Tanzania police patrol Manyara. Heavily armed police officers were
deployed across major towns on April 26, 2018, in a bid to block
anti-government protests called by a US-based Tanzanian social media
activist. PHOTO | MWANANCHI
I was going to write that this might be what the African
renaissance will look like but it is a bit early for that level of
optimism.
So I will settle for a cautious hope that
this global and local trend of surveillance, autocracy and just general
anger along with the malaise they produce might not be completely
unstoppable after all.
In the US, there is a saying
generally directed at young people struggling during their awkward
years: It gets better. As Africa too struggles through her awkward first
century of self rule maybe it is not a bad mantra to hold on to.
But
for things to get better, sometimes you need that wild and radical
friend to nudge you along. This is what Mange Kimambi, a Tanzanian
blogger and demonstration organiser and Mo Ibrahim have in common.
The
day when Tanzania threw the biggest No Show Demonstration ever, the
country was tensed up until noon. And then we did what we do: Left home
to have some nyama choma with friends because we could.
The
storm had passed. In the aftermath of this cathartic moment I struggled
to comprehend what would happen, only to realise it has been happening
all this time.
We were out of balance with ourselves —
too much escalation too fast, too strange and too new. It turns out
that a system out of balance will seek to balance itself.
We
were all so terribly busy being focused on one specific date that it
was easy to miss how the political space for dialogue has been blown
open as an unintended yet quite positive consequence of all the build
up.
In the same social media that was used to
co-ordinate the most effective misdirection ever, the hush that had
fallen across Tanzanian channels has lifted. A veritable garden of
public debate is blooming again.
There are many weeds
for course, but whereas their trolling used to be very effective at
stifling debate, this new online etiquette means those interested in
constructive exchange simply sidestep them.
This was
also the week during which the African Leadership Award ceremony was
taking place in Rwanda. When I first heard about the Mo Ibrahim
initiative I wondered why a perfectly reasonable man would do that to
himself.
Trying to directly encourage good governance
and more importantly the relinquishing of power through a prize
mechanism? With African leaders? I thought this is a man who dreams in
broad daylight with his eyes open. And proceeded to wait for it to fail
spectacularly.
But in 2018 we got to watch Africa’s
first woman head of state receive the prize with grace and poise. And to
listen to Mo Ibrahim himself have a conversation with the former prime
minister of Ethiopia who departed after protests.
There
they sat, rich powerful men, discussing the healthiness of change and
the need sometimes to let young people lead because this might just be
their technological and social era.
One lady fearlessly
incited organised dissent in a culture that was beginning to lose all
its courage. And no blood was shed. And somehow free speech is leaking
back into Tanzania.
And Mo Ibrahim managed to get some
of our elders to admit fallibility and acknowledge the drawbacks of
overstaying in power...while in East Africa. Maybe it does get better,
especially if you have radical and fierce friends to help you along the
way.
Elsie Eyakuze is a consultant and blogger for The Mikocheni Report. E-mail: elsieeyakuze@gmail.com
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