My Zimbabwe: A Failing State?

The research and writing of Fukuyama in his Origins of Political Order is an insight. For most of us in developing countries, democracy is a dream. Democracy has been so elusive to such an extent that it is now imaginary. To many of us, we only read or hear that democracy is an all encompassing political institution that is known to have good political and economic institutions. We only hear that it is stable, peaceful, prosperous, inclusive, and has extremely low levels of political corruption. Many of us would like to figure out how to transform Zimbabwe, once the "jewel of Africa" to a fully functioning democracy, suitable for the twenty first century and beyond.

According To Fukuyama, there are a number of problems with this agenda. It does not seem very plausible that extremely poor and chaotic countries could expect to put into place complex institutions in short order, given how long such institutions took to evolve. The struggle to create modern political institutions is so long and  painful that people living in industrialised countries now suffer from a historical amnesia regarding how their societies came to that point in the first place.

Most of us can only remember that Zimbabwe was once the bread basket of Africa, and today, it is possibly the first vending nation in the world. Everyone has to vend in order to survive.

Still, after Mugabe, the struggle to create a modern functioning state is going to be long. The sordid failings of the Mugabe regime will come into a full glare after his departure, together with his whole entourage. The failings we are currently seeing are just a tip of the iceberg.

In the first place, how did we come to have a state? Our ancient ancestors lived in tribal societies. They owed primary obligation not to a state but to kinfolk, they settled disputes not through courts but through a system of retributive justice. How come we still have retributive justice in today's Zimbabwe? Today, as I am writing, a pro-democracy activist, Itai Dzamara, calling for Mugabe to step down, was abducted by yet unknown men in broad day light. We have not heard anything from the so-called state of his whereabouts. A functioning state should have, at least, come up with an explanation of what took place on the day of his abduction. Someone applied the barbaric, ancient and uncivilized retributive justice.

A state is the centralized source of authority that holds an effective monopoly of military power over a defined piece of territory. Peace is kept by the state's army and police, a standing force that can also defend the community against neighbouring tribes and states.

Today, Zimbabwe is not in a state to defend her-self from other invading states. This is a country which has dismally failed to run its own airline, let alone owning a fleet of high tech war-jets. Many countries have been and are still investing in high tech warfare hardware. For instance, a happy trigger American soldier, operating from any of the American military bases situated in Botswana, seated on an armchair can cause so much damage to Zimbabwe by the use of drones.

Fukuyama further pens that in time; our ancestors formalised as written laws rather than customs or informal traditions. These formal rules were used to organize the way that power was distributed in the system, regardless of the individuals who exercised power at any given time. Institutions, in other words, replaced individual leaders. Those legal systems were eventually accorded supreme authority over society, an authority that was seen to be superior to that of rulers who temporarily happened to command the state's armed forces and bureaucracy. This came to be known as the rule of law.

Is there the rule of law in Zimbabwe? No. The moment one uses retributive justice on his fellow countrymen, and the state fails to intervene and justify, there is no upholding of the rule of law. The moment state security agencies override decisions made by the judiciary, there is no upholding of the rule of law. The moment a President manipulates the country's constitution to prolong his rule; there is no upholding of the rule of law. The moment political party cronies ignore property rights of individuals; there is no upholding of the rule of law. The moment a political heavy weight allows vendors to sell vegetables and fruits along street pavements in the Central Business District, therefore bypassing the council bylaws, there is no upholding of the rule of law. The moment the judiciary system is politicised, corrupted and adulterated by the ruling elite, there is no upholding of the rule of law.

Finally, Fukuyama noted that certain societies not only limited the power of their states by forcing rulers to comply with written law: they also held them accountable to parliaments, assemblies, and other bodies representing a broader proportion of the population. Some degree of accountability was present in many traditional monarchies, but it was usually the product of informal consultation with a small body of elite advisers. Modern democracy was born when rulers acceded to formal rules limiting their power and subordinating their sovereignty to the will of the larger population as expressed through free and fair elections.

Alas, how many of us, through the ballot box and an adulterated electoral system stands a chance to limit the power of our leaders. In a nutshell, for a successful modern liberal democracy, the three pre-requisite ingredients; which is the rule of law, accountable government and a functioning state, are missing in Zimbabwe.

When these institutions cannot protect our interest, then that government must go. When corrupt, greedy elites and cronies - most often rich and powerful, entrench themselves over time and begin demanding privileges from the state, then, that government must go.

To conclude, I will note that Fukuyama stated that a successful modern liberal democracy combines all three sets of institutions in a stable balance. The fact that there are countries capable of achieving this balance constitutes the miracle of modern politics. The state, after all, concentrates and uses power, to bring about compliance with its laws on the part of its citizens and to defend itself against other states and threats. The rule of law, an accountable government, on the other hand, limits the state's power according to certain public and transparent rules, and then by ensuring that it is subordinate to the will of the people.

Tendai Kwari @tendai.kwari