Deep Confusion About Deepening Democracy
Don't ask how I came to spend the afternoon reading about the elections in Nigeria--I promise you there was a reason I felt I needed to understand this better, a lot better. In any event, I came across this symposium in Think Africa Press, and was moved to helpless despair by this comment from the poet Tolu Ogunlesi:
I think that what we are seeing in Nigeria at the moment is not so much a “deepening of democracy” (i.e. in terms of a transformation of democratic institutions: police, judiciary, executive, legislature, political parties etc), as it is an ‘awareness-transformation’ on the part of citizens. It is important to realise that democracy, as a system of government, is useless when citizens do not realise the extent of the power it offers them. Various interlinked factors including technology (mobile phones, social networking, a computerised voter database), the 2008 Barack Obama story (of change, and limitless possibilities), the North African uprisings and a general yearning for good leadership after 12 unimpressive years of civilian rule have combined to enlighten, inspire and empower Nigerians and to transform their understanding of what genuine democracy is all about (power in the hands of the people). So while the Nigerian judiciary remains embroiled in corruption, the Police Force continues to be as ineffective and compromised as ever, and the political parties continue to lack vision or ideological basis, what is happening is that citizens are realising that they have more power than they thought they had: the power to say “No”, or “Yes.”
Where do I start? No amount of "awareness," "enlightenment," "inspiration" "change" or "empowerent" will lead to a thing worth having without strong democratic institutions-- "police, judiciary, executive, legislature, political parties" and the tragic afterthought of "etc."
It's all meaningless drivel without them.
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Jan '11
Re: Deep Confusion About Deepening Democracy
But how do you get strong democratic institutions without an enlightened people? Maybe Ogunlesi is on to something here.
Re: Deep Confusion About Deepening Democracy
You're right of course, but a charitable (and I think legit) reading of what he's saying would be something like, "Democratic institution-building is ineffectual without a popular demand for accountability in those institutions which would lead to trust in them." That might be a stretch, but, you know, it's a start. (As always, kids, when building a democracy, start with the right to property and a judiciary that will enforce contracts.)
Mar '11
Re: Deep Confusion About Deepening Democracy
Toss in a few cops that can't be bought and you're pretty much there.
Re: Deep Confusion About Deepening Democracy
Bill, that is the charitable reading, and probably the correct one, but it's the emphasis--around the world, the wrong emphasis. What bothers me is that he's not wrong, but that he's rhetorically assigning high value to inchoate yearnings and low value--conveyed, e.g., by the use of "etc."--to the very vehicles and the only vehicles that transform those yearnings into reality.
Jan '11
Re: Deep Confusion About Deepening Democracy
Strong democratic institutions develop when people understand intuitively that they're competent to make decisions for themselves and then act to do so, in free association with their fellow man. And it's the power to say 'no', far more than the power to say 'yes', that matters; the power to say 'No, you don't get to tell me what to do, no matter how many guns you have; I can find a better way without your "leadership".' This is the power every two-year-old child discovers suddenly when they first become 'aware', 'enlightened', 'inspired' and 'empowered' by the meaning behind the word 'no', and being bereft of wisdom they become unholy terrors, little midgets running amok in your house, breaking all your stuff.
Re: Deep Confusion About Deepening Democracy
Yup.
Feb '11
Re: Deep Confusion About Deepening Democracy
Nigerian politics are simple. It's about three main tribes (Yoruba in the West, Hausa in the North and Ibo in the Southeast) though there are hundreds of other tribes. The main issue is how you split up the oil money. The Yoruba and the Hausa don't have the oil in their territory while the Ibo do. So the politics becomes one of putting together a coalition to split up the oil revenues that are extracted from the Ibo. There is then the kicker: the military. Most of the military (and all of the top generals of the Air Force and Army) are Hausa and if the Hausa are not part of the winning coalition, the military will intervene so that they will get all of the oil revenues until a new civilian government can be formed.
Jan '11
Re: Deep Confusion About Deepening Democracy
Allow me to say that we Americans were lucky. We had those same yearnings, but we had political thinkers who transformed the inchoate into reality. That made a world of difference.
Jefferson always struck me, historically, as a jerk. He seems petty, vain, overly sensitive, and a political back-stabber par excellence. But this country desperately needed him. He explained the Founding of this nation, probably more than any other person. He put us on the same page, so to speak.
When democracy is inchoate, it's merely romance. It doesn't become reality, or even worthwhile, until the people can connect the dots. Nigeria, like any democracy, needs someone to lay it out for the people.
Oct '10
Re: Deep Confusion About Deepening Democracy
I agree with the second sentence but I think it's inadequate. I don't think people in illiberal countries understand the institutions and principles which provide a foundation for a free society. It's not intuitive and it has to be taught to children and inculcated throughout our lifetimes. We're free in part because we understand our relationship with the government and the responsibilities and privileges on both sides. I agree the institutions are necessary but I wonder if it's also necessary that the people have a certain baseline of civic literacy in order to truly have a free society.
Mar '11
Re: Deep Confusion About Deepening Democracy
I share your concern, Claire.
This sentence is all wrong: "It is important to realise that democracy, as a system of government, is useless when citizens do not realise the extent of the power it offers them". If people decouple the power democracy offers with the virtues that underpin it and the duties imposed by it, it soon devolves into despotism.
The "power to say 'No' and 'Yes'", if not channeled into public things through well-ordered institutions, is often capricious and short sighted. Unchecked by temperance and a sense of the common weal, it soon becomes greedy, rancorous, and violent.