On January 8 2012, President Jacob Zuma, addressing thousands of supporters during the ruling African National Congress (ANC)’s centenary celebrations in Bloemfontein, South Africa, observed that 18 years into democracy the party and the country, had to face up to the “triple challenge” of unemployment, poverty and inequality.
South Africa is Africa’s largest economy by size, diversity and sophistication and yet the process of building an inclusive, united, democratic, non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous nation is proving elusive and more complex than anticipated. The triangle of poverty, unemployment and inequality that characterises post-colonial Africa will not be eradicated simply by wishing it away or through slogans.
This article attempts to locate poverty as one of the challenges facing post-colonial Africa in a broader context of the squandered opportunities and the propensity to point fingers at others for the failure to deliver the promise of a better life to the majority.
The poor are after all human, but all too often we look at poverty as an end in itself. Do the poor have choices? If so, why then do we expect the State, through its agents, to be responsible for eliminating poverty? Does the State exist or more specifically does the society exist?
The challenge of eradicating poverty is often compromised by the kind of choices that have been and continue to be made in the mistaken belief that making such choices advances the interests of society and the poor whose voice and aspirations are recklessly borrowed under the guise of policies and programmes designed to promote the interests of building cohesive and inclusive societies.
What should be the responsibility of the State and its agents? One can legitimately argue that the missing conversations have a lot to do with the condition of Africa than the alleged conspiracies of non-Africans.
What is striking is that, for example, South Africa, with a population of about 50 million, has entrusted its future to a party with about one million card- carrying ANC members.
Although the membership of political organisations is open, in reality people take comfort in refusing to be part of conversations from which policy options normally emerge.
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The ability of one million individuals to correctly capture the aspirations and dreams of 50 million people has its own limitations and yet often we expect miracles from the few who invariably end up assuming that they have a better claim on wisdom simply through incumbency and longevity in office.
The situation is no different in many other post-colonial African states where apathy and lack of citizen participation in civil activities is evident. Voices of the poor rarely find authentic expression as people who depend on the ignorance and lack of their participation often make rewarding political and bureaucratic careers out of speaking for and on behalf of the poor.
Even the poor want the freedom to make choices and history has shown that such freedom cannot be a consequence of choices of other people.
By surrendering voluntarily sovereignty to representatives in the State through lack of participation, ultimately the people from whom the power of the State is borrowed have to bear the responsibility for the enduring poverty that characterises many African states even after raising the independence flag.
The poor do not need ambassadors’ rather what they need is the certainty of law, freedom to make their own choices, transparency and consistency. The powerful often assume that they have a better claim on knowledge and wisdom to the extent that they justify assuming a custodial role in relation to the powerless.
The South African conundrum will not be cured by propaganda or state engineered solutions. As former British Prime Minister Thatcher observed, there is no such thing as society — only individuals and families exist. It may be argued that indeed Thatcher got it wrong for no individual can exist in a social vacuum.
What is required to create a society or even a conversation are two people. Two individuals, when their minds are at one, can produce extraordinary outcomes. However, an individual is the basic building block of any society and it is the rights and obligations of the individual that we must be first concerned about.
When the society or state assumes the role of a super human being, then one must know that poverty lies ahead for the majority. A society that celebrates the collective more than the individual from whose effort and choices the flag of the society is raised, will not deliver the promise of a better life for all.
The intersection between the state and society is as important as the intersection between the individual and society. Unity in diversity necessarily compels us to appreciate that poverty will not be eradicated by weakening the economically strong.
As we look back, we will find a vacuum in our conversations about what matters. The names of people who have played real and substantive roles in transforming the way we live, play and eat as Africans are often missing in our daily conversations.
We need to build a new knowledge base from which poor people can draw inspiration. In many post-colonial African states the tendency to pull others down is prevalent not because Africans in general mean evil, but because we allow the few evil people to define the character of our societies and nations. Such individuals often are oblivious of the fact that their rights and obligations to society need not be superior to others rather each and every individual has rights and obligations.
To the extent that the state does not exist in a vacuum, salvation for Africa must lie in the actions of the individuals. We need to locate individual actions in the context of what matters to the whole and we must accept that individuals often find themselves victims of the state and its actors.
After 18 years of democracy, the state of the economy in 2012 cannot be solely blamed on the apartheid/colonial state rather what is required are new conversations on what needs to happen so that the promise is delivered. The circumstances in other post-colonial Africans states are different, but the triple challenges remain valid notwithstanding the age of the democratic state to suggest that choices made in the name of poverty reduction could have been misdirected and counterproductive.
The limited opportunities that Africa offers have been exploited successfully by non-Africans even under the watch of African leadership. The political rhetoric in post-colonial Africa sounds the same as if it emanates from a common mouth, but the real causes of poverty have to be also located outside the four corners of the state and worldview of state actors.
Beneficiaries of the colonial state had interests and did assert their interests to the extent that the state and its actors operated in a service delivery mode. What is striking is that the post-colonial dispensation has produced a dependency syndrome that will be difficult to cure until state actors are brought to the realisation that the contract upon which the state is founded is premised on respecting all the role players in the value chain of nation building.
The state alone will not produce the outcomes that reduce the frontiers of poverty. Human civilization and development has produced far too many examples of why the state and its actors cannot be relied upon to make the kind of choices that deliver the promise.
What kind of model then is required to ensure that all voices find expression on what matters? This is the conversation that we must begin to engage in. Such conversation must be underpinned by an investment in knowledge on the different faces that play their part often silently in delivering the products and solutions that keep Africa going.
Who are these individuals who drive the transformation agenda but remain faceless and nameless in national discourses? Recognising that the names are in our minds, members of Africa Heritage Society www.africa-heritage.com have created a portal that seeks to build an inventory of the people who have contributed to changing the game in Africa.
More information can be obtained on www.bankingonafrica.com and I believe that it is self evident that those who have migrated from poverty must tell their stories so that others can be inspired to follow.
The pollution of the conversations by the national and political questions has its own unintended consequences on poverty reduction.
Mutumwa Mawere is a businessman based in South Africa. He writes in his personal capacity.
