Hamadi Banna:
Well, you have raised an interesting topic. As I said in my last posting,
democracy is a contested concept, and the dialogue between scholars will
continue.
For instance, Larry Diamond’s definition of liberal democracy presupposes
that there are free elections, the rule of law is sacrosanct, individuals
enjoy and exercise civil and human rights, there is a vigorous civil society
and government is accountable to the people.
More recently, in an attempt to provide adequate descriptions of recent
political developments in Africa, SOME scholars have started to counter the
notions of "democratisation" as being a solution or the way forward for the
continent, and these scholars argue that the "militarisation" of African
politics is not the only impediment to progress.
They maintain that our political dilemmas are far more complex than previous
scholars have understood them to be. For instance, Chabal and Daloz have
questioned the very notion of statehood, and argue that African states are
"both vacuous and ineffectual".
They contend that the state is a "pseudo-Western façade masking the
realities of deeply personalised political relations" and they cite the
paramount role of patrimonial personalities in the leadership of African
countries.
They are suspicious of those African states where elections have put in
power civilian regimes – "people do not vote because they support the ideas,
even less read the programmes of a particular political party, but because
they must placate the demands of their existing or putative patron".
They conclude that "there prevails in Africa a system of politics inimical
to development as it is usually understood in the West".
For them, it matters not whether a military or a civilian regime is in
power. They imply that conditions may not improve in Africa, because in
their view, there tends to be a "patrimonial personality" mentality
engrained in African society, resulting in a general tendency for people to
be subservient and acquiescent to the leader.
Jeffrey Herbst argues that there are dangers in attempting to make links
between European or first world models of statehood and African states. "The
analysis of state-building in Africa highlights important contrasts with the
conventional European model, he said.
He argues that African states need also to look for their future development
in pre-colonial contexts: that there is a need to recover the past and to
understand it, in order to make sense of current events and to inform future
political development.
He contends that there is a need to "place even very young states in their
own deep historical contexts" and that there should be far more
revolutionary and visionary thought given to ensure a prosperous and stable
future on the continent: "far more revolutionary would be for at least parts
of Africa to be reordered around some organisation other than the sovereign
state...once again it will primarily be up to the Africans to come up with
alternatives to the nation state," says Herbst.
Chabal posits that scholars should be looking for continuities between
pre-colonial and present day African states. He argues that the period of
colonialism was a relatively short one, and that ways forward for Africa
need to take far more account of the longer history of the continent. "The
colonial interlude was relatively brief and it is necessary to study lines
of continuity between pre-colonial politics and the modern era," said
Chabal.
Other scholars, for example Chazan, stress the need to analyse current
statehood in Africa against both pre-colonialism and colonialism: "the basis
of the postcolonial state in Africa is the colonial state."
Recent scholarly debate has started to focus on pre-colonial contexts and
their importance in understanding and making sense of post-colonial
politics.
Whereas previous renowned scholars such as Samuel Huntington, Claude Welch
and Samuel Decalo and many others were tending to use Western democratic
models against which to chart political development and measure the levels
of "democracy" in emerging African states, more recently, scholars such as
Chazan, Herbst, Chabal and Daloz have gone beyond using only this notion of
Western models of democratic development in Africa and have focused on the
existing pre-colonial and colonial African context and its effect on
political development on the continent.
Herbst in particular, warns against using European experience to understand
political development elsewhere in the world: "the European experience does
not provide a template for state-making in other regions of the world".
There has been a shift from using only a European model of development such
that there is now much more emphasis on the African experience of politics
from pre-colonial times until the present.
In my opinion, African scholars need to brainstorm even further, need to
network more, need to share their ideas and work towards Africanised
solutions to African problems, rather than depending on Westernised
solutions only.
I do agree with you that African governments need to incorporate traditional
forms of democracy into the Western models currently being promoted. I also
agree with you that great importance attaches to those parties with small
support bases: they may well indeed, easily tip the balance as you so
rightly point out.
In the meantime, we shall all be praying for the future well-being of our
country and for free and fair elections in October.
Ebrima Ceesay
Birmingham, UK.
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