This morning, I woke up to find splattered across the Internet, an article by Yericko Nyerere - a popular blogger and journalist who has many followers on the social media. Among other things, Yericko's article skillfully extrapolated almost the entire Magufuli's chronology as set out here: https://www.facebook.com/yericko.nyerere/posts/1075466775798554?fref=nf
Now, it's true that Yericko's presentation might be somewhat skeptical, but it is also true that some of the things he mentioned in there may ring true; that they may damage Dr Magufuli; and that they might NOT be easily handled by his campaign team. Naturally, the reasoning behind this line of thinking is what inculcated the idea behind this humble article. I felt compelled to contemplate more on the impact of the Internet and how the 'social media machine' has been affecting politics in our country lately, as compared to the long gone days of TANU and ASP when the Internet wasn't available.
This got me thinking that the whole Magufuri vs Lowassa matter has now turned into an 'unfortunate inevitability' of public scrutiny as the consequence of running for public office during this 'information age', where the Internet has become a necessity and as vital as the air we breathe, prevails. Personally, I like Dr Magufuli as a person, but I am apprehensive that his political career has been associated with 'the wrong political party, at the wrong time'. It is sad but true.
The more I read Yericko's article, the more I realized that our society now longs to understand its leadership paradigm. Our people have an urge to grasp the nature of their leaders, how they live, and how they lead. Gone are the old days where leaders could lurk behind a dark curtain. There's nothing wrong with that. However, in order to bridge the gap between the followers and the leaders, we as a people need to explore our 'ethics' to better understand the leadership paradigm. Now that I mention ethics, let me elucidate it a little bit. Ethics is about what we should do and what we should be as a society; it's about right, wrong, good and evil; it's about the relationship of humans to each other and humans to other living things. Leadership is a particular type of relationship, the hallmarks of which are power, influence, obligation, and responsibility. By understanding 'ethics' we gain a better understanding of the leader/follower relationship because the central issues in ethics are also the central issues in leadership, which include, authenticity, self-interest, self-discipline, and moral obligations of duty, justice and the greatest good.
We often hear people say that leaders should be held to an "ethical" standard. The problem with this is that it assumes it is acceptable for everyone else to have a lower ethical standard. We saw this issue crop up even in the recent Channel 10 debate between Humphrey Polepole and Rev. Msigwa, where Rev. Msigwa rightly pointed out that Mr Polepole shouldn't be accusing people of corruption if he himself is corrupt - because that is effectively hypocrisy! My view on this is that this should apply to every citizen - not just Magufuli, Lowassa, Humphrey Polepole, myself, or indeed, Yericko Nyerere - everyone! And that's how our nation will evolve in its pursuit of ideals, justice and genuine peace. I think that, the ethical standard of the followers is just as important as that of the leaders. In fact, the morality of the followers can have a strong influence on the morality of their leaders; and that's why our people must explore and understand 'ethics' because, let's be honest, people always get the leaders they deserve!
These days, we often find ourselves disappointed by the moral character of our leaders. As humans, leaders are subject to the same flaws and weaknesses as everyone else; yet we want our leaders to transcend them and live up to higher moral standards. I often wonder why. Some people turn wistfully to the past and wonder where all the leaders and heroes have gone; the Nyereres and the Sokoines for example. But when you think about it, ordinary people did not know as much about the personal behaviour of their leaders in the past as we do today. As someone who abhors cigarrete smoking, I was shocked and quite disappointed for example, when I recently learned that my hero, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, smoked a highly nicotine concentrated cigarette brand called 'Nyota'! It is difficult to have heroes in this 'information age' where every wart and wrinkle of a leader's life can be made public - and that's partly the moral of this article. Ironically, the increase in information that we have about our leaders has also increased our concern about their 'ethics'! The more defects our leaders have, the more we long for ethical leaders. We have demystified our own leaders and yet we are not sure whether we like it!
As we approach our next general election, we have to look at leadership from the perspective of virtue, where everyone, not just the leaders, must participate in being virtuous. Aristotle, the greatest Greek academic, tells us that virtues are habits that form our character. We must nurture these habits from the bottom up, starting with ourselves, our kids, and everyone else in our society. When we select a leader to run for public office, we typically look at the person's track record and 'assume' that if that person has been honest in the past, he or she will be honest in the future. But sometimes we make the opposite assumption, that if someone has deceived us in the past, he or she will do so in the future. Yet there have been times when people were willing to give a leader the benefit of the doubt. In the first Bill Clinton's presidential campaign, Clinton admitted to having an extramarital affair and went on to win the election. However, when Clinton lied about his affair with an intern during his second term in office, citizens and political leaders were outraged! I think what we ought to do, instead, is to prepare our leaders and nurture them from childhood - sort of like how the Russians do it - while at the same time striving to build an ethical society; a society that is free of corruption at all levels!
As humans, it's in our nature to assume that we can judge a person's future moral behavior by his or her past moral behavior, but because leaders are also imperfect humans, they have moral weaknesses too.Yet, particularly in this day and age of the Internet, the impact of our leaders' moral weaknesses is multiplied in proportion to their visibility, power, and size of their constituencies. But as we walk into those polling booths on the 25th of October this year, we need to understand that we all have an obligation to be ethical. The change we yearn for must start in us. We also need to consider the following questions: is it fair to judge a leader's character by one or two "unfortunate" incidents? Can we predict a leader's future behavior from their behavior in the past? Should leaders be penalized on the job for what they do off the job? Can we separate the character of a person's leadership from his or her moral character? And finally, when should our leaders follow their heart?
May God bless Tanzania.
Now, it's true that Yericko's presentation might be somewhat skeptical, but it is also true that some of the things he mentioned in there may ring true; that they may damage Dr Magufuli; and that they might NOT be easily handled by his campaign team. Naturally, the reasoning behind this line of thinking is what inculcated the idea behind this humble article. I felt compelled to contemplate more on the impact of the Internet and how the 'social media machine' has been affecting politics in our country lately, as compared to the long gone days of TANU and ASP when the Internet wasn't available.
This got me thinking that the whole Magufuri vs Lowassa matter has now turned into an 'unfortunate inevitability' of public scrutiny as the consequence of running for public office during this 'information age', where the Internet has become a necessity and as vital as the air we breathe, prevails. Personally, I like Dr Magufuli as a person, but I am apprehensive that his political career has been associated with 'the wrong political party, at the wrong time'. It is sad but true.
The more I read Yericko's article, the more I realized that our society now longs to understand its leadership paradigm. Our people have an urge to grasp the nature of their leaders, how they live, and how they lead. Gone are the old days where leaders could lurk behind a dark curtain. There's nothing wrong with that. However, in order to bridge the gap between the followers and the leaders, we as a people need to explore our 'ethics' to better understand the leadership paradigm. Now that I mention ethics, let me elucidate it a little bit. Ethics is about what we should do and what we should be as a society; it's about right, wrong, good and evil; it's about the relationship of humans to each other and humans to other living things. Leadership is a particular type of relationship, the hallmarks of which are power, influence, obligation, and responsibility. By understanding 'ethics' we gain a better understanding of the leader/follower relationship because the central issues in ethics are also the central issues in leadership, which include, authenticity, self-interest, self-discipline, and moral obligations of duty, justice and the greatest good.
We often hear people say that leaders should be held to an "ethical" standard. The problem with this is that it assumes it is acceptable for everyone else to have a lower ethical standard. We saw this issue crop up even in the recent Channel 10 debate between Humphrey Polepole and Rev. Msigwa, where Rev. Msigwa rightly pointed out that Mr Polepole shouldn't be accusing people of corruption if he himself is corrupt - because that is effectively hypocrisy! My view on this is that this should apply to every citizen - not just Magufuli, Lowassa, Humphrey Polepole, myself, or indeed, Yericko Nyerere - everyone! And that's how our nation will evolve in its pursuit of ideals, justice and genuine peace. I think that, the ethical standard of the followers is just as important as that of the leaders. In fact, the morality of the followers can have a strong influence on the morality of their leaders; and that's why our people must explore and understand 'ethics' because, let's be honest, people always get the leaders they deserve!
These days, we often find ourselves disappointed by the moral character of our leaders. As humans, leaders are subject to the same flaws and weaknesses as everyone else; yet we want our leaders to transcend them and live up to higher moral standards. I often wonder why. Some people turn wistfully to the past and wonder where all the leaders and heroes have gone; the Nyereres and the Sokoines for example. But when you think about it, ordinary people did not know as much about the personal behaviour of their leaders in the past as we do today. As someone who abhors cigarrete smoking, I was shocked and quite disappointed for example, when I recently learned that my hero, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, smoked a highly nicotine concentrated cigarette brand called 'Nyota'! It is difficult to have heroes in this 'information age' where every wart and wrinkle of a leader's life can be made public - and that's partly the moral of this article. Ironically, the increase in information that we have about our leaders has also increased our concern about their 'ethics'! The more defects our leaders have, the more we long for ethical leaders. We have demystified our own leaders and yet we are not sure whether we like it!
As we approach our next general election, we have to look at leadership from the perspective of virtue, where everyone, not just the leaders, must participate in being virtuous. Aristotle, the greatest Greek academic, tells us that virtues are habits that form our character. We must nurture these habits from the bottom up, starting with ourselves, our kids, and everyone else in our society. When we select a leader to run for public office, we typically look at the person's track record and 'assume' that if that person has been honest in the past, he or she will be honest in the future. But sometimes we make the opposite assumption, that if someone has deceived us in the past, he or she will do so in the future. Yet there have been times when people were willing to give a leader the benefit of the doubt. In the first Bill Clinton's presidential campaign, Clinton admitted to having an extramarital affair and went on to win the election. However, when Clinton lied about his affair with an intern during his second term in office, citizens and political leaders were outraged! I think what we ought to do, instead, is to prepare our leaders and nurture them from childhood - sort of like how the Russians do it - while at the same time striving to build an ethical society; a society that is free of corruption at all levels!
As humans, it's in our nature to assume that we can judge a person's future moral behavior by his or her past moral behavior, but because leaders are also imperfect humans, they have moral weaknesses too.Yet, particularly in this day and age of the Internet, the impact of our leaders' moral weaknesses is multiplied in proportion to their visibility, power, and size of their constituencies. But as we walk into those polling booths on the 25th of October this year, we need to understand that we all have an obligation to be ethical. The change we yearn for must start in us. We also need to consider the following questions: is it fair to judge a leader's character by one or two "unfortunate" incidents? Can we predict a leader's future behavior from their behavior in the past? Should leaders be penalized on the job for what they do off the job? Can we separate the character of a person's leadership from his or her moral character? And finally, when should our leaders follow their heart?
May God bless Tanzania.
