 |
|
Thotmes IV: African Monarch |
Democracy
and African Traditional Wisdom
By Grisso*
Traditional Africa, like the U.S. from its inception and continuing until today, never had much use for democracy. Unlike the U.S., traditional Africa opted for monarchy, circumscribed by eldership councils, which had the power to revoke the powers of the king where the latter overstepped the constitutional bounds of traditional law and custom. The U.S. is properly a constitutional republic, not a democracy. With allegedly universal franchise (at least since ca. 1960 when American Africans secured the right to vote), it lays claim to being a representative democracy. But with the forthcoming 2004 presidential elections shaping up as a choice between two Bonesmen -- George W. Bush and John F. Kerry are both members of the Skull and Bones secret society -- one may be justified in asserting that the U.S. is run by an aristocracy, and that behind the charade of a universal franchise, there is a secret government, to which Bonesmen may be privy, but you and I not.
This observation begets fundamental questions about government, and in particular about democracy and its supposed superiority as a system of government. Churchill once famously remarked, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except all the others that have been tried." The irony was that Churchill spoke as the Prime Minister of a constitutional, hereditary monarchy. And the trouble is that in practice democracy can mean other than what it seems to mean, namely rule by the people -- from the original Greek demos (the people) + kratei (to rule). One would have to have a plebiscite on every trivial matter of government in order to have true democracy. The people would be the first to tire of such an arrangement, and inevitably, the power of the people to rule would end up being delegated, at least on some kinds of public matters, to either an individual, or some group of individuals. Alone among the Western democracies, Switzerland retains strong features of direct democracy. All the others are "representative" democracy, under which representatives are elected by the people, whose wishes they are then presumed to reflect. Wrong presumption. As we see in the U.S., elected representatives represent the people least of all. Few would disagree with the cynic who says that American democracy is the best that money can buy. Cynical, but unfortunately largely true, it being undeniable that moneyed corporate interests seem always to trump the interests of the people, in legislation enacted by the Congress, notably in such matters as the environment, health, taxes, consumer credit, tort reform, etc. Democracy, or at least representative democracy, is not what it's cracked up to be. Certainly, in the case of the U.S., democracy was at the start a very limited franchise -- one where only the privileged few enjoyed the franchise, in other words an aristocracy, however rough=hewn and rugged the American aristocrat pretended to be by comparison with the European aristocracy they had overthrown. "We The People" did not include enslaved Africans, women, indentured servants or other unpropertied white men. Today, America slides into a kind of corporate fascism that is very true to the spirit that imbued the founders of the republic, the franchise having explicitly been withheld by them from the unpropertied masses. And even among those who did have the franchise, democracy, American style, was unequal in its gift -- as Benjamin Franklin is reported to have said: "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch."
After Churchill, however, the question though is whether democracy is at least better than all the other systems. From an Africentric perspective, given that traditional Africa rejected democracy in favor of eldership and monarchy, we need to examine the question.
First though, let me reiterate the point that democracy, American style, is not what it's cracked up to be. Clearly, behind the façade of democracy, there is in fact an aristocracy of power, even political dynasties, some out in the open, others well hidden. What should be clear, is that men of wealth and power will never meekly hand over power to what they see, perhaps with some justification, as the mob. As Churchill also famously said: "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." Men of wealth and power are not apt to want to lose either, and will allow democracy only if the outcome is essentially predictable. Thus, in the U.S., with every relaxation of the franchise, to include variously un-propertied white men, white women, and latterly, non-whites, it has hardly mattered, notwithstanding all the fuss and "struggle". In fact, all that struggle served the aristocrats' interest well, for its result -- an allegedly universal franchise -- affords a mantle of virtue to the "system", which remains well yoked to the service of its true masters. The program is constant; only the modalities change, as needed to respond to changing exigencies. Thus physical enslavement gave way when fiscal enslavement could be made ready to take its place. Following the enlargement of the franchise to include other than propertied white men, there was hardly any disturbance of the fundamental power pyramid. Those on top stayed there, and those at the bottom likewise. While the pendulum swings back and forth between Democrat and Republican, the power pyramid shakes hardly at all, rather one wonders whether there is not a hidden hand rocking gently in its cradle the baby of power and control which, above all, must not be yielded to the mob. For the moment, the illusion of democracy is necessary. There is increasing apprehension nowadays that even the sheep's cloak of democracy will soon be ripped back to reveal the snarling fascist wolf underneath, powerful and emboldened, dismissive and even daring of the so many sheep that had never ever really been allowed to exercise anything really approaching rule by the people.
How were things different in traditional Africa? As I have said, traditional Africa opted for monarchy, and eldership systems of governance. With all systems of government, there are weaknesses, and therefore the need for checks and balances intended to overcome the weaknesses, while preserving the strengths. Herodotus, in The Histories, recounts an interesting debate about systems of government among the Persians. The systems debated were democracy, oligarchy, and monarchy. At the end of the debate, the Persians had rejected democracy and oligarchy both, in favor of monarchy. The arguments for and against each of the systems are instructive, for they are essentially the same issues in every society, therefore, I quote the entirety of the debate as recounted by Herodotus:
III.80: And now when five days were gone, and the hubbub had settled down, the conspirators met together to consult about the situation of affairs. At this meeting speeches were made, to which many of the Hellenes give no credence, but they were made nevertheless. Otanes recommended that the management of public affairs should be entrusted to the whole nation. "To me," he said, "it seems advisable, that we should no longer have a single man to rule over us---the rule of one is neither good nor pleasant. You cannot have forgotten to what lengths Cambyses went in his haughty tyranny, and the haughtiness of the Magi you have yourselves experienced. How indeed is it possible that monarchy should be a well-adjusted thing, when it allows a man to do as he likes without being answerable? Such licence is enough to stir strange and unwonted thoughts in the heart of the worthiest of men. Give a person this power, and straightway his manifold good things puff him up with pride, while envy is so natural to human kind that it cannot but arise in him. But pride and envy together include all wickedness---both of them leading on to deeds of savage violence.
True it is that kings, possessing as they do all that heart can desire, ought to be void of envy; but the contrary is seen in their conduct towards the citizens. They are jealous of the most virtuous among their subjects, and wish their death; while they take delight in the meanest and basest, being ever ready to listen to the tales of slanderers. A king, besides, is beyond all other men inconsistent with himself. Pay him court in moderation, and he is angry because you do not show him more profound respect--- show him profound respect, and he is offended again, because (as he says) you fawn on him. But the worst of all is, that he sets aside the laws of the land, puts men to death without trial, and subjects women to violence. The rule of the many, on the other hand, has, in the first place, the fairest of names, to wit, isonomy; and further it is free from all those outrages which a king is wont to commit. There, places are given by lot, the magistrate is answerable for what he does, and measures rest with the commonalty. I vote, therefore, that we do away with monarchy, and raise the people to power. For the people are all in all."
III.81: Such were the sentiments of Otanes. Megabyzus spoke next, and advised the setting up of an oligarchy: "In all that Otanes has said to persuade you to put down monarchy," he observed, "I fully concur; but his recommendation that we should call the people to power seems to me not the best advice. For there is nothing so void of understanding, nothing so full of wantonness, as the unwieldy rabble. It were folly not to be borne, for men, while seeking to escape the wantonness of a tyrant, to give themselves up to the wantonness of a rude unbridled mob. The tyrant, in all his doings, at least knows what is he about, but a mob is altogether devoid of knowledge; for how should there be any knowledge in a rabble, untaught, and with no natural sense of what is right and fit? It rushes wildly into state affairs with all the fury of a stream swollen in the winter, and confuses everything. Let the enemies of the Persians be ruled by democracies; but let us choose out from the citizens a certain number of the worthiest, and put the government into their hands. For thus both we ourselves shall be among the governors, and power being entrusted to the best men, it is likely that the best counsels will prevail in the state."
III.82: This was the advice which Megabyzus gave, and after him Darius came forward, and spoke as follows: "All that Megabyzus said against democracy was well said, I think; but about oligarchy he did not speak advisedly; for take these three forms of government---democracy, oligarchy, and monarchy---and let them each be at their best, I maintain that monarchy far surpasses the other two. What government can possibly be better than that of the very best man in the whole state? The counsels of such a man are like himself, and so he governs the mass of the people to their heart's content; while at the same time his measures against evil-doers are kept more secret than in other states. Contrariwise, in oligarchies, where men vie with each other in the service of the commonwealth, fierce enmities are apt to arise between man and man, each wishing to be leader, and to carry his own measures; whence violent quarrels come, which lead to open strife, often ending in bloodshed. Then monarchy is sure to follow; and this too shows how far that rule surpasses all others.
Again, in a democracy, it is impossible but that there will be malpractices: these malpractices, however, do not lead to enmities, but to close friendships, which are formed among those engaged in them, who must hold well together to carry on their villainies. And so things go on until a man stands forth as champion of the commonalty, and puts down the evil-doers. Straightway the author of so great a service is admired by all, and from being admired soon comes to be appointed king; so that here too it is plain that monarchy is the best government. Lastly, to sum up all in a word, whence, I ask, was it that we got the freedom which we enjoy? Did democracy give it us, or oligarchy, or a monarch? As a single man recovered our freedom for us, my sentence is that we keep to the rule of one. Even apart from this, we ought not to change the laws of our forefathers when they work fairly; for to do so is not well."
The irony here is that a group of "conspirators" debate the matter of the form of government best suited for the Persians, and end up rejecting democracy. The wonder is that one of their number actually was a proponent of it. Truly there is nothing new under the sun. For when the Americans, two millenia later, sat down to work out a form of government for themselves, "we, the people" was in actuality a rather small number, presuming to speak for all, and like the Greeks many centuries earlier, saw neither contradiction nor hypocrisy in proposing "democracy" while living off the backs of those they had enslaved. The great unwashed masses of the people had nothing to say about it. One imagines that Otanes, the champion of democracy in Herodotus's story, in "giving" democracy to the people, would by that means have found himself elevated, by the people themselves, to kingship. Darius, in proposing monarchy, certainly implies that democracy precisely tends to throw up such peoples' champions who end up being elevated to kingship. And in the case of oligarchy, there is a tendency for contesting nobles to elevate one of their number to kingship, either through violent means, or through some other means by which dominance may come to be established. Thus, I find myself agreeing with Darius, and in so doing, coming to appreciate the wisdom of the African set-up, where always, there was a system of kingship.
At its best, the system of kingship throws up king-leaders who are champions and defenders of the people. At its worst, the system of kingship throws up vain, petty tyrants under whom the people suffer one or other kind of abuse. Therefore, one looks for systems with checks and balances under which the best features of kingship may be cultivated, and the worst features avoided. That precisely is what we see in the traditional African monarchies that have survived and are sustained today even after the coming into being of the nation-states fabricated for failure by the European colonizers. From Akan to Zulu and everywhere in-between, traditional monarchies, even in defeat, have been maintained.
In my own view, "democracy" such as is practiced in the U.S. today is but a form of kingship, wherein there are rules for the selection of the king, and for their de-selection. Ostensibly, selection is accomplished through popular franchise (hence the tenuous claim to "democracy"), and de-selection likewise, with ancillary provisions for circumscribing the power of the king (law and custom), and for removal (impeachment) of the king where the king is guilty of "high crimes and misdemeanors".
Strangely enough, when one looks to traditional Africa, the traditional kingship is, in the abstract, similar in terms of institutional checks and balances circumscribing the power of the king. But there are key differences.
- Kings are
selected, not by popular franchise, rather by an eldership council.
- Sometimes the selection of the king is by tradition and
custom the
prerogative of the women's eldership council, sometimes by the men's.
- Usually, women will have a constitutional role in the selection, and de-selection process. Thus, among the Yoruba, the oba (king) may function in that capacity only when the crown is seated upon his head, and the safe-keeping of the crown is the prerogative of the women elders. Hence, in the case of "high crimes and misdemeanors" committed by the king, displeasure is signalled through the mother of the nation, the queen-mother, who has the power to deny the oba the crown. Among the Zulu, the queen-mother carries the praise-title of the "Great She-Elephant", and here too she functions as a court of appeal against acts of the king.
- While the mechanism of
king selection is not by popular franchise, there is a system of
popular representation through the eldership councils, which are
constituted on the basis, not of the individual, but of the family.
Thus, in a small
village, each family is represented on the eldership council by the
head of the family. At the level of the district, each village chief or
his representative would sit on the district eldership council. And so
on, up to the highest councils of the nation.
- Elevation to kingship is not by mechanical rule of succession, rather a matter of selection determined by, in effect, a selection committee. One does not "run for office" as in allegedly democratic America. Neither is kingship a matter of right based on a mechanical rule of succession. Rather kingship is thrust upon the one deemed most worthy, with selection often carried out by the queen-mother, who will take counsel with the women elders.
We therefore see in traditional African kingship systems a
sophisticated system of checks and balances. There is a credible claim
to be made that the universal franchise of American so-called democracy
is in fact a mirage, for elected representatives by definition do not
represent those who voted against
them, therefore large groups of people may be rendered voiceless.
Moreover, representatives in any case will tend to represent those who
got them elected, which will be seen to be the fat-cat moneybags who
contributed decisively to their election campaign, rather than to the
diffuse "voters" whose votes are won through the media manipulation
made possible by the moneybags. Moneybags do not enter into the king
selection process in traditional Africa. Also, it is unseemly to "run
for office", and any candidate seen to be too obviously craving the
role of kingship may by that fact alone be disqualified. There is a
particular genius in the traditional African kingship systems in the
role played by women. America has not seen a single woman president in
its entire history, leading one to suppose that women are barred, in
effect, from so serving, despite there being no rule to this effect.
While kingship is by tradition and custom a male role in Africa, there
is balance, for women, as a constitutional matter, serve as the
ultimate check and balance against kingly misconduct: with the
queen-mother with the advice of the women's eldership council serving
as a court of appeal against misconduct of the king, and with women
playing the decisive role in the selection of the king. And finally, if
we accept that the family is the true building block of society, rather
than the individual, there is no anomaly in the franchise: all are in
theory represented through the head of the family to which they belong,
including new-born babes. It was revealing when it took place, the
debate in America about lowering the voting age to 18: should the vote
of an 18-year old really carry the same weight as that of his 48-year
old father? And if, as had been the case,
an 18 year old were not allowed to vote, would it mean
that her fundamental human right to "representation" has been violated?
What about 17-year olds?
Such anomalies do not arise when the family is treated as the
fundamental unit of franchise. Perhaps paradoxically, an
eldership council may be more representative of the
non-enfranchised than an age-limited individual franchise. For one can
depend upon a family elder to represent one's interests far more
dependably than a representative who may see himself more beholden to
monied interests wielding the power of the purse. The Pennsylvania
Dutch and Amish folks understand this truth very well, and govern
themselves through family-based eldership councils.
In the Gettysburg
address, Lincoln spoke movingly of the bold American experiment of
Government "of the people, for the people, and by the people", and
characterized the Civil War as testing whether such Government
could "long endure". Whether the Civil War could properly be so
characterized is at best arguable, for "four-score and seven years"
prior, the rebellion that gave rise to the United States did not seek
to institute Government of, for and by the people, rather Government by
propertied white men. The "conspirators" (aka Founding Fathers)
in this instance, unlike those
of Darius's day, chose oligarchy, masquerading as a (limited-franchise)
democracy, or in their own words, they chose a republic. They did not
choose Government of, for, and by the people. And Lincoln's war was to
preserve the union, not to enlarge the franchise.
To all more recent appearances, as America descends into a police state governed of, for and by anonymous plutocrats, one again is drawn to the debate reported so well by Herodotus: democracy, oligarchy, or monarchy? Darius won the argument then and was installed as a monarch. Monarchy has indeed been the natural form of government essentially everywhere on the planet, and at its best delivers government of and for the people, if not by the people. Democracy in its true sense will soon devolve to some sort of kingship, qua function, either elected or selected. One hopes for a king who truly is a champion of the people, who can protect them from the depredations of oligarchs, plutocrats and other enslavers. Open oligarchy will throw up "people's champions" seeking to correct the imbalance. Hidden oligarchs will hide behind a façade of democracy, while attempting like parasites to feed off the body politic. The only remedy is a true and open monarchy, with institutional checks and balances that guarantee that the monarch serves and defends the people.
Over thousands of years of history,
African societies have evolved kingship systems that in their wisdom
come close to delivering government of
and for the people. I find it
interesting that the institutional whip hand that would keep the
kingship -- a male function -- in check, has traditionally been a
countervailing, constitutional role of the female. Be that as it may,
American democracy is clearly nothing of the sort, and it remains to be
seen how long the people can endure government by (hidden) oligarch,
masquerading as democracy ... or what might change it. One can hope for
a people's champion to emerge, perhaps even within strict constitutional
constraints. And in Africa, where western-style democracy has
not worked very well, one can hope that the ancient
African wisdom in the political sphere can be brought to bear. The trouble
of course will lie in getting "there" (to stable kingship structures
drawing upon ancient practice and wisdom), from "here" (the nation-state
structures that cut across and subordinate structures of traditional
nation-hood). The European omelettes having been made, there may be no way to
reconstitute the original, individual African eggs. A pity.
Grisso