Can the Liberation Movements Summit inspire real change beyond political rhetoric?

Recently, the leading political party in South Africa, the African National Congress (ANC), hosted a Liberation Summit with extended invitations to other like-minded liberation movements in Southern Africa. The initiative is something to be commended.

Though strangely, the liberation movements in Southern Africa are not popular for such gatherings. It can be assumed that this jamboree is supposed to be a platform for reflective introspection and honest evaluation of each other.

The theme for the summit is thoughtfully phrased: “Defending the Liberation Gains, Advancing Integrated Socio-Economic Development, Strengthening Solidarity for a Better Africa.”

This reminds us of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), a promising initiative for governments in Africa to propagate erudition critically on governance challenges.

Desperately needed for the African continent to advance development and achieve Sustainable Development Goals targeted for 2030 is the building of effective and efficient infrastructure. The encumbrances to this development pivot around governance.

Thus, the APRM deliberately zeroes in on efficacious governance amongst African member countries.

Subsequently, the APRM was coined to be a tool for sharing experiences, reinforcing best practices, identifying deficiencies, and assessing capacity-building needs to foster policies, standards, and practices that lead to political stability, high economic growth, sustainable development, and accelerated sub-regional and continental economic integration.

Very impressive wording, signaling that the thinkers behind this initiative were acutely aware of the challenges. Sadly, not much is discernible about this enlightening and progressive initiative.

The question is: was the intention really genuine? The same question can be asked about this liberation movements summit.

However, reflective efforts must be encouraged.

I think the failure of the liberation movements in Africa was/is to delineate Africa’s Philosophy.

Through the unique African Philosophy, a compatible economic and social system could have been established.

They all opted to look West (“Capitalists”) or East (“Socialist with Communist characters”).

All liberation leaders couldn’t revive the social harmony of uBuntu as a guiding Philosophy.

Thus, communalism enhanced as an economic system driving Self-sufficiency.

The liberation movements couldn’t appreciate the impact of African culture in shaping society through African sacred spirituality.

The cultural capital in any society is the pillar of both economic and social capital.

They allowed a situation where the African cultural capital was eroded, thus African society was left with fragmented economic and social capitals.

For any success in the genuine liberation of African societies, it must be driven by a Cultural Revolution underpinned by Sacred African Spirituality.

Thus, a Self-Sufficiency Charter for the complete revival of African identity.

The failure to comprehend these dynamics forced liberation movements to enhance the invention of modernized slavery. The damages caused by the previous regimes necessitated a radical intervention to human capital.

These are societies that have been enslaved to depend on others. Societies lacking self-initiative, no wherewithal to establish enterprises for the envisioned Self-Sufficiency.

The liberation movements failed to create thinking and self-sustaining communities.

Though we must avoid uncritical adulation of the liberation leaders, where credit is due must be given.

There are faint echoes of Nyerere’s statement in Achebe’s reminder that:

“Africa’s postcolonial disposition is the result of a people who have lost the habit of ruling themselves. We have also had difficulty running the new system foisted upon us at the dawn of independence by our colonial masters.”

It is true that ignorance plays a major role in Africans being easily exploited through foreign narratives, thus their worldview gets psychologically distorted.

Ignorance and people living in poverty are the great commodity sustaining African democracy; thus, colonial puppets remain in power.

Meanwhile, on the international monetary front, these newly liberated states were seen as fertile grounds to make money through the unquestioned logic of the markets.

The logic that the market must self-regulate forced these countries into catastrophic debt burdens.

These debts are the controlling instruments dictating what these poor countries produce and do not produce. Thus, these former colonies find themselves as outlets for the outsourced manufacturing workshops located in the former colonizing countries

Today, we are dealing with wrecking tariffs from the United States. All these former colonies are not ready for this international trade shock. The former liberation movements, like the ANC, never imagined that for a country to remain stable, financial independence is indispensable.

The Self-Sufficiency desperately needed today could have been achieved by the establishment of a Sovereign Wealth Fund. This could have been achieved through the proceeds from mineral fortunes.

The ANC never envisioned a truly inclusive economy where the citizens share the wealth of the country. Instead, they opted to take up the shares for themselves in mining investments that today ridicule the whole transformation program “BEE,” which could have been achieved through the Reconstruction and Development Program initiative. Mandela coined this as the “RDP of the Soul.”

Today, we could have been discussing what needs to be done with the wealth that the citizens of this country have for future generations.

The political elite, in adding to the pain of not being able to structure an economically independent society, are profiting from the desperation of these communities.

In South Africa today, it is easier to establish a political party and sell political rhetoric than to establish a business to achieve Self-Sufficiency.

This conundrum presents an opportunity for oligarchs to easily trade policies with the elite political class that protects their profits under the shield of market rationale.

With the theme that the ANC coined for their liberation movements summit, a question on the limitations of democracy to redress previous gruesome atrocities is essential.

The evaluation of the 1994 Social Compact needs to be placed under a microscope to honestly examine its limitations.

The current system inherited from former colonizers has, without a doubt, resulted in the majority population being the cultural and economic minority.

The system requires astute systems thinkers who can critique it without fear. The majority population is only valorized during election periods.

Democracy in South Africa is practiced as a plutocracy in partnership with the political elite, and recently we have been educated that drug cartels are included in this syndicate.

This, therefore, qualifies South Africa not only as corrupt but additionally as a narco-state.

The liberation movements summit is expected to have resolved these poisonous traits:

• The cultural and economic dominance of the oppressed by the 1994 Social Compact.
• The modernization of slavery through the current international finance architecture.
• The inability to mobilize domestic capital to attain self-sufficiency.
• The limitations of democracy to redress previous inequalities.

These are a few structural challenges underpinned by the grotesque drive for individual greed.

At some point, the ANC believed in what is called trickle-down economic development policies — the assumption being the commensurate benefits will reach the poor once the super-rich are enabled by government policies.

Unfortunately, that surmise proved fallacious.

It is time for vigorous introspection of the relationship between unregulated wealth and poverty.

This thesis might have been explored had liberation movements’ leaders, from inception, tried to establish economic systems underpinned by African philosophy.

With no empirical evidence, there are signs that uncontrolled wealth has an adverse impact on poverty.

These are my expectations from the liberation movements summit. These expectations can be explored in a more detailed and pragmatic manner in the planned National Dialogue.

The National Dialogue must not fail to review the 1994 Social Compact. The National Dialogue must vigorously engage on how South Africa can be a nation.

South Africa currently is not a nation as it lacks core values. South Africa has a Constitution, which is an offspring of the 1994 Social Compact that created institutions.

These institutions are established at the exclusion of the majority population of the country; thus, the majority become cultural and economic minorities.

As already indicated, the cultural revival of the majority must be central in establishing institutions.

All that being considered, lessons can be extracted from the APRM that aimed to sophisticate governance.

Alas, institutional governance in South Africa is becoming a syndicate joint-criminal enterprise of the chosen ostensibly elected and their foreign partners, with clandestine links to drug cartels.

The liberation movements summit can be the fountain of wisdom for the National Dialogue.

Contradictorily, the National Dialogue composition is questionable. To redress the challenges of cultural revival and economic inclusion, there is a need to reconsider the composition of that National Dialogue.

Otherwise, it will remain a public relations exercise forced through to society to accept the ruling of oligarchs, political elites, and drug cartels.

This situation is not sustainable; it can never be sustainable.

We hope for sanity to prevail. South Africans’ indefatigability has been tested enough.