GHANA UNDER RAWLINGS – EARLY YEARS. EMMANUEL HANSEN. Introduction Eboe Hutchful, October 1989. The analysis of militarism was one of the major theoretical interests of Emmanuel Hansen until his sudden death in Tanzania in November 1987 [1]. This was the interest derived not only from his situation as a political scientist but also as apolitical activist in Ghana struggling against the military regimes of 1966 to 1969 and 1972 to 1979, and then a senior member of the Government of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) from 1982 until his resignation a year later. Both Hansen’s analytical perspectives and his political sympathies underwent significant changes during this period, particularly with regard to the crucial question as to whether the military could play a revolutionary, political and social role. Up to 1979 his answer was firmly negative. He dismissed the first two military regimes of the National Liberation Council (1966 – 69) and the National Redemption Council – Supreme Military Council (1972 -79) as products of the ‘crisis of accumulation’ in Ghana’s political economy and of the efforts to create a new political economy and new political coalitions of local petty bourgeois fractions and international capital with military playing hegemonic role. Although in his view the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council – AFRC (June – October 1979) broke with this pattern, Hansen concluded that the regime (ie. The AFRC), in spite of its radical (and violent) populism, possessed limited revolutionary possibilities. This pessimism was confirmed by the discourses of the regime itself and the restoration of power, after only the view for national degeneration. The coup of December 31, 1981, again executed by Rawlings, changed his mind. This coup, he argued, was different from all previous ones in that it was a ‘coup with a revolutionary import’. Revolution has been placed ‘on the agenda’. Hansen joined the new government as Secretary to the PNDC in October 1982. His abrupt resignation in 1983 and his disillusionment with the internal and public politics of the regime prompted yet another reappraisal of the military and its politics. Hansen’s progression – from rejection to affirmation and a return to pessimism and doubt – reflected to a large extent the dilemmas of the Ghanaian Left, as well as the problems that the scholars on the whole have had a defining the political he political character and potential of military regimes in Africa. For the left in Africa the key challenge has been how to grasp to explain the political character of the ‘revolutionary’ military regimes, both in the realm of theory and as a matter of political practice. Both the left debates and (more importantly) the serious political errors made by the left movements in relation to such regimes in Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Congo, and, of course, Ghana and elsewhere, suggest considerable difficulty by the African left in grasping the political character of such regimes, [2] in particular the degree to, and means by, which they can be exploited to advance the objectives of socialism and democracy. It is from the point of view that Hansen’s writings as well as his political experiences have such interest and value. In what follows we shall attempt a brief introduction to Hansen’s theoretical perspectives on African militarism and the problems of interpretation they raised. Since the strength and the pitfalls of this methodology and his analysis were broadly representative of those of Ghanaian left as a whole, critical assessment may help to advance our collective understanding of the issues. It also provides an essential background to the notes published here since, unfortunately, Hansen did not have the opportunity to develop an appropriate theoretical framework before his untimely death. The Critique of Political Science. Like most of the Left, Hansen was dissatisfied with prevailing political scientific frameworks for analyzing the military. In his view these frameworks had emphasized four areas of investigation. First, the causes and conditions for military interventions; secondly, the nature of the military – civil relations; thirdly, military performance while in office; and finally, the dynamics of military disengagement, stressing either institutional/organizational dynamics or broad social conditions, neither of which, in separation, provided adequate understanding of military political action. To overcome this manicheanism, Hansen proposed a form of class analysis which would ‘view personnel in the military as a fractional part of class forces in society’ and ‘examine their actions in a related social and political context [Hansen 1982 p. 8]. To understand military political action it was necessary, in his view, to capture the ‘essence of this conjuncture’ of military and social structure, and situate it in the ‘definite historical and material conditions’ of a particular country under study. Hansen did not deny that there were specific corporate interests which the military may from time to time be called upon to defend, clearly however, military political action goes well beyond such purely corporate interests. But Hansen criticizes the inability or willingness of political scientists and other scholars to ‘probe the interacting relationship of class and social forces in the military and in civil society’ which was in his view responsible for the major weaknesses in the literature. Hansen also rejected global or unicausal modes of analysis, stressing simultaneously the generalization of militarism in Africa and the conjectural variation (to employ Murray’s term) between coups and military regimes and the contexts in which they occur. Experiences had demonstrated, he argued, that ‘no African country, big or small, rich or poor, English-speaking or French-speaking, politically to the left or politically to the right, whether it gained its independence through agitation for constitutional reforms or through armed struggle, is free from military coup’. This meant that there could be no general theory – ‘a single explanatory model or variable’ – of the military coup in Africa. Rather, each situation has to be studied within its own specificity, situating the phenomenon, within its own historical and material conditions’ [Hansen 1982, p. 7]. This was not however to say that each coup was unique or that coups did not share certain general elements. The Class Character of the Military How does Hansen establish the class nature of the military? In his studies of the Ghanaian military, he fixes the class character of the military in two formulations. The first is when he refers to Senior Military Officers as the ‘petty bourgeoisie of the military’ [1982, p. 16]. This military fraction of the petty bourgeoisie is then seen to be in alliance with similar class fractions in the bureaucracy and certain economic sectors. The military regimes are seen as representing determinate class or condition of class fractional interests in which the military occupied a hegemonic position. For instance the National Liberation Council (NLC) which succeeded Nkrumah is described as ‘nothing more than another petty bourgeois coalition under the hegemony of the petty-bourgeoisie located in the military’ [ibid, p. 11]. Under the later regime of Acheampong the military is again said to have occupied a ‘hegemonic position among the class coalition which included the international bourgeoisie’ [ibid, p. 18]. With minor differences this was the dominant, pre-1979 Ghanaian left position on military regimes. A second formulation is when he sees the various military ranks as representing, or corresponding to and interacting with particular strata of civil society. The military is thus seen as a class-structured institution. Class contradictions and conflict occur within the military and articulate with broader class conflicts in society. Subaltern ranks, no less than Senior Officers, can and do act as a class force both within military and (in alliance with strata in civil society) on a broader social front. This view is suggested in the discussion of June 4 as a ‘class conflict in the Armed Forces’, a rebellion of men of the ranks first against their officers and then against the comparable classes in Civil Society’, and as a ‘class action on the part of the lower classes to assert themselves’. [ibid, p. 19] While illuminating both of these formulations raise a number of theoretical issues, even ignoring for a moment the problem of consistency. First, it is not clear whether this ‘class identification’ is structural or ideological, or both – although Hansen’s usage would tend to suggest that it is structural – in other words the military, or its various strata, occupy positions similar to the civilian petty bourgeoisie or other classes in the process of social production. In my view, there are several problems with this position. In general, the class origin of military officers and ranks is not a useful or reliable indicator of their class sympathies or ideological inclination for a variety of reasons. First, as a corporate organization, the modern military does not occupy a direct or determinate place in social production. Its relationship with production is mediated by and through state budget and state appropriation, giving it a certain structural autonomy from – and potential antagonism to – sectors rooted directly in production. Its material and power base is also sustained by specific international production relations and structures. Its interests may indeed coincide closely with other sectors of the state bureaucracy, but even at this level certain contradictions do emerge, relating to the secrecy and ‘inviolability’ of the defence budget and its ideological basis in concepts of ‘national security’. Secondly, it is possible to assert that for obvious reasons, the modern military is determined primarily by ideology rather than structure, and that indeed it is the detachment from structure that makes such an ideological determination possible. The denial of the class structure of the military in that ideology is fundamental to the credibility of the military function in the national – popular, constitutional, democratic state. Thirdly, neither formulation addresses adequately the analytical problems posed by the contradiction between ‘corporate’ and the (various) ‘class’ belongings of the military. The (ideological) emphasis on a corporate identity and profession-in-arms, aims specifically at engineering solidarity out of class heterogeneity. This involves obviating prior class and social solidarities through very rigorous socialization processes. The ‘solidarity that then emerges is opposed to the ‘fragmentation’, ‘indiscipline’, and ‘disorder’ of civil society – in other words, it is used to assert corporate uniqueness and separation from civil society in general. Let us examine briefly the implications of these observations. A useful starting point is to see the military in terms of two related propositions: first as a structure of condensing – rather than merely reflecting – contradictions (of which class is the chief but by no means exclusive contradiction); second as a regional hegemonic structure, ‘hegemonic’ in the sense that it is oriented to producing, through a combination of consensus and coercion, certain solidarising practices and beliefs germane to the effective and ‘legitimate’ exercise of force; ‘regional’ in the sense that while it articulates with broader hegemonic structures it operates internally through its own unique rules and dynamics. It is possible to argue that the modern professional military is the most thoroughly ‘hegemonized’ institution in society, characterized by particularly rigorous ideological conditioning. The hegemonic ideology operates through a combination on the one hand of consensual beliefs and group mystique (heroism, espirit de corps, patriotism, self-sacrifice, unquestioning obedience, etc), and coercion on the other (harsh military laws and prisons etc) designed to support a rigorous monopolization of the command over violence. It involves various homogenization processes (both coercive and non-coercive), rituals of initiation, sequestration in barracks, and other acts of physical and symbolic separation from (and to a degree, rejection of) civil life. It is justified on the basis of ‘national security’ and the institutional exigencies imposed by war and the effective practice of violence. This ideology arose in post-feudal societies, where military leadership and followership had originally been an extension of the feudal organization of society and reflected the system of order but where, with increasing professionalization, leadership was pegged to training, merit and competence, although retaining many of the rituals and legitimate practices of the pre-technical era. The ideology contains three key elements that condition military perception of and relations with external (civil) society. First, like the national popular state in the context of which it developed, the professional military operates on the ideological construct of ‘nation’ and ‘citizen’, both constituted as abstract solidarities through territorial co-residence and subjection to a single power, and deriving rights, responsibilities and benefits therefrom. The ‘nation’ is not viewed as a society fragmented into antagonistic classes, or to the extent that it is so, the military emerges as the defender of ‘national-popular’ rather than class interests, thus placing its relationship with society on an ideological rather than structural basis. While the latter case, there is a direct annexation of the military fraction by a particular social class which exercises or monopolizes military roles as by right (as under feudalism), in the former, the military is raised above the specificity of social interests. The military denies its social particularity when it proclaims its defence of state and constitution (precisely the activity that confers on its social and political particularity). Hence, no matter the class origin of individual military personnel, the institution defends a particular social order in state and constitution. Second, the ‘constitutional’ and ‘non-political’ status of the military so strongly entrenched in this ideology, places beyond its competence issues relating to the actual structure and constitution of civil society. And finally, military culture in general is based to a large degree on the suppression of civil culture and attitudes (‘civvy street’) – and, given its highly ritualized and sacral nature, can be sustained only through the continuing negation of civil culture. On a second more crucial level are internal effects exerted by this hegemonic military ideology in (a) consolidating a corporate self-conception, personality and solidarity out of fragmenting effects of class heterogeneity and (b) sanctioning a system of internal relations based on a contradictory foundation of hierarchy, rigorous subordination and solidarity and justified by simultaneous appeal to the sacred (brotherhood in the noble profession) and the rational (the efficient prosecution of war). The need to see military as constituted hegemonically becomes apparent once we pause to reflect on the peculiar structure of the modern military. This structure combines, firstly, a separation between the command function, which is monopolized by the minority stratum of officers, and the actual exercise of physical violence, which is the responsibility of a fighting mass itself, ‘disenfranchised’ from any directive role and barred from turning the means of violence to its own account. Secondly, the modern military formation, unlike earlier ones which took care to restrict possession of weaponry to certain classes, does not (at least in theory) discriminate on the basis of class but attempts to bind troops of disparate of disparate social origins to the common purpose of defending a class – structured status quo. Finally, it subjects military force to the control of the unarmed civilians. What prevents such a structure from flying apart under the weight of its own contradictions, particularly if – as Hansen correctly observes – the military rank structure reflects to a large degree the class structure of society? Herein lies the effectiveness of the hegemonic order defining the modern professional military. A view of the military institution as a site of hegemonic practices should preclude the attribution of a single class character to the military institution or any of its constituent strata. On the other level, like all such systems, this hegemonic formation within the military is subject to erosion, challenge and breakdown, and thus requires constant defence and modification. Such hegemonic ‘breakdown’ may be triggered by a crisis in the local structure itself (such as defeat in war, demonstrated in competence of the officer corps etc.), or may be the ‘backwash’ effect of a crisis in the global (national) hegemony itself. In any case (and in the light of the analysis of the above this should hardly surprise) only in few societies has the military been able to effect fully this hegemonic transition. This has probably been possible mainly in certain post-feudal societies where military leadership and followership was originally an extension of the feudal organization of increasing professionalization leadership was pegged progressively to training, competence and merit, while retaining the rituals and the legitimating practices of the pre-technical era. With Hansen’s earlier work misses this dimension of hegemony and its implications for a ‘class theory’ of the military, such a realization is clearly present in his later work. Here, he argues as follows: The military is not a class, it is an institution and as such it has organizational features and behavioural norms which help it to maintain coherence and act in a certain degree of uniformity. But it is a multi-class group and under certain conditions of social and political stress, such as obtains in the periods of crisis in state and society, not least in Africa, the organizational features which give it coherence and uniformity and weakened and its multi-class nature comes to the fore pulling it in a different direction. [Hansen 1987, pp. 203 – 4] Even without the benefit of this insight, his earlier more optimistic work correctly grasps the fact that both June 4 and December 31 were rooted in severe erosion of and challenge to the institutional hegemony in the Ghanaian military. This took the form not only of rejection of authority of the officer corps (and the execution of a few of their members) by the ranks, but also attempts to put forward an alternative institutional order, such as a ‘Peoples Army’, democratization of command over the instruments of violence, etc [Hansen 1982, p. 19; Hansen and Collins 1980, p. 20 -21]. The reason for ‘hegemonic crisis’ included too close a link between the interests of the military and civilian ‘petty-bourgeoisie’, sacrifice of the corporate integrity of the military, and the welfare of the ranks, it also involved a variety of historical causes of an organizational nature [Hutchful 1979]. The crucial point to note however is that both June 4 and December 31 were followed by a recomposition, however, incomplete, of the institutional hegemony. The need for such a recomposition ( or restoration) was clearly identified by Rawlings on both occasions. Rawlings (as quoted by Hansen), complained that ‘those [ranks] who just arrested officers were unable to articulate the movement’. Consequently, there had been ‘problems about direction’. For that reason, he argued, ‘we need some of our senior officers to come back’ [Hansen 1980, p. 21] More importantly, this recomposition involved the attempt to disarticulate the ranks’ movement from the movement specificity and exigencies of war. Again, this is illustrated clearly in the incident cited by Hansen. Responding to a proposal (from the ranks) to democratize command appointments, the Chief of Defence Staff argued that the military is not an institution for debate (like the universities), or a democratic workers’ organization (like the trade unions): ‘In the armed forces, there must be immediate execution of orders and obedience in order of being overtaken by events. There could be no armed without maintenance of traditions’. The disorientation of the ranks movement in the absence of its officers, powerful appeal to institutional exigencies and corporate solidarity and self-interest, meant that twice when the ranks grasped institutional power and were in the position to revolutionize the military structure, or both occasions their revolt ended in the restoration of the systems of military hierarchy and authority, the reimposition of corporate isolation and detachment of the ranks of the ranks from the mass movement. The failure of the ranks to resolve the contradiction between their corporate and class identities was clear also in the complicated and contradictory ideology of their movement: populism, ultra-radicalism and opposition to hierarchy and authority on the one hand, and on the other, insistence order, respect for property, and accountability, combined with acts of both genuine heroism and random violence, and most often directed against the social sectors whose interests were invoked in the revolution. This contradictory character, of course, prevented the ranks’ ‘revolution’ from following the consistent or linear path anticipated by Hansen in 1982, but it is also to the credit that his later work finally recognized both the diverse possibilities opened by December 31, at the much complicated political and ideological character of ‘progressive’ military movements. Although Hansen hints perceptively at its reconstitution of the institutional hegemony and the role of Rawlings in this process, he again does not draw the implications of this for his (or any) theory of the ‘class action’ of the military. A ‘class’ analysis of the military will remain necessarily inadequate and incomplete as long as it lacks the theory of how corporate and class belongings intersect – complete and combine – to structure political and ideological outcome within the military, or an understanding of the effects of the intervention of regional hegemonic ideologies and structures of formation of consciousness, particularly at the level of the ranks where the tension between these forms of solidarity may be expected to be most manifest. In any event, ‘class action’ by and within the military has corporate specificity; it merely recreates it. The reason for this is probably obvious enough; all military strata to a degree have an interest in the reproduction of the material and political power base – the monopolization of the instruments of violence – although in possible contention as to how this process is to be distributed and controlled internally and what social interests are to be served by its use. If anything, the objective of the ‘military revolutions’ of June 4 and December 31 – the defence of the ‘integrity’ of the military – was, by and large, to restore military ethos and structure as conceived in the hegemonic ideology. It was not intended to initiate a radically different hegemonic formation, as some of the rhetoric may have tended to suggest. As long as the social revolution did not itself destroy the military, nothing else could possible do so.
Posted on: Sun, 11 Aug 2013 23:57:19 +0000
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