Institutionalized Ignorance
The shortcomings of the American education system are too vast to list. The state of the nation's history curricula may be the worst of all, where cheap and simplistic narratives are the rule rather than the exception. We see the consequence of this in everyday political discourse, with many Americans possessing extremely shallow historical reference pools. At most, there will be a vague familiarity with the American Revolution, the Civil War, World War II, and the Civil Rights Movement, but not much beyond that.
As an example, I took a US history class in college some years ago, and to say that the curriculum was chronologically unbalanced would be an understatement. As I recall, we started around the founding of America at the beginning of the semester, but the most recent 40 years of history or so (maybe 1970 - 2010 by that point) were crammed into the last instructional day of class. While I don't expect a general US history class to spend an entire week studying the Invasion of Grenada or the minutiae of the Gerald Ford Administration, I think it's safe to say that the glaring lack of attention paid to more recent events has been horrible for the American public's general understanding of history. It's no wonder why so many Americans are incapable of identifying their own governors, but are proficient at drawing flippant historical analogies to Nazism or American slavery.
If the American public's general understanding of US history is poor, then their understanding of world history is absolutely dire, and perhaps no region on Earth is less understood by Americans than Africa. The simplistic narrative is as follows: Africa was once the seat of great and prosperous lands - the ancient Egyptians, the Songhai, the Mali and Ethiopian Empires, and so on. The once great continent was then permanently crippled with the arrival of European empires, the Atlantic Slave Trade, and colonialism, and Africa has never had the chance to recover (emphasis on permanently crippled). While it's certainly true that the slave trade and colonialism did great harm to the peoples of Africa, the history lessons never go much farther than that. For starters, classes and schoolbooks generally don't spend much time indicting African rulers for enthusiastically selling each other into bondage. A more accurate examination of history would lead students to understand that slavery is a centuries-long outrage and a stain on humanity as a whole, rather than a strictly recent atrocity or a stain on a specific subset of humanity. The post-colonial period is also less commonly discussed, with brutal and incompetent figures like Siad Barre only earning passing mentions.
South Africa stands out as one of the few African nations that Americans can somewhat consistently name. Following the end of apartheid in 1994, South Africa was widely heralded as the Rainbow Nation, a success story of equality and democracy. Those praises have become more quiet in recent years, given the state of the nation. South Africa currently suffers from severe unemployment (with a rate upwards of 32%). Despite its relative affluence, resources, and geopolitical relevance, South Africa has also been experiencing a years-long energy crisis, with frequent power outages and a grid that is long overdue for restoration or replacement.
And their problems are not strictly economic. The party of Nelson Mandela, the African National Congress (ANC), is one part inept and one part corrupt, enjoying one-party rule since the collapse of the apartheid government. In addition to the country's economic woes, the ANC has overseen increasing levels of violence and major riots which often occur along political or tribal faultlines. Contrary to the idea that South Africa is a true post-racial nation, the third largest party in the country is openly and virulently racist. The party in question is not some type of neo-apartheid force, but the laughably-named Economic Freedom Fighters, a group of communists who openly promote violence against Afrikaners and Indians, especially those who own land. The Economic Freedom Fighters have seen increasing representation in every election since their founding. And if the ANC is unable or unwilling to address the aforementioned unemployment, corruption, and energy issues, then we can expect the popularity of the EFF to grow. As history has demonstrated, instability provides fertile ground for extreme forces (just ask Nicholas II or his cousin Wilhelm II).
South Africa's future is uncertain, and their neighbors to the north poetically represent two possible paths that they could take in the coming years. There is a much to be learned from both the infamous country of Zimbabwe, and the comparatively obscure country of Botswana. We will start with Zimbabwe, the problem child.
Meet the New Boss
The modern history of Zimbabwe begins in the 20th century, initially as the British colony of South Rhodesia. Following a racially-exclusionary referendum in 1970, South Rhodesia formally broke away from the British Empire as an independent republic. The new state of Rhodesia was an international pariah overnight, due to their codified two-tiered political and economic system, with the minority White population at the top, and the Black majority population at the bottom.
Despite the wildly uneven arrangements and the abundance of international sanctions, the Rhodesian government and economy did not collapse, at least not immediately. In terms of agriculture exports, Rhodesia became a regional power, though that agriculture system was also tiered, with Whites predominantly using more industrialized methods. The Black population was shut out of this arrangement and largely relied on older and more traditional farming systems, usually not above subsistence levels.
The political system was no less discriminatory, with the Black population being explicitly shut out of voting and meaningful political representation. Even before Rhodesian independence, a coalition of Black Zimbabweans had engaged in armed opposition to the White minority government. The African nationalist movement was supported by most of the region (with the notable exception of segregationist South Africa), and was represented foremost by two factions - Joshua Nkomo's Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) and its more radical offshoot, Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU). These rival factions would clash not only with the government but at times against one another. The factions would enter into an uneasy alliance in 1963. Emphasis on “uneasy”.
The Rhodesian Bush War (1964 - 1979) was costly for both the government and the African opposition. Under increasing political, economic, and military pressure both domestically and internationally, the government of Prime Minister Ian Smith collapsed following the internationally controversial election of 1979 and the more widely-accepted election of 1980, which allowed for greater representation among the Black populace. With ZANU's victory, Robert Mugabe was named Zimbabwe’s first prime minister. In 1987 he would become the nation's 2nd and most consequential president, a position he would hold until 2017.
The collapse of Rhodesia and White minority rule saw immediate gains for the new nation of Zimbabwe. International sanctions were lifted and the country saw a return of foreign investment, resulting in strong economic growth for several years - the equivalent of removing the brakes from a train. However, this growth was short-lived.
Upon assuming power, Mugabe immediately enacted several massive economic changes. The most critical were the massive levels of government spending with no budget balance, the implementation of price controls, the imposition of high tariffs on imports, stringent laws against employee termination, and a needlessly cumbersome investment licensing process.
Mugabe's price controls were predictably ineffective, leading to artificial market signals, and these on-again-off-again price controls would become more counter-productive as the nation's economy tumbled into the 1990s. The high tariffs raised the cost of both inputs and goods for Zimbabwean manufacturers and buyers, which tended to frighten away foreign sellers who were otherwise initially amenable to the new regime. As much as American protectionists may argue for tariffs on Chinese steel, it must be emphasized that Zimbabwe's tariffs were less selective in regards to what goods were affected or from where those goods originated. It should also be noted that while American manufacturing could theoretically be revitalized to respond to more expensive foreign steel, Zimbabwe had minimal potential for this kind of self-sufficiency, given the terrible economic policies elsewhere.
Mugabe's laws against firings were similarly disastrous and went far beyond simply protecting good employees from bad employers. In practice, the policies made it nearly impossible to fire good or bad workers, which made hiring unusually risky for employers and likely encouraged a work ethic of complacency among the already employed. As a result, the unemployment rate climbed and productivity fell. Determining the true unemployment number is nearly impossible, as much of Zimbabwe’s population is only technically employed in gray zones of informal employment (e.g. subsistence farming) where statistics are difficult to capture.
Under Mugabe's investment licensing system, all new domestic investment had to be approved by an already corrupt, bloated, and tribalistic government. This licensing system, combined with unstable foreign investment and the aforementioned employment climate meant that few small businesses were being created, which would have led to the emergence of an African middle class. By the end of the 1980s, Zimbabwe had lost whatever post-independence economic momentum it once enjoyed. The fallout of the ill-advised economic decisions was exacerbated by the knock-on effects of the Rhodesian Bush War and the displacement of many rural Zimbabweans - namely farmers.
The 1990s were no better. Although there had been some progress made in the education system, the economy was rocked by a series of droughts, Mugabe's continued erratic policy decisions, and the government's out of control expenditures. Of particular note, the government awarded massive payments to Bush War veterans in 1997 (constituting 3% of GDP). This action may have cultivated loyalty to Mugabe among the military (welcome to Dictator Power Retention 101) but the massive expenditures and extreme money-printing were disastrous for inflation. This was made worse by Zimbabwe's financially costly and diplomatically unpopular entry into the Second Congo War, which was likely a move by Mugabe to protect his personal holdings. In 1999, Zimbabwe defaulted on multiple debts to the IMF, the World Bank, and the African Development Bank. Furthermore, while the first few post-war years saw an increase in life expectancy, this would reverse drastically as Mugabe's reign continued. Life expectancy fell from a high water mark in 1986 (around 62 years) to a dismal low around 2001 (about 42 years). The country would slowly recover in the decades to follow, reaching their previous 1980s levels around 2018.
If the 1990s were rough economically, then the 2000s were catastrophic. Since independence, the government had struggled with the issue of land reform. While many White Zimbabweans (and Black Zimbabweans, for that matter) had left the country during the tumult of the 1980s and 1990s, much of the farmland was held by the much smaller White minority population. Far from being outposts of apartheid, these more industrialized farms tended to provide steady employment for Zimbabweans irrespective of ethnic extraction. Even so, Mugabe’s government embarked on a series of land appropriations. On paper, the White farmers were to be fairly compensated for their property, and the land would be redistributed to dispossessed Black farmers and war veterans.
In practice, nothing of the sort happened. Compensation for the land was uncommon, as the Zimbabwean government lacked both the money and the desire for it, but confiscation was carried out regardless. By and large, the land was given to Mugabe's cronies, who knew nothing about farming, especially the more modern methods. Predictably, this damaged race relations, unemployment, and the agriculture sector as a whole. Despite public opposition among Blacks and Whites and the defeat of a referendum in 2000 which would have empowered Mugabe, the president doubled-down on economic revanchism anyway with the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act of 2008.
In short, the Empowerment Act allowed for Black Zimbabweans to assume control of foreign companies operating in the country. Naturally, foreign investment dwindled, at a time where investment was already weak. By the end of the 00s, Zimbabwe had a severe trade deficit despite its considerable deposits of gold, lithium, and platinum. But perhaps most infamously of all, the country attained levels of hyperinflation that are nearly impossible to comprehend, through endless money-printing, reckless spending, and an overall weak economy. If the average American knows nothing else about Zimbabwe, they at least know of their worthless trillion dollar bills.
In the years since, inflation has cooled and the government has offered some sheepish invitations for White farmers to return, but this effort is unlikely to succeed. Despite Mugabe's ousting in the coup of 2017, his successor Emmerson Mnangagwa is shaping up to be no better. This is unsurprising, given that he was a close ally of Mugabe as far back as the Bush War.
Robert Mugabe died in September of 2019, and Zimbabwe struggles to this day. His “legacy” is not limited to his racial revanchism, gross economic mismanagement, or his friendship with Ethiopia's socialist despot Mengistu Haile Mariam. At one point, Mugabe was called a liberator and a champion of Africa, but he is nothing of the sort.
As mentioned previously, the Rhodesian Bush War saw the emergence of two primary pro-revolution factions, Mugabe's ZANU and Joshua Nkomo's ZAPU. Sometimes allies and sometimes rivals, the factions drew support from disparate parts of the country, with Mugabe's faction drawing much of its support from the Shona people (now the majority of Zimbabwe's populace), and Nkomo finding more support among the Ndebele and Kalanga peoples. Following the end of the war, Mugabe organized the North Korea-trained 5th Brigade, nominally an element of the Zimbabwean Army, but in practice this group was a personal paramilitary for the new prime minister. In 1983, Mugabe deployed the brigade against his political enemies, including the Ndebele and Kalanga. The brutal killings, torture, and kidnappings that followed are referred to as the Gukurahundi. In the Shona language, this is loosely translated to the chilling phrase: “the early rain which washes away the chaff”. The genocide only came to an end following a controversial accord between Mugabe and Nkomo in 1987, which merged their respective factions into the ZANU-Patriotic Front.
The death toll of the Gukurahundi is unknown, but is commonly estimated to be tens of thousands. To this day, the government of Zimbabwe has not apologized for the genocide.
Burying the Hatchet
We now turn our attention to the west, to Zimbabwe's lesser-known neighbor, Botswana. It should be noted that a perfect comparison between the two nations (or any two nations, for that matter) is not entirely possible, given their differences in geography, their population size (Botswana is considerably smaller), and their tribal histories, but we'll work with what we have.
The modern history of Botswana goes back to the late 1880s, as the British Empire's Bechuanaland Protectorate, named for the Tswana tribe which dominated the region. For most of its history, the territory was regarded by London as not much more than an afterthought to South Africa and Southern Rhodesia, due to its apparent lack of resources. As such, the colonial presence was comparatively light, and the tribes enjoyed a greater degree of autonomy than most others under British rule. In fact, relations were relatively warm between London and the major tribes of Bechuanaland, and open conflict between the tribes and European settlers was quite low.
Of the sparsely populated Bechuanaland territory, the Bamangwato formed one of the largest tribes, led by Kgosi (king) Khama III in the late 19th and early 20th Century. Khama the Great was baptized as a Christian by a German missionary, and he maintained good relations with London throughout his reign. When the territory was declared a protectorate in 1885, Khama III agreed to the action, and leveraged this alliance to expand his territory. Critically, Khama and two other chieftains of the region lobbied London in 1895 for greater protection against Cecile Rhodes, who meant to absorb Khama’s lands into his British South African Company. The lobbying effort was a success and kept Rhodes at bay, largely in part due to Khama’s strong promotion of Christianity within his tribe (including a ban on polygamy).
The story of Botswana continues with Khama III’s grandson. With the deaths of his grandfather and father, the infant Seretse (born 1921) became heir to the cheiftancy of the Bamangwato. Originally, the cheiftancy was to pass from a regent to Seretse, following his studies in Britain, but this was not to be.
While studying law in Britain, Seretse Khama met and courted a White British woman named Ruth Williams, and eventually they were wedded in 1948. The move proved to be immediately controversial, among both the British population and many in Khama’s tribe. But perhaps nowhere was it more controversial than in South Africa.
The government of South Africa, still a colony at the time, heavily pressured London to deprive Seretse of his chieftanship. The effort was successful, as the Labour government of Britain was still indebted following WW2 and feared the loss of South Africa’s resources (including uranium for Britain’s nuclear program), compared to the ostensibly resource-sparse Bechuanaland. Despite a British investigation into Seretse which identified him as a worthy candidate for the chieftancy, Seretse was exiled from the protectorate in 1951, though he was later able to return to Bechuanaland with Ruth after renouncing his chieftancy in 1956. By the early 1960s, an independence movement was in motion, with Seretse as a key leader.
With the founding of the Bechuanaland Democratic Party (later the Botswana Democratic Party) in 1961, the movement proved successful, and the BDP secured a victory in the racially-segmented election of the same year. Under universal suffrage in 1965, Seretse and the BDP decisively defeated the Botswana People’s Party, a party comparable to South Africa’s ANC. Following the elections, Botswana was born as an independent nation in 1966 with the support of the British, but the road ahead looked to be very difficult.
While the British hand of colonialism had been relatively light on Bechuanaland, colonial investment had been extremely low due to its perception as a resource-barren backwater. By the time of Botswana’s founding, they had very little in the way of natural resource extraction, no hospitals or schools, very few people with an advanced education, a sub-70% literacy rate, and maybe 12 miles of paved road. In fact, at this time Botswana was among the very poorest countries in the world, and they heavily relied upon investment from London just to keep the government afloat. President Seretse Khama had his work cut out for him.
Khama immediately got to work, and recognized that his nation had a dearth of qualified administrators. In a move that could have been highly controversial given the remnant of British officials and ongoing wave of anti-colonialism across Africa, President Khama allowed for White Botswanan workers and administrators to retain their jobs and enjoy the full protections and benefits of Botswanan citizenship, a decision that was not only economically-pragmatic but also racially-reconcilliatory. During this time, a new generation of Black Botswanan administrators would also be trained and admitted into the workforce, made possible by the country’s subsequent investment into their education system. This socially-restorative move also reassured foreign investors that the government was not inclined towards racially-tilted policies.
But capable administration alone cannot pull a nation out of abject poverty. At the very beginning, Botswana's economy was dependent on domestic cattle farming and financial support from the British Empire as stated previously. Khama's next move was crucial. Shortly after independence, the British mining company De Beers was invited into Botswana to survey for resources. By 1967 they had discovered a vast reserve of diamonds in Orapa, and by 1971 the mining operation was up and running. More diamond reserves would be discovered in the years to come.
The discovery and harvesting of the Orapa mine was a watershed moment for Botswana, but by no means was the mere existence of the diamond reserves a guarantee of economic success. Many nations sit atop vast resources, but for one reason or another, they fail to properly capitalize on them. Venezuela has vast oil reserves, but the potential gains have not been fully realized thanks to asinine Chavist policies, namely the inept management by state operatives. Zimbabwe has its own considerable diamond reserves (in addition to the platinum and lithium reserves mentioned earlier), but the state very clearly has no idea how to properly leverage these resources. In particular, Zimbabwe has elected to give platinum rights to China, which will dampen their potential revenues and could lead them into further debt traps. Outside of these dangers, there's always the potential of overly-rapid extraction, or inept investment of revenues.
Seretse Khama adeptly avoided all of these pitfalls. Diamond extraction was kept to a sustainable level, primarily through the joint-venture company Debswana. This joint-venture would eventually lead to a 50-50 share of ownership between the two entities, De Beers and the Botswanan government. Khama also maintained strong relations with European markets, and the sale of diamonds resulted in massive revenues for Botswana. Through strict fiscal discipline, these revenues were used to pay off international debts and domestic obligations, which kept the government afloat and stable. The revenues were also heavily reinvested into the nation's infrastructure and education system. While advocates of strict laissez-faire economics might bristle at this (or really any) type of tax-and-spend government action, it must be emphasized that taxes were kept low, spending was restrained to basic services (i.e. no frivolous yet extravagant “research projects" or bridges to nowhere), and the overall business climate was friendly. The low taxes in particular encouraged domestic economic activity, kept government expenditures lean, and made personal enrichment difficult for administrators or politicians.
The smart leverage of the diamond industry resulted in economic growth that has been both strong and sustained. Botswana was able to smoothly transition off of South Africa's rand and onto their own currency, the pula, in 1976 (“pula” means “rain” in the Sotho language, and has the connotations of “blessing”). Unsurprisingly, the pula has found its way into Zimbabwe’s troubled economy, and Zimbabweans form the largest bloc of migrants into Botswana by a wide margin (58.31% of all migrants as of 2020).
Late into Khama's presidency, with the chaos of the Bush War spilling over across Botswana's border and with incursions from South African terrorist forces, the Botswana Defense Forces were established in 1977, giving the nation its first true military. Even with this potentially massive revenue sink, the Botswanan military has never been wielded as a tool of political repression, and they have never embarked on costly or poorly-conceived wars (must be nice).
Seretse Khama and his party secured decisive electoral victories in 1969, 1975, and 1979. In fact, the Botswana Democratic Party has won every single election since independence and Seretse Khama's son, Ian Khama, would later serve as president from 2008 to 2018 (though he would switch to another party after leaving the presidency). With a single dominant party and a central political family, one might assume that Botswana had fallen into the same trap of corrupted elections as so many troubled countries have before. This is not the case. Seretse Khama secured strong victories because he was just that competent and popular. To this day, Botswana's elections are free and fair, and while the BDP isn’t quite as popular as it used to be, they enjoy consistently strong support. More importantly, Botswana has not seen a single coup or significant civil unrest, and the few extreme political forces which do exist are decidedly unpopular.
Seretse Khama suffered from health problems throughout much of his life, and it is often speculated that his tireless work ethic contributed to his untimely death in 1980 (aged 59), shortly after his incredible electoral victory in 1979 (75% of the vote). Many leaders in history cast long shadows over their countries years or even decades after their deaths, often for the worse. Sir Seretse Khama is a towering figure in his homeland, but his legacy is one of economic strength, peace, stability, smart administration, and true racial reconciliation. I am disappointed but not terribly surprised that Khama has remained mostly obscure in the west. After all, his story is hardly conducive to racial propagandists who sow disunity and revenge.
The road ahead for Botswana is not without challenges. The country will eventually need to diversify its economy away from the lucrative but impermanent diamond industry (about 50% of government revenue). That said, they have already shown progress towards expanding into the realms of finance, tourism, and medicine, so their economic future looks far more optimistic than most in the region. And while life expectancy has steadily grown since independence, this has been significantly impacted by an HIV/AIDS epidemic. At the same time, I would point out that this is more of a regional woe rather than a blight unique to Botswana, and the country has a greater chance of managing the crisis compared to most other affected countries.
Storm Clouds
The nation of South Africa is preparing to hold an election in 2024, and the outlook is grim. Although the popularity of the corrupt African National Congress has waned since independence, it remains to be seen how that vacuum will be filled, whether reasonable forces will pull ahead, or whether the ongoing instability will feed the growth of the lunatics of the Economic Freedom Fighters.
To make matters worse, the ANC and EFF have worked together previously, so even in the event that the ANC can’t secure 50% of the seats in parliament, a coalition of the two parties is possible. The ANC's main rival, the Democratic Alliance (sort of a moderate, old school liberal force), is attempting to cobble together their own coalition in response, but their likelihood of success is unclear.
As of the writing of this screed, Botswana also has an upcoming election in 2024. Opinion polls are scarce, but the BDP is likely to maintain a strong if not majority electoral position, and opposition parties are moderate. Zimbabwe, on the other hand, saw Mnangagwa retain power in the election of August 2023, though I would be very surprised if this result did not involve significant levels of political intimidation, ballot stuffing and so forth.
It would seem that both of South Africa's neighbors intend to stay on their current courses, and the difference could not be more stark. Perhaps South Africa does not have a true Khama-like figure on the scene today, but they very clearly have their Mugabe, in the form of Julius Malema. With ongoing instability, racial hatred, and a severe energy crisis, the people of the Rainbow Nation have a very important decision ahead of then next year. Let us pray that they make the right one. Let us also pray that the people of the increasingly divided states of America heed the lessons offered by Robert Mugabe and Sir Seretse Khama, and most importantly, that they heed the Word of God.
There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Galatians 3:28 (NIV)