African Politics

A month and a week ago I posted an essay on the resignation of Madagascar's then-Minister of Defence, Cecile Manorohanta. The lady (a hero in my book) resigned because she could not continue to serve a government that deployed soldiers to shoot civilian protestors. As Minister of Defence, she felt the burden of responsibility for the shooting, though then-President, Marc Ravalomanana, must have over-ridden her objections in cabinet.

Well, it is five weeks later, and the army has turned against Marc Ravalomanana, ending his presidence. As I type this, it is uncertain if power will be handed over to Ravalomanana's main civilian political opponent, Andriy Rajoelina the erstwhile Mayor of Madagascar, or if power will go to a consortium of generals (with ex-President Didier Ratsiraka's hand guiding in the background).

But I am not really interested in who gets power in Madagascar now. In fact this post is more or less about the irrelevance of that decision.

When power changes hands between political parties or political factions anywhere in the world, the countries in question generally do not change substantially. Whether it switches back and forth between two political parties via "elections", or moves in a less orderly fashion between factions in non-democratic or semi-democratic states, the social, political and economic nature of the country generally stays the same, and its foreign policy positions and alliances do not change much either.

Once in a while there is a real break with the past. The late Deng Xiaopping masterminded one such historic break in China, changing the direction of a prior such break led by the late Mao Tse Tung. But after these rare breaks with tradition, the affected countries usually settle once more into the usual steady-state pattern of governments changing top leadership without substantial effect.

Nigeria and Africa desperately need a break-with-the-past moment that will set us on the road towards the destination we seek. But we are trapped in this endless cycle of power changing hands within an unchanged social, political and economic context. Western Europe, North America and Japan can afford to continue going back and forth like a pendulum between politicians who are exactly the same (or maybe not), but Africa cannot.

But Nigeria (and Africa) cannot get the watershed change we need from our political system, because even in our (psuedo)democracies, the "government" and "opposition" are two fingers off the same hand. For all the violence in Kenya after the vote, there is really little different between Raila Odinga and Mwai Kibaki; one might even argue that the ethnic colouration to Kenyan (and African) politics is driven by the politicians' need to create some kind of differentiation where none exists. In Somalia where everyone speaks the same language and has the same religion, they resort to clan identity. None of them can convincingly argue that he is better than his foes on any issue of actual importance, so they tell you that they speak your language and worship like you, and the other guy doesn't. And this is politics.

Even where the ethnic card is not played, change is elusive. Look again at Madagascar. Only a few years ago, Marc Ravalomanana was a firebrand Mayor of Antananarivo, leading protests against the autocracy of then-President Didier Ratsiraka. Today, just a few years later, Andriy Rajoelina is the firebrand Mayor of Antananarivo, leading protests against the autocracy of Marc Ravalomanana. I bet five years from now, the process will repeat itself.

I intend to write more about this in the future.

For now, I watch Madagascar to see what will happen next.