We pride ourselves, and with merit, that we as
Ghanaians live in a democracy. But increasingly the silly features of
violence and the sporadic nature of their occurrence bother me. We are a
democracy but has democracy made us complacent? Perhaps we are complacent, I do
not know. The trends, these worrying trends of violence bother me. I am
left in considerable consternation when I ponder over them. Are these the first
blinking lights warning of a greater potential danger? Are those who point at
these and call for action mere alarmists? Or is it those who dismiss these
trends that are complacent?
Many years ago, I listened to an interview of the
reggae super star, Robert Nestor Marley, these words from that interview
ring in my ears today: "It's not how long you've been a Rasta that
matters, it's how much you've grown." The worrying question for us is:
"How much have we grown as a democracy?" In some ways a great deal.
In other ways, not at all. The gruesome death of Issa Mobilla; the intensely
heinous and murderous clashes in Agbogbloshie market; rogue elements from the
army beating up a helpless young lady because she had dared dress up in attire
that mimicked military fashion; the now numerous reports about armed robbers
ransacking a defenceless and peace loving citizenry and so on, am I merely
alarmist when I say these bother me? It's not how long we've been a democracy,
dear reader, it's how much we've grown that matters!
The existence of these silly features worry me. But
I am even more deeply disturbed by the responses of some in my generation,
people I have deep respect for. For better or for worse, I belong to a
generation that lost its innocence while growing up and witnessing very high
volumes of political violence. One of my quiet obsessions is to scientifically
understand what the full impact of these experiences were, particularly as we
have reached adulthood and increasingly as my generation reaches leadership of
important arms of governance. Over the past few days (or so), a few people I
know well and respect deeply have shaken me out of complacency by insisting that
(at least this is how I understand the argument), in the face of a threat of
large scale violence soldiers should be allowed to unleash uncoordinated,
unaccountable, extra-judicial violence on people they suspect to be agents of
disorder in a community. This is an argument that gives me the chills for I
doubt its purveryors understand what they call for.
The Italian scholar, Antonio Gramsci, wrote
authoritatively about what he termed "the infinity of traces".
Gramsci argued that history leaves in all of us, and by extension all
societies, an infinity of traces but with no inventory. Therefore one of the
important requirements of the development effort is the need to understand this
inventory: what has caused the traces?, who caused the traces?, how did our own
actions impact the traces?, where are the traces, etc. This is the inventory,
the directory of traces that a society sometimes needs to be able to navigate
its history in the effort to achieve a great future. Has the large
scale exposure to violence for so long, dulled our sensitivity to patent
breaches of the rule of law? How is it that people who scream for the highest
punishment on earth for those who breach football camp rules, find it in them
to support extra-judicial brutalisation of their compatriots? How can violence
against people who are yet to be charged with a crime be understandable
and acceptable? What society are we building?
Even to suggest that the presence of a threat to
social order justifies an accommodation of extra-judicial and extra-legal
enforcement methods, is to grind and undermine the Social Contract that holds
together an Open Society, a true democracy. Often, it is the weakness of
institutions that requires us to consider this - the resort to, I shudder to
say, barbaric methods in enforcing what we perceive to be the law. Constitutional Democracy
has in-built mechanisms for dealing with illegality. While they may not
dispense justice instantly, our objective should be to ensure that we
strengthen the institutions to work diligently and increase their efficiency.
For discretionary power in the hands of an armed and unaccountable person,
given an implied license to brutalise is indeed a dangerous thing. Baron de
Montesquieu was without doubt right, when he warned:"There is no
greater tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of the law and
in the name of justice."
Democracy calls for, to use Rousseau's phrase
again, "a social contract". We are in extremely dangerous territory
when somehow, we begin to expect the benefits and rights that a democracy
offers but spurn the responsibilities expected of us when it seems convenient.
In a nation that is founded on the idea of "Freedom and Justice", it
must matter to us when people who have not been charged, who have not been put
before a judge, who have not been sentenced, who have not been given even a
semblance of anything due a citizen, are stripped and brutalised in the nude in
full view of the public. To defend this, in my view, is to succumb to a
self-righteouness that imbues in us, by some twisted logic, the privilege of
enforcing what we prejudge. The judicial process is and ought to be the proper
theater for declaring who is a criminal and who is not. No matter how strongly
we feel about another person's guilt, merely to bestow a right to punish in the
hands of those who have might - even brutal might - at any point in time, is to
court anarchy. For decentralised violence that results from a society in which
might is right and the rest are damned, is a sure recipe to the dissolution (if
not explosion) of harmonious societies as we know them.
We cannot, and I say this with whatever conviction,
authority and courage that I can muster, and should not attempt to short
circuit the need to develop strong or stronger institutions. What is required,
to borrow the wisdom of a good friend, is to reform the state itself. For if
the weakness or perceived weakness of our institutions cause us to entertain
the thought of endorsing extra-judicial methods (ironically, it is
argued, to somehow defend the objects of justice), then what is required
is a strengthening of institutions. This, strengthening our
institutions, ought to be given very high priority in our development
effort. For to be a democracy is to be a law-based society. Upholding
justice for all is not a footnote in the development effort. The political
class, and I refer to both sides of the divide here, lives a lie if it assumes
that these deep systemic issues can be escaped in their blind pursuit of
political power. For of all people, it is the politician who ought to know the
dangers of arbitrariness.
Sometimes I think we have become a people who
expect too little from our political leadership. Partly as a result, we get too
little in terms of delivery. What we have been exposed to in recent times
should rapture our consciences - that our compatriots can be dealt with in this
way is a crying shame. I am not naive when I argue that the suspicion of
commission of even the most heinous crime should not be justification for any
one, let alone agents of the state, to resort to extra-judicial brutalisation
of others. It is obvious to me that there are those who do not believe Africa
and Africans should even dare aspire to the high standards of governance others
have achieved. This is an argument I do not subscribe to and will not bother to
address now. For now, let me merely observe that I have been a victim of
violent crime, I know this trauma personally, to my regret. However, I also
know, that shot gun methods do not yield sustainable results. We must be tough
in enforcing the law but there is tough and there is extra-judicial barbarism;
they definitely are not the same.
In the end, a society gets what it deserves.
Soyinka reminds us that in they who keep quiet in the face of injustice,
"The Man Dies!" It is for us to stand up now and be counted in the
effort to rein in rogue elements who bring the hardworking and decent aspects
of the armed forces into mass disrepute. Those who feel strongly about our
nation - for once, dropping partisanship - should now cry out for this tendency
to extra-judicial violence to be definitively brought to an end. What happens
next is up to us. The vision of a future prosperous Ghana is what is at stake
and it is that vision which should inspire us. For without a vision, a people
perish! Till the day when the overwhelming majority of us see injustice and
revolt with horror; till that day when the political class concerns itself with
human dignity and not merely power for themselves and their coterie; till the
day when a disempowered citizenry assumes its place in the order of things and
holds politicians squarely accountable - till that day, let the voices of those
who fought for their freedom elsewhere remind be with us: LIBERTE,
EGALITE, FRATERNITE! We preferred, self government in danger to
servitude in traquility but self-government in tranquility ought to be the
objective.
