There is a theme I'm seeing over and over in the coverage of Mandela's funeral - in everything from mainstream press, to "expert" commentators both inside and outside the press, and essays on the left. People note how brilliant, effective, humane, democratic, strategic, etc. Mandela was when leading the resistance movement. Then they note that he was less effective, less strategic, less brilliant, less democratic as president. (Those on the left add that he began collaborating with international corporations, imperialist or otherwise disreputable states, etc.) And then they move onto how much this negative trend has continued and in some cases wonder whether there is a leader who can bring South Africa back to the excitement and progress of the revolution.
What is striking is that everyone takes this history to reflect on Mandela, on Mandela's legacy as a person. It is if the main observation is that this guy was great for a time and only good later, to be followed by people who were massively worse. And so we are led to take from this the lesson that we need to find someone who is as he was earlier but able to maintain this disciplined humanity as president.
No one that I have seen has so much as entertained the possibility that this difference might imply not changes in Mandela, but the difference between democratic voluntary movement coalitions and institutionalized states, even ones with marvelous constitutions like that of South Africa. If we did consider seriously this other possibility - that it is the structures that were the independent variable in this experiment - might we possibly be led to the thought that the way such revolutions are organized is a better model for society than the way states are?
Let me emphasize that this distinction - the success of the resistance and the failures of the government - is not adequately captured as one of success at some project while failing at governing. If "to govern" is to participate in practices that coordinate disparate groups of people with competing values, views, and interests in a way that allows for social life, then coordinating the resistance of the ANC - itself a complex mix of groups that range from what in Europe would count as conservative, through standard liberals, to fairly radical progressives - SWAPO, COSATU, CPSA, various township-based grassroots movements, etc. was an exercise in governing. And it was a brilliantly successful one. The movement leadership was essentially coordinating the better part of the life of the vast majority of the population. In many cases they were providing ongoing services in addition to coordinating resistance. And all this across broad political and strategic disagreements, in the face of concerted attacks on all fronts by a highly militarized and industrialized state apparatus.
Note a few differences in what it takes to govern in the two contexts. In a resistance context, one does not have access to institutionalized tools of coercion. It is definitive of being in opposition to the established system of power that one can opt out. Sure, it is possible to coerce on an individual basis - instances of this were loudly and broadly paraded in efforts to deligitimize the movement - but there is no systematic way to do this. If one of the larger groups does not feel included in the process of movement governance, they can simply opt out. There are also far fewer external supports. Certainly the movement received arms and other aid from countries like Cuba - not to mention solidarity from masses around the world - but there were no corporations ready to invest in building infrastructure, no regular foreign trade, no ability to make direct use of international institutions.
On the one hand, these things make governing seem easier in the case of a state: the benefits of corporate investment, a police infrastructure, government legitimacy and all the economic, legal, and international powers that come with it are all tools that one can apply to the task of governing. On the other hand, the range of responsibilities one has increase in governing a state, and the range of actors that must be dealt with increase.
But there is, I think, a third hand, one according to which the perceived benefits of state power are in fact obstacles - at least obstacles if the goal is ultimately democratic, egalitarian, governance that leads to freedom and flourishing. Everyone is subject to corruption whether it be the corruption of thinking within certain parameters when considering policy options, parameters that in fact make you suitable to campaign donors and consultancy jobs after office, or the more obvious payoffs for services. And the presence of things like foreign trade and corporate investment are not separable from systematic temptations to such corruption. Similarly, when one has at one's disposal the mechanisms of coercion - police, military, but also propaganda, distributions of favors, etc. - there is a constant tendency to use them. And that temptation is not always based on something vicious. A leader might want to protect his people from violence. The most expedient way to do so, in many cases, will involve things like coercion, surveillance, centralizing decision-making. Of one might want to pursue genuinely good policies, and the best way to do that is to subdue those forces who oppose it. To eschew the use of authoritarian means might well be to accept death, suffering, etc.
By contrast the revolutionary leader by and large lacks such temptations and such tools. In a context in which anyone can leave the political coalition - can opt out of the social contract - and that coaltion is aimed at oppositional goals, the only option is inclusion and democracy. Everyone must be hear, because everyone is needed and everyone can leave. So there is really no choice but - again by and large - to sacrifice efficiency for democracy. And to cut out all the messy argument in favor of a dogmatic bottom-line - that trade is always better in the long-run.
So my suggestion is that if we look at the course of Mandela's life, and see this as a sort of experiment, we should see the independent variable not to be changes in Mandela, but rather the changing institutional context within which he - and others; it was never just him of course - worked. And we see that great things can be accomplished with relative few resources, in a magnificently grass-roots, inclusive, egalitarian, and democratic manner when good, smart, committed people work together in a cause of social revolution. But these same people, put into the context of a conventional state, tend to be molded more and more into the standard shape of the diplomat. My meeting with Sheila Sisulu - see my previous post - was with a person who had been constructed largely in this context of movement governance. She fit right into George's radical classroom, or a meeting with activists in a Lebanese restaurant. She was far less "natural" in the world of state diplomacy. I have no doubt that current members of the South African government would be the opposite and I expect none of them to show up for my classes.
And that, I think, is one data point in the case against states as a way of organizing ourselves.
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