What goes around...

Well someone said to me the other day about living in South Africa that we live in interesting times, and it is certainly true reading the newspapers this morning! One of the things that strikes me is that we need to move beyond our conception of a centralised state. This idea did not serve SA well under apartheid, and it does not serve us well now. Unfortunately, our current (but for how long?) President, Thabo Mbeki, has adopted a 'democratic centralist' approach to how he has run the government and the country, and has appropriated significant power to himself and a few people around him. It appears, from yesterday's judgement in the Zuma case, that this included effectively giving instructions to supposedly independent state institutions such as the National Prosecuting Authority.

We now live in the 21st century, and centralisation of state power, and indeed the centralisation of power in organisations, is no longer, I believe, a sustainable way to manage our affairs. It will not work in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Iraq or the United States.

So, while Jacob Zuma may not be an ideal person to have as incoming President of the country, the ANC conference in Polokwane was important in that it re-established the control of the party over an increasingly remote and disconnected government. And now Mbeki's pigeons are coming home to roost.

What can we learn from all this? I would suggest that sharing power is important if we want to create sustainable organisations and societies. The idea of 'the big man' is past. Further, we have to move beyond the idea that support and loyalty (based partly on fear!) can be bought through systems of patronage, and build societies and organisations in which people are genuinely committed to each other through bonds of trust and shared responsibility for our future.