Feature Article of Friday, 19 September 2014

Columnist: Kwarteng, Francis

George Orwells Animal Farm sums it up best like no other.

It is common knowledge democracy is not a perfect praxis of electoral politics anywhere, not in the West, Asia, Africa, or heaven, for, if it actually were, particularly in heaven, the Devil would at least have been given a fair chance at due process and probably would not have been banished to earth, the natural abode of human mortals, where he allegedly wrecks untold spiritual havoc and unilaterally imposes a dilemma of moral choices upon man through the osteoporotic edifice of human infallibility. We have been told this since the beginning of Biblical time. Perhaps due process has no equivalent in matters of spirituality. Of course these are emotional statements from a carnal mind, borrowed observations that do not want to see themselves construed as bereaved icons of rhetoric homily. Liberal democracy is not made for the heavens where God exercises his rulership with absolute authority. Ask the Devil and his likeminded retinue of fallen angels! This is just by the way.

What is the point? The point has to do with the political exigencies of democratic literalism in the Ghanaian context!

What are the intentions behind democratization? First, this question is not unrelated to the multiplicity of conditions under which the technical expectations of democracy thrive. Second, it is not beyond the bounds of reason to read the latter query as an academic question. Indeed the dancing silhouette of democracy looks so philosophically beautiful, so aesthetically charming, at least against the white paper of theoretic elucidation. It may even look theoretically romantic with expressive possibilities within utopian worlds buried beyond the restrictive boundaries of human consciousness. Yet answers to our questions may vary according to a wide sweep of indices including, but not limited to, geography; history; industrial or technological advancement; a countrys citizens educational level or a countrys educational spread; degree of religious, racial, and ethnic tolerance; moral strength and relative independence of institutional operationalization; how well-informed a countrys citizens generally are; equitable distribution of national wealth; freedom of speech and of press against a backcloth of moral responsibility; respect for human rights; and the like.

Verily, those are the indispensable political variables, not democracy of kleptomania, kleptocracy, which Ghanaian leaders should assiduously be working on. But no, short-term investment in political kleptomania to the average Ghanaian politician seems more attractively lucrative than long-term moral investiture in the national enterprise of development economics. It must, however, be pointed out that this suite of indices is not always acquirable in a democracy, not even in the much-vaunted democracies in the West. This is not to say societies or well-meaning individuals should not vigorously pursue them in the cause of national growth and development. It is the contrary that should not be settled for or entertained. After all, human beings are by nature imbued with the essential ontology of mediating moral choices, call it freewill if you like, and no amount of autocratic delimitation can stifle that innate tendency toward free expression against the dilemmatic arbitration of moral choices.

On the other hand, the elastic potentiality of mans innate infallibility does mean that certain oversight structures must be put in place to chaperone his behavioral excesses. The structural idiomatic language may assume the form of religion or secularity. Arguably not everything about religion is sensitively egregious. On the contrary, religion is necessarily bad, even egregious, only insofar as it imprisons human intellect in the four walls of ignorance, preventing it from active fruition in the progressive development of individual characters, of communities. Religion made Mother Teresa and Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. Adolf Hitler was a Catholic, Idi Amin a Moslem, Richard Nixon a Quaker. Religion, especially Islam and Judeo-Christianity, made Apartheid and slavery possible. That is a piece of moral irony of the highest order! In the main, religion becomes a dangerous enemy of human intellect or progress when it uncompromisingly opposes mans innate tendencies toward community, tolerance, critical thinking, moderation, and philanthropy.

There is more to the divisive particularities of religious expressiveness than meets the eye. Generally, the excesses of personal convictions tend to lack a legitimacy of moral compass in the autocratic direction of communal prerogatives. The sum total of communal prerogatives, it seems, tends to skew more toward a corrective inherence of moral objectivity when the miasma of individual excesses threatens the edifice of social morality than toward the moral individuation of human uniqueness. Yet a community cannot always be morally right. An obvious implication is that, the autocratic proclivities of secular theology are where to look for etiological answers in respect of communal dereliction, when the example of moral individuation fails public morality.

An important question to ask ourselves is therefore this: Why does man behave like lower animals, his closest siblings, on the phylogenetic tree of political actuation? Answer! Answer! Answer! Where is that answer? Hiding! Where exactly? Nonetheless, before answering this question, let us bear in mind that, like ants, bees, and primates, human beings are primarily social, not solitary, animals, creatures endowed with seemingly limitless quanta of innate intelligence. More significantly, this innate intelligence harbors hints of generational renewal, of transformational creativity. We are implying that human beings have what it takes to fashion progressive social conditions that could measure up to the moral standards of human dignity. Granted, why are Ghanaian politicians in particular and politicians in general habituated to the dogmatic theology of political eusociality, more often than not putting on the behavioral airs of wasps, bees, and ants in a world supposed to be one of humanized sociality? Man has not sufficiently answered this question!

Originally posted here:
What Sort Of Democracy Is This (1)?

One of the easiest ways to bluff your way through the Scottish referendum has been to drop the words anti-politics into conversations. For extra spice you add that a tide of anger is rising against the political classes across Europe. Then, to sound especially wise and clear-sighted, you say that unless politicians deal with this problem, theyll always struggle with insurgent parties.

The problem with diagnosing popular anti-establishment sentiment with truisms like these is it becomes enough just to say them. So after this years European elections, the Westminster party leaders muttered sourly about lessons learnt while Nigel Farage leapt around shouting about political earthquakes. Earthquakes destroy, but the political establishment looks remarkably similar four months on. Will it really ever change?

Its difficult to feel optimistic. Some at the top of the Conservative and Labour parties think anti-politics is simply a media myth. When you go out campaigning, no one talks about anti-politics, one source insists. Meanwhile former Michael Gove aide Dominic Cummings recalls a No 10 session where, he says, it became clear that David Cameron and colleagues thought that public discontent would simply fade away. Others are comforted that Ukip isnt really anti-politics at all, and will only become less so as it becomes more professional and enters Parliament.

Some MPs, however, do realise that public frustration with the political class wont just evaporate. But they are torn over how to respond. Many look with admiration and envy at big beasts such as Boris Johnson, who can take on outsiders and swat them away. But few, if any, have the Mayors confidence and ebullience. Those who proceed as though they can get away with what Boris gets away with quickly learn often to their chagrin that they cant.

So how can established parties show voters theyre changing their ways? Two MPs have been mulling over this question for the past few months and both say theyve found the answer in bingo halls and bars.

Gloria de Piero (Lab, Ashfield) ran a project called Why Do People Hate Me? Instead of waiting for people to pitch up at her constituency surgery or public meeting, she toured aerobics classes, bingo halls and pubs to find normal voters. She even commissioned the pollster YouGov to find out why people loathed politicians. The MP emerged oddly optimistic, believing shed found the answer. Her colleague Alison McGovern (Lab, Wirral South) spent 19 evenings in a pub over the summer asking similar questions, and reached the same conclusion: solving anti-politics is quite simple.

What is this secret solution? Both women claim that it is simply bothering to engage with people who find politics a bore. When I explained my job, people said that sounds really interesting, how do I get into it, says de Piero. That gave me a little bit of hope. Her YouGov poll even revealed that a surprising 24 per cent of voters would consider standing as an MP if someone suggested it. McGovern found the same. When we run surgeries weve got a number of people back-to-back, so we cant just talk about how things are going, and when we go campaigning, we dont tend to knock on the doors of people who dont vote. So we dont engage.

This sounds simple. Far too simple. But perhaps thats what the problem is. Its like those secret of a successful marriage articles which neglect to mention the obvious things like spending time together. If no one bothers just to natter with voters, rather than trying to pin down whether their political preference has shifted since they were last canvassed, then no wonder people feel that the political classes dont speak for them. Perhaps the best thing MPs can do now that the referendum is over is to head down to the pub.

Excerpt from:
MPs who want to connect with voters should head down to the pub