Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - BREAKING: Zimbabwe’s President Mugabe Resigns

So, this is the question that drove Gramsci. It doesn't stop with the fascists, or totalitarianism, but at the minimum with Gramsci, hegemony

 

Kenneth Harrow

Dept of English and Film Studies

Michigan State University

619 Red Cedar Rd

East Lansing, MI 48824

517-803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

http://www.english.msu.edu/people/faculty/kenneth-harrow/

 

From: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Thursday 23 November 2017 at 07:40
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - BREAKING: Zimbabwe's President Mugabe Resigns

 

Unfortunately, the future (as one sharp Nazi minister once pointed out insightfully) belongs not to the people but to those who know how to organize them (aka manipulate them). Probably, certain times, such as the present, require triangulating the constitutive authorities and the constituted authorities into an EVER-EVOLVING/OVERLAPPING authorities.

On Nov 23, 2017, at 2:53 AM, 'Adeshina Afolayan' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> wrote:

If i am asked, i think the concept of "the people/demos", in theoretical and practical terms, is an overrated one in democratic theory. Just ask Antonio Negri. As the "constituted force" in the historical battle for power, it is always subjected to the invasive and dominating tactics and stratagems of the constituted authority anywhere. I was listening to Emmerson Mnangagwa "exhorting" Zimbabweans this morning on the news, and i shook my head at the ease with which "the people" are subject to the banality of power. Zimbabweans, who have faced 37 years of brutal suppression under Mugabe and his lieutenants, especially Mnangagwa, were rejoicing at the banal words of this same man! Permit me to share another experience about the fickleness of 'the people" that democracy celebrates. I hear everywhere about how Governor Ajimobi of Oyo state is a terrible governor, and all that. But then one day, i heard he was coming for a political rally at Bodija market. I was unfortunate to be driving through the place at the time (due to an error of navigational judgment). The market was jampacked! When the guy came, he was hailed uproariously. crisp low-denomination naira notes were sailing effortlessly into the sky to meet mighty existential scramble below. The people. If this sounded too crude, then consider the Arab Spring and its deluded hope for a revolution. It fizzled out. Constituted authority eventually hijacked it; old guards replaced the old guards. How many of those who voted for Trump now regretted doing so? Consult his plummeting popularity polls. 

 

Contra Negri, my thought is that redemption for the demos could only be facilitated from within the dynamics of the constituted authority always warring against the constitutive forces, Negri's masses. This takes me back to my initial argument: it is the government that can be forced to initiate programmes of good life for the demos. Negri has a dark perspective on the ongoing struggle between the constitutive forces and the constituted authority. I share his dark views. But I doubt that the former can ever win the struggle. But i believe the latter can be compelled to adjust its hold on power for the sake of the masses. Zimbabweans have that opportunity now, but i am afraid the chance is already lost before it properly emerged. An enlightened oligarchic formation holds the fate of the demos, for good or for bad.    

 

Adeshina Afolayan, PhD
Department of Philosophy
University of Ibadan

+23480-3928-8429

 

On Wednesday, November 22, 2017 9:23 PM, Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso <jumoyin@gmail.com> wrote:

 

Dr Afolayan, where in your discourse do we locate the citizens' desire for a good life, in philosophical and practical terms, or the citizens' Possible contributions to determining their future? I see your intellectual concern about the role of strong men, about strong institutions, about "democracy" and all the other fashionable concepts that have not meant much for the common people of Africa. Because thence lies my rejection of your connection of Mugabe and Ghadaffi, to return to my original response; surely I never proposed that we apply Ghadaffi's style or even Yew's or Kagame's styles as pure pathways towards progress.

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