Mutumwa Mawere

The deracialisation of the South African government and the restoration of civil rights to all its citizens over 14 years ago represented a defining moment in the continent's history.

Whereas, the whole continent's economic progress was challenged because of the existence of apartheid in South Africa, the ownership of the destiny of the continent was finally placed squarely in the hands of the majority.

The African civil rights journey was long and pregnant with lessons. It is true that those of us who fail to understand their past are destined to repeat it. Africa's past can and must be a compass to guide our collective actions while also serving as a barometer to measure nation building progress.

Unfortunately, it is the case that the economic space has not been significantly transformed to match the changes that have taken place in the political sphere. Just as the decolonization project was conceived, led and managed by a few, many of us today appear too comfortable to reflect on the past struggles without taking an active part in shaping the destiny of the continent.

We are privileged to live in a generation that has no luxury to blame the past for lack of progress in building a vibrant and successful post colonial Africa and drawing lessons from the many mistakes of the post-colonial experiences.

I was one of the founders of Africa Heritage Society (AHS) www.africaheritage.com in 2003 out of a realization that for a meaningful transformation of the hard won civil rights into sustainable economic or platinum rights, a new conversation was urgently required among African professionals and businesses on key construction issues required to build a continent of hope. In being part of this new conversation, I am confident that it is possible in our lifetime to create a new way of life and a value system that puts Africans and their potential first on the agenda.

The colonial and apartheid business model was not underpinned by inclusivity and, for example, in the case of South Africa the English in 1845 established a mutual to serve the economic interests of only the English and the Afrikaners followed suit in 1917/8 by establishing Santam and Sanlam.

It must be accepted that financial illiteracy among the majority remains one of the enduring legacies of colonialism and apartheid. The interplay between race and capitalist accumulation has unfortunately created a perception among the majority that there exists a conspiracy in the white African community to undermine or even retard the economic democratization of the continent.

While it is true that a constitutional order and a civil rights architecture was put in place to disenfranchise the majority politically and economically while enabling the minority settler community to construct a sophisticated economic system to serve Europe and the settlers, it cannot be said that our generation has woken up to the fact that the future of the continent lies in our hands.

The decolonisation project was waged at a pan-Africans level and over the last 52 years, country by country was liberated.  However, although theoretically we should no longer be fighting for our civil rights the reality in many African countries suggests otherwise. We thought through independence we had won the civil rights battles and yet the majority of Africans live in fear of their own governments. Independence was supposed to bring with it black hope and prosperity but this has largely been a mirage.

On the contrary, independence has converted white fear into economic prosperity, albeit without political power. Today African resources are largely exploited by foreigners with little or no involvement of natives. African economic decisions are not made in the continent and yet our conversations have little to do with the continent's economic heritage.

Although in theory we have the opportunity to acquire wealth, African capital formation is a contested issue not only because many African governments that came from the womb of colonial oppression believe that private capital accumulation is not in the national interest. The struggle in Africa is not about wealth generation but about state engineering in the belief that poverty reduction is a preserve of state action.

Based on the above, we have launched a Platinum Rights Movement to generate dialogue and encourage Africans to focus on developing a national democratic revolutionary agenda. This agenda must have as its focus conquering the dominant issue of our time, Wealth Acquisition/Platinum Rights, through an Economic/Advantage Movement. Just as it was necessary for our liberators to utilize movements (Liberation and Civil Rights) to overcome the dominant issues (Racial Discrimination/Subjugation) of their times, we must do the same to fulfill our historical challenge. We are proud to introduce the Advantage Movement or the New Mutual aimed at converting the spent by Africans into a new power base.

In South Africa, victims of apartheid are commonly referred to as Historically Disadvantaged Individuals (HDI) or Previously Disadvantaged Individuals (PDI) and yet this generation is the most advantaged of all generations of blacks to live at a time when the glass ceiling of opportunities has been lifted to allow the formation of New Mutual initiatives in contrast to old-style race-based "Old Mutuals" that were demutualized in the post-apartheid era.

The Advantage Movement is an instrument for fostering this Economic Movement for Africans with the ultimate objective of building wealth and creating a new generation of Randlords or representative African economic brand ambassadors through an investment in financial literacy as an empowerment agent.

If we have to be masters of their destiny and be instruments for accelerating and sustaining stable economic growth, we must possess a sustainable and diverse economy with a pan-African focus that generates wealth for businesses, community members and all of the many other elements that interact within the community. This wealth will provide re-investment capital, income-earning opportunities and business growth and expansion. These are critical factors for reducing crime and poverty, aiding in achieving a better quality of life, and ultimately, providing stability for the continent.

As we begin to focus seriously on the future of our continent, we have no choice but to look back in human history to better understand why those who chose Africa as a home from Europe created institutions like Old Mutual as enablers of economic empowerment.

What then is a mutual? In essence, a mutual is concept derived from the fact that a group of people, through co-operation, are better able to act for their mutual benefit than if acting alone. From this simple but key construction tenet, emerges the overarching objective of mutuality: namely, that mutuals seek to benefit their members rather than merely seeking to maximize profit. A mutual, therefore, can readily be defined as an enterprise owned by the members, providing a variety of services to the members for the sole benefit of the members. Even though the mutual concept is widely understood, it is given almost no explicit expression in most of the conversation that take place in post colonial Africa in terms of architectural issues required to inform progressive financial and legal systems.

The majority of Africans are motivated by a desire to accumulate wealth at individual and family level while choosing to ignore the obvious advantages of mutuality.

At law, a mutual is commonly defined as "a company formed on the principle of having the liability of its members limited to the respective amounts that the members undertake to contribute to the property of the company if it is wound up". Many of us are familiar with the concept of building societies but regrettably we have not invested a lot in building awareness on the fact that such institutions if popularized may provide an answer to the challenges that seem intractable in Africa.

The state plays a dominant part in post colonial Africa to the extent that if there is any evidence of economic failure it is easily attributed to lack of vision on the part of state actors rather than citizens taking responsibility for failure to invest in the kind of changes they wish to see.

What are the characteristics of a mutual company? It normally has the following characteristics, for example in relation to insurance companies ...

(1) common equitable ownership of the assets by members;

(2) the right of policyholders to be members and the exclusion of others and to choose management;

(3) the sole business purpose of supplying insurance at cost; and

(4) the right of members to the return of premiums which are in excess of the amount needed to cover losses and expenses".

Since a mutual company is operated wholly for the benefit of its policy holders, it functions to provide insurance at cost rather than to amass profits in the ordinary business sense.

While the initial premium paid by the policy holder usually represents a somewhat inflated estimate of the cost of the policy, at the end of the year when such cost is actually ascertained, the Company is required to return to its policyholders the excess premium, that is, the amount in excess of the company' actual cost. Such return is accomplished by means of a distribution of the "divisible surplus" in accordance with the mandate of members.

Can mutuality provide answers to the challenges that confront post colonial Africa? Who should take the lead? What principles and values should inform the process?

I googled the term "mutual" and got 108 million references online confirming that the position that the concept is as old as human civilization. We cannot afford to be angry at other race groups who have seemingly been successful not only in post colonial Africa when there is no evidence of our ability to organize ourselves into viable economic units.

If ever there was a time when we all must converge to address a common enemy i.e. poverty this is an opportunity for us not only to think about the challenges and prospects for change but to do something about it.