Afro-pessimism

SAWIP provides us with opportunities that I never dreamt that I would have and am doubtful that I will be able to have again anytime in the near future. One such event was when we found ourselves in New York with the Consular General to the US, our UN Ambassador and our UN South African delegation both on the Security Council and to the General Assembly.

Capitalising on this opportunity I asked our Consular General what he thought the biggest challenges facing South Africa in terms of FDI were. First on his list was afro-pessimism. His first point caught my attention so much so that  I cannot remember what else was on his list. Afro-pessimism is not just some cool word that an academic once donned. Its real and its ever pervasive. Its overt here in the US and when you view South Africa through this new lens you realise how patent it is back home and even within my very own subconscious.

The point is, it’s resonant everywhere and it's a major problem that needs to be combated. There are clear assumptions made about African states. Its full of rentier states, engulfed in corruption, innately corrupt, rife with cronyism etc etc etc. It is assumed that African democratic institutions will fail. They are expected to fail and therefore (self fulfilling prophesy) they do. Taking into account this views and trying to understand their systemic nature I would like to assess afro-pessimism from two perspectives. Firstly the role of the media and secondly in terms of democracy.

Almost every single one of the South African representatives we have been addressed by thus far has mentioned the media as a strong hindrance to their aims and objectives and a strong driver of afro-pessimism. It is clear that they see the media as a strong contributor to afro-pessimism both internationally and within South Africa itself. This common factor mentioned by all the delegates was blatantly obvious. So much so that I can see the exact motivation behind the Information Bill in all its fervent ‘glory’ (as an aside). Very few intellectuals will contradict the statement that we have irresponsible journalism in South Africa. We do. But who is the onus upon to make sure that South Africa and Africa is ‘marketed’ in positive and objective manner? The solution is certainly not to restrict the media with autocratic legislation (comparable to Apartheid legislation). The onus is elsewhere. It was Lulama of the South African Security Council team who highlighted that onus for me. It seems blatantly obvious now but hearing all the other officials unilaterally blame the media obscured the obviousness. She said it’s not irresponsible journalism that is fuelling afro-pessimism, its governments inadequate media and communications strategy. And it’s true, it’s the African governments who need to work harder to explain their strategies to the people back home, it’s their job to explain their strategies internationally and it’s their responsibility to say that the policies of the Youth League are not the policies of the ANC. I should not have to come all the way to America to be exposed to the brilliance that is representing our country. I should know about it on South African soil. I agree that the onus is not one that is transferred in totality to governments but this is certainly where it needs to start. This culture of shifting the onus needs to stop. Our leaders need to take responsibility for where they have failed, learn from those mistakes and take great pains to improve our society based on a culture of justification.

The second thing I would like to address which is also strongly linked to afro-pessimism are the conceptions or rather preconceptions of democracy on the African continent. We had a very productive and thought provoking session with the IDASA democracy panellists last week. In light of my decision to focus this piece on afro-pessimism I’m going to restrict my analysis to multi-partyism in particular. There is a Eurocentric emphasis on equating democracy with multi-partyism. The idea is that if you have a dominant party, the democracy is weak.  So the first question I asked our panalists was what is the definition of democracy they use when the evaluate democracies in Africa. Unsurprisingly I got unclear responses, my favourite being ‘democracy is like love – it’s difficult to define’. I agree, it is exceptionally hard to define but at the same time how do you purport to critique certain democracies without measuring them against some standard. Is it akin to the famous line of ‘one cannot define pornography but you know it when you see it?’

I don't want to get bogged down by the definitions of democracy; they are vast and contested. The point I want to argue against is the constant critique that South African democracy is as weak  as the ANC is dominant. The reason I link this to afro-pessimism is that I cannot help but note that dominant parties elsewhere in the world are not critiqued in the same way. Jon Elliot from Human Rights Watch proffered Sweden as a case in point. In fact some people argue the exact opposite and this is a view I too endorse. The dominance of the ANC has allowed time for our democratic institutions to consolidate and grow. It has created the space for people to develop and call themselves South African over and above various tribal affiliations. It has avoided weak coalition governments that we have seen fail elsewhere in Africa. It has also enabled government policy to make long term strategic plans rather than short term opportunistic ones.

I’m not arguing that we have the perfect democracy, I merely want to highlight the propensity to assume the worst when it comes to Africa and especially when it comes to democracy in Africa. I want to highlight the subconscious or conscious assumptions that one makes when assessing African institutions in comparison to similar situations elsewhere in the world. Our panalists agree that there is no one size fits all democracy type. Democracy is a lived reality. It's a contested concept, and its contested by the people of the country. At its very core democracy is power to the people, which is precisely why ‘Amandla Awethu’ is the core slogan of the ANC movement.