Democracy a product of cultural evolution. It embodies ideas, ideals and orientations, and has developed a sense of propriety through conventional practice and historical consensus. Perhaps this explains why the present world has no place for dictatorship.
Dictatorship is a particularly serious problem in Africa and recently led to the violent death of Muammar Gaddafi of Libya. Genuinely rational politics requires membership in a particular type of moral community.
Ethnic intolerance; the abuse of human rights on a massive scale; the monopolisation of political and economic power; refusal to respect democracy or the results of free and fair elections; resistance to popular participation in governance; and poor management of public affairs all play a part in the massive refugee problem in many parts of Africa today.
The continent is not only faced with natural catastrophes, such as droughts and famine which produce economic refugees, but it is also afflicted with wars. Experts say civil wars, ethnic strife, human rights abuses, coups and oppressive governments are the most important factors responsible for the large numbers of refugees.
Conditions in Libya were conducive to Gaddafi’s violent end. Overwhelming disparity between the minority rich and the majority poor, long-term political oppression or military rule or the social and economic oppression of one ethnic group by another, increasing popular discontent, political arrests and attacks against civilian demonstrations can be a source of discontent and conflict. These conditions were rife in Libya.
A key element in understanding the context and situation in an escalating conflict is the ability to read warning signs of trouble and indicators of increasing tension or violence, which is the basis for “conflict early warning” analysis. Gaddafi dismally failed to take notice of these signs and indicators of trouble. he listened to the cries and aspirations of his people, there can be no doubt that Gaddafi would have saved himself from such a bloody end.
The problem with people like Gaddafi is that they never listen to anybody even if they know they are in the wrong. Thus, he vowed to fight till the last man, the last woman and of course the last bullet. Were it not for NATO intervention I am sure Gaddafi would have exterminated his opponents. But the Libyan revolutionaries also vowed to fight till the end. Gaddafi had outlived his usefulness.
The writing is on the wall for Africa’s remaining dictators particularly our own octogenarian tyrant, Robert Mugabe. Gaddafi wanted to die a martyr but a villain he died. I cannot commiserate with a dictator, my sympathies are with the people he oppressed for 42 years and who suffered his violence during the past eight (8) months of the unrest.
Post published in: Politics