Thursday, February 25, 2010

The Dangers Ahead That Awaits To Happen Due To Illiberal Democracy In Kenya

The extent of the fall of a body is always measured by the distance between its momentary position and the one it originally occupied. The same is true of nations and states.A decisive significance must be ascribed to their previous position or rather elevation.Only what is accustomed to rise above the common limit can fall and crash to a manifest low. This is what makes the Grand Coalition Government In Kenya so hard and terrible for every thinking and feeling Kenyan citizens, since it brought a crash from heights which today, in view of the depths of our present degradation, are scarcely conceivable.

As a result, the nation faces three grave dangers. First, there is increasing lawlessness and anarchy in most parts of the country. As all governance structure fails, the citizen is no longer sure of the state meeting its obligations in any sphere. Any citizen, unadorned by power and privilege, who ever approaches any public office in the country to obtain something that is due to him as a matter of right, is fully aware of the magnitude of the state's failure. The all-pervasive corruption, harassment, delays, inability of the courts to render justice in time, the complexity of our administrative system that makes it wholly unintelligible to hapless citizens, the frequent breakdown of public order and increasing insecurity are all the visible manifestations of this anarchy. In a true sense, we are already in a state of anarchy. This anarchy is rising rapidly, and already in several pockets of the country life is never predictable. Justice, human rights, freedom and high quality of public services are all remote concepts which have no relevance to the day-to-day life of ordinary Kenyan citizens.

The second danger ahead of us is the possibility of despotism by invitation. As the propertied and educated middle and upper classes, who have great stakes in peace and order, are increasingly disenchanted with the governance process, they are coming to the dangerous conclusion that freedom and democracy are synonymous with chaos and anarchy. Most of our urban middle classes have already come to this conclusion and have become votaries of some form of authoritarianism that can bring order and peace to the society at any cost, so that they can pursue economic growth unhindered.

In this milieu, the threat of dictatorship does not lie in a possible coup d'etat, but it may creep into the system by the acquiescence of the middle and upper classes - the political class, bureaucracy, armed forces, police, professions and the business class. In their desperate quest for order at any cost, they have little understand-ing of the nature of dictatorship, or its limitations, and the lessons of history are all-too-readily forgotten. Setting aside the fact that freedom and democracy are inalienable birth rights of every citizen, there is no guarantee that the right type of philosopher-statesman will ascend to the top in this dictatorship by invitation. If, by some good fortune, a philosopher-statesman does emerge as the supreme leader, there is no reason to assume that he will continue to be good after having tasted absolute power. If Kenya, by some miracle, finds a philosopher-statesman-dictator who remains true to the ideals of the nation for life, there is no way by which he can actually deliver the goods all alone in a vast and complex plural society in a highly centralized despotic regime. If, by some modern electronic marvel, the centralized regime does find the means of governing our vast and complicated polity in a despotic manner, there is no reason why the ordinary people, who have no real stakes in order, should give up freedom and adult franchise, which are the only elements that lend dignity to their impoverished lives. The rejection of depotism by the poor and the deprived will result soon in a massive upheaval and bloodshed, and society will face even greater chaos and disorder.

As a wise man said, while the capacity of man for justice makes democracy possible, the propensity of man for injustice makes democracy necessary. Morally or pragmatically, there is no substitute to democracy. Any efforts to the contrary are not only doomed to failure, but will also drive the nation to disaster.

The third grave danger threatening the nation is the spectre of balkanisation. As authority and order break down, and as the governance apparatus fails to serve its main purpose of maintaining public order and ensuring cohesion and harmony in society, disintegration becomes inevitable. As the centralized and inert polity proves incapable of reform, many thinking persons, daunted by the vastness of the nation, its incredible plurality, and the complexity of problems, may be compelled to conclude that the only way of bringing about reform strengthening democracy and fulfilling people's aspirations is to break up the country. In addition, the economic liberalization process itself may exacerbate this latent tendency towards balkanisation. As some regions and states respond more positively to growth impulses, and have a better social and economic base to enlist mass participation in production process, they will be far ahead of the rest of the country. The disparity between, say 15% annual growth rate in one region and 5% growth rate in another, may not appear to be dramatic at first sight, but within a decade it will be very great. If both regions started at the same level of GDP per capita, the faster-growing region will have three times the GDP per capita at stable population. If already the faster-growing region has double the GDP per capita, then the disparity will be six times. Such disparities are unsustainable among regions in democratic society. The resultant mass migration from the poorer regions to the more prosperous areas in an already over-populated cities will create untold havoc and suffering. Inevitably the social strife will lead to erection of barriers against entry and will lead to eventual balkanisation.

"You see these dictators up on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police. They're afraid of words and thought. ... They make frantic efforts to bar our thoughts and words. ... A state of society where men may not speak their mind -- where children denounce their parents to the police -- where a businessman or small shopkeeper ruins his competitor by telling tales about his private opinion. Such a state of society cannot long endure if it is continually in contact with the healthy outside world." - Winston Churchill"

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