Covid-19 is meant to have changed everything. One thing it has not touched at all is this country’s obsession with “leadership”. Time and again we hear that to keep safe we must “obey the rules laid down by our president”. We are also often told how lucky we are that the pandemic came when Jacob Zuma is no longer president.
It is easy to see why people stress leadership in a week in which the US president suggested that bleach injections might enable people to fight off the disease. And why they prefer a leader who does not believe that taking a shower protects one against HIV. Nor is this the only country in which people place heads of government at the centre of action against the pandemic: many government heads have enjoyed a boost in the polls, even when they have not seemed that good at dealing with it.
But this does not mean countries’ ability to deal with disease really does depend on the leadership of their head of government. Or that the leadership obsession helps democracy or effective government. It may seem obvious that we would be sitting ducks for the pandemic if Zuma were still in charge. But this country’s fight against HIV/Aids only began seriously when he took over the ANC: the only success of the Zuma years was the government’s action against the disease.
This was not because of Zuma’s “leadership” — as his shower comment showed, fighting viruses was not his thing. It was a product of the politics of the time. Parts of the coalition that elected Zuma wanted a break from the Aids denialism of the Mbeki years, and the result was a strong campaign led by the department of health.
Ramaphosa makes most people feel a lot better than Zuma would. But he repeatedly acknowledges that the measures he announces are not his alone. They are the work of a national command council, the decisions of a government, not an individual.
So, it is not the qualities of the person in charge of the government that decide whether countries cope with a disease. It is politics — which interests are in government, what their priorities are and how good they are at implementing them.
Probably the star global performer in the battle against Covid-19 is the Indian state of Kerala. It was the first in that country to face the virus: its campaign against it worked so well that only three people have died of the disease in a population of almost 35-million. After it closed schools, it managed to get school meals to every child entitled to them. But reports on its success don’t even mention the name of its chief minister, let alone credit him. Similarly, no-one suggests that South Korea’s much-reported achievements in handling Covid-19 were purely the work of its president.
Right-wing nationalists around the world have failed to handle the pandemic well, but this is not because their heads of government lacked “leadership”. Placing human lives first is just not something right-wing nationalists do. In all of these cases it is politics, not personal leadership, that decides whether people are protected.
The leadership fetish is not only wrong. It undermines democracy, which is meant to be the rule by citizens through their representatives, not by an elected superhero. And it weakens the fight against Covid-19. We observe health measures because we want to protect ourselves and those around us, not because they were commanded by a leader. Why, then, would adults need an inspiring leader to get them to protect themselves?
The more we see the fight against Covid-19 as ours, not a leader’s, the less harm it will do us. Now and always, we are best served not by great and wise leaders, but by governments who serve all the people and respond to their needs.
• Friedman is research professor with the humanities faculty of the University of Johannesburg.
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