Mondli Makhanya — 02/03/2008
AFRICA NEEDS A REVOLUTION TO END THE GOVERNANCE OF 'BIG MEN'
Sunday Times ( 3/2/2008 )
Half a century of anti-democratic rule in Africa

This weekend the presidential jets and commandeered national aircraft took turns taxiing down the runway at Addis Ababa airport. Africa ’s leaders were going home after yet another festive jamboree. One can bet that when they get home, after having pledged to do good things for Africa's people, they will go back to their bad old ways. They will beat up opponents, jail civil society activists, harass journalists and do everything to subvert democratic values. Each one of them will do so knowing full well that elsewhere on the continent their counterparts are doing exactly the same thing. That the show in Addis Ababa was just that: a chance to display their jets, size of entourage, Savile Row suits and taste in fine wines. The ritual has been going on for over 50 years, ever since the formation of the Organisation of African Unity. For half a century the mighty men of our continent have hopped from capital to capital, speaking lofty words and signing thick documents they had not read.
 
Africa stuck in a rut while the world gallops ahead
As a result, our continent lost half a century in poverty alleviation, economic development and evolution of democratic governance. The first 40 years of post-colonial rule were the time of the rule of the Big Men, a patronising but accurate term coined by the so-called 'Africa hands' - those rugged Western journalists who saw the continent as one big adventure. The past decade or so saw the emergence of a new kind of leader. Across the continent there were democratic dawns, renaissances, Prague springs - call them what you will. Africa was recovering from the era of the Big Men.  Alas, it was to be short-lived. The new men on the block soon became Big Men too. Those Big Men who had survived found good company in the democrats, who had now discovered the trappings of power. So it is no surprise that Africa is finding itself stuck in a rut as the rest of the world gallops ahead.
 
Kenya: the greatest disappointment for the whole continent
The greatest disappointment of all has to be Kenya's reversal of fortune. Here was a country that had rid itself of the brutal Daniel arap Moi and set itself on a path of transparent democracy. Following the first post-Moi election, in 2002, a free Kenya seemed to be taking root. The media scene flourished and Kenya's journalists produced magnificent works in print and on radio and television. (My fellow pen-wielding tribesmen and women will tell you that this is always the surest sign of a healthy society.) Civil society was awakened. The country's Parliament became one of the liveliest on the continent and in the world as parties sparred on major subjects. Kenya even volunteered itself as one of the guinea pigs for the African Peer Review Mechanism. So, whenever the government of Mwai Kibaki took the off-ramps marked 'corruption' and 'misgovernance', the watch dogs were there to pounce. This did not please the Kibaki government, which started to clamp down on freedoms. Kibaki's most dangerous ploy was stealing the December election, a move that sparked the bloody conflict gripping the country at the moment. It is a conflict that should pain every citizen of this continent, as Kenya had become one of our lodestars.
 
Why do we keep sliding back to bad ways?
It certainly pained one of Africa's most famous sons, Kofi Annan, who was in the country this week to mediate between the parties. He detested what he saw. 'What we saw was rather tragic. We visited several IDP (internally displaced persons) camps, we saw people pushed from their homes, from their farms - grandmothers, children, families uprooted,' he said. Annan warned that there would have to be consequences for those who caused the suffering. 'We cannot accept that, periodically, every five years or so, this sort of incident takes place and no one is held to account. Impunity cannot be allowed to stand.' What is happening in Kenya should force every African to stand in front of the mirror and ask, Why do we keep sliding back to bad ways? Our leaders have to take the bulk of the blame. It has happened too often before on this continent that Africa's leaders have ignored the suffering of ordinary people while supping with dictators.
 
Speak no evil (against your fellow African leaders)
Africa's leaders, including our very own in this country, have been quite content to go with the herd and not differentiate themselves. The sacred principle of not speaking out against evil so long as it is perpetrated by Africans on fellow Africans seems well entrenched. That is why Robert Mugabe is able to strut about and spew anti-Western rhetoric while oppressing Zimbabweans. And the randy boy-king in Swaziland can do as he wishes. And Kibaki can steal an election in broad daylight, knowing full well that the only people who will criticise him are nongovernment actors and Western nations. In order for Africa to move forward, this misplaced solidarity between leaders of the continent has to end. But Africa's citizens cannot rely on the political leadership to turn on each other. The revolution against bad governance has to take place at other levels of society, with Africans in free republics refusing to accept that Africans in other nations deserve fewer rights than they enjoy.