The Namibia Economist

Paper democracy

Dear sir,
Professor Colin Crouch wrote a book about a Europe post democracy. He painted a picture of Europe without a functioning democracy, and now, after some few years, it seems that this scenario is becoming an ugly reality.
On paper, most of Europe and many other states, even in young Africa, are maintaining their democracy. However, this is the question many of us should ask, how much of our democracy is still an honest democracy? Democracy means that all the people rule, but in how many states are people being ‘out ruled’ by their own agents, the political parties and politicians they pay to serve them?  Is there any politician left who is prepared to serve? If my understanding of democracy is not already severely corrupted, one just have to look at our current socio-political environment.
How is it possible that in a true democracy so many old nations are in imminent danger of getting bust and at the same time, a private business which was on the brink of bankruptcy yesterday, like BP, is showing off a profit of 24 billion pounds today? Something is wrong if that can happen and this wrong must be a fundamental ‘wrong’ of gigantic proportion, because it is not a singularity, not an exception at all. How is it possible that in oil-rich Nigeria, 61% of the population live in poverty? Nigeria is indeed very rich, it produces most of the African oil.
Our question is, do the Nigerian people matter in Nigeria, do other people matter in other countries, do they have any say at all? Is Nigeria still a democracy, was it ever? Or is it just another ‘democracy-on-paper’ and will go bust soon?
We can also look into the Namibian mirror too.  Did your dream-came-true after 22 years of ‘the best paper-democracy in the world’? Is what you see an active democracy, one in which all Namibians participate in all spheres of democracy, in which democracy is lived by us all and in which we all share the fruits of our ‘democratic’ independence? Or is ours also a mere rotten paper-democracy which is run by an obese party-elite for their benefit alone?
Should a party leadership be allowed to determine the future of millions alone without the participation of all the voters ? You can burn the constitution and forget about a working democracy; you are a raped democrat, raped, trampled on and classed ‘domestic animal, bred for voting by a guiding hand. Rather than accepting that the short era of Namibian democracy has passed away; go and look for an alternative, my compatriot!
Aletha Gende
Katutura
22 February 2012

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