In the eve of the Iowa Caucus, Iowans heading to the pools to once again set the
tone for the nomination of a new American President. They have the task of
deciding and contributing their part to who the next President should be. One can
clamour and be critical of the the complexity of the caucus system, but in the
final analysis, people exercised their right in participatory democracy. As
Africans, and especially most of our leaders would like us believe that
democracy(puttting power in the hands of its citizenry) is a western idea; would
even go further to belabour that there is more to democracy than voting. Any
processs that ignores the participation of its citizen would have an extremely
hard time building a nation, period. We can even get nostalgic, and talk about
how African men use to sit under the Bantaba and discussed issues of governance,
but even such a system excluded certain individuals like women and people deemed
to be from a lower caste are not even considered in rulership. For the last
century, Africans have been confronted with civil wars, poverty, disease ridden,
political instability, absence of law and order and death; if this western idea
call democracy can save us from these aforementioned miseries, maybe for once we
should try it in its entirety. Is it not foolish and dumb to take their grants,
loans, import their technology, accept their food to curb our hunger, and still
justify the rejection of their system for not fitting the African way. The very
system that enables them to help us, would it not be smart to copy the system
that can build our economy, create political stability and put live liberty and
destiny in our ownd hands. Of course, you can also see me as another African
brother who has lost his Africaness(whatever that is), and has become a new proxy
of the neo-colonialist.
Musa Jeng
Jabou Joh wrote:
> Well, l am always shocked when l hear prople give the reasoning that "Western
> Democracy " is somewhat to blame for our woes in Africa. While l agree with
> Dr Saine and Mr Jawara here that we have to mould our own systems of
> government that is more conducive to us as a complex society, and that
> wholely and solely adopting someone else's systems of governing lock stock
> and barrel is not the way to go, we can all agree that there are certain
> things that are fundamentally a necessary part of any system of government
> in order for it to truely serve the best interest of the people, no matter
> who they are, and how complex their culture.
>
> These being namely that any nation has to have a society
>
> 1.Where they can be free to choose their own leaders without fear or
> coercion,
>
> 2.Expect that those leaders will serve them well by implementing an
> administration that will attend to the needs of the people because that is
> what they are charged with.
> 3. Be free to express themselves without fear of persecution of any sort.
>
> 4. Expect a reasonably competent leadership that will demonstrate an
> uncompromising measure of trustworthiness, and will utilize the resources
> of the society for the benefit of all as opposed to setting it aside for
> their personal, family and dedicated followers' use only to the detriment of
> the society.
>
> 5. Where the people are free to utilize a system that will allow them to
> replace any leader who has demonstrated their inability to do the above
> mentioned things, and know that their choices are tabulated and presented
> without any sort of tampering.
>
> Now, one can perhaps argue that a system used in another culture may not be
> completely suitable for every society, but the above points are clearly a
> fundamental part of any system of government where human beings want to
> live their lives with a fairly reasonable degree of freedom. These points
> are part and parcel of a system of government called democracy. If the word
> compels some of us to label it a "Western concept" then perhaps we can use
> another word, but the concept is not just something that the West has privy
> to.
> As Ndey Jobarteh pointed out in her posting, the idea of communal
> consultation in matters, and decisions pertaining to the welfare of the
> society at large is not a new or importaed concept in Africa.
> What we need to look at then, is not so much the fact that importing a
> foreign system of government is the result for our woes in Africa, but that
> the people we have found leading us ( and l say" found leading us" because
> in many cases these people came to power by very questionable means of
> either the gun, or manipulation of the ballot box results, or coercion and
> intimidation of the voters) have largely failed to safeguard the basic
> principles that l have outlined in these five points above.
>
> So therefore, while it is imperative that we mould a system of government
> that is more conducive to us as a people, we must also realize that the
> abuse of power by our leaders is what is more responsible for our woes than
> anyhing else, the diversity and complexity of our society notwithstanding.
>
> Mr Jawara, you wrote:
>
> "I think Africa´s situation of social and economic under development has to
> be more than to democracy than a multi party system and periodic elections.
> Western style
> > democracy could only have full meaning for ordinary Africans if they
> simultaniously led to the creation of conditions for the improvment of their
> livelihood. Looking back wards to Jawara´s thirty years of democratic, this
> hasn´t gained any effects."
>
> These failures you mention are not the result of the importation of
> democracy, but a direct result of our leaders failing us, and mismanaging
> and misdirecting our very meager resources in the case of The G ambia as
> elsewhere in Africa.The energies of these leaders have not, and continue not
> to be utilized to create conditions for the improvement of the livelihood of
> the people.
>
> You also wrote:
>
> "the future for Africa lies in education, empowerment and employment of our
> enormous physical and human resources to generate poverty - reducing economic
> growth. This can only be acheived through efficient socio - economic
> policies, and not by the stuggle for power, intolerance and distrust, which
> is bringing Africa to ruin."
>
> Again here, the culprit is not that various political parties fighting for
> power is what has prevented us from achieving these goals, but rather that
> our leaders' priorities has categorically been to concentrate their energies
> on consolidating themselves into place for a lifetime and recruiting and
> building a support base by any means necessary, and with the assistance of
> none other than our state coffers. Consequently, their focus is not on what
> the present and projected problems and challenges of their respective
> countries are, how to solve them, and how they fit into the greater World
> society out there which affects our survival as a people, but on self
> preservation at the expense of the people.
>
> What we need are conscientious leaders who understand that their role is
> that of competent, trustworthy problem solvers and servants of the people as
> well as guardians of their assets, and that if they cannot perform these
> duties, they should respectfully excuse themselves. Instead, what we have
> are oftentimes tyrannical, incompetent, corrupt, dishonest people who come
> up with excuse after excuse of blaming our troubles on imported systems as
> opposed to the fact that they have clearly demonstrated that they are not
> worthy of the trust and responsibility entrusted to them.Period.
>
> Jabou Joh
>
> << salomon jawara wrote:
> >
> > Dear Dr. Saine,
> >
> > According to my observation, there has being an overwhelming criticism of
> Yaya Jammeh
> > particularly on the Gambia L that i still have difficulty understanding,
> knowing that there´s
> > no genuine democracy anywhere in this world. Most of the criticism based
> on the
> > deficiency of democracy i think is dispensable. I want to share with you a
> question and
> > would be obliged in acquiring an answer from you.
> > Is the Western style democracy really suitable for Africa?
> >
> > We need to understand that democracy cannot be packaged and exported like
> every other
> > commodity. The rule of law and civil / human / citizenship rights which
> while being
> > meaningful in the context of the history of Europe, are essentially
> meaningless when applied
> > in rural Africa where the mojority of people live.
> >
> > I think Africa´s situation of social and economic under development has to
> be more than to
> > democracy than a multi party system and periodic elections. Western style
> > democracy could only have full meaning for ordinary Africans if they
> simultaniously led to
> > the creation of conditions for the improvment of their livelihood. Looking
> back wards to
> > Jawara´s thirty years of democratic, this hasn´t gained any effects.
> >
> > A disproposionate amount of resources and lives have been wasted for
> decades in the
> > fight for Western style democracy in Africa. The struggle and rule by
> democracy like wise
> > authoritarian have both produced resurgence in the ethnic and religious
> identities.
> > Almost all African social scientistss´ notion of democracy are heavily
> influenced by those
> > developed out of the African historical and cultural perspective, but in
> the West.
> >
> > In creating an African democracy, it should be a product of local entities
> based on their
> > history. Our civil society in Africa is more complex than we thought,
> comprising of
> > groups calling for a western style democracy, antidemocratic forces, and
> different ethnic
> > groups. But with the help of our social scientists, an effective African
> democracy can be
> > moulded without the risk for misinterpretation, which can sometimes course
> devastating
> > consequences.
> >
> > The future for Africa lies in education, empowerment and employment of our
> enormous
> > physical and human resources to generate poverty - reducing economic
> growth. This can
> > only be acheived through efficient socio - economic policies, and not by
> the stuggle for power,
> > intolerance and distrust, which is bringing Africa to ruin.
> >
> > The Jammeh regime undoubtedly has some defects, but there is no truely
> genuine democracy
> > on the face of this earth yet. I think Africa has alot to learn from
> Asia, and our social scientists
> > including interlectuals still has alot to do. The course of African
> importation of western ideas,
> > ways of doing things and cultures ( European civilising mision to Africa),
> has so much impact
> > opon us, that we tend to loosen up in creating and establishing our own.
> And this exportation
> > is continuing through different refinements, to this day.
> > Let us Africans exercise awareness, love and tolerance for each other.
> This includes every one,
> > from the leaders to the farmers.
> >
> > I personally have no animosity against Mr. Jammeh, but i think one should
> be tolerant towards
> > him and try help him rectify some of his mistakes, instead of all the
> negativity against him.
> > You cannot rectify a wrong with a wrong.
> >
> > Thanks for sharing !
> > Saul S.Jawara.
> >
> >
>
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