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The politics of ‘heroic intransigency’
Author: Phillip Matogo. PHOTO/FILE
What you need to know:
‘‘To Charles de Gaulle, leadership was not primarily about pleasing people.”
In politics, every age is a Romantic Age. In the sense that people are constantly searching for a romanticised hero on horseback to deliver them from situations they believe are beyond their control.
To be able to fit the role of deliverer, however, such a leader must exhibit the necessary blindness that a grand vision invariably engenders.
Take the former French leader called Charles de Gaulle, for instance.
I’ve been reading a book on his brand of politics.
According to this book, his politics was about being your own person and not currying favour with popular opinion.
This willingness to go one’s own way is called “heroic intransigency.”
It is based on an ever-readiness to antagonise rather than on a relentless desire to please.
This readiness to antagonise shapes the path of greatness.
Or as William Shakespeare’s Hamlet put it: “Rightly to be great is greatly to find quarrel in a straw.”
As history demonstrates, few leaders could pick a quarrel like de Gaulle could.
He made a virtue out of his notable lack of political graces; graces we often demand in our politically correct times.
As he defied convention in such fashion, de Gaulle’s critics mocked him as the fabled frog that wanted to blow itself up to the size of a bull.
That’s because they felt he should subordinate himself to the whims of the people and not have an inflated sense of self.
Yet, to de Gaulle, leadership was not primarily about pleasing people; it is the art of questioning conventional wisdom to find one’s singular place to stand.
To underpin such intransigence, de Gaulle demanded a stronger presidency. When it was denied him, he resigned.
Not once, but twice.
He resigned once on January 20, 1946, and again on June 1, 1958. The latter in the midst of a bitter war in Algeria and the prospect of civil war at home in France.
But then, in those separate hours of danger, he was asked to take back the reins of power.
I repeat: Not once, but twice.
It’s clear the French started to see him the way he saw himself: as a man of destiny.
As I read this book on de Gaulle, I thought of President Museveni.
To an extent, he has the heroic intransigence of de Gaulle. You can see this in his singleness of purpose and readiness to antagonise his opponents.
Again, he postures as a man of destiny guiding the country along a gilded path to his singular vision.
However, de Gaulle tested his mantle as a man of destiny by resigning office and then being called back to “save” his country.
But the best President Museveni can do is claim Ugandans still want him and that’s why he continually offers himself for the presidency.
Such unheroic compliance to the so-called clamour of the masses only ensures that the president will lead from behind, instead of in front.
So let’s not expect him to reform the system of patronage which, on the surface, enriches persons like Members of Parliament. Yet, going deeper, the same “riches” given to MPs serve as the patron’s bribe to a client (citizen) as both patron and client are ultimately disempowered.
This slit-your-throat-to-spite-your-belly politics is a growing problem as it dwarfs the very notion of leadership, at all levels.
Hence, a leader is now a spokesperson of a divided polity instead of a rallying point to a common purpose. So we need heroic intransigence in echo of former British prime minister Tony Blair’s words: The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes.
Mr Matogo is a professional copywriter
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