A former presidential candidate in Nigeria, Mr. Gbenga Olawepo Hashim, had in 2003, while presenting a paper entitled “Africa and the challenges of democratization” in University of Jos, predicted that should democracy not deliver prosperity to the people of the continent within 2 decades, the continent may return to dictatorship, as experienced in Europe after their initial democratization.
In the conclusion of his long paper, full of references and comparative instances, Olawepo Hashim wrote: “DEMOCRACY MAY NOT SURVIVE WITHOUT PROSPERITY.”
He said that between 1889 and the 90’s Africa achieved fast-track democratization in about 68% of the countries should present a great excitement, but lessons from history commends only caution.
One of these cautions is that for democracy to be firmly established it has to be nurtured by vigilance and above all an economic environment that replaces despair with hope and poverty with prosperity.
Lesson from history instructs us that where you have democracy arrived at without the requisite balance of internal forces, and an economic environment that generates the prosperity of majority of people especially when democratic institutions are still fledging and fragile a relapse to autocracy is possible. Warning signs can be deciphered from the experience of Europe between 1919 – 1939.
At the end of world war 1, it initially appeared that liberal democratic governance triumphed in Europe following the terms imposed by victors and campaign led by American president Woodrow Wilson that the World be made safe for democracy following the defeat of the German-Austro Hungarian and ottoman empires.
But twenty years later after 1919 a catastrophic reversal of the initial democratization wave in Europe had taken place given way to authoritarian and military government in most of Europe, sparing only the British isle, Scandinavian, benignly countries and Switzerland.
The following is the sad chronology: 1922 Mussolini marched on Rome, pilsudslu made a coup in Warsaw in 1926, Salazar made his own in 1929 Portugal, Hitler arrived the Berlin chancery in 1933 and general Franco became victorious in the Spanish civil war in 1939. Scholars like David porter et al (British), have argued in their book – democratization, that severe economic difficulties, terrible social divisions, and the consequences of massive economic obligations of the loser state in the war, in the face of fragile democratic institutions provided a fertile ground for the return of authoritarian rule and the collapse of democracy in most states of Europe after world war II.
While fascism was never rationalized on the basis of prevailing post war economic and social conditions the impact of this cannot in anyway be underestimated. For democratization and fledging African democracies after three decades of mostly authoritarian and military rule there is a lesson to learn. We can appreciate if we draw similarities between Africa in the post military and authoritarian era’s with Europe after World War 1.
Drawing this parallel we are persuaded to believe it is not an exaggeration. For most military and dictatorial regime of Africa after the overthrow of popularly elected government in the wake of independence of Africa where rampaging armies of internal colonization. They killed, they maimed, they raped and they looted. They marginalized and degraded; they conducted politics like warfare, and saw civil opposition as enemy maneuvers that must be crushed. Critics were seen as enemies to be decimated, captured and destroyed
The dictatorial regimes embarked on massive borrowing as a result of their inability to efficiently run the economy as self-reliant entities while also embarking in massive transfer of loots to Europe. The consequence of this is low productive base in Africa, massive illiteracy, chronic underdevelopment, lack of substantial internal capital formation, high unemployment rate, inflation and deflation, and massive foreign debts. In some case the state dissolved into perpetual ethnic conflict, wars and programs and some the disappearance of the state.
The interesting similarity here is that where as western powers did not make a discrimination between the crushing economic obligations of fledging post world war 1 democracies of Europe from the fascist regimes that caused the war, they are also not making an exception of fledging democracies of Africa, as against defunct dictatorships.
African fragile democracies are required to commit massive resources to service, a crushing foreign debt and also required to mop up available paltry capital, cut spending on social sectors, and withdraw subsidies in order to meet foreign debt obligation to western creditors.
The import of this is that while Africa is democratizing, the poor masses of Africa continue to carry the burden of autocracy in increasingly dwindling social, condition, poverty and squalor.
The fear is that if immediate debt cancellation is not granted by our western friends in order to free resources for massive social development democratic institution and their symbol may soon be discredited, and inertia may soon set in, and a fertile ground may have been laid for some benevolent dictatorship, or neo-fascist regimes through the ballot or outside it just like it happened in Europe between 1919 – 1939 or worst still the increasing wave of terrorism may begin to creep into Africa with every turn of crushing poverty.
It is, therefore, in the self-interest of Africa democratic partners and friends in the global arena to heed to the call of African leaders for immediate debt cancellation for democracy to survive in Africa.
After all, the people that brought dictatorship and caused massive foreign debts were sponsored through coup deta’t’s against democratically elected governments in Africa by the same western powers in the era of cold wars. To continue to demand debt servicing and repayment will be tantamount to asking an aneamic baby to donate blood.
Credit: THE CONCLAVE.
