Democracy vs. African democracy

They say: "democracy is the government of the people, for the people, by the people." Is it though? Theoretically, a democratic state promotes majority rule imposed to the minority rule. Really?

Democracy is a political system of ruling a country. Some say democracy is the most progressive and successful system of all governing systems that ever existed in history, but I doubt it works for the African continent. Due to democracy’s progressiveness (in the west), many countries around the globe have adopted democracy as the preferred system of governance.

In continents such as Europe, Australia, North and South America and Asia, democracy has succeeded in the majority of their countries, but in African states this system has collapsed and it continues detoriorating, even in the few countries that appeared to be implementing the system accordingly.  In this continent, we have what I call "African democracy". The success of democracy in other continents is because of their state governments ensuring that the interests of the nation (a sovereign state and its people) are in the forefront to those of individuals (ruling elite).

However, in most African states, democracy has failed due to certain minorities and individuals finding it hard to accept the majority rule notion that democracy praises. The major cause of democracy failure in many African countries are certain individuals putting their personal interests before those of their country’s citizens.

One other aspect that has imposed a major threat to democratic consolidation in Africa is the presence of many different ethnic groups with their different interests and beliefs. Due to this variety of ethnic groups, people in these ethnics tend to misunderstand democracy as they perceive it as a system that allows a certain ethnic group to dominate and have more power than others in making decisions that indicate the direction of the country. And in this case, the misunderstanding has led to conflicts and resulted to civil wars and thus democratic consolidation collapse.

The unhealed wounds that were caused by colonialism and apartheid in African countries are another challenge that threatens democratic consolidation in the African continent. The previously oppressed during the colonial and apartheid era which is blacks, believe that now is their turn to do what they want in what they believe to be the soil of their forefathers and certain heads of State refuse to leave presidential office  by ignoring the outcomes of the democratic elections, and thus democratic consolidation fail.

 Initiatives such as those invented to give better opportunities to the “previously disadvantaged” at the expense of qualifying and competent candidates is one of the African nationalisation policies that threatens democratic consolidation and also threatens the economic growth and development of African States. South Africa’s affirmative action and Black Economic Empowerment’s failure are a clear indication of "African democracy's" downfall..

The African democracy has in numerous times also resulted to different race groups working to fulfil their race group’s interests in a nation State and thus democratic consolidation collapse. This has also resulted to the arrogance tendency by African heads of State in international organisations such as the United Nations. As a result of this, we have and continue to observe African leaders protecting each other for stupidity in the UN councils such as the Security Council which is the most vital component to consolidate democracy in the world.

The variety of religious groups is another huge challenge facing democratic consolidation.

Africanism, too much variety of ethnic and tribal groups and religious groups are the major stumbling blocks to democratic consolidation and in my opinion, as long as these aspects exist or not addressed properly, democratic consolidation will never be accomplished. Samora Marchel once wrote “For a nation to live, tribe must die”.       

Voter apathy- a course for concern

The year 1994 marked a new dispensation for South African politics as citizens from all racial groups independently voted for a political party of their choice, for the first time in SA’s political history. A few months before the historic elections, various political organizations campaigned for votes by promising the electorate of delivering basic services for all.

After 17 years of political freedom in the very southern tip of the African continent, many voters, particularly young ones appear to be losing interest in voting for a number of different reasons. Amongst other reasons they claim that they have not seen any development or service delivery in their communities. Service delivery protests have been rife in the past few years with citizens expressing their anger and frustration over what they call the lack of service delivery by the government voted to power by them.

Grievances of certain communities have not been attended to by government and the electorate of such areas has opted to boycott voting in the May 18 local government elections. Voter apathy is predominantly amongst the youth, who are the most affected by unemployment, lack of development and poor service delivery in their communities. It came as no surprise to me when I observed that when others were standing in long queues at voting stations, some young people decided to organize sport tournaments at the expense of casting their votes.

The electorate appears to have had enough of what they term the blame game and empty promises by South African political parties. The youth is done watching the elite of politicians living luxury and lavish lifestyles while the young ones are running up and down the streets as a result of poverty and lack of decent jobs. It is high time that political parties change their ways as far as service delivery is concerned or the continuous voter apathy might mark  the birth of political unrest and civil war in SA, as a result of competition for survival and state resources.

Addiction is inevitable

Everyone is addicted to something, be it morally good or bad. Them societal description of the term “addiction” turn to be bias as it defines addiction as the devotion to morally wrong activities such as regular drinking of  alcohol and drug consumption.

Addiction is naturally like a two-ways street and goes hand in hand with habit, simply put no habit, no addiction. The more one performs a particular activity, the more that activity become a habit and thus developing into an addiction.

Participation in social media has invaded the lives of young people in the 21^st century to a point that they simply can’t avoid it. One thing about addiction is that it becomes hard to get completely get rid of it once addicted in something, even when the addict feels that their addiction is complicating or dramatizing their lives.

Certain addictions may at times make the addict seem stupid or foolish to spectators and one such addiction is that of using social networking sites such as Mxit, twitter and Facebook. Nowadays it is common to see people laughing alone to their mobile phones in public and you question their mental stability, only to find out they have been laughing at a funny status update by a friend on Facebook or a tweet on twitter.

Many alcohol addicts start consuming alcohol to experiment or to enjoy themselves for a moment and before they know it, they cannot go a single weekend without “one or two beers” and thus addiction takes over their lives. When I first started watching and listening to news on radio and television at the age of 8, I was just a young curious boy who wanted to be informed about the world around him, but today if a day passes without me having listened or watched some news, I go crazy just like an alcohol addict who goes to bed for one day without having had “two beers”.

At the end of the day, we are all addicts in our own nature, but what matters is the progressiveness or lack thereof of an individual’s addiction. This is better explained by a famous Xhosa idiom which states “Umntu yiNkosi ukuzazi” which translates to “Everyone is the Master of his/her own character and personality.

Attention US: The front man might be dead, but his followers live!!!

On Monday, the 2nd of May 2011, the United States of America reported the death of the Osama Bin Laden, the founder of the popular terrorist organisation named Al Qaeda. USA president Barack Obama officially announced to US civilians and the rest of the world that Bin Laden had been found and killed by US special troops in a compound outside the town of Abbottabad in Pakistan.

Bin Laden is said to have masterminded famous September-11-2001 crashing of the World Trade Centre which claimed closed to 3000 lives. Osama’s Al Qaeda is also reported to have caused a huge havoc and mayhem in other countries around the world such as the bombing in Kenya which killed approximately 300 people a few years back.

Americans civilians celebrated and danced outside the White House as a confident Obama made the announcement which he called one of the greatest achievements in USA’s history. The UK as usual did not waste time echoing Obama’s sentiments and many other heads of state followed suit congratulating the world’s economic powerhouse for what they phrased ‘a job well done’.

As the US and the rest of the world rejoice the death of Bin Laden, the question that comes to my mind is has human become so heartless to a point of celebrating the loss of a human soul? My varsity mates almost chopped my head telling me Bin Laden deserved to die as he has “killed” many innocent souls in his spell on planet earth. Martin Luther King Jnr was quoted saying “I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy.” I strongly share Luther King Jnr’s sentiments and I believe that the US should be charged of murder and for invasion of a sovereign state (Pakistan).

United States appear to have turned a blind eye to the fact that Bin Laden was just a leader in a terrorist organisation comprising of huge membership, which will definitely not let the killing of Bin Laden be water under the bridge. A Pakistani popular terrorist group Taliban has already pointed out that they are going to retaliate against the US government for killing Bin Laden and illegally raiding their country.

The whereabouts of the Taliban remain unknown, which is something the most powerful nation in the world and its affiliates should be worried of given the threatening track record of Taliban as far as terrorism is concerned. USA has touched the snake in the tail as it is now facing a possibility of being attacked by 2 of the most dangerous terrorist organisations in the globe (Al Qaeda and Taliban). It is interesting to observe that the Al Qaeda head might be killed, but the rest of Al Qaeda members are unknown, in fact nobody knows what plan or strategy they might be currently up to.