Johann Hari: Our infantile search for heroic leaders
[Johann Hari is a columnist for the Independent.]
Do you find yourself staring at the television and pining for a good leader – a person who will rise and make the world right again? Do you long for a Mandela, a Churchill, a Gandhi? Then grow up. Our political debate – what passes for it – increasingly focuses on a search for an elusive Messianic leader who will show us the way. This is the opposite of rational politics.
This search for leaders is based on a desire to return to childhood – to snuggle into the political cot and close our eyes, knowing daddy is outside watching over us. The highest compliment we pay to a politician is to call him "father of the nation". I feel this urge too. It is difficult and disturbing to try to figure out what is wrong in the world, and how to put it right. How much more tempting to simply snuffle out somebody who you think is good and decent and kind, elect them, and assume they will sort it all out.
But this discourages us from doing the one thing that might actually solve these problems – figuring out solutions for ourselves then going out and campaigning to make them happen. Every civilising advance in history – from workers' rights to women's rights to gay rights – was won because ordinary people banded together and agitated for it. If we had waited for a good leader to hand it down from above, we would still be waiting today.
There is a bigger danger still. It is that, in finding a "good" leader, we then blindly follow them into dark and fetid places. Let's look first at a leader whose ninetieth birthday we are celebrating this week: Nelson Mandela. Nobody needs to be reminded of his stunning heroism in the fight against apartheid. But because they were so awed by that, most South Africans followed him unquestioningly as he perpetuated economic apartheid – and worsened the most extreme economic inequality on earth.
Apartheid was not just a system of laws; it was an economic system where a tiny white elite owned almost everything. By 1990, the elite realised they could no longer maintain the laws – but they fought desperately to maintain economic control. They demanded that the land and resources they had stolen from poor blacks be recognised in the constitution as theirs, and never redistributed. They demanded that the new democracy pick up all of apartheid's debts, making spending to lift up the poor majority impossible. They demanded the recognition of "intellectual property rights", making the distribution of cheap Aids drugs unaffordable. They demanded their apartheid finance minister and head of the Central Bank continue in position. Western governments, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank piled in behind them in support.
Mandela agreed to it all. He discreetly buried the ANC's Freedom Charter, with its commitments to clean water, free healthcare and land for all. The result is that today whites own 70 per cent of the South African economy, despite being only 10 per cent of the population. Mandela believed this deal was the only way to prevent white flight and increase poverty. But he was wrong. Since the fall of apartheid, average life expectancy has fallen by 13 years. The black unemployment rate has doubled. This isn't because white ruled ceased; it is because it continues today, with a new black corporate logo.
People who are heroic in one respect can be fools or monsters in another. If we look at two of the most admired leaders of the twentieth century, this becomes even clearer. Mahatma Gandhi's shimmering qualities don't need to be rehearsed here – but who now remembers that he killed his wife, and told Europeans to allow the Nazis to conquer our continent?..
Read entire article at Independent (UK)
Do you find yourself staring at the television and pining for a good leader – a person who will rise and make the world right again? Do you long for a Mandela, a Churchill, a Gandhi? Then grow up. Our political debate – what passes for it – increasingly focuses on a search for an elusive Messianic leader who will show us the way. This is the opposite of rational politics.
This search for leaders is based on a desire to return to childhood – to snuggle into the political cot and close our eyes, knowing daddy is outside watching over us. The highest compliment we pay to a politician is to call him "father of the nation". I feel this urge too. It is difficult and disturbing to try to figure out what is wrong in the world, and how to put it right. How much more tempting to simply snuffle out somebody who you think is good and decent and kind, elect them, and assume they will sort it all out.
But this discourages us from doing the one thing that might actually solve these problems – figuring out solutions for ourselves then going out and campaigning to make them happen. Every civilising advance in history – from workers' rights to women's rights to gay rights – was won because ordinary people banded together and agitated for it. If we had waited for a good leader to hand it down from above, we would still be waiting today.
There is a bigger danger still. It is that, in finding a "good" leader, we then blindly follow them into dark and fetid places. Let's look first at a leader whose ninetieth birthday we are celebrating this week: Nelson Mandela. Nobody needs to be reminded of his stunning heroism in the fight against apartheid. But because they were so awed by that, most South Africans followed him unquestioningly as he perpetuated economic apartheid – and worsened the most extreme economic inequality on earth.
Apartheid was not just a system of laws; it was an economic system where a tiny white elite owned almost everything. By 1990, the elite realised they could no longer maintain the laws – but they fought desperately to maintain economic control. They demanded that the land and resources they had stolen from poor blacks be recognised in the constitution as theirs, and never redistributed. They demanded that the new democracy pick up all of apartheid's debts, making spending to lift up the poor majority impossible. They demanded the recognition of "intellectual property rights", making the distribution of cheap Aids drugs unaffordable. They demanded their apartheid finance minister and head of the Central Bank continue in position. Western governments, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank piled in behind them in support.
Mandela agreed to it all. He discreetly buried the ANC's Freedom Charter, with its commitments to clean water, free healthcare and land for all. The result is that today whites own 70 per cent of the South African economy, despite being only 10 per cent of the population. Mandela believed this deal was the only way to prevent white flight and increase poverty. But he was wrong. Since the fall of apartheid, average life expectancy has fallen by 13 years. The black unemployment rate has doubled. This isn't because white ruled ceased; it is because it continues today, with a new black corporate logo.
People who are heroic in one respect can be fools or monsters in another. If we look at two of the most admired leaders of the twentieth century, this becomes even clearer. Mahatma Gandhi's shimmering qualities don't need to be rehearsed here – but who now remembers that he killed his wife, and told Europeans to allow the Nazis to conquer our continent?..