Not learning lessons of Africa
MONDAY was Africa Day. On Tuesday President Jacob Zuma addressed the National Assembly on the Presidency budget vote and alluded to the day.
He reminded us of our duty as Africans (in the wider meaning of the word), as the celebrated Ghanaian leader, Kwame Nkrumah, set it out: “On this continent, it has not taken us long to discover that the struggle against colonialism does not end with the attainment of national independence. Independence is only the prelude to a new and more involved struggle, for the right to conduct our own economic and social affairs, to construct our society according to our aspirations, unhampered by crushing and humiliating neo-colonialist controls and interference.”
Ghana, let us recall, gained its independence on March 6 1957. Let us recall further that Ghana was the first country in Africa to gain independence from colonial rule.
The political nature of the South African problem before 1994 is not a settled question. Some believe that we were a colonial situation. Others believe we were a “settler colonial” situation. Others again believe that we were a “colony of a special type”.
Still others believe that white rule was, on all tenets of international law, perfectly legitimate and that our problem was simply one of racism.
Allowing for the divergence of views on the precise nature of our pre-1994 situation, it seems nevertheless that we think we attained freedom, howsoever the term is defined, in 1994. Therefore we have a public holiday on April 27 and we call it Freedom Day.
That means we got our freedom almost 37 years to the day after Ghanaians got theirs. When we got our freedom we had, therefore, that number of years to learn what the Ghanaians learnt, without a precedent, six years after their independence – Nkrumah made the statement cited by Zuma in 1963.
What does it mean for Zuma to remind us of our duty, in 2015, to do what Nkrumah said in 1963 needed to be done? What does it mean, both for South Africa and for Africa?
The answer is simple: we have neither learnt nor done the things Nkrumah pointed out 52 years ago needed to be done! In the light of Zuma making reference to the imperative pointed out by Nkrumah, one might expect that he would devote some time in his speech analysing how South Africa and Africa have done in that area of our political life. But he did not.
The sad thing about Africa is that, though our task is daunting, we spare ourselves much deserved self-criticism. Although our shortcomings are clear for all to see, we indulge ourselves in self-congratulatory rituals and we don’t make the progress we all know needs to be made for the continent to rise to higher levels.
And so it was with Zuma. Almost immediately after citing Nkrumah, he thanked “the outgoing members of the National Planning Commission, who produced the acclaimed National Development Plan (NDP)”.
Acclaimed National Development Plan? Acclaimed by whom?
Cosatu faces possible demise because, among other things, very significant voices decry the NDP as a neo-liberal plan which does nothing to alleviate the very poverty Zuma says needs to be alleviated for freedom to have any meaning for a vast majority of South Africans. The ANC faces a serious challenge because the EFF is poking fun at the ruling party for having “abandoned” the Freedom Charter in favour of the NDP.
One listens to Zuma, and US philosopher and political commentator Noam Chomsky comes readily to mind. The fact of the matter is that the NDP has drawn a lot of criticism.
The fact of the matter is that even within the ruling party, the NDP does not enjoy the support enjoyed by the Freedom Charter. Therefore Zuma must, in the words of Chomsky, “manufacture consent” for a plan which is not nearly as popular as Zuma might have us believe!
But let us stay with the theme of African leaders tending towards self-congratulation rather than self-criticism. Zuma states: “We welcome the 2.1% year on year GDP growth that was announced this afternoon”.
Let us remind one another: the 2013 GDP growth was 2.2% ( http://www.worldbank.org/en/ country/southafrica).
Therefore we have a lower growth rate than in 2013. Indeed, the fact that we have had a decline is evident from Zuma’s acknowledgement that the energy problem we face is an impediment to economic growth.
The difficulty is not so much the fact that our GDP growth is lower. The real difficulty is that our president “welcomes” it.
Now, if we are on a decline, and we welcome that, what does it mean? The real difficulty is that, while our president welcomes the decline, he proceeds in the same breath to announce new projects the government is going to embark on without spelling out how he is going to achieve all those with declining growth.
Is it any wonder that we have so many service delivery protests in the country?
Hopefully the day will dawn in Africa when leaders will think more of their respective countries than their respective parties. When leaders will reflect more seriously about the problems of the continent and not make speeches which are designed to catch votes when the country is burning!