movements invested for arousing fighting grit out of poor and brutalised rural populations. As Nyerere had feared, unelected MPs are fraudulent ‘’representatives’’ who insult voters with their cynical corruption. It erodes ‘’soft power’’ of patriotic citizenship; undermines national security by brewing widespread frustration and violence; while making voters vulnerable to manipulation by hostile external interests.

MOST POST-MILITARY POLITICAL PARTIES IN AFRICA RELY ON ‘’BIG SONS’’ MANIPULATING FEELINGS AROUND RELIGION AND ETHNICITY; BUYING VOTES, VIOLENCE, WRITING FRAUDULENT RESULTS, ETC. THESE ARE LAZY ROADS TO ‘FAKE DEMOCRACY’