Greetings. This week, the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party will be commemorating 36 years since it came into power. Proponents for their continued grip on power urge the public to concentrate on their deliverables rather than their duration in power. In the previous year's general election, the party's Secretary General was wont to assert that the party intended to stay in power for as long as Chama Cha Mapinduzi, Tanzania's ruling party that has held power since 1970. Parties that have stayed long in power have a penchant for poor governance, economic mismanagement and a poor human rights record.
These parties' continued stay in power despite a poor report card brings to mind a mythological character cursed to perform a futile task for eternity.
The Myth of Sisyphus
Sisyphus is a wily figure in Greek mythology, who cheated death twice. His punishment was to roll a huge rock endlessly up a steep hill.
"… Sisyphus at his endless task raising his prodigious stone with both his hands. With hands and feet, he tried to roll it up to the top of the hill, but always, just before he could roll it over on to the other side, its weight would be too much for him, and the pitiless stone would come thundering down again on to the plain. Then he would begin trying to push it up hill again …"
The gods displayed their own trickery by enchanting the stone to roll away from Sisyphus when he reached the top. This consigned him to this fruitless labour and frustration for eternity.
The Myth of CCM
Time and again, parties in Africa take up power only to resort to the same methods that lead to a path of aggressively protecting their interests at any cost, much to the detriment of the rest of the population. First, it was the one-party states. Gamal Nasser in Egypt led the way with a declaration of the National Democratic Party as the sole legal party in the country in 1956. By the time, Nyerere declared Chama Cha Mapinduzi the sole legal party in Tanzania in 1977, 34 countries on the continent had taken that path before (including Uganda in 1969). In total, there have been 63 one-party state declarations in Africa, with Sahrawi and Eritrea the only countries still practising single-party politics on the continent.
Despite a move away from the formation of one-party states, ruling parties have continued to assert their dominance even under the multi-party system. They tend to employ the same methods across countries and time to maintain their grip on power. Reports of voter suppression, clamping down on freedom of press, jailing of dissenting views are commonplace in all African countries with a dominant political power. And when a new party comes into power, the same script is repeated; Sisyphus returning to the bottom of the hill to carry the burdensome rock (oppressive methods) up to the hill afresh. And worst of all, the larger population's rock refers to the same paces of corruption, economic mismanagement, voter suppression, having their social services neglected, which they have to go through time and time again.
The Franco-Algerian author, Albert Camus had a different interpretation of the Sisyphian myth altogether. In his Le Myth de Sisyphe, he considered Sisyphe an absurd hero. Despite his endless effort, Sisyphus is actually triumphant over the gods.
"His scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing. This is the price that must be paid for the passions of this earth"
Individuals can continue to live conscious of their despicable condition, and yet continue to face it on a daily basis. Why else would citizens put up with questionable governance for 36 years? There is a sense the rock will come tumbling down the hill, and they will have to pick it up again.
But the people in power could share Camus' interpretation. They could view it as their own triumph taking up a task of governing the people in the same oppressive way in perpetuity.
Happy NRM Day!
Ceteris. Paribus.
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