Follow Thomas Sankara’s example and put the ‘servant’ back into public servant

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the South African government, government officials and politics? Corruption will almost certainly be one of the first things that come to mind. 

Although we are not unique in this, South Africans mostly operate on the assumption that all politicians are more or less corrupt, and by the looks of it, this is true. The top leaders in our government, who were the freedom fighters of yesteryear, are now among the most corrupt. 

Just the other day, I was on a government website for some irrelevant reason and I noticed that it had been updated and revamped since I had last visited it. What came to my mind was: “How much money did they waste on this? How much did they claim to spend on this revamp and how much of it went straight into the pockets of those in charge?” 

This pessimism and general distrust go beyond just the ANC and extends to all political parties — South African politics in general. I find myself being suspicious of all political parties, even the ones I am sympathetic towards. 

Why is this the case? Why are the South African government, government officials and politics so corrupt? Now, I know that some people answer this question by harking back to how much better things were during apartheid. This is a laughable, embarrassing and blatantly racist thing to say that I will not even entertain here. Let’s put our critical-thinking hats on instead. 

I would argue that it comes down to a range of factors, such as the power, prestige, status and money that come with being a government official. Perhaps, in the case of those freedom-fighters-turned-corrupt-leeches, they feel a sense of entitlement to these things. They risked their lives and their families’ lives resisting apartheid. Perhaps they feel they deserve to live well now. 

But I find myself inclined to question whether “public servants” should be entitled to this much power, prestige, status and money. I will return to this question below. For now, it must be noted that these privileges mean government officials become part of an elite economic class. Their elite class’s interest is enrichment, not egalitarianism. 

The class history of the ANC is fascinating because it demonstrates how the leading party members were almost always members of the black middle class and represented its interests. Anti-apartheid activist and scholar Neville Alexander attested to this: “Although the ANC was, and is, a multi-class organisation, there is no doubt that for most of its existence as an organisation, its dominant, indeed, hegemonic ethos was represented by the interests of the upward striving Black middle class” (my own emphasis). 

All this power, prestige, status, money — and class interest — is also embedded in a global system that is undeniably unequal and unjust. South African corruption is not merely an aberration in an otherwise fine global system rather, it is a symptom of a cancerous global political system.

In this climate, then, do we have any examples of good governance, ethical politics and a display of political virtue? I draw upon the example of Thomas Sankara, former president of Burkina Faso, a small landlocked country in West Africa, as described in A Certain Amount of Madness: the Life, Politics and Legacies of Thomas Sankara, edited by Amber Murrey. 

Although Sankara was only president for four years from 1983 to 1987 before his murder, he achieved more than most presidents achieve in 40 years. Some of them include countering deforestation in the country with a campaign that planted 10 million trees, rolling out literacy programmes and a mass vaccination programme for children under 15 against meningitis, yellow fever and measles. 

Unlike other African leaders before him, he argued for gender equality between men and women. One of his most defiant moves was his refusal to pay back the “debt” that Burkina Faso (a former French colony) owed to the “West” from the structural adjustment programme that contributed to the entrenchment of neocolonialism in the Eighties. 

At the Organisation for African Unity conference on 29 July 1987, Sankara declared that “The debt cannot be repaid; first, because if we don’t pay, the lenders will not die. That is for sure. But if we repay, we are going to die.” Sankara understood that assuming the burden of debt to (former) colonial powers would make it impossible for the already-poor country of Burkina Faso to develop, become self-sufficient and escape the trappings of imperialism.

What set Sankara apart was his hardline stance on government austerity. This was not the kind of austerity we hear about under neoliberal capitalism that targets welfare programmes. It was instead a kind of austerity directed at government officials themselves. Previously, I asked whether “public servants” should be entitled to this much power, prestige, status and money. Given that the majority of Burkina Faso’s population at the time were extremely poor subsistence farmers, Sankara saw no need for government extravagance. 

He replaced the Rolls-Royces preferred by officials with modest vehicles. Sankara himself rode a bicycle to work and only took a small salary. He used these measures to divert funds and resources to where they were  most needed — the rural poor who needed food security, running water and deserved to live a life of dignity. It is no wonder then that Sankara renamed the country, previously known as Upper Volta, “Burkina Faso”, which means “land of the upright men”. 

At the UN General Assembly on 4 October 1984, Sankara spoke scathingly of the conservative, comfortable elite in Burkina Faso, calling them parasitic classes that were the enemies of the people, as well as “passive and pathetic consumers”, who were unwilling to give up their privileges and engage in genuine political struggle. 

Of course, this did not gain him favour in the eyes of government officials and political opposition for whom politics was a lucrative game of enrichment. These figures included opponents and officials within Burkina Faso, neighbouring countries that embraced capitalism and forms of totalitarianism authoritarianism and, of course, the US and France. 

On 15 October 1987, Sankara was murdered and his best friend, Blaise Compaoré, took over as president. He remained president until 2014. It also comes as no surprise that once Compaoré took over the country, Burkina Faso returned to the Western fold and today it is one of the poorest countries in the world.

Former British prime minister Margeret Thatcher proclaimed that “there is no alternative” to neoliberal capitalism or the status quo. I think Sankara, her contemporary, showed us that there are alternatives — it is possible to have political leadership and government that are distinctively for the people and committed to genuine change and egalitarianism, as opposed to mere greed and enrichment. 

In recent years, Sankara’s example and his political virtues have inspired youth movements in Burkina Faso. One such organisation, Balai Citoyen (meaning “citizen broom”), aims to get rid of greedy and corrupt politicians and was started in response to the despotism of Compaoré. The activists call themselves “cibal” which roughly translates to “citizen” and “broom” and denotes anyone “engaged in the triumph of the values of integrity, honesty, social justice and accountability in public governance”. 

I argue that these are some of the political virtues that our “public servants” must embody — locally and globally. Of course, I am not saying that corruption can be solved by changes in individual moralities and I hope that my inclusion of structural causes demonstrates that. However, I am saying that the political system, both in South Africa and in the rest of the world, is cancerous and we must start considering how we can resist it and demand political leadership that puts the “servant” back in “public servant”. 

Sankara shows us that there is something importantly radical about government officials living simply, or according to the maxim “enough is as good as a feast”. We, as South Africans, and as human beings across the world, deserve leadership that is for us and with us, and not for themselves. 

Tamlyn February is a lecturer in philosophy at Stellenbosch University.