Zimbabwe: One State, One Faith, One Lord

Chenjerai Hove

The one-party state depends on its praise-singers, the army of sycophants, flatterers and toadies who furnish the ruler’s court. These are extracts from a speech made in Harare, ‘A culture of burdensome sycophancy; or, sycophancy and the one-party state’, by the novelist Chenjerai Hove.

‘Every revolution tends to worship its leaders,’ says Octavio Paz, the Mexican poet and essayist. Later, when those prayers make gods out of our leaders, a certain type of citizen is created. Paz described the one -state citizen well: ‘He shuts himself away to protect himself; his face is a mask and so is his smile.’

In one-party state, the citizen lives in solitude and, according to Paz, ‘everything serves as a defence: silence and words, politeness and disdain, irony and resignation’. Thus we end up with a falsified human being who is conveniently subservient, artificially humble, deceptive in word and deed. In other words, very unpredictable. These features you can see in many one-party states, most of which are busy unburdening themselves today.

Politicians must rule through the people’s political, social and cultural goodwill, not through compulsion and force. No nation can thrive on compulsion for long.

The one-party state is born out of the notion of father. ‘No family can have two fathers,’ they say. Thus one nation, one leader was born. The father myth is transposed to the political realm, with many consequences unconducive to the welfare of the state.

Zimbabwe recently went through an election in which the ruling party won nearly all the parliamentary seats available. The behavior and assumptions of our politicians as they campaigned during the elections help us to understand the political culture we are developing.

At some point I decided that I would never vote in my life, especially when a senior politician claimed that African were not mature enough for multi-party democracy. Another senior politician claimed on television that Zimbabwe could do with a second-best Constitution simply because our Constitution is better than most third world Constitutions. But then I said no, I will vote, or even spoil my vote. Then I started to think seriously about the ways of African politician as he chews words and hurls insults at both voter and political opponent. Certain characteristics of our leaders began to have meaning, to show me the way Africa will go for a long time unless a new type of politician is born.

Why, for example, do African leaders mistake a critic for an enemy in any discussion of national issues? Why do African leaders get offended if anyone criticizes them or their policies? Why do African leaders relish empty praise by praise-singers and sycophants? Why do our leaders allow flattery to be their diet in the media?

The birth of the sycophant, the praise-singer, the hanger-on, is a culture of those who do not want to risk their lives through sincerity and honesty. In the end, they are usually the ones who are best positioned to write the biography of the nation’s leader, and so the praise-singer at the chief’s court goes on ad infinitum, forward to the century of chieftaincies and feudal lords, in this age of technology and critical thinking.

African leaders get angry when criticized. Their anger explodes through those who are employed to get angry on behalf of the President or the military ruler. Instead of examining the idea of critic, they rush quickly for the critic’s throat, armed with threats and imprisonment.

One of the reasons they get angry when criticized is that they have this chain of praise-singers and sycophants who give them the impression that if they have not been around, the country would collapse. They never entertain the notion that in every country there are as many potential leaders as the population of that country. Politics is the only profession which does not require any entry qualifications, as Papandreou of Greece admitted.

Another possible reason that African leaders lose their temper when confronted with criticism is that they do not have many original ideas. Imagine an African head of state spending the people’s money building Saint Peter’s Basilica in an African country. Our own case is the national sports stadium, which no one seems willing to use, so it lies idle. Then we have this vast dream of massive Parliament; when you hear politicians praise it, you would think the building itself will speak instead of the parliamentarians. And there will be talk of canals where there are not even seas or river, and huge aeroplanes to earn foreign currency when the national airline is running at a loss all the time.

For most African leaders, talk of retirement is an insult, a treasonable act for which an honest citizen can be hanged. Their main reason for not wanting to retire is that they offend so much when they are in power that they fear a possible investigation if they should leave power. The one-party state is convenient as an institution of monopolizing power, legitimizing it so that it is seen to be constitutional. It also had to do with fame: The Guinness Book of Records for the longest-reigning ruler.

Musaemura Zimunza was right about one of our acquisitions from Europe: the prison. I wonder what it feels like for a leader who wants to be considered great, to look up a critic for some flimsy offence of works or demonstration. Africa has the misfortune of being ruled with more brutality than persuasion. The people are only a mean to an end - power. Look at what is done in the name of the people - repression and suppression of alternative views, huge loans they have no idea how to repay, weird agreements with foreign governments for the most weird purposes, building huge showcase structures which the people stare at from a distance in utter disbelief and fear.

Our media must stop the praise songs. Advisers to our leaders must know that they are accountable to the people, not to the whims of the rulers. African politicians must move away from the concept of being beggars parading around the world asking for huge loans which no one has the slightest idea how to repay. And for the cultural workers, writers, musicians, poets, dancers, the temptation to become a praise-singer is high. Some have already done it, other will do it, some did it and gave up, tired of monotony of sycophancy and praise-singing, tired of the art of flattery since it is repetitive and uninspiring.

I look forward to an African leader whom I can meet in the street, with a loaf of well-priced bread under my arm, to challenge him on his budget speech the previous day, while he challenges me on the literacy merit of my latest bad novel or poem. In the end, I will say to him, you have done well, but let's do better; he will say to me, continue writing even if I do not agree with your literary products, it is good to have them. And he and I will agree.

(CX5040)

Subject Headings

• Africa
• African Politics
• Democracy
• Democratization
• Zimbabwe

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