Debate on Whether or not Africa Needs Democracy is Stale
People who argue in favor of the need for Africa to drop democracy appear to base their arguments on dubious and often
fallacious grounds - one that democracy is a foreign imposition on Africa. I
have never had any doubt that the kind of democracy that Africa has been
experimenting on, like Christianity, is wrapped in western napkins that needed
to have been peeled off it long time ago. But the question that these pundits
often evade to ask or answer is "why Africa is not devising its own
democracy?" Why should Africa be the place where alien systems are
imposed?
After 50 years of false starts, inconsistencies, rhetoric,
coldness and indifference, it is time for African nations to chart their own
way as regards democratic governance. The conversation needs to change now. In
as far as things like inclusivity and popular participation of the people in
governance, rule of law, respect of people's rights and freedoms, equality etc are part
of the essential components of democracy, we must be ready to accept that the
debate on whether or not Africa needs democracy does not need to arise. We have
wasted a lot of time asking a wrong question. It is now time to drop this
question and ask the right questions.
The question is how African nations may device their own
democratic models. It is about redefining and contextualizing democracy; it is
about what type of democracy can work in each African situation/nation given
the fact that each country is unique and case sensitive. It is about national
conversations on what works or can work best where and how. We cannot blame the
west when, in fact, it is African nations that are guilty of attempting to cut
and paste western models of democracy - most of which are themselves faulty.
All we can have are still births and that is what we do. The next thing are
cries from all corners of the continent which characterized by claims such as:
democracy is a western imposition; it is un-African; we need to drop it etc.
I have no idea how respect for human rights and freedoms,
participation in of the people governance of their countries and rule of law
are alien to Africa. African nations (tribes) in their history exercised the
rule of law and respected fundamental rights and freedoms and upheld them, in
fact up-setters of such order where severely punished and policing was structured
and obeyed. There was no room for corruption in antique and medieval age Africa
because social evils never went unpunished like modern day impunity. Surely we
cannot go on aping the so called western democratic models - most of which are
fundamentally flawed and that allow for social evils to thrive with impunity
and then wish to see anything different in Africa! These are choices that we
must make. This state hijacking, mismanagement, criminalization and dirty
tricks are essentially un-African. We must be able to see them as disguised
within western democratic capitalism. How on earth do we adopt them and later
say the west has imposed democracy on us? How are they even related to
democracy? How is failure to tackle runway corruption, for instance, due to
stupid legislation, non-existent or non-functional justice system supposed to
be a western imposition on Kenya or Nigeria or any other African state? What
the west imposed on Africa were evils of recent history, such as slavery and
colonialism, which we have all the instruments to overcome but we have failed
to because we still keep crying. In the 21st century western nations should not
and must not be allowed to impose anything on African nations, leave a lone
their versions of democracy. If they do it is because Africa is allowing them
to and hence no need for howling.
Debate on Whether or not Africa Needs Democracy is Stale
Reviewed by Ibrahim Magara
on
October 11, 2016
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