The Ibrahim Index of African Governance, sponsored by prominent business man Mo Ibrahim, makes fascinating reading. The results have just been published. The BBC reports that Rwanda, in the Index, has achieved the ‘most improved’ status. One has to remember how this country was shattered during and after the genocide in 1994 to fully grasp the significance of this achievement.
What would probably surprise the West the most though would be Zimbabwe’s position at only 31 of 48 countries. South Africa scored a fifth place overall. What probably knocks South Africa off a higher score is the high crime rate. Number one spot was awarded to Mauritius, second went to the Seychelles and third to Botswana.
The results came just after I had read an article on Anton Harber’s site ‘The Harbinger’. He was writing about the election battle in 1800 between Thomas Jefferson and President John Adams in the USA. The American electoral system was fairly flawed in those days, and even now the faulty electoral college remains in place, which contributed to Al Gore being pipped at the post by Bush Jnr.
The point he was making was that South Africa was not the first young democracy to have an imperfect electoral system, the Americans also struggling just over 200 hundred years ago. In time the hick-ups will be ironed out and an electoral system will evolve that will work more smoothly. It will also take some time for politicians to find their feet, for some kind of moral code to be established, journalists and bloggers to be, hopefully, more neutral in their reporting.
We tend to expect that South Africa will be an immediate fully functioning mature democracy. Possibly one expects this because the ruling party, the ANC, has achieved so much that one tends to set the sights high on all levels.
One of the things I have always admired the most, was the exceptional planning that took place during the apartheid years. One component of this planning was to send promising young people across the world to study in preparation for a take over.
It is often forgotten by the West that Bantu Education was implemented by the white Nationalist Government to ensure that young black people lived up to the idea of second rate citizens. How could one expect to take over a government, both national and local, with people who had been disadvantaged in the educational system. In view of this, the achievements have been nothing short of miraculous.
Allowing for a reality check then across the continent, or at least sub-Sahara Africa, one may realise that after all young African nations are entitled to struggle to implement democracy, curtail corruption and support human rights for all its citizens.
In the scheme of things fifty or so years since booting out the colonial powers, is no time at all. Many, such as South Africa with its first general and democratic election only 13 years ago, have had much less time to establish healthy democracies.
One may say that war and political turmoil in African countries is damaging the continent. But can one say that the rest of the world is any better? What America’s Bush is up to in Iraq might just make any of the nasty activities in some of the countries in Africa, such as Darfur, fade into the background.
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