I have just completed reading two books on the Second World War. The first was by an American soldier who spent four years in a Japanese prisoner of war camp and the second was an overview of the war from both the Soviet and Allied perspective. Last week the world remembered the day when the Americans dropped two nuclear devices on Japanese Cities and before that Remembrance Day services were held all over Europe to commemorate the end of the war in Europe.
Eddie Cross
The impression both books left me with was the magnitude of mankind’s stupidity and cruelty. Led by dictators in Germany, Japan and the Soviet Union and managed by diplomatic and military leaders who set out to achieve what their masters told them to do. The “civilised” countries of the world attacked each other in an orgy of violence and self destruction that left tens of millions dead and many more homeless, destitute and hungry.
It took a shameful suicide in a bunker in Berlin and the nuclear attacks on Japan, wiping out hundreds of thousands of ordinary people, to bring the carnage to an end. Good leadership played a key role both during and after the conflagration. Churchill in the United Kingdom stood alone in the world against the tyranny of fascism until America was forced by the attack on Pearl Harbour to enter the war. After that American leadership played a key role in first containing and then defeating the Germans and the Japanese.
Good or bad, it was leaders who determined what happened and then failed to manage the outcome which had to be decided by force of arms like an ancient battle between two tribes.
In the aftermath of the war, the world witnessed a generation of leaders who put together reconstruction programmes and a new world order that heralded 70 years of unparalleled prosperity and relative peace. Again, leadership was the key. In America there was an awakening to the fact that they could no longer sit on the sidelines of global affairs pursuing isolationist policies. They plunged into the post war era with vigour and determination. The United Nations was formed and the Bretton Woods Institutions of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were established and funded.
In Germany, operating under a military government, the US funded Marshal Plan to provide the resources for reconstruction. Even today, that programme is viewed as one of the greatest achievements of post war history and it laid the foundations of a democratic, dynamic and flourishing Germany that today leads Europe.
In post war Japan another remarkable transformation took place, also under military leadership when an American general, Douglas MacArthur, took the dramatic steps required to restore Japanese dignity in defeat and then went on to lay the foundations of a new democratic state and modern economy that has lifted Japan out of the horror of the war into world leadership as a democratic state with an economy that has changed the world we live in.
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It all started in Japan when the general ordered his allied troops to eat only what was available for the Japanese people and he protected and restored the dignity of the Emperor. Instead of reparations, the US provided the resources for reconstruction and development while insisting that the country, without abandoning its culture and rich traditions, adopt democracy and a new constitution that protected human rights and created a free market economy. When you compare the performance of leadership in and after WWII with the leadership during and after the First World War, there is no comparison. The First created the conditions for the Second, the Second has given us perhaps the longest single period of growth and development and human progress in history.
In Europe, a remarkable coterie of leaders emerged who took the initiative to establish what has become the largest trading block in the world in the form of the European Union. This was initiated by the original 7 national leaders who decided among themselves that they would build a system that would make it impossible for Europe to ever go to war against itself again. Today the EU covers virtually the whole of Europe and the spectre of European leaders meeting to resolve problems is now a common feature of world affairs.
Leadership in all spheres of life is the critical factor that determines success or failure, progress or decline, freedom and dignity or suppression and control.
In business, the world has been transformed by leaders who had a vision of what they might achieve and then single-mindedly pursued that vision with all their might. Cecil Rhodes was such a man, dying at 49, leaving an empire of over 70 companies and five countries who owed their existence to his vision and vitality. He left a legacy that still broods over southern Africa and even the world, through Oxford and the Rhodes Scholarships. Then there are men and women who created General Motors, Ford and Toyota, Bill Gates in a garage with some friends creating the internet and computer revolution, Steve Jobs and Apple inspiring a whole generation of geeks to do amazing things. The people who put man into Space and the political leaders who made it possible by allocating the huge resources that were needed. This all requires leadership and without it, nothing is achieved.
The failure of leadership in business is dealt with by the collapse of the enterprise unless it is state-funded. Failure of leadership in the national or political sphere is much more difficult to deal with. A recent study of post independence states which came to sovereignty over their affairs since 1950, shows the worst performing state in the world, is Zimbabwe. This is based on GDP growth since Independence and Zimbabwe, alone in the world of developing nations, has shown virtually no growth since 1980.
Eddie Cross is MDC MP for Bulawayo South. This article first appeared on his website www.eddiecross.africanherd.com
