Samuel,I guess that the next stage after Sharia law is some kind of Islamic State...Re - "what effective mechanisms will imprint obedience to the law or the commitment to do the right thing coming out of one's heart and mind"
Since Sharia Law is against bribery and corruption and using unfair scales, can one safely say that the battle is already half won in the Muslim majority Zamfara State which practices Sharia Law, that the imprints on the hearts means that they are preconditioned so to speak for life under Sharia?
On Sunday, 21 September 2014 22:24:05 UTC+2, szalanga7994 wrote:In order for the law to be effective, assuming its aim is to control corruption or crime, it is not just enough to make good laws and enforce them. One of the major challenges of all legal systems or in some cases even religious ideals, is not just getting the things right on paper or announce them publicly. For them to work effectively, we have to have effective mechanisms in place for getting them internalized in the hearts and minds of people so that they become internal constraints and not just external constraints.We will never have enough police officers to enforce the law or enough prisons to intimidate all potential criminals. While it is time consuming and a long term strategy, the best way is to develop effective mechanisms for people to internalize the law (assuming it is fair and just) and all social and religious ideals, so that they will feel compelled by their conscience to do the right thing even when they have the opportunity to do the wrong thing and get away with it. America is a free country, but generally few if any will have shower and sit down naked in their living room to watch TV even if the door is locked and there will be no visitor. Why? Because the great majority of people have internalized the idea that to sit naked is improper even if you are alone and have the legal freedom to do so; one needs to cover himself or herself. Itis society restraining them but from within. This is the major contribution of Durkheim's sociology.No matter the good laws Nigeria produces, no matter how good leaders or religious elites preach, if they ignore the question of what effective mechanisms will imprint obedience to the law or the commitment to do the right thing coming out of one's heart and mind, we will not have the kind of human decency, fairness and justice that we aspire. As Aristotle said in his critique of Plato, it is not just enough for people to know the truth or figure out the correct knowledge, they have to habituate themselves to do the right thing because often people may know the right thing to do but refuse to do it because of the cost or pain of doing so.If many African elites have internalized the appropriate moral and ethical principles and commitment seriously, our continent cannot be going through its current challenges. Much of what one sees is a group of leaders who see hurricane coming that will do much destruction but they build good fortresses to protect themselves and their relatives, while leaving the ordinary citizens at the mercy of nature. This is functionally equivalent to how many of our leaders treat our people. They leave them out there in the rain, while they are partying and enjoying latte inside. And then they at the appropriate time use religious language or ethnic or tribal sentiments to mobilize us because they think we are gullible. The continent is for all of us and not the elites only. If our critique of European imperialism and and colonization was on moral grounds, and not racism as such, then many of our leaders have no moral authority to critique those colonial oppressors because for the poor person who Fanon described as "Wretched of the Earth" staying hungry is the same whether the condition was created by a Black person or European. Our critique of Europeans is not because of their race, ancestry or national origin. It is because of how they have treated other human beings i.e., dehumanized them. If this is the case, any African that dehumanized another human being deserves the same condemnation.Samuel
Date: Sun, 21 Sep 2014 09:52:32 -0700
From: cornelius...@gmail.com
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Can Nigeria learn anything from the Scottish Referendum?Ps.
Ken, I know that you are a specialist in Cameroons – Nigeria border relations. (In April 1981 at the height of the oil border dispute I was detained in Port Harcourt for a whole night; they thought that I was Cameroonian because I could not speak correct Nigerian "Broken" like-e-them - so I was detained at the junction of the first traffic lights in downtown Port Harcourt, all night. When my friend Mallah, the speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly ( who happened to be going by at that unearthly hour) opened the door of his Peugeot and asked me to hop in - at which point the policeman was protesting to Mallah that I had called him a black monkey, Mallah drove away and left me in distress. By dawn the policeman had become a pan-Africanist and a best friend and were sharing a bottle of beer; in fact he invited me to a big party in the mess when Sani Abacha was in town.
Lord Anunoby,
We hear the loquacious upstarts quacking big words, the need for a "systemic change", a complete overhaul of the system. I guess that there were no quacks at the national conference. What did they have to say about corruption apart from condemning it.? Did they talk about retributive justice?
Relative to comparatives in the Nigeria-Zimbabwe corruption index of commerce, arises this question: Are some parts/ states/ regions of Nigeria (microcosm of Africa) more corrupt than other parts – and if so, how come?
In the recommendations on how to wipe out corruption – from all levels of the Naija nation, from the bottom to those who take responsibility at the top The Law will have to be administered. And to administer /administrate and institutionalise this transition/ transformation in real time, so that the smallies and the medium- sized will say "Behold! The sleeping giant has woken up O! "
If I were a presidential aspirant I'd be talking like that, communicating that kind of a vision of a Great Nigeria in the world and a Nigeria in which Nigerians are capable of solving their own perennial problems at home...
On Friday, 19 September 2014 15:25:19 UTC+2, Cornelius Hamelberg wrote:In updating my blog about the results of the Scottish Independence Referendum I inevitably thought of the case of Nigeria and Biafra - if those who want to secede have the right to do so peacefully...
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsub...@googlegroups.com
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
J.D. (Law), Ph.D. (Economics)
Graduate Certificate in Environmental and Natural Resources Law
Nonresident Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution
Attorney & Counselor at Law (Licensed in Utah)
Brady Presidential Distinguished Professor of Economics & Willard L. Eccles Professor of Economics and John S. Hinckley Fellow
Department of Economics
Weber State University
1337 Edvalson Street, Dept. 3807
Ogden, UT 84408-3807, USA
(801) 626-7442 Phone
(801) 626-7423 Fax
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
No comments:
Post a Comment