from the FOIC II; of "rule of law mantra" and associated matters
1. I very much appreciate your commendation, General sir. As I have implied several times, you are one of the few Generals in our country whom I hold in high esteem (I would've been bothered if such praises had come from some other generals as Liebnecht was when praised by the bourgeois press!). I do intend to finish the 1st of a series of critique on alternative theory (to the extent we can talk of such!) and politics in Nigeria before I get back...I'll have more time for that in my 2nd semester at Brazil from March
Lest I forget, with ref. to the '06 discourse on 'the failure of civil society', my views then were developed in "the socio-economic dynamics of NEPAD and Nigeria", presented at the 1st Nigeria Civil Society Conference on NEPAD and (an abridged version) published as Chapter 8 of NEPAD; The Journey So Far, by CLO last year. A full version is on my s&s blog....
2. my dear CA, I must once again; a huge thank you for stoking the embers of discourse on this pages....even where and when people could feel it gets tedious. Galileo was considered tedious by the flat worlders...I also appreciate the phone call from home!
I think we can't be in agreement on the character of Yar'Adua's govt and "success Nigeria" for now...and that's perfectly legitimate. We have however, I believe made the alternatives of views clear, leaving the ruthless judgment of correctness to history while furthering the loci of alternatives with perspectives in the course of this self-constructivist (in a living and not sterile-structuralist sense) movement of history...and more importantly/relatedly throwing up further discourse as exemplified in this case by EE's joining the fray.
On elections...well, I am an elected principal national officer of the Labour Party and a major challenge in my view is first to actually build it as an alternative and not what very unfortunately we are now, another beer in the fridge of status quo parties as drinks (what eles but ideological inebriation rather than serioues intellectual and political engagement could lead to the Jos carnage from an LG polls?)
Before going to the meat of this intervention -engaging EE's insightful input - I would just utilise your example of the Thai situation to point out that it confirms the essence of my argument; the legal is the political's handmaiden. The mass movement more than the Supreme court's ruling and much more than a profane mantra of any law's rule was the critical dimension (what Nzeribe -don't laugh, please! - would describe as "compelling circumstance"). And that more than the k-legs of laws, rules and mantras is our problem in Naija...a poor culture of sustained mass action and massified alternative political movements.
3. EE, your intervention is very healthy, I must say. While I do flow with the maim current implicit in your's flow, I will have to make the following observations (first I would suggest we strip away the 'mantra' bit at this stage. With its Sanskrit roots in oriental religions - Vedic, Buddhist, Janaist, Hindu, etc - it furthers a mystification at this point of the discourse);
- a contradiction occurs in the formulation of a possibility of rule of law becoming "intrinsically autocratic" and that of r.o.l's sitting "comfortably at the borderline between autocracy...and liberal democracy"
- while the roots of r.o.l ideology goes back to Plato and subsequently his student Aristotle, the origins of the dominant Anglo-Saxon (and now universalized) conception and practice of r.o.l can be traced to the 1215 Magna Carta. It is instructive that this "Great Charter" sought to entrench the autocracy of an aristocracy against an absolutist monarchy and not liberal or any form of popular democracy. R.o.l was to become a very useful instrument in the ideology of the nascent capitalist class from the 17th century (the epigone being John Locke with his 'Two Treatises', 1689) and particularly in the 18th Century of the American and French revolution. Why we might ask? For the precise reason that Yar'Adua in its miasmic remix does today "to legitimise the state" as well as the socio-economic system on which this (capitalist) state, rests. On one hand, the destruction of the ancien regime could not just be a political act; its rule had as well been ideological and (being part of this) juridical. On the other hand the nominal "freedom", "liberty", "equality" objectified in that abstract reality of "citizenship" was essential for labour to be move from the lord's manor "freely" into the factories of the new master of society.
- thus Paine could not but state in '76 thus; "for as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king"....but indeed, neither in the bowels nor in the will of the people was this rule supposedly over and above all was this liberal democratic conception located. From Locke to the dumber of the Bushes, it's locus is in the defence of property and property rights (a more indepth analysis of this will have to be skipped here due to space, please)
- the consequence of this is that not only Yar'Adua's, but all states and governments inliberal (and not so liberal) democracies and "democracies" "slip easily into the warm embrace of...... (their) origins and basis" whenever there arise challenges that are decidedly counter-hegemonic. On one hand; this is why even the United States of North America vests in the presidency the possibilities of wielding emergency powers (I watched FDR on the Maoist Nickglaiss & co's democracyandclass struggletv-I recommend this site- & while presenting the New Deal, he made it clear that if it were to fail he would invoke such powers...). Tis is what the Nazi professor of jurisprudence, Schmitt termed the "state of exception" ('21). On the other hand, since the much touted (liberal) democracy is basically (for the majority at least) procedural and formalistic, the will of the people on key issue like the invasion of Iraq is merely used as toilet tissue
- the fragility of the Nigerian state leads to more of this toilet tissue mentality. the impotence of an alternative movement circumscribed by the dynamics of proposals-chasing, virtual space cathartic vituperations, trade unionist/ngoist careerism and the murder of theory strengthen this rule of toilet tissue mentalities of governmentality
- if our generation and with it our country (which should be at the vanguard of Africa's liberation!) are not to be flushed down the WC of history, we need a rebirth. How can this rebirth start? Is it with seeking new episodes which to start and then stop? Is it to stop what we are doing while trying to seek as if seeking is not in doing?
- the answer in my view, is not a yes to any of the questions above (neither is it necessarily a no). A rebirth requires a redefinition... in March 2001 when I was transfered to Ak, I paid Chima a visit at his place then at Iyana Meiran and in the course of our discussions he made an observation which I was very much in agreement with to the following effect. All great revolutions (social, but no less political we could say), have been preceded by an intellectual/theoretical revolution, a renaissance of thought and discourse an awakening of enlightenment, the emancipation from mental slavery a redefinition of the "them" and our "we". All the yabis, mere sloganeering and cliches of this world will not save Nigeria, transform it or get Umaru and his likes off the firmament of our could-be-great country's realms.
Patriotic regards,
BA
Baba Aye
--- On Fri, 12/12/08, emma ezeazu
From: emma ezeazu
Subject: Re: [FOIcoalition]Attn: Carol Ajie; Of policies and "right Economic Team/Advisers"
To: FOIcoalition@yahoogroups.com
Cc: baba_aye@yahoo.com
Date: Friday, December 12, 2008, 6:12 PM
Dear Carole and Aye,
General Secretary
Alliance for Credible Elections
ACE-NIGERIA
Jima Plaza, Garki 2, Area 11
Abuja
--- On Thu, 12/11/08, carol ajie
From: carol ajie
Subject: Re: [FOIcoalition]Attn: Carol Ajie; Of policies and "right Economic Team/Advisers"
To: FOIcoalition@yahoogroups.com
Cc: baba_aye@yahoo.com
Date: Thursday, December 11, 2008, 11:42 AM
CA
Lest I forget, with ref. to the '06 discourse on 'the failure of civil society', my views then were developed in "the socio-economic dynamics of NEPAD and Nigeria", presented at the 1st Nigeria Civil Society Conference on NEPAD and (an abridged version) published as Chapter 8 of NEPAD; The Journey So Far, by CLO last year. A full version is on my s&s blog....
2. my dear CA, I must once again; a huge thank you for stoking the embers of discourse on this pages....even where and when people could feel it gets tedious. Galileo was considered tedious by the flat worlders...I also appreciate the phone call from home!
I think we can't be in agreement on the character of Yar'Adua's govt and "success Nigeria" for now...and that's perfectly legitimate. We have however, I believe made the alternatives of views clear, leaving the ruthless judgment of correctness to history while furthering the loci of alternatives with perspectives in the course of this self-constructivist (in a living and not sterile-structuralist sense) movement of history...and more importantly/relatedly throwing up further discourse as exemplified in this case by EE's joining the fray.
On elections...well, I am an elected principal national officer of the Labour Party and a major challenge in my view is first to actually build it as an alternative and not what very unfortunately we are now, another beer in the fridge of status quo parties as drinks (what eles but ideological inebriation rather than serioues intellectual and political engagement could lead to the Jos carnage from an LG polls?)
Before going to the meat of this intervention -engaging EE's insightful input - I would just utilise your example of the Thai situation to point out that it confirms the essence of my argument; the legal is the political's handmaiden. The mass movement more than the Supreme court's ruling and much more than a profane mantra of any law's rule was the critical dimension (what Nzeribe -don't laugh, please! - would describe as "compelling circumstance"). And that more than the k-legs of laws, rules and mantras is our problem in Naija...a poor culture of sustained mass action and massified alternative political movements.
3. EE, your intervention is very healthy, I must say. While I do flow with the maim current implicit in your's flow, I will have to make the following observations (first I would suggest we strip away the 'mantra' bit at this stage. With its Sanskrit roots in oriental religions - Vedic, Buddhist, Janaist, Hindu, etc - it furthers a mystification at this point of the discourse);
- a contradiction occurs in the formulation of a possibility of rule of law becoming "intrinsically autocratic" and that of r.o.l's sitting "comfortably at the borderline between autocracy...and liberal democracy"
- while the roots of r.o.l ideology goes back to Plato and subsequently his student Aristotle, the origins of the dominant Anglo-Saxon (and now universalized) conception and practice of r.o.l can be traced to the 1215 Magna Carta. It is instructive that this "Great Charter" sought to entrench the autocracy of an aristocracy against an absolutist monarchy and not liberal or any form of popular democracy. R.o.l was to become a very useful instrument in the ideology of the nascent capitalist class from the 17th century (the epigone being John Locke with his 'Two Treatises', 1689) and particularly in the 18th Century of the American and French revolution. Why we might ask? For the precise reason that Yar'Adua in its miasmic remix does today "to legitimise the state" as well as the socio-economic system on which this (capitalist) state, rests. On one hand, the destruction of the ancien regime could not just be a political act; its rule had as well been ideological and (being part of this) juridical. On the other hand the nominal "freedom", "liberty", "equality" objectified in that abstract reality of "citizenship" was essential for labour to be move from the lord's manor "freely" into the factories of the new master of society.
- thus Paine could not but state in '76 thus; "for as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king"....but indeed, neither in the bowels nor in the will of the people was this rule supposedly over and above all was this liberal democratic conception located. From Locke to the dumber of the Bushes, it's locus is in the defence of property and property rights (a more indepth analysis of this will have to be skipped here due to space, please)
- the consequence of this is that not only Yar'Adua's, but all states and governments inliberal (and not so liberal) democracies and "democracies" "slip easily into the warm embrace of...... (their) origins and basis" whenever there arise challenges that are decidedly counter-hegemonic. On one hand; this is why even the United States of North America vests in the presidency the possibilities of wielding emergency powers (I watched FDR on the Maoist Nickglaiss & co's democracyandclass struggletv-I recommend this site- & while presenting the New Deal, he made it clear that if it were to fail he would invoke such powers...). Tis is what the Nazi professor of jurisprudence, Schmitt termed the "state of exception" ('21). On the other hand, since the much touted (liberal) democracy is basically (for the majority at least) procedural and formalistic, the will of the people on key issue like the invasion of Iraq is merely used as toilet tissue
- the fragility of the Nigerian state leads to more of this toilet tissue mentality. the impotence of an alternative movement circumscribed by the dynamics of proposals-chasing, virtual space cathartic vituperations, trade unionist/ngoist careerism and the murder of theory strengthen this rule of toilet tissue mentalities of governmentality
- if our generation and with it our country (which should be at the vanguard of Africa's liberation!) are not to be flushed down the WC of history, we need a rebirth. How can this rebirth start? Is it with seeking new episodes which to start and then stop? Is it to stop what we are doing while trying to seek as if seeking is not in doing?
- the answer in my view, is not a yes to any of the questions above (neither is it necessarily a no). A rebirth requires a redefinition... in March 2001 when I was transfered to Ak, I paid Chima a visit at his place then at Iyana Meiran and in the course of our discussions he made an observation which I was very much in agreement with to the following effect. All great revolutions (social, but no less political we could say), have been preceded by an intellectual/theoretical revolution, a renaissance of thought and discourse an awakening of enlightenment, the emancipation from mental slavery a redefinition of the "them" and our "we". All the yabis, mere sloganeering and cliches of this world will not save Nigeria, transform it or get Umaru and his likes off the firmament of our could-be-great country's realms.
Patriotic regards,
BA
Baba AyeZimmer 10, Heckershauser Str., 19A
D34127, Kassel, Germany
+49-1628714379
babaaye.blog.co.uk (titbits of my life, sort of)
solidarityandstruggle.blogspot.com (on theory and practice)
Skype name: iron1lion
Skype name: iron1lion
"if you are the big tree, we are the small axe, ready to cut you down"
- Bob Marley
"We will no longer hear your command, we'll seize the control from your hands
we will fan the flames of our anger and pain....Amandla, Ngawethu"
- UB 40
- Bob Marley
"We will no longer hear your command, we'll seize the control from your hands
we will fan the flames of our anger and pain....Amandla, Ngawethu"
- UB 40
--- On Fri, 12/12/08, emma ezeazu
From: emma ezeazu
Subject: Re: [FOIcoalition]Attn: Carol Ajie; Of policies and "right Economic Team/Advisers"
To: FOIcoalition@yahoogroups.com
Cc: baba_aye@yahoo.com
Date: Friday, December 12, 2008, 6:12 PM
Dear Carole and Aye,
I find the conversation on rule of law mantra and resource "long-throat' very illuminating. I'm concerned to question whether at this stage of our political development we should be hanging on to the rule of law mantra to legitimise the state? We have a state that has not recorgnised the will of the people as the basis of its authority posting the mantra of rule of law. May I ask, where does this state derive its concept of rule of law? Is that concept from God or from a cabal or both? The rule of law concept sits comfortably at the borderline between autocracy in all of its variations and liberal democracy. From the 17th century liberal democracy recaptured the idea of the sovereignty of the people and used that idea to define its understanding of rule of law. Liberal democrats defined rule of law from the bowels of the will of the people. As far as a government is not based on the will of the people the mantra of rule of law is intrinsically autocratic. This explains why the Yar' Adua government slips easily into the warm embrace of its origins and basis at the slightest challenge.
On the issue of resource long throat I have this feeling that Tar Uko given his very deep background may have been referring to the looting of the Niger Delta resouces by the elites from all sides. I unequivocally believe that 50% of the resources of the Niger Delta should go to its people. However if you approve that sum today it will be looted by a cabal that is ruling without the will of the people. The Niger Delta has become a "cocoa farm" for all sorts of people. The Niger Delta has become a "settlement chain". There is no development that is going on in the Delta. On top of this settlement chain are the oil corporations and others as follows:
-Oil Corporations
-Politicians across the board
-Security officials
-the armed militants ( now composed of people from ethnic groups across Nigeria)
-Traditional rulers
-Labour leaders
-International and local experts normally called consultants, some of them operate as NGOs
-Community leaders
-Ordinary people
The community leaders, some labour officials and NGO plus ordinary people receive the crumbs in this settlement chain. The settlement chain is held together by the development ideology. Everybody in the chain talks about the development of the Niger Delta. The difference in the chain is that those at the higher rungs of the ladder control the resources when it is released and those at the lower rungs have the crumbs as well as the face of the development ideology in the Delta. Even as we campaign for more resources to the Niger Delta People we need to do more to break this settlement chain. The Ministry of the Niger Delta is a new addition to the politicians' rung of the ladder. Without a government based on the will of the people the resources of that region will continue to be looted by a cabal.
According to Claude Ake this "settlement chain" can only be broken when "ordinary people see democracy as a matter of survival"
General Secretary
Alliance for Credible Elections
ACE-NIGERIA
Jima Plaza, Garki 2, Area 11
Abuja
--- On Thu, 12/11/08, carol ajie
Subject: Re: [FOIcoalition]Attn: Carol Ajie; Of policies and "right Economic Team/Advisers"
To: FOIcoalition@yahoogroups.com
Cc: baba_aye@yahoo.com
Date: Thursday, December 11, 2008, 11:42 AM
Dear Baba Aye,
Baba ke! This afternoon 15.15 hours GMT i gave you a shout out from Nigeria to Germany and suggested you come back home to contest election. We need all you folks home running to take over the leadership of Nigeria. If I can have a fund I will dedicate it to sponsor members of CSOs to campaign for elective offices at all levels of government.
On President Yar Adua and his economic team. I think His Excellency will turn the hands of history with a good economic team, more committed to 'success Nigeria'.
On knocks for His Excellency; I cant blame you if you do. Your grievances are legitimate.
2-3 weeks ago I had accompanied my older friend and client Chief Mrs Opral Benson, the Iya Oge of Lagos to an award night in the Congress Hall of Transcorp Hilton, Abuja. I have a pet name for her 'Mama' - she is 3 generations away from me yet so close. At the award stage someone dressed like a south south indigene compelled my attention - I called out 'RESOURCE CONTROL' Unfortunately, the Nigerian Cultural Ambassador Tar Ukoh was sitting near-by and he shouted back 'RESOURCE LONGTHROAT'. I was stupified. You see different strokes for different struggles. I am from S-S Delta we want control. He is from Tiv Benue thinks S-S has enough with 13% derivative formula. The Presidential Committee on Niger Delta under the chairmanship of Barrister Ledan Mittee has just recommended 25%. What to do?.
On obedience of court orders. The trick is if a government is respectful of court orders as President Yar Adua has portrayed, it becomes easy to get things done using the instrumentality of the court. We witnessed the Thailand example, the Constitutional Court sacked a whole government a few weeks ago and banned the political icons from holding office for 5 years. That was enhanced by group that had laid a siege at the airport insisted that until the government was changed no one was allowed to fly in or out. They slept there for 21 days or so and brought mattresses and cooking stuff but damaged nothing.
The Illinois Governor Rod was asked to resign. You know he is being investigated for attempts to sell Obama's senatorial seat. Everyone said resign now. He has said nothing. On Monday the State house will move to impeach him. The AG has said he will go to the Supreme Court to have him declared unfit to be Governor. That z it 2 prong...pro- activism.
We could use the Nigeria Court to bring about change we need. Hence my commendation.
I hope this answers to your query.
Comments