I am writing this column from the Rwandan capital Kigali. I am here on a research trip with two colleagues – Professors William Reno of Northwestern University in Chicago and Christopher Day of the College of Charleston in South Carolina, USA.
We are trying to understand how Rwanda (and other African countries) has managed the transformation of relations between the military and civilians. This is important because modern states and the nations/societies they administer are built around the military and other state coercive institutions that monopolise the legitimate use of force.
But to achieve a viable nation and a legitimate state, military power must be subordinated to civilian authority. This has been a key problem in African politics. In the first few decades of independence, successful coup d’états were a routine phenomenon. Failed coups were rampant.
Military actors and politicians often pulled in different directions. Worse still, the armed forces were notorious for visiting insecurity on the very citizens they were supposed protect.
I wrote part of my PhD dissertation on the dynamics of political development in Rwanda after the 1994 genocidal apocalypse. I have since maintained interest in studying the country’s politics and economics. But I suspect that the scholarly interest is aided in no small measure by the refreshing feeling you get hanging out in Kigali as against the messy and annoying Kampala.
On Tuesday, we had an opportunity of meeting the Rwandan president General Paul Kagame in a three-hour conversation.
It turned out to be a serious intellectual debate that touched on the history of the rebel Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), the challenge of engineering a new socio-political order in the country, and security dynamics in the region especially with respect to eastern DR Congo that lacks even the most basic rudiments of a functioning state.
African nation-states face a daunting task of creating a common national identity on the basis of which political order can be grafted and economic transformation anchored. Without a unified sense of belonging and conscious belief in a shared history, political order sits on quicksand and sustained economic performance is impossible.
In the wake of the 1994 tragedy, the RPF has attempted an ambitious project of ‘Rwandanness’ that seeks to move the Rwandan society above the enduring sharp ethnic cleavage of Hutu and Tutsi.
Only time will tell if the ongoing social engineering, through the school system and aggressive political mobilisation, among other undertakings, will achieve durable social cohesion and sound nationhood. But listening to impassioned students at the Adventist University of Central Africa talk about belief in their country and sentimental attachment, I got the sense that something must be taking root.
Nations have historically been forged through war. So have strong states emerged out of war-making. Yet rather depressingly, fratricidal warfare in Africa – even though on a relatively-low scale but with immense human and material devastation – has worked against viable nations and effective states.
Wars in Africa have fractured societies. They have dismembered social systems and institutions for collective coexistence. From tiny countries like Liberia and Sierra Leone to geographically-expansive DR Congo and Sudan, low-intensity civil wars have occasioned immeasurable social damage and wrought economic destruction.
While such wars easily crash social systems and erode state institutions, putting together the pillars for societal reconstitution, state rebuilding and economic reconstruction is a herculean task. It requires extraordinary determination and foresight by those holding the levers of power.
Often, however, as in South Sudan, DR Congo, and Central African Republic, power struggles and fissures in ruling coalitions lead to impasses and conflict traps, making state rebuilding impossible. A few others have had seemingly-durable order.
But short-run success is one thing; long- term sustenance is another. The latter is the real crux. This is the point I have belaboured to Rwandan government officials and all those who underline the country’s acclaimed performance.
On the range of socioeconomic indicators over the past few years, Rwanda has been outstanding. It has demonstrated the ability of African people to build functional and relatively-efficient administrative systems. It has shown that orderly and properly-planned development in Africa is possible, and that African states even with limited financial resources can, nevertheless, successfully provide basic public goods and services.
But other African countries, such as Ivory Coast, previously demonstrated the capacity to run short economic races. The race that remains out of reach is the marathon one. To run a marathon of posting positive economic growth and growing a country’s crucial infrastructure requires a stable and uninterrupted social order.
National cohesion and consciousness, too, are critical. Enforcing social order requires a strong state apparatus. To realise fundamental economic transformation, there has to be impressive economic performance sustained over the long haul. But politics is pivotal to all these processes and outcomes.
Social order, an effective state, and impressive economic performance over the long term – all pretty much depend on a viable and stable political system. This is the challenge for Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda and other African countries that have in recent years received plaudits for remarkable recovery and reconstruction. In Rwanda, the real test will be the transition from Kagame to another leader.
moses.khisa@gmail.com