Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Are coups back?

there is a new issue of the African Studies Review out (64:3).

in it they have an "African Studies Keyword" and the word is Democracy. It was written by Nic Cheesemand and Sishuwa Sishuwa.

maybe this would bear on your reading of liberal democracy, moses.

my impression is that africans have been fighting for democracy ever since colonialism came. but what is democracy? i think of it as the people being self-governing, regardless of the model. it could be parliamentary, direct, indirect, representative etc.

i am angry at the failures in the united states since my vote counts less than people in smaller states, a system set up by slaveowning states to enable them to country free northern states' greater population and urban centers.

we are "relatively" democratic.

every nation must be like that since they are too large to enable people to sit under a tree and give their opinion and then vote.

are autocracies better? i believe autocracies can function only by theboss paying off his army police bigmen supporters, at the expense of the people. it is not just.

gotta go

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Moses Ebe Ochonu <meochonu@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2022 12:08 PM
To: USAAfricaDialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Are coups back?

 

Toyin Adepoju:

In 2010 or thereabouts, there was a coup in Niger and Nigeriens trooped out to celebrate the coup. That was a shock to the "democratization" brigade, but some of us were not surprised.

Then it happened in Mali more recently and people celebrated.

It then happened in Guinea and the coup was celebrated with a massive street rally, the coup plotters mobbed as heroes.

The situation in Burkina Faso is fluid, and I haven't seen audiovisual evidence of how the people reacted, but I would not be surprised if there were/are celebrations there too.

Which means, we should pose the difficult question of why people in these countries are celebrating coups, which they should be protesting in an era of "democratization" and "democratic" normativity. 

Could it be that the liberal democratic model uncritically adopted and implemented across Africa is dysfunctional and has failed to promote unity and security and to fulfill the cardinal promise the pro-democracy forces made in the era of democratization: that liberal democracy would produce economic development and accountability?

On Mon, Jan 24, 2022 at 9:20 PM Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovdepoju@gmail.com> wrote:

Is it Africans generally welcoming these coups or armed men taking power by force whatever people think?

Toyin

On Tue, Jan 25, 2022, 02:36 Moses Ochonu <meochonu@gmail.com> wrote:

Are coups back? That may not be the right question. The right question may be, what's souring Africans on Western style democracy and making coups attractive and popular again? That question deserves a truthful answer, not an answer that uncritically reiterates the Washington Consensus and it's associated talking points and buzzwords about the imperative of "democratization."

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 24, 2022, at 7:00 PM, Toyin Falola <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:



https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/01/24/burkina-faso-coup/

 

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