Governments that control the state and do not build it By Zakaria Nimr – Sudan - Translated from Arabic by Abou Zeid. Sawtoroba.
Translated from Arabic by Abou Zeid. Sawtoroba.
Governments that control the state and do not build it
By Zakaria Nimr – Sudan -
Translated from Arabic by Abou Zeid. Sawtoroba.
There may be a presidency, ministries, a parliament, an army, a police, a budget, embassies, and hundreds of officials, and yet there is no state in the true sense. It controls the security services, controls political discourse, and distributes positions to loyalists, but it does not build an institution that can survive after it is gone. This is the difference between a ruler who wants a state and a ruler who wants power.
When a job becomes a reward for loyalty, the principle of competence dies. When political appointments become more important than experience, management dies; when the law becomes selective, justice dies. When the military becomes tied to politics, the concept of the national military dies. From crime to regime and then the government asks: Why doesn’t the state advance? The modern state needs institutions that can function without waiting for a call from the minister. This judiciary can hold officials accountable, a police force that protects citizens rather than just the authorities, a public administration based on efficiency, and an economy that produces wealth rather than waiting for the state treasury.
Why? Because a strong institution restricts power, an independent judiciary limits the political, a free press is exposed by an effective parliament, it is monitored by the professional administration, it rejects illegal orders, civil society asks him, and a conscious citizen does not need a medium to get his rights. The ability to control is not the ability to govern; the ability to issue orders is not the ability to build institutions; and the ability to stay in power is not the ability to build the state. The state is measured by something simpler. Can he go to court without fear? Can he find a job based on competence? Can he criticize the government without losing his security? Can the school function without political interference? Could the hospital provide service directly, without an intermediary? Can the institution continue when the minister changes? If the answer is no, the problem is not with the citizen. The problem is that the state has not yet become a public institution.
Politicians make another mistake by blaming society for the failure of the state, saying that the people are tribal. But who made the state unable to provide citizenship that transcends the tribe? They say that the people are uneducated. But who built an education system that produces more degrees than thinking and skills? They say that young people are unemployed because they do not work hard, but who has failed to build an economy that can create jobs? They say that corruption is rampant in society. If the state rewards wasta, people will learn wasta. If it rewards loyalty, people will look for loyalty. If it protects the strong, the weak will look for a power to protect them. If it neglects the law, people will stop believing in the law. The state teaches society how to behave before it asks society to respect it. Therefore, state-building begins with changing the behavior of the authority itself. It is not possible to build a modern state with the mentality of booty; it is not possible to build citizenship with the mentality of the tribe; it is not possible to build institutions with the mentality of distributing jobs. Democracy cannot be built by simply holding elections if the institutions that are supposed to protect the results of elections are weak: the elections are not the state, not the constitution, not the state, not the parliament, not the state, not the president, not even the government; these are not all parts of a larger system called the state, and the real state is the one that remains when everyone is gone.
We don’t just ask, “How many projects have you opened?” We ask how many institutions have you made stronger? We do not just ask, “How many years did you rule?” Rather, we ask, ” What will happen to the state when you leave? We don’t just ask, “How many times have you talked about national unity?” Rather, we ask: Can a citizen obtain his right without belonging to a tribe, party, or political network? And we don’t just ask, “Are you strong?” Rather, we ask the question that frightens the authority: Is the state stronger than you? If the answer is no, we have a strong government and a weak state, and this is the most dangerous political equation that any society can live with, because the government may survive for twenty years. Still, it may fail to build a single institution that can survive twenty years without it. When that happens, the government has not built a state; it has built power on the ruins of the state, and this is where the real criticism must begin: We do not need governments that are more capable of controlling the state.
