Any liberation requires a sustainable solution that keeps the transition moving forward. And this requires a leadership that understands the need to move from one phase of the transition to another. Zimbabwean Patrick Kuwana has great insight into these challenges given the process of political liberation in his country, but as the piece below suggests, the failure to move towards a phase of inclusive socio-economic growth needs to be avoided. And Zimbabwe’s recent million man march may very well be a lesson for all South Africans to embrace such a notion. Kuwana looks at the process in three phases – political liberation, reconciliation and nation building. Another good read. – Stuart Lowman
By Patrick Kuwana*
In the last few weeks South Africa’s economic growth forecasts have been revised lower to 0.6%, the unemployment rate increased to 26.7% and public unrest and polarization continues to escalate.
So what has gone wrong, but even more importantly can we find a diagnosis so that we can fix the root problem rather than address symptoms?
It’s primarily an issue of leadership, and particularly the failure to recognise the transition in leadership thinking that needs to take place to get a nation through the journey from political liberation to inclusive socio-economic growth. Different leadership mind-sets, skills and strategies are required to successfully execute the different phases of the national transition process. Each phase has a different answer to the ‘What needs to be done’, ‘Why it needs to be done’, ‘When to do it’ and ‘How to do it’ questions. The national transition process typically goes through the (1) political liberation phase, (2) reconciliation phase, and (3) nation building phase.
The leaders who drove the political liberation phase were rightly focused on the goal of breaking down the dehumanising system of colonialism or apartheid (the what) to achieve equality for the majority of the people (the why). In this phase immediacy of results was non-negotiable (the when) and the method (the how) was typically militant confrontation to cause as much destabilization to the prevailing oppressive system. But once political liberation was achieved it required a shift in leadership thinking and strategy as a transition was made into the reconciliation phase.
The main aim of the reconciliation phase is to bring healing to diverse people who now have to come together and build an inclusive political and socio-economic system after having previously lived in generational conflict in a rejection and segregation based system. In this phase leadership thinking is driven by a focus on reconciliation (the what) so that people group healing and integration can take place (the why). Ideally this should happen as quickly as possible but the reality is that it takes time as it involves having to heal some very deep generational wounds. The late President Nelson Mandela demonstrated a lot of the elements of the ‘how to do it’ by his display of forgiveness (after 27 painful years in jail), his humility and ability to admit when he was wrong.
Madiba was a unique leader who possessed the ability to make the ‘leadership thinking’ shift required to transition from the liberation to reconciliation phase. It’s a pity that Madiba could not have carried on for another 5 years because the reconciliation phase was cut short before it had achieved sustainable results. One of the greatest challenges that SA faces today is that it moved to the nation building phase before a tipping point of reconciliation had been reached.
SA moved into the nation building phase still carrying too much hurt and brokenness. The nation building phase is where collective collaboration of all groups needs to take place so that difficult decisions around economic resource balancing can be made and inclusive nation building strategies formulated and executed. The nation building phase comes with its own complexities as it requires unified commitment to undertake the journey up 3 critical steps – the 1st of laying the relational foundation, the 2nd of economic resource balancing and the 3rd of finally driving for inclusive economic growth. Again it takes different leadership thinking to execute and climb these different steps. Without common vision, trust and unity this is nearly impossible to achieve.
SA is constrained right now because it is trying to drive an economic growth agenda without having walked through and completed the preceding pre-requisite stages. Most prevailing leadership thinking is no longer relevant for the stage the country is in. The ‘what, why, when and how’ from the political liberation phase can’t be used in the nation building phase. What works in one phase can prove to be toxic in another.
It is critical to always honour the leaders who led African countries to political freedom (and broke the oppressive dehumanising segregation systems that were in place) but it’s equally important for those leaders to realise that they might not be equipped with the relevant leadership acumen and wisdom required to take their nations through the subsequent phases.
Several warning indicators are showing that SA has not successfully gone through the national transition phases in the right order. The stalled economic growth is one. The other is the nationwide anger and frustration manifesting in increased racial and tribal intolerance, damage of public property, violence and unruliness in parliament. All are symptoms of people reverting to methods (the how) that worked in the political liberation struggle phase because they still carry deep hurt and brokenness because of an incomplete reconciliation phase.
The most critical thing that South Africa might have to do is to take a few steps back into the past in order to successfully move forward again towards the future it desires.
- Patrick Kuwana is founder and CEO of Crossover Transformation Group. You can contact him at [email protected].
