2 - Problematizing ‘Liberation’ and Democratization in Post-independence Eritrea

Summary

Introduction

To be free from dictatorial government and from the application of its arbitrary and repressive laws is what it means to be free in the most elementary political sense of the word. (Sodaro & Collinwood 2008: 173)

Contrary to conventional wisdom, democratization is a slow, protracted, participatory, consensual and multi-layered process. Its central raison d’être is the production and reproduction of a rule-based system of governance underpinned by shared democratic values that interconnect people across the social cleavages of faith, ethnicity, region, ideology and way of life. The single most important question that we need to ask in our beleaguered region is not whether there have been multi-party elections or whether the regimes in place are formally democratic or tyrannical. It is more important to ask the extent to which the system in place promotes or stymies the development and, over time, consolidation of the buttressing core values, such as freedom, equality, cross-cultural understanding and trust, as well as respect for the sanctity of difference, life and rule of law.

These anchors of democracy are not necessarily the result of multi-party elections because, as James Bovard observes, ‘Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner’ (1994: 333). It would be foolish and dishonest to attribute more meaning and significance to the procedural elections that have been taking place in our region – with the exception of the last Kenyan experience where, in spite of the rampant and palpable divisiveness, at least there was vibrant participation of civil society organizations (CSOs), including the rabidly bigoted. This does not deny the vital role the process may play in raising public awareness and fostering dialogue across the divides in the run up to and after elections. However, this is dependent on how open, free and transparent the process is because, more often than not in multi-ethnic and multi-faith societies where there is dearth of democratic culture, elections are more likely to divide and polarize rather than unite the societies concerned. The importance of multi-party elections is not therefore measured by the fact that the government exercising power is elected or not, but rather by whether such an election leads to flourishing of freedom and greater cross-cultural understanding across the cultural and political divide permeating the society in question.