Emmanuel Konde
Human greed and human arrogance of power are two major sources of social evil. This is true of life in general and particularly so in politics. Greed is the appropriation of resources to oneself or by a group of individuals. Arrogance of political power is the selfish consumption of power by one person or a few at the expense of the people. Greed and arrogance of power breed mistrust between power and wealth, the powerful not-so-knowledgeable and powerless-knowledgeable, and between those who have and those who want. The term, civil society, was coined to designate the powerless-knowledgeable who have been systematically excluded from power and who, desirous of political power, strategically posit themselves as advocates for the marginalized masses. It is not surprising that this concept is used only in reference to societies in which consensus among the major stake-holders is yet to be hatched.
The absence of social consensus in societies with relatively large numbers of knowledgeable but powerless people creates a political climate of mistrust that invariably develops into what may be aptly called social disjuncture. To repair this disjuncture the ruling class and those who oppose it have to contrive an agreement, a social consensus that would benefit not just the classes struggling to keep or take power, but the entire citizenry. Modern history demonstrates that some of our contemporary developed nations have effectively achieved social consensus, while the majority of developing nations are yet to attain same.
What follows is my attempt at combining political science with political philosophy to the analysis of society as it is (political science) and as it ought to be (political philosophy). My purpose is to demonstrate how developing countries can achieve social consensus without going through the upheavals that some contemporary mature democracies experienced because of the recalcitrance of their now defunct ruling elite. Power is never granted but taken. However, society has moved far-beyond the Maoist notion of all power comes from the barrel of gun. Today, political power can be negotiated. Politics, after all, is the art of rational compromise and the science of nation-building. Political actors cannot, therefore engage in building by tearing down the nation.
From the present to the past
Equilibrating power relations among competing social forces is a problem perennial to all societies at certain points of their historical development. Some societies resolved this problem after long and bloody struggles; other societies are fitfully gravitating towards that end. Although in recent years the world has witnessed the cathartic eruptions of countries in the throes of democratic breakthroughs, it does not necessarily follow that all nations transiting to democracy should tread the same path trodden by some of our contemporary mature democracies.
The unmistakable political instrument that gives vent to these eruptions is election. Formerly employed as a ritual by the old power classes to revitalize and prolong their illegitimate rule, recent developments in Kenya, Zimbabwe, and now Iran are suggestive of a new trend that would eventually engulf the entire developing world.
Indeed, even in Honduras where the military recently ousted President Manuel Zelaya, it was to the Honduran Congress that it turned to have that legitimate body elect Roberto Micheletti as interim leader. Elections are becoming the instruments for legitimating illegitimate regimes, affecting political change, and are gradually replacing the erstwhile military coups as the engines of regime change.
Confusing is the assumption that the mere ritual of election, expertly employed by many dictatorial regimes, is in itself an exercise in democracy. Missing in this equation is the knowledge base of the electors, which the vast majority of citizens in the developing world lack. Although election is an integral part of democratic political process, more important than the act of electing is knowledge about what democracy entails. Unless an electorate understands what democracy is, the act of voting is rendered a practice that is manipulated by the few in power and the few who wish to win power.
In many situations in which the few who possess and monopolize knowledge, rather than the majority who vote out of sentiment, understand and determine the outcomes of elections that the ignorant masses are supposed to be the key actors because of their numbers, the end result is a sham and nothing but a sham. Democracy is a system of government that works best when the electorate is enlightened. Ignorance confers on citizens the quality of subjects who, previously governed by kings, are now led by educated politicians who cannot help it but manipulate them. Ignorant people cannot, therefore, serve democracy well because they are used as pawns.
Society and the science of politics
The high-sounding pronouncements from political pontiffs of democracy and their disciples aside, election rigging is as old as electoral politics. Everywhere in the world where a country approached that critical point of transition from dictatorship or oligarchic rule to democratic governance, the formerly neglected “newly arrived” have always launched a struggle for political equality. Their struggle has invariably sought to accomplish two things: (1) to have the old power structure acknowledge their arrival on the political stage, and; (2) to ensure that their share of political power is commensurate with their acquired knowledge or accumulated wealth.
Knowledge and wealth, the ultimate sources of power, tend to render those human beings who possess them rather restive. Until the demands of the restive knowledgeable and wealthy are met, tranquility will not only be far-fetched in the body politic, but the old center of power would be perpetually wobbly and the state in which it presides rendered ungovernable.
Many of our contemporary mature democracies had long settled this conflict over political power between the old and new power classes through violent revolutions. This is the route that England, the United States, and France adopted in their march toward social consensus and democracy. England’s struggle was resolved in a series of revolutions that spanned nearly half a century beginning in 1640 and culminating with the Glorious Revolution of 1688-1689. The struggle of the United States was settled by the American Revolution (1775 to 1783). France likewise resolved her internal struggle with the French Revolution (1789–1799).
The success of the English, American, and French struggles for social consensus and democracy can be traced to planning and preparedness. These examples of success, like the 1979 Iranian Revolution that inaugurated the Islamic Republic, demonstrate that successful revolutions are never spontaneous uprisings. The failure of the June 2009 spontaneous revolution in Iran is as clear a testimony of the futility of spontaneity as there ever was.
Society and the philosophy of politics
Unlike the English, American, and French revolutions, the Iranian Revolution of 1979 was more a religious than a political revolution. Belief in the purity of the state, rather than consideration of citizen welfare, guided the Iranian revolutionaries and their supporters. Wherever God is held as supreme on earthly matters, but some human beings project themselves as God’s intermediaries and interlocutors on earth, a fundamental disjuncture with human reality occurs. It is this disjuncture—which the British settled with their king as head of politics and religion, the French by relegating religion to the service of the state, and the United States by simply establishing separation of church and state—that Iran has to resolve. Until this disjuncture is resolved by the Iranian people, the social consensus required to establish a democratic polity will most likely elude that country even if the conservative theocracy is replaced by a moderate regime that professes democracy.
No country has ever surged forward in history without first arriving at some sort of social consensus. Akin to a social contract, social consensus involves a meeting of minds among the key actors of any given society about what the national interest entails. This usually occurs at a particular juncture of national development when society begins to veer towards maturity, from the perpetuation of private interests to the advancement of the national. At that point the social, cultural, political, and economic forces of a country come together to forge a binding agreement about what manner of nation their country would become. Tendencies such as tribalism or ethnicity simply evaporate and give way to nationalism; the erstwhile people who hitherto had been much like subjects are transformed into citizens; the welfare of the nation suddenly takes precedence over personal greed and regional particularisms; and the rules governing politics become concretized in a constitution that all pledge their loyalty.
Ultimately, these developments produce an aggregation of individual and private interests, and a concert of these once disparate interests to the service of the nation. This coming together of governmental and non-governmental creative forces of society produces a sense of pride, love of country, and thus in a new spirit that compels and propels the people to begin caring for their country as never before.
Conclusion
Mistrust, greed, and arrogance of political power are the things that hinder the attainment of social consensus and democracy in developing countries. Poor, ignorant, and illiterate people yet to be rudely awakened from their long slumber cannot effectively participate in a democracy. Therefore, the key to unlocking the secret to democratic politics is knowledge. In societies where the majority of citizens are knowledgeable about their rights enshrined in their countries’ constitutions, where retributive justice has been eliminated as a political instrument that rivals wield against each other, none will rise to successfully subordinate and exploit others or cleave onto political power ad infinitum.
But knowledge is not power. Knowledge as knowledge, left to its own devices amounts to nothing but knowledge. Knowledge, however, is a potent force in which is lodged the potential of becoming a galvanizing instrument of social change. Applied or actionable knowledge, for those entrenched in power, those who wish to either join, and citizen-masses, is the sole guarantor of freedom and democracy.
AWAKE CAMEROONIANS
Cameroonians awake and make good use of your eyes
You are sleeping in a midst of a war
And the enemy will soon capture you.
The evil leaves with us but we pretend not to know about it.
Creating awareness is good but its better action is put in place.
The society can be free from evil if we wish so
Like true patriots lets fight against such evil.
GOD BLESS YOU MR EMMANUEL KONDE.
Posted by: T. LIVINUS ACHA (TLA) | Saturday, 04 July 2009 at 06:50 PM
Dear comrade all have been said but nothing is being done to keep the blood suckers from milking the country. The epitap of cameroon has been written over and over must we keep on writing?. Youths what is the way forward? somthing must be done, it must start somewhere. Let the Revolution begins.
Posted by: Asafor valentine | Sunday, 05 July 2009 at 02:44 PM
Mr. Konde writes “The term, civil society, was coined to designate the powerless-knowledgeable who have been systematically excluded from power and who, desirous of political power, strategically posit themselves as advocates for the marginalized masses.” I say, how about you take some time and read a few post modernist books on the subject. You may want to start with Perlas, Nicolas, Shaping Globalization - Civil Society, Cultural Power and Threefolding.
DON’T IMAGINE THINGS AND WRITE THEM FOR PEOPLE TO READ AS POLTICAL SCIENCE.
Mr. Konde writes :
My purpose is to demonstrate how developing countries can achieve social consensus without going through the upheavals that some contemporary mature democracies experienced because of the recalcitrance of their now defunct ruling elite. Power is never granted but taken.[Don’t you see any contradiction in the above?] However, society has moved far-beyond the Maoist notion of all power comes from the barrel of gun. Today, political power can be negotiated. [Yet, you don’t seem to have a single example to give for this voodoo political science argument].
Mr. Konde continues:
The unmistakable political instrument that gives vent to these eruptions is election. Formerly employed as a ritual by the old power classes to revitalize and prolong their illegitimate rule, recent developments in Kenya, Zimbabwe, and now Iran are suggestive of a new trend that would eventually engulf the entire developing world. [I guess when anyone who knows that at the core of Kenya’s conflict was British efforts to deprive those that fought for independence access to power and hence real democracy from the onset. That Zimbabwe’s problems could be laid squarely at the doors of Downing Street. That international observers certified most of the elections in Zimbabwe except the very last as free and fair, but Britain, the EU and most of your so-called “first world countries” insisted on maintaining an illegal embargo against the country to blackmail its citizens to voting Britain’s choice as president. As for Iran, that the United States destroyed democracy in that country by organizing the overthrow of that country’s democratically elected PM Mosadek. The lack of democracy in those countries have had to do with disruptions from those so-called first world countries of yours. By the way Mr. Konde, I don’t know were you studies your political science but anyone who studies the history of social upheavals in the 60s or the 90s will be shock by your “suggestive of a new trend that would eventually engulf the entire developing world” line. ]
Mr. Konde :
Confusing is the assumption that the mere ritual of election, expertly employed by many dictatorial regimes, is in itself an exercise in democracy. Missing in this equation is the knowledge base of the electors, which the vast majority of citizens in the developing world lack. Although election is an integral part of democratic political process, more important than the act of electing is knowledge about what democracy entails. Unless an electorate understands what democracy is, the act of voting is rendered a practice that is manipulated by the few in power and the few who wish to win power. [NO Mr. Konde. Confusing is your assumption that what is happening in the third world is that people are being fooled to vote for the wrong candidate. NO Sir. Elections are being rigged with the aid of some of those your so-called first world countries e.g. French elections rigging experts from the Paris 16th district ran election rigging schemes in Cameroon, Chad, CAR, both Congos and in and attempt to stop democratic change subjected Rwandans to psych war and eventually to genocide.]
Mr. Konde Write:
Many of our contemporary mature democracies [you have even forgotten that you are Cameroonian, one of the third world countries] had long settled this conflict over political power between the old and new power classes through violent revolutions. This is the route that England, the United States, and France adopted in their march toward social consensus and democracy. England’s struggle was resolved in a series of revolutions that spanned nearly half a century beginning in 1640 and culminating with the Glorious Revolution of 1688-1689 [No Sir. You have to read about cotemporary social struggles in the UK by people like Andrew Gamble and George Galloway (British MP)] . The struggle of the United States was settled by the American Revolution (1775 to 1783) [That is if your forget the civil war and the civil rights movements of the 60s. Read Howard Zinn “A peoples history of America” and Norm Chomsky “Manufacturing consent” ]. France likewise resolved her internal struggle with the French Revolution (1789–1799)[read about the 1968 uprisings and the fall of the 4th republic] .
Posted by: Valentine Eben | Monday, 06 July 2009 at 04:16 PM
BY KONDE EMMANUEL
Deceptive "Herd Mentality" as Graffi Intellectualism
We begin by posting this disclaimer: not all Graffi are the same. Some are refined and others are unrefined. We acknowledge and affirm that while the majority is unrefined, crude, and uncouth like the vociferous ones who vomit filth on camnet, there are a few refined Graffi who are presently ashamed of their unrefined brethren. But, as long as the refined Graffi remain silent and conspicuously refrain from reining in their unrefined brethren because of some outdated custom and tradition so ordain, we should not be held responsible for the truths we present in exposing the unrefined. For the silence of the refined is license to the unrefined. To rupture this deafening silence, we present below five cardinal truths about the unrefined Graffi noise-makers. These truths reveal the unrefined Graffi for what they actually are in a rather graphic manner, pristine, without their pretentious garbs. Here are the raw details of the unrefined Graffi.
Truth No. 1.
We all know the unrefined Graffi, the misfits, who invariably have some kind of defect. It is either their socks, under wear, or some body part that oozes. Of such are the distinguishing characteristics of the unrefined Graffi.. Beyond this deficiency in hygiene, lies and pretentiousness are their stock in trade. Mishe Fon says that he received veiled threatening calls; that some of those whose names appeared on a CPDM-USA Committees' list called him to disavow the party. Challenged to investigate the sources of the calls and to reveal the names of those who called him, the man instantly becomes mute and his false testimony fizzles….
Then, the Reverend Pastor Jonathan Awasom, an ignoramus among the ignorant and unrefined Graffi, mounts the stage. He puts on a false presence of importance, invokes United States law, and promises to report CPDM-USA militants to the U.S. Government. Konde nudges him forward to report him and him alone. We are waiting for Awasom to report Konde. But please, Pastor Awasom, cease and desist from sending Konde private emails.
In order not to be outdone, none other than Kenneth Fru Ndeh enters the fray to participate in the Graffi choir. Thus, he sings or quips: “BO SUNG aka Pa Njakri, Keep on pointing out stultifying prose when you see it.. I thank you for delineating the parts which are paralogistic. Emmanuel Konde's thought patterns are specious and casual readers can easily be deceived. REASONING Vs Pseudo-REASONING. This is CAMNETWORK at it's best.” Indeed, Graffi intellectualism, configured around deception, lies, and the drowning of dissenting opinions, according to Fru Ndeh, has raised camnetwork to its very best. It is a wondrous story that only the unrefined Graffi are admitted as choristers in this Choir of the Uncouth. More wondrous is the fact that these irrational ones claim to be the “reasoning” type and Konde and other non-Graffi the “pseudo-reasoning” people.
Somewhere in the United Kingdom , another unrefined Graffi emerges. He calls himself Rexon Nting. Because he is uninformed and went through the motions of schooling but failed to cultivate the requisite niceties of an educated person, this Nting person writes his name and title as Dr. Rexon Nting, Ph.D. Nting does not know that one cannot use both the prefix "Dr." and the suffix "Ph.D." in a single swoop. And thus we have a Graffi unrefined lettered man who calls himself "Dr.- Ph.D.", that is “Doctor-Doctor of Philosophy”. How strange!
Truth No. 2 "Kondeism" is the new mantra of Graffi intellectualism as articulated by one Jayson Tita.. To cover up their rawness, the unrefined Graffi have unleashed a spate of invective(s) against the Venerable Konde in order to drown him. They have learned that science of politics has to do with making the loudest noise. This, they have carried into the realm of intellectualism. . Having concocted a unique brand of Graffi intellectualism, they have aspired to make it operational
as follows: One unrefined Graffi man writes, another coarse Graffi man sings his praise, and the merry-go-round of "herd-mentality" perpetuates and reproduces itself. Accordingly, they plunge camnet into a new Age of Graffi intellectualism that finds its expression in herd-mentality. It is primitivity at its best, this Graffi intellectualism. The purveyors are crude, uncouth and bold in their crudity. Subjects of despotic fons that they are, they pretend to discuss democracy and freedom when they are themselves are undemocratic and without freedom.
It is hard to distinguish the one from the other. Is it Mishe Fon, Jonathan Awasom, Jayson Tita, or Bo Sung? It is as if this quartet has but one head and a single lousy brain that is suspended by multiple bodies. What one writes, the other repeats, and the same idea is echoed over and over again. From all apparent indications, these men with one head/brain, by virtue of the fact that they are exchanging banter for Konde’s ideas, and for the simple fact that this event is actually taking place on a global scale, feel that they have reached the apex of their lives—something, nay, a great achievement, they never imagined possible. And so they write and write and write, and, as no response seems forthcoming, they get agitated and excited.
Truth No. 3
In their rapture of ultimate fulfillment, of that which was but a fleeting dream, their excitement builds up to a boiling point. Breathing hard and wondering why Konde is not responding, they write again, and another kinsman sings the same old primitive song. And then a chorus of Graffi praise song ensues and the excitement brews to a higher pitch, a higher level of expectation. “At last, at last,” these primitive ones proclaim, “we have arrived.” Foolhardily, they think they have entered the realm of civilization. But, in their haste to appropriate the ways and mannerisms of the civilized that are foreign to them, they jump into a cesspool of their own creation.
Now, rewind and count how many versions of "Kondeism" have been written by these scumbags. And one wonders how Foncha "trounced" the highly cultured and cosmopolitan Endeley? Think again, and think of what befell Southern Cameroons . The same tactics that the fons employed herding their ignorant subjects to the polls like cattle, and instructing them on how and for whom to vote, some primitive Graffi are likewise deploying on camnet. Give them an inch and they seek a foot; give them a foot and it is a pole that they set their sights….
Truth No. 4
Beware of these insatiable people who eat with both sides of the mouth. Some of these are CPDM by day and SDF at night. In the dark of the night, they consort and hatch diabolical plans against other Cameroonians. Cone daylight and these people smile and hug their avowed enemies. They never put all their eggs in one basket. Instead, they spread them into CPDM basket, SDF basket, UPC basket, etc., etc. Masters of deception that they are, they have fooled nearly every Cameroonian group from the days of Southern Cameroons, the Federal Republic , the United Republic , to the current Republic of Cameroon .
It is from among the Graffi that one Gorji-Dinka who claims to be President of some place called Ambazonia hails. He was President of the Cameroon Bar for six years and during his tenure he never mentioned the fictive nation of Ambazonia. No sooner was he replaced than he began to invent ideas that might propel him to grandeur. These people like titles. Just like Foncha who thought the title of Prime Minister was not big enough and wanted something bigger--Vice President, Gorji-Dinka could not settle for anything less than president. Thus, he created his Republic of Ambazonia which he rules, like his fondom in Widekum, in absentia from the United Kingdom.
Truth No. 5
Their method of operation is simply based on a double standard: one for the Graffi and the other for the rest. Consequetly, they criticize and insult President Paul Biya but never Prime Minister Philemon Yang. They criticize CPDM corruption but never SDF; they call President Biya a dictator but their fons, the ultimte despots, are projected as untouchable divinities. Even Mr. John Fru Ndi, the life-dictator of SDF, is held beyond reproach. Graffi objectivity, indeed!
We submit to you, fellow Cameroonians of goodwill, the machinations of these unrefined Graffi must be contained and contained now. How can "subjects" aspire to dominate "citizens"? How can you allow this effrontery from a backward and primitive lot that has no sense of proportion? They shout the loudest but are least informed. They employ intimidation against their betters. How can the shoulders ever rise above the head?
Master Jayson Tita has written so many "Kondeism" pieces that he might end up sending them to his friends, family members, and acquaintances as his magnum opus. And there the multiple bodies supporting one head are glued to their keyboards and computer screens waiting for salvation from Konde by way of a reply to their banter. Here comes the reply. Enjoy
Posted by: VA Boy | Tuesday, 08 September 2009 at 08:40 PM