THE CONSTITUTION AND LIMITATION OF THE LIBERAL STATE

Once upon a time, the most important,  and indeed controversial question in
moral philosophy and its subsequent offsprings like political science and
theory was Platonic: "Who should rule?" To the extent that the above is true
is itself the legend and stuff of the history of ideas, moral and political
philosophy since time immemorial. Wherever and anywhere that decent attempts
were made by men to launch enquiries into the general welfare and progress of
their fellow men, it becomes an article of faith to pose questions on a
social, political and economic order by contesting the legitimacy of such
orders and its lack thereof and almost always, such legitimacy questions
revolve and to a greater degree resolve around the Platonic question: "Who
should rule?"

 Arguably, there were subtexts to this new found fount of moral and political
philosophy pace Plato. One immediately thinks of Machiavelli, Hobbes, De
Tocqueville, Montesquieu et al. But none acted radically to reformulate this
new found fount. It was Karl Popper, who through his penetrating, profound
and precise study of the various strands of the totalitarianisms of Fascism
and Marxism - benign and murderous - radically forwarded the thesis that the
said Platonic consensus on democracy was inherently flawed and does in quirk
turn of historical fates tend to prop up and blossom dictatorships of all
shapes and colours. This unconventional critique of Popper's on the
sacrosanct consensus of Plato's  moral and political philosophy was one of
the  most important contributions - in my view - to political and social
theory since Plato. The key question of what democracy really means and its
philosophical rationale, which Popper addressed very persuasively,
ferociously and  adequately in his seminal work, "Open Society and its
Enemies", was a very radical departure from and very courageous reformulation
of the Platonic question: "Who should rule?". For Popper, the question "Who
should rule?" is not only antiquated but derives from a sloppily misconstrued
perception of why democracy, its etymology and philosophical rationale.
Because Plato was largely concerned/obsessed with a political order arrived
from the synthesis or osmosis of appointing an ideal sage as the great source
of moral, social and political authority and a monist value system which
accepts only one version of the Good, Popper felt that for a society that
cannot lay claims to all the fundamental moral truths that should govern its
affairs,  placing too much emphasis on or even posing the question "Who
should rule?"  and stating such criterion as rulers be of  the calibre of
philosopher kings misses the point totally for no such criteria exists by
which we can fully ascertain that we have landed the "ideal" ruler. As Popper
himself puts it:

    "Always we find ourselves facing the Platonic question: 'Who should
rule?' This still has great importance in political theory: in the theory of
legitimacy, and especially in the theory of democracy. It is said that a
government has the right to rule when it is legitimate - that is, when it has
been elected under the rules of the constitution by a majority of the people
or its representatives. But we should not forget that Hitler came to power
legitimately, and that the Enabling Law which made him dictator was passed by
a parliamentary majority. The principle of legitimacy is not sufficient. It
is an answer to the Platonic question:'Who should rule?' We must change the
question itself."
      "................i propose[d] replacing the Platonic question 'Who
should rule?' with a radically different one: 'How can we draw up the
constitution in such a way that we are able to get rid of the government
without bloodshed?' This question places the stress not upon the mode of
**electing** a government but upon the possibility of **removing** it" [Karl
Popper, Freedom and Intellectual Responsibility in Lesson of this Century,
pp. 82-83, Routledge, 2000.]

Here we see Popper attacking the Platonic suggestion that a system can be
created which will put the "ideal" person in charge of our state of affairs
and radically coming up with a reformulated basis on which democracy can
blossom and become a credible bulwark against the perpetuation of tyranny.
Suffice for me to say that in the Popperian interpretation of the word,
democracy is above all to prevent the perpetuation of tyranny by placing
emphasis not on who ends up ruling us but on the free institutions created
that makes the perpetuation of a tyranny virtually impossible. For Popper,
democracy shouldn't be about trying to set up some chimeric modus operandi as
a selection process in which future would-be tyrants would be detected and
purged out but the creation or setting up free institutions and a liberal
leaning constitution that will rigorously scrutinise the flow of power and
guide against its misappropriation in a polity - notwithstanding who ends
being in power. To the extent that this radical interpretation by Popper of
democracy is crucial for the future of liberal democracy, is it self the bane
of the crisis of liberal democracies the world over - especially on the
African Continent where the monstrosity of tyranny still holds the peoples of
this great Continent in awesome contempt and still hijacked by its irrational
outbursts of uncertainty and protracted political violence.  In short, since
no system of government can come up with a fool proof criteria that will
detect potential dictators/tyrants and choose the "ideal" leader in the
Platonic sense of being flawless, wise and impeccable, the best
and indeed worthiest weaponry we have in protecting our liberties and the
liberal order is to create and or set up free institutions bolstered by a
liberal leaning constitution that acts as a preventer of tyranny and or
ridding the body politic of such tyranny - without resorting to violence.

As proposed or alluded to earlier, the extent to which this radical
rejuvenation of the philosophical rationale of democracy by Popper is crucial
to a renewed Africa of hope, decency and tolerance should be what occupies
the new young African thinker who has not only witnessed the plunder of the
Continent by misfits and miscreants but despaired also in the reckless and
grotesque misinterpretation of the whole concept of Africa, African-ness, the
post-colonial dispensation, despair and modernity by the enormity of the
excesses of ideologues of all shades. We shan't attempt to discourse these
distortions of the African reality by ideologues and their tyrant client.
What we shall aim to modestly embark upon here is a philosophical delineation
of how, when, why  and where democracy is needed and what strengthens it in
the body politic the extent to which it shall bring forth and nurture free
insitutions that will command the awe reverence of all Africans. Surely, this
can only be fruitfully discoursed juxtaposed to a delineated conceptual
framework of the liberal state, its consitution and limitation. In order to
break loose from the narrow constraints of moralising and gain enough turf to
be able state my political position clearly, i shall commit the enormity of
the excesses of the ideologues i derided earlier and for a brief second wear
the garb of the determinist. Because of the diversity and the different
strands that amount to what makes up Africa and the African peoples, no
polity other than a secular liberal democracy can fairly cope with and or
accomodate the conflicting pluralistic values, norms and ways of life the
African continent has since time immemorial exhibited. This, resolutely calls
for a State that exhibits liberal institutions and unflinchingly secular in
its mode of discourse and dispensation. We shall first of all clear three
clutters. By Liberal State and or regime, we shall refer to it mean as John
Gray prescribed for it: " Liberal regimes enable people whose views of the
good are at odds to live together on terms they can all accept as fair. They
can agree on these principles and how they are to be applied in particular
cases despite disagreeing in their conceptions of the good...........Liberal
States are regimes in which the claims of rival freedoms are negotiated
openly." Intrinsically, the Liberal order's chief mode of dispensation would
be the Hobbesian strand of thought of liberalism that seeks through tolerance
not to impose a monist view of the good life on the rest of a polity or a
rational consensus on the good life. Rather, it would be tolerance that
primarily exists as strategy for peaceful coexistence between peoples, values
and norms that in many cases and ways are not congruent or do not converge.

The second clutter that needs clearing away is the oft ambiguity inherent in
the secular Liberal State's relationship with the fringe polity of religious
and sectarian adherences, norms and ambitious. It is true that secularism and
religion are not blood brothers; they can wittingly and unwittingly seek to
undermine each other in their various vibrancies. The experience has been
that of a secular polity recklessly pursued, can - wittingly and unwittingly
- be susceptible to exchanges with religious fringes that be incordial and
some cases very hostile indeed. The reverse can be said of religious fringes
of a polity Yet, this need not be the case. The relationship between the
Liberal secular State, again, would be primordially Hobbesian: a blind
indifference and not hostility to the appurtenances of the different
religious and sectarian affiliations that inhabit the said secular polity. In
such a case, the relationship would be based on mutual accomodation,
tolerance for the differences between adherents of the different faiths and
championing what has come to be their shared values: tolerance, fair play,
equality before the secualr laws of the polity, accomodation, justice,
freedom to choose ways of life that are not intrinsically hostile to others
choices and individual liberty. Since it is the argument of theists that
secularism drives underground the spiritual instincts of a nation or a
society, these shared values shall be marshalled in the form of a secular
religion, i.e. patriotism, and used as a rallying point for all irrespective
of leaning and or affiliation - socially, politically and economically.

The third clutter to clear is one of misconception. It has become a rallying
point of critics of secularism, liberalism - especially liberalism with the
capital L - and capitalism are alien concepts and or ways life. This,
needless to point out is a gross ignorance of human development and its
history. Here i shall - because of the hostility Africans generally tend to
show towards liberalism - endeavour to make it a duty to clear that clutter
and all good things shall follow. If by liberalism, we mean it to refer to a
Hobbesian call for tolerance as a strategy towards peaceful existence between
peoples, ways of life and values. To the extent that this is true of the core
of liberal thought is itself a largely ignored antecedent development in
non-Western history and or world and its coping since time immemorial of the
different values, norms and ways of life it has always exhibited. As John
Gray points out, "Toleration didn't begin with liberalism. In ancient
Alexandria and Buddhist India, amongst the Romans, the Moors and the
Ottomans, different faiths coexisted in peace for long periods." Tentatively,
one can forward the thesis that liberal toleration as understood as a
strategy earmarked for peaceful co-existence has its roots in non-Western
cultures. Western thought might have made it reach it apotheosis through
centuries od intellectual deliberations but liberal tolerance in practice was
a wholly non-Western tradition. To forward arguments that posit that
liberalism - at least as understood in the Hobbesian sense, as a strategy for
peaceful co-existence - is an alien concept to the African and way of doing
things in Africa, is to ignore the history of this great Continent. So we sum
up that liberal thought through its mode of dispensation of tolerance is not
alien to the Africa existence and or experience and will not seek to
undermine the society. Rather, one can boldly claim that only such a strategy
of tolerance towards peaceful co-existence for the different ways of life,
values and peoples and only in it does future hope lie in freeing the
Continent from the throes of anarchy, despodency and hopelessness.

The clearing of these clutters shall help in the delineation of what
constitutes and limits the liberal State. As implicitly demonstrated in the
foregoing arguments, the consitution of the secular liberal State is its very
limitation. What do we mean by this? The limitation of the liberal State's
reaches in prescribing what shall be perceived of as the Good life for
different peoples, values and norms shall be its constitution. Here we take
note and indeed make emphasis on this inviolable liberal principle that: the
philosophical rationale of the secular Liberal State is not to herd everyone
towards a consensus of what the good ought to be and its prescription but
that of a mode of liberal toleration, primarily as a strategy for peaceful
co-existence between peoples, values and norms that are both incongruent and
do not converge on the essence of the good. The parametres of such
limitations and constitution shan't necessarily be determined by rational
consensus but by the long haul of pluralist liberal democratic politics -
pluralist liberaldemocratic politics in tandem with the radical Popperian
interpretation of democracy and the propping up of free institutions wedded
to the Hobbesian notion of liberal toleration and nurtured to the point where
they command the awe reverence of all peoples. The Capitalist case for Africa
and the African peoples then primarily resides on such moral premises.

To be continued..........

Hamjatta Kanteh

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