Tuesday, March 15, 2005

Introduction

In my second year in college, I undertook the task of working to join the big family of political science and international relations, by declaring a “politics” major. Several motives were behind that decision. But I believe it fair and true to say that the main reason behind that move was that I intended to find solutions to one particular problem.

Something has been disturbing my mind ever since those fateful days of April 1994, when I had to leave Rwanda, due to the bloody genocide that occurred in that corner of the World. The only way that my young mind could rationalize the extent of the evil that I witnessed in that country, was by concluding that there had to exist one or more core reasons why human beings would reach such extremes of destructiveness. More recently, I have had the opportunity to observe that question on a broader field, that of former colonies in general. It is among countries that have experienced – and often are the result of – colonization, that we find what are called Less Developed Countries (LDCs), those countries in the World of which all indicators – economic, social and political – always seem in the red. These are also, and most importantly for this paper, the countries that seem to experience the most of the World’s lethal conflicts, and are prone to various degrees of destructive socio-political unrest. We do not lack examples: The Rwandan Genocide and the Burundi massacres, the war in the Congo, The various riots in Argentina, The various Politico-religious tensions in the Middle East, the religious tensions between the north and the south of Nigeria, and finally, the various coups, coup attempts, assassinations and/or rises of dictators that we have witnessed over the years in Cote d’Ivoire, Pakistan, India, Chile, Uganda, the two Congos, Iran, Iraq, Zimbabwe, Israel, Egypt, and the list is still extremely long.

The audiovisual media often depicts the realities in these countries as a hopeless situation[1], bound to perpetuate conflicts, with no prospect for resolution. Within this context, it seems as though all have given up on finding what cause(s) could be common to all these conflicts. I personally do not share that defeatism. One might say that it is because I have a stake in the resolution of these conflicts; my country, Congo, is one of those countries. But it is also because I believe that there might be institutional reasons why these causes have not been addressed, though that is not the direct purpose of this paper. Nevertheless, my aim is to establish whether one can find and outline those common causes that, I believe, could enlighten our path towards their reduction, if not their total resolution.

There are easy answers to this question: colonialism, imperialism, globalization, etc. But even though I believe these constitute elements of the problem, I do not think that they single handedly would be satisfactory answers. Nevertheless, I do not intend to answer the question fully in this paper. I however intend to analyze certain adjacent issues. In order to have a more focused insight, I made the decision to center my analysis of former colonies mostly to African countries. In my research, I focused more on several former colonies in Africa, and Western nations such as France, the United Kingdom, Spain – former colonizers - and the United States and Canada, Western Democracies that were first colonies of another type. Some details stroke me as oddly interesting, and the following in particular. I had the privilege to have access to copies of both the most recent French Constitution, and the most recent constitution of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Certain similarities jump to the reader’s eye (emphasis added)

:“France shall be an indivisible, secular, democratic and social Republic. It shall ensure the equality of all citizens before the law, without distinction of origin, race or religion. It shall respect all beliefs. It shall be organized on a decentralized basis.”
-The Constitution of the fifth French Republic (1958)

“…SOLEMNLY REAFFIRMING our attachment to principles of democracy and Human Rights such as they are defined by the universal Human Rights Declaration of 10 December 1948, the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights adopted on 18 June 1981[…] The Democratic Republic of Congo shall, within its borders of 30 June 1960, be an independent, sovereign, indivisible, democratic, social and secular State.”
-The Constitution of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (2002)
Among the common values that these two states – one a former colonizer, and one a former colony – claim to be core to their nature are two important things secularism, and democracy. I will tackle the topic of secularism in another paper in the future. The notion of democracy, however, seems interesting for our present argument.

The concept of democracy, from the Greek demos (people) and cratos (government), is essentially one that most humans across the globe can identify with, and that is often named in these simple terms: Government of the people, by the people, for the people (Abraham Lincoln). Democracy can come in several shapes, with different institutions that vary according to the history behind their implementation, the size of the population, and the local realities. Nevertheless, it is a brand of democracy, often known as Western Democracy, which seems to be upheld at the international level as a model to follow. In this context, the concept of democracy becomes more complex, and embodies several other elements such as specific institutions, values, morals and foundations. Certain assertions of principles, such as human rights and liberties, and various connotations are so intricately embedded in the word, that the latter becomes a highly complex construct. When we consider this construct in the realm of former colonies, and their relationship with their former metropolis, several points come to our attention, and are central to the argumentation that follows.

First, there are practices such as colonialism, imperialism and slavery, of which the effects seem immeasurable on the cultural, social, human and economic capital in the colonies. Second, there are a wide variety of systems that constitute what is known as Western democracy, which implies a long and diversified process of establishment. Third, within the new post Cold War context of United States domination[2], and that of globalization, there is an increased demand, both from the inside and from the outside of the relatively young states that emerged from the decolonization process, to meet economic, and more importantly here, political standards of Western democracies. These three elements appear to be unrelated, but they are important to set the premise for the question that is central to this paper: Considering history, and the fact that most colonies chose systems of government based on the ‘Western democracy’ construct, were former colonies in Africa, at independence, in any position to meet these standards? Are they now?
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[1] Annalena Oeffner, The Third World in the media (Article), as part of the Global Journalism course at JMK, Stockholms Universitetet.
[2] The use of the word domination, as opposed to hegemony, here is intentional; it reflects, in my view the perception that African laymen have of the United States’ status – a perception that s reflected in their approach of the West.


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