The correlation between the family setup and consequent individual's mentality towards leadership will always affect how the general populace tend to deal with leadership issues of say for instance succession.
I find it quite hypocritical that there was a point when with one voice we all agreed that Robert Mugabe was no longer fit to be President (except for a few sycophants ), yet Tsvangirai is ailing and frankly the same people suddenly have become intolerant to reality.
The traditional family setup has always had the one father figure who does, makes and has the final say to almost all the decisions that affect his direct family that family setup is in civic society , patriarchal. There is nothing wrong with such a setup until that day when incapacitation becomes a reality. When the mother suddenly has to take charge and suddenly we aren't accustomed to any voice of command other than the archtype Father figure who has been and made us believe he will always be.
We are so convinced of his infallibility and invincibility that the moment of weakness is unimaginable.We have worshiped the man to a point short of building a shrine for him. But he is just a man, and we have fallen for the folly that leadership begins and ends with him, he did not create an environment that would exist beyond himself too, so we all lived under a cloud of delusion, yet never saw how things could change in a minute.
The succession issue is ongoing, the family unit should survive beyond the current leader, likewise, so should the family's ability to survive, leadership wrangles in our African setup emanate from building personality cults around individuals whereas we fail to acknowledge that the person must end but the organisation must continue.
The European setup is liberal, women are empowered and take note divorce is rampant it is not unusual to wake up to a new father overnight, for them transition is pretty much a walk in the park. Let me just say that part of our african leadership problems have come from taking up a European form of governance and pigeonholing it into the traditional african social setup.
The Bolsheviks did not see them selves ruling a people successfully while the family unit remained an impediment so they deviced a drive to break the family unit through propaganda and invoking thought that encouraged women to be independent( which is not bad).
Our leaders do not have vision enough to see leadership beyond them, their fight is self centered, even after 37 years Mugabe did not see himself resigning, even after 37 years Emmerson Mnangagwa calls himself "the new dispensation" and we cheer up, and expect change, typical of 3 blind mice leading each other.
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| Daniel Nyaude |
Author Profile
Daniel is a 'founding' member of Freedom Justice Coalition Zimbabwe Party. He currently serves as the Chairperson of the 'Grievance and Disciplinary Committee' and also part of the 'Research and Policy formulation' team.
He is also member of FJCZ's Advisors Board that helps formulate strategy. He is currently working and living in Pretoria South Africa.
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