Governance and Aid in Malawi: A Minor Comment

So, Madam Joyce Banda inherits a government on the brink of financial ruin, and a nation equally burdened by regressive politics and economics. Donor confidence is virtually non-existent, and in short, the Malawi economy is bone-dry given that government spending as a driver of growth stalls, while heavy taxes on businesses and consumers alike further hamper investment and consumption spending, respectively. Politics has by this time inflitrated into virtually all spending outlets of the government from the ministries to parastals, all the way down to districts. Tenders are awarded based on political alignments, and yet, even within that premitive model of politics, there is simply not enough juice to cater for all party functionaries. The society becomes fragmented and polarized. Political rhetoric from the then ruling party employs messages loaded with threatening language to deter opponents, and in some instances, the state security forces "act-out" the content of those messages. However, violence is not a private good, but a public one - no one has monopoly over the use of violence. Society follows suite as the resolution of desputes is decided on the streets. In my view, all the crises carrying on in the country are really the result of "bad" governance that had especially managed to choke at the livelihood of Malawi's people. As I have argued before, the Malawian public does not necessarily oppose unconstitutional governance. It really opposes, on the one hand, good governance that negatively affects livelihoods, and on the other, bad governance that also affects negatively livelihoods, even though the potential for political action is skewed towards urban citizens. A case in point is Bingu wa Mutharika's first term. It was not necessarily one that adhered to the precepts of democracy as enshrined in our Constitution. Rather, it was a term in which the ends justified the means. As long as the politics didnt tamper with livelihoods, the unconstitutional governance was "fine".

 

Enters Madam Joyce at a time when it was clear that Malawi was paying for the sin of deporting the Ambassador to Malawi from the United Kingdom. The suffering emanated from an acute shortage of foreign exchange which rendered the country unable to purchase production inputs, petroleum products, drugs, and other necessities. The shortage of forex itself emanated from the freezing of UK aid by the British government, and the subsequent aid freeze from other bilateral partners such as Germany and the United States. And aid freeze itself emanated from "bad" governance. That was the argument. Bad governance had put Malawi into this position. But this was only for arguments sake, because recall, bad governance is only that kind of governance that threatens the livelihood of Malawi's people, and not necessarily that governance that violated Constitutional order. But hey, the Civil Society and the Opposition had to work with something. The bad governance argument perfectly linked donor aid freeze to Malawi's crisis as a result of the prevailing mode of governance. Well and good. Joyce Banda comes in, quickly undoes the various policy positions that indicated bad governance. She reversed certain laws, indicated her intentions to reverse yet other more controversial ones, opened up space on the public broadcaster to opponents, opened up the airwaves to more radio and television stations, and frequently engaged with the media and civil society. The aid taps - due to her magic wand politics - burst open, and Malawi's liquidity crunch begins to ease. Despite the immediate pains of some of her "reforms", citizens still patiently rally behind her, fingers crossed, banking on the flowing liquidity. Hope is percieved in the future, and she instantly obtains the mantle of a good and prudent "governor" all under one hundred days.

 

Now enters a "new" kind of problem. "New" because Bingu, her predecessor, was so beguiled and embroiled by it, that when he (and I give him the benefit of the doubt when I say this) finally saw it for what it was. He tried to step back and re-assert himself as the president of Malawi, and not the president to Malawi commissioned by the donating world. What do I mean? During his first term, and the first ten months of his second term, Bingu was the world's darling. He flew everywhere collecting awards and accolades for wearing the best gentleman's shoes (*sarcasm) to being a champion for Africa's food security. Meanwhile, amidst all his efforts, he was focusing on the wrong audience. He mistakenly assumed that our aid masters (donors) and his actual masters (Malawians) could be seated in front of the same stage, and made to enjoy his same performance. He forgot a defining distinction between the two and that was, donors were not the recipients of his estranged policies. Malawians were. Put simply (*yeah I keep saying that...lol) governance and aid are not the same thing despite the ways in which their respective discourses are inextricably intertwined with and within each other. And now slowly, I see Madam Joyce slipping into the same old "new" problem. She assumes that donor confidence and support is indicative of Malawian confidence and support even though those donors sit in London, Berlin and New York while most Malawians languish under the bare sky, night and day, in poor shelter, going to poor schools and hospitals, wondering about where their next meal will come from. But the question now is why? Why does this old problem remain "new"?

 

Well, the answer is somewhere within the political-historical narrative of Malawi. That is, we all "know" that Kamuzu's decline emanated from donor aid freeze. We "know" that Muluzi's political demise emanated from donor aid freeze. And we know Bingu's administration - saved by his death - was most likely heading towards a catastrophic political implosion due to donor aid freeze. And therefore, if you want to stay in power, by all means, keep the donor aid flowing because - in the politicians opportunistic mind - there is a mystical relationship between staying in power and presiding over social tranquility, and donor aid inflows. The magic wand to keep the aid taps open - again according to that same opportunistic thinking - is somewhere in those words called "good" governance. Good governance keeps the money flowing, and keeps the political agenda to retain power going. This is why I earlier stated that when Bingu - and I gave him the benefit of the doubt - realized the fallacy of such leadership. He immediately turned on the donors and attempted to whin back Malawi's support. The missing piece however was that the economic crisis had been felt too deep in the gut and belly of every Malawian for anybody to listen to him. He found himself locked up in a "bad" governance corner. He had lost both the international audience and the Malawian audience. He was on stage facing an empty auditorium.

 

My comment is not to despute the relationship between the two conditions of aid and governance. My point is to expose it so that our politicians and leaders can appreciate the double-edged nature of that style of leadership. The aspirations of Malawians may not always align perfectly with donor requirements. Frequently, aid comes with it the requirement to implement projects that dont always bode well with nationals. However, the liquidity that accompanies aid pacifies those resistances for the meantime. However, when you proliferate development programmes as a result of increased volumes of aid, and hope to sustain political viability via the liquidity condition of aid, you quickly realize that you plant, with that aid, the very real potential for violent opposition when the liquidity condition is stalled. Here is where donor power sits. In which case, the politician is his or her own biggest enemy in the long run. I do not yet know the immediate political solution to this problem. However, in the long run, it is clear that political stability can be better maintained when the principle sources of government revenue originate from within the state than from without. Bingu attempted to do this upon realizing the fallacy of donor-tune-led politics. However, because of the extreme liquidity crunch in Malawi, he had nothing politically viable to pacify an already agitated people - people he himself had alienated from himself when he danced to the tune of the world while he ignored the realities of his own country. Secondly, political stability is more certain in environments in which sovereignty is exercised directly by the legitimate arms of our democratic government. For president Joyce Banda, it would assist her a great deal to turn away from the international commitments and focus more on the audience that ultimately decides her fate - the Malawian people. If she can successfully identify herself with them, then she will find herself better able to sell her reformist message, and minimize rhetorical polarizations, and ultimately find strong support even in times when the her governance might be considered "bad" or hard on the belly. I believe therein lies a sustainable form of good governance. And man! it sounds so familiar. In fact, it sounds like "constitutional governance" doesnt it?

Therefore, ironically, political leadership in Malawi has more to lose from being undemocratic than being democratic. Democracy enhances citizen-sovereignty, connects leadership more realistically with the citizenry via institutions, and disperses responsibilities more broadly and away from them being concentrated on the person of the president. Furthermore, it sustains the much needed inflows for the aching bellies in our country. And in the long run, places our country on a sustainable path towards self-sufficiency, a further condition for political stability. But hey, thats about it on Governance and Aid in Malawi as I presently see it. Our political leadership need not dance to the tune of external actors more than they need to commit themselves to the just and moral implementation of our Supreme Law - The Constitution of the Republic of Malawi. Hmmmm... Just a thought.

 

 

 

Social Objects and their "Handles"

Developing a science that measures, quantifies, illustrates relationships between various objects or phenomena, or seeks to find "natural" laws that underpin the order of the social has been the quest of many brilliant scholars. Fascinating arguments have been put on the table, luring much interest only to be found wanting and discarded for newer ones. Authors battled intensely within epistemologies pertaining to social "objects". Some constructed huge, overarching theorizations about how the social world operated (eg structuralists), while others focused on how the "micro" elements in specific settings generated meanings, and went on to characterize the fluid, creative aspect of social life (eg Phenomenologists, Ethnomethodologists, and Social Constructionists). Yet others attempted to bridge the gap between the seemingly stable forms that the "social world" maintained overtime with the human subject who is seemingly able to make choices, to reflect upon his/her actions, and therefore play a creative role in the social realm (eg Structurationists). Social theory, in its present state, is characterized by mammoth efforts to reconcile its various positions to each other. Some of us may have heard of terms such as postmodernism, antimodernism, modernism, post-structuralism, discursivity, reflexivity, reflexive culture, discourse and power, and other terms. The positions advance extremely difficult arguments as scholars attempt to arrive at some "form" of theory that could permit us to account for the seemingly amorpheous form that (post)modern society has taken. In its present form, social theory is at once reorganizing itself, reflecting upon its own adherents, and the society it seeks to examine. The process is extremely dense with sometimes very obscure or hard-to-understand reasoning.

 

The reason for coming forward with such an introduction is so that we can begin to appreciate the severe complexity that presides over any kind of social analysis or commentary. Furthermore, the world cannot be sold these philosophical dilemmas. There is a need for the academy to continue to provide answers, or where such answers are not immediately available, to illustrate possible ventures for interim remedies.

 

Blogging about Malawi stems from a deep passion I have for that country. The reasons for such passion could be merely as self-centred as simply wanting my country to do better than other countries. Or perhaps a sense of gratitude for being so lucky as to not to have been born on the wrong side of the socio-economic divide. By this I mean, if my parents had not been who they were, I most likely would not have been who I am. Such an act of fate reminds me that there is nothing special about me except for the fact that I was merely born in a household that could provide for my needs better than over 85% of other households in a country crippled by great suffering and poverty. That second realization forces me to be humble about my achievements, and most importantly to be more concerned - pragmatically - for the wellbeing of so many others whose only "sin" was to be born in poverty. As such, in my attempts to be pragmatic, I must force myself to think in ways that could usher in a better society, and some of those thoughts are what I have written about in my previous entries on this blog.

 

That being said, even with the very little I presently know, I am aware that the library of social theory from which I draw from in order to develop my own thinking is rife with so many problems, some of which I have very generally highlighted above. As such, my going forward is characterized by caution. A caution that accords due respect to the many unresolved and contesting positions within the domain of the social sciences, and subsequently, the uncertainty that becomes inherent within any argument and/or proposition as a result of those prevailing debates. In developing my commentary, I have attempted to take hold of social "objects" that are immediately apparent to my reader who probably has had some experience or has heard about this small country of mine that I so passionately talk about. These "holds" or "handles" so far have been the organization of the Malawi State, democracy, civil society, law and legislature, institutions (including texts such as the Constitution), the citizenry or public, and other "objects" that perform some function economically, politically or socially within the Malawi State. The reason for deciding to take such an approach in my commentary is to achieve a certain level of pragmatism or practically, thereby loading my blogs with political potential. The downside is that there might be an over-simplification of the greatly troubled waters that characterize social theory. But great minds such as J. Habermus, P. Bourdieu, J. Darrida and even M. Foucault, despite being competent social philosophers and epistemologists in their own rights, have had to surrender some of that raw, potent theorization for some down-to-earth political thinking in order to facilitate change. After all, the quest is to change society and not to merely think about it.

 

The society in Malawi is extremely politicized. And we have, in recent years, seen the emergence of powerful political actors within the public sphere. We have seen civil society hold a president underseige. We have seen how the public defied state security forces with firearms only to obey the paper power a High Court order "enforcing" an injunction or interdiction (which also speaks to legitimation between the public and various state institutions). We have seen the rise of powerful trade unions. And we have seen a citizen - who for a long time was considered illiterate and dum - demonstrate a firm grasp of what a democracy ought to be and subsequently mobilize himself or herself to demand their rights. The question then becomes, "how do we take stock of all these political elements with a view to develop a model for our country going forward?" This is what is at the heart of my commentary. For now, I believe that the answer resides not in a specific course of action. I believe the answer resides in a State system deliberately designed to function based on the continuous consent of its people. In so doing, we are all permitted to contribute to our development or downfall together. This position prevents my argument from falling into the trap of determinism, where my way becomes unintentionally portrayed as the only way. Furthermore, it is only through the installation of such an open society that my views can be heard and embraced, or even rejected. An open society permits me to be politically active as well even as a young, aspiring scholar. In short, these are some of the underpinning assumptions that govern the arguments I propose and the solutions I suggest when I engage on an expedition in this " Odyssey of Consciousness". And as it is a journey, they will evolve in the light of new learning and new evidence.

A Commentary on Political Rhetoric (2)

Political Rhetoric and Citizen Dependency: The Case of  the "Freedom Fighter" Ideology

By the time I was born, in the mid 1980's (seems like a long time ago now especially when you meet people who were born in 1996), Malawi had already been independent as a sovereign nation since the 1960s, some 20 years before I happened. Nonetheless, it was not uncommon to hear people talk about the Malawi Congress Party (the then ruling party) in close conjunction with anti-colonial sentiment. President Hastings Banda, the then ruler of Malawi, was said to have single-handedly freed Malawi from Colonial rule (which is untrue because we do know of the role played by the National African Congress before Banda was called from Ghana to take up the role of Prime Minister). Essentially, we were all indebted to Banda, and he was therefore the legitimate leader of Malawi. He had earned it. Seems like a far-fetched idea now.

In South Africa, a second and arguably more meaningful independence was finalized in 1994 when the new and progressive Constitution was ratified. The new document stipulated the end of all forms of segregation starting from race, to ethnicity, to gender and to politics. The promise of a new South Africa was particularly embodied by the iconic, larger than life moral figure of Nelson Mandela who became the first Black President of democratic South Africa. Everything seemed right for true transformation.

18 years later, notable progress has been achieved on several frontiers. The State has undertaken to roll back the massive disparities in social amenities, achieving giant strides in electrification projects, transportation infrastructure programmes, sanitation and potable water projects, the normalization and regularization of health and education disparities, housing expansion, and so on. However, the message embedded in the freedom struggle remains strong. That message is extremely rich in the history of South Africa as it brings back the memories of all that was incurred in order to bring about the free nation that South Africa is today. Furthermore, it is extremely useful for reconciling the numerous social groups back to each other as it preaches messages of togetherness and oneness - helping identify with one another on the basis of a common painful history. It is a vital tool for unity. However, politics is a game of gaining mileage over competitors, and what promises to resonate powerfully with the people will be pushed, sometimes, to the extreme in order to maintain or escalate a percieved political advantage.

The institutional order of the South African State resembles a Federation. There is a national government which seats in Pretoria and is responsible for bringing legislation through the National Parliament, developing broad national policies, and intervening in inter-provincial matters. Then there are nine provincial governments with premiers. They look into developing provincial policies especially aligned to meet provincial needs, pass provincial legislation through provincial parliaments, and oversee service delivery within provinces. They are, however, subject to laws passed at the national assembly level and bound by the Republic's Constitution. Beneath them are local governments which consist of municipalities whose objectives are, amongst other things, to provide democratic and accountable government for local communities, to ensure the provision of services to communities and to promote social and economic development. The government of South Africa is therefore reasonably decentralized, and on paper, it should be relatively straightforward in so far as figuring out how and where things are going array when they do go array. This is, however, rarely the case.

In returning to the issue under discussion, political rhetoric becomes a very powerful tool, in my opinion, for turning public attention from issues that should be looked into towards, on occasion, a seemingly  abstract enemy. It is crucial to point out that government systems and their consequences do not disappear immediately after a change in political power. Especially when you are looking at around a half a century (1948 - 1994) of oppressionist rule preceeded by close to three centuries of colonial rule, as is the case with South Africa. However, even when "backwardness" or a lack of progress is to be accounted for by a presently serving political regime, political rhetoric embedded in a deeply sensitive and sentimental subject as Apartheid and to a lesser extent colonialism can conceal the present regimes own shortfalls and defer the blame onto an enemy who is at that time not physically tangible but, call it, metaphysically vivid. However, as a consequence, there is a dampening of the individual's and community's ability to confront challenges in a progressive and creative manner thereby creating an attitude that is in stark contrast to the attitude that was prevalent and synonymous with South African citizens prior and leading up to the overthrow of Apartheid. Political rhetoric becomes a tool of creating a dependency even though the intended result might be to innocently gain political mileage, however way you may attempt to extricate those two conditions from each other.

In Malawi, similar rhetoric exists. For instance, the donor-dependency rhetoric. The subsidy rhetoric. The political sabotage rhetoric and so on. At the end of the day, a rhetorical sentiment generated by a dominant political party or outfit achieves its end in developing a dependency between those it wishes to cajole and itself. And this in spite of a clearly laid out structure of government that permits citizens to track and bring to account most malpractises in various offices. It is important to note also that these problems become more compounded when they are considered within a party government structure. That is, a system of government in which people vote for a party. After electoral success, the party then decides who fills what capacities in the various organs of State including the National and Provincial Assemblies. In the end, nonetheless, our gratitude is to the freedom fighter now serving within that party who will continue to preach the message of his or her victories in our past at the expense of his or her own accountability in our present, at the cost of a better society in our future. And we, the citizenry find ourselves developing a dependency, shedding our own will to develop and demand accountability, and looking up towards him or her who now serves beyond our reproach for our salvation.

Just a comment.

A Commentary on Hope, China and Wealth (1)

Preamble: Just an "Audacity" to Hope

Well, sometimes one has to take time away from blogging in order to re-examine the ideas one pushes in light of the trends manifesting within the social sphere which preoccupy one's thinking. My commentary has been one primary centred on what Malawi needs to do in order to maximize its potential for development. More specialized disciplines delimit much of such intellectual conversation to certain specific kinds of interventions. Several of my colleagues find that many of our problems manifest in the economy, others find that there is a disorder in the institutional design of Malawi including such institutions as the Republic's Constitution and so on. I concur with much of their thinking. What provokes my commentary is not necessary the question of growth, because undeniably Malawi continues to be amongst the fastest growing economies in SADC, and even in Africa. What provokes my commentary is what I consider a grave need to see an even more rapid growth (maturity) in the business is done within the social sphere generally. And that kind of growth requires a democracy concept that is deliberately designed to facilitate bargaining which should ultimately result in greater tolerance, more representative national goals, lesser political and economic inequality, better accountability from public and private officials, greater institutional integrity in government as well as it various organs, and so on. There is little doubt in my mind that Malawi will very likely cross-over into middle income status within the next 20 to 25years. That expectation might be utopian but I am more concerned with what size of the population will have been excluded or marginalized from the benefits of that economic growth. What proportion of the Malawian public will directly benefit from that growth?

China and Africa: Chinese Aid and Population Pressure

It was an interesting week of debates within the School of Social Sciences at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, here in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. Clearly, the Chinese expansion into Africa is ruffling a lot of feathers. Nowhere do you find a deeper concensus of shared concern from amongst a very heterogenous group of African nationals at the University. Beyond just the day to day tussling around how Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Zimbabwe are grossly misrepresented by the international and even African media - the word China raises shared kinds of apprehensions and anxiety amongst younger scholars particularly. The concensus seems to be that China embodies a type of "colonization" that successfully masks itself from the attention of our old and tired African presidents who seem to see Chinses involvement in Africa as something completely different from early mercantilism, subsequent colonialism, and then the rise of the American emprialism, as a global political and economic hegemonic force, from the later 1940s.

Many of my colleagues see China as a nation that has cleverly played into the embrace of our old leaders by not commenting on the politics of individual African States. China does not even raise the question about democratization. Furthermore democratization is detrimental to the expansion of China on the African continent. The simple argument being that with democracy comes the decentralization of State power, and with that comes the requirement for Chinese investors to deal with several factions of a given nation before a license for business can be finalized. Usually, such a deal will consider the broad issues that surround the sorts of investments that Chinese firms seek to exploit in Africa, and therefore having rent implications on the business venture. To put it short, dictatorships are better for the Chinese expansion because only one person decides if a deal is good or bad for himself or herself and the country at large. This decision, it is alleged, is quickly arrived at with a few cheques paid to foreign accounts held by that dictator.

I agreed totally, or shall I say, the arguments move me because images of Bingu wa Mutharika flashed vividly in my mind as a result of those comments. My addition to the debate was two-fold. Firstly, Chinese investment into Africa is inextricable from population "exportation". The exported population safeguards the Chinese investment and repatriates profits back to the home country. Furthermore, pressure on social amenities is shed away from China into the host regions of Chinese investments. As a result, Africa gives China business and carries the weight of those businesses' heavy entourages of Chinese nationals on its already limited public sectors, such as hospitals, housing, education and so on. Secondly, the nature of Chinese aid is seldom in cash. Its often in infrustractural development or, recently as seen in the American and European cases, buy-ups of bad debts (or presently bad assets). With the poor human rights record of China, infrustratural development is heavily subsidized by labor that is severelly underpaid and overworked (eg, prison labor). Buying up bad-debts or bad assets means Chinese businesses are buying up huge assets in Europe and America for a fraction of the price they were before the credit-crunch and the subsequent financial meltdown. The long term returns from these expenditures by China heavily outweigh the costs they are presently incurring. In a nutshell, Africa needs to rethink the open-door policy it has to China. Our greatest assets to the reconfiguration of relations are the very minerals and raw materials China desperatly needs to feed its rapidly growing economy. African civil society needs to realize that activism is as much about gender and the protection of minority rights as it is foreign policy that are likely to impact in various ways on the lives of citizens.

Keeping Hard-Earned Wealth within the Family: A False and Naïve "Modernity"

This is just an observation. My parents grew up in rural Malawi. They were fortunate enough, and indeed greatly aided by their hard work, to have attained an education and moved into the urban place as professionals in Geology and Sociology. I was twelve years old when my mother died and twenty when my father died. I am forever indebted to them for having been steadfast in raising my sister and myself in line with those very same values that they used to get to where they were.

My father always insisted that it was important to embody both the ability to function anywhere in the world, and that ability to function within your own country. He insisted that my sister and I were to learn and be fluent in Chichewa, the main language in Malawi. At the same time, he had us put in a school that only allowed the use of English during school hours. The result was him and our mother successfully raised two bilingual children. Other illustrations are how he insisted that we learned to walk to school (despite having the means to drive us back and forth), learned to hand-wash our own clothes (despite having washing machines and dryers), and to go outside to play and not be glued to the television and video-games. The icing on the cake came when he put me in a public school so that I could attain the Malawi Primary School Leaving Certificate. While there I learned that life was not all rosy in my country. I realized just how fortunate I was.

When my parents died. My sister and I had been left with the necessary ability to survive. All the skills they had bestowed upon us came to serve as assets for surviving in one of the poorest countries in the world. I don't know how we did it, but somehow, today, my sister is in Europe doing here Masters in Law, and I am here in South Africa pursing a Masters in Social Science.

The interesting thing is this; people work so hard to remove themselves from appalling situations only to refuse to train their children the same skills by which they were able to survive when they were coming up. And not always, but many times you see a family especially in this part of the world quickly lose everything it had worked so hard to achieve because the next generation was denied the skills and abilities to keep that hard-earned wealth within the family. Instead children are raised to be in denial of their surroundings, of their people, of their languages, of their governments, and of their countries. Somehow it is seen as "backward" for a child to associate with a life that is rampant and unavoidable in a country whose population is predominantly poor. What a truly naïve notion of "modernity". Or perhaps I am just biased to my own experience? But who cares?