The term democracy has been defined differently by different political thinkers. Even though dictators such as President Jammeh futilely attempted to coin it to suit his own selfish political ambition, democracy has generally been opined as a system of government in which the will of the people takes precedence over that of the elected representatives. It is therefore fitting to assert that democracy empowers and enlightens a people to make informed choices. They elect their representatives based on their political agenda thus compelling politicians to live up to the expectation of the people. Unfortunately, in the Gambia under the watch of President Jammeh, democracy is nothing but a white elephant.
A valuable democracy required a level playing political field in which the people feel they can express their political views without fear of harassment, intimidation and unlawful arrest or detention. Furthermore, they most feel a sense of belonging such as the collective ‘we’. They must be linked by ties of reciprocal obligation that ensure they help each other in time of need, that motivate them to participate in political life and respect the outcome of the democratic process when they lose. They most also feel that important decisions affecting the community are their collective control. If these conditions are not satisfied, democracy will atrophy, respect for law will decay, and the society may even break up in to warring factions. It recognised that various types of policies could in theory satisfy these conditions. In the modern world, however, the nation state is the serious candidate. Global or regional institutions and organisations such as UN, The EU, The WTO or multinational Corporations are not alternatives to the nation state.
Indeed, the very existence of such entities pre-supposes a network of strong nation states underpin them, to raised taxes, to provide armed forces to act on their behalf, to mobilise popular feeling behind them, and to ensure the rule of law. If nation states are seriously undermined the result will not be global harmony, but global anarchy.
I love my country The Gambia and believe that it would be a better place if people are free to exercise their rights. In modern conditions national loyalty has the following widely recognised advantages.
1) We as citizens of nation state are bound by reciprocal obligations to all those who can claim our nationality, regardless of family ties or faith.
2) Hence freedom of worship, freedom of conscience, freedom of speech and opinion should offer no threat to our common loyalty.
3) Our law applies to a definite territory, and our legislature is chosen by that home it is. The law therefore confirms our common destiny and attracts our common obedience. Law- abidingness becomes part of the scheme of things, part of the way the land is settled.
4) Our people can quickly unite in the face of threat, since they are uniting in defence of the thing that is necessary to all of them -their territory.
5) The symbols of national loyalty are neither militants nor ideological, but consist in peaceful images of the home land of the place where we belong
6) National loyalties therefore aid reconciliation between classes, interest and faith, and form the back ground to a political process based on consensus rather than by force.
7) In particular, national loyalties enable people to respect the sovereignty and the right of the individual. For those and similar reasons, national loyalty those not merely issue in democratic government, but is profoundly assumed by it. People bound by national ‘we’ have no difficulties in accepting a government whose opinion and decisions they disagree; they have no difficulty in accepting the legitimacy of opposition, or the free expression of outrageous -seeming views. In short, they are able to live with democracy, and to express political aspirations through the ballot box. None of those good things are to be found in a state that is founded on the ‘we’ of tribal identity or the ‘we’ of faith. In modern conditions all such states are in constant state conflict and civil war, with neither a genuine rule of law nor durable democracy. Part one.
Babucarr Darboe
Chelmsford, Essex