YeKengalé

Politics by definition is the management of collectives. It is how we do whatever it is that we choose to do, and even more fundamentally, it is how we choose. Wherever there is a ‘we’ there is a will…. a collective will. Will, the executive function, is what we call Governance.

Lack of understanding of what government is, what it produces, and the mechanisms involved in its function simply disqualifies the ignorant from participation. The very definition of maturity is self-governance, whether for the individual or the collective.

Those unfit for self-rule are only fit to be ruled by others. Politically speaking, the original sin is unruliness. Colonialism and imperialism in essence can be as benign as parenthood (there has always been good and bad parenting). Parenting is not judged by its process but rather its product. If it produces autonomous adults, the process, however seemingly dysfunctional, was successful. Obviously, the reverse is equally true.

Government does not identify a people. It is an expression of a people’s identity.  The Machiavellian philosopher is unconvinced by such seemingly hifalutin, bottom up, notions of rule as the ‘collective will vested in the seat of government’, not yet having the insight to link power taken to power given. But, however convincing the Mobutu Sese Sekos of history may be, philosopher kings (of any sort) have no divine right to rule. Brain and body are not separate entities. The people get the leadership their state of consciousness prepares them for.

Some seed will never grow in some soil because culture is more durable than government and is the net determiner of same. Social formation is far more durable than social foment.  Governments, constitutional arrangements, and the institutions they birth, may much more readily collapse than the culture and people who host them.

All this became occluded the moment that history started to be told from a geographical rather than social perspective, as if somehow land can talk. Such a materialistic perspective can only serve the interest of those whose jaundiced vision of reality encapsulates the entire human story in a desperate grab for scarce resources, this the ground of all human truth, every other higher order human capacity and concern an ephemeral embellishment to this main narrative.

But Heads may roll, governance modalities change, political ideologies of all sorts may be foisted on a people. In the end, it is cultural values that define a people, and those are more likely to determine the nature of governance than to be determined by government … Lenin’s lesson for all who care to learn it.

Weapons of war alone cannot build or preserve empire…. and however counter-intuitive or naive it may sound to those whose instincts have been trained to value leadership wit and military might over vaguer notions such as the ‘power of the people’, and the lofty concepts which inform same: Notions like freedom, equality, justice,  etc.), I think this insight illuminates realpolitik, notwithstanding all jaded political operatives / governors by whatever title or classification, whose highest goal is to survive, who value power for its own sake, unaware of its source, oblivious to its purpose.  In the absence of insight, (i.e. in ignorance) the world may appear very dark indeed.

Nevertheless, however dire the circumstance, whatever abominations threaten a people, whatever the threat of armed forces from within or without, whatever political ideologies may prevail,  all the politics a people need concern themselves with –

The willingness to create alliance,

The courage to stand in defiance,

The wisdom to hold both in constructive balance

 are the things which engender self-reliance.

_{One may note that missing from the equation is economic substance…. That is because like armed resistance it is a tool (and objective) of power but not power itself. All power on earth, by God’s design, is in the hands of the people.}