Oppressing People for Love
Abdiqani Y. Farahabdiqanieau@gmail.comJun 22 2014OPINIONIt is 10:40 pm on Friday night, June 13, 2014. I am writing this article from a detention confinement in a crumbling East African nation. And this is the third night I am in custody. People may wonder the sort of freedom I have. Do not get me wrong. I found my briefcase beside me and, with access to my laptop, I chose to tell the world what is happening around me.
In fact, the three-meter-square room has other facilities. It contains police records of all sorts that perhaps relate to justice matters. After all, this is where the cases for court trials are prepared and kept. And my lost freedom notwithstanding, I can still communicate to the outer world from this detention office.
This is Africa for you. Illegal detentions and political incrimination in the name of security are the “lowest common denominator” across the continent, particularly those Sub-Saharan Africa nations. People are oppressed in the shadow of other businesses that appear legitimate. The trouble here is that African leaders have absolutely no control over the people. But this does not worry us. Nor does it pose a newer problem. What should worry us all is how to spell the difference between security and development schemes in difficult times when political transitions and social reforms are on.
In my view, three complications made modern dictators fail to read the mood of their people correctly, hence squandering the governance system in Africa now. The first complication is globalization. Here, people from different walks of life are expected to interact with no hopes of seeing things the same way. Closed borders now turned into virtual ones, whereby peoples of all ages and races are interacting at speed. Put differently, a citizen of one country can know about how another citizen yet in another country feels about his or her breakfast.
And even though actions are determined by the way people see the world around them, one thing became inescapable: imitations of those with civilized life-sphere ruin political efforts in the underdeveloped world. That is why Thomas Friedman claimed in his book, The World Is Flat, that the technological pace could co-determine the rule. What this means is that, if left unchecked, people in different parts of the world can together stage a coup d’état against dictators. In other words, with social media and other life-streaming technologies, governments are cornered. And to some, brutal and barbarous oppressions became zero-option.
True, globalization comes with it consequences that nobody with ingenuity ever foresaw. In a word, the problems it provided humanity can sometimes outweigh the benefits. In fact, most developed countries happen to fighting in wars that globalization itself has breaded. The CIA is chasing tweets by worldwide criminal enterprises.
The second complication has to do with security. No matter where one lives, security became prime issue the world over. There is a temptation by governmental authorities to know what societies are thinking. And this is quite legitimate from the perspective of governments. But security in modern times is like a slippery coin. The more the governments try iron hands, the more uglier they appear.
And for Africa, the case is rather worse. Like the communist Russia under Joseph Stalin, most African leaders bought the idea of controlling everything. This is just an illusion and downright undemocratic. In fact, by so doing, matters slipped out of their hands. There are mass arrests and misplaced aggression and intimidation across Africa. I met a guy who was arrested by writing “the big fish is lucky” on a wall.
The third complication is to do with corruption and public theft. The security paranoia has fed a national theft in many African nations. Our leaders are claiming to fighting an invisible enemy—a thing that globalization itself promotes—while pocketing the public money. In the name of advancing security for all, newer schemes of corruption were invented and unexplained budgets allotted to the non-existent, and sometimes the controllable. For instance, according to the World Bulletin, Kenya has allocated US$2 billion for security, while Ethiopia’s defense budget grew to US$350 million, according to African Globe.
Look at Somalia. The very people who were to bring peace to this war-torn nation are sipping coffee and having cheap politics in gated hotels, seeking deals over the blue. In fact most of these politicians are facebooking while the country is watching them in great despair. The millions of dollars allotted for security and reconciliation are spent in luxurious resorts and travel arrangements. That is why the so-called war against extremism in Africa is both pedestrian and unconvincing. It is just unwinnable, at least from the look of things.
The result? Segregated societies and behind-the-fence policies that never seem to match the spirit of the time became the order of the day. By the day, rulers and the ruled are disconnected and hatred fed by the very norm that could enhance the lives of many. And because mistrust spread over and over, street grapevines and political nonsense are played on daily basis, all too often feeding suspicion and insecurity. So to curb the situation, a friendlier option for governments in Africa is to use force and intimidation, arrests and indiscriminate verdicts. In reality, the more brutal and cruel governments get, the more intense and angrier the mobs become.
This psyche is best explained by the novel, A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens. The book tells stories about how the mobs engaged in mass executions during the French Revolution of 1789. The mobs would gather in public domains and cheer as the executors chopped of heads. Ironically, the more the executions continued, the more the mobs craved for blood. The lesson here is that oppression and subjugation never water down fires, but kindle more violence instead. Such reality is unavoidable. And those who choose to ignore it are doing so at their own peril.
In sum, if globalization and democracy are to take roots, newer thinking must be employed. A good option is to spell out measures of civil liberty in earnest. This is so because oppression is not a mechanism for power. It is a mechanism of distortion and mistrust. This is particularly true in an age where, with the help of social media, moods and feelings spread like a wildfire. After all, you cannot unleash the police to beat the mobs into loving you.
Abdiqani Y. Farah is social commentatorabdiqanieau@gmail.com
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