In his article entitled “AFRICA: BETWEEN MESS AND DEMOCRATIC DESIRES”, our colleague Serge Mathias Tomondji does well to ask himself the following questions:
“Should we free ourselves from this straitjacket and let the people decide whether or not to reappoint their leaders to the polls? How can democracy impact the daily lives of rural populations, for example, who do not know much about this institutional architecture? How can we promote integrity and good governance, which are also real pillars of democratic exercise? What should democracy in Africa ultimately be based on? Should we reread and reformat democracy as it is practiced on the continent? More than thirty years after the national conferences, should we convene the States General of Africa to think of a new model of institutional functioning? »
And then responds by himself:
“Many questions to which the changes currently underway on the continent should find adequate answers, keeping in mind that the majority of Africa aspires to democracy, freedom and development.
The Afrobarometer institute, which compiled data from 36 countries on the issue in 2021-2022, reveals that 66%, or two thirds of Africans, “prefer democracy to any other form of government”, while “78% reject single-party regimes and 67% reject military regimes. Also note that 67% of respondents are in favor of media freedom, while “73% of Africans approve of limiting the number of presidential terms”.
Data that sheds light on the desires for democracy, alternation and freedom in these times when Africa is once again seeking its bearings, between refoundation, resurgence of coups d'Etat, fight against terrorism and multiform and multidimensional crises..."
Indeed, it should be recognized in all honesty that “the limitation of presidential mandates does not necessarily offer a guarantee for alternation and some even think that it does not constitute a guarantee of democratic success and development”. But it is because African countries are currently looking for the best democratic path that suits them that the Constituent has chosen, out of prudence and security, to limit presidential mandates. To avoid the mandates of Presidents-for-life that Africa has unfortunately already experienced in the past. While waiting for stronger state institutions instead of supposedly strong men - but in reality too weak to create a political party and use the ballot box rather than weapons to gain power - it would be better to have perfect guidelines for try to prevent leaders from staying in power forever.
The people of Africa are very attached to the centuries-old values of individual and collective freedoms, of secularism – to name a few – and which are fundamentally those on the basis of which their traditional and ancestral societies have been founded for millennia. These are values that are intrinsic to African societies and which they hold dear as the apple of their eye. However, it is common knowledge that Vladimir Putin is not the best standard-bearer of Freedom and Democracy in the world, far from it. By orchestrating anti-French and anti-Western propaganda through its local agents in Africa and elsewhere, he is in no way seeks the good of African people as they strive to make people believe. It’s fair game, one might say! He thus seeks to settle scores with France and the West. By promising Wheat along the way, just as if in Black Africa Wheat was a basic necessity. And that it was enough for him to send Wheat to a few African countries whose leaders are allies to buy the Conscience of all the Peoples of Africa.
The denunciation of the French presence in Africa and the highlighting of its colonial past are only part of a stratagem whose sole aim is to promote the emergence and establishment, if not of dictatorial military powers, at least equally dictatorial military-civilian regimes. Which will naturally be more inclined to become allies in Africa of these great powers hostile not to the West basically, but to the West's mode of political governance through Democracy and not Dictatorship. And in this eminently geopolitical game of opposition between the great powers of the world, it is the African people who will be the first losers.
What Black Africa risks losing, if it is not careful, are its different forms of social organization and management as well as its spaces of freedom which constitute the intrinsic foundations of its African-style Democracy. Certainly, Western Colonization has already largely replaced this with its own forms of Western governance, without it having ever renounced its fundamental aspirations for the freedom of individuals and the freedom of choice of their communities. Worse, Black Africa must be careful not to fall into the infernal trap of regimes where Dictatorship is the sole key to governance. And countries like China or Russia have nothing else to offer the African people than to strengthen the already authoritarian powers for most of the Princes who govern them, although these people will be applauding against the The West will see their freedoms diminish little by little until they literally wither away, leaving only a leaden screed. On the grounds that the West has done this and that or this and that.
And it would be far too late to go back in order to regain lost freedoms when these people realize it when they wake up to the fact that the promise of Development by Dictatorship is only window dressing. In short, the opium of the people, so to speak.
In Burkina Faso and Mali, in this case, many of them are already regretting the times when they enjoyed a certain freedom. Media outlets are threatened or closed and people with critical voices are accused of various crimes and thrown in prison. Like in Russia! But the worst is of course still to come. Because a democratic process that functions poorly is always better than a dictatorship that functions well. All those who were quick to applaud or support putschists often quickly realize this sad reality which has never been denied in history.
The real problem with Democracy in Africa – it must be said unequivocally – is the Army. A national component among the components, it nevertheless believes itself above all the other national components, because it holds the Arms. However, it is the opposite that Democracy says. The Army is in the service of Politics by essence and therefore of the civilian component which is in the majority everywhere.
Long confined in barracks, not to say offices like civil servants, the soldiers who have most often only had military exercises in theory have unfortunately experienced new realities in recent years with the appearance of Islamist terrorism in Africa. But this is not a reason to call into question Democracy through coups. Under various pretexts, including the craziest… All means and arguments are good for assuming power. And President Vladimir Putin, in his manifest desire to regain a foothold for Russia in Africa, is reaching out to them through Wagner's mercenaries but also Russian diplomatic missions. When one has personally lived, even if only for a while under a Soviet-obedience power or regime in one's own country, during the Cold War, one quickly understands why one must distance oneself from the "new liberators of Africa" sponsored by dictatorial regimes, notably that of Vladimir Putin's Russia.
It must be repeated again: the Greeks did not invent Democracy, what they actually invented was nothing other than a voting system. Whatever one thinks, Democracy has already existed since ancient times in Black Africa and in several forms elsewhere. Democracy has always been the most precious social good for African people.
Democracy, contrary to what many people around the world believe, was not born in Greece in the 5th century BC. What was born under the reign of Pericles in Athens was suffrage by secret ballot. In other words, voting using a white stone to say “yes” and using a black stone to say “no” Democracy, for its part, is an institution as old as beings. humans from the moment they have gone far beyond the framework of the nuclear family. Under the Greek terms of Kratos (sovereignty) and Demos (people), the government of the people by the people is not in itself a new invention. Greek Democracy which became the accepted Western form was preceded by several millennia by typically and authentically African democracy. With a representative government, a completely egalitarian system, a vote by direct and non-secret suffrage, and a recognition of the rights of women as well as men, of children and, against all odds for some, even of the rights recognized for animals and to trees, etc. History has preserved evidence of the very ancient existence of Democracy in Ancient Nubia.
Let's not accuse France, let's accuse ourselves... And this is not showing complacency or favor in any way. It’s more about being objective and telling the truth, no matter what! If we suffer from Jihadism in West Africa today, it is above all because of our stupidity combined with our greed and our cowardice which have led our sub-region to this situation. Even admitting that our accusations, which are in no way based on clear evidence, are true, how would they advance our States? In nothing. If we don't want people like Donald Trump, former President of the United States of America, to call them "shithole countries", then we better find something else to do than spend our time blaming each other of our failures and to ask others to come and save us. What a strange pride and honor! Let's not accuse France, let's accuse ourselves... Let's have the audacity to go, with supporting evidence, as far as unmasking the real accused in this sordid game for which Black Africa appears - like the Africa in 1885 at the Berlin Congress - like a cake to be shared between the great powers of the world and the money powers. Without exonerating it from its share of historical responsibility for the fall in 2011 of the Libyan President, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, let us nevertheless stop talking and shouting about France all day long. Let us have the sincerity to take responsibility for the errors of our failed States and to accuse ourselves of our own turpitudes. Thus, we will have taken a first and most important step on the path which leads to our necessary, even indispensable RENAISSANCE.
By Marcus Boni Teiga
