Review: Liberation and corruption: why freedom movements fail - South African Journal of International Affairs

Terence Corrigan

Review: Liberation and corruption: why freedom movements fail, by Peter Hain (Jonathan Ball Publishers, 2025)

While some politicians might opportunistically have attached themselves to the South African anti-apartheid struggle as a moral pantomime, Peter Hain was the real deal. Having spent his early years in South Africa, when state harassment made life impossible, his family left for the UK. There, he became involved in anti-apartheid activism, enduring not only vilification, but also an assassination attempt.

Liberation and Corruption presents Hain’s thoughts on corruption but is also a testimony to his profound sense of disillusionment at the state of South Africa. For people of Hain’s generation and political outlook, to oppose apartheid was to support the African National Congress (ANC); it’s a connection he has cherished. In this book, Hain sets out to explain why political formations – like the ANC – would invariably turn to venal self-interest, bending public offices to private interests, bleeding societal resources, and failing the people they had pledged to serve. ‘Political parties’, he writes, ‘intended to be instruments of people’s power usually became corrupt agencies of a new elite’ (p. 6). Hence, the subtitle: Why Freedom Movements Fail.

The overall thesis of Liberation and Corruption is that corruption was deeply entrenched in colonial (or otherwise pre-liberation) societies, and that this created the context within which their successors – specifically the liberation movements, which are Hain’s prime concern – came to operate. In South Africa, he adds to the work by such commentators as Hennie van Vuuren [1] and Matthew Blackman and Nick Dall[2] in emphasising the extensive history of corruption that predated the transition to democracy, often enabled and even encouraged by the prevailing political systems. Partly, this is meant to counter the view that South Africa’s previous governments were repressive and brutal, but honest, at least within their own frames of reference, and that corruption is a post-apartheid phenomenon. It was rather the case that pre-liberation corrupt networks endured, and drew their former adversaries in.

Hain is at pains to demonstrate that corruption is a universal phenomenon, and operates within a transnational system. The case studies he presents span the globe and history. He also devotes considerable attention to highlighting the links between corruption in the Global South and the Global North, the latter indispensable for receiving and laundering ill-gotten gains in the former.

Readers will find a passionately written treatise, deeply researched and often impressive in detail; it makes a respectable contribution to a growing literature on contemporary corruption around the world. Yet the book is also a frustrating read. Trying to cover a global issue in multiple historical contexts in its relatively few pages means that many issues are not explored in the depth they deserve. Relying heavily on others’ research, the book is not always clear as to whether Hain is endorsing what they say, or whether he’s simply recording a perspective. For these reasons, it is often unfocused.

Surprisingly, there is little discussion of what makes freedom movements a distinct political species, although this has been extensively canvassed elsewhere. Indeed, scholars like Roger Southall [3]  and Henning Melber [4] have argued that they represent a particular political form with a distinct worldview; freedom movements view themselves as embodying ‘the people’, with a unique and unquestionable historical mandate to rule and reconstruct society. From this comes ambivalence towards political pluralism and a suspicion of restraining institutions and the accountability they demand.

The resulting conceptual laxity is arguably the book’s central weakness: while it may advance understanding of the failings of post-liberation societies, it provides an inadequate explanation of why ‘freedom movements’ specifically have ‘failed’, and why they may have an inclination towards corruptibility. There are some suggestions about this. He notes the conflation of party and state, cultures of secrecy and the ruthlessness necessitated in confronting repressive regimes. But this comes across as disjointed and mixed in with observations about corruption more broadly. This is especially disappointing for those hoping for insights into the ANC’s decline.

Hain spares little condemnation for the contemporary ANC but discusses this largely through the lens of Zuma-era ‘state capture’ – something he admirably stood up to. His treatment of the ANC’s prior conduct is, by contrast, restrained. Corruption in the ANC prior to the transition is dealt with briefly, drawing largely on the excellent work of Stephen Ellis [5] (p. 149) – but, frankly, a reading of Ellis’ External Mission: The ANC in Exile suggests that these pathologies were far more intrinsic to its operations than Hain (apparently) allows.

Perhaps more seriously, the treatment of the ANC in power under Presidents Mandela and Mbeki is wholly inadequate. The ANC inherited a corrupt society, but its response was determined by party unity, party empowerment and the imperatives of office rather than probity. There is no mention in the book of such moments as the scandal around Dr Allan Boesak’s misappropriation of donor funds, the sacking from cabinet of Bantu Holomisa after he fingered a minister for past misdeeds, or the tenure of Jackie Selebi as National Commissioner of the South African Police Service, who enjoyed the protection of President Mbeki and would become the first head of Interpol to leave under a cloud of corruption allegations. Even the notorious ‘arms deal’, perhaps the seminal moment in the history of post-apartheid corruption, is dealt with very gingerly.

Writing from a position of profound personal investment, Hain appears unable properly to face the full reality of what has brought the beloved country to breaking point – or at least to articulate it. In this, he represents the frustration and sense of betrayal of millions of people and institutions for whom the ANC and its kindred organisation were no mere political parties, but avatars of an advanced societal consciousness and intrinsic to their political and civic identity.

‘Perhaps campaigners like my youthful self expected too much – that liberation would bring something qualitatively different, more just, or even more moral – not Jacob Zuma’s shameless looting nor [Nicaraguan strongman] Daniel Ortega’s shameless betrayal (p. 224)’. It is a bold admission and distils what makes the work meaningful. He concludes by calling for ongoing activism, saying that battles against corruption must constantly be fought and refought, invoking the Frelimo slogan Aluta Continua – with some irony, given that party’s conduct.

It’s eminently sound advice, but will mean nothing if a society or its thought leaders retain faith in particular political formations, hoping that their better selves will assert themselves. Indeed, the subtext to this work, probably unintended, is just how fatal it was to regard these organisations – or any political organisation for that matter – as ‘instruments of people’s power’, and to retain this illusion long after the evidence warned of the contrary.

Notes: 

[1] Van Vuuren, H, Apartheid Guns and Money: A Tale of Profit. Johannesburg: Jacana Media, 2017.

[2] Blackman, M, and Dall, N. Rogues’ Gallery: An Irreverent History of Corruption in South Africa, from the VOC to the ANC. Penguin Random House South Africa, 2021

[3] Southall, R, Liberation Movements in Power: Party and State in Southern Africa. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press 2013.

[4] Melber, H, Liberation Movements as Governments: Democratic Authoritarianism in Former Settler Colonies of Southern Africa, Basler Afrika Bilbigraphien, BAB Working Paper No 1, 2013. https://www.baslerafrika.ch/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/WP-2013-1-Melber.pdf. Melber, H, ‘Authoritarian Populism under Former Liberation Movements in Southern Africa’, Cadernos de Estudos Africanos [Online], No, 47, 2024. http://journals.openedition.org/cea/8979.

[5] Ellis, S, External Mission: The ANC in Exile, 1960-1990, Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball Publishers, 2012.

Terence Corrigan is projects and publications manager at the IRR

https://doi.org/10.1080/10220461.2026.2646504