Bangura: The End of Western Democracy in Africa
Toyin Falola
Emmanuel Udogu
My Footnote to this interesting food for thought submission
“The End of the Western Democracy Project in Africa”
“Nowhere in the world was there a tradition of democracy in the 18th century. France had no democratic traditions when it began its revolution. It created a revolutionary democratic tradition in 5 years and fought about it for the next 160. It took Britain two centuries to create the Parliamentary democracy it later tried to bequeath to its former colonies. As late as 1832, Great Britain was ruled by several thousand wealthy property owners. Democratic traditions are created by people resisting autocracy or attacking privilege. We are seeing democracy created in the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and in Africa–but this is the beginning of the struggle, not the end. Those who have power rarely yield willingly. Many African autocrats [e.g., Paul Biya of Cameroon] and ordinary soldiers [e.g., the Nigeria military for several years] are, not surprisingly, unhappy about changes that threaten their privileges.”
Martin A. Klein, “Back to Democracy: Presidential Address to the 1991 Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association, African Studies Review, Vol. 35, No. 3 (1991): 6-7.
And, as I have argued, it took America several years (from 1776 to 1965), following the civil rights movement in the 1960s by African Americans (and sympathizers) for the republic to attain its current democratic status. So, it is safe to contend that “true” democracy in America gathered momentum about 1965 when the Voting Rights Bill was signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson. It was this Bill that partially led to the rights of African American voter participation all over the south. This genre of democracy came under severe attack following activities of some Americans on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021. This onslaught suggests the fragility of democracy even in America.
E. Ike Udogu, African American Politics in Rural America: Theory, Practice, and Case Studies from Florence, South Carolina (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2006).
African “democracies,” or what I termed “African Democratic Montage” in a forthcoming volume, are relatively young. Indeed, in my earlier work on “Incomplete Metamorphic Democracy as a Conceptual Framework in the Analysis of African Politics,” I attempted to suggest where Africa was and is currently in the democracy or “[Afrocracy]” odyssey.
E. Ike Udogu (ed.), “Democracy and Democratization in Africa; Toward the 21st Century,” (Journal of Asian and African Studies, Vol. 31, Nos. 1-2 (1996).
Additionally, “there are many types of democracy, and their diverse practices produce a similar set of effects. The specific form democracy takes is contingent upon a country’s [social, cultural and economic] conditions as well as its entrenched state structures and policy practices.”
Philippe C. Schmitter and Terry L. Karl, “What Democracy Is…And is Not,” in Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner (eds.), The Global Resurgence of Democracy (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 1993), p. 40.
My preceding views are supported by the argument that: “The Western countries themselves are examples of the fact that democracy cannot be installed overnight; it is a long term process of gradual change. When quick fixes of imposing multiparty systems, for example, are substituted for the long haul of patiently paving the way for a democratic polity, the result may be that a thin layer of democratic coating is superimposed upon a system of personal rule without changes in the basic features of the old structure.”
Georg Sorensen, Democracy and Democratization (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993), p. 53.
But as I have argued in the past, and still argue today, democracy [or “Afrocracy”] is “organic.” Also, as I have opined in this forum and elsewhere, Adebayo Adedeji’s plea should guide Africans and African leaders. He suggested that:
“It is not just by talking about DEMOCRACY [or writing about DEMOCRACY] that African countries will become democratic. We [Civil Society Organizations–NGOs, YIAGA AFRICA, NATIONAL LABOUR CONGRESS, INDIVIDUALS, etc.] must ACT MORE and talk less. To build a truly democratic society and culture, WE must plant the seeds of DEMOCRACY, [or “AFROCRACY”] enable them to germinate by nourishing them and watering them regularly [via Efficacious National Constitutions (that, among other things, emphasize SERVICE and not humongous financial benefits or remunerations), Free and Fair Elections, Human Rights Instruments, Code of African Leadership, Declaration on the Principles Governing Democratic Elections in Africa, African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance, et cetera, to nourish our contemporary African Democratic Montage]”
E. Ike Udogu, “Democracy, the Two-Party System and the Transition Imbroglio in the March Toward the Third Republic 1985-1992” Scandinavian Journal of Development Alternatives, Vol. 13, No 1 & 2 (1994): 1.
In my opinion, if the foregoing ideas are to materialize in Africa, it is critical to downplay ethnonationalism and promote patriotism/nationalism (to be superseded by pan–Africanism).
Folks, “it doesn’t matter whether a cat is white or black, as long as it catches mice.” Deng Xiaoping.
Happy Ramadan and forthcoming Easter, y’all!
Ike Udogu
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