Hamjatta,
This is a very enlivening contribution of great importance. I was going to
wait until your presentation was posted in its entirety before making some
brief comments. But already, this first consignment provides a lot to think
and talk about.
For the unsuspecting reader, the issues you raised may not appear to be
relevant to the issues we are debating about the situation in the Gambia. If
anybody fails to digest the key issues of the exposition, he/she may very
well lose a lot in understanding the present predicament of Gambians
concerned about what has befallen that land of peace of yester-years.

You are right that one of Karl Popper's main contributions to political
theory is to reformulate Plato's question "Who should rule?" to "How do we
arrange our institutions to prevent rulers from doing too much damage",
including removing them. The Open Society and its Enemies was an extension
of Popper's ideas developed in an earlier work, the Logic of Scientific
Discovery. But more than any other of his works the Open Society has made
the greatest impact. . In this work he advocates the defence of the open
society against the dictates of it leaders He rejects the idea that
political leaders can impose their value system on the population at large
by  virtue of a supposed greater knowledge of the human condition and its
history, as in the case of Plato. For popper,  the ability of people to
change their leaders is the litmus test of the Open Society. However, to
better comprehend these two outlooks-the Platonic and Popperian views of
leadership, one must consider the times in which they were formulated.


Plato, one of Socrates' disciples was more of an idealist than empiricist, a
reflection of the culture of city states before the birth of Christ. Social
organization in those great epochs of human history was truly aristocratic.
The platonic view of the state, then, was based on a defined social strata
consisting of  the philosophers, warriors and producers. The philosophers
because of  their knowledge and wisdom were the best candidates for
directing state affairs; it is they who must restrain the excesses of the
warrior class to insure rational fortitude ; they must also contain the
greed of the producers to yield the virtues of temperance . When all these
conditions were fulfilled could peace, justice  and individual freedoms be
maintained. The implication is clear:  in Plato's state, not any body could
become a leader; individuals must be of certain caliber to qualify to become
leaders or rulers.

On the other hand, Popper's views molded in the 20th century immediately
following the most destructive war the world had ever seen and during which
his own people, the Jews were subjected to all forms of atrocities, are
concerned more with containing and disposing of destructive political
leaders, such as fascist dictators who were responsible for the catastrophic
war. So then the gulf that separates Plato and Popper is huge both in terms
of time scale and the prevailing circumstances of the specific periods in
which they were writing. Apart from all that, what concerns us is how are
these questions relevant to Africa of today. They are very relevant, and in
fact i would argue that the issue is not a matter of replacing the platonic
question by the popperian. As far as Africa is concerned, the idea of
sovereignty and governance is not reducible to just Plato's or Popper's
question. I know that's not your intention but in my view both questions
are relevant. What is needed is a balance between the two, they may in fact
be complementary.. Platonic view of the  philosopher can be conveniently
translated today as eligibility; we know that given our level of development
we cannot realistically say that any  citizen can become a leader. So the
platonic question of who should rule is very important. If we had answered
that question adequately after independence, we would not  have had the
Bokassas, the idi Amins, the Yaya jammehs and many other career tyrants who
in Plato's state would never go even near the seat of leadership, much more
to assume power, and pretend to be "philosophers" overnight. (Believe me
they know that in those positions, they are misfits, and to deal with that
personal predicament, they give themselves titles to enhance their status,
such as honorary degrees, religious titles and claims of some super natural
powers)

In many so-called developed countries, the question of who is to rule has
been adequately settled, and the popperian question is also under control ;
so they can concentrate on development and not the prevention of abuses and
massacres. Take for example the United Sates of America. Considered as one
of the most democratic countries the world has seen, America carefully
chooses its leadership; not every citizen can become president and even
within the two dominant parties only the highly privileged have  a greater
chance of getting to the top. They have also put in place institutional
procedures for removing leaders when necessary. The system is not of course
perfect but it has come very close to answering both Plato and Popper.

Now for us in Africa, what do we do? To answer this, I simply reproduce
portions of an article that appeared in the June 20, 2000 edition of the
Nation newspaper of Nairobi, Kenya. This article is pertinent to both the
platonic and Popperian questions, and it trests this questions more
forcefully than i can do here:

"… Why are our African leaders, most of whom we have put in power, so bad?
Is this a reflection of us as a people? Is it still the fault of our
colonial masters or, as some would argue, part of the curse of Cain that we
inherited after creation? But more important, how do we break from this
cycle of bad leadership?
"In Africa, a leader is referred to as father of the nation," a professor of
political science and African studies points out. "The roles of a father are
clear. A father gives and a father takes away."
According to the academician's logic, by the sheer fact that we have
bestowed upon our leaders the role of father, it has meant that the leaders
have in turn taken it upon themselves to be masters whose main duty is to
reward and punish. African leaders are notorious for rewarding people who
are loyal to them, as a father would, and punishing those who disagree with
them.
A fabulist by the name of Aesop once said: "We hang the petty thieves and
appoint the great ones to public office." This is definitely the case in
Africa.
Fathers in African societies have to maintain an image of being the best.
This, some argue, has made it necessary for our leaders to steal from their
own treasuries so that they can have adequate wealth to purchase gifts to
reward those who appreciate them, and also to make themselves richer than
the rest and maintain their stature of being the best in everything.
Our leaders are weak and lack direction because they also make poor
decisions while appointing those who will manage the countries with them. In
nearly all African cabinets, you will find corrupt people, thieves, rapists,
murderers and cowards. These people are rewarded for their loyalty though
they are not qualified to hold public office, and also because they are
criminals who should be behind bars…
African leaders are dysfunctional and also subscribe to the Machiavellian
philosophy of a higher moral. Machiavelli argued that a king, a leader, is
governed by a higher moral that allows him to break the law - killing
people, torturing others and plundering their resources - for the good of
the kingdom.
This faulty philosophy clears our leaders of responsibility, and so they
believe they are infallible. In the meantime, we suffer.
However, the biggest curse has been ourselves and our choices. It does not
matter that you did not vote for a particular corrupt politician or leader.
That person is there because our society as a whole has assigned him or her
the role of a leader (mainly because he or she is rich).
The majority decide, even after election rigging and misappropriation, that
that person is a leader, or say nothing when that person is elevated to
leadership. Each of us is, to a degree, responsible.
Bearing all these things in mind and knowing that the Tutus and Mandelas are
few, does it mean we are doomed?
...The solution to our poor leadership lies in a revolution. Africans need
to rise up again the way they did while fighting the British and French, and
fight against the forces of poverty and mismanagement that are choking them.
Like our freedom fighters, we need a new brand of nationalism, one that
fights for efficient economic and moral systems of government.
This means the leaders who are in power now have to go. They have proved for
many years that they are unable to govern properly and if history is
something to go by, will keep making empty promises while rewarding their
cronies and perpetuating corruption and suffering. The present systems too
and our values have to change so that we can make appropriate choices.
Only after we force our present leaders out and and start choosing right
leaders will we achieve what South Africa's Thabo Mbeki is calling African
Renaissance. Until then, the struggle continues."

AT
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