Wednesday, July 04, 2012

Finding the handle on "things"

Well, "things" have indeed changed in Malawi since the demise of the last President, which paved the way for what promised to be a "new" kind of leadership. I personally followed events attentively to see if there was indeed a tangible hope amidst the emotional expectation that had beguiled our small nation. I am certainly a newcomer and, in many respects, an infant to this field of Malawian politics. I do not know many of the heroes that laid their very lives down for the sake of the promise that Malawi represented right away from colonial period and then the Kamuzu Banda dictatorship.

However, since the onset of our democracy, we have witnessed a kind of politics that instrumentalizes democracy rather than one that consists within it as an ideology. The way I see it, our democracy means oppressive legitimation, and the reading of the constitutional order that contracts all state functions within Malawi clearly shows how it is that totalitarian kinds of politics intend to use democracy as a pacifier of the people for short changing them and getting them to accept a less than palatable condition. This is indeed where politics, and not necessarily politicians, is supremely crafty in Malawi. Many citizens, if not most, will tell you that some"thing", one or another, or even a set of "things", make it impossible for us to even think of an ideal, and therefore, our democracy does the best it can within the state of "things". This is not to imply that fingers are not raised and pointed at wrongerdoers and saboteurs of our valued democracy. Rather, wrongdoers are merely greedy opportunities in a less than able system of politics. Illustrative of this point is the fact that democracy as it is provided for in the national constitution is well articulated and implemented in the Office of the President, and where the President's rights are invoked or threatened, eloquent men and women of the political parties to which the President belongs, have been quick to articulate precisely what it is that the president is entitled to under the prevailing constitutional arrangement. The provisions granted to the President's Office are very clear and well-elaborated within the practise of Malawian politics. They are however less defined in the practise of politics in the Judiciary and the National Assembly. They are even more remotely defined where they touch on the liberties and freedoms of the citizenry.

The powers of the president are very extensive, and are quite blatant especially in their defiance of our constitutional democracy. But recall - and as already implied above - that these powers are wrapped into a "benevolence and goodwill". The president wants good "things" for Malawi but is hampered by those who are sabotuers and ill-wishers, so the rhetoric goes. Malawian politics has craftily aligned and conflated these extensive powers and their abuses in an appealing morality that very ably paints an unknown villain in the mind of the collective even though that villain remains without a face - the villain is expressed in the crippled state of Malawian politics. The arrogance of the executive is therefore appaling but at the same time expected because in this one institution are housed the very best intentions that require just a little more power to make "things" right. The President must become more power to override the self-inflicting and crippling politics. If Malawi were a wealthier nation, the ideology would sell like the hot-cakes of fascism in Europe and  Consumerism in North America. The problem however is the hunger in the belly. Very soon, the circumstances confronting the people on the streets become the loudest critique against the political rhetoric embodied in the personage of the president and his political party. I think here is where we begin to see how it is that the circle-effect continues to hit Malawi. We seem to have a fetish for dictatorships. Some argue that the problem is only systemic, and an appraisal and re-visiting of the arrangement of government, through a constitutional review, could fix many of the problems. I would not entirely disagree with that observation except that the "accents" of constitutionalism are not carried along across time in a "silent, apolitical and apathetical" wording of law, but in the cultural manifestation of the actual practise of politics which also constitute the reading of that law. For illustrations, Bingu wa Mutharika was criticized and praised simultaneously for his arrogance between 2009 and when he died. The problem people had with him was not merely the experience of his deviance, but more especially the object to which is was being deviant to. The principle was not in "whether it was right or wrong for the president to speak to citizens in a particular tone" but what it was he was speaking about or against in that tone. It appears therefore that leadership is expected to maintain a tradition of expansive authority provided that the circumstances prevalent in society are conducive towards it. Humbly I concede that no single interpretation will stick, but this is how I have experienced the democratic dispensation of Malawi. As the adage goes, "the president is our father or mother." This adage epitomizes the benevolence mentioned already and the tendency to expand powers into ever increasing spheres of social and economic life.

In view of the above, perhaps the answer therefore lies not in a new president with a new idea. Sadly (*sarcastically), Malawi has on its memory the promise of a democracy - however it may be defined - and with it, any leadership model that is deterministic will ultimately fail. A fast-tracked development agenda is very likely to be supported by its beneficiaries and objected to by its victims, and the institution of the Courts will continue to grant citizens relief from encrouching executive decisions. I use the Courts here only as a metaphor to express how it is that the arrogance and defiance of a leader is at once expected and yet opposed. The system is therefore only potentially democratic even though its checks and balances (*metaphor again), as Americans like to call them, would be the very "things" that would cripple a heavily top-down/Father-Figure approach. The system would create quagmires, and ultimately lead up to public discontent with the person of the president, which would subsequently be followed by a "Malawi Spring" similar to July 20th, 2011. However, if we can begin to place the decision-making process directly in the hands of the people with the government's technical support, perhaps we will not need to very keenly develop a precise development agenda rooted in a father/mother-figure, rather than one that emanates from discursive processes that become legitimated by popular participation. This allows for a further articulation of constitutionalism in practice in other arms of government as well, like the National Assembly. And perhaps the stakes would be lower in the office of the president for both the president and the Malawian people. With that, maybe presidential overtures - the figure/mother-figure tendencies - would become less necessary. For now, I will leave it there. I did promise an article on how Malawi can go on to develop a model of development that is people-embedded. I do have the general sketches of that proposal in my mind, and some of it is mentioned above but I am not yet able to precisely articulate it until I have a firm handle on "things".

Lets hope these "things" all work out in the end.