The philosophy of Kabwe Zitto
Ramesh Shah looks at the evolution of political discourse in Tanzania
Recently, Mr. Kabwe Zitto of opposition party Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (CHADEMA) faced a four month suspension in the Tanzanian Parliament. The opposition expressed disappointment on suspension of Mr. Zitto as a move by CCM legislators to conceal the “Truth”. The issue was very simple. It was regarding the Buzwadi mining contract between the present Tanzanian government and Barrick Gold Corporations in London. The opposition believed that by blocking Zitto’s motion, the government failed to show the transparency.
On the other hand, Mr. Zitto believed that he had an obligation to “defend the Nation’s resources in the interest of “Wananchi””. Perhaps, President Kikwete saw some truth, perhaps he was honest, perhaps he wants to use the best people and their ideas to lead the nation through the maze of globalization: Whatever the case may be, he made Zitto one of the members of inquiry into mining contract. But then came another surprise. In one of the newspapers, it was reported that the Karatu legislator, Wilbrod Slaa also wanted to disclose secrets on Bank of Tanzania when he felt that the Government would also block his private motion in the Parliament. It was interesting to see the first page of this paper. The top headline was about Mr. Slaa’s remarks regarding suspicion of corruption in the Bank of Tanzania. The lower headline was about the Vice President Mr. Shein asking people to avoid luxuries and invest at home. This showed nothing much except that in the process of fighting extreme poverty in the mineral rich Tanzania, the time had come and some people had risen to ask for greater transparency.
People are asking for more than parliamentary democracy. They are taking a closer look at the parliamentary laws and rules and asking how and for whom they work. Could all this be connected to another problem? Recently, Mr. Warioba said that it was high time that Tanzania had a Constitution that separates the legislative and executives arms. Mr. Masekwa also said that there was a need to amend the Constitution in order to avoid any situation whereby the executive could simply muzzle the parliament.
Tanzania still has to solve many other problems arising recently. The new Prevention and Combating of Corruption Act [2007] is expected to protect the PCB, journalists, and the public in fighting graft. But actually the media will be prevented from independent investigations from the PCB. Yet today’s crime in the world is such that it needs simultaneous investigations from all sides. In India, media plays a major role in the investigations and show their progress to the people on their media channels. Kenya also has similar problem in a Media Bill where it is legally mandatory for media to reveal its source of information in the court. If this Bill becomes effective, no one will give information to the media. Law Society of Kenya [LSK] has promised to go to court to stop this Bill.
A few months ago, some university student leaders were not allowed to continue their studies. I ask myself, when do “leaders” become “ring-leaders” in our country? When I was a student at this university, I always saw our leaders as “leaders”. My point is not on whether Mr. Zitto or the students were right or wrong. When Tanzania wanted to go democratic, the first thing CCM did was to propose the multi-party approach. It was the CCM that was to lead us into democracy. The second thing it tried to do was make the democracy more vibrant and asked the opposition to become more active. At this stage, Mr. Zitto was not an individual but he represented a trend of thought. He was not one but many. He was part of a new trend now emerging in all developing countries. He was not opposing as a party, but just trying to set up a new trend of transparency. Like many academics, and citizens, I have been dreaming of effective arguments and transparency. I did not look at our parliament as a “party” but as a “nation”. ??
When I was a student of economics at the university, I read a book called “Four Essays on Philosophy” by Chairman Mao. One of the essays was on “Contradiction”. When there is a major contradiction, we come to-gather as nation and try to solve it. This is when we fought for and achieved our independence. Then a new minor contradiction arose, and this was party politics. Since then, we have been struggling between different major [national] and minor [party] and still minor [individual] contradictions. Mr. Zitto’s approach showed a major [national] contradiction but many understood it as a minor contradiction, and he was suspended!!! It would have been a plus for the CCM members to respect Mr. Zitto's move if we agree that the CCM wants to increase the level of democracy and transparency. Democracy and transparency cannot be strengthened by merely setting up more human rights institutions, but rather by the people rising to make the use of them. Mr. Zitto may have done exactly that. ??
Amartya Sen has written a book on “identity”. In it he raises the question of how we identify our-selves. Do I identify myself as a national, or CCM, or as an individual, or as a Hindu, or as a socialist or as a capitalist or as a fan of a particular politician? What we are going to do depends on how we identify ourselves. Very often, issues of national interest may conflict with the party interest or religious interest and vice-versa. An issue of national interest may not resonate for the individual or the party. ??If we are to introduce the philosophy of a “majority” decision then it means that the majority can impose their decisions. Nowhere in the world or in history, is it ever said that the majority is always right. Majority is just numerical superiority.
Similarly, the minority is not always wrong, and yet she may loose her view due to the numerical strength of the “majority”. Very often, the law may contradict justice, and that is why we often call upon our nation to be just and not just legal. Laws emerge from the bills that are passed in parliament. A bill is drafted by the national legal persons and passed by the parliament. A Bill will not be just if drafted in the interest of a small influential group. Most of the third world was colonized some time ago.
The colonial “masters” used all sorts of unjust laws, fears, force and techniques to justify colonization. When we became independent, we inherited similar structure, and we also continued playing the same game towards our own people. The events following 1789 in revolutionary France were nothing but terror followed by Directorate and the Consulate. All this may suggest that the old oppression had merely been replaced by the new kind. For many philosophers, the aftermath only reinforced that a man’s true nature was as savage as it was wicked and vengeful. In this way, the social revolution got out of hand because many people wanted liberty before order, while others wanted to put order before liberty.
We should always ask, what is the best order to maximize liberty? If we talk of evil, then we may be talking about religion. The issue of evil troubled Plato greatly. If we use Leibniz’s idiom, God has made the best of all possible worlds. Among the many goods, He gave us, the good of freedom. He may not have liked the world without freedom, because the freedom itself is a necessary part of goodness. But freedom cannot exist without the possibility of abuse. The evil entered the world through our abuse of freedom. Beyond this, nothing else is evil. Some people think that evil itself is the necessary part of the global beauty in the same way the catastrophe is part of the beauty of a tragedy. ??I give regular lectures on Ethics at the University. At one time, while all good ethics may also contain good laws, not all laws absorb ethics. But today many laws are in contradiction to ethics. ??Then we end up with the use of power. When our thought is joined to will, we call it power; this means that if one has got power, one must manifest it to action.
The accumulation of power is likewise as important as its diffusion. An ounce of practice is worth more that a ton of theory. Talking is neither politics nor religion, parrots may talk, and machines may also talk. Each nation, each leader has a mission for the world. There is no power higher then power of purity. ?
* Dr Ramesh Shah is an Economics and Export Consultant and has given lectures on Ethics at the University of Dar-es-Salaam
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