{UAH} ADVANCING THE CAUSE OF LIBERTY

ADVANCING THE CAUSE OF LIBERTY

ADVANCING THE CAUSE OF LIBERTY

Speech to the Koch Institute, Arlington, Virginia,

April 23, 2014.

Liberty is a very simple concept and you would think that it is universally acknowledged but think again. Advancing the cause of liberty has been beset with problems and difficulty. According to Freedom House’s Freedom in the World 2014 Report, “The state of freedom declined for the eighth consecutive year in 2013.” Dictators are thriving and having a field day. There is Bashar al-Assad of Syria, Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela and then there is Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.They are all doing the “coconut boogie.” Chei! You wait. We will rain on their parade.

I would hate to concede that we are losing the cause for liberty. As someone who has campaigned and championed this cause, let me share with you my own experience: I will focus on Africa because Africa has more dictators per capita than any other continent. The obstacles encountered and the progress on the ground. First the obstacles;

A. THE OBSTACLES

There are six prominent obstacles that I have encountered:

1. Cultural Resonance

We need to be aware of how the term “liberty” resonates culturally. It is derived from the French word “liberte” but I would never get myself embroiled with a Frenchman over its meaning It is true both the American and French Revolutions (1775-83 and 1789) were about liberty but the two have different conceptions of the state.

America’s Founding Fathers regarded the state as an evil monster, from which the citizens have to be protected. Thus, the American Constitution limits the powers of the state and serves as a shield between the state and the people and defines “inalienable rights” of the people the state cannot infringe upon. In that context, the more power the state has, the less free its citizens.

The French view originated from the French Revolution of 1789. While the American rebellion was against the colonial power, Britain, the French counterpart was against Louis XVI, an absolute monarch, whose predecessor, Louis XIV, famously declared: “L’Etat, c’est moi” (I am the State). On January 17, 1793, Louis XVI was condemned to death for “conspiracy against the public liberty and the general safety.” He was guillotined (regicide). What the French seemed to be saying was this: “No, Louis, you are not the state. We are the state and, as such, the state must guarantee our liberty and safety.” This then paved the way for a strong, paternalistic and interventionist state to serve as the guarantor and protector of the liberties of its citizens.

Thus, the French are more comfortable with a very powerful state but, as I indicated earlier, the more power the state has, the less freedom its citizens have. Perhaps, it is this legacy that explains why most of the African countries in turmoil in recent years have been mostly ex-French colonies? Algeria, Burundi, Congo, Ivory Coast, Libya, Madagascar, Rwanda, Tunisia, etc.

Furthermore, the term liberty does not resonate well in the developing countries, where oppression of groups of people has been commonplace from colonial to modern times. The term “freedom” resonates better and is well understood in those regions. Freedom from oppression sounds much better than liberty, which has individualistic connotation or focused on individual rights.

Even if you focus on freedom, which freedom is more important and should be implemented first: intellectual freedom (freedom of expression, of the media, of religion, etc.). political freedom (democracy, human rights, etc) or economic freedom (free enterprise, free markets, free trade, etc.)? I would like you to think about this question as I speak and I will return to it at the end of my talk.

2. Political Correctness

Another obstacle is political correctness. White Americans do not want to criticize black African dictators for fear of being labeled “racist.” Nor do black Americans; most would rather prefer sowing racial solidarity with such despots.

To avoid this hang-up, always distinguish between African leaders and the African people. The two are not synonymous. The leaders have been the problem; not the people. You may not like Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe – he is a coconut – but that doesn’t mean you hate Zimbabweans or black people.

True, leaders come from the same stock of people but the statement that a people deserve the leader that they get is NOT accurate in most African countries. That statement would be true if and only if the people participate in the process of choosing the leader. But that requirement is often vitiated by two common mal-practices in Africa. The first is when a military officer stages a coup and imposes himself on the people. The second is, though the people participate in choosing the leader, the selection process (voting) is rigged and their votes nullified. Under those two circumstances, one cannot say the people deserve the leaders that they get.

The cause of bad leadership in Africa is systemic, not cultural. Bad leadership is the product of alien political systems and ideologies blindly copied from abroad with no cultural underpinnings; for example, one-party state systems, Marxist-Leninism, Confucius Institutes, etc. Any political system that concentrates a great of power in the hands of a buffoon degenerates into dictatorship and tyranny. To fix the problem, reform the political system, not just change the leader through elections.

3. The West

The West itself has been a huge obstacle in advancing the cause of freedom globally for two primary reasons. First, there is a swarm of pro-democracy groups, each doing their own thing to promote some aspect of freedom with little co-ordination among them. Some advocate freedom of the press; others promote democracy. Again, I ask you: There is intellectual freedom, political freedom and economic freedom. Which should be promoted first?

The West itself has been a huge obstacle in advancing the cause of freedom globally for two primary reasons. First, there is a swarm of pro-democracy groups, each doing their own thing to promote some aspect of freedom with little co-ordination among them. Some advocate freedom of the press; others promote democracy.

Back in 2001, when then-U.S. President George W. Bush declared war on terrorism, rogue regimes that were terrorizing their own people saw an opportunity. They quickly began parroting the war cry in order to receive U.S. aid. Liberia’s Charles Taylor, the indicted war criminal, set up an Anti-Terrorist Unit run by his son. And Somali warlords, who had been terrorizing residents of Mogadishu, even formed a “Coalition Against Terrorism” and secured CIA funding in 2006. The current collection of U.S. allies in this war in Africa — Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda — reeks of scandal. Much like America’s “allies” in Afghanistan and Yemen, they are characterized by repression, corruption, and government malfunction. Partnership with such corrupt regimes carries the risk of propping up governments that have failed their people.

The West often finds itself blindsided by its own rhetoric, which is why the West often finds itself on the wrong side of popular revolutions With the possible exception of the flower revolutions in Eastern Europe, the West was flat-footed by the People’s Revolution in Philippines in 1986, Tiananmen Square (China), April 1989, Africa’s Village Revolutions (1991-1994), The Student Protests in Indonesia, May 1998, Mass Protests in Ethiopia, Nov 2005, Venezuelan Protest, Nov 2007, Monks Protests in Burma, Sept 2007. The Orange Revolution in Kenya, Jan 2008,

Street Protests in Zimbabwe, March, 2008, the Green Revolution in Iran, June, 2009 and then the Arab Spring of 2011.

Today, massive confusion still reigns as to who is a dictator. He is not a dictator if:

1. He has oil,

2. He is an ally in the war against terrorism,

3. He has no nuclear ambition,

4. He permits the US to establish a military base for the supply of goods to troops in Afghanistan (Uzbekistan)

5. He shaves three times a week.

Look, cut out the crap. A dictator is a dictator is a dictator. There is no such thing as a “good” dictator. The only good dictator is a dead one.

Africa has the largest collection of dictators – or coconuts – in the world. No dictator has produced lasting prosperity in any African country, period. Rather, dictators have left a trail of wanton destruction, collapsed states and human debris in their wake.

4. The Opposition

The greatest obstacle in my view has been the opposition. For every force in nature there is a counter-force. A force dominates either because a counterforce is non-existent or weak. Democracy has suffered a steady decline for the eighth year in a row because the counter-force or the resistance – both domestic and international — has been weak or crumbling. With such weak resistance, tyrants triumph, dominate and become smug. In too many places, the opposition is hopelessly fragmented, disorganized and prone to squabbling. Their message of freedom has also become contaminated with religion, ideology, tribalism, secession and other sectarian issues. African and Middle Eastern autocrats are masters at outsmarting their quarrelsome opponents and quashing protests. There have been far too many cases where the opposition has squandered golden opportunities, allowing tyranny to become more entrenched. Here are a few examples.

· Ethiopia: There were 112 opposition parties –most of them ethnically-based — challenging the despotic regime of Meles Zenawi in the May 2010 election. Imagine.

· Guinea: In the past, Guinea’s security forces had used lethal force against unarmed demonstrators without apparent justification. Yet, on Sept 28, 2009, Guinean opposition leaders packed more than 50,000 people into a national stadium to protest a decision by the country’s military dictator, Capt. Mossa Dadis Camara, to run in the presidential elections in Jan 2010. The soldiers simply sealed off the six entrances to the stadium and opened fire on the trapped civilians. At least 157 people were killed.

· Uzbekistan: Since 1989, the country has been ruled by he despot President Islam A. Karimov, a former Communist Party boss, who crushes and silences the political opposition. When a presidential election was held in Uzbekistan in 2007, his three opponents each publicly endorsed him! In 2009 parliamentary elections, all four parties in the race staunchly supported Karimov!

· In Zimbabwe, the opposition parties eventually united against a common enemy but four months before the 2008 election, the MDC split into two.

· Opposition in Syria. The least said, the better.

Too often, those who set out to liberate their countries from tyranny invariably end up selling out, fighting among themselves, sowing confusion and carnage. Some opposition leaders are themselves closet dictators, exhibiting the same tyrannical tendencies they so loudly denounce in the despots they hope to replace. Too often in the past, many such “liberators” transformed themselves — in less than a year — into another bunch of vile despots or “crocodile liberators,” far worse than the dictators they replaced. This is why Africans have this saying:”We struggle very hard to remove one cockroach from power and the next rat comes to do the same thing. Haba!”

5. Avoid Cultural Imperialism

Sometimes in the campaign for freedom, one encounters some Westerners with an arrogant “we-know-best” attitude, who believe that they must teach Africans about freedom. Such an attitude can be more of a hindrance than help. The fact is, Africans already see the state as a problem. Said a traditional chief: “Here in Lesotho, we have two problems: rats and the government.”

Most governments in Africa are corrupt, inept and dysfunctional. Only 13 of the 55 African countries are democratic. There are only three things African governments know how to do very well: Loot the treasury, rig or steal elections to stay in office and squelch all dissent or opposition. Do they provide basic social services – such as provision of clean water, reliable electricity, education, health care, etc. – to their people? Fat chance.

So it is not very difficult to rally Africans against their governments and they don’t need to be lectured.

6. The Cultural Medium

In my work, I do not quote Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin or any of America’s Founding Fathers; nor do I quote Adam Smith. They are all great men but not culturally relevant. We should never make the mistake that, apart from Americans, no other people have struggled against tyranny. In fact, dictatorship or despotism is not a new phenomenon. Various people have developed various ways of fighting it and it is always important to relate to those earlier struggles. In other words, you take the same message of liberty but couch it in a cultural or historical context for them to understand.

For example, I do not use the term “capitalism” in my writings, nor quote Adam Smith. “Capitalism” is an emotive word which is not well understood in Africa. Instead, I refer to Africa’s village markets. They are free markets, which have been part of Africa’s heritage for centuries. Similarly with government or governance. In fact, you will find the most radical form of government that advances the concept of liberty furthest in traditional Africa.

Like Americans, Africans have traditionally viewed the state as evil and whoever heads it as a monster who will trample upon people’s freedoms. To deal with this potential threat to freedom, some ethnic groups chose not to have leaders at all. They are called stateless societies and examples include the Somali, the Igbo, the Tiv, among others. The Somali, for example, contemptuously dismiss government as “waxan” or “the thing” and the Igbo have this expression “Ezebuillo,” which means “the king is an enemy.” This uncompromising stance explains why the Igbo fought a war (Biafran war of 1967) to secede from Nigeria, rather than submit to tyranny. It also underlies the current chaos in Somalia. When Thomas Jefferson, one of America’s Founding Fathers, made a statement in a letter to Edward Carrington in 1787 that people who live without government enjoy infinitely greater degree of freedom and happiness, he was probably referring to stateless societies in traditional Africa.

Other ethnic groups chose to have leaders – chiefs and kings – but hemmed them in with councils upon councils to prevent them from abusing their powers. For example, without the Council of Elders, a chief cannot pass any law by himself and all important decisions are taken by consensus. Dictatorship is incompatible with political systems that are geared toward decision-making by consensus. Note that democratic decisions can be taken in two ways: By majority vote and by consensus. Each modality has its own advantages and demerits.

In Africa’s traditional system, bad chiefs and kings are removed from office. A bad chief is removed by the Queen-Mother of the royal family since he becomes an embarrassment. He may also be removed by the Council of Elders, who would refuse to work with him. Or, failing those two checks, a bad chief is simply abandoned as his people vote with their feet to go and settle somewhere else. Africa’s history is replete with migrations of people.

In most countries in modern Africa, however, we cannot remove bad leaders without destroying our countries. They stay, stay, and stay in office – 10, 20, and even 40 years, grow senile with cobwebs dangling from their ears because the presidency is their own family property. So they groom their wives, sons, cats, dogs and even goats to succeed them.

B. ESTABLISHING A FREE SOCIETY: THE EXPERIENCE

Establishing a free society requires taking two steps. The first is to get rid of the dictator and the second is to dismantle the dictatorship itself. Somehow, Western donors naively believe they can work with dictators to reform their abominable political and economic systems.

Get this straight: Dictators are allergic to reform and appeasement doesn’t work with them. They are stone deaf and impervious to reason. They are not interested in reform, period.

· Ask them to cut government spending and they will establish a “Ministry of Less Government Spending” (Mali)

· Ask them to practice good governance and they will set up a “Ministry of Good Governance” (Tanzania).

· Ask them to establish a democratic order and they will empanel a fawning coterie of sycophants to write the rules, toss opposition leaders into jail and then hold coconut elections to return themselves to power,

· Ask them to develop their economies and they will develop their pockets. Ask them to seek foreign investment and they will seek a foreign country to invest their loot.

The West has spent billions trying to persuade, cajole and even bribe these dictators to reform but to no avail. Enough! The reform process has been stalled by vexatious chicanery, willful deception and vaunted acrobatics. In 1990, only 4 out of the 54 African countries were democratic; today, 21 years later, this number has increased to only 13. Fewer than 10 African countries can be considered an economic success story, despite Africa’s immense mineral wealth. And a free media exists in only 10 African countries. Some progress. The Obama administration has so far not been aggressive in confronting these dictators and pushing for democracy in Africa. As a matter of fact, he is inviting 47 African heads of state to Washington in August for a US-Africa Summit.

Hardened coconuts are hopelessly blind, stone deaf and impervious to reason. They insist on praising them – even when their tail is on fire. The only way to remove is through VIOLENCE: A military coup, assassination, popular uprising, or a rebel insurgency: Egypt (2011), Ivory Coast (2011), Tunisia (2011), Libya (2011), Rwanda (1994), Somalia (1991), Liberia (1999), etc.

But I must caution you though. Noisy rah-rah street protests alone are not enough to topple a dictator. Three cardinal principles or rules must be followed for a popular revolution to succeed.

1. It takes a coalition of opposition forces to remove a dictator. As such, coordination of activities, tactical thinking and strategic planning are imperative.

2. “Know the enemy” (his modus operandi, strengths and weaknesses) is the first rule of combat. One never fights him on a turf on which he is strongest. Identify the props of the dictatorship and sever them methodically. Or exploit his weaknesses.

3. Getting the sequence of reform right.

We have learned that revolutions seldom produce desired outcomes. The Iranian 2009 Green Revolution flopped; the 2005 Cedar Revolution of Lebanon self-immolated and the flower revolutions in Eastern Europe wilted. Toppling a dictator is only the first step in establishing a free society. The next step is dismantling the dictatorship itself. It is analogous to having a bad driver with a defective vehicle. After sacking the driver, the vehicle itself must be fixed; else the new driver would land in a ditch. In far too many countries, the second step was either not attempted, debauched or manhandled, which leads to a reversal or hijacking of the revolution. Sub-Saharan or Black Africa’s village revolutions in the early 1990s, which occurred in over 40 countries, provide a treasure trove of revealing insights as to why some succeed while others fail.

During the struggle against colonialism, African nationalist leaders made democracy their rallying cry and demanded its establishment across Africa. But suddenly after independence in the 1960s, the same nationalist leaders rejected democracy as a “Western institution.” Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, for example, dismissed it as “imperialist dogma.” They then proceeded to establish Soviet-style one-party socialist state systems and declare themselves “presidents-for-life.” Statues of Marx and Lenin graced the capitals of Angola, Benin, Ethiopia, and Mozambique. In 1990, just 4 of 53 African countries were democratic.

After the collapse of the former Soviet Union in 1989, Africa’s emperors suddenly found themselves with no clothes. “Village revolutions” swept across Africa, toppling many of them. From 1990, ordinary Africans, including women with babies strapped to their backs, braved bullets and staged street demonstrations, demanding democratic pluralism and resignations of their presidents. Dictators met the protesters with tear gas, stun grenades, arrests, kidnappings, bullets and curfews. But the revolutionary ferment, which began in Benin, spread to Cape Verde Islands, Mali, Malawi, Togo, Zaire, Zambia and eventually ending in South Africa with the election of Nelson Mandela in 1994.

In all, Africa’s village revolutions produced six outcomes:

1. Peaceful, non-violent transition to democracy: Benin (1991), Cape Verde Islands (1992), Sao Tome & Principe (1992), South Africa (1994) and Zambia (1991);

2. Ferocious resistance to change, resulting in civil war and carnage: Somalia (1991), Burundi (1993), Rwanda (1994), Zaire (now Congo DR, 1996);

3. Successful ouster of dictators but subsequent hijacking of revolutions by groups that were not part of the revolution: Ivory Coast (1992), Nigeria (1993), Tanzania (1995);

4. Reversals of the revolution with dictators replaced by crocodile liberators: Ethiopia (Mengistu Haile Mariam by Meles Zenawi, 1991), Gambia (Dawda Jawara by Yahya Jammeh, 1994), Liberia (Samuel Doe by Charles Taylor, 1990), Niger (Mahamane Ousmane by Gen. Ibrahim Mainassara, 1996), Sierra Leone (Gen. Joseph Momoh by Capt. Valentine Strasser, 1992) and Uganda (Milton Obote by Yoweri Museveni,1986);

5. Ousted dictators clawed their way back to power: Benin (Mathieu Kerekou, 1996), Congo-Brazzaville (Denis Sassou-Nguesso, 1997), Madagascar (Didier Ratsiraka, 1996);

6. Dictators learned new tricks to beat back the democratic challenge: Angola, Burkina Faso, Chad, Cameroon, Ghana, Sudan, Togo and Zimbabwe.

Only the first of the six was desirable. The rest produced a serious set-back for the democratic struggle and a descent into chaos and civil wars. Black Africa’s village revolutions were marginally successful. The number of democracies increased from 4 in 1990 to 12 in 2004 and has remains stubbornly stuck at 15 today. Africa is still not free.

What Makes for a Successful Revolution?

Four factors determined the success or failure of a revolution: The receptivity of the dictator to change; the body managing the transition; duration of the transition process; and implementation of constitutional and institutional reform.

Much bloodshed was avoided when dictators accepted the need for change and the transition was managed by a broadly representative body. For example, Benin’s 9-day “sovereign national conference” in Feb 1990 convened with 488 delegates, representing the broad spectrum of Beninois society and elections were held in 1991. South Africa employed the same vehicle – Convention for a Democratic South Africa or CODESA – in July 1991, with 228 delegates and culminated in the election of Nelson Mandela in March 1994. [For the Arab Spring, a Grand Majlis or a Loya Jirga as was the case for Afghanistan in 2003, would be more appropriate.]

Third, a hasty transition period proved counter-productive. It took the US 13 years (1776-1789) to transition from independence to democratic rule. South Africa took three years. A short transition period – say, 6 months – does not give new parties time to organize while giving old opposition parties an edge – as occurred in Tunisia and Egypt.

Finally, after the transition a whole battery of reforms must be implemented. Dictators manipulated the Constitution and packed all key state institutions with his supporters and cronies. For a revolution to be sustained, the constitution must be revamped and institutions cleansed of the “nomenklatura.” It is important to get the sequence of reform correct: First, there must intellectual freedom, then constitutional reform, political reform, institutional reform and lastly economic freedom. I have called this sequence “Ayittey’s Law” in my book, Defeating Dictators. Sadly, in many countries, real reforms were not implemented, allowing the return of authoritarianism: Ethiopia (under Meles Zenawi), Liberia (under Charles Taylor), Uganda (under Yoweri Museveni), Russia (under Putin), Kyrgyzstan (under Kurmanbek Bakiyev), Georgia (under Mikhail Saakashvili) and Ukraine (under Viktor Yanukovich). Te lack of institutional reform explains why Africa village revolutions were marginally successful. In many cases, the bad driver was changed but the bad vehicle was not fixed.

In all cases, however, one lesson stands clear: Wherever the transition was managed by the military or a rebel group, the outcome was disastrous: Military dictators simply manipulated the process, created their own parties (Ghana, Uganda and Myanmar),shooed in their favorite parties (Mali, Nigeria) or “civilianized” themselves by shedding military uniforms and donning civilian clothes (Burkina Faso, Chad, Gambia, Ghana, Niger). Nigeria’s transition by its military dictators was the most egregious.

General Ibrahim Babangida began the transition in 1985. After frequent interruptions and devious maneuvers, he created exactly two parties for Nigeria in 1992 because the U.S. has two major parties. Then he wrote their manifestoes too: “One a little to the left, the other a little to the right.” And when the June 12, 1993 presidential elections produced a winner he did not like, he annulled the elections altogether.

Next to manage the transition was General Sani Abacha. He called a Constitutional Conference in 1994 with 396 delegates, who were “guests of the military.” A fourth of their number (96) was selected by himself. When in 1997 he finally allowed five political parties to be registered, they all immediately chose him as their presidential candidate!

General Abdulsalam Abubakar was the next to attempt constitutional engineering but he played “hide and seek” with the exercise. For Nigeria’s 1999 transition to democracy, he had TWO Constitutions prepared and held them closely to his chest. Which to release depended upon the election results. If the results went one way, Constitution A would be released; if they went the other way, Constitution B would be released. Thus, Nigerians went to the polls in March 1999 without knowing whether or not there was a Constitution, nor its contents.

The outlandish chicanery was matched by Myanmar’s (Burma’s) military junta of Than Shwe in 2010. The military wrote the Constitution, reserved a quarter of the seats in national and local assemblies for itself, created its own party, Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), and blocked other parties from participating in the Nov 7, 2010 elections. Then three days before the vote, it declared “victory.” Similarly in Egypt, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forced (SCAF) so bungled the transition that Mohamed Morsi was ousted iin a coup in July 2013. And now, the military general, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who now style himself Field Marshal, is running for president!

It is tough to start a revolution and topple a dictator. Formidable still is managing the transition and implementing reforms. Bungling either allows crocodile liberators and quack revolutionaries to take over. As Africans are wont of lamenting, “We struggle very hard to remove one cockroach from power and the next rat comes to do the same thing. Haba! (Darn!). This was affirmed when Hosni Mubarak was replaced by Mohamed Morsi. Would Field Marshal Abdel al-Sisi turn out to be a bigger rat? Get me the baseball bat!

Thank you.

George Ayittey <ayittey@gmail.com>

 

 

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