Week 28: Democracy is . . . .

An apocryphal story is told:

In the beginning man lived free in nature - “Garden of Eden”. There was no authority or dominion over man. The “beginning” is characterized differently: (Hobbes, 1651) described man’s life in nature as that of fear and selfishness, (Locke, 1764) painted the picture of a blissful “Golden Age” but susceptible to interference in form of insecurity and oppression in varying periods and intensities. As humanity continued to grow living closer and closer, conflicts escalated as each one tried to pursue their self-interests. This necessitated some sort of agreement (pact) among men to guarantee some level of security over life and property, and to nurture harmonious coexistence. This agreement was inevitably a give and take: the free man had to surrender some freedoms and rights to some consented authority. The authority in turn guaranteed security and harmony. Thence was birthed – the government (the authority) through the agreement (the social contract that bound the free man with the government).

There is no neat and tidy end to the story - “Happily, ever after” is an oxymoron. The exercise of consent and manifestation of authority over man has been at the very least vexed. Arguably at the lowest ebbs was the colonial ideology - a practice of domination, which involves the “othering” of one people to another. In the colonial context the story of imposition of authority could rescript as: “In the beginning some men lived free in nature.”

Colonization was an ideology of differentiation driven by a scarcity mentality “if the other has - then we do not have”. Differences were amplified on account of geographical positioning, ethnicity, religion, educational attainment, gender and even physical attributes - the length and width of the nose was applied as a differentiator for opportunities by Belgian colonialist in Rwanda. 

As the ironclad of colonial authority slivered with the conscientization of the injustices and contagion for independence – the ending of the story was revisited. In the newly independent countries how would the “free man” express consent? What form would the consented authority take?

In his speech “It's time for Africa to Define For herself what DEMOCRACY Means” PLO Lumumba reflects on the visionary speech delivered by Ghana’s Kwame Nkurumah in Addis Ababa cautioning the delusion that independence meant that the colonial ideology would recoil and wither away. Kwame Nkurumah -argued then, that the influence of colonialism would be even more pernicious albeit in subtle way.

Kwame Nkurumah was right. 

With independence, the newly independent African states were impressed upon to accept as inviolable the superficial colonial boundaries that were drawn in the Berlin conference. In essence fortifying the reality of a state out of many nations.

An immediate and urgent need for the new authorities was to gain legitimacy. They needed to quickly shed off any tag of being puppets shored up to power by colonial masters. It was of necessity that they craft a system where the newly “free” man would be and be seen to be consenting to the authority. This was not an easy task in the reality of a state of many nationalities. Lingering on as an advisor to the new states, the colonial master convinced the early leaders to discard the indigenous forms of agreement that differed across the different nations – and instead import a form of agreement that would “equalize” all. It was believed to hold the many nationalities together the form of politics (which is the agreement of “who gets what when and how”) needed to transcend the native disaggregated forms.

It seems no one stopped to question the validity of the view that native forms of arriving at consensus in society were polarizing. It is especially ridiculous with the view presented from the ‘defeated’ colonial master thesis was differentiation.

Something they called “Democracy” was shored up as the salvation. This was then monolithically conceptualized as: competitive antagonistic multi-party politics, Periodic election, and Limitation of terms of Power.

The reality is there is not one “package” of democracy shelved in a supermarket to be plugged into a society. Not even two or three… There are over a hundred documented forms!

The etymology of the word Democracy is Greek from a combination of two shorter words “demos” – meaning people in the sense of citizens and “Kratos” – meaning power or rule. In literal terms it is a rule by the people that espouses participation of all. Abraham Lincoln put it as a rule “..of the people, by the people, for the people”

The democracy of Kenya is espoused in the very first lines of our constitution “We the people of Kenya - ”

Democracy is a configuration of authority that is dynamically molded by general values, biases and nuances that is then widely accepted by “we the people” as a legitimate source of authority.

Simply put democracy is an ideology (a justification of sensemaking how our world functions) that espouses participation of all in decision making. 

Within the African political, economic, social, cultural, geographical and theological location are deeply rooted indigenous participatory systems that are essentially democratic. For example, the Oromo of Ethiopia have a Gadaa political system that regulated conflict resolution, reparations, protection of women’s rights and oversaw smooth transfer of power to the next age-set every eight years. The Samburu of Kenya had a closely aligned Naapo political system, which changes power every 14 years. The Meru of Kenya had the Njuri Ncheke system which also changes power every 14 years.

Contrary to the proposition that these native systems were antagonistic, the was striking similarity in the participatory practice where democracy was a market place of active consultation.

Julius Nyerere defined the African democracy as “consensus building where elders sit and discuss until they arrive at a consensus on the exercise of power.”

In the story of man accenting to authority, unlike the linear top-down anthropocentric conceptualization of western democracy, African system were circular, middle – up, holonic systems capturing all aspects of humanity and human life (political economic, social, cultural - rights of passage, religious).

Arguably the African form of democracy (that configuration of consensus on authority that assures the security and harmonious coexistence) is richer and more holistic.

African systems were (and still are) very prescriptive on individual and group identity; and inclusion across different age sets. Inclusion was also realized across diversity of expression of humanity – women, men, children, youth as consensus urged for all voices to be considered

Restitutions were also complete with strong reflection on the overall fit to daily living and supporting of life beyond punishment.

The circular nature of the system promoted appreciation by all in the community on the demands and responsibilities of authority over society who was just a representation of the ultimate supreme being that was source of all life.

In African democracy the idea of sustainability was inherently embedded because in a circular conceptualization, any malady will eventually circle back to you and your people. 
It was not winner take it all – it was winner protect it all. 

The defined place of elders (the retired community leaders) to guide current leadership offered continuity of community norms and values as they bore the community memory of how conflicts were handled, values upheld and a strong check against corruption by current leadership. This offered the glue of governance that is so badly craved for in the modern western systems today…..

The challenge of African democracy today is overcoming the misfit of the imported conceptualization of democracy with the contexts of African societies that were indigenously democratic. 
This situates the democracy challenge in the wider decolonial pedagogy of reframing global culture and repositioning beyond what has been defined by the pernicious colonial lens. 

References:

Prof. PLO Lumumba: “It's time for Africa to Define For herself what DEMOCRACY Means” During the 7th National Security Symposium (NSS) in Rwanda, 14th May 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a6n4uYXk6g

Hobbes, T. (1651). THE LEVIATHAN by Thomas Hobbes Search the Leviathan. In Profile Books Ltd (Issues 1996, University of Arizona).

Locke, J. (1764). John Locke, The Two Treatises of Civil Government. The Online Library of Liberty.