Growing pains
I WOULD like to invite the attention of my readers to what I consider to be one of the unique features of democracy as a form of government. Simply put, democracy is an organism, with stages of growth, each of which has its unique characteristics requiring special attention. In some sense, we acknowledge this fact with our speech-acts. We say, for instance, that we should grow our democracy. Or that we must not allow democracy to die.
But what does it mean to say that as an organism democracy has stages of growth? It means that, as opposed to being born and attaining the age of maturity in a day, it develops in stages. And each of these stages comes with unique characteristics and special requirements, which if not met, could hamper its growth and delay its maturity. In short, a democracy-being can be likened to a human being. It goes through birthing pains, infancy, adolescence, and adulthood.
Before we go into a discussion of these stages of growth and their special needs, however, it is necessary to see how other forms of government such as monarchy, aristocracy, or dictatorship are different. For each of these, the analogy fails because it is misplaced. No growth is warranted because the interest at stake is limited to that of the wielder(s) of power.
Take monarchy, for instance. In Prince, Machiavelli gets it right when he advises that the interest of the king be the sole long-term motivation for actions and policies, and it is in the context of the king’s interests that those of the subjects get considered. In The Social Contract, Rousseau makes a similar claim. And Louis XIV of France declared: Letat c’est moi. Where that is the case, talk about growth of the monarchy makes little sense unless in terms of the maturing of the person wielding power at any point in time.
In our own neck of wood, the pre-colonial forms of government differed in various ways. In none of them does the analogy prevail for the same reason that we have mentioned. We are familiar with such lyrics as “Kabiyesi Oba lo nile. Bo ba n dun yin e fori sole.”(The land belongs to the king. If you are unhappy, you may fall and die.) And the subjects themselves dance ecstatically to the music that demeans their humanity.
In the case of the military, which, beside democracy, has been our common experience for the better part of our existence as a nation, we also know that it is far from being an organism that grows. Surely, it increases or decreases in size and complexity depending on circumstances external to it. But it is akin to robotic development than human growth. In fairness to Fela, this is probably what he tried to depict in his zombie lyrics, without prejudice to the wonderful men and women of distinction who have served or are serving in the armed forces.
Democracy is the only form of government that can be described as an organism that grows and suffers from growing pains as it goes through the various stages of growth.
First, is the stage of birth and its pains. We have gone through three stages of democratic birth, each with midwives having their own special interests in the newly born. In our first democratic birth, we had the colonial masters as the midwives. They delivered a baby that was to be in their image and serve their interests. Therefore, the baby, almost still born, deprived of loving care and left on her own, did not survive beyond the kindergarten stage. It was the beginning of democracy as abiku in this land.
Our second democratic birth was midwifed by the military. Again, with their own interest at stake, they ensured that they monitored the baby in gestation, and they delivered her in accordance with their perceived good. What you get as output cannot be different from what you put in. A vineyard does not produce a harvest of carrots. And birth pains are sure to be multiple and linger when the conditions are not conducive. So it was that this new baby had a shorter life than the first.
Finally, we just had a third birth also midwifed by the military which was responsible for the demise of the second birth. And, as before, it made extra effort to ensure that this new arrival is also kept close to its tutelage by making one of its own the president of the new republic. This was soon to backfire as the new president, untrusting of his own former colleagues, brutally clipped their wings. The new birth has weathered the storm of life from infancy to the margins of adulthood at 20, while still engrossed in reactive mode to its environment, including cultural, religious, and ethnic.
At infancy, a dictator in democratic garb became its first nurse. With heavy hands and an arsenal of military tactics, he outmaneuvered his opponents, but in the process, he dealt a heavy blow on the temple of the new-born, nearly suffocating it with electoral malfeasance, flagrant abuse of power and process in the use of impeachment as political weapon against perceived enemies. In infancy, our dear democracy suffered from negligence and abuse.
A child that is thus abused has a tendency for developing defense mechanisms and may become delinquent in adolescence. Without proper counseling and therapy, this may follow him or her to adulthood. This accounts for the crippling corruption, mockery of the rule of law, and judicial recklessness that have been the embarrassing features of our democracy at 20.
There are certain development milestones that we expect normal human children to attain as they grow. At 20, which is late adolescence in human development, there are some expectations. Mentally, a 20-year old would think through ideas, set personally goals, and develop a view of life that makes it meaningful. With regards to emotional development, late adolescents have a good sense of self, have some concern for others, and entertain thoughts about his or her purpose in life as he or she becomes gradually stable. In social terms, late adolescents are more self-reliant with an increasing ability to make their own decisions.
If democracy is a living organism, citizens are the internal organs, the interplay, intersection and workings of which make the organism thrive and prosper. Therefore, if any of the internal organs is diseased and unable to perform its functions, the health of the organism is also compromised. There is no doubt that many citizens of our democratic republic are diseased and demobilized. That the institutions which are established to provide direction for the republic are dysfunctional is provable beyond reasonable doubt. These institutions are also peopled by persons that operate at below par. Hence the morbidity of the entire system.
The current furor over the call for revolution is part of the growing pains of the system and a symptom of its ill-health. Surely, there are serious problems that warrant the attention of patriots, but which also predate the current administration. Indeed, members of the current administration, including the president himself, have at some point in 2011 and 2015 led protests that exposed the ills of society.
It is also true, however, that this latest effort on the part of some patriots has not been well handled. Such a major push must not be made as if it were a lone wolf idea, especially when the lone wolf has just lost an election, giving the unfortunate impression of a sore loser only re-contesting the election on the streets. There is no indication of a thoughtful plan that seeks collaboration with labor, trade unions, students, market women, etc. Without such an effort, you open yourself to defeat and failure.
On the other hand, the state security services, as always, has also managed to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. With its deployment of machine guns to kill a spider, it has lionized the spider in the process, embarrassing itself and the administration. There are enough lessons to learn from this latest saga, a manifestation of a late adolescence in growing pains.
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