The folly of independence celebrations

The Independence Day offers us time to reflect on our history; where we have come from, where we are and where we are going. It is also a time to pay homage to those who fought for freedom. Somehow, the independence celebrations seem to have lost this sort of significance and have now become purely carnival.

If this year’s Independence Day was a celebration of freedom from colonial rule, then there was not much to show that the participants at Kamuzu Stadium were aware of this fact. This function looked less like a national function than a party function, more of a political rally than an occasion for paying tribute to the nation’s struggle heroes.

Colonialism was founded on a particular stereotyping of the African who was considered a thoughtless human being, incapable of exercising freedom at all or responsibly. While the colonial government was generally not authoritarian as far as white citizens were concerned, it was oppressive to Africans. Colonialism was thus at once also a racist system of government.

This year’s independence celebrations showcased some of the most obscene public displays of colonial State authority—armed men and women in full combat gear marauding around the Head of State and other State officials as if they were on the battle front in the thick forests of the Congo.

The point of it all was not to display the oppressive instruments of State authority that the colonialists used to subjugate Africans so that the general public can reject and denunciate them. On the contrary, the point, one is compelled to assume, was for the head of State and his cronies to enjoy these instruments of brutality, in the presence of a largely poor and illiterate audience that is prone to be overawed by such public shows of force.

For three decades, dictator Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda ritualised the independence celebrations as part of his personal political agenda. Every year he put up a grandiose spectacle during which he took delight in reminding the nation of the messianic role he had played in saving the country from colonial oppression and ‘abject poverty’.

Yet, Banda was a despot and led an authoritarian State that was no less, if not more, violent and oppressive than the colonial State. As an individual, he was entitled to celebrate the Independence Day, as he was free from oppression. Everybody else was not, as long as Banda was around.

The demise of the one-party State means that Malawians are now genuinely entitled to celebrate the Independence Day, for now they are free to choose their leaders and to hold them accountable.

However, such celebration does not have to be bestial. We cannot be spending millions of kwacha on festivities while civil servants are not paid on time and the social services delivery system remains broken and dysfunctional. Wasteful public expenditure on revelries in a country ravaged by poverty conforms to the colonial stereotype of Africans—a thoughtless bunch of people.

A public holiday is enough to mark the Independence Day. Every individual is free to decide how to celebrate this day. We do not need a nanny State to flex its muscles to mark this day.

What is more, the obsession of our political leaders with public displays of the oppressive instruments of State authority stands at odds with the values of constitutional democracy. Our Constitution is built on the values of participatory democracy, the people as the real holders of public power, humane application of the law and respect for the human rights of all citizens. The legitimacy to exercise public power does not arise from control over the State’s coercive resources. It arises from the voices of the people.

In most parts of the world, political leaders are now preoccupied with demystifying the State and public power. Much effort is devoted to showing that heads of State and governance are ordinary people, and not demi-gods or warlords. This is done in full recognition that the people are the real holders of power and that force is no longer a legitimate basis upon which political power can be held.