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274 The betrayal of liberation On the limits to emancipation under post-liberation governments in Southern African post-settler societies Henning Melber INTRODUCTION ‘Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.’ – Lord Acton ‘We can easily become like that which we oppose or hate most.’ – Desmond Tutu This chapter explores some aspects of the narrow translation of a liberation movement – an agency of transformation – into an exclusivist apparatus claiming to represent the interest of all people and a total monopoly in advocating the public interest. It thereby tries to explain to some extent the dominant party syndrome under Southern African liberation movements, which have been in power since Independence.15 Sobering postcolonial realities have not met the expectations of those who considered the fight against colonialism as a fight for the implementation of positive values and norms linked to enhanced socioeconomic equality, civil and human rights, democracy and other individual freedoms (Saul 2010a). Instead, the postcolonial reality reflects the contradictions and challenges of revolutionary optimism turned into the self-righteous entitlement culture of a new elite. A ‘predatory elite’, as the former trade union leader and member of South Africa’s Cabinet Jay Naidoo qualifies it for his own country from his current perspective (Barron 2010). As the introductory quotes suggest, the critical approach to the issue under consideration draws on a variety of perspectives and perceptions. What they have in common is that they seek to come to terms with the (ab)use of political power under related conditions and historical contexts. This chapter is presenting evidence to the authoritarian political tendencies in post-settler societies in Southern Africa. It paints a picture using different colours, though inspired by the disappointment over the ‘pitfalls of national consciousness’ already bemoaned by Frantz Fanon (2001) in a chapter of his manifesto more than half a century ago. It is the critique of political power applied in pursuance of elitist projects while cloaked in populist dresses. But we should not be misled: these are the emperor’s new clothes. CHAPTER 15 275 THE BETRAYAL OF LIBERATION Like Fanon, some far-sighted scholars and writers on the continent had seen this coming. Among them is Arturo Carlos Maurício Pestana. He published the notes he collected in 1971 during his participation in the guerrilla war of the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) in the rainforest (the mayombe) of the Cabinda front under his nom de guerre as a groundbreaking novel. It offers a remarkable degree of sensitivity and insight into the complexity and limits of social transformation subsequent to a situation of armed resistance against foreign occupation under colonial rule. In a revealing dialogue , the commander of the guerrilla unit ‘Fearless’ explains to the political commissar ‘New World’, for whom he ultimately sacrifices his life in battle: We don’t share the same ideals. (…) You are the machine type, one of those who are going to set up the unique, all-powerful Party in Angola. I am the type who could never belong to the machine. […] One day, in Angola, there will no longer be any need for rigid machines, and that is my aim. […] what I want you to understand, is that the revolution we are making is half the revolution I want. But it is the possible. I know my limits and the country’s limits. My role is to contribute to this half-revolution. […] I am, in your terminology, adventurist. I should like the discipline of war to be established in terms of man and not the political objective. My guerrillas are not a group of men deployed to destroy the enemy, but a gathering of different, individual beings, each with his subjective reasons to struggle and who, moreover, behave as such. […] I am happy when I see a young man decide to build himself a personality, even if politically that signifies individualism. (…) I cannot manipulate men, I respect them too much as individuals. For that reason, I cannot belong to a machine (Pepetela 1996: 197–198). As we know today, this conversation is more than fiction. It sensibly describes the authoritarian culture emerging and its socio-political constraints for individual emancipation within Southern African societies infected by a history and legacy of armed resistance against settler colonialism. This remained not unnoticed also among a few far-sighted activists within the academic sphere. Helliker (2010: 137) reminds us that the Durban based social scientist Rick Turner, who was assassinated by the killers of the Apartheid-regime...

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