Greetings readers
The Dread team send out a special thank you to all for your continued readership and invite any input or points of view that you may have to offer.
Our present ponderings lead us to analyse the role of Western democracy in Afrikan society and government, especially given the recent interventions by the West in the diplomatic and sovereign affairs of Asian and African nations. The past three decades or so have seen the intensification in of the philosophy that often guides such 'interventions'; plainly put, this philosophy assumes that the West are at a more advanced stage of social (not just infrastructural) development. This assumption enables the war in Iraq to occur by "pre-emptive strike" in blatant disregard for international law, and worse, the economic sanctioning of already struggling states such as Zimbabwe and shockingly, now Kenya as she sizzles in potential strife.
In the Western press and analysis by which we are bombarded daily, there is little questioning of the underpinnings of the expansion of western democracy, ie the assumption that the western model is in fact a natural state of human society. Not only that, but also that this state is at a higher level of development than is those of the states that are subjected to interventions, military or economic.
So, today we at the Dread headquarters iditate over the presumptions of superiority of western democratic thought versus governments that are formed and informed by indigenous philosophy. These indigenous social philosophies are being thwarted by the oppressive ideals of neo-liberalism that also, to add insult to injury, continue to perpetuate violence and inequality. So we ask the question: is western democracy the only way, or is there some other, as yet unpronounced solution to war and strife in many nations rising now from the drudgery of colonialism?
The recent re-affirmation of Western hegemony by the NATO coalition voiced by David Cameron's
suggestion that the security and fate of the new world depended on the maintenance and strengthening of "Atlanticism", or of the link enjoyed by member nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). While it is unsurprising that a UK Conservative Party Leader would espouse such an opinion, it is highly arrogant and politically imprudent to voice in is such a time as when the wars in Irak and Afghanistan bring deadly terror to the native populations of these countries already divided internally.
The philosophy that is behind these resurgance of unilateral imperialism puts Africa and Afrikan peoples in a position of having to justify any emergence from their current situation in the current world order. The only way out or up for them is to completely divorce themselves of the oppressive philosophy of Western hegemony and move toward empowerment, both nationally and regionally. The Western way of accumulating wealth has used us as slaves first and now as losers in the socio-political and economic game of national sel-determination.
To paraphrase a quote from Dr. John Henrik Clarke, African villages never had prisons because there was no need for them, no sanitorium because no one went insane, and no death penalty. Indeed, perhaps were it not for the precedential 'interventions' by the colonialist powers in Africa with their brands of oppressive governance, the African structure of society may have remained and developed into a beneficial and harmonious arrangement for all. Unfortunately though, there is little distinction between the mold of thought that gave rise to colonialist interventions versus that by the neo-liberals. Whereas before the colonialists had proclaimed the necessity of religious conversion of native, so called primitive populations, the new breed of imperialists now come to convert these resilient natives to liberalisation of trade, privatisation, and democratic elections within the sloppy post-colonial boundaries still staining the geopolitical landscape. Then, and now, the imperialists bear the farcical mask of moralistic insight to again rape and rob societies that, we argue, are better able to administer themselves using naturally placed insight.
The first observation that invites scepticism of any western insight into how governments and democracy is that western society is itself so rotten to te core with poverty, corruption, inequality, racism, war, and the list goes on. If this is the end result of their brand of democracy, then surely it must not be in our best interests to continue to take a page from these perpetrators of strife. Many would nevertheless argue perhaps that the west maintains a peaceful environment relative to African nations, so their tactic must be working.
But these proponents would be forgetting that Europe and America were, no so long ago, involved also in tribal war; in this case it was called world war II. This war was at least in part fought over the former colonies. European colonial power was and still is unsustainable without the continued usurpment of African/Asian resources; now, in the wake of their acceptance of a post-colonial era, they have now united in their advocacy of numerous policies and politics to maintain their cash cows. Now they are NATO. Now they are Atlanticists. Now they realise that if they can work together instead of fighting against each other, they can even mroe effectively drink their fill from nascent states, and thereby stablise their fragile economies. In light of this history, it is clearly ridiculous to lend any credence to the notion that the new imperialist converters come with any more enlightment or goodwill than their colonial predecessors.
Love
