The pernicious association of coups d'etat as somehow unique to Africa

Daily Maverick

2 days ago

The word 'coup' has been dropped into the political lexicon of South Africa. The public lexicon, that is…
The word, now dropped in public, seems to have provided grist to the mill of Afro-pessimists and those self-assured people who would insist that certain societies are 'not ready for democracy'.
During a media briefing on SA's national security strategy for 2024-28, Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni raised the spectre of a coup as part of the deliberations of the security community in government.
'One of the risks is the risk of a coup d'état. There is a potential risk of a coup d'état. We have identified it and put measures [in place] to mitigate against it,' Ntshavheni said.
A few things may be discussed about this public statement, and about the idea of coups d'etat. One stand-out thing is that it is somehow an African thing (and it could not possibly be part of the European world with its deep history of democracy) – which simply cranks up the music for those who dance on South Africa's grave.
Another, more important issue and potentially dangerous, is a type of stochastic messaging sent out by Minister Ntshavheni and the equally dangerous suggestion that the topic should be avoided.
Let us start with the Europe-is-good-and-great notion, and that Africa is prone to coups d'etat. None of what follows justifies or even suggests that coups are necessary. It is, also, not a judgement call on 'good' or 'bad' coups…
The mis-education about coups d'etat and democracy in Africa and Europe
There is a quite wilful and pernicious association of coups d'etat with Africa as somehow unique to the continent, starting, as it usually does, by ripping it from the multiplicity of contexts that shape post-independence democracy on the continent.
Consider the view of Abu-Bakarr Jalloh, an editor from Sierra Leone with the German news service, Deutsche Welle:
'The year 2021 went down in history as the year when military coups returned to Africa. In just a few months, the African continent witnessed dozens of coups and attempted coups in Mali, Guinea, Sudan and Chad. So far, 2022 has been no different. Last week, a military junta took power in Burkina Faso. For people who were around in the '60s, '70s and '80s — the heyday of coups across the continent — it feels a bit like déjà vu.'
That last sentence bites. Given, especially, that it comes from a European news platform – as if the rise of the far-right and Nazism in Europe is not 'a bit like déjà vu'.
European history of the past 100 years (at least) is pocked by attempted, planned, or actual coups and self-replacement – which basically refers to coups in which the leaders put themselves back in office. Over less than 100 years (since the Spartacus League's attempt to overthrow the Social Democrat-led government in 1919), Germany has had at least 10 coups or attempted/planned coups.
The word does, indeed, weigh like ironwood on the imagination of Afropessimists, flagrant racists, Africans in the belly of the beast (paying for their national board and lodging), and those apparently sophisticated types who would have for decades insisted that some societies are not ready for democracy – and have to be saved from themselves.
This 'not ready for democracy' claim was reproduced about Russia by (predictably) the Washington Post, and raised in discussions hosted by Eurasianet – a news service that covers the South Caucasus and Central Asia.
It is thrown about, mainly in the West, with reference to Iran, and for most of the post-war period, there has been a to-and-fro over Africa's apparent incompatibility with democracy. There is nothing apophenic about seeing a pattern in all of this. Hint: It's always about the enemies of the West.
Almost always, actually.
There are among us Africans, too, who would have us believe that democracy tends to fail in Africa, as Aribiah David Attoe, of Wits University, wrote last year – as if democracy is one thing and one thing only. Let's set aside, for now, just what democracy actually is in the life world of people, and whether it is usually stable and progressive.
A very cursory look at Europe shows that that continent, too (never mind Jolloh's suggestion that Africa is synonymous with coups d'etat), has had very many coups – at least over the past 100 years.
There have, for instance, been at least 10 actual or attempted coups d'etat in Spain over the past 100 years – since the removal of Primo de Rivera on 15 September 1923.
Early in the last century, Austria had a handful of attempted coups or 'self-removals' – and that famous July Putsch of 1934. French settlers in Algeria staged a putsch of the generals to prevent Algerian independence, because the settlers claimed that Algeria was part of France.
Let's turn to Greece, which provides a segue to democracy, where we are reminded of extended periods of dictatorial rule over the course of the 20th century, most notably by the 4th of August Metaxas regime and the 21st of April military junta of 1967.
That country which 'gave the world democracy' has been through about 19 coups d'etat in the 20th century. There is no need to look very far for evidence. Consider this; over four years (between 1924 and 1928), Greece, the purported birthplace of modern democracy, went through 10 prime ministers; two presidents were deposed and one resigned, with 'numerous military coups' – the most brutal of which was that of Theodoros Pangalos. The dude installed himself.
It helps, then, to have a more complete appreciation for the extent of military coups around the world, including the civilised Europeans and their centuries of democracy and freedom, when compared with Africa's barely seven decades of independence – with the multiplicity of conditionalities and lingering chains to the European metropoles, how these have constrained democracy on the continent, and limited the abilities of African countries ' to make policy decisions and … ownership of national development strategies '.
The dangers of stochastic messaging
Minister Ntshavheni does not get away with her statement easily. The problem with what seemed like an honest and open statement about the likelihood or the real or actual threat of a coup in South Africa is that it is somewhat of a stochastic messaging which, in lay terms, puts ideas in the heads of the populists who were behind the violence and destruction of July 2021.
Now, we should be careful. The state can choose to never mention the word 'coup', and leave it underground, so to speak. Or reference can be made to it in public. There's a downside to both. Let's get some definitional stuff out of the way.
There is a danger, always, of messaging that works through suggestion or implication as opposed to explicit directives. Donald Trump's speech on 6 January 2021 is a good example of stochastic messaging, and has been described as ' ambiguously inciting '. At Trump's 'Stop the Steal' rally, before an armed crowd stormed the US legislature, he gave a speech urging the crowd to 'fight like hell'.
Julius Malema is a better example. Malema has, on various occasions, said things (like) 'we are revolutionaries; revolutionaries are prepared to fight; revolutionaries are prepared to shed blood', and at some point he brandished a firearm.
To his audience and followers who feel aggrieved and who believe they have been stripped of 'economic freedom', voice and/or access to power, all these statements may amount to an exhortation to violence – without Malema actually telling people to go and destroy things or shoot people.
I am not a great supporter of censorship. I have always contested censorship, and I have the emotional, mental and physical scars to prove it. Kinda.
I do, however, accept that there may be times when the state cannot share information with the public because any such exposure may jeopardise policy or bargaining processes, or, for example, throw a spanner in the works of criminal investigations.
At best, government officials, or anyone for that matter, ought to know that words matter, and in the case of South Africa, there was a spike in sales of magnifying glasses and fine-tooth combs after 27 April 1994. And, the people behind the July 2021 unrest may pose an actual (or imagined) threat to the state.
They ought to know, also, that context modulates the influence of action; we live in a period of increased public dissatisfaction; increased distrust in the ability of the state to provide the definitive of public goods, security and protection of the public; and the idealistic populism (not all populism is bad) led by ethno-nationalists of a particular kind, tribalists and nativists, and political leaders bearing grudges.
In this multiplicity of contexts, of loose lips, when do you criminalise public statements or public incitement? Acts of violence and destruction, and liability for public statements, rest heavier on the state/government than they do on political parties or individuals in public.
That the government's security community has investigated all threats to the state (actual or perceived) is necessarily a good thing. That a Cabinet minister has come out and mentioned the likelihood or possibility (not probability) of a coup d'etat is up for discussion.
What is necessary, at the least, is to shake off those terrible confirmation biases and prejudices; notions that Africa is the home of coups d'etat; or that Africans are not ready for, or are 'too immature' for democracy.
Democracy is not stable, nor static. For the record, states that claim to have been democracies for centuries have dark sides that they would prefer to conceal.
varying degrees of 'democratic backsliding' in as many as 40 countries around the world – including the United States. DM