The Politics of Saving Face

Thomas Alberts

- The implication that the fate of Zimbabwe is tied to the peculiarities of its ruler’s personality is hardly novel nor unique to Zimbabwe, though the word ‘fate’ might not carry the same weight in democracies as it does in dictatorships. But even in democracies, the politics of saving face is underestimated …

The Politics of Saving Face

At the Difficult Dialogues meeting last week, Heidi Holland made an argument for psycho-diplomacy in Zimbabwe. Her argument, based on a psychological analysis of Robert Mugabe, basically boiled down to the idea that an appropriate political solution to the Zimbabwe crisis must avoid humiliating Mugabe, for the simple reason that humiliation is a lightning rod for the Big Man’s anger: Mugabe retaliates when he feels humiliated, the degree of violence perpetrated being in proportion to the degree of his feelings of humiliation. Ignoring for the moment that there are no degrees when you’re dealing with a narcissist, this is an interesting and persuasive argument.

The implication that the fate of Zimbabwe is tied to the peculiarities of its ruler’s personality is hardly novel nor unique to Zimbabwe, though the word ‘fate’ might not carry the same kind of weight in democracies as it does in dictatorships. But even in democracies, the politics of saving face is underestimated and I think we’re seeing this in South Africa at the moment.

The ANC’s stoic support for Jacob Zuma, despite that he is the most disgraced leader in the party’s nearly 100 year history; Gwede Mantashe’s attack on the Constitutional Court last week; the party’s tacit defense of Julius Malema, despite the Human Rights Commission’s demand for an apology – and that’s just in the last month. In making these and similar unwavering commitments, the ANC is painting itself into a corner.

It’s not the commitment to a position that’s problematic, it’s the style of commitment to that position. It’s a style that responds to criticism with counter-criticism and counter-accusation, rather than calmly restating the principles on which the commitment is founded. The effect is to substitute principled argument for grandiose exhortations (we will die for our leader, we will kill for our leader, words fail to express how much we’ll do for our leader, we love him that much!!’) and red-under-every-bed intimidations (the counter revolutionary forces plotting everywhere from the constitutional court to suburban tea parties, as parodied so cleverly in a recent spate of Madam&Eve cartoons). But what will happen when the ANC runs out of space to move, when they are firmly backed up into the corner? Gwede Mantashe will have difficulty admitting his statements about the Constitutional Court were perhaps just a tad paranoid, or even just plain old ill-advised, even if he does still believe the Court harbours enemies of the National Democratic Revolution. The point is that the politics of saving face gets in the way of the democratic politics of accountability and transparency. Ultimately, the politics of saving face gets in the way not just of responsible government, but responsive governance (I’m conflating the ANC with government here, but given the ANC’s electoral dominance, I think I can). And so the people are reduced to voting fodder while political elites put on brave faces and back up their problematic pronouncements with still greater bravado. And the political space gets smaller.

Along the way, the central conundrum becomes ever more intractable: the greater the political crisis, the more face has to be saved to find a way out of it, and so accountability is sacrificed . Of course, the conundrum dissappears if we all just hope things will get better and look the other way. But the conundrum also disappears if political elites consider their options before mouthing off, or learn to accept criticism without seeing it as humiliation. Perhaps political elites expect too much of themselves (even more than their critics, and when you’re carrying the mantle of the NDR on your shoulders, you’ve got to have high expectations), but still we ought to expect more our of our leaders. This paranoid, fear mongering, and inciting style of politics has to change, for the good of our democracy and meeting our development goals.