Trend: Africa healthier, wealthier and undemocratic

Clare Byrne, writing for the South African Press Association (SAPA) and the Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa), is credited with an article, "Africa healthier, wealthier and undemocratic", published on 4 October 2010 on the South African "NewsTime" website.

The full text of the article can be read free of charge here:

www.newstime.co.za/SouthAfrica/Africa_healthier_wealthier_and_undemocratic/12230/

Excerpts: "Africans are becoming healthier and getting more opportunities to generate wealth. But five decades after most Africans first got a vote, democracy on the continent is ailing, an index of African governance showed Monday. The 2010 Ibrahim Index of African [G]overnance found that access to economic opportunities had improved in 41 out of 53 African countries between 2004/2005 and 2008/2009. In human development terms, Africa had also made strides, with 44 countries showing improvements, particularly in health and social welfare. Yet, despite the economic and social progress, 35 countries had suffered declines in safety and the rule of law, the index showed. There was also bad news in the area of human rights and citizen participation in the political progress, which had worsened in about two-thirds of African countries.

"The index – the first of its kind in Africa – was launched in 2007 by Mo Ibrahim, the multimillionaire Sudanese founder of Celtel, one of Africa's largest mobile phone networks. [...] Eritrea, Guinea, Madagascar, Mauritania and Somalia had fallen the furthest. All five were beset by armed conflicts or coups during the review period. Elsewhere, the lack of citizen oversight also meant most governments were not being held to account, the index showed. 'We see the challenge of consolidating democracy and extending it,' [Mo Ibrahim Foundation board member Mamphele] Ramphele, a former managing director of the World Bank said. 'Many citizens on our continent are not active,' she said. At the same time as he launched the index, Mo Ibrahim, a vocal campaigner against corruption, also launched a prize for excellence in African leadership worth over 5 million dollars. The prize has not been awarded in the past two years, after no suitable candidates were found."

The full results of the 2010 Ibrahim Index of African Governance are to be found here:

www.moibrahimfoundation.org/en/section/the-ibrahim-index

Article: Why western-style democracy is not suitable for Africa

George Ayittey is the author of a commentary article titled "Why western-style democracy is not suitable for Africa", published on 20 August 2010 on the CNN news website.

The full text of the article can be read free of charge here:

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/08/20/ayittey.democracy.africa/index.html

Excerpts: "Western-style multi-party democracy is possible but not suitable for Africa. [...] The alternative is to take decisions by consensus. [...] In the early 1990s, following the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the winds of change swept across Africa, toppling long-standing autocrats. In our haste to democratize – and also as a condition for Western aid – we copied and adopted the Western form of democracy and neglected to build upon our own democratic tradition. The Western model allowed an elected leader to use power and the state machinery to advance the economic interests of his ethnic group and exclude all others [...]. Virtually all of Africa's civil wars were started by politically marginalized or excluded groups. At Africa's traditional village level, a chief is chosen by the Queen Mother of the royal family to rule for life. His appointment must be ratified by the Council of Elders, which consists of heads of extended families in the village. In governance, the chief must consult with the Council on all important matters. [...] If the chief and the Council cannot reach unanimous decision on an important issue, a village meeting is called and the issue put before the people, who will debate it until they reach a consensus. [...]

"If the chief is 'bad' he can be recalled by the Queen Mother, removed by the Council of Elders, or abandoned by the people, who will vote with their feet to settle somewhere else. [...] Africans could have built upon this system. In the West, the basic economic and social unit is the individual; in Africa, it is the extended family or the collective. The American says, 'I am because I am.' The African says, 'I am because we are.' The 'we' denotes the community. So let each group choose their leaders and place them in a National Assembly. Next, let each province or state choose their leaders and place them in a National Council. Choose the president from this National Council and avoid the huge expenditures on election campaigning that comes with Western-style democracy. Those resources can be better put to development in poor African countries. Next, let the president and National Council take their decisions by consensus. If there is a deadlock, refer the issue to the National Assembly. This type of democracy is in consonance with our own African heritage."

Ghanaian-born George Ayittey is a Distinguished Economist in Residence at American University, Washington, DC, a Research Fellow at the libertarian Independent Institute, and an Associate Scholar at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI). In 2008, the magazines "Prospect" (UK) and "Foreign Policy" (US) listed him as one of the "Top 100 Public Intellectuals".

Trend: Africa's Failing Democracies

The American magazine "Newsweek" yesterday published on its website a short article by Ethiopia-based journalist Jason McLure, titled "Africa's Failing Democracies".

The full text of the article can be read free of charge here:

www.newsweek.com/2010/07/02/africa-s-failing-democracies.html

Excerpts: "When [H]uman [R]ights Watch criticized the results of Ethiopia's May elections, in which the ruling coalition 'won' an improbable 545 out of 547 seats, leaders in Addis Ababa didn't ignore the influential NGO. Instead, they paid tens of thousands of demonstrators to gather in the capital and denounce the report. Ethiopia's political shenanigans are emblematic of a growing trend away from democracy in Africa. The swing includes not only pariah states like Eritrea and Sudan, but also U.S. allies like Rwanda, where President Paul Kagame is up for reelection and seems set to duplicate the improbable 95 percent victory he posted seven years ago. [...] In Gabon and Togo, the deaths of long-serving autocrats have meant elections in which power was smoothly transferred – to their sons, that is. Mauritania, Guinea, Madagascar, and Niger have all suffered coups in the past two years.

"Freedom House, a nonprofit that tracks democratic trends, dropped three African countries from its list of 'electoral democracies' last year, and reported declines in political freedom in 10 others. [...] Why the backsliding? It's partly thanks to the rise of China, which provides cheap loans and investment to resource-rich countries while asking no hard questions about human rights, thus strengthening the hold of authoritarian governments. The West is to blame, too. The Obama administration and its European allies have turned a blind eye to autocratic trends in places like Uganda, Burundi, and Ethiopia because of those countries' role in battling Islamists. [...] 'If this is their representation of democracy and human rights, they shouldn't talk about it anymore,' says Hailu Shawel, an Ethiopian opposition leader. 'They should shut up.'"

I can't figure out whether the article also appeared in print.

Article: Celebrating eleven years of democradura

Abba Gana Shettima's op-ed article "Celebrating eleven years of democradura" was published on 4 June in the Nigerian national daily newspaper "Daily Trust".

The full text of the article can be read free of charge here:

www.news.dailytrust.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=19931:celebrating-eleven-years-of-democradura&catid=49:opinion&Itemid=200

Excerpts: "A year after Nigeria returned to democratic rule in 1999, The Economist [...] narrated, in murky details, the tribulations confronting Africa. These range from natural disasters to the social plague of 'tribalism', and the failure of democracy and leadership, all combining to produce 'shell states'. According to the magazine, 'Democracy does not have much to offer Africa. Democracies are no more stable than dictatorships ... The African ruler finds himself trapped. He wants power and control; but the outside world makes demands about democracy, human rights and good governance [...]'. What the Economist did not contemplate was that Africa, or at least some parts of Africa, such as Nigeria could have the scientific ingenuity to clone their own breed of democracy. Nigeria, 'the giant of Africa' is leading the way in this social and political revolution of the 21st century. The trade mark of the Made in Nigeria Democracy is first and foremost the negation of the very principle of democracy. [...]

"In Nigerian democracy, elections are secondary, if at all important. Elections are conducted simply to mask the political thievery with a moral garment. Since 1999, Nigerian elections at all levels have been a sham. [...] Perhaps, the root of all the election malpractice in the country can be traced to the influence of money in the whole electoral process. Beginning from the level of party primaries to the actual elections, money is the magic that buys and shifts alliances. In Nigeria's cash and carry democracy, everybody has a price – ranging from the electoral officials and security agents to highly placed party delegates and desperate blue-collar political activists and passive voters on the streets. [...] [I]t is deceptive and futile to talk about enforcing due process in the award of contracts and the general conduct of government business when the leaders did not emerge through a due electoral process. How can leaders who emerged through rigging of elections become accountable to the people?

"Nigerian politicians keep telling us that it is all part of the painful 'learning process', and that the nation must endure to 'foster its nascent democracy', as if the country is a perpetual democratic toddler. [...] Now, because the leaders are not accountable to the people, the type of democracy they have succeeded in enforcing on the nation in the last eleven years comes close to what some scholars called democradura or 'hard democracy' – a very hard one for that matter, and habitually gruesome to the core. [...] Even as hundreds of thousands of poor people continue to languish and die in droves, the profligate political class keep stealing and hoarding the resources of the nation like some army of rapacious ants. [...] Do our politicians think that they can continue to subvert democracy to serve their personal interests, and keep hoping that the institution can be maintained? This democracy, the Nigerian democracy, this democradura appears to take so much pleasure in inflicting sufferings on its people. [...] This is why we should not celebrate the so-called 'democracy day', never again [...]."

Abba Gana Shettima is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Maiduguri, Nigeria.

Book: The Liberal Model and Africa: Elites Against Democracy

Kenneth Good, "The Liberal Model and Africa: Elites Against Democracy" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2001):

www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?PID=261248

Publisher's description: "This book critically examines the realities of liberal democracy; its elitism and non-accountability; and its inequalities and injustices. Participatory systems and movements, whether in Athens, seventeenth and nineteenth century England, or South Africa 1970-1990, are more effective in satisfying the democratic aspirations of the people and in curtailing ambitious elites, than what is passed off now as 'democracy'. By interrogating contemporary democratic regimes, in the United States, and in Botswana and South Africa, the severe limitations and constraints inherent in liberal democracy are highlighted. The need for a clear evaluation of what constituted democracy emerges as a powerful message of Kenneth Good's argument."

Endorsements: "[A] searching, powerful and innovative critique of liberal democracy, notably as it has arrived in Southern Africa." (Roger Southall, Rhodes University)

"This is indeed a useful and timely contribution to the democracy debate in Africa." (Francis B. Nyamnjoh, University of Botswana)

Review: "[Kenneth Good] illustrates in this important book, no country [...] has embraced participatory democracy with its egalitarian face, preferring instead the elitism of the liberal model." ("The Sunday Independent")

Australian-born Kenneth Good was Professor of Political Studies at the University of Botswana. He was declared an "undesirable person" and deported from Botswana in 2005.

Book: The Rule of Law without the State

The late Michael van Notten's book "The Law of the Somalis: A Stable Foundation for Economic Development in the Horn of Africa" was published posthumously, edited by Spencer Heath MacCallum (Red Sea Press, 2005):

www.africaworldpressbooks.com/servlet/Detail?no=9

Publisher's description: "Written by a trained and sympathetic observer, this book shows how Somali customary law differs fundamentally from most statutory law. Lawbreakers, instead of being punished, are simply required to compensate their victim. Because every Somali is insured by near kin against his or her liabilities under the law, a victim seldom fails to receive compensation. Somali law, being based on custom, has no need of legislation or legislators. It is therefore happily free of political influences. The author notes some specific areas that stand in need of change, but finds such change already implicit in further economic development. Somali politics is based on consensus. The author explains how it works and shows why any attempt to establish democracy, which would divide the population into two classes – those who rule and those who are ruled – must inevitably produce chaos. Viewed in global perspective, Somali law stands with the Latin and Medieval laws and the English common law against the statutory law that became prominent in Europe with the modern nation-state. This book explains many seeming anomalies about present-day Somalia and describes its prospects as well as the dangers facing it."

Dutch-born libertarian Michael van Notten (1933-2002), a Law graduate of Leiden University, spent the last twelve years of his life promoting economic development in Awdal, Somalia.

The book's editor, Spencer Heath MacCallum, is also the author of a number of articles on Somalia, among them "The Rule of Law without the State", published by the libertarian Ludwig von Mises Institute in its "Mises Daily" on 12 September 2007.

The article can be read free of charge here:

http://mises.org/daily/2701

Excerpts: "Were there such a category, Somalia would hold a place in Guinness World Records as the country with the longest absence of a functioning central government. When the Somalis dismantled their government in 1991 and returned to their precolonial political status, the expectation was that chaos would result – and that, of course, would be the politically correct thing to expect. Imagine if it were otherwise. Imagine any part of the globe not being dominated by a central government and the people there surviving, even prospering. If such were to happen and the idea spread to other parts of Africa or other parts of the world, the mystique of the necessity of the state might be irreparably damaged, and many politicians and bureaucrats might find themselves walking about looking for work. [...]

"[A] study published last year by Benjamin Powell of the Independent Institute, concludes: 'We find that Somalia's living standards have improved generally ... not just in absolute terms, but also relative to other African countries since the collapse of the Somali central government.' Somalia's pastoral economy is now stronger than that of either neighboring Kenya or Ethiopia. It is the largest exporter of livestock of any East African country. Telecommunications have burgeoned in Somalia; a call from a mobile phone is cheaper in Somalia than anywhere else in Africa. [...] All of this is terribly politically incorrect for the reason I suggested. Consequently, the United Nations has by now spent well over two billion dollars attempting to re-establish a central government in Somalia. But here is the irony: it is the presence of the United Nations that has caused virtually all of the turbulence we have seen in Somalia. [...]

"Like most of precolonial Africa, Somalia is traditionally a stateless society. When the colonial powers withdrew, in order to better serve their purposes, they hastily trained local people and set up European-style governments in their place. These were supposed to be democratic. But they soon devolved into brutal dictatorships. Democracy is unworkable in Africa for several reasons. The first thing that voting does is to divide a population into two groups – a group that rules and a group that is ruled. This is completely at variance with Somali tradition. Second, if democracy is to work, it depends in theory, at least, upon a populace that will vote on issues. But in a kinship society such as Somalia, voting takes place not on the merit of issues but along group lines; one votes according to one's clan affiliation. Since the ethic of kinship requires loyalty to one's fellow clansmen, the winners use the power of government to benefit their own members, which means exploitation of the members of other clans.

"Consequently when there exists a governmental apparatus with its awesome powers of taxation and police and judicial monopoly, the interests of the clans conflict. Some clan will control that apparatus. To avoid being exploited by other clans, each must attempt to be that controlling clan. The turmoil in Somalia consists in the clans maneuvering to position themselves to control the government whenever it might come into being, and this has been exacerbated by the governments of the world, especially the United States, keeping alive the expectation that a government will soon be established and supplying arms to whoever seems at present most likely to be able to 'bring democracy' to Somalia. [...]

"A [...] point about the Xeer [customary law] is that there is no monopoly of police or judicial services. Anyone is free to serve in those capacities as long as he is not at the same time a religious or political dignitary, since that would compromise the sharp separation of law, politics, and religion. Also, anyone performing in such a role is subject to the same laws as anyone else – and more so: if he violates the law, he must pay heavier damages or fines than would apply to anyone else. Public figures are expected to show exemplary conduct. [...] Michael van Notten's book describing this system of law deserves to be better known and widely read. It is the first study of any customary law to treat it not as a curiosity of the past, but as potentially instructive for a future free society."

Spencer Heath MacCallum, a social anthropologist and business consultant, is a Research Fellow at the libertarian Independent Institute.

Article: Can we afford this democracy?

"Can we afford this democracy?" is an article by Moses Ochonu that appeared serialized over the past few weeks in Nigeria's "Peoples Daily" newspaper.

The article can be read free of charge online:

Part I:
www.peoplesdaily-online.com/index.php/columnists/thursday-columnists/126-thursday-columnists/9798-can-we-afford-this-democracy-i

Part II:
www.peoplesdaily-online.com/index.php/columnists/thursday-columnists/126-thursday-columnists/10228-can-we-afford-this-democracy-ii

Part III:
www.peoplesdaily-online.com/index.php/columnists/thursday-columnists/126-thursday-columnists/10730-can-we-afford-this-democracy-iii

Excerpts: "I am starting a three-part commentary to raise some pertinent questions about our so-called democratic dispensation. [...]
I am resentful of the finality and triumphalism with which democracy fanatics define their fanciful concept. I have also sensed a disturbing complacency in our politicians and intellectuals as they try to enunciate democracy for the rest of us. They assume erroneously that democracy is its own justification – that simply being baptized with the moniker of democracy is sufficient. And that Nigerians, dispossessed they may be, will be satisfied with a political concept that, as currently practiced in Nigeria, stands empty of its substantive content. [...] My good friend, Ikhide Ikheloa, a literary critic and Next columnist, has been on a personal mission. His aim: to orchestrate the demise of our current 'democracy.' He is so convinced that democracy is a mortal danger to Nigerians that he equates its dissolution to an epic struggle for political liberation; liberation from predation and legalized, 'democratic' oppression.

"For Ikhide, democracy has, far from doing Nigeria good, set the country back decades and provided a perfect alibi for the political class to bankrupt and bury the country once and for all. [...] The material promise of democracy, that is, the supposed correlation between democracy and improved standards of living, has yet to materialize for Nigerians in almost eleven unbroken years of 'democracy.' [...] Even advertized abstract benefits like press freedom, human rights, the right to free political choice, and the right to make deliberative input in governance have all been denied Nigerians under this democracy. While we saw flickers of these benefits in the wake of military disengagement in 1999, today's 'democratic' environment resembles the regimented, freedom-less days of military rule. [...] 'Democracy' has provided the perfect alibi for corruption – massive corruption. 'Democracy' has – forgive the redundancy – democratized corruption. Under the military, corruption was essentially a quasi-monopoly; it was tightly controlled by a small cohort. Under our 'democracy,' the need to cultivate political support and immunity means that the loot has to circulate.

"Democracy has also made corruption legitimate. [...] Under our current 'democratic' practice public officials steal legally. They only have to underwrite what they steal as a licit item in the budget bill. [...] Democracy has licensed and unleashed novel evils on our country. [...] Nigerian public office holders at all levels are the highest paid in the world. Together with their string of assistants and advisers (who also have their own paid advisers), our public officers gobble up at least half of our revenue and budgetary appropriations in legitimate rewards. [...] This prohibitive overhead has left us with a smaller pool of funds than ever to invest in the things that matter to Nigerians: roads, healthcare, schools, water, electricity, and food. This odd financial state of low return on 'democratic' investment is unsustainable. Something has to give. [...]

"The country now teeters precariously because the ritualistic niceties of democracy stand in the way of pragmatic, decisive, patriotic action. This preference for process over productive outcomes is one reason why democracy is losing its appeal with many Nigerians. [...] The irritant [...] is that 'democracy' has been reduced in practice to – and accepted as being constituted by – only one of its many elements: the ritualistic conduct of periodic, incumbent-rigged elections. Every other hyped benefit of democracy has eluded Nigerians. [...] Instead of asking how a policy might help Nigerians, officials ask how it would win them the next elections – how it would enrich campaign donors and party godfathers and how much it would generate for the election war chest. This permanent campaign culture is a costly drawback of democracy [...]. With such a low return on democracy, and with 'democracy' being so costly and toxic to the body politic, it is no surprise that many Nigerians have begun to question their loyalty to the received wisdom that democracy is superior to its alternatives.

"For many Nigerians and Africans democracy has failed. [...] So glaring is this failure and so painful are the betrayals of Africa's 'democrats' that ten thousand Nigeriens recently poured into the streets of Niamey to rally in support of the new military regime there. Westerners may be scrambling to comprehend this dramatic reversal of public opinion from a craving for a democratic overthrow of a military dictatorship eleven years ago to an enthusiastic embrace of a military overthrow of a 'democratic' regime today. But this is something that people in neighboring Nigeria can explain and understand. [...] There is no innate or sacred loyalty to democracy in Nigerians – or, for that matter, in any other people. The degree of Nigerians' attachment to the concept corresponds to the benefits that they see it delivering or the damage it is doing to their lives. This is why democracy is suffering setbacks across Africa. [...]

"The question is: what is democracy's worth if the way we practice it imperils our country and its people and widens the crevices that divide us? Would we rather preserve a pretentious democracy and lose the nation? [...] Most Nigerians [...] would prefer an effective military regime that consciously improves their lives to a 'democratic' regime that is preoccupied with a systematic violation of their lives and rights. [...] Nigeria's intellectual and political elites are fond of saying that the worst democratic regime is better than the best military regime. This is at best elitist, out-of-touch rhetoric, a talking point of pro-democracy advocacy. Most Nigerians would reject this proposition outright."

Nigerian-born Moses Ochonu is Assistant Professor of History at Vanderbilt University in the USA.

Book: Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa

Dambisa Moyo, "Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa", with a foreword by Harvard professor Niall Ferguson (Allan Lane/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009):

http://us.macmillan.com/Book.aspx?isbn=9780374139568

From the publisher's description: "In the past fifty years, more than $1 trillion in development-related aid has been transferred from rich countries to Africa. Has this assistance improved the lives of Africans? No. In fact, across the continent, the recipients of this aid are not better off as a result of it, but worse – much worse. In Dead Aid, Dambisa Moyo [...] illuminates the way in which overreliance on aid has trapped developing nations in a vicious circle of aid dependency, corruption, market distortion, and further poverty [...]. Dead Aid is an unsettling yet optimistic work, a powerful challenge to the assumptions and arguments that support a profoundly misguided development policy in Africa. And it is a clarion call to a new, more hopeful vision of how to address the desperate poverty that plagues millions."

Excerpts: "Alongside [the aid requirement of good] governance emerged the West's growing obsession with democracy for the developing world. The installation of democracy was the donor's final refuge; the last-ditch attempt to show that aid interventions could work, would work, if only the political conditions were right. [...] For the West, the process of open and fair elections had taken centuries to evolve, but the hope was that (coupled with aid) shoe-horning democracy into underdeveloped nations would guarantee that African countries would see a sudden change in their economic and political fortunes. Yet [...] any improvements in Africa's economic profile have been largely achieved in spite of (nominal) democracy, not because of it. [...]

"In a perfect world, what poor countries at the lowest rungs of economic development need is not a multi-party democracy, but in fact a decisive benevolent dictator to push through the reforms required to get the economy moving [...]. One only has to look to the history of Asian economies (China, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand) to see how this is borne out. And even beyond Asia, Pinochet's Chile and Fujimori's Peru are examples of economic success in lands bereft of democracy. [...] What is clear is that democracy is not the prerequisite for economic growth that aid proponents maintain. On the contrary, it is economic growth that is a prerequisite for democracy; and the one thing economic growth does not need is aid. [...]

"[L]ike it or not, the Chinese are coming. And it is in Africa that their campaign for global dominance will be solidified. [...] Whether or not Chinese domination is in the interest of the average African today is irrelevant. [...] [I]n the immediate term a woman in rural Dongo cares less about the risk to her democratic freedom in forty years' time than about putting food on her table tonight. [...] The secret of China's success is that its foray into Africa is all business."

Zambian-born Dambisa Moyo, a former consultant for the World Bank and Head of Economic Research and Strategy for Sub-Saharan Africa at Goldman Sachs, holds a PhD in Economics from Oxford.

Article: Should Africa be held to Western standards?: No

Just over a year ago, the British Broadcasting Corporation's "Focus on Africa" magazine, a quarterly publication of the BBC World Service, carried a debate titled "Should Africa be held to Western standards?" (19 [4], October 2008: pp. 36-7).

The debate was republished on 16 October 2008 under the headline "Head to head: African democracy" on the BBC News website, where it can still be read free of charge:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7671283.stm

Lead (on the website): "Almost two decades on from the difficult birth of multi-party democracy in much of Africa, the BBC's Focus on Africa magazine asks whether the continent should be held to western standards of democracy?"

The "Yes" position (p. 36 in the magazine) was taken by an African American, the "No" position (p. 37), which interests us here, by a black African, Reason Wafawarova.

Excerpts: "There are a few factors that make Western-style parliamentary democracy a facade at best in Africa. Many African states are still struggling to become nations after the damaging imposition of colonial boundaries. Without national unity it is futile to preach Western-style democracy in these countries. It is best to first establish clearly what the various tribal groupings want collectively. [...] Evidently the Western social order is not necessarily the same as that found elsewhere in the world. As such, many people are simply not prepared to pretend to be Europeans in the name of so-called democracy.

"The West cannot democratise the world on matters such as morality, culture and freedom. These are value-based aspects of social life that vary from country to country if not village to village. [...] Africa has an opinion of its own and Africans have their own homogeneous aspirations towards happiness and prosperity. They do not need Western aid in defining what happiness is. It is the sometimes subversive interference in the internal affairs of African countries that undermines the democratic process on the continent. The argument that the West cannot leave Africans killing each other is puerile. One only has to look at how often Europeans have killed each other in the past, but also how they continue to kill people of various nationalities across the world today. [...]

"Lastly, democracy is now viewed in line with human rights and the West seems to preach the primacy of individual rights over collective rights. African culture is a collective system that views the well-being of society as being fundamental to the well-being of the individual. This is why there is a tendency to check individual freedom in the interest of peace and stability. This is often interpreted as repression, yet in Africa it is about the maintenance of order. [...] Considering all these factors it is difficult to believe that Western standards of democracy – to which the world is subjected today – will ever in essence facilitate any form of meaningful democracy in Africa."

Zimbabwean-born Reason Wafawarova is a Marxist/Pan-Africanist political analyst and freelance journalist now living in Sydney, Australia.

Book chapter: Elective Aristocracy as a Form of Government for African Nations

Bekeh Ukelina Utietiang's book "Afridentity: Essays on Africa" (2nd edition; Africa Reads Books, 2007) includes a chapter on the failure of democracy in that continent and the solution he proposes, "Elective Aristocracy as a Form of Government for African Nations" (pp. 99-109).

Excerpts: "African politics today is perverted and highly trivialized; corrupt people have been chosen to govern, and massive riggings and irregularities accompany the elections. [...] They are not just an African problem, however, but are common in other nations in the world where democracy is forced on the people. [...] Ideally, politics is inseparable from a people's culture; but colonialism brought to Africa a separation of culture from politics. The indigenous political culture of the people was abolished and a new political culture called 'Democracy' was introduced. [...] African leaders were ill-equipped to run democracy because democracy is alien to them. [...] One would have expected the emerging African leaders to return to the traditional African forms of government [...]. Chiefs and elders governed [...].

"We have always believed that democracy is not the best form of government for African countries to adopt. This position is contrary to what the rest of the world today believes. Most of our friends have become our foes because of this position. [...] There is no essay or presentation we have ever done that received as much criticism as our position on democracy in African countries. We have consistently argued that democracy is un-African and African governments should abandon the pursuit of it in favor of a traditional African form of government. [...] Our experiences in Africa in the last forty years or more have clearly shown that democracy is not for Africa. [...] African leaders[' ...] projects are not geared towards helping the common African but in [sic] aping the Europeans."

At the end of this chapter, Utietiang refers to an earlier book which may contain a more extensive exposition of his arguments against democracy, "Rediscovering Our Identity as Africans: Awareness"
(Ibadan, Nigeria: Schoen Publishers, 2000).

While that book may be hard to come by, the later book is fully searchable on Google Book Search (including full table of contents):

http://books.google.com/books?id=MIgKoqtc7ogC&printsec=frontcover

Nigerian-born Bekeh Ukelina Utietang is a priest in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, West Virginia, USA.

Article: The Failure of Democracy in Africa

Mukui Waruiru's article "The Failure of Democracy in Africa", published on 31 October 2007 online in "Taki's Magazine", voices a sentiment that I have personally heard expressed by other black Africans too.

www.takimag.com/site/article/the_failure_of_democracy_in_africa/

Excerpts: "Pure democracy is a system that works well in particular cultures, and not all cultures are equally capable of building harmonious democratic societies. [...] [In] Sub-Saharan Africa, [...] the introduction of pure democracy 50 years ago resulted in disaster for the people of the region. [...] If anything, in many countries, Africans enjoyed greater personal freedom and prosperity under colonial rule, than they do today under independent governments. [...] Putting restrictions on the vote using poll taxes, literacy tests, and property ownership qualifications, has helped many Western nations to preserve liberty and order for centuries. [...] Universal suffrage is a very recent development in the West. [...] Given that Britain and the US took so long to build well-functioning democratic systems, it is unrealistic to expect African nations to have set up successful democratic societies, given the high poverty rates and the low levels of civilization of most of the population. [...]

"Ian Douglas Smith, the former Prime Minister of Rhodesia, [...] was falsely labeled as a racist and white supremacist [...], unlike the architects of apartheid in neighboring South Africa, [...] Smith recognized that the low levels of education and cultural development of most of the blacks, made the establishment of a successful pure democracy a difficult undertaking. [...] Facing a possible future of either a Marxist dictatorship or anarchy, the Rhodesian leadership declared independence and prevented Britain from imposing majority rule in the colony. [...] Blacks were allowed to have 16 seats in the 66 member Rhodesian parliament, [...] [e]ventually, white and black Rhodesians would share power in the Rhodesian Parliament, under a 50-50 arrangement. [...] But the international community would not accept anything less than black majority rule. [...] Smith can accurately be described as a prophet, because he predicted disaster for Rhodesia [now called Zimbabwe] once it came under the control of the communist terrorist, Robert Mugabe."

Mukui Waruiru is the founder of the African Conservative Forum, a Christian human rights and public policy organization based in Nairobi, Kenya.

Book: Liberal Democracy and Its Critics in Africa

Tukumbi Lumumba-Kasongo is the editor of a volume on "Liberal Democracy and Its Critics in Africa: Political Dysfunction and the Struggle for Social Progress" (Zed Books, 2005):

www.zedbooks.co.uk/book.asp?bookdetail=3839

Publisher's description: "The institutional forms and processes of democracy are spreading in Africa as dictatorial regimes have been forced to give way. But democratic form and democratic substance are two different things. Western-derived institutional forms are neither necessarily the most approprate [sic] nor the most practical in the current African context, and rooting democratic norms in African political cultures raises socio-cultural questions. This book draws on the experiences of particular African elections and countries to explore [...] whether democratic processes as currently practised in Africa are really making any difference."

The book is fully searchable on Google Book Search (including list of contributors and table of contents):

http://books.google.com/books?id=s09OMQN5UPoC&printsec=frontcover

"New Agenda" commended: "An important, well-grounded and stimulating contribution to current debates on democratisation, both in Africa and globally."

Tukumbi Lumumba-Kasongo is Professor of Political Science at Wells College.