kenneth harrow
professor emeritus
dept of english
michigan state university
517 803-8839
harrow@msu.edu
Sent: Sunday, November 20, 2022 4:40 AM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Sahel
We should not forget that even in the 1980s some people applauded coups in our countries.
The issue of labels and substance in democracy has been in the discourse for a long time time, see - J. Ibrahim and E. Chole (Eds) Democratisation Processes in Africa: Problems and Prospects, CODESRIA, Dakar, 1995.
Professor Jibrin IbrahimSenior FellowCentre for Democracy and Development, AbujaFollow me on twitter @jibrinibrahim17
--On Sun, 20 Nov 2022 at 08:06, Moses Ebe Ochonu <meochonu@gmail.com> wrote:
"Democracy doesn't mean anything to anyone, anywhere on earth, if it doesn't work, if it doesn't pay. That is, if it doesn't create an order in which people feel they can live a reasonable decent life."
~Ken,
Hear, hear! We have arrived at a common point/axiom. This, precisely, is the crux of the matter. Any system on the spectrum of dictatorship and democracy (or outside of the spectrum) is only as good as its usefulness in enabling people to live a life of peace, hope, and material wellbeing. Labels are useless and abstract in the eyes of African and other peoples when it comes to issues that matter to their existence and wellbeing.
--On Sat, Nov 19, 2022 at 10:22 PM Harrow, Kenneth <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:
--How are we to read the coups or the dancing? The sahel is a pretty desperate place, and any attempts to restore a world where people can farm or herd in peace would be welcome. If a few people celebrate the russian wagner group, who is also unhappy with them? Coups are funny things. If cameroonians were to celebrate one against biya, it would be in having forgotten that his succession to ahidjo was essentially a coup, and how many would cheer the usurpations of power the habre jr. is now carrying out? Democracy doesn't mean anything to anyone, anywhere on earth, if it doesn't work, if it doesn't pay. That is, if it doesn't create an order in which people feel they can live a reasonable decent life.
What i wonder is the long term prognastications of dictatorship. I think they are usually bad. With few few exceptions, the ruler whose authority is not hedged by some expressions of the needs of the people has to have the military in his pocket, and in countries like burundi or zimbabwe that has meant payoffs in land or resources. This is how ngugi put it in his fiction, and i think most would agree that a govt that is not responsive to an opposition if often one that finds ways to reward those who sustain it in power, and too often it is the military. The worst i can think of is egypt, as an example.The assassination of sadat didn't improve anything.Ken
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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Moses Ebe Ochonu <meochonu@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, November 19, 2022 1:58:00 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - SahelWhen I say that liberal democracy has failed in our area, that our people have seen that, labels aside, liberal democracy is no better, qualitatively and instrumentally speaking, than the old and new military regimes, and that, as a result of this epiphany, they're voting with their feet and applauding coups as desperate rescue missions, the pro-democracy people who want to "deepen democracy" say I'm generalizing from a few failures or setbacks as they call them in their pretentious "pro-democracy" NGO jargon. Now they're "distressed" that across the Sahel, Africans are rejoicing when coups occur and applauding the coupists. As Oga Falola stated, it doesn't take a diviner to know that were coups to occur in the countries he mentioned and many others, there would be similar applause and rejoicing as the ones we saw across the Sahel. This trend actually began with the 2010 coup in Niger, I believe.
Instead of taking these African reactions seriously as indications of a growing lack of purchase of liberal democracy, an indication that Africans have smartly seen through the deceptive (not to mention hypocritical) premises of liberal democracy, the democracy deepeners are condescendingly belittling these rational and pragmatic African political expressions as "distressing."
--On Sat, Nov 19, 2022 at 6:15 PM Toyin Falola <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:
--Jibrin:"What is most distressing is the applause that follows the coup announcements?"TFThere will be applause in Cameroon, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and others if a coup occurs tomorrow morning!!!I am writing from Lagos where there will be left if they grant them relocation visas.
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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Jibrin Ibrahim <jibrinibrahim891@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, November 19, 2022 12:14:01 PM
To: 'chidi opara reports' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Sahel--State of Governance in the Sahel
Jibrin Ibrahim, Deepening Democracy Column, Daily Trust, 18th November 2022
This week, there was yet another meeting to review the state of governance and underdevelopment in the Sahel. It was organised by the UNDP and International-IDEA in Dakar, Senegal. One of the participants who has been counting Sahel meetings said it's the 251st since 1992 and the said meetings have produced 22 strategy papers pathways to securing peace and development in the zone. The question that then arose was whether the meetings bereft of good ideas and effective strategies necessitating more of them or is the problem the unwillingness, if not determination of governments and international partners, not to not to keep to their promise to implement proposed strategies. The reality is probably a mixture of both.
One thing is certain, there is poor governance in the zone and the rolling crisis is an indication of the very poor quality of leadership, indicating a lack of commitment to the welfare and security of the people. The recent spate of coups in Chad, Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea is an indication of the depth of the crisis. What is most distressing is the applause that follows the coup announcements? The Sahel's demography profiles about the youngest population on earth. The majority of the population in the zone was not even born when the national conferences were organised in period 1989 to 1992. They have no memory of the devastation military rule did to so many countries and have not been schooled about the struggle of the African people against both single-party and military rule. They are therefore sufficiently naïve to believe in the idea of a military Cincinnatus – a selfless political saviour that would solve all the problems and leave rather than remain to enjoy the perquisites of power.
Central to the crisis in the Sahel is demography. There is a high birth rate in a context of poor governance that is unable to provide education and jobs to the youth bulge. Today's Sahelian youth is very conscious of its agency as a way out of the life of misery, poverty and precariousness it lives. They are aware that the narratives and discourses of the State – that it is trying to provide for its security and welfare is false. It knows it can produce results by copying what those in control of state power do. They use the guns procured by the State to repress the people and monopolise available resources for their own personal aggrandisement. Today, the precariat, the youth living miserable and precarious lives are learning that by procuring arms, they can takeover grand banditry from the ruling class and get out of their lives of misery. This is the most useful way to understand not just violent extremism but also the spread of armed robbery, kidnapping for ransom, trafficking in human beings and drugs, cattle rustling and other forms of criminality rapidly spreading in the Sahel.
The key to understanding the crisis in the Sahel is the collapse of the legitimacy of governing classes and the erosion of both public trust and the social contract between the State and citizens. If therefore the twenty-two strategies developed to bring back security and development to the Sahel have not had the desired impact, the reasons can be traced to the unwillingness of those in power to commit themselves to a pathway that would lead to rebuilding the new social contract. When presidents change constitutions to give themselves a third or fourth term in office, manipulate elections to prevent democratic outcomes and loot the national treasury to provide a life of crass luxury for their children, they are deepening the crisis and provoking the precariat to follow in their footsteps of grand banditry.
Saving the Sahel requires a comprehensive vision for rebuilding the values of state and society. The point of departure has to be the construction of a new narrative by the people themselves. Deepening the current cold war between Russia and the West in the Sahel can only worsen the crisis as the superpowers are not seeking solutions to problems, they are engaging in the loot for power and resources for themselves. For them, the question is who is the owner of the Sahel's resources, France the long-term owner or Russia, the new game in town. Sahelians must master the narrative that they are not poor but have been impoverished by these external powers and get out of their control rather than choose one over the other.
There was a lot of nostalgia for the good old days of African solidarity when Nigeria played a leadership role in addressing political crisis in West Africa. The role Nigeria played in Liberia and Sierra Leone was evoked strongly. The inability of Nigeria to respond adequately to the crisis in Mali when the Jihadists set out to march on Bamako was recognised as a turning point. The challenge today is to invent a more collective and principled approach of intervention to address unfolding political crisis. Nigeria, for its part, needs to address its own internal crisis so that it can recover the ability to play its expected solidarity role for West Africa, if not for the whole continent.
ECOWAS as the regional body needs to be more effective in its interventions. The idea of rushing in after a coup and demanding for immediate elections without probing what led to the breakdown of the democratic order has shown itself to be ineffective and indeed counterproductive. ECOWAS needs to learn to intervene at much earlier timelines when sitting presidents are abusing their powers of incumbency by oppressing the opposition, engaging in tenure elongation and eroding the level playing ground for elections.
The most important question posed during the discussions is whether Sahelians were turning their back to democracy. The consensus view that emerged was that democratic practice was very deficient in much of the Sahel. The political class has become very adept at manipulating political processes for their personal aggrandisement. When leaders that emerged out of a history of contesting the attempt of previous leaders to engage in tenure elongation turn around and seek to extend their own tenure, they make nonsense of democratic values often positioning the military to intervene as arbiters. These are the moments coup leaders get applauded. The core message of the people therefore is that for democracy to retain both its intrinsic and instrumental values, it must be played correctly and in conformity with its values and principles. If that is not the case, the door is being left open for the state of nature which as Hobbes said is "nasty, brutish and short."
Professor Jibrin IbrahimSenior FellowCentre for Democracy and Development, AbujaFollow me on twitter @jibrinibrahim17
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