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11 February 2000

It is a pity to see that the world and African intellectuals refuse to view our continent as it is and prefer to force it into a straightjacket that that would fit the predominant fashion of reason. Africa is not a country and no African country is a country in the sense that its inhabitants desire to live together and strive towards the consolidation of such life together. Africans hardly had a say in carving out the areas that are their countries today. These are peoples with different languages and cultures who fought against one another until the Europeans and Arabs, taking advantage of this instability and their considerable technological advancement, came and seized their territories. Several nations of helpless people, especially in the equatorial zone, found themselves under the same dominator who imposed on them living conditions ranging from forced labour to slavery and deportation. Forced labour was not abolished until 1956 in some countries under French domination, and apartheid was abolished only two years ago.

This treatment was meted out to our people as long as it could generate wealth. Good governance was not the order of the day; after all, among civilised people, a certain measure of indulgence was allowed. In fact, it would be interesting to trace back in history instances of official criticism (from governments) that the colonial powers used to moralise or to curb extremes in the inhuman acts perpetrated on our peoples. There is every indication that inhuman acts could only be directed at human beings and we were not recognised as such until very recently, although racism persists.

How does democracy operate in the world?

The cream of the diplomatic world meet in New York all year round to see how the world is doing, to negotiate and take decisions to correct any deviancy. The Security Council, between General Assembly meetings, takes the required measures to monitor the various affairs. Here, it is taken for granted that the powerful countries, which are responsible for all the injustice done to our peoples, have the power to reject whatever we propose (in fact, any one of them can do so). So, when the Vietnamese were massacred with napalm, no resolution condemning the killers could pass. The same happened during the Algerian war, and currently the people of Chechnia are subjected to a horrible massacre, but that is no reason to upset the current strategic balance.

Yet, most peoples of the world would like to see an end to this annihilation. What would have happened if a small country without a veto dared to behave that way? Iraq certainly answers that question. Ten years after it had occupied Kuwait for a few days, Iraq is still being starved and bombed - not by the United Nations, which no longer wants to be manipulated. The Americans and the British are taking care of it. And they calmly return to take their seats in the Security Council, which can neither exclude them nor discuss their aggression on a country that is, in principle, under the supervision of the United Nations. Perhaps that should be recognised as good governance, since it is the act of the teachers and monitors of governance. NONSENSE. Diplomacy has increasingly become synonymous with careerism and sometimes cowardly evasiveness in the face of the iniquity and injustice that the powerful impose on the weak. How can the Chechens understand that the world is taking so long to react while Russia is so unjustly exterminating them?

Western diplomats seem to be more uncomfortable or embarrassed that Russia is taking so long to finish that dirty job. Indeed, that despicable war between the giant and a minute country remains in the media spotlight and peoples are beginning to wonder why their governments should stomach something so immoral. How, then, in an international environment with such low morals, where might is right, can one talk of democracy? I would like those who are always quick to repeatedly utter foolish statements like "every people is responsible for the manner in which it is governed" to tell me how the people of Chechnya are responsible for what is happening to them.

The cold war is over, welcome to liberalism - down with the invalids? It is wrong to say that democracy in Africa depends on Africans. The fall of the Berlin wall has done more for global democracy than the heroic sacrifice of all those who died under torture, iniquitous humiliation and witch hunting around the world. Those who were protecting puppets and bloodthirsty tyrants, finding out how unnecessarily expensive it was, dropped them, and things began to change. Who would dare today to judge Mobutu or Pinochet without judging the CIA or the Belgian government of the time? Which European or American government can pretend to know nothing about the abuses of power (assassinations and embezzlement) of the Mobutu regime, from the time when Lumumba was arrested to the arrival of Kabila? Good governance was not yet the order of the day. The same applies to apartheid, which went on for thirty years until the multinational companies got worried and changed their song.

Democracy is first and foremost an understanding between partners on values at the centre of which are justice, morality, equity, equality, freedom and independence. What we are experiencing is simply the domination of the poor (individuals or countries). This domination is masked by the fact that there are no military forces of occupation, which are no longer needed. Economic suffocation is usually sufficient to make any leader of a poor country knuckle under or understand that might is always right. Most African leaders have understood the game, long before their intelligentsia who are still clamouring for compliance with the values of democracy. These leaders strive to disguise these values, and usually succeed. All that is required of them is to arrange the form, and that is what they do.

What matters today is that there be peace, so that the multinational companies can come in and quietly reap profits everywhere. Otherwise, there is no reason why all the soldiers who seized power quickly became civilians in order to remain in power - in the Gambia, Guinea Bissau until the downfall of Nino Viera, Guinea Conakry, Burkina Faso, Niger under Maina Sara, Chad, Togo, Ghana, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Sudan and Madagascar. Yet, it is obvious that this soldier could not have become a democrat at heart in a few months and that, usually, he would be replaced by another coup. Other leaders come to power after an armed struggle and get themselves elected: Liberia, Ethiopia, Uganda, Mozambique, Angola and Zimbabwe. They usually arrange to have the political framework in the country changed regularly, so there would be no reliable opponent to replace them.

Lastly, there are those to whom power was handed down by their predecessors and who try to hang on to it for as long as they can: Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire under Bedié, Cameroon, Gabon, Kenya and Tanzania. It has never been possible to replace them through elections because, each time, the electoral law is changed and adapted to facilitate their victory. Of course, we have an Africa where all but a few heads of State are elected, but we know that after each election, the opposition has always strongly denounced the large-scale fraud that marred the credibility of the polls. Yet, all these elections were endorsed by the great powers and by international organisations, which, in some cases, even helped to calm down the opposition and in other cases discouraged them by refusing to listen to them or by turning a blind eye on post-election arrests and killings.

General de Gaulle used to say that States do not have friends, but interests. However, today interests seem to override morals and equity. The leadership of the great powers derives from force, not ethics, from media pressure rather than from respect-inspiring uprightness. Democracy in the world would be potent only if there is consensus over its underlying principles and rules. Any political system that is forced on the rest of the world, even in the subtlest manner, cannot claim to be democratic.

What type of Democracy for Africa?

It is impossible to study African democracies without placing them within the international context, which interferes directly on national politics in our countries. Proof of this is the dynamism and active involvement of Western diplomats in our countries when elections are drawing near. The importance that our leaders grant to international opinion, that is to say the opinion of "friendly countries" that are close to and financially sustain the government in power, is greater than that given to public opinion within the country, which can be easily stifled or manipulated. THE MAIN DIFFICULTY LIES IN WHAT WE REALLY ARE. One of the major difficulties for African democracy is the historical process that brought us together, forced us to live together and to constitute a Nation that we did not choose, while our own Nations came to be called ethnic groups. These Nations have so far refused to disappear because they are made up of groups whose history spans several millennia and whose modes of functioning have survived several military defeats and adverse domination. Some of these nations experienced break ups in the past that failed to federate on confederate because such developments were foiled by colonisation, which took advantage of the contradictions opposing the numerous small nations to divide and rule them.

For example, a small country like Senegal comprises several nations which, prior to colonisation, had been subjected to domination and integration by various empires, but each time, they succeeded in maintaining their entities as nations. Some national groups are actually divided into several States. Others, while speaking the same language, belong to different historical nations. Thus the Ouolofs, who make up the majority of the population of Senegal, comprise various nationalities whose territories and last reigning kings are known: the Baoul, the Cayor, the Saloum and the Walo. The other nationalities (Diolas, Toucouleurs, Mandingues, Malinkes, Sereres etc.) also have their national peculiarities that differentiate them in terms of culture, physical structure and way of thinking.

We have tried to overlook these differences that are still very strong, to build a Senegalese nation that has still not materialised. I know that Senegal is an international reality, its boundaries and flag are well known. But then, we must admit that these attributes of independence were, to a large extent, created to satisfy international norms and most often were done in a haste. Each time they have to form a government, African leaders are compelled to consider ethnic (i.e. national) diversity to avoid frustrating some nationalities. Otherwise, it could lead to tension and resistance that would be detrimental to the functioning of institutions or to internal peace. That is further proof that ours is a country still in the making. It is, therefore, for such a nation that we have to devise just principles of government, taking into account the opinion of the masses while maintaining the social balance of the various groups that are termed ethnic groups, but which are really nations. In fact, we must admit that the modern principles of democracy, that is to say, of a country where there is the rule of law, are hardly mastered in our countries. Most of these countries are governed by a minority of intellectuals who use a foreign language for official communication, laws and regulations, whereas about 70% of the population are illiterate and do not understand the official language. Furthermore, the language of law is complex and sophisticated to the point that understanding legal documents is beyond the reach of people with a low level of education.

There is no doubt, therefore, that a lot of work needs to be done to educate the people and enable them to adapt to modern rules of government. The task is so enormous that it is difficult to imagine the kind of studies that would be required even for a transitional adaptation of these rules, given the actual state of our peoples in understanding and integrating into the world of today. Indeed, in order to work out a transition, it is necessary to have a good knowledge of the current situation and know where you are heading. There are, today, African intellectuals and political leaders who are torn between their roots in the continent, from which they cannot extricate themselves, and the modern world, to which they can truly not adapt because they are generally not ready to accept some of its consequences that are very antagonistic to the African culture. In effect, egoism, individualism, the unbridled search for profit, the weakening of family ties, and the marginalisattion of the weak etc. can hardly be accommodated by a person who was brought up with a communal spirit. In any case, the world does not seem willing to accept us as we are.

Indeed, can a person have his roots in the communal society as is the case with all Africans, be compelled by historical and blood links to apply the norms of International Laws which are founded on the urbanised Western culture, based on individual freedom with very little attention given to the collective will and at the same time expect to receive the support of his people who do not know much about these norms? Africa is like the Balkans but with a surface area that is a million times as large. It has several thousands of nationalities living together as was the case with Yugoslavia after the First World War. In effect, the nationalities were compelled and forced to form a multi-ethnic nationality and the consequences have started manifesting lately. Yugoslavia had to break up following a series of attempts at ethnic cleansing. Africans should stop having complexes over the simple fact of having wars that are supposedly ethnic, whose causes have not been investigated and for which solutions have not been found. Problems such as those in Bosnia, in Czechoslovakia and in Kurdistan, the co- habitation of the Walloons with the Flemish in Belgium and the excision of Corsica by France have not been settled. Up till now, it has not been humanly possible to settle these problems.

Certainly not the United States which had tried to annihilate the American Indians and herded the survivors into a camp where they were slowly but surely decimated by alcohol. This is also a country where Blacks were still being lynched up to the 1960's and the KKK is still alive. We can therefore not fashion our ways by copying other people. Despite its diversity, India does not seem to have succeeded in settling the problem. For any democratic system to function properly in Africa, it should start by:

1.) Admitting the multi-national composition of each of the 52 African countries. This presupposes the decentralisation of power to each of the nationalities to enable them have a society that is managed politically in accordance with the culture and education for which they had been prepared.

2.) Letting all citizens have a sense of security within his territory because the boundaries had been agreed upon by consensus with the neighbours;

3.) Allowing each nationality to formulate the rules for its existence, insisting only on the respect for all persons and the integrity of their individual, family and communal assets;

4.) The citizens of each nationality - let us stop calling them ethnic groups so as not to subtract from their peculiarity and right to self determination - should protect their sovereign right to choose their leaders and define their goals. The modality for the choice of the leader should be by consensus, i.e. it should be acceptable to all.

5.) The citizens should also be provided with the necessary means of controlling the leader and eventually replacing him.

6.) A study should be conducted towards the recomposition of Federations and Confederation in such a way that would call almost all the existing national boundaries in Africa to question. That would enable negotiations to commence as soon as possible and prevent us from burying our heads in the dream of African Unity or the pragmatic will to maintain the boundaries inherited from the colonial masters in whose hands our people all suffered.

7.) I do not want to know what would happen if thousands of countries became independent at the end of the exercise, how they would be admitted into the United Nations with all the attendant logistic problems. It is the responsibility of the UNO to settle its problems and not ours to become what we are not in order to please others.

These, in my opinion, are problems that must be settled for Africa to regain the path to democracy. This might take time to achieve but we will not escape it by becoming copycats, by a flight into the future or by despising who we are, despite all our limitations and difficulties. We should stop seeing ourselves with the eyes of others so as to start accepting ourselves and understanding what we are not. I preferred to limit myself to this premises which I consider essential because it is my belief that the other panelists would tackle the technical issues of Separation of powers, the electoral process and the respect for human rights etc.

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