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Article Excerpt
INTRODUCTION
One of the earliest attempts to understand the ontology of African political systems and the forms of African governance is the collaborative anthropological work of M. Fortes and E. E. Evans-Pritchard. In this work, sweeping generalizations were made about diverse African societies to the extent that African forms of governance were divided into centralized and decentralized forms. Centralized forms were seen as undemocratic and decentralized were reduced to democratic governance. [1] The achievement of independence by African states that was attended by problems of deepening democracy and increasing participation of all citizens in political processes elicited new interests in understanding African political systems and why democracy was difficult to institutionalize in Africa. A number of explanations emerged including Eurocentric and Afrocentric pessimist paradigms that blamed African pre-colonial traditions for bequeathing authoritarian forms of governance and disorder on the continent. For instance, Patrick Chabal and Jean-Pascal Daloz linked the crisis of democracy with African culture that allowed for patrimonial forms of governance. [2] Chabal and Daloz emphasized continuities of pre-colonial political traditions across the colonial and postcolonial periods as important in explaining current failures of governance in Africa. To them, the crisis of governance in Africa is one of "modernity rooted in the deep history of the societies in which it is taking place." Sounding apologetic of the contribution of colonialism to the current failures of democracy in Africa, Chabal and Daloz argued that "time has long passed when we, Westerners, had to expiate the colonial crime of our forefathers." [3] Instead, they posited that the essential feature "most important to emphasize is the significance of continuities in the political practice from the precolonial period." [4] To them, colonialism failed to overcome "the strongly instrumental and personal characteristics of traditional African administration." Their conclusion was that African cultures were ontologically hostile to good governance and effective administrations. [5]
The thesis of continuities between precolonial political systems and African traditions into the postcolonial period is countered by scholars like Mahmood Mamdani and Peter P. Ekeh who emphasize the contribution of the legacy of late colonialism to problems of democratization in postcolonial Africa. According to Mamdani colonialism bifurcated colonial populations into citizens and subjects. This became the beginning of hierarchized citizenship determined by race within which white settlers enjoyed citizenship rights and Africans as subjects suffered under decentralized despotism called indirect rule with the African chief at its apex. [6] Colonialism ossified Africans' identities into rigid ethnic groupings and sealed these through legal coding. This created many problems for Africa. In the first place it meant that African nationalism developed as ethnic consciousness. In the second place, it created the intractable problem of the 'native' and the 'settler' which is sometimes termed the national question. [7] In an endeavour to install democracy, many postcolonial regimes concentrated on de-racializing civil space while at the same time reinforcing decentralized despotism inherited from the colonial state at the local level as recognition of African traditions and customary law. [8] Mamdani's arguments resonates with those of Peter Ekeh who argued that colonialism introduced two public spheres (one for whites and another for blacks) that resulted in Africans imbibing bourgeois ideologies, making them to "fight alien rulers on the basis of criteria introduced by them." [9]
My concern in this article is to rebut what I will call the 'continuities thesis' between precolonial systems of governance and the postcolonial because this gives ammunition to some postcolonial African dictators to justify their nonaccountable styles of governance and blatant violations of human rights on the basis of African tradition. Even long presidential incumbency by one person and life presidencies are justified on precolonial tradition. [10] The 'continuities thesis' is founded on a false impression that democracy and human rights were brought to Africa by people from the West. The case study of the Ndebele state is used here to rebut the 'continuities thesis' on democracy without necessarily ignoring the 'inventions of traditions' by colonial regimes as well as African nationalists and postcolonial governments that has compounded African problems. [11] The main weakness of the constructivist paradigm that gave birth to the ideas of 'inventions of tradition' in Africa is that it tended to privilege white agency over that of Africans. African creative agency was sacrificed at the altar of missionary and colonial agencies.
One of the glaring gaps in the debate on governance in Africa is the lack of nuanced studies grounded on precolonial African political systems of governance. There is a general belief that precolonial governance was nothing but a long night of savagery and violence within which the spear played a fundamental role under what Carolyn Hamilton termed "terrific majesty." [12] Writing about the Ndebele south of the Limpopo River, Peter Becker saw nothing in them but a "path of blood" in their trail of violent conquests. [13] Thus besides rebutting the 'continuities thesis,' this article is a thorough revision of the earlier characterization of the Ndebele system of governance. It reveals Ndebele notions of democracy and human rights in the nineteenth century.
Mathew T. Bradley defined democracy as "a configuration of governance molded by general values, biases, prejudices and nuances of a given culture." [14] Like elsewhere, precolonial notions and practices of democracy and human rights were informed by diverse African histories, African traditions and were expressed in different languages and articulated in different idioms. Denial of rights and freedoms permeated precolonial conflicts since not all African precolonial governments were democratic or respected human rights. The common reality was that democracy and human rights co-existed uneasily and tendentiously with authoritarianism, patriarchy and militarism. [15] But few scholars who chose to study African systems of governance during the precolonial era tended to use the single-despot model that was not confirmed by historical realities on the ground in Africa. [16]
A single-despot model of African governance systems is inadequate because African societies were very diverse in their ontology, thus defying simple generalizations. Each of the pre-colonial societies had unique sets of rules, laws and traditions suitable for particular contexts and historical realities. These rules, laws and traditions, commonly termed customs, formed the basis of how people would live together peacefully as part of a community, state and nation. Earlier African formations like those of Egypt in North Africa, Nubia and Axum in North East Africa, Ghana, Mali and Songhai in West Africa, and Mapungubwe and Great Zimbabwe in Southern Africa, produced different political and economic systems of governance relative to their environment of operation as well as historical circumstances of formation. [17] Because of their magnitude, they all evolved complex systems of governance that could hardly fit into a single-despot model.
The Ndebele and historiographical debates
The Ndebele have attracted a lot of studies ranging from those by precolonial travelers, missionaries, colonial officials, anthropologists, novelists, poets and historians. What was widely reported was their reputation for what was considered to be 'bloodthirsty savagery,' 'martial spirit,' 'splendid despotism' and 'noble savages.' These descriptions captured contradictory representations of the Ndebele within British colonial imaginations. Within the colonial imagination, the Ndebele fell victim to exoticization and demonization. [18] Later writings on the Ndebele were heavily influenced by early literate observers' writing on the Ndebele and missionary records became primary records for later academic works on the Ndebele.
The major historians who have written on precolonial Ndebele history are Kent Rasmussen on the Ndebele South of the Limpopo, Terence Ranger on Ndebele politics during the scramble period; Ngwabi Bhebe on missionary activities in the Ndebele state; David Beach on Ndebele-Shona relations, Julian Cobbing on Ndebele history from 1820 to 1896; Pathisa Nyathi on the Ndebele history from 1820-1896; Enocent Msindo on Ndebele-Kalanga Relations from 1860s to 1980s, Bjorn Lindgren on Ndebele ethnicity, Ray Roberts on Ndebele royal family, and my own work on Ndebele political system and their notions of democracy and human rights. [19] Except for my work, the theme of democracy is avoided in the writings on Ndebele history save for a focus on revision of Ndebele-Shona relations which were described as characterized by violence by colonial writers bent on justifying colonialism. Among all these writers, Cobbing produced a more comprehensive revisionist study of the Ndebele history, though the issue of governance and democracy was not his central concern. [20] Despite the fact that Beach alluded to the myths dominating articulations of Ndebele history and tried to explode some, he continued to describe the Ndebele state as a 'mfecane' state that was organized along military lines. [21] Msindo's recent writings accept old-fashioned descriptions of the Ndebele state as militaristic and authoritarian to the extent of seeing my concern with democracy and human rights among the Ndebele as "a Zansi/Nguni-centric view of Ndebele history, which defends pre-colonial political misdemeanors." [22]
The scholars who continued to emphasize Ndebele politics as a terrain of violence failed to distinguish between two phases in Ndebele history. The first phase of Ndebele history running from 1820-1840 was dominated by migration and violence and covers the turbulent years of the 'mfecane.' The second phase of Ndebele history running from 1841-1893 saw the Ndebele transforming themselves from a life of migration and violence to a new full-fledged settled heterogeneous nation on the Zimbabwean plateau. Violence became minimal and Beach used this to explain the resurgence of Shona power. [23] The distinguishing features of this 'settled phase' and its processes of consolidation of Ndebele power included a ceaseless search for consensual governance. The issue of rights and human rights that were pushed to the peripheries of politics during the formative stage of the state now came to the centre the state politics. [24] The actual realities of power shifted during the 'settled phase' to the control of the means of production which superseded the control of the means of violence as the base of wealth, power and privilege. Major institutions such as amabutho (age sets) which were largely geared towards the military, were quickly civilianized to suit the exigencies of a less aggressive environment on the Zimbabwean plateau. [25]
Robert Moffat, a London...
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