Six decades after independence, African countries are yet to embraced democracy to the fullest. To put it accurately, democracy has not been embraced by many countries who still are in the much abhorred authoritarian system of governance. Some countries are also still being ruled by ruthless military juntas while in the long run experiencing coups and counter-coups consistently. Countries like Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea and Chad have recently had multiple coups while some like Cameroon and Uganda have autocratic leaders who have continuously clung to power, never letting go. Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia among others which are widely recognized as stable democracies are just but fledgling ones or illusions. It appears to be cool and stable from the viewpoint of someone who lives in some far-flung area but to the locals it’s just an illusion. It is better to live in an undemocratic country than to live in a a half- democracy state. It may be time to say that democracy has largely failed in one place where it might have brought considerable change. It has failed awfully in one place where many interventions have been consistently put in motion to try to shore it up. Perhaps Africa and democracy are not compatible. It might be time to consider other options.
Post-independence,many theories about developing Africa have been brought up by western academics with the aim of saving the continent and Its inhabitants from the poverty which stared them in the face. Each decade came up with it’s own new theory considered to be the life changing program for the situation overnight. Many failed and new ones appeared almost immediately as if they were somewhere waiting to be deployed. But these also failed. Consequently, in the last decade of the twentieth century it was democracy’s turn to be put to test. All the other programs put in place by the international community can be summed up as trial and error methods. New weapons of combating poverty were appearing but Africa was their testing ground. Surprisingly,they failed one after another as they came. Maybe it was because of lack of knowledge of this vast continent. As Alan Paton said in his book,Cry, My Beloved country one cannot go to a foreign land and try to change the way they do their agriculture without understanding the land, environment and climate first,so imposing ideologies on Africa will always fail. This is the same reason why democracy is bound to fail. Imposing ideologies on the African continent denigrates Africans as a people.
Democracy has failed in Africa. There you have it. It cannot work in this land. It is an ideology which is alien to this continent. Enforcing it only exacerbates the already dire situation. Just like other policies which came before and failed, so has democracy. Promoters of democracy as the only solutions to African problems did it superficially without digging deeper to see the real problems. To make it worse, they came up with these ideas while sitting some thousands of miles away from the continent some without a tincture of knowledge of Africa. Earlier, the same western economists came up with agenda such as the 1960 growth agenda, stabilization and structural adjustment and the emphasis on the poor programmes which failed terribly. Given their record of failure,how sure are they that democracy and good good governance will save the day? It can actually save Africa but not in the current situation. Things have to change first for that to happen. Africa’s problems are innumerable and democracy alone doesn’t have the power to deal with them. In this no one-size-fit-all solve all of can them. Foreign academics have been trying to conjure up solutions to Africa’s problems since independence without a breakthrough. They have been trying the same things over and over again each time expecting a different result. It is this “can do” “can fix” attitude which has been making the situation even worse. It is time for Africans to be given a Frontline role in turning around their situation.
Democracy clashes with Africa traditional practices which are still widely practised. This clashing is occasioned by the lack of consideration by the scholars to factor in Africa traditions in their quest to change the status quo. African traditional religion are sometimes referred to as witchcraft thereby removing it from the picture. If African religions are sometimes judged as witchcraft institutions,then what is democracy all about? How can democracy flourish with such colonial mentality in place? The mutilation of African culture and ways is led by the aforementioned self-appointed promoters and protectors of democracy. That means democracy is but a farce,an illusion. It is flexible and the supremacists can twist-turn it to suit their narrative.
The history of democracy in western world should act as a lesson to scholars. Of course they know about it and are just feigning ignorance. Democracy did not just sprout overnight in America and Europe. It took years and years of turbulence, violence,war authoritarianism and communism for democracy to come into being. It was achieved after countless battles, injustices, lawlessness and incursions on human rights. Some actually say that the Europeans were tired of their battles and belligerent nature and decided to rest. Something which took many centuries to come up with cannot be achieved instantly by others. Important to mention, democracy was something of an accident to the Europeans. They didn’t set out to look for it,it just came by chance. So if they came to it by chance,why do they arbitrarily force others to accept it? Maybe it is not yet time.
Summarily,it will take ages of strenuous moulding for democracy to finally land and secure a foothold in this continent. Many factors are against it and it’s a matter of if and not when it will be main ideology in Africa. Just like the European democracy,it will also take years and years of turmoil and turbulence to make an impact. Africans might have to make the hard choice of abandoning it and taking it’s own path if it wants to prosper. This is what the late Frantz Fanon strongly advocated for. He warned the newly independent African governments against continuing the European legacy and systems. He tirelessly urged Africans to chart their own path and stop the duplication of the European imperialists ideals. He foresaw the death of democracy and capitalism back in 1962. Fanon’s ideas are still relevant today. Democracy is not working and a new path can still be chartered. It’s not too late for Africa.
Anonymous 