The events of that morning—indeed, of the entire election and the six years between 2002 and 2008—reminded me that democratic space can never be taken for granted. It must always be defended against those who would accrue money and power to themselves at the expense of their peoples and the long-term health of the nation and the environment on which it depends. It caused me to reflect upon the terrible consequences when politicians foment rivalries between micro-nations, and how all too rarely these tears in the fabric of the nation-state are repaired by genuine leadership. It also fortified my belief that those who care about good governance, and believe that leaders should serve their people, can never give up.
EMBRACING THE MICRO-NATIONS
PERHAPS NOWHERE ELSE in the recent history of Africa has a genuine attempt been made to create an inclusive national culture, drawn from the richness of the many micro-nations within national borders, more than in post-apartheid South Africa. Recognizing the extraordinary complexities of the country's history, current and past racial dynamics, economic disparities, and climatic and geographical diversity, South Africa's post-apartheid leaders have chosen to upend the absurd racial markers and segregationist mentality that were the essence of the apartheid system in favor of honoring people's micro-national identity within the broader concept of the macro-nation as the guarantor of basic democratic rights.
In the early 1990s, the fate of South Africa was not so clear-cut. Apartheid policy had divided the country's micro-nations into tribal homelands in an explicit policy to forestall the formation of a united South African opposition. Post-apartheid, the country could have descended into a factionalized state, divided by race and atomized by ethnicity. Such fears were very real in the lead-up to, and the time soon after, the historic 1994 elections.
The fact that there was not widespread violence is in large measure due to the vision and commitment of Nelson Mandela, who, from the time he was released from prison, continually referred to South Africa as the “rainbow nation.” He and other African National Congress (ANC) leaders eschewed any appeal to ethnicity despite the provocations of Afrikaner-based parties and the Zulu-identified Inkatha Freedom Party. The ANC seems to be organized, as I believe all political parties should be, around a set of principles and values rather than race, ethnicity, or a personality cult centered on a leader. Mandela and his colleagues found ways both symbolic and substantive to acknowledge South Africa's micro-nations as equals, while creating a milieu where a national identity also could be forged. It is an experiment I hope will work over the long term.
In 1995, when South Africa was due to host the Rugby World Cup, President Mandela saw an opportunity to knit the country together after decades of racial division. To many at the time, this would have seemed preposterous. The years after the formal end of apartheid leading to the elections of 1994 had been difficult. Episodic violence between supporters of the ANC and Inkatha flared around the country, while white separatists such as Eugène Terre’Blanche and the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (Afrikaner Resistance Movement, or AWB) sought to sow mayhem in defense of what the AWB called the “white tribe,” through a campaign of bombings and even an invasion of a tribal homeland.
South African rugby was then highly polarized: both the game and the national team—the Springboks—were intimately connected with Afrikaner identity. Most blacks loathed the sport and the team with equal passion, choosing to both follow and play soccer. Nevertheless, President Mandela held numerous meetings with the team's captain, the rugby authorities, and his supporters, encouraging all of them to think of the tournament as an opportunity for South Africa to embrace the future rather than as a cause for further division and polarization. The president trumpeted the slogan “One Team, One Country,” and made sure it was marketed heavily. As the Springboks moved through the tournament, excitement began to increase in the country at the team's prospects, even among the black majority.
When the team reached the final, President Mandela put on the green-and-gold jersey and cap of the Springboks and strode out onto the pitch before the game to shake hands with the all-white squad. After a moment of stunned silence, the enormous crowd—nearly all of whom were Afrikaner—broke into applause. When South Africa won the game, President Mandela returned to the pitch, still dressed in the Springbok colors, and presented François Pienaar, the team captain, with the tournament trophy. “Thank you for what you have done for our country,” the president is reported to have said. “No, Mr. President,” replied Pienaar. “Thank you for what you have done.”
This gesture of President Mandela's proved a turning point for the young, post-apartheid nation; it “did wonders” for South Africa, said Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Pienaar himself related how on the streets the night of the Springboks' victory, “for the first time all the people had come together and all races and religions were hugging each other.” Another member of the team, Joost van der Westhuizen, recounted: “Seeing Nelson Mandela … and [to] think about what that guy did for this country, and now suddenly we did something for this country. It's quite a lesson for everybody, that we can do things together.”1
President Mandela recognized that both the micro-nation and the macro-nation matter, and that culture has an essential role in creating a transnational identity. By aligning himself explicitly with rugby, this one man—who had been president for only a year and free from prison for only five—not only challenged his fellow blacks, who had suffered so much under white oppression, to acknowledge that they, too, could feel pride in the achievement of their national team. He also indicated that the Afrikaner love of rugby was a valued expression of white culture while simultaneously turning on its head their overidentification with the sport.
The point was not to honor Afrikaner culture because it was Afrikaner culture, but to transform rugby from a symbol of exclusivity and the dominance of one group over all the rest into a celebration of national pride, and in so doing absorb a separatist minority into the majority. Through his actions, Mandela showed how honoring a key aspect of the culture of a small micro-nation—in this case, the love of rugby—didn't have to lead to the fragmentation or weakening of the macro-nation, but could, instead, serve to strengthen it.
REIMAGINING COMMUNITY
Well-considered, carefully planned initiatives such as Mandela's that bring communities together, foster dialogue, and achieve long-term reconciliation could allow Africans to rise above competitive, and often petty, politics at the level of micro-nations and address the pressing larger issues confronting the nation-state.
This does not mean that ethnicity is nonexistent or that Africa will not have to address the problems of “tribal” identity and ethnic nationalism that exist independent of political machinations. But the different micro-nations would be much more secure and likely to flourish if they accepted who they are and, at the same time, worked together. In my view, it is essential that Africa's citizens and leaders embrace a revival of their micro-national cultures, languages, and values, and then bring the best of these to the table—that is, the nation-state. In so doing, a national or even transnational identity could be created that is at once forward-looking and relevant to contemporary needs, and securely grounded in the heritage of Africa's peoples.
In this way, African nation-states, which now for many people merely serve to issue necessary documents such as a passport and an identity card, will more fully represent the diversity and the achievements of their distinct peoples. Anything less will perpetuate the cultural deracination that has left millions of modern Africans lacking self-identity, self-confidence, self-knowledge, and, therefore, the ability to take charge of their lives. Failure will also lead to the kind of violence that is too often seen in Africa.
It is important to acknowledge that the difficulty of this transformation of what it means to be an African cannot be underestimated. Even though the boundaries of the macro-nations laid the groundwork for conflict, and Africans had no say in the demarcations of their countries, the mac
ro-nations that Africans were bequeathed are now an accepted fact. And, as far back as the founding of the OAU, African leaders agreed to accept the boundaries drawn by the colonial powers. It is within these parameters that Africans must reconstitute their nations, despite the fact that they didn't name them, and that the inhabitants often do not share a common language or heritage. Africans cannot change the past; they can only manage it and determine the future.
Indeed, a related task is to reimagine what it means to be a community—whether a micro-nation or the network of micro-nations that are countries, regions, and the continent itself. As nations become more integrated within the global economy, the pressure to expand effective political and economic blocs—such as in eastern and southern Africa and eastern and southern Asia—will grow in such a way that national borders may no longer be so relevant. If, for instance, Africa becomes united in the future along the lines of the European Union, then, while it may still have troubles, borders won't be among them.
Certainly, some African countries—particularly, for instance, Tanzania and Senegal under presidents Julius Nyerere and Léopold Senghor—deliberately and consciously worked for a more cohesive nation-state by downplaying micro-national identity. Nyerere drove through policies that emphasized the importance of being Tanzanian. He did this despite Tanzania's heterogeneity; the country is comprised of over 120 micro-nations. Nyerere also stressed the importance of speaking one language—Kiswahili—above all others in order to unify the country. The result currently is a remarkably harmonious nation, with much less of the “tribalism” that affects other parts of Africa. It is an experiment whose durability will be tested by time, and dependent on the future leadership of the country.
Tanzania is one model, but there could be others that embrace micro-national identity. I don't doubt that if at the outset of independence in Kenya a conference had been held of the forty-two micro-nations and they had all negotiated a constitution under which they agreed to coexist and work together, while honoring a set of agreed-upon rights, the communal violence that has periodically wracked Kenya since then might not have occurred. Instead, Kenyan leaders, like others throughout Africa, simultaneously trivialized what it meant to be a distinct micro-nation and overemphasized—and continue to exploit—real and imagined barriers between communities. Of course, some people believe that through the process of submerging one's micro-nationality they are fighting “tribalism.” In my conception it is really the opposite. The simple truth is that more than a century has passed since the colonial authorities and then postindependence leaders began to force Africans to transcend their micro-nations, and far from being buried, “tribalism” has been entrenched.
Today in Rwanda it is illegal to define oneself as either Hutu or Tutsi. While I fully understand why the government wanted to end ethnic identification after the horrors of the 1994 genocide, the truth is that, while individuals may not make their identity public, they surely know whether they are Hutu or Tutsi. This kind of impulse for self-identification can be suppressed only for a time. While it may appear that the micro-national “marker” has been removed, it cannot truly be extinguished. It will have to express itself one way or the other. Our different identities are part of a natural diversity. Instead of all attempting the impossible task of being the same, we must learn to embrace our diversity. Indeed, human beings are stronger for it. Of course, it is my fervent hope that no more ethnically based violence erupts in Rwanda or anywhere else. But its prevention will depend heavily on the action or inaction of competing political leaders.
The European Union is moving in a promising direction: uniting its individual nation-states into a larger macro-nation. Much as the EU recognizes the multitude of different cultures and countries within its larger political structure, and tries more or less successfully to accommodate the varied impulses and concerns of the communities, African countries, too, could acknowledge the composite nature of their nation-states and do likewise. It is clear that in order to have greater cohesion within nation-states, African political leaders will have to devote time, energy, and resources so that universal freedom, security, and equitable distribution of assets are assured.
Principally, the elites—the 10 to 20 percent of the population that speaks the language of the former colonial power and in large measure has adopted Western culture as its own—ought to be more in touch with the genuine wishes of the 80 percent who perceive themselves as Igbo or Yoruba first, and Nigerian second; or Luo or Kikuyu or Maasai first, and Kenyan second; or Dinka and Fur first, and Sudanese second. The elites need to recognize that most of the ordinary people whom they have been groomed to lead, by universities at home or abroad, are still bound by family relationships stronger than their ties to where they live or who their neighbors are. Connections to family and territorial nationality have sometimes been the only means whereby individuals can cope with the turbulent uprooting of their traditions since colonization. But just as one can simultaneously be a Welshman and a Briton or a Tamil and an Indian, Africans, too, can remain both loyal members of a micro-nation and loyal citizens of a nation-state. This is what it should mean to be an individual in a multicultural and multiethnic country today.
To ground this concept, I believe it would be a vital, boundary-breaking step if a nation established a forum for representatives of micro-nations that could be incorporated into the governance structures of the macro-nation. A sense of collective responsibility could thus be instilled among citizens throughout the country. The representatives would gather and debate and agree on a set of actions to benefit not only their micro-nation, but also the greater society. They could draw on indigenous traditions of fairness, justice, deliberation, and representation. This might, for example, take the form of an assembly, rather like the United Nations or the U.S. Senate—where all micro-nations are represented equally, no matter how many citizens they have. The members of the collective would meet as equals and discuss the affairs of the nation and how that nation should relate to other nations for the common good of the region.
The value of such a forum would be that a government body existed with the express purpose of making sure that all communities felt they had a stake and a voice in how the country was managed; that no matter how small, these micro-nations would know that their rights would be respected and their safety guaranteed. Here, some of the most pressing and long-unanswered questions could be addressed: What does “equity” mean? How should disputes over landownership that have simmered since the beginning of the colonial era be resolved? How will nations and communities protect their forests and watersheds while still enabling development? With this forum, the checks and balances would be weighted and realigned constantly. It would enshrine a central tenet often neglected by developed nations when they urge democracy on developing ones: that democracy is not just about one person receiving one vote; it is about effective representation and inclusion.
For many African societies—which were fragmented by colonialism, interfered with during the Cold War, torn apart by decades of ethnic favoritism and dissension, burdened by underdevelopment for far too long, and have too few mechanisms for government accountability—this forum would provide an opportunity for the flourishing of genuine democracy. The transformation I envision would require citizens to face the truth about the genesis of “tribal clashes.” It will also depend on principled leaders who stop playing the “tribal” card to hold on to power. (Because of the negativity that is associated with “tribes” and ethnicity in Africa, it is not uncommon to find Africans preferring to use their Christian name rather than their African name, or using a foreign language, in an effort to hide their identity.)
To propel these ideas forward, in their families and from their first day at school on, African children should be taught that the peoples of their country are different, but that because of Africa's historical legacy they need to work together. In schools and universities, students should be encouraged to learn more fully about the cultures
of other micro-nations within the macro-nation. These measures would offer the possibility of creating a new elite that is not so narrowly partisan and have the potential to develop leaders with not only greater knowledge of their countries, but greater responsibility toward all of a country's micro-nations as well as the macro-nation.
Politicians in Africa know that micro-national identity is important. When they campaign, they do not address their micro-nation in the language(s) of the macro-nation, which is often that of the former colonial master. They are often anxious to speak to other micro-nations in their mother tongues—if only a few words, such as “Hello” or “How are you?” But their interest in that language is superficial; they are attempting to flatter the people in the hope that they will support them at the ballot box. What is needed is a genuine recognition by leaders that micro-nations value aspects of their identity that they still possess, such as their languages.
SPEAKING MOTHER TONGUES
Language is an important component of culture and an essential means of binding the micro-nation together. In many African states during the colonial administration, the government's local representative was a native. He would speak the micro-nation's language, as well as the European language of the administration, and interpret between the local people and higher-level administrators, who were citizens of the colonial power. One of the legacies of the colonial era is that in many African nations, the governance, justice, and education systems are conducted in foreign languages, as is most media.
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