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Southern Africa:
not all liberators are democrats
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01/2005 |
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Southern Africa:
not all liberators are democrats
Henning Melber (Ed.):
Limits to Liberation in Southern Africa.
The Unfinished Business
of Democratic Consolidation.
Cape Town, HSRC Press 2003, 231 pages, Euro 18.00, ISBN 0-7969-2025-7 (Orders for Europe via the Nordic Africa Institute only)
How democratic are the former liberation movements in Southern Africa? Henning Melber and ten other authors take a look into this question in an anthology of the South African Human Sciences Research Council. The basis of their studies is the ascertainment that former liberation organisations in government – for example Zimbabwe – often transform into authoritarian and corrupt regimes.
The success of the movements in the liberation struggle makes it easy to legitimise the equalisation of party, government and state. And it makes it possible to brand any form of criticism as unpatriotic. In contrast to this, according to Melber, Botswana and Lesotho, who won their independence largely without resistance, show “all the characteristics of a multi-party democracy”. The volume aims to expose the “myths and legends” which still surround the former liberation fighters and to find reasons for the widespread “anti-democratic tendencies” of the new elite.
The authors, who predominantly come from Southern Africa, try to achieve this in the chapters on Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and South Africa. Two causes emerge. On the one hand, liberation fostered hierarchical and military thought. Oppression and violence occurred even within the organisations. This meant a democratic attitude was out of the question. Furthermore, there are still no political counterbalances to those in power. The opposition is at loggerheads, civil society is weak and the media is controlled by government and therefore in no position for effective monitoring.
On the other hand, the authors also point out authoritarian tendencies in the countries Lesotho and Botswana, which are rated as positive on the whole. Thus, the impressive comparison of Zimbabwe and Namibia on the one hand and the “moderate” examples without liberation struggle on the other are not included in the case studies. Furthermore, generally lumping together the political relationships in Zimbabwe and Namibia seems dubious. That aside, investigating the effects of the liberation struggle on the behaviour of future governments remains highly relevant. The different theoretical content and the quality of the essays are noteworthy. While some of the authors write in a more descriptive manner (for example, Ian Taylor in his analysis of the ruling party BDP in Botswana), Martin Legassick, in his portrayal of the ANC resistance, explicitly targets “worker democracy” and socialism.
Henning Melber considers the ascertainment that the political systems in Zimbabwe and Namibia are intrinsically elitist and potentially authoritarian to be a crucial step forwards in the discussion on the democratic consolidation in Southern Africa. “Limits to Liberation in Southern Africa” represents the start of a more realistic evaluation of the former liberation movements. No more, but also no less – and that is where its value lies.
Christian von Soest
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