The anti-colonial movement gathered momentum not only because there was a general feeling that colonialism was immoral but the issue acquired weight in the public mind and attracted remarkable individuals who were willing to devote time, creativity and energy towards ending the system.

Although issues of race continue to be central to post-colonial African historiography, it is astonishing how little of Africa’s political, social and cultural origins of moral capital is brought to bear on analyses of the contemporary world.

What would Africa have been if colonialism had not visited it?  It cannot be denied that settlers had an impact on African societies and economies but equally natives had their own business model that was not dependent on European textiles, iron or firearms.

How did African culture influence and encourage colonialism?

African concepts of property and the relationship between human beings and property informed the choices made by Africans.  The moral capital that was inherited at independence remains the reference point that informs the choices and decisions made in Africa.

Morality in commerce is real and substantial in that it helps enhances security of person and property and promotes the keeping of contracts in commercial activities.

With respect to laws that protect person and property and that enforce the keeping of contracts, it is important that we locate the origins of the moral rules that underpin the construction of capital in Africa as well as the foundation of what we can describe as commercial civilization.

The complex history of Africa has posed a challenge to building a sustainable moral order in which members of the community live voluntarily by the morals that were inherited from the very system that was generally regarded as immoral.

In understanding the commercial civilization of Africa and its rules, the concept of capital has to be unpacked.

Generally understood, capital consists of resources owned by individuals and juristic persons that are applied in the production of goods and services.

The concept of capital can also apply to non-transactional activities and it need not be owned by individuals and firms but can be collectively owned.

This non-transactional form of capital is what conferred advantages to settlers in colonial Africa.  It gave settlers a framework and a constitutional order in which race played a key role in its construction and execution.

Morality, therefore, falls within this extended meaning of capital as it can be seen from the viewpoint of the individual and society in general.

Colonial morality had its own challenges in that the beneficiaries from its order had to suspend their sense of general morality to allow for the creation of a dualistic political, social, cultural and economic order that was unjustifiable.

Within this dualistic setting, settlers gained a reputation for trustworthiness that induces others to deal with Africa and this form of capital encouraged more people to consider Africa as a home.

However, to the extent that natives were alienated from property including land and natural resources, they did not acquire the same reputation.

Morality has a bearing on transaction costs.  Trading can best be lubricated by a moral order that is reliable and enforceable through self-help or third party intervention in the event of breach of obligation.

At independence, Africans had a choice to make whether to create an order that encourages rule breaking or rule observance.

After more than 50 years of independence, we have to ask whether an investment in moral capital has been made.

To what extent do the rules in post-colonial Africa owe their existence to the moral conduct of the continent’s citizens?

On Friday, 2 July as the world was waiting for the historic match between the remaining African soccer team, Ghana, and Uruguay, the world also got the news that South Africa’s former police chief, Mr. Jackie Selebi, was found guilty of corruption.

As some people celebrate the conviction of Selebi, a danger exists that his experiences as a post-apartheid state actor whose history and background did not prepare him to hold such a position in an environment that values access to material wealth will not be used to reflect on what kind of Africa we want to see.

The colonial state was interest-based and yet many of the post-colonial actors were placed in the state as a consequence of a civil and political rights struggle.

The transformation of anti-colonial moral order actors into administrators of a state that they were not prepared economically to work for was seamless.

Selebi like many of his contemporaries had a long walk to freedom and yet when they became free they did not have the means to enjoy the freedom.

The piece of legislation that was used to nail Selebi is a post-apartheid construction suggesting that he his comrades were the authors of his demise.

The morality that informs our reaction to corruption has to be interrogated.

What is clear in the Shaik and Selebi trials is that it is no longer safe for any businessman to assist or fraternize with a state actor whose remuneration as a state actor may not be sufficient to support a lifestyle that is generally expected and enjoyed by fellow former comrades who took the decision to join the business ladder.

To who should state actors turn to when they need financial assistance?  Is there a case to be made that a negotiated moral capital order has to be crafted to deal with the challenges of constructing a post-colonial order that is zero tolerant on corruption?

The role of the state in prosecuting the national democratic revolution has been recognized as critical and facilitative.  The state needs to be capacitated by human capital whose conduct is generally expected to be above the norm.

Human existence is generally corrupt.  Human beings are inherently subjective in the choices they make.

They can discriminate and, therefore, can choose who to communicate with and not.

In making the choices, human beings end up favoring people who have access and in so doing corrupt the processes of the state in a manner that we all condemn.

What was the morality of the colonial order?  What is the morality of state actors who hold power universally?  What was the relationship between state and non-state actors during the colonial era?  What was the perspective that informed notions of corruption?  How was the vice of corruption handled during the colonial era?

The origins of the moral capital that we now see or want to see in Africa may easily be missed in the confusion of the personal experiences of Africa’s post-colonial state actors.

The need to understand human behavior in a holistic sense cannot be overstated.

Every human being wants a better life and many would want to jump a queue while condemning the people who do so.

If a short walk to a bank is more preferable than a long walk to freedom, it is important that the ideology that underpins the post-colonial moral order reflect the challenges of the day.

It is not accidental that the relationship between Agliotti and Selebi has its own racial context.

When Selebi needed help he had no black person to turn to.  He may have been naïve to trust his personal relationship with Agliotti as harmless and proceeded to confide in a friend not only what the friend was doing with the intelligence gathered.

People tend to share information with close associates and, therefore, it is always a challenge for anyone to know in a relationship to establish conspiracy without knowing the state of mind of the players.

The convictions of Selebi and Shaik have raised the bar for doing business in Africa and the role of lobbyists in the value chain.

It is time for reflection and not celebration as the victims in the chain will grow daily and the people who preside over such matters particularly in Africa may lack the understanding of the state of mind of a native when he/she interacts with lobbyists.

]]> http://www.africaheritagerivonia.com/?feed=rss2&p=1182 1 http://www.africaheritagerivonia.com/?p=1175 http://www.africaheritagerivonia.com/?p=1175#comments Thu, 01 Jul 2010 13:41:29 +0000 charity http://www.africaheritagerivonia.com/?p=1175 Many of us have inspirations and visions on the kind of Africa we want to see, but wonder whether Africa will one day be what we would like it to be. Wonder is not knowledge, neither is it ignorance. It is something or a feeling that we believe we can be. People have so many incredible ideas and visions yet we tend to underestimate what we are capable of doing and what we can achieve. You wouldn’t have the desire unless you had the ability to achieve something. When I look at the environment outside, I see how resistant we are to change, which is one of the  reasons why we can not have the Africa we want.

Johnny Muteba is an Executive member of Africa Heritage Society. Below is an article about  him and the kind of Africa he would like to see. What is your opinion on the kind of Africa you want to see? Feel free to leave your comments and share with us your views. This is what Johnny Muteba had to say:

I was born on 10 October 1978 in the Democratic Republic of Congo. After finishing my high school, I was faced with a decision, to either go to the university or travel abroad. The reason for my decision was because my family did not have money to send me to the university, so I had to look for money to support my parents who were old. I went to the diamond fields and started digging just like many young people of my age. After unsuccessful attempts and many days of sleeping outside in the cold mines, something came up and I was closer to fulfilling my dream of going to varsity. The only problem that presented itself was that if I choose to go to the university the money would not be enough to finish all my academic years. So instead of studying, I decided to travel, and Canada was my destination. The money would be enough to take me as far as South Africa and from there I wanted to pursue my dream to go overseas. Finally I realised that my dream was indeed in South Africa. I have been in South Africa since 2001. My biggest ambition was now to make films that the South Africans and Africa as a whole would enjoy. This also was not easy as many people discouraged me, telling me that I would not be able to make films as it is very expensive. Deep down my heart I knew that nothing is impossible. It led me to the establishment of a production company, Afromol Vision in 2007. The company started producing TV shows for TV channels in the DRC and to date I have produced more than 4 films, countless music videos, documentaries, TV shows and live events for the UNHCR, IOM, OXFAM, FAIR PLAY FOR AFRICA and I believe all things are possible.

According to the AEC, 127,000 highly qualified African specialists left the continent between 1960 and 1989.   The Office for International Migration, had an average of 20 000 departures per year since 1990.

Why are we leaving the mother land in such big numbers?

Having left the DRC, my country of birth, some ten years ago to look for greener pastures in Nelson Mandela’s country, I was shocked to see a lot of my teachers, friends and other educated people I knew back then who are like me looking for opportunities in South Africa doing the most menial of jobs available. Some of these people left good businesses and their loved ones behind. Today those who used to be doctors have become security guards. I am not saying that being a security guard is something bad, because I was at some point in my life a security guard too. What I am saying is that something happens to your carrier and profession when you move from one country to another. Lucky are those who can still do what they used to do at home because here what matters is not the level of your education but what you can do to put food on the table.

How many of the people who have left this continent can still continue to contribute economically for the advancement of the people of Africa? How many can come back to invest without being afraid of being arrested from political leaders who accuse many of us out of our countries of being spies.

The Africa I want to see is an Africa that can pay and keep the talent at home, because I believe Africa is the only continent that sells its best. The best African soccer players are not in Africa, they are in Europe, America, Asia and other parts of the world. Our best doctors are not here. Our best musicians want to leave the continent for greener pastures. Our finest professors are in America and Europe and they are very afraid to come back home for fear of victimisation and imprisonment.

Where are America’s best musicians, scientists and doctors? They are all in America.

Ultimately, the accumulation and retention of moral capital is and should be inextricably linked to institution building.

Reputation of moral conduct determines the value of moral capital as human existence and experience has not been able to produce a mechanism that can read people’s minds.

What lies between the ears of a human beings is so complex and hidden that observation and experience are the only reliable instruments for predicting behavior.

It is impossible to rely on a person’s moral convictions in commercial transactions and often a person’s reputation based on history is used as a proxy.

With a current world population estimated at about 6.8 billion, we must accept that it is impossible for anyone to have personal and direct knowledge of the universe but in a lifetime one is able to interact with only a few and it is through relationships that we can build a society that reflects the values that we hold dear as human beings.

This being the case, commercial civilization must, therefore, be based on trust and coordination of the actions of other players in the drama of life.

Such trust is and should be based on reliance on observable constraints on unjust conduct being the institutions that give structure to social life and all forms of laws, customs, social practices, moral rules and all forms of self restraint that are voluntarily assumed by human beings,

What then are institutions?  They are structures and mechanisms of social order and cooperation governing the behavior of a set of individuals with a given human collectivity.  They consist of patterns of actions that arise from human settings and interactions.

We as individual players in the journey of life have to rely on these patterns of action in the conduct of our own affairs.

However, not all institutions constitute moral rules, as some institutions are morally neutral.  To the extent that Africa’s institutions can represent standards of beneficence and justice, it is possible for moral capital to be embedded in institutions.

Morality should be part and parcel of Africa’s institutional framework as moral conduct can create and sustain institutions that give confidence that the future can be brighter and better than today.

Even colonial institutions continued to shape conduct by providing moral guidance and continuing to signal to players the costs and benefits of the public policy choices made.

However, it must be accepted that human rules, however, angelic in their construction stand to be violated from time to time hence the need for institutions to continuously remind the players of the costs and benefits of misbehaving.

The Africa we want to see and live in; must then be underpinned by an institutional framework that is characterized by normative rules that require a sustained and critical level of observance to endure.

This level is and should be negotiated among the players, as what is morally wrong should not be legally right.

The fusion between morality and legality must be jealously guided lest laws end up depending on who is in control of the state.

We have seen in many African states, laws that are manufactured to deal with personal circumstances rather than such laws being indentified with the sanctity of any moral law.

In undemocratic states, rulers arbitrarily claim the right to make law.

Laws must have general application and must be understood by the people to whom such laws should apply.

To the extent that many African states purport to be democratic, their laws must reflect distributional outcomes that should emanate from public choices made in post-colonial Africa.

They should not be moral only because they are meant to satisfy the demands of particular interest groups.

The sustainability of any legal system must be judged on its ability to protect the rights of persons and their property.

The sanctity of contracts in any progressive society cannot be understated, as is the notion that a legal system can only be sustainable if it embodies a minimum content of morality.

We have observed in many post-colonial African states a tendency by state actors to invest in the deviation of rules from the community’s morals leading to unmitigated drain of skills and brains and more importantly a bleak future characterized by poverty and lack of investment.

Is it not ironic that many African leaders would like the people in the diaspora to return to their motherlands and yet fail to realize that at the individual level such people who vote with their feet are not delusionary but rational human beings who see the daily crumbling of the legal system as a real threat to a future they want to be part of.

In societies that have invested in moral capital, it is hardly necessary to enforce laws that give expression to the rules that members of society observe as part of their traditional modes of conduct.  Conversely, state laws that are inconsistence with the moral values of the people entail high enforcement costs.

It is not, therefore, unusual to see in post-colonial Africa a massive investment in the enforcement of immoral and unjust laws.  The state can and has been used as an instrument to impose laws that do not speak to the values held by the people.

After 6 years as a specified person, there is no doubt that my personal experiences have enriched my understanding about the link between moral capital and institution building.  In life, one is exposed to many experiences and it must be accepted that bad laws can co-exist with good laws as long as the bad laws are never used against one it would be difficult to understand the need for moral capital building.  We can only learn from case studies and yet rarely do human beings invest in knowledge building.

Have you not heard at dawn of each independent African state statements like:  “We will never sink as low as so and so country” and yet in country after country the frontiers of poverty and ignorance have not been reduced.

When I decided to write on the complex subject of moral capital building, I was acutely aware that many of my colleagues who have not travelled the same journey might never know the need for us as citizens of Africa to be vigilant.

My experience has been described as unique by some, while others have treated it as self created.

However, irrespective of the motivation that led some state actors to act in the manner they did and in so doing contaminate the integrity of the institutional framework required to support progress.

The tolerance that people have for bad laws and the lack of investment in an institutional framework that can provide the checks and balances is characteristic of what has gone wrong in Africa.

Some of Africa’s best brains cannot be harnessed in the motherland and this exposes Africa to the kind of risk where people who call for change are easily misconstrued as agents of foreign actors.

I have personally been privileged to be at the receiving of bad laws some of which were only enacted to deal with my personal circumstances.

Here you have a black person being victimized by people renting the state machinery for personal benefit and yet people remain silent not because they have nothing to say but they do not have all the facts in their possession.

What then can one do with such life altering experiences?  I have found it easier to communicate through my writings in the hope that people can read and make their own conclusions.

When people talk of the separation of powers doctrine, it if often difficult to comprehend why it is necessary in a democratic constitutional order to have the executive, judiciary and legislative arms of the state as separate and distinct institutions.

When I began the journey into business, I must confess that I had underestimated the limited or lack of moral capital investment and the impact that a dominant political culture can have in corrupting organs of the state.

When the state of emergency powers were used to promulgate the Reconstruction of State Indebted Insolvent Companies decree on Friday, 3 September 2004, I thought it was big joke.  How could any person be indebted to the state?  If so why, would any creditor need the assistance of temporary powers that are granted to the President to deal with emergencies?  Was the state capable of existence as a contracting party to give rise to claims against other parties?  What was at play?

The above were some of the questions that immediately came to mind over the fateful weekend.  But alas on Monday, an Administrator was appointed pursuant to the statutory instrument issued by the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, Hon. P. Chinamasa.  On the same Monday, the Administrator, a creature of statute, was at work and his first assignment was to fire the board appointed by shareholders without even notifying the shareholders of his intended action.

When I read the regulations used to assume the control and management of my companies under a state-appointed and not a court appointed Administrator, I felt that the judiciary would step in to pronounce its distaste against such conduct by the executive.

When I requested my attorneys, Costa & Madzonga, to review the regulations they pointed out that there was no single reference to the involvement of the judiciary.  Still the implications did not sink in my mind.

How could that be possible?  It was in black and white.  No judiciary must be involved in the enterprise of taking control of Mawere’s assets read the regulations.  The President promulgated the regulations; implying that he was the driving force, behind such actions.

When one reads the regulations one can understand why it is necessary for Africa’s future to ensure that this will never happen again.

What is more disturbing is that the regulations and actions passed through the legislature and in numerous cases that I have instituted challenging the applicability of the laws to my circumstances given that my companies were never indebted to the state, the courts stayed out of the merits of the matters leaving me exposed to injustice.

I could only get the right of audience to the courts outside Zimbabwe.  This speaks volumes of what can happen if the wheels are off.

For anyone interested in better understanding how the fusion between morality and justice can be dangerously separated, it is important to get a copy of the Reconstruction of State Indebted Insolvent Companies Act.  In its preamble, it is boldly stated that the law shall apply retrospectively.

The law still exists and no campaign is in existence to have it repealed suggesting that even an angelic constitution will not substitute the lack of investment in the kind of institutions that can guarantee the protection of persons and their property in Zimbabwe.

If it can happen to me then surely it can happen to others compelling anyone interested in the future to invest in understanding our past and present.

I was born in Zimbabwe and I must confess that there is nothing that prepared me to be a businessman of the scale that I have been privileged to engage in.

The political, social, moral and economic morality that informed the colonial constitutional order did not allow natives a large measure of freedom in seeking profit through voluntary exchange and, therefore, my worldview has been influenced by my own personal experiences.

When I started writing my weekly columns, I had no idea that my views on a number of issues would resonate with many of the people who have been kind enough to share their comments with me.

As a businessman in post –colonial Africa, I sometimes find myself lonely with very few friends and family who understand and appreciate the impact of moral capital deficiency on Africa’s development and growth prospects.

I have come to the inescapable conclusion that business development is unsustainable without moral capital investment.

This view is not only supported by my personal experiences but by the notion that markets and morals evolve together and are, therefore, aspects of the spontaneous order of any society.

In the following 20 articles, I will examine the viewpoint that morals and markets should evolve spontaneously with a view to better understand the connections, if any, among moral capital, commerce and economic performance.

In searching for the reasons why Africa lags behind other human societies in reducing the frontiers of poverty and ignorance, it is important that we use our own experiences to demonstrate the need for building Africa’s moral capital as a sine qua non for economic prosperity.

I submit that the depletion or absence of moral capital can result in economic deterioration.

In post-colonial Africa, it has been argued that the lack of development is a direct consequence of the conspiracy of a diminishing number of white settlers and the machinations of imperialists.

We rarely pause to reflect on the impact of moral capital deficiency in undermining Africa’s future.

It is often easy in human affairs to point a finger at others forgetting that lack of investment on moral issues can cause more harm to progress than due to alleged conspiracy.

In these articles, I hope to provoke thought about what kind of society we want to see and live in and more importantly what we can do to enhance the inventory of moral capital.

I start with the connection between moral capital and justice because I believe that although morality in all forms is conducive for business development, justice has a special significance.

I, however, need to preface my insights with an observation that the relationship between native Africans and justice has not been a pleasant one.  Notwithstanding, I submit that the rules of justice are indispensable for commerce.

The nature of our knowledge and institutions demonstrates that accumulated experience is the source of human moral rules.

As human beings we do not have the foresight of the future and as Adam Smith correctly observed the idea that we can derive from reason the first principles of right and wrong is “altogether absurd and unintelligible”.

Every step that we make into Africa’s future is made with blindness of what lies ahead.  Great nations are a consequence of human action.

Africa like many nations has produced brilliant people but the genius of human progress can and should not be located in the minds of people with a capacity to reason but in the spontaneous and unintentional coincidences of human behavior and the retention by communities of practices that reward them.

Generally people learn the rules of justice through the experience of exchange and barter.  Such rules are formed by practice and their existence and value dawn on all of us as we are exposed to daily experiences of life.

What is fundamental in any progressive society is that exchange takes place between voluntary contracting parties.  For every transaction, there must be willing contracting parties.

Accordingly, it would be difficult for a person to exchange anything that is not acknowledged by others as belonging to him/her.  Title is, therefore, critical to both the buyer and seller and exchange requires the stability of possessions in any civilized society.

Where there is justice there can never be property and the converse is equally true.  Exchange requires promises to be kept and trade can be constrained by lack of trust.

So when I read the article published by the Herald on 18 June 2010 entitled: “Its not over yet for Mawere” http://allafrica.com/stories/201006180047.html I could not help but use the words of Minister Chinamasa, Minister of Justice and Legal Affairs, of the Republic of Zimbabwe to expose what a deficiency or depletion of moral capital can do to a nation and more importantly why the silence of the many can actually lead to moral capital decay of the order that can pose a toxic threat to progress.

In response to my de-specification, Minister Chinamasa who accompanied by the Attorney General, Hon. Tomana, attended the hearing of a case before the Supreme Court on 17 June 2010 challenging the constitutional validity and the actions and decisions of the Minister and the Administrator appointed pursuant to the operation of a decree promulgated by President Mugabe allowing for the extra-judicial placement of my group of companies under the control of a state appointed Administrator; he said that the de-specification by an administration of which he is part of had no bearing on the criminal charges that I was facing.

This is what Minister Chinamasa is reported to have said in a statement published by the Herald: “Mr. Mawere and several other organizations stood accused of prejudicing the company of various amounts of money as declared by the Administrator, Mr. Gwaradzimba.  As the Administrator was not persuaded to amend his culpability statement, he was obliged and did apply to a judge in chambers for confirmation of the culpability of the culpable persons.  The Application is pending before the High Court under case number HC6684/06.  It will be apparent from the afore-going that Mr. Mawere has, therefore, been declared culpable in accordance with the provisions of the law.  What remains is for the judge to consider the confirmation of his culpability.”

It is important that we interrogate the statement by Minister Chinamasa to better appreciate the challenges that Zimbabwe is facing in building its moral capital.

The facts of the matter are that the company in question, SMM Holdings Private Limited (SMM) is and has been at all material times a private company.  How then did SMM become a state matter?

SMM is a wholly owned subsidiary of SMM Holdings Limited, a company incorporated in England that in turn is owned by Africa Resources Limited, a company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands.

In order to obtain control of SMM, the first person to be attacked was I.  A warrant of arrest was issued on 22 May 2004 followed by an extradition application in South Africa.  On 25 May 2004, I was then arrested and appeared before a South African court on 27 May 2004.  I was then remanded on bail for a 30-day period to allow the Zimbabwean government to present their case before the court.  On 28 June, I appeared before the court and the case was dismissed leaving Minister Chinamasa with egg on his face.

He then responded on 9 July 2004 invoking the Prevention of Corruption Act by issuing a specification order on the same allegations that informed the extradition application.  This was followed by the specification of SMM and related companies on 26 August 2004.  Minister Chinamasa appointed Messrs. Mangoma and Saruchera as Investigators of me and SMM, respectively.

Section 10 of the Prevention of Corruption Act sets out what a specified person can and cannot do and more significantly prohibits any other person from dealing with the assets of a specified person.

Notwithstanding, barely 10 days after the appointment of Saruchera as Investigator, Minister Chinamasa issued a reconstruction order in respect of SMM and related companies and in so doing allow for the creation of an Administrator to do precisely what is prohibited by Section 10(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

The reconstruction order was granted using state of emergency laws and it is significant that the regulations did not allow for judicial involvement in contravention of the provisions of the Constitution.

Notwithstanding, the Administrator was given powers that can only be possible in an undemocratic constitutional order.

It is significant that the Minister makes an issue that Gwaradzimba identified me as culpable for allegedly prejudicing a company that I am a beneficial shareholder of.

If the state were a bona fides creditor then there would be no need of a new legislation to protect such a creditor.

For any rational person when you hear a Minister in a democratic constitutional order saying that a finding by a partisan tribunal needs judicial confirmation then one must know that something fundamentally wrong has taken place.

Under the constitution of Zimbabwe, an independent tribunal can only adjudicate a dispute between two contracting parties.  An Administrator is a creature of statute and was appointed Minister Chinamasa and can, therefore, be hardly described as independent.

Only a court should determine and not be reduced to a rubber stamp of the culpability of any person.  However, the words of Hon. Chinamasa exposes the kind of morality that informs his actions and decisions for a country that is in urgent need of investment.

The fact that Hon. Chinamasa can confidently issue this kind of statement confirms that the morality that informed the pre-inclusive government is very much entrenched and crystallized.

Any investor in Zimbabwe would be aware of the implications of the law that Minister Chinamasa now relies upon to justify actions and decisions that serve to undermine the credibility of the state and its institutions.

In building a sustainable and predictable society, it is not the actions of evil people that determine the future but the silences of the many who choose to be spectators while instruments that threaten business confidence become the order of the day.

The words of Hon. Chinamasa have to be carefully analyzed as they project a viewpoint that is prevalent in the minds of many policy makers that moral capital is irrelevant to commerce.

Without a fairer distribution of natural resources, and if people are not well educated, we can not hope to have peace, wealth and development. Japan for instance, has no natural resources and only about a quarter of its land is suitable for agriculture. A significant natural resource for Japan is its education system, labour force and fish. Japan is the world’s largest importer of coal and second largest importer of oil, yet today it is the second wealthiest nation in the world. Africa has all the natural resources, from diamond, gold, and copper to platinum, chrome and wood, the list is endless, but it owns nothing and is the poorest continent in the world.

My hopes for Africa are extremely basic. I would like to see our natural resources being distributed and utilised more effectively and efficiently so that there is improved, cheaper and better means of communication, better infrastructure, better transportation system, improved customer service, better education for all which will lead to a better economic system and therefore a better continent.

I would like to see an Africa with cultural values. Our beliefs, attitudes and principles must be cherished. I want an Africa that spells out the way people behave, an Africa that influences what choices people make, an Africa that doesn’t inherit western values, an Africa with a set of shared attitudes, values and practices that characterise a true Africa, an Africa with no conflicts and war as a result of tribalism, but an Africa with people who understand and respect each other better.

I want an Africa that has respect for other people. Stories are told daily about illegal drug cultivation, abuse and human trafficking being on the rise. It is almost as though drugs are the only resource that Africa owns and people seem to expend a lot of effort and time and find pleasure in drug dealing and abuse. It is almost as though they believe that drugs are the only source of  income , yet this is not something one can bank on or build a life on. Once you are caught on the wrong side of the law, there is neither good explanation nor a legitimate excuse to get you out of the chains of the law officers.

I want an Africa that leaves a good legacy for generations to come.  An Africa that is free of corruption and wider problems like HIV and AIDS be tackled most effectively. An Africa with unselfish minds, but minds that are only fair .  I want an Africa that can change our perceptions so that everyone thinks positively and is always willing to do the right thing at the right time.

This being the last installment, I could not think of any better subject to complete the conversation than deal with the complex issue of commercial civilization and its relevance to Africa’s uncertain future.

Any progressive modern civilization has to be based on laws underpinned by an institutional framework that allows individuals a large measure of freedom to seek profit through voluntary and not state-assisted exchange.

When colonialism visited Africa, it must be accepted that the transactions that were prevalent were not done with any prospect of making profits.

However, in commercially oriented societies, many transactions would simply not occur without the prospect of making profits and we would find ourselves without the benefit of the goods and services that we take for granted.

In societies where arguments about the role of profits in the production of goods and services dominate conversations, it is not unusual to find that poverty is the order of the day.

Is it, therefore, not ironic that even in developed economies the notion of profiting from commercial dealings with other people seems fundamentally wrong to many people even when the profits are gained through the medium of perfectly legal transactions?

In the evolution of human commercial civilization, we find that even the ancient Greeks frowned upon the concept of profit making and had their own term for money making i.e. chrematistics.

It was Cicero who observed that those who buy from merchants in order to resell immediately make no profit “without much outright lying.”

It has been observed that a market system works on the basis of the “greater fool principle” meaning that if there is no fool at the transaction point, then no voluntary exchange can be expected to take place.

Many religions do condemn usury and the origin of the concept of a “just price” was not invented by President Mugabe but by no other than Aristotle.

When I resigned from the World Bank/IFC in 1995 to commence my journey into business, I was acutely conscious that there exists a strong bias against commerce as evidenced by constant pressures even in democratic societies to restrain profit seeking and to redistribute wealth.

Such thinking, which is prevalent in post-colonial Africa, contains the unspoken assumption that business and entrepreneurship are necessary evils whose consequences need to be managed through state interventions.

My experience in doing business in Africa has informed me that even the most educated people can be financially and commercially illiterate which makes the job of piloting the African development agenda more complex in that the key decision makers in the continent lack the moral capital that is required to underpin sustainable commercial capital development.

Can commerce, a pre-requisite for human development and growth, be sustainable without moral capital?  There is nothing inevitable in human affairs to the notion that markets and morals are not aspects of the spontaneous order of society.

A connection does exist between moral capital, commerce and economic performance and, if anything, this was the primary purpose of these 20 articles.

Economic historians will agree as Adam Smith and David Hume did, for example, that moral rules co-evolves with commerce and this symbiotic relationship leads not only to moral capital accumulation but to economic prosperity.

The depletion or absence of moral capital as is the case in many underdeveloped societies, can result in economic deterioration that in turn can erode the very moral capital that is required for progress.

In writing these articles, I was cognizant of the sense in which any disposition that we may have to moral conduct in itself represents a type of capital that is required as a foundation to development.

In post-colonial Africa, it is important that we interrogate the disposition to moral conduct that is held by the majority of the people as expressed by the worldview held by the political actors that preside over the affairs of the state.

What are then the main forms of morality?  These include: moderation in action, thought or feeling, justice, and the actions that promote the wellbeing of others.

History and experience has taught us that justice has a special and foundational significance to the sustainable development of commerce.  Justice is indispensable for commerce as are institutions that promote and protect it.

A supportive and enabling institutional framework promotes the accumulation of moral capital.

Is or should there be a connection between commerce and morals?

Moral capital development rules and commerce are essentially aspects of the same evolutionary phenomenon that would tend to dilute the notion, for example, that Africa can advance its cause without the input of other civilizations and cultures,

Commerce cannot exist in a vacuum rather it depends on the kind of moral capital that prevails.

A proposition that is widely held in post-colonial Africa that commerce necessarily promotes greed and hence devalues morality should be interrogated.

Post-colonial Africa needs both commerce and moral capital and to the extent that the state can be competent to discharge its obligations in the promotion and development of moral capital, it is important that African states are effective mainly in the promotion of justice.

We have seen the attempts by post-colonial African states to promote the well being of the governed result in the erosion of justice rather than its entrenchment.

Morality is a real and significant factor in the development of commerce.  It not only enhances the security of person and property but also promotes the respect of the rule of law and the sanctity of contracts.

A political morality that seeks to protect person and property and that enforces contracts in necessary for nation building.  In societies where public morality is against the promotion and protection of justice and equity, commercial development will be stunted.

Post-colonial Africa was founded from the womb of colonialism and yet the laws that relate to commerce rest on the morality of an unjust colonial order.

As we celebrate our heritage and more importantly as the world focuses on Africa at this defining moment when South Africa is hosting the world’s biggest soccer tournament, we can safely that African morality has evolved.

In the last 19 installments, I have attempted to define the construction of capital and identify the kind of social, political, and moral capital that is required in a progressive Africa with a view to pushing back the frontiers of the body of knowledge that informs many of the conversations that take place among us as Africans.

What will make Africa deliver on its promise?  The political and economic morality that is required for progress has to be located in the individual and collective choices and actions about what is right and what is wrong.  When I started writing about Africa’s commercial civilization, I was aware of the dangers of being misunderstood as an apologist of colonialists.

However, I have always held the view any attempt to ignore or overlook the intrusion for better or worse of other cultures in Africa will not only distort what contemporary Africa is but can seriously endanger our collective psyche on what needs to happen to reduce the frontiers of poverty and ignorance.

What then is the source of moral rules?  Accumulated experience not reason has been recognized as the source of moral rules.  It must be accepted even, for example, a brilliant lawyer who has not been exposed to complex cases will not be of value to a client exposed to a kind of injustice that requires experience to resolve.

In as much as human beings would like to control the future, we have to accept that as human beings irrespective of our social, economic or political standing we all have no foresight of the future and, therefore, as Hume argued reason alone could never give rise to any original idea.

We all share one thing about the future i.e. our universal and equal blindness to the future and nations are incapable of creating establishments that define and shape the future but the establishments are nothing but a consequence of human action.

Morality, therefore, can be seen to emerge spontaneously and unintentionally through experiences that have conferred advantages to each given society.  In the case of South Africa, for example, morality has to be holistically defined to include the contribution of non-natives to its development and crystallization.

As we celebrate the successful hosting of the soccer tournament, we must not forget that without the contribution of people who may in life have stood for that which is evil, the reality of this experience that we are privileged to be part of as residents of the hosting country will be nothing but a dream.

We all have a lot to learn from our past.  We have no choice but to invest in knowledge building.  Knowledge should give us the power to know what has worked in favor of Africa and what we need to do to make Africa the kind of society that we want to live in and see.

My contribution has been in form of words and, therefore, I leave it to the reader to choose what to internalize and what to discard.  What is important is that a conversation has started and its enduring legacy will be located in our individual and collective actions.

The origins of gentlemen’s clubs is to be found in 18^th century English society where members-only private clubs were established to promote and protect interests of members.

They were set up by and for English upper society but today they are a universal phenomenon.

Our knowledge of the few that were and are successful in climbing the opportunity ladder behaved, organized, and transmitted their wealth to future generations is limited by our own experiences.

To a poor person, a gentlemen’s club represents that which is immoral, discriminatory and a meeting place of insensitive robber barons.

However, to the upper classes in any society, the need to work in a net (network) cannot be overstated.

It must be accepted that the dominant wealth transmission mechanism is either through death or marriage.

In both mechanisms, the need for qualification or for one to prove oneself is not relevant.

When one marries rich, then wealth transmission is automatic and seamless.

When one dies, the power of the deceased passes to successors and human history has demonstrated that no amount of wealth will make it possible for anyone to use such wealth to cheat dead.

Gentlemen’s clubs were originally meant for men and typically upper class men were defined as gentle.

So lower class men were not welcome because they were deemed to have nothing in common with the upper class but there was nothing to stop lower class men from aspiring to prove themselves and join the club.

Some who saw no prospect of climbing the opportunity ladder voted with their feet to the colonies and through this mechanism managed to accumulate wealth that then allowed them to join the prestigious clubs in the metropolis.

These clubs became a home from home.  They provided a platform for men to network and share experiences but above all acted as an incentive for the excluded to find ways in a lifetime to be part of the “brain trust” of any nation that they chose to be part of.

However, today many of the clubs are now open about gender and social standing of members.  Many countries outside the UK have copied the model.

In post-colonial Africa, very few clubs have been established and it is generally frowned upon to create exclusive clubs in the midst of poverty and hopelessness.

In colonial Africa, many clubs were established to provide a platform for political and business leaders to meet and craft ways to ensure the viability and durability of the colonial business model.

The model did not last as anticipated but what it did was to enable the beneficiaries to stake their claim on Africa that endured even beyond the demise of the political system that supported it.

Post-colonial Africa has produced its own elites.  Some of these elites have amassed huge personal fortunes.  In any society, those who make it necessarily become the subject of ridicule and criticism.

In the USA, for example, such elites were commonly described as robber barons.  Not many businesspersons would escape being characterized as beneficiaries of questionable business practices in their rise to fame.

The term derives from the medieval German lords who illegally charged exorbitant tolls on ships that used the Rhine.

Although we all love competition, there is hardly no businessmen who gets into business with low ambitions.  Most successful businessmen want to control and dominate the market.

In the journey to success, market power becomes critical and consolidation has been shown to deliver products and services at lower costs.

The anti-monopoly behavior of the 1880s in the USA and the greed of financial robbers who are blamed for the financial meltdown of 2008/9 led to public scorn for big business and so-called gentlemen.

Post-colonial Africa has failed to produce its own critical thinkers and decision makers who openly and constructively organize themselves to ensure the preservation of their industrial and commercial legacies.

In the post-colonial African context, the heroic age of African enterprise has never arrived and the few who make it tend to be inward looking and exhibit pop-star tendencies.

If nation states can produce some kind of order in the political market where political clubs can seize power through organization, why has it been difficult to bring order to the business market where small and emergent businessmen can climb the business ladder with hope?

Even in free and democratic societies, order is imperative to ensure stability of markets.  Industrializing Africa will necessarily have to be a process and not a play of good versus evil.

It is often easy to make unexamined ideological and assumptions and presuppositions in describing the few who make it and to regard them as beneficiaries of unethical and illegal business practices.

If one day, one wants to be in big business then it is important that we invest in understanding the mind of a big business player.

If by being big, one necessarily has to be evil then there would be no real incentive for anyone to engage in business.

In building America from an idea in the minds of its founders, there are few individuals who stand out.

One of such individuals was Mr. John Pierpont Morgan (17 April 1837 – March 1913) who after 75 years of existence on this earth earned a reputation as a great financier, banker and art collector of his time; his life experience is pregnant with lessons for all of us who believe that Africa’s better days are yet to come but it is only through working together that this can be realized.

It was Morgan who in 1892 was the brains and financier of the creation of General Electric and the creation of the United States Steel Corporation in 1901.

During the period, 1890-1913, Morgan was responsible for organizing and underwriting the securities of a record of 42 corporations.

In spite of his immense wealth and power, Morgan understood the need for the rich to be organized if America had to live up to its promise.

He was a founder of the Metropolitan Club of New York and its President from 1891 and 1900.  He led from the front with distinction.

History records that when Morgan’s friend, Mr. Frank King, whom he had proposed was black-balled by the Union Club of which Morgan was a member, because he had done manual labor in his youth, Morgan resigned from the Union.

He resigned from the Union Club on principle.  The Union Club was exclusive and the exclusion of King exposed the limitations of a civilization based on permanent segregation and prejudice.

Mr. Morgan did not give up.  He proceeded to donate the land on 5th Avenue and 60th Street at a cost of $125,000, and with these words to his colleague, Stanford White, “Build me a club fit for gentlemen. Fuck the expense” he launched the Metropolitan Club.

With this project, Mr. King became a charter member demonstrating that prejudice can inspire people to build institutions.

What lessons do we learn from Morgan?  For some Africans, the rejection of Mr. King would have led to strategies to destroy the Union Club instead of inspiring the building of new institutions.

Africa inherited clubs but we have yet to see some of Africa’s influential people to adopt the attitude of Mr. Morgan.

Whatever the expense, the club had to be built and it was.  What informed Mr. Morgan to resolve that it was important to do what he did?

We need our own men who are gentle to stand up and be counted.

Africa requires men of vision and compassion but above all people who are connected so that even Africa’s Frank Kings may also be part of the “brain trust” that will inform our continent’s choices on how best to organize ourselves for winning the game of development.

from left to right Nathan Mariemuthu, Brian Rodgers and Dennis Henry

On the 27^th of May 2010 there was a special AHS members evening gathering. The day was dedicated to celebrating Nathan Mariemuthu’s birthday, a man Mr. Mawere described as a distinguished achiever and personal friend.

But also significant on this day was the presence of the minister of Zimbabwe’s Youth Development Empowerment and Indigenization – Hon. Saviour Kasukuwere. In his address, Mr. Mawere reminded the members that such a ministry was not installed in any other government in Southern Africa, which made the minister without a direct counterpart in SADC. Despite having such a peculiar ministry, it was admitted that it had a huge role to play in ensuring that Zimbabwe’s empowerment laws are integrated within the scope of SADC initiatives.

Hon. Minister Kasukuwere invited all the members to feel free to engage with his department and submit their suggestions for policy direction. He thanked AHS for hosting the event and for extending an invitation to his team.

For all Africans, the question that we pose relates to how the issue of empowerment should be both articulated and implemented. The apparent imbalances are there, but how do we navigate our policies such that we achieve fair and truly empowering measures? How do we tackle the issue of entitlement popularized by politicians in speeches? In South Africa, the debate on nationalization is gathering momentum, at least before such a law is passed. How can we ensure that empowerment policies in SADC are based on consultative engagement?

Author: Mackenzie Tafira

]]> http://www.africaheritagerivonia.com/?feed=rss2&p=1027 0 http://www.africaheritagerivonia.com/?p=1013 http://www.africaheritagerivonia.com/?p=1013#comments Mon, 31 May 2010 08:09:44 +0000 raphael http://www.africaheritagerivonia.com/?p=1013 On 1 November 2009, I wrote the first of 20 articles under the theme: ”Pushing the envelope of knowledge” focusing on the concept of capital and its role in human progress and nation building.

I was acutely aware that what I may consider knowledge might not have the same meaning to others.

Notwithstanding, I felt it was important for me to add my voice to the kind of debates that we must have as Africans if we have to discharge our generational responsibilities to make tomorrow a better and brighter day in the full knowledge that we may not be there to enjoy the fruits of our labor and input.

On 15 February 2010, I completed my 17^th installment and decided to pause and reflect on what insights should be in the last three articles.

Today, 30 May 2010, I woke thinking about what I can describe as the fear factor.

Only last week, the Africa Heritage Society (AHS) hosted Hon. Minister S. Kasukuwere, Minister of Youth, Economic Empowerment and Indigenization of the Republic of Zimbabwe.

I had the opportunity to interact with him and his team who visited South Africa to familiarize themselves with the country’s experiences on the question of democratizing the economic space.

South Africa is the youngest African state and yet on the question of black economic empowerment appears to have made more progress.

The discovery of diamonds and subsequently gold in the Witwatersrand was a momentous event in the history of Africa in as much as the hosting of the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup is.

God was so kind to Africa and yet some feel that he was mean in not revealing to the natives the knowledge, capital and skills required to exploit his gift, resources, without the intervention of foreigners.

From 1866 to 2010, South Africa’s journey has been characterized by setbacks, progress, pain and immense opportunities for the few.  How did it all begin?

It was in 1866 that God through an Afrikaner farmer first revealed the South African modern day diamond story in a remote inland region who noticed his neighbor’s children playing with pebbles called “klip-klip”.

History records that it was not a geologist who discovered diamonds but this farmer who took one of the stones to a geologist who then confirmed that it was, indeed, a diamond.

Notwithstanding the confirmation, there was skepticism about the significance of the find and it was only in 1869 that a shepherd found a much larger gem and the first miners made their way to find what God had deposited in the area.

The first discovery of diamond deposits was in 1871 at a site originally known as New Rush.  The area was then named after the British colonial secretary of the day, Kimberley.

In the 1860s, South Africa was no different from any contemporary African state.  The British were only interested in the Cape to safeguard the sea route to India.

It is easy to argue in hindsight what could have been the trajectory of South Africa’s development had diamond and gold not been revealed to the generation of settlers that lived during this period.

The pastoral republic of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State established by the Boers after the Great Trek inland in the 1830s were underdeveloped.

It took a small group of adventurers, financiers and even con artists to build South Africa’s mining industry in the 19^th century and in the process set the foundation of modern South Africa.

I have tried in the last 17 articles to identify some of the key players.

Some of these individuals were evil but creative.  In writing about them and their exploits, I had no intention of glorifying some of the heinous actions that resulted in the crystallization of racial segregation but to acknowledge their role in transforming South Africa into what we see today.

We have no choice but to appreciate and acknowledge the input of those who came before us.

The Randlords were dreamers and they were as conspiratorial and manipulative as the new Randlords.

They were not agents of anyone but did what they did for their own self-actualization and progress.

They swindled investors, proletarialized African peasants through an oppressive and undemocratic constitutional order as a mechanism to convert natives into dignified slaves (laborers), and created monopolies and appropriated to themselves the best land and what lay beneath it.

Although God created all of us as equal, this class of settlers believed that they were superior and could play God through undermining the rights of the majority.

In writing about the Randlords, one cannot be blind to the thuggery that characterized the British Empire and how the need for cheap labor undermined the morality and principles that settlers purported to hold.

The complex and interesting business and political history of Africa’s economic powerhouse must be told so that those who want to rise to its level must know better about the challenges and opportunities of nation building.

The conversations about national patrimony and foreigners must then be located in the context of power.

Objectors to the glorification of the role of the Randlords, for example, in South Africa claim that mineral and other resources are exhaustible and if the hegemony over the resources is not democratized such resources will evaporate with no benefit to the native population.

Mineral resources are part of the heritage of any nation.  The history of Africa has not produced the kind of balance in terms of benefit sharing that is required for stability and national progress.

Even if the right to resources is vested in the state on behalf of the people, this will and has not guaranteed prosperity.  How can prosperity be guaranteed?

The experience of South Africa in which a few wise but devilish men controlled the means of production while the rest of the population was reduced to workers and spectators has to be understood in the context of the experience of other progressive societies.

All human beings deserve a better life and any progressive society has to pull everyone along but notions of broad-based empowerment using God’s gifts to mankind can be counterproductive.

God was so kind that he created minerals and hid them.  Even when one finds them one needs resources to know the geology better and exploit the resources more efficiently.

However, God was smart enough not to assign minerals to human beings but what he gave was the right of human beings to explore and exploit resources not for the purposes of extending life but to have a better life.

If the resources ultimately belong to God, does it matter who exploits them?  Exploitation of resources is ownership neutral.  It does not matter who has title to shares but who can efficiently and effectively extract and process the resources for common good.

Being rich in a poor environment is also risky compelling any rational rich person to invest in uplifting the community in his or her own interest.  However, fear of the known can generate anarchy.

The future of Africa can only be as secure as those who believe in it what it to be.  We are the Africans of today confronted by the same choices that confronted the generation that commenced the journey from Kimberley with no promises and no guarantees.

We have to invest in building a knowledge base about the players and how they conducted themselves.  How did they construct capital and deploy it in their own interests?  Is it desirable to vest all the brainpower and resources in the state?  Do foreigners pose a real threat to the national patrimony?

We have to challenge ourselves in the interests of building a democratic and progressive Africa.  Tomorrow is the last day of the month before the kick off of the World Cup.  There can be no better time to reflect on our obligations to Africa than this defining moment in our history.

Our past is pregnant with lessons and all we need to do is to learn from our historical experiences because it is only in doing so that we can be better citizens and hopefully make choices that will see a friend in a foreigner who decides to make Africa a home from home.

Any economic enterprise generates its own energy and benefits in the value chain.  Africa that is not working is not good even to those who believe that Africa belongs only to people who look like them.

Author:  Mutumwa Mawere

www.mmawere.com