Liberation Movements in Power: Resisting the Slide to Repression

Liberation movements have played a hugely important role in overthrowing authoritarian and abusive political systems across Africa, including racist white minority regimes in Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. These campaigns are often branded as struggles for freedom and opposed to governmental oppression. In many cases, liberation leaders promised to build more inclusive and egalitarian political systems that would empower ordinary citizens and build a more prosperous and economically vibrant future. To date, however, this ideal has not been realized in the vast majority of cases. While the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa has sustained political rights and civil liberties since coming to power in 1994, it has also become mired in corruption scandals and allegations of mismanagement. The situation is considerably worse in Zimbabwe, where the ZANU-PF government won plaudits for its economic management in the 1980s, but has since become one of the most repressive and exploitative regimes on the continent. These disappointing trajectories suggest that common features of liberation movements -- their need to institutionalize hierarchy and secrecy as well as the use of political violence to achieve their goals -- may shape the kinds of governments they ultimately establish after winning power. This phenomenon reflects a broader trend in which rebel armies, from Angola to Rwanda and Uganda -- to name but a few -- have failed to break free from their militaristic backgrounds and so have been unwilling or unable to foster genuinely pluralistic and civilian systems of government. In this show, we will convene leading figures from Africa's resistance movements, as well as academics and opposition figures to discuss and unpack this complicated legacy, and what it means moving forward for Africa.