Our governments have gone mad. They have become like a drug dealer addicted to his own drugs. This is the story of the State.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains”. He wondered why individuals who are born free by nature would crown another man and in the process forfeit a measure of their own freedom. He concluded that the only reason why people would put a government in place was to better their lot. Their obedience to the law of self-preservation made it almost imperative that they unite and institute government that would be a machinery to facilitate their survival and protection of their property.
But man discovered early on that the government became the very enemy they sought to annihilate, so they fashioned out measures to limit the power of the government and transfer more power to the people from whence it originally derived. The twists and turns of history have been a constant struggle between the people (the source of power) and the government (the custodian of power).
The very nature that made government necessary, namely self-preservation, is the very same nature that makes government inimical. Just as the people seek to preserve their lives so does the government seek to preserve its relevance and existence. But the problem is that the government has no life of its own, it’s existence is fully dependent on the people. This is an unstable and insecure existence because it offers no certainty. To secure its existence and depend less and less on the approval of the people government has to usurp more and more power away from the people unto itself. Herein lies the trick, the illusion and facade of democracy.
Democracy on paper is a government of the people, by the people and for the people. But in reality it is a form of government that gives the people APPARENT power and the government REAL power.This is why the Executive arm of government has entered the sacred space of the Legislature and the Judiciary the two places that are supposed to check the power of the government. The Legislature that is supposed to represent the people has been subsumed by the Executive through party politics. The Judiciary through the Supreme Court Justices and the Chief Justice has also become part of the executive. The Attorney-General is also in charge of the Ministry of Justice and is appointed by the President.
The government has achieved its aim. It has ceased to be a parasite and rather made the people the parasite. We now depend on them for everything. The trick is complete; the illusion has occurred right before our very eyes. Our ‘Frankenstein’ has left the laboratory and we simply lack the power to bring it back under subjugation.
Alas, we have given some idiots power to work for us, and that power has been turned against us.
Very insightful. This is the reason why government must be checked in all departments. I for one, all decision making processes must be held as a Referendum. This is the only way that government can be thoroughly checked!
The democratic process is not for government alone to implement. The public is as much part of the equation as the government is. The problem is that the public almost always forgets its role in the democratic process. The public becomes nonchalant about the process and become reserved, often shunning the democratic process altogether or shirking its responsibility to the deal. When a significant part of the deal become innate, you can expect the government to become the dictator.
Money in politics is also a problem. When people see elections as a place to win for so that they can give big contracts to companies who donated funds during the campaign, candidates are no longer the arm of the people but the arm of the corporations.
The Frankenstein govt is like artifical intelligence robots taking over the people who programmed them. We built it. We gave it life. Now it wants to destroy us when it should be grateful to us. Now we must ask the govt to help and protect us from (who else?) the govt. lol.
Herein lies the risk. The “Frankenstein” has been out ‘enslaving’ the strong and culling the weak. The People of Government – either through democracy or some other way – have been empowered by the people only to occupy the upper echelon of the Food Chain. This is not Civilization. This is Madness. I like this article. It is a wonderful piece.
I was typing something before my lights went off (DUM-SOR) again! But anyway… The idea of democracy is a laudable one. I even understand how it can corrupt the people in government when it is run to its excesses. The question I have is, is the problem really government? Or is it the methods of commerce/business that a society enforces that haunts its democratic processes. Let us for example take the US experiment in democracy. One can argue that Crony Capitalism has made it worse. When I speak of crony capitalism, I am referring to a stage in Capitalism where the Big Companies buy the small companies until there is only one Big Company left – without people even noticing! This kind of atmosphere can only be bad for democracy when Company Men, wanting special favours reach out to government (no matter what kind of government – democratic, authoritarian, oligarchic, cummunist, etc) to enact laws, sign contracts in their favour. I tend to think that social systems work hand in hand instead of separately no matter what we think. It is no magic why Kufuor’s whole extended family became filthy rich – with numerous big businesses and contracts – over night. Maybe by separating Business/Commerce from Government in the same way that Religion is separate from Government, we can move towards reigning in the Frankenstein?
Indeed! The unholy marriage between big business and government has made the case even worse. In the U.S Congressmen and women represent businesses before they represent the people!
Frankenstein indeed! This may seem like a sorry result for representative government to have reached, yet it is a logical and legitimate development of the principle of Majority Party Rule and there seems to be a no remedy except by invoking the whole people to pass judgement upon all Bills by a Referendum. The government can become the Electoral Commission guiding and guarding the principles, by-laws and laws of the Referendum.
Besides Rousseau, I detect a bit of Lincoln, and if you haven’t checked out Tolstoy’s “The Kingdom Of God Is Within You”, I’d highly recommend it, for it dovetails and extends some of your thoughts here.
I applaud your exploration, and encourage you to continue. For example, quite often situations are feedback loops from both directions. An instance of this, at least here in the US, is that in addition to the Executive assuming powers of the Legislature, like purse-strings through its regulatory agencies having budgets of their own to use as sticks and carrots on the social and economic sectors, the Legislature has been equally guilty of ceding its responsibilities to the Executive in the name of security and expediency, particularly in this age of terrorism and recession. Another example is that our founding fathers built in not one check-and-balance system, but at least three – by branch, by level, by sphere – all of which have seen erosion and encroachment in the last century or so, consolidating power of the people into a few hands much as Plato wrote of in “The Republic” (Book VIII) 2,400 years ago.
Our human species has accomplished true advancement in technology,learning and civilization. But man is still essentially flawed. Therefore any society man builds is likely to exhbit an extension of that defining imperfection. I think that since the alternative to the state of nature is even worse than the moral waywardness of the state as evidenced by the aftermath of the destruction of the Somali and Libyan polities, we are condemned to keep trying to minimize the excesses of government and not to make it a pristine, ideal kind of machinery, which is almost impossible. Man will keep avoiding a return to the worse state of nature by a perpetual attempt to reform what he has. The Swiss perhaps know that men cannot be trusted and so line up every now and then in referendums to decide the most frivolous of things. They are trying to replicate Greek city state direct democracy in their own way. Should we go in that direction? In a historical perspective I think Ghana and a few other African and non-european states are doing well. At a similar stage a lot of western states were still beheading people. But our problem in Ghana is self impossed. We set out to make the president powerful. He appoints virrually everybody that matters. I think this has something to do with the unspoken desire to preserve the Ghanaian state and prevent disintegration. I am convinced that soon a corrective merchanism will spring forth from the people and streamline government. I am already seeing signs of this.
Yes Atiga Atingdui! When it comes to the experiment that is democracy, the US experiment must be examined carefully.
US Democracy has always been tethered to Slave Plantation Businesses. The US Democracy is still tethered to the Prison Industrial Complex that enslaves the majority of Black people in America. Even when it comes to legislating drug offenses, it is clear that African Americans are at the bitter end of the law no matter what the will and judgement of Black communities are.
The new Heroin epidemic (including Cocaine) in white American neighborhoods (New Hampshire), for example, is treated as a medical issue while a similar epidemic of Crack in the American Urban center, where most African Americans live, is still being treated as a Crime. New Hampshire’s Youth are dying – literally killing themselves on Heroin overdoses – but still, the War on Drugs in Black neighborhoods continues to put Black men in jail and keeps the supply of Black bodies to the Businesses that are the Jewish Supremacist Owned Prison Industrial Complex.
Young white men go to the hospital while Black men go to prison to supply the cheap labor that keeps the American Economy churning – and spewing the nonsense that Democracy is great, in our faces! Of course, it is great. For them!
Democracy is not perfect, at all. Not even close! It only empowers those who think they are better and think they know what they are doing. In its final analysis, it only enslaves the strong and culls the weak. I agree! I have to agree with you Akosua M. Abeka.
It is a foregone conclusion that the US is not a Democracy. It is a consortium of Big Companies and a Police State who do business by the Racist Vote. We need to name it – perhaps it is the Frankenstein we speak of. So, you are absolutely right!
The implication is that the US is worse than other countries and I totally take issue with that assessment. There is more power in the hands of the people in the US than in most countries (perhaps all) in the world. The reporting of anecdotes does not constitute argument or reason.
Atiga Atingdui comments are not about one country or one people. They are about government and its nature. Blaming one country allows you the problems of the foundational problems Rousseau is attempting to address.
Do not allow the charlatan to divert your attention so that he can work his crime.
If by your assertion, “there is more power in the hands of the people in the US than in most countries (perhaps all) in the world” then it is only good experiment to start with the US in understanding the implmentation of the ideals of democracy. I think what Narmer Amenuti has done here is simply observe the ‘most democratic’ nation on Earth and realize that that nation has also failed terribly. This is not a debate. But having established that the US has failed at the experiment that is democracy we must move forward and encourage other nations to take the lead. This also means that the US must step back and should not engage in Regime Change Ideology – using th CIA to topple say, African Governments. Each nation must be left alone to fully discover its path to democracy – I believe this is what sovereingty means. I sincerely admire your love for your country, but you have to admire Narmer Amenuti’s love for his country to make sure his nation never ever follows in the footsteps of a rogue democracy. That’s all. It’s not to impugn the intergrity of the fine people of the US. This is only to arouse the interests of the fine people of every nation to be wary of some of the misteps of the US Democratic Experiment.
Thank you for a very thoughtful reply. What I sense in your comments is that you believe that democracy is the proper governmental system and therefore if your country fails then other countries should step up and try it. if so you and I disagree.
Democracy will lead to tyranny quicker than most systems. The dictatorship of the minority is a very dangerous thing, forcing minorities to support the majority.
My appreciation of the US is not because I am a US citizen but because the US system of government was the first to be actively debated and designed by the most intelligent people in the country at that time.
The government was created to be a liberal, constitutional, democratic republic. Liberal because the structure was designed to control government giving the people the greatest freedom possible while protecting the God given rights of minorities. It was constitutional because the people designed a written system of limits to government in order to control government excesses. It was democratic because democracy was the tool most often used to select leaders (though there was a mixture of appointment and employment). It was a republic because the leaders were elected for a specified period of time to represent the people.
I totally agree with you that countries should be left alone to determine for themselves their government, but the best framework is what I have outlined above. That in no way dictates the constitution or statutes created by the people. They should determine this for themselves.
If you are a student of history you will realize that the history of nations is one of conquest and acquisition. The US has at times engaged in this and it was wrong. Today the US does not acquire the land of other nations. While there is engagement, sometimes overstepping the bounds of what is proper, the US does not take land for itself. Its boundaries have been the same for a century when you include territories. The US has also given territories the right to choose independence. That was done with the Philippines, Cuba, and Puerto Rico after the Spanish-American war. Puerto Rico still votes on its status It has always rejected independence and kn 2012 voted to become a new state in the US. This final disposition will be determined by congress according to the constitution.
So I hope you understand that my comments are not to hold the US up as perfect. If anything I see the mistakes and take them more seriously. But the system of government in the US allows for remedies to correct the mistakes. That is what I would want to other countries.
I gather that you feel the US was founded on democratic principles. I agree with you as per the definition of that democracy – 7 Bears, 2 Sheep, and 2 Rabbits asked to vote for what’s for diner in 100 years when there is plenty of grass to go around for the next 99 years.
We feel that the African Commune had the best Democratic Process until it was corrupted by several invasions from the North, the East and the West. I will attempt to summarize the guiding principles for easy digestion.
First, the basic unit of African Democratic Thinking was the Home (of which depending on a Matriarchal or Patriarchal inheritance, the Mother or the Father or even the Uncle was the head of household). Not the Individual. Parents in the Home were only entitled to One Vote (I guess the onus was on the Home to decide which direction the members of the Home must take for their collective future). Some modern Africans mistake this entity for the Nuclear family but it is not. In fact this definition is much broader than that of the nuclear family. The Next unit was the Extended Family (a collection of Homes usually linked by blood and/or by choice). This was headed by a Family Head democratically chosen by the Singular Votes of the Homes and these representatives were rotated through a simple call to a Referendum at any moment in time. The Family Heads formed an Assembly. This was the Clan. The head of the clan was democratically elected not for a specific term but on specific issues. Above this sat the State. The State housed Heads of Clans in different Assemblies on different issues – Economy, War, Education. A collection of these States became the Kingdom. And the representatives of the states (The Mankralo & Queenmother or chief and the Asafoatsey or Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces decided on who become the face of the Kingdom – not the decision maker – but the King and Queen. Empire resulted in cooperating with/conquering other Kingdoms.
By the time a person passed the rite of passage to adulthood in African Society (my dad did his ritual at the age of 17 years – receiving a Canoe and a House and I did mine at 21 years) he/she needed to start working with (usually) the wife or husband to decide the future of the Home through a Singular Vote at the Extended Family level. This was how we built community and this is why we have remained an extremely communal people for so long a time.
Narmer knows this structure very well and could better inform the both of us on its merits and demerits. This is why we want the US to stay out of our way not matter how you/others feel about the inferiority/superiority of the US-type democracy. We have our way of
doing things and you have yours! Why can’t we do different things without necessarily having to be labeled primitive? Why can’t we have our way without the US resorting to threatening us with the Atomic Bomb?
Now, I can assure you that there is not a single African Traditional Thinker who sees the US in a positive light. And its our choice. We just don’t threaten the US with a BOMB! Since we also feel the US has a right to choose what’s best for them. It is when the US ventures out to threaten others with Regime Change that all fingers point at the internal problems and inconsistencies with the US democratic process. I can enumerate quite a few. but why belabor the point. You will not agree anyway.
But it is our duty to re-teach our Traditional Democratic Process to our children whether they like it or not – because they are our children and no one else’s! And they are in Africa not the US. So, yes I believe that democracy is the proper governmental system – it has always been since Nubia (sorry, the US tried borrowing it and has failed) and therefore if my country wants to step up and try at our lost traditions, I think we deserve to do just that without disturbance, and without a BOMB threat from the Rothschilds! I am sure by mentioning that name I am already on the watch-list which proves my point.
Dade Afre Akufu I do not believe most of what you wrote is in conflict with a liberal, constitutional, democratic republic. Your method of selecting the representatives is up to you. I agree that no country, the US or even another African country or an Islamic Caliphate should dictate to you how you choose your representatives. I would say that the only place we may differ is how do you deal with a bad government? When the decision makers at the top are tyrants do you simply live with them until they die? I believe there should be some statement of universal rights to protect minorities.
It is important to deal with a bad government. African Traditional Systems have this too in place. Anyone with an elementary education in the Democratic processes of our past will remember that such a decision to remove (impeach) say, a Chief, was discussed at the Council of Elders (Clan Heads – elected officials with specific goals, not terms) and the Queenmother was given the final Vote as regards to the future of the representative that is the Chief. All the Queenmother had to do was remove the chief’s sandals and it was over. And this could happen on the next day after enstoolment. There are several other mechanisms that the Voodoo tradition can enlighten us about but the essence of maintaining the interest of the Home (the Vote) in the every day decisions of the State and the Kingdom remains the central theme of the African Democratic Tradition. It hasn’t changed in the past 12,000 years. As for minorities, you will be very impressed with the African Philosophical thinking on this subject. There’s no such thing as a Minority. We are all part of the whole – even trees, rivers, mountains, forests. etc. There was no differentiating between the vast protections that the State ensured for Humans from those for Rivers. We have always believed that no part of the whole should be tampered with, oppressed, subjugated, maltreated and exploited. Perhaps, you can appreciate the source of the African Naivety at the dawn of the 1700s when Africa found it antithetical to her mores to hold off insidious invasions upon our cultures and ways of life from the East, the North and the West. This is particularly the cultural outlook we are hoping to change. We can no longer accept the stranger as a part of the whole. Too many times, they have come and destroyed the moral fabric and erased the essence of Africanness.
How do we stop government and then roll back it’s power to return real power to the Almighty People?
The people must limit the power and reach of the government. Each additional power the government assumes expands the abuse of power. The power must reside with the people.
I’m curious: Does Ghana have an income tax, and what is the percentage of income taken by the state (from local to central govt)?
You can find the information here: https://www.kpmg.com/…/2014…/Fiscal%20Guide%20Ghana.pdf . May I ask, why you are so curious?
In the US for the first century and a half, income tax of any sort (individual, corporate) was unconstitutional. In its rise from run-of-the-mill colony to world power in that time, the central govt only consumed 6% of one’s income via sales taxes and such. Even after income tax was added to the Constitution in 1913, it wasn’t for decades more before it was significant and uniform.
Now the central govt alone consumes one-quarter of the GDP of the entire nation, and additionally indebting the nation to more than the GDP. Production is beginning to lock up, and citizens are now indentured servants. It appears Ghana is attempting to emulate the wrong US.
I see. Most of our leaders were educated in US institutions abroad. Or read US Books. That’s why they are so STUPID. You wonder? There! In Ghana we have forgotten how our Traditional African Tax System worked before the coming of Slave-Raiding savages. When a project in a community needed funding, the commune came together and contributed for the project. Some contributed funds while others contributed labour. Such projects were for the Community strictly! So, for example, Bill Gates cannot just decide he wants a fancy palace and on we go paying up for this palace – if you get my drift. Or the Military Industrial Complex does nto decide how many ships we need or jet fighters they need to assemble and dissemble each year! Or the Prison Industrial Complex does not decide how much taxpayer’s money it needs to keep Black men in there for absolutely no law enforcement reason. We had no taxes except when a major communal project was approved by a referendum of the Houses and the Elders. This was Africa then before it was broken open, open broken by marauding slave raiding savages.
Indeed. What’s it called when you work for someone else by the threat of force for all your living days for little in return? Oh yeah, slavery. At the moment, it may not be the chattel variety of yore, but we are well into the lifelong indentured kind. For example, to pay the central debt alone, each man, woman, and child would need to cough up $60,000 – and that continues to rise. As the situation worsens, the quality of the slavery worsens.
Absolutely. This is how chattel slavery started. And this is how it turned racial. Somehow, soon in America, white American leaders will be able to convince the rest that to pay the Debt without trouble will be to enslave Blacks. They will come up with explanations that it is the expedient thing to do – such as, Blacks are inferior, they love drugs (so let’s jail them) although it seems that New Hampshire’s whites love drugs more (Heroin). These American leaders will whip up support like Donald Trump or Adolf Hitler to enslave others for absolutely no reason but Greed and Gluttony. Those days are here Brett. You have 25 percent of the world’s prison population in America alone although you make up only 5 percent of the world’s population. Your Prisons are privatized and harbour mostly Blacks and for what? Weed, Crack, Insorbordination in School? There world is watching America and I hope the rest of white folks wake up in that America to prevent what everyone sees!
I do have issue with the state, and its enforcement arm, but the penal system is merely means, not ends. Sure, 40% of the prison population is black, but they comprise only 12% of the national population, where the coming neo-feudalism is to take effect, of which will be 60% or so whites right alongside the other racial minorities, serving the new masters.
By the very voting power of the masses will this all be effected. While being told they are empowering the state to create an egalitarian utopia, they will by their own hands actually create a rigid dystopia. As this oppression occurs from whence modern freedom began, imagine what will occur in places that never truly tasted liberty?
It is the classic battle between the ‘haves and the have nots’. I think there is a case for income equality as a way to reduce strife among competing economic interest groups. Countries that tend to have huge income inequalities tend to have bigger governments that implement policies that create the inequalities in the first place.
Take Scandinavia for example. There exists a greater measure of income equality and although the governments are big they are big only to ensure that the equality is maintained. Now take the US with the highest income inequalities among the economically advanced nations. They have a big government that is practically bought and paid for by big corporations. Those with the means can get legislation passed for their benefit, usually with consequences that tend to widen the gap between the rich and the poor.
Perhaps there is a correlation, even causation, between GDP and size of govt … I wouldn’t doubt it, but it’s not something I have factual numbers and connections on. If indeed it is the case, I would challenge most contemporary collectivist beliefs, that the wrong answer to the chicken-and-the-egg problem is being believed.
But more fundamental issues are at play. First, equivocation, or at least ambiguity. When people speak of govt, or capitalism, or whatever, do they know what they’re talking about? Someone rightly above identified “crony” capitalism, which is different from “laissez-faire” capitalism – one will notice many arguments against laissez-faire use examples from cronyism. And when one speaks of democracy, there is a world of difference between “direct” and “representative” – of which, the US started very, very far away from the direct variety that everyone fawns over today – the founding fathers created something that had fairly equal parts constitutionalism, federalism, aristocracy, etc. beyond just representative democracy. And speaking of govt, most talk from the qualitative point of top-down unitary state, as if bottom-up varieties don’t exist, let alone quantitative varieties of scale. But then, with the state monopolizing society’s sticks (guns) and carrots (money-printing), and access to thinking (school systems/curriculum), should one be surprised?
A second fundamental point regards equality, or more so, egalitarianism. Not surprising, this perspective sees a static pie, that sizes of slices are to the dis/advantage of others. Is a “right” GINI index the goal of a society? Or rather is it advancement, that the increase of standard of living is the goal, where the ever-growing pie allows one’s slice to increase at the expense of no one, and that many grow the pie faster than they can slice off, meaning others reap the benefit of bigger slices without force but altruism? I don’t know about Ghana, but the standard of living in the US has grown rapidly in the last two centuries, with consideration of GINI really coming as a side-effect of its slow-down. Even now, if one were to create a quintile of the economic strata in the US, one would find that people would rather stay in their quintile and its GINI disparity than jump to a higher quintile but live in a generation’s standard of living previous. For example, how many would jump up two quintiles, but be forced to live two generations back, with much lower dental/medical care, lack of Internet/cable/cellphones, lower food quality/access, oft-lack of central AC, etc? If GINI equalization was in a vacuum, addressing it would be fine, but the very equalization comes by taking the resources of those who are advancing the standard of living – with equalization ever-coming in inverse proportion to advancement, eventually leaving a stagnating, even backwards, society, as was seen across the Communist states of last century. But I could be wrong.
Interesting discussions people… But i wish to agree with some Swedish politicians I interacted with many years ago when they said that democracy is a daily battle.You wake up fighting the battle to win or lose and then go to bed with it only to get up again with it to fight on. Democracy is not a war. I reflected on that statement as compared to Africa, and realized that our malaise has always been that we assume democracy, politics or government are about voting day, i.e. a war. In my country, it is very common to hear politicians tell the people that we must leave politics behind and seek unity, or claim that now that elections are over, we must forge ahead. This idea is a very flawed and dangerous idea and I think it is such idea which has germinated in many societies until the people eventually abandoned their responsibilities to themselves and their nation thereby conceding the space for dishonest men and women as officials of the state to accumulate so much power onto themselves. On the surface, it appears it is government that is big, but in actual fact it is these men and women who have become more powerful such that they can decide the acquisition, use and distribution of resources as they wish in fulfilment of their power, albeit illegal and illegitimate. As Atiga Atingdui noted, Scandinavian governments are big but one will find out that the levels of equality in their society are fairer and more level than in many parts of the world simply because of the involvement and empowerment of the people in the affairs of the state. In Africa particularly, there is this misguided notion and practice that we must not busy about the daily engagements or lack of, of the government after election day. When in fact election is a daily activity, a cycle that never ends because elections, contrary to popular view is not about choosing a leader, rather it is about who manages the rights and resources of the people. A government has only 2 purposes, that is to protect our rights and satisfy our needs. To do this, there are only 2 fundamental laws: The Constitution and the Budget. Thus when we elect representatives, we are effectively electing them to uphold the Constitution and spend the Budget to protect our rights and satisfy our needs. And this is where I get weary about some of the comments above about government. I get the impression that we are looking at the wrong side of things when we seek to demonise government or democracy. Because, while I agree with Dade Afre Akufu about taxation in Old Africa, yet I do not think we can operate like that today because the times and circumstances are different. In the past, land and forests and life were abundant and available to all. The presence and need for a central or local government was quite limited. Today without government, we will effectively drop into a jungle life, survival of the fittest. The issue therefore is how do we empower people (informed and organized) and get them interested in the state of affairs as we in this chat are. I do not agree with Brett that by voting we tie ourselves. No. Voting is a means to an end. We must be as interested in voting as we are in the leaders and the decisions and actions they take after elections, i.e. accountability.
I fully comprehend the Nordic Experiment. In fact the Nordic experiment in Democratic Principles is rooted in Nordic Community Principles. I hope you will appreciate that the advantages you have so eloquently stated here are inherent in the Traditional Democratic Processes of Africa Culture and Philosophy. I am not at all advocating for bringing back the Chief and the Queenmother but I see the need for a Democratically elected Chief and Queenmother of the State. Why not? I hinted at this structure in an earlier comment:
“First, the basic unit of African Democratic Thinking was the Home (of which depending on a Matriarchal or Patriarchal inheritance, the Mother or the Father or even the Uncle was the head of household). Not the Individual. Parents in the Home were only entitled to One Vote (I guess the onus was on the Home to decide which direction the members of the Home must take for their collective future). Some modern Africans mistake this entity for the Nuclear family but it is not. In fact this definition is much broader than that of the nuclear family. The Next unit was the Extended Family (a collection of Homes usually linked by blood and/or by choice). This was headed by a Family Head democratically chosen by the Singular Votes of the Homes and these representatives were rotated through a simple call to a Referendum at any moment in time. The Family Heads formed an Assembly. This was the Clan. The head of the clan was democratically elected not for a specific term but on specific issues. Above this sat the State. The State housed Heads of Clans in different Assemblies on different issues – Economy, War, Education. A collection of these States became the Kingdom. And the representatives of the states (The Mankralo and the Queenmother or chief and the Asafoatsey or Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces decided on who become the face of the Kingdom – not the decision maker – but the King and Queen. Empire resulted in cooperating with/conquering other Kingdoms.”
I see parallels for a modern African society. I see how we might formally and informally engage all peoples in the Home with the democractic process from this foundation at all times – day and night. If every issue at the Assemply needs a Vote right from the Home, I can assure you that we as African States will be in a better place by now.
The Nordics rejected the Anglo-Saxon Philosophy and the Anglo-Saxon, the German. Why shouldn’t Africa reject all and concentrate on what we had and fashion it for our modern age. Why not?