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Santanfara
3460 Posts |
 Posted - 07 Apr 2011 : 00:46:41
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The search for an alternative to the political and social dislocation must begin with the definition of new forms of democratic participation which allows for the germination of positive social relations as the basis for collective advancement. Ahmed Sekou Toure, like Nyerere, realised the absolute necessity for this. He starts off by defining the form of nationalism which was necessary and sufficient for nation-building and democratic participation after independence. He averred that:
To us, the departure of the colonialists corresponded to the conquest of political power, but this conquest was not sufficient...the existing state had to be annihilated, because of its colonial structures and methods. Even in its notion...there was only a minority which understood the contours and bases of the nation; all the others had no notion of the nation, than that of micro-nations represented by the regionalist groups, the tribes and diverse retrogressive formations, to which they belonged, and they often determined their attitude on the basis of biological and tribal affinities.15
What was interesting about the Guinean experience was that these ideas were not only expressed as a declaration of intent, but were operationalised in a society which involved the people in the building of new structures and institutions. Popular participation became the basis of a political system that placed the social issue at the top of the national agenda. The diverse regional and sectional tendencies were neutralised because the development of the nation was undertaken together with the social and political struggle for economic emancipation and democratic participation. Politics thus became a pastime for all and not a form of cultism in which the rituals are understood by only a few. Development--what little existed--was spread evenly throughout the country. A cultural revolution took place which transformed the various languages into national languages. Every local culture was elevated to the position of a national culture and presented to all the people with its rich symbolism. A national ideology emerged which had its basis in the egalitarianism of traditional African society.
The Fulah, Sousou, Mandingo and the other nationalities embarked on the building of the Guinean nation because only within this nation could they defined and identify their interests. And then there were the armed people, auxiliaries to the men in arms who had dedicated themselves to the defence of the nation. There was no instance when arms were used in the furtherance of regional or sectional interests. These tendencies had been eliminated in a frontal assault that wiped out anti-national sentiments.
The liberation of man and his transformation into a new social species with a high level of political consciousness became the raison d’ etat of the various political organs of the party-state. The emancipation of women was placed on the same level as the abolition of exploitation. A party emerged drawing cadres from the most conscious elements in the society. Many critics have argued that this was a dictatorship because certain rights and privileges were denied to selective social sectors. But no dictatorship in an underdeveloped country--lacking the sophistication and refinement of terror as witnessed in Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia, Franco’s Spain or Mussolini’s Italy--can survive when guns are given to the people.
The regime in Guinea was stern because the process of nation-building had at first to contend with obnoxious particularisms magnified by colonialism. The regime was uncompromising because the process of social transformation must first and foremost abolish all forms of obscurantism which retard the people’s vision. But there was democratic participation as the people negated all tendencies towards irredentism and with arms in hand debated in the national languages the issues of justice, equality and national unity. The only mishap in this experiment was that the Guinean people believed so implicitly in Ahmed Sekou Toure--in his courage, his vision and his indispensability--that his departure sapped them of all energy and left them forlorn.
Democracy, to be germane to the African condition, must extricate itself from the political shibboleths expatiated by certain social sectors for whom democracy is another label for political chicanery and national manipulation. The priority in the implantation of democracy in a multi-ethnic society is the resolution of the nationality question. This is resolved not by the political appeasement of certain social sectors and perfunctory voting once every four or five years but by addressing the primary issues of the economic and political empowerment of the broad masses of the people. The question of empowerment has to be tackled not at the regional but at the national level. First and foremost, the peasants, irrespective of ethnic origins are confronted by the same phenomena of low productivity, high cost of fertilizers and relegation to the rural wasteland without a modicum of modern conveniences. Thus, a priority ought to be the bridging of the communication gap between different sectors of the peasantry through an organization which addresses the problems confronting the peasantry at the national level.
What was done in Guinea under Ahmed Sekou Toure with the transformation of major indigenous languages into national languages and then their utilization in all official and non-official undertakings, followed by the carrying out of a cultural revolution which put emphasis on the relevance of indigenous languages to the modernisation and development of Guinea are pertinent examples. In most countries in Africa, the peasants are affected the most by the process of modernisation. They suffer from serious complexes which undermine their sense of dignity. However, they are the custodians of indigenous cultures in an age of westernisation through unfettered consumerism. By elevating indigenous cultures to national prominence, the peasants are made aware of their importance in the development of the nation. Here, we are not referring to the sporadic display of culture for the entertainment of visiting tourists but to its dynamic presentation on a regular basis to the people and its integration within the framework of historical interpretation.
With the cultural revolution, the process of social mobilisation becomes a dynamic facet of development. The bringing of the great majority of the people into the mainstream of development portends rapid transformation in social and political awareness. From this stage to that of democratic participation is a short leap. Participation in this context does not limit itself to voting. The ahistorical proposition that because a people can vote for leaders therefore they are involved in democratic pursuits is one of those fallacies that is a by-product of cable TV and western talk-shows. Former President Kaunda of Zambia alluded to the deficiency of this kind of democracy recently in an address to the Oxford Union. He averred that "a deficient conception of democracy is dangerous for democracy. The mere existence of political parties, or the right to form them, or periodically holding free and fair elections, is not enough. Democracy can only survive by means of increasing the efforts to protect its values against the ever-present dangers of tokenism."16 We must assume that the democratic values President Kaunda is referring to are people’s participation in decision-making at all levels and the positing of their economic interests as the fundamental basis of development and growth.
The focus on the peasantry in the building of democratic culture is not the result of any romantic fascination with rural simplicity, but a realistic conclusion that emanates from an awareness that democracy has failed to take roots in most parts of Africa because its basic premise has been founded on an erroneous conception. With the involvement of the broad masses of peasants allied to other subordinate social groups in the urban centres, democracy can have meaning in its only pertinent historical conception--government for, by, and with the people. It is in this sense that Amilcar Cabral of Guinea-Bissau added to our knowledge of the prerequisites for the transformation of man and society. The liberation war, which can be defined as the conscious making of history by the people , especially the peasants, encompasses all the ingredients necessary for the building of a democratic society. The war liberates not only the land, but also the mental obscurantism that entraps the peasants in stagnation and backwardness. By the logic of historical determinism, it makes subjects of those who are the determining factors in the transformation of the nation-state. Reflecting on the liberation war in Guinea-Bissau and how the transformation in the consciousness of the people led to the conception of the necessity for new structures to enhance the democratic participation of the people, an observer of the process comments:
For the leaders, unavoidably, this meant accepting that the solving of the ‘national question,’ the problem of building a national consciousness or individualist divergence, must always depend on solving the ‘social question,’ the problem of meeting the material and cultural needs of everyday life. Out of this necessary acceptance(and those who refused it were lost) there came the practice of their revolutionary theory: the immensely difficult promotion, in liberated zones, of a new social-cultural system based on the democracy of village committees.... A new type of state could thus emerge in embryo even while the wars continued.17
http://www.alhajikromahpage.org/alhajievolutionfahn.htm
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Surah- Ar-Rum 30-22
"And among His signs is the creation of heavens and the earth, and the difference of your languages and colours. verily, in that are indeed signs for men of sound knowledge." Qu'ran
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