1IS democratization feasible in Africa? That is the question that I wish to address. It should not be confused with the question of the possibility of democracy in Africa which, though often asked, does not really arise, because democracy is in principle possible everywhere. The question is not whether democracy can be or even whether it ought to be, but how it "becomes" in the light of the circumstances of a particular historical situation.

2But what is this thing called democracy whose feasibility is at issue here? This would appear to be a very difficult question for democracy has been defined with a profusion of meanings that verge on anarchy; libraries of controversy exist on the concept, theory, meaning, and practice of democracy. And the confusion continues to grow with every attempt to bring clarity. Actually the question is not difficult. For a political concept, the meaning of democracy is uncharacteristically precise. Democracy means popular power, rule by the demos. That was how the Greeks who invented the theory and practice of democracy used it. That was the meaning of the democratic theory of the French revolution which was the midwife of the modern polity. It remains the classic definition of democracy, rephrased with poignant simplicity by a famous American as "government of the people, by the people, for the people". The problem is not, and never has been determining what democracy means, but the contradictions of people’s responses to its perceived implication for their power and their interests.

3Political elites particularly the emerging European bourgeoisie found democracy very threatening, especially in the wake of the radical egalitarianism of the French revolution, and opposed it determinedly. Eventually democracy was supplanted with liberal democracy which was markedly different. Liberal democracy was not so much a political morality as the political correlate of capitalism, the necessary political conditions for the sustainability and operational efficiency of the market. I will not dwell on this because the homology of capitalism and liberal democracy has been exhaustively demonstrated by the social contract theorists, notably Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. They show that independent property owners acting voluntarily and mindful of their interests will constitute political society only as a liberal democracy, a political arrangement whose major values include the inviolability of the right of property, the rule of law, government by consent, the legitimacy or self-aggrandizement, and prohibition of entrepreneurial activity by the state. There are elements of democracy in liberal democracy but it is not democracy. In fact it is distinguished by its repudiation of the essence or democracy which is popular power.

4Limited as it is by the repudiation of popular power, the democratic content of liberal democracy has been progressively whittled down. Liberal democracy now means essentially consent of the governed, multiparty pluralism, electoral competition and guarantee of rights including equality before the law. The present reality is that the consent of the governed is now taken rather than given. Democratic choice already limited to options produced by an oligarchic party machine is rendered all the more meaningless by the increasing similarity of political parties caused by the delegitimization of fundamental criteria of party-pluralism such as social class and asymmetrical power relations. The rule of law does not help much, vitiated as it is by the equal treatment of unequals and the rigorous "abstracizement" of persons, behind which inequalities of wealth and power are free to undermine the operationalization of the rule of law. The celebrated rights of liberal democracy are largely abstract rights; poor people have no chance at all of realizing most of them.

5It is no wonder that democracy is in crisis today, even as we celebrate what we perceive as the triumphant march of democracy to every part of the world. What looks like the triumph of democracy is actually the other side of its trivialization, its domestication to the point in which it can be embraced by power elites all over the world because it is too tame to threaten them. We have entered an era of unprecedented political intolerance, an era in which some of the major Western countries, the bastion of democracy have become de facto one-party states or are in the process or becoming so, an era in which many people have absolute faith in the absolute infallibility of the prevailing model of society.

6What then is the conception of democracy by which the feasibility of democracy in Africa is to be assessed? This question is being answered already, although in a highly problematic manner. Africa appears to be leaning towards the practice of liberal democracy currently in vogue in the West, hence the preoccupation with the prospects of party pluralism and electoral competition. The relevance of this is however, questionable. First, liberal democracy is specific to certain historical conditions: the generalization of commodity production and exchange and hence, a market society, social atomization and organic solidarity, and implicit in all this, a developed system of capitalist production. These are societal characteristics whose development in Africa is rudimentary at best. Accordingly, the constitution of African societies as liberal democracies will be quite difficult, if not bizarre. The institutions of liberal democracy will be crude, distorted, contradictory in regard to their latent and manifest functions, culturally alienated and possibly, unworkable or counterproductive. In the face of these difficulties, the familiar doubts about the relevance of democracy to Africa and the ability of Africans to practice democracy will resurface. Yet the difficulties are superficial. They are produced by a simple confusion between the generic form of democracy and a determinate historical democratic practice, between universality and specificity.

7To these problems arising from the conflation of liberal democracy with democracy, we must add another, namely that we invariably assess the feasibility or desirability of the democracy movement in Africa with breezy assumptions in regard to what democracy means for those who are struggling in Africa. We cannot understand the feasibility of democracy in Africa if we are unclear how those who are democratizing in Africa construe democracy and its import. What does democracy mean to them?

8Unfortunately this question is not easily answered. What one hears is a cacophony of voices, often saying the same things, for different reasons associated with different strategies of power, in roughly the same political vocabulary. And that is very confusing. Some of the political elites who are under pressure to democratize see democracy as an alien political value driven by a misguided posture of enlightenment which cannot do Africa any good and may do considerable harm, especially in endangering political stability. The elites out of power see the institutions of liberal democracy, especially party pluralism and elections as the opportunity which they hope will give them what they see as a richly deserved but long-denied access to power. The international development agencies especially the Fund and the Bank see democratization in Africa apolitically as accountability, transparency, competitive efficiency and the sophistication of public choice-that is, as necessary political inputs for successful policy reform and sustainable growth. Western countries see the democratization of Africa as the adoption of liberal values and institutions and support it as a significant element in the consummation of the ascendancy of the political values of the West.

9How about the ordinary people, those who are voting for democracy with their sweat and blood on the streets of Kinshasa, Yaoundé, Lomé, and Accra? What does democracy mean to them? What are they struggling for? It is too early to see clearly but a general pattern is discernable. They are struggling for material Betterment and political freedom and it would appear that they are convinced that in their particular historical circumstances, material betterment and even mere survival requires freedom from political oppression. In recent years the democracy movement in Africa has received much of its impetus from the failure of economic management, a failure which has become life-threatening for many Africans.

10They are threatened not only by the malady but the cure, for however desirable the structural adjustment programs may be in the long run, they worsen, for some of us, the chances of surviving till that long-run comes around.

11The democracy movement has gathered momentum as commodities disappeared from grocery stores in Lusaka and Dar Es Salam, as unemployment and inflation got out of control in Kinshasa and Lagos, as a bankrupt government failed to pay wages in Cotonou, as the vanishing legitimacy of incompetent and corrupt managers of state power drove them to political repression in Nairobi, as poverty intensified everywhere defeating all possibilities of self-realization, threatening even mere physical existence. So, the democracy movement in Africa is, among other things, an expression of the will to survive. The survival strategies which ordinary people spontaneously devised to cope with economic austerity and to reduce their vulnerability to a predatory state engendered popular empowerment, energized civil society and strengthened the will to struggle for democracy.

12Reflecting these realities the emerging popular theory of the democracy movement links the prospect of escaping poverty to that of democratization. For instance, a Conference of over 500 groups representing mainly grass roots and nongovernmental organizations but also United Nations agencies and governments which met in February 1990 in Arusha, Tanzania, adopted an African Charter for Popular Participation in Development and Transformation whose major argument is that the absence of democracy is the primary cause of the chronic crisis in Africa. Significantly this position is increasingly accepted by African political elites as well as international development agencies and Western governments. In Sub-Saharan Africa: From Crisis to Sustainable Growth, the World Bank argues that recovery and sustainable growth will require better governance, including popular participation and consensus building. A declaration. The Political and Socio-Economic Situation in Africa and the Fundamental Changes Taking Place in the World, adopted by the Organization of African Unity in Addis Ababa in July 1990, acknowledges the importance of political participation for development.

13To all appearances the democracy movement in Africa does not reflect these unique historical origins. It looks very much like a movement to apply the prevailing standards and practices of Western political liberalism to Africa. For now at least, it is largely focused on multi-party pluralism, electoral competition and human rights.

14However, this embrace of liberal democracy, this ordinariness of the African democracy movement is more apparent than real. The character of the movement reflects, for now, the inordinate influence of its small but influential middle class members. It also reflects the values of the dominant players in the international system from whom it must draw legitimacy and support at this stage in order to survive. What will surely prove decisive is that the democracy movement in Africa is riding on popular consciousness which is as yet inarticulate, as yet unclear now its values will find concreteness. Eventually, the movement will mature to reflect the interests and values of the popular consciousness which is driving it. When this happens, its character will change in rather predictable ways. For one, it will be more geared to concrete economic rights rather than abstract rights. For another it will try to realize democratic values in institutions which are more harmonious with indigenous culture. In the end it is changes such as these that will determine the depth and sustainability of democracy in Africa.

The Feasibility of Democracy in Africa

15It is easy now to see that the feasibility of democracy in Africa reduces essentially to its interface with social realities in Africa. I will deal only with two aspects of this interface, the ones which seem to me to be the most important, namely, social experience (that is, the historical and cultural relevance of democracy) and social need (that is its instrumental relevance).

Democratization and social experience

16Perhaps the greatest obstacle to the entrenchment of democracy in Africa is our disregard of the cultural context of democratic processes and practices. All too easily, we confuse the values and principles of democracy with specific historical institutional forms of democratic practice. We invariably try to reproduce the familiar institutions already in existence rather than devising creatively, new institutional forms and practices appropriate to our circumstances yet incorporating the values and principles of democracy. For instance, we could accept the necessity of pluralism without necessarily adopting the Western criteria for differentiating between the pluralities. We could accept the principle of electoral competition without commitment to the view that the competing political formations must be political parties. Electoral constituencies need not be single member constituencies suitable to atomized industrial societies with organic solidarity. Would it not be more appropriate, given the social structure of contemporary Africa, if representation in African legislatures was on the basis of peoples, communities or nationalities?

17We not only ignore these possibilities, we do not allow these social formations to be the basis of political parties or to be used as vehicles of political expression. This prohibition which is said to be in the interest of national integration, political stability and progressive consciousness flies in the face of the fact that African societies are notable for their primary group loyalties and multinationality. These social formations are admittedly sources of social cleavage and potential conflict, especially since political elites are prone to exploit them. Nonetheless such important social pluralism cannot be mediated by being denied expression. For when they are denied, they soon find expression in anomic interest articulation, communal violence and centrifugal tendencies including secessionist movements-manifestations which do not serve the cause of democracy.

18That is not, however, the most compelling reason for admitting the political relevance of traditional group identities. For most of us these social formations and group identities are not externalities but the core of our being; it is by these identities that most of us define our individuality; its values, its interests and even its developmental possibilities, they are the organic whole of which we are a part, but a part which can never be conceptualized in terms of separation, distance and conflict. It is in the oneness with this whole that the self becomes intelligible, enjoys freedom and actualizes its potentialities.

19I am saying that as long as we denigrate these social formations, these group identities, as long as we deny their legitimacy as vehicles of political expression, we are annihilating the prospects of democracy and freedom, and impoverishing our people spiritually. To be sure, this may not hold for the small Westernized elite in the enclaves of our society which are already socially atomized. But we have to make up our minds whether we are seeking democracy and freedom for this small elite or for the whole society. If it is the whole society, then we must understand that this sensitivity to our culture, to our social experience will, for better or for worse, define the feasibility of democracy in Africa. We have not even begun to understand this, much less address it. There lies a monumental threat to democracy in Africa.

20If all this sounds like theoretical esotericism, reflect on Nigeria. This country has been denigrating primordial identities and legislating against their political expression for half a century in the name of modernization and nation-building. For all our troubles, all we get is a cruel mockery of our naive rationalism. The more we deny them the more they dominate our lives. In denying them we have inadvertently constituted them into a formidable obstacle to all collective purpose and they have finally immobilized us. Because of them, we cannot determine how we are, who we are, or for that matter, why we are. We are dissipated in incessant rivalry. Our society is a contested terrain from which everyone takes and no one gives. One effect of this, is that our prospect for material progress is irreparably injured by a firmly, entrenched "distribute mentality".

21Our obsessive fear of allowing important social cleavage to be the basis of political parties and political pluralism has saddled us with two alienated political parties which are so similar they offer no choice. Not knowing who they are and where they are coming from they cannot know where they are going. It is instructive that our two parties cannot manage a policy debate. They have resigned themselves to being parties of notables, and to the politics of self-aggrandizement, a politics which is totally inarticulate except for the occasional fuss over housekeeping chores. But no nation can mumble through history.

22Our Legislature which should be expressing the popular will on a continuous basis will not mean very much as an institution of democracy. Those who made our new constitution seem to have been at a loss as to what power to give it. If the apathy over the impending legislative elections is any guide, so are the ordinary people. And why should this Legislature matter to them? Why should they accept it as an important institution of democratic participation? Its election from identical parties and from candidates produced by an oligarchic party machine offers no real choice; the basis of representation makes no sense in the socio-cultural context; it mimics a collective identity which does not exist. It cannot be much more than just a mercifully distant tower of Babel. Vox populi will obviously not find expression in this legislature. It will have to find it somewhere else possibly on the streets of Lagos, Kaduna and Port Harcourt. And that is not the way of democracy.

The interface of democratization and social needs

23The feasibility of democratization in Africa will also be decisively affected by its interface with social needs. Some will object to this consideration in principle, holding that democracy is not a means but an end in itself. That may be. I have no problem with this. Nonetheless, I think that the feasibility of democracy is not in the least clarified by holding that everyone including Africans want or ought to want democracy because it is an end in itself. Rather it is more likely to be settled by its utility, its import for meeting significant social needs.

24We have already seen that on the popular level the demand for democracy is partly a strategy for survival and material betterment. The utility of democracy for economic growth has received considerable attention and the consensus is that democratization will help the cause of economic recovery and sustainable growth in Africa. How it will do so is not so clear. The conventional wisdom is that liberal democracy by operationalizing market forces will unleash competitive efficiency and higher growth rates. But this has problems. High growth rates can be expected to enhance the legitimacy and feasibility of democracy. But high growth rates may coexist with the economic marginalization of substantial groups of people or, as in the case of SAPs, be achieved at their expense. Problems of uneven distribution may mean that respectable growth rates do not, in the short and medium term, translate into meeting the social needs of some members of society. As the masses become more politically assertive in the context of intensifying poverty, they seem to be far more interested in economic rights than abstract ones. This demand cannot be denied without seriously compromising the feasibility of democracy. And it cannot be allowed without raising the sceptre of socialism and flying in the face of the prevailing theology of the market. I do not know which is the more hazardous option. What I know is that the pride and prejudice of the West will not tolerate the slightest hint of socialism-which it is supposed to have defeated and put away forever. Once African democracy begins to evolve towards concrete economic rights, the vociferous and meddlesome, but welcome international support for democracy in Africa, will see red and strike out.

25Is. external aid to democratizing African countries a way out of this dilemma? It is fashionable nowadays to argue that African countries who are democratizing need and deserve substantial economic aid because democracy cannot thrive in extreme poverty, because if policy reform is not cushioned with aid, economic austerity will be so severe that people will revolt against their democratizing government. African leaders, capitalizing on this argument, have started another bout of begging for aid, oblivious to the compassion fatigue of the North and the absurdity of asking someone else to purchase democracy for Africans. In any case, aid to democratizing regimes is not the way out. There is no chance at all that the considerable amounts of aid which this option will need will be forthcoming. Even if all the needed aid was available and freely given, it will be of no consequence to the prospects of democratization. Democracy cannot be got by bribing the people; it is not given through aid or whatever means; it is taken, and defender daily by struggle. Struggle-hard and unrelenting-is the very essence of its instantiation and sustainability.

Conclusion

26There are not many today who are optimistic about the development prospects of Africa. And for good reason. It is difficult not to be impressed by the dismal statistics of declining productivity and growth rates, escalating indebtedness, chronic malnutrition, famine and disease and collapsing infrastructures. This disastrous performance suggests that the development project in Africa has failed beyond redemption. But that conclusion is misleading. Development in Africa has not failed; it just never started in the first place. It never started because the appropriate political framework was lacking. The democracy movement is finally the beginning of a serious attempt to create this framework. That is why it is the best news of Africa in decades.

27However, it represents just the first unsteady steps of a journey fraught with dangers. I worry. Not that we will fail but that we will succeed trivially-by allowing the movement to be dominated by political elites for whom it is primarily a strategy of power; by following the line of least resistance; by accepting prevailing international standards of democratic practice which are too low and bound to be meaningless in African conditions; by confusing form and content and adopting institutions which are insensitive or irrelevant to the social realities of Africa. Can we circumvent these perils? I hope that this symposium will provide the answer, or at least an answer.