Democracy, dysfunction and sustainability|Tatalo Alamo
One of the strange paradoxes of modern democracy is the fact that those who are incapable of mastering its tough habits and finer rituals have taken to teaching its practice. As Oscar Wilde once famously observed, “those who are incapable of learning have taken to teaching”. It is straight out of the theatre of African magic when anti-democratic bullies take to the bully pulpit exhorting and exulting about the sweet wonders of democracy. But then it is said that in the last days of civilization as we know it, several strange occurrences will test the patience of humanity and task their sanity.
These are not the best of times for liberal democracy. In the west, where democracy derived its latest franchise and mandate from after the triumph of capitalism, there has been a determined assault on its fundamental canons and wise assumptions from extreme far right groups and ultranationalist movements bent on torpedoing the whole system. France barely survived a rightwing civilian putsch which only receded when center-right and leftwing elements coalesced in a precarious coalition which has not been seen since the inauguration of the Gaullist Republic in 1958. In Germany which has not found the Socialist East Germany rump it swallowed in 1989 very digestible, a rightwing party has just swept into power. In Britain after a series of inept and corrupt rightwing rulers, the people sent the Conservative government packing and elected Keith Stammer and the Labour Party. The Poland of Viktor Orban does not need any prompting and Italy is about to catch up with them all.
But it is America, the home of modern democracy, that is leading the charge against liberal democracy since the return of Donald Trump to the White House and the resurgence of a rabidly xenophobic rightwing nationalism that threatens to upend the whole notion of American Exceptionalism based on the romantic idealism of its founding fathers. To be sure, Trump gave enough notice and declaration of intent. But nobody thought this was possible in the land of the Mayfair fathers who forsook and foreswore everything in Europe to found a new nation based on the alienable rights of all humanity to political and economic freedom. Neither did many, as it is turning out, foresee a fundamental shift in the mood of core America particularly among offspring of later immigrants from Europe who had been nursing a smouldering resentment against the East coast establishment with their liberal namby-pamby and global do-goodism which has cost America dearly in their estimation. It is the return match of ancient European feudalism and American neo-feudalism.
Perhaps it is our brains that need a fundamental reset. We always put the cart before the horse in Africa . Democracy is a product of rising prosperity and declining poverty, not increasing global scarcity. No democracy can survive mass immiseration and biblical want for long. People do not continue to vote on the promise of food but on the presence of victuals. It is an ideological overreach. Scarcity brings out the worst in any people. But if gold can rust, what will iron do? African neo-colonial nations with their seething multi-ethnic and multi-cultural polarities were not founded as organic nations but as outlets for metropolitan goods and as garrison emporia. Like all occupied territories, force is the organizing principle central to the maintenance of the structures of domination whether in its colonial format or postcolonial incarnation. This is why rigging of elections which is the perpetuation of electoral violence in its pure or adulterated form is often the leitmotif of all postcolonial nations. Unless the unpromising and unpropitious circumstances conspire to throw up an authentic and organic nationalist elite that will drive development and the deepening of the democratic process, everything will be left to chancing and opportunistic gaming. This is why most post-independence African nations, with the exception of a few, are prone to military coups, ethnically and religiously motivated army uprising, despotic annulment of properly conducted elections, the rise of the selectorate over the electorate, civilian power grab and state closures euphemistically referred to as state capture with a delinquent and polarized political elite cheering and egging them on or urging Armageddon to visit the nation as the case may be.
Let us now take a random audit of this African graveyard of liberal democracy. Apart from one-party autocracies fronting as pseudo-democracies such as Algeria, Tunisia, Equatorial Guinea, Rwanda, Congo Brazzaville, Cameroon, Angola, Zimbabwe, Uganda and Togo, there are at least seven full-blown military regimes on the continent: Egypt, Sudan, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and Gabon. In Cote D’Ivoire after partitioning and a civil war fought over national identity, succession and his own ethnic origins, Alisane Quattara is enjoying an unconstitutional third term and yet all is quiet and placid on the Cocody front. This is because the warring elite factions have all been pacified. Nobody now remembers that the former president, Laurent Gbagbo, has quietly returned to the country after serving out his term for crimes against humanity at The Hague and is enjoying the remunerations of a former president.
In Zimbabwe, only a palace coup engineered with panache and precision by the old military wing of ZANU could forcibly retire the wizard of Harare, Robert Mugabe, having ruled his nation continuously since independence in 1979. Without this timely military intervention, Zimbabwe was on the verge of anarchy and chaos as Robert Mugabe was bent on installing his wife as his successor. Forty years after “liberating “his nation, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni is still calling the shots in Kampala. So is Paul Kagame, the king of Kigali, who is still ruling the waves thirty two years after genocide and civil war. The Eyadema clan has ruled Togo continuously since 1967 and between them Mobutu and the Kabilas ruled the Democratic Republic of Congo for almost sixty years. In Equatorial Guinea, the Nguema brood has been in power since independence. Forty six years after executing his uncle, Colonel Teodoro Nguema Mbasogo rules the nation with a tight fist. Paul Biya has been at it in Cameroon since 1982.
It is only in countries such as Botswana, Namibia, Senegal, Ghana, Zambia and Tanzania that far-sighted nationalist elite formations have been able to buck the trend by continuous practice of the habits and rituals of democracy. In almost all these countries, one can see the handiwork and foundation laid by visionary founding fathers. Leopold Sedar Senghor and Julius Nyerere were Christian minorities in predominantly Muslim countries, yet they were able to lay the foundation of good governance and development in their countries. The same thing happened with Sam Nujoma’s Namibia and Seretse Khama’s Botswana. In Ghana following the footpath of Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, succeeding generations of politicians have managed to paper over the cracks of ethnicity and religion by reverting to the old Nkrumah versus J.B Danquah fault lines of leftwing and rightwing politics. Between the two tendencies and since the advent of JJ Rawlings, power has managed to oscillate about four times without threatening the foundation of the nation.
Nigeria represents the best prospects of democracy on the continent as well as the possibility of its most fatal declension. Nigeria has enjoyed twenty six years of unbroken civilian rule and democratic experimentation. Given the turbulent antecedents of the nation, there is a lot to cheer about this development. We must avoid the pitfalls of self-constricting pessimism as well as the promiscuous optimism of democracy as a permanent work in progress. Sometimes the ripening of the banana fruit also coincides with the onset of irreversible rot. The longevity of civilian rule can also coincide with manifest institutional retardation and dysfunction. With its size, humongous population, stupendous human and national resources, its countervailing ethnicities and religions, Nigeria ought to be a showpiece and poster-boy of a dynamic democracy. This contradictory locus of power also makes it impossible for any hegemonic group to maintain their hold on power for long. The obverse of the coin means that once a government is installed, it is subject to continuous assault and withering criticism by hostile interlocutors thus stalling its momentum and impairing its concentrative capacity. Like a bear at bay savaged and bloodied by uncountable hounds the government spends all its time in self-defence and in warding off frantic attacks aimed at overwhelming it, leaving little room for creative governance and deep innovative thinking. This over-politicization of the polity does not conduce to thorough going economic reform or a determined overhaul of the ailing political system.
Where circumstances conspire to throw up somebody who has not been endorsed by the old selectorate, all hell is let loose from the day of swearing in. New conspiracies, formation of new alliances, memoranda for new mega-parties and other satanic plots too dark for daylight spring up on a daily basis. Such is the atmosphere of fear and climate of insecurity that the government often succumbs to paranoid fantasies. When you are subjected to relentless psychological terrorism by masters of the game something is bound to give eventually. Leading the charge of new “activists” are former presidents, vice-presidents and top government officials who ought to know better than to perpetually destabilize a sitting government with full levers of power and led by a veteran who is not afraid of confrontation. Some of them whose record of anti-democratic exertions while in office ought to put them permanently out of circulation do not appear to be fazed by their criminal infractions against the democratic aspirations of a nation that they owe so much.
These antidemocratic elements consider all this as part of an elaborate game of bluff and counterbluff in which all is fair. Here is the real danger to the nation. Even in a game of bluff, there is always a tipping point where and when the gladiators reach a point of no return. This is when and where polarized but nationalist elites build bridges of conciliation, compromise and consensus-seeking over “pillarized” differences. It is only then that we can broach the issue of economic reform and the political reconfiguration of the nation on the epic scale required. The recent summary dismissal of the claims of Humphrey Nwosu to national honour shows just how impossible it is to reach national consensus and political justice in circumstances of “pillarized” prejudices. So far, President Tinubu has survived on brilliant stealth and nimble foot-works. But he will need much more than this as the gloves come off in coming months.
Credit:The Nation