Political leadership

A great leader always and inevitably leads a cause which is bigger than himself or herself. More than that, the greatness s/he achieves does not come from the victory that accompanies his or her efforts, but from the integrity, passion and the persuasiveness that mark the struggle and the cause. We remember the Egyptian Moses, the Galilean Jesus, the Garifuna Chatoyer, the West African Nellie Ibo and the Guyanese Walter Rodney.{{more}} They all made victory possible without holding it in their hands. Something bigger, or perhaps smaller, than personal glory was at work in these leaders. They pursued a cause and they did so with personal and political integrity.

I look for that kind of leader today. Four years ago, I was able to look at the elections for a President in the USA and say insightfully. “Barack Obama will win two terms as president in the USA”. Today, it is still true that Mr Obama will have a second term, but the meaning of the statement is diminished. The focus is on winning Romney, rather than institutionalizing a cause and realizing a hope. It is as if the cause has been reduced to the size of Obama. It is President Obama who is the struggle. The leader becomes the cause.

Now, I had not anticipated this is where we would land, when our hopes took off four years ago, but it makes us think and ponder: Is this what happens when leadership is centered more on the leader and less on having a growing network of strategic support that works for the cause. Is leadership in politics equal to his/or courtesans? A recent comment by Mahmood Mamdani, an African scholar reminds us of how C.L.R. James compared two African leadership styles, that of Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere. Writing about Nkrumah’s Ghana and other African states, James notes: “The African state enmeshes controls, regulates, superintends and tutors civil society from its most comprehensive manifestations of life, its most insignificant stirrings. At least, it attempts to do so. In such a state of affairs, the leader is supreme and unchallenged, the state is his weapon for development, for control and for reproducing his kind. On the other hand, the state which Julius Nyerere led in Tanzania was an “enabling” state. It provided resources and opportunities for communities to work together in pursuit of development goals. The official language – Swahili – brought some unity to the 120 ethnic groups in the society. The political leaders engaged in everyday lifestyle like other citizens. In fact while Nkrumah sometimes was addressed as ‘Osagyefo’ The Redeemer, Nyerere was known as “Mwalimu” Teacher, and he retired from presidential politics quietly, rather than being removed in a violent coup d’état.” C.L.R. James gives us these two models of political leadership – the strongman and the enabler – each one had a different relationship with the civil community. The leader as 1st cause and the leader as servant of the cause.

As we turn from examining the US leadership struggle and the nationalist African experience to our tradition of leadership, what do we find in the path from E.T. Joshua, Milton Cato, James Mitchell, Arnhim Eustace and Ralph Gonsalves? At what point in our politics does the leader rise to become the one maker and mover of politics and power? What role does “the opposition” play in the promotion of “one man rule”? Where do citizens and citizens’ organisations stand or fall in this concentration of power. Is a ‘strong man’ state the way we are to go, or not?

Round table leaves these questions for reflection.