Thursday 24 January 2008

Witness the democracy delusion in Kenya

Did we believe democracy was spreading?

Is it retreating since it barely advanced to begin with?

Is Kenya one of the pretend democracies?

The full article Tribal tension in Kenya and the delusion of African democracy by Stanley Kurtz.

Kibaki and Raila held talks today. I wonder what the outcomes of these talks will be, and am struggling to remain positive about them.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry but that guy is full of you know what.

He clearly belongs to the U.S. neocon clique and is so keen on emphasizing the 'tribal' nature of Kenyan politics to the exclusion of many other movements that Kenya has made towards democracy.
What of examples such as the
movement towards the CDF?

and most important movement towards democracy so far: the fact that Raila was free to move around the country campaigning.

Its easy to decry the end of Kenyan democracy at this moment when we are experiencing democratic backtracking but Kenya is firmly on the path to democracy. Ethnic hatereds or not, we are on the right path and it will take much much more than what is going on right now to kick us off track.

You can check out my blog for statistics on democratic backtracking for a clearer picture of what democratic transitions entail.

Mr. Kurtz is clearly not familiar with the tomes of literature that have been written on the subject.