2 July 2011
opinion
Nairobi — General George Athor is a strange man. For many years he was a valiant soldier for the liberation of South Sudan.
A legendary organiser, he fought his way into the hearts of many as the south freed itself from northern Arab domination, and rose through the ranks to become a key leader of SPLA. Yet, as South Sudan rolls out the carpet to celebrate the hard-earned freedom, Athor will not be on the podium with President Salva Kir Mayardit.
He will be busy organising armed sabotage to the southern state with significant assistance from his erstwhile enemies in Khartoum, or waxing eloquent about the betrayal of the struggle by those declaring independence; as he has been doing over the past week.
And what has so radically transformed this bosom friend of SPLA? He ran for governor of his home state of Jonglei in elections held last year and lost.
George Athor represents a streak of thought and practice that has often emerged in transitional Africa with painful consequences.
Men who have made important contributions to liberation struggles often get so consumed by self-importance and a sense of entitlement that their failure to accede to power is presented as the total failure of the entire struggle. Such men have been thrown up by virtually every country that went through prolonged liberation struggles.
In newly liberated societies, institutions of governance are very weak. The heroism of the struggle remains a key legitimising factor for rulers.
Falling heroes
This makes governments vulnerable to the confusion spread by the falling heroes who did not get their assumed entitlement.
The consequences are widely visible from Congo to Angola; Mozambique to Zimbabwe; and now in Africa’s newest state.
Of course cases of power through liberation struggles are becoming fewer these days.
The more common variety of disaffected leaders will be found in the ranks of those who have championed democratic renewals but lost out in the power competitions made possible by their sacrifices.
They are outwitted by the children of the ancient regime who re-invent history to claim the high table of national renewal.
In the view of these sidelined heroes, the new regimes cannot do anything right as they do not know what the second liberation was all about. Everything must therefore confirm that things are not changing or are even getting worse.
To a large sense, these voices of disapproval help keep complacency at bay.
They retain public focus on the unfulfilled expectation. They fuel a momentum for perpetual change.
But, at another level, inability to discern what is positive breeds cynicism and an unhealthy attitude towards meaningful progress.
When every glass is seen as half empty, a public perception that politics is only about unfulfilled promise gains ground.
All good news is stifled because it does not pass muster. What is talked about is that which proves that things are going down the drain.Most failed state
In the past week, two international statistics were pronounced about Kenya.
The country was named as the third highest recipient of direct foreign investment flows in the whole of Africa in 2010 coming behind only South Africa and Nigeria.
In the second pronouncement, Kenya was declared by some research group as the 16th most failed state in the world, trailing such places as Burundi and Liberia.
Much media play and informal talk has been in the vein of “I told you, these people have failed us”. Every critique now brandishes the claim about “failed state” to prove their scepticism about the government.
Not one debate has raised questions about the scientific method of assigning failure.
How a failed state can have the most efficient tax collection in Africa, or more immediately, how foreign direct investment can flood a failed state are inconveniences that are cast out of the window.
It is true that the struggle for Kenya’s renewal remains unfulfilled.
Momentum has substantially dissipated as the forces of continuity ascend over the agents of change. Yet to discern what challenges remain before us requires that we take stock of what we have achieved.
A blind condemnation of all that has happened over the recent past may give naive comfort for those seeing sour grapes, but does neither the land nor its people justice for what they have attained. Loose talk like “things were better under Moi” or “we are a failed state” is the bunter of modern-day George Athors.
Dr Mukhisa Kituyi is a director of the Kenya Institute of Governance and currently a visiting fellow of The Brookings Institution in Washington DC.
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