By Takura Zhangazha*
Professor Roger Southall’s new book, Liberation Movements in Southern Africa, Party and State in Southern
Africa with a specific focus on the African National Congress (ANC), the
Zimbabwe African National Union and the South Western African Peoples
Organisation (SWAPO) is both brave and has the potential for controversy. All however based on succinct analysis of the subject
matter(s).
The book is an
audacious read in the sense that the author brings to the fore the common
characteristics of the three aforementioned national liberation movements
(NLMs) and tentatively seeks to demonstrate how they are in hegemonic decline, though at varying levels.
Because the question of NLMs in Southern Africa long duree
in power is a longstanding one both in relation to academia and oppositional
politics (sometimes read as liberalism), this particular book is a worthy read.
It adds to significantly to the broader debate around the
impact of liberation struggle politics on post independence southern African states.
The initial common ground for analyzing these three specific
movements of Southern Africa is given as the fact that they all evolved within
the context of settler colonial capitalism or settler colonies which remained
adamant in the face of the British and other empires giving way to majority
black rule in other African colonies.
In claiming so, the
book also outlines the impact of this same said settler capitalism on the
evolution of gradual industrialization and urbanization of components of the
three countries as a key factor in the initial political characteristics of the
NLMs.
For many a Pan
Africanist, this is would be a controversial political point were it not in
large part, academically and historically more valid than deniable.
Our NLMs are in part, products of the political economies of
their time of genesis. Hence the book outlines the fact that most of the
initial and even current leaders of the NLMs analysed either met in the initial
unions established by migrant workers or at South African universities such as
Fort Hare.
Furthermore Southall
outlines the commonality of genesis seen in similarities over and about
quarrels concerning what would come to be effected as the next phase of the
struggle, namely, embarking on guerrilla warfare to attain independence.
There is great detail in the elaboration of the historical similarities
of the NLMs in the three interlinked struggles (from tribalism, factionalism, assassinations,
potential secessions and electoral manipulation). But perhaps what is more significant
is the explanation of how, in the aftermath of becoming ruling parties, the
NLMs continued, even if by default, to share common characteristics in the direction of decline.
For example at national independence all three
liberation movements shared a common characteristic of seeking what can be referred to as ‘racial bargains’ of embracing free market economics and accommodation with both colonial and global
capital despite their radical Marxist rhetoric .
They have also all sought to further consolidate power with
the expiry of transitional constitutional arrangements with most consolidating it
to become almost undefeatable at what they have generally claimed to be democratic
elections.
There is particular emphasis on Zanu Pf’s transgressions which are presented as both a warning of how
bad it can all become or alternatively potentially as a warning that the other
two (ANC and SWAPO) must avoid that same route.
Mention is made of the nature and quality of the opposition
to the NLMs but this is done more in sympathy though correctly blaming the
former’s weakness on the latter’s repressive or even hegemonic tendencies.
And this is the key departure point for the explanation of
the decline of the NLMs.
It is a succinct argument concerning the decline in
their hegemonic character and how it is increasingly merely the politicization of
the masses without the social and economic transformation. The NLMs have moved from Marxist to socialist through to Leninist National Democratic Revolution (NDR) rhetoric as cover for their evident continued
embrace of neo-liberal socio-economic policies and political elite ‘primitive
accumulation’.
Even in Zimbabwe’s case, as the author writes, where there
have been claims of success with the land reform programme, the corporatist and
neo-imperial nature of the state’s interaction with Chinese capital remains in tandem
with a continued departure from the initial aspirations of liberation
struggles.
The rhetoric of indigenization and economic empowerment, to the author,
is of limited import without the requisite skills, technology or foreign direct investment for implementation. All of which, in similar fashion to the immediate post independence periods, are not readily available in all of the three countries. What appears to be more readily available is an increasing culture of elite cronyism and corruption around the redistribution of resources that are indigenised.
In the final analysis, Southall offers a way out, but not
necessarily for the NLMs. He does so broadly, but again with sympathy to those
forces he may consider more democratic. He advises that the model of the democratic
developmental state that is currently being utilized by the ANC is corporatist
and flawed. Simultaneously he also argues that the social democratic model is
not suitable given its apparent embed status with neo-liberalism in Europe.
What might be
better, according to Southall, is a social democratic developmental state. With
all its attendant risks. Whatever model is utilized what is evident for the
author is that NLMs are however in hegemonic decline, specifically as
liberation struggle value driven popular organizations.
*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity
(takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)
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