Ian Hacking, the Canadian philosopher, describes the phenomenon by which a condition, once it gains recognition, replicates itself in a given society. He calls this phenomenon “looping”. One would be forgiven for surmising, based on the recent coups, that Africa is looping the coups. That Africa will forever undergo her Middle Ages until the end of time. Some are forever blaming the African colonial past for this. After all, it cannot be a coincidence that the current African problems are mostly in the francophone countries, with their still oppressive Colonial Pact with the African states. Stupid comments by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, that countries like Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger are nothing without France are not helping.
In general, the pattern of post-colonial Africa has been predictable: first, the liberation movement wins power from the colonial masters, and rules in a similar manner that economically panders to the economic plunder of the former colonial master to feed the new political elite – pigs growing human faces, in Orwellian parlance. Then they suppress the demos by police and military force, and make that force completely dependent on the largess of the political elite, until one of the generals, usually excluded from the feeding trough, stages a coup and overthrows the old political elite. Then repeat. But now, the new thing among African juntas is leeching on the grievances of the demos, that is, pretending to be (and celebrated as) a liberating force – at the beginning at least – before also creating a pattern similar to that of the new elite.
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The new thing among African juntas is leeching on the grievances of the demos, that is, pretending to be (and celebrated as) a liberating force – at the beginning at least – before also creating a pattern similar to that of the new elite.
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Gabon is the latest example of this trend recently begun by Niger. The Gabon juntas nullified the rigged elections of the dictator Ali Bongo, whose family has been in power and looting the oil-rich country for over 50 years. France has been the greatest benefactor of Bongo’s family reign in financial and natural mineral sense. The same applies in Niger. As such, to please the demos in their own countries, the current respective juntas pass themselves as the anti-imperial saviours – with Russia, mostly through the Wagner Group, complicating things. In most countries ruled by African juntas, the Wagner Group provides security for the ruling elite, something that used to be done by the now unreliable presidential guards – unreliable in the sense that they easily change masters, depending on vested interest during coups. The advantage of the Wagner Group to the juntas and dictators is that their vested interests have direct control of the countries’ mineral wealth.
There was a time when, in frustration, citizens who could not hold their governments to account through recognisable, open democratic systems, would take to the deserts and the sea, trying to get to greener pastures in Europe. Now, as these paths dry up, the citizens are releasing their pent-up frustrations in support of juntas against dictators. Of course, through the Arab Spring, they tried popular revolts and revolutions also. But they found themselves, in the end, in the same situation as where they started, if not worse, because, as we know from history, revolutions eat their own children too.
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As we know from history, revolutions eat their own children too.
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Southern Africa has not been spared this, due to some latent exceptionalism, especially when you look at countries like Angola, Mozambique, Malawi, etc. In the immediate future, Uganda seems ripe and next in line. General Muhoozi Kainerugaba Museveni, the 49-year-old son of President Yoweri Museveni, who has been in power for 37 years, is already agitating for power, and probably busy organising a pending coup against his father as we speak.
The Crocodile, Mnangagwa, has now been crowned in the pantomime and fanfare of AU old club of doddering leaders. The clueless ANC flastering old guard, long out of tune with the sentiments of our modern politics, that were also there for hypocritical affirmation, though the SADAC observers decried the Zimbawean recent elections.
We know the ZanuPF in Zimbabwe has been rigging elections for years. Almost everyone who observed the recent one, which purportedly gave Emmerson Mnangagwa a second term, said they were not fair and free. Yet, nothing will happen. The Crocodile, Mnangagwa, has now been crowned in the pantomime and fanfare of AU old club of doddering leaders. The clueless ANC flastering old guard, long out of tune with the sentiments of our modern politics, that were also there for hypocritical affirmation, though the SADC observers decried the Zimbawean recent elections. There are also no signs that the Zimbabwean people will go into rebellion anytime soon. Therefore, it’s highly likely that the only way ZanuPF will ever lose power is through the barrel of the gun. This would probably come when one of the excluded generals rose against the mafia-style governance of the ZanuPF elite, which loots the country’s mineral reserves of gold, diamonds and platinum. South Africa has never been an honest power broker in Zimbabwe; I doubt it would start now. And most ZanuPF magnates have mansions in places like Sandton and Constantia, fraternising with the rich and famous of this land with impunity while Zimbabwe goes to the dogs.
South Africa began waking up after Jacob Zuma’s presidency to the fact that it was heading the Zimbabwean way. Zuma wished to run down government institutions of accountability to provide himself and his funders free rein and looting access to the natural wealth of the country. The country was most probably saved by the third arm of its governance, the judiciary, from that yawning hole, because Zuma, through the ANC, had hollowed out the executive and legislative arms of governance. Though the danger is no longer imminent, it is not over. There are still shady characters within the echelons of high South African governance who are awaiting their turn to eat.
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What we can probably agree on is that these coups and other reverberations are the beginning of the end of the age of nationalism in Africa.
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What we can probably agree on is that these coups and other reverberations are the beginning of the end of the age of nationalism in Africa. African nationalism was driven by a deep sense of grievance against the colonial era. As British historian Eric Hobsbawm saw it, the problem with nationalism is that it requires too much belief in what isn’t so. Or, in the African sense, what no longer isn’t so. The youth are always the first to see through shams, because their minds are free of parochial entrapments, and they are not too invested in old beliefs just for the sake of sometimes irrational traditions or politics. They’re driven more by a sense of what eludes labels and blurs boundaries; after all, this is the age of the internet. And most of them no longer believe that the gradation of human potential comes prepaid in political hierarchy – or in other forms and legacies of exclusion, for that matter. For now, they still haven’t moved away from politics of resentment against the colonial powers, and rightly so, because the controlling hand of the former colonial masters is almost always present in most problems Africa still has to contend with. So, these coups are part of the fever swamps which our new dispensation has to pass through to be born, against the wishes of the old political brigades. What was it that Gramsci said about this crisis? “The old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum, a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” I trust that our youth, particularly, will eventually find proper means to respond to the toxic regimes they live under. One thing is certain: youth everywhere on the globe, whether in Africa, Asia, Europe or America, have similar and common goals of freedom and self-development. No forces of dictatorship will ever be able to contain their drive. Natural nation states are no longer political entities that encase their life ambitions. The millennial youth have been made multicultural by their ambitions and desire for freedom.
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Building a new brave consensus requires [...] developing ideas that oppose the cruel tricks of keeping people complacent with an internalised sense of false inferiority complex.
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Changing regimes, to use Gramsci's thoughts again, requires that people stop aligning their interests with the hegemony of the ruling and the dominant economic elites. He says this is the first move towards building a new common sense against oppressive regimes. Keeping the demos docile through fear is the modus operandi of almost all oppressive regimes. Building a new brave consensus requires combating this fear, and developing ideas that oppose the cruel tricks of keeping people complacent with an internalised sense of false inferiority complex.
The post-colonial African ruling elite maintain their power through brutal coercion administered by the police and military power. Zimbabwe is the best example of this in southern Africa. In countries like South Africa, where government and public institutions are still strong, the power coercion is extended by courts of law, schools, churches and other public sociopolitical institutions that conglomerate in civil society. This is how the ruling and dominant group maintains their hegemony. In South Africa, the ruling and (economically) dominant groups are separated by money and class issues.
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The revolutionary anger of the demos is easily supplanted or suppressed by advanced capitalist states with strong public institutions and civil society like South Africa. In them, the change of power can only be won by the battle of ideas. This is a long-term effort, and its struggle in South Africa will be for social and economic justice.
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The dominant group is made of mostly white old money, while the ruling group is the nouveau riche from the political organisations. The interests of the two are not always aligned and are in permanent friction. What prevents their fracture is the need to keep the anger of the demos suppressed and assuaged away from Gramsci’s “war manoeuvres”, that is, creating the revolution chaos and power seizures of post-colonial African coups. The revolutionary anger of the demos is easily supplanted or suppressed by advanced capitalist states with strong public institutions and civil society like South Africa. In them, the change of power can only be won by the battle of ideas. This is a long-term effort, and its struggle in South Africa will be for social and economic justice. But then again, in Africa, as the ancient Romans saw, nothing is permanently certain, and something new always comes out of the continent.
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Kommentaar
Excellent article - first rate. Goes directly to the heart of the matter. The European press are slowly waking up to the enormity of the Wagnerian Russian-backed presence on the African continent and the implications. What rough beast is this, comes slouching towards Jerusalem, they are beginning to ask. I hope they read this very insightful analysis from a writer with his ear to the ground.