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RAMBLE in the JUNGLE · Textbook · Unit 2: Development, Democracy and Self-Rule in Africa

Issue 2.1

Is Party Politics a Good Fit for African Communities?

YESEditorial counterpoint, Parties Give Families a Choice (written for this book)
NOWanaku Verdzekov, Democracy in "Black" Africa? (2022)

Learning outcomes

After reading this issue, you should be able to:

Define democracy, political party and one-party state.
Explain the author's argument that parties conflict with family-based communities.
Evaluate examples of multiparty and one-party rule in Africa.
Identify generalizations in both readings and judge whether evidence supports them.
Write an argument about how political systems can fit local cultures.

Introduction

After most African countries became independent in the late 1950s and 1960s, many of them adopted constitutions with several political parties, modelled on those of the former colonial powers. Within a decade, many had become one-party states. Leaders such as Julius Nyerere of Tanzania argued that multiparty competition would divide young nations along ethnic lines, and that a single party could still be democratic if members competed inside it. Critics saw one-party rule as a cover for dictatorship.

From 1990 onwards, after the end of the Cold War and under pressure from citizens and foreign donors, most African countries returned to multiparty politics. Since then, some have seen peaceful changes of government through elections (for example Ghana, Senegal, Zambia and Malawi), while in others the same leader or party has held power for decades. Surveys such as Afrobarometer have found that most Africans say they prefer democracy to other forms of government, though many are unhappy with how it works in practice.

The author of the NO reading, Wanaku Verdzekov, is from Cameroon, a Central African country that had a single legal party from 1966 until 1990. The essay, written in 2022, argues that in "Black" African societies, the extended family, not the political party, is the natural unit of community life. (The author puts "Black" in quotation marks, questioning the label while using it.) The essay also argues that education and government systems left by colonizers still serve outside interests.

As you read, ask: Can a political system invented in one culture work in another? If so, what must change?

YES

Parties Give Families a Choice

Editorial counterpoint Written for this book, not by Wanaku Verdzekov.

This essay was written for this textbook to present the opposing side fairly. It is not by Wanaku Verdzekov.

Wanaku Verdzekov asks a fair question: why should communities organized around large families adopt political parties imported from Europe? It is true that parties have sometimes divided families, and that many post-colonial governments copied systems designed for colonial profit. But the answer to bad parties is better parties, not no parties at all.

Parties organize disagreement peacefully

Every community disagrees about something: how to spend money, who should lead, which road to build first. Political parties turn these disagreements into choices that voters can make at the ballot box instead of on the battlefield. A party offers a team, a programme and a record that can be judged. When a party fails, voters can remove it without removing the country's institutions. That is not a foreign idea; it is a way of solving a problem every society has.

Africa's own experience shows it can work

Several African countries have used party competition to change governments peacefully. In Ghana, power has passed between the two main parties several times since 2000. Senegal has also seen opposition candidates win the presidency and take office peacefully, most recently in 2024. In these countries, citizens from the same family often support different parties and still share meals at the same table. Party competition did not destroy their families; it gave them a way to disagree safely.

"No parties" has often meant one ruler

After independence, many African leaders argued that parties were divisive and foreign, and set up one-party or "no-party" states in the name of unity. Tanzania, Kenya, Zambia, Uganda and Cameroon itself all tried versions of this. Some leaders were sincere; others used the argument to silence rivals. In practice, removing parties often removed the only legal way to challenge those in power. In other Rambles, the author herself criticizes Cameroon's one-party era. The lesson of that era is that banning competition tends to concentrate power, not spread it.

Families can divide, too

The author presents the natural family as the peaceful alternative to artificial parties. But politics built on family, clan or ethnic group can be more divisive, not less. If votes follow bloodlines, then a large family or ethnic group can dominate forever, and smaller groups have no hope of winning. Parties built on ideas, such as how to run schools or the economy, can cross family and ethnic lines and bring together people who would otherwise never cooperate.

Parties can be adapted, not just copied

The author is right that systems must fit local realities. But parties can be shaped to do that: they can be required to have members from many regions, to hold internal elections, to publish their accounts, and to work alongside traditional leaders. Botswana's parliament, for example, sits alongside a House of Chiefs. The choice is not between "European parties" and "African families". It is how to build parties that serve African communities.

Conclusion

The author asks, "Why do we need a party?" The answer is: because people who disagree need a peaceful, fair and repeatable way to decide who governs, and to change their minds later. Parties are imperfect tools, but no one has yet found a better way to let millions of people choose, and un-choose, their leaders.

— Editorial counterpoint

Democracy in "Black" Africa? (2022)

By Wanaku Verdzekov

Opinion

Democracy is simple, but humans tend to make things complicated for themselves, for any number of reasons. It is defined in several ways, but the essence is this: "a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives." System, government, whole population, elected representatives… That sounds simple, right?

As a citizen in Africa (the Cameroons, for example), when you hear talk about "government", do you consider yourself part of the government? Yes? No? How? Why? Do you know?

I ask because if a citizen is part of "government", and I see a gendarme (an armed government agent) beating a citizen as if beating a snake, my question is: "Is anyone allowed to beat up the government the way one beats a snake?" And the answer is… crickets.

Families vs parties vs government?

Does anyone else try to find the logic in the words we hear every day about "government"? It is a thing that affects the daily lives of all our brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, aunties, uncles, nephews, nieces… you get the drift. Unlike other communities in foreign places, we (most of "Black" Africa) are mostly a community of FAMILIES, not one of POLITICAL PARTIES.

"Me, my wife and two kids". Where's the party?

There are communities that practise "democracy" where the family unit is limited to "me, my wife and two kids". Belonging to a party artificially extends the family, and at that point power in the community can swing in favour of one "party-family" or another. That can be a convenient way of practising democracy as a party-vs-party tournament.

On the flip side are communities where group dynamics (family, clan, brotherhood, etc.) are different. How does democracy work there?

In "Black" Africa, group dynamics revolve mostly around the natural family, which naturally outranks artificially created political parties. So there is the problem. The first question a GrandPa or GrandMa will ask is: "Why do we need a party?" Of course there would be reasons, and they should be clearly explained. To have democracy, we must have parties? Then the next question is: why do we need democracy? It would be important, and honest, to explain exactly how and why introducing political parties makes sense, when the community problems they were meant to solve have not been solved in half a century of party politics.

Why the fixation on systems?

Is the goal of a political party in a community of families to bring families together, or to set one family against another? If the latter, why? In a few words, what is the core purpose of setting up a political party in a community of natural families? If that is well explained, and everyone agrees on the goals, then maybe it's time for kids to leave the natural family and join the artificial parties? If we are still talking about democracy, is the party the school where citizens learn how to practise "a system of government by the whole population"? Is that a syllabus that takes a lifetime?

[…]

The systems and vocabulary of colonized behaviour

The systems and vocabulary used to govern formerly colonized nations have not changed, or not by much. Keep this at the back of your mind: Africa was not colonized as a charitable, non-profit enterprise. That means the SYSTEMS DESIGNED for use in the colonies were SYSTEMS DESIGNED FOR PROFIT, as in business profits.

Now, if you "follow the money", as they say, and the systems have not changed much, where do you think the PROFITS are still going?

A typical example: education

Think the education system set up in colonial times has changed? Think again.

Here's why it has not changed. The products of colonial education were shaped for efficiency in a context where they were useful: a colonial context, or one like it. In other words, if you trained in medicine, as a nurse or a doctor, it was in line with the procedures your trainer knew. British medical teams did not teach Chinese medicine to nurses in the Cameroons. Nor could they teach the physics of the Boomerang Thunder from Oku, in the montane grassfields of British Southern Cameroons, aka Ambazonia.

The result: colonial (and former colonial) education institutions graduate citizens who then CANNOT FIND JOBS. Should that surprise anyone? Effective education does not happen in a vacuum. It happens within a context, which should be well defined and understood by everyone involved.

Surprise number two: graduates who do not find jobs in our post-colonial system must decide whether or not to migrate. Where to? Will they consider the education they have had, the one that cannot find them a job in the Cameroons, in Africa? Of course they will. Often, language opens the door, and migrants go where they can at least understand the language.

And when they do, they can generally NOW find JOBS in their new context, mostly in the former colonizing nations, whose systems the graduates are "mysteriously" already used to, because their curriculum was prescribed in colonial times to bring the "black" African from darkness into the light. Now they see the light, but the system at home is all darkness. The result is an easy exodus of trained people back to the root of the system that designed their training. As far back as 2002, a medical journal reported that Nigerian health authorities were worried about the exodus of their doctors and nurses.

[…]

Systems thinking

The colonial businesses created systems for their own use. We can either design our own systems, or heavily adapt the colonial systems to achieve the goals we set (if we have any).

The general idea is that human communities use systems to run their day-to-day business of living. Not having a handle on these systems gives outside forces the chance to hijack them and exercise undue influence and power over the community. That is neither acceptable nor sustainable.

Democracy is "government by the people", so "let the people decide"?

In post-colonial "Black" Africa, simply saying "let the people decide" is NOT ENOUGH.

Communities need help setting up systems, just as communities in Britain, France and Germany set up systems to manage their daily lives at home, not to go and colonize some territory overseas. Reminder: colonizing agencies set up systems to run the colonized territories for PROFIT. Once it became clear the enterprise would become unprofitable, the simple action was to WITHDRAW.

Our "Black" African local communities need to design systems to run their territories: not just for PROFIT, but mostly for THEMSELVES, and for the FUTURE of their CHILDREN and FAMILIES. It takes a CHANGE in the WAY we THINK about SYSTEMS to keep the ENGINES of our COMMUNITIES humming for a LONG TIME into the FUTURE.

And that's where we are.

— Wanaku Verdzekov

Written in February 2022; trimmed and lightly edited for this book. […] marks a cut.

Vocabulary

Word or phrase	Meaning in the readings
democracy	government by the people, usually through elected representatives
political party	an organized group that competes for power in elections
one-party state	a country where only one party is legally allowed
gendarme	a member of an armed police force (in the French tradition)
group dynamics	the ways people in a group relate and behave
supersede	to take the place of; to count for more than
colonized	ruled by another country
curriculum	the content taught in a school system
exodus	a mass departure of people
programme (political)	a party's plan of policies
dominate	to control or have power over
ballot box	the system of voting in elections

Comprehension questions

Literal (find it in the text)

How does the NO reading define democracy?
What question does the author say a grandparent would ask about parties?
What example from medicine does the author use about colonial education?
Which two African countries does the counterpoint give as examples of peaceful changes of government?
What does the counterpoint say "no parties" has often meant in practice?

Inferential (read between the lines)

Why does the author ask whether anyone is "allowed to beat up the government"?
According to the author, how do parties affect small families differently from extended families?
Why does the counterpoint argue that politics built on family can be more divisive than party politics?
What does the counterpoint mean by saying parties can be "adapted, not just copied"?

Critical (evaluate and respond)

Both writers make generalizations (about "Black" Africa, the West, families). Find one in each reading. Is it supported by evidence?
Which is more important for a fair political system: the type of system, or how honestly it is run? Use both readings.
Design a way of choosing leaders for your school or community that respects families and allows disagreement.

Is there common ground?

Both writers agree that systems copied without thought from colonial powers have often failed African communities, that one-party rule has done harm, and that any political system must fit local realities. Both want citizens, not a small elite, to have real power.

They disagree about parties themselves. The author sees parties as an artificial import that sets families against each other. The counterpoint sees parties as a peaceful tool for managing disagreement, which can be reformed to fit local culture.

Common ground might be found in hybrid systems: parties that must be broad-based and transparent, working alongside traditional or community institutions (as in Botswana's House of Chiefs), with strong local government where families and communities can decide local matters directly.

Debate and writing prompt

Debate motion: This house believes that political parties divide African communities more than they serve them.

Divide the class into proposition and opposition. Each side must use at least two pieces of evidence from its reading and answer the other side's strongest point.
After the debate, hold a vote, then discuss which arguments changed minds.

Writing task: (400–600 words) You are advising a new country on its constitution. Write a memo recommending whether it should have political parties, and if so, what rules they should follow. Use evidence from both readings and at least one real country as an example.