How protest is redefining democracy around the world | Zachariah Mampilly

51,306 views ・ 2018-03-04

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Like many of you, I'm often frustrated by the democratic process.
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It's messy, it's complicated,
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it's often inefficient.
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Our political leaders feel disconnected
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from the concerns of ordinary people.
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Many feel that voting every few years
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for leaders disconnected from their daily challenges
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is pointless.
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But before we reject democracy,
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let's imagine what it could be.
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And I believe that African activists are redefining democracy
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by putting protest at its center,
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what I refer to as "protest democracy."
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International organizations and academic experts
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define democracy as regular, multiparty electoral competition.
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But democracy should not only be about elites competing at the ballot box.
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For it to have meaning,
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it's something we must engage in every day.
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When I say "protest democracy,"
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I'm challenging how we think about democratic action.
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Viewing democracy as only elections is no longer adequate
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and threatens democracy itself.
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So we must protest democracy to give it a renewed meaning.
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What would this look like?
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We need to turn to African societies,
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where ordinary people are increasingly taking to the streets
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to transform their lives.
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African social movements have often been at the forefront
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of conceptualizing democracy in this way.
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This may come as a surprise to those of who think
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that the only way Africans engage in politics
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is through the barrel of the gun.
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But increasingly, young people are taking to the streets
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and abandoning organized violence
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in favor of more effective nonviolent action.
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I've spent much of the past two decades talking to African activists,
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both violent and nonviolent.
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Across Africa, young people are rising up
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to challenge almost every type of regime known to humanity.
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This is my friend Thiat.
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He's a rapper from Senegal.
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He led a large movement in Senegal
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that was successful in preventing the president from stealing a third term.
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From Morocco to Lesotho,
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young people are rising up against entrenched monarchies:
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in Egypt and Sudan,
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against brutal dictatorships;
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in Uganda and Ethiopia,
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against powerful militarized states
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with quasi-democratic veneers;
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in South Africa, where this image was taken,
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and Burundi,
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against democratically elected leaders
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who have done little to improve the conditions for ordinary people.
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Across the continent, protest is not exceptional,
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but a normal part of life.
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Africans use protests to challenge both dictators
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as well as power cuts.
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In a way, Africans are protesting democracy itself,
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enriching its possibilities for us all.
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There have been two major waves of African protest,
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and we are currently living through the third,
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which began around 2005.
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It includes the so-called Arab Spring,
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which took place mostly on the continent.
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The first wave took place in the 1940s and 1950s
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and led to Africa's decolonization.
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Kwame Nkrumah led a broad coalition in Ghana
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that overthrew British rule,
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providing a template for nonviolent movements globally.
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The second wave took place in the 1980s and 1990s
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against austerity measures that imposed harsh conditions
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on African economies.
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These protests led to the overthrow of autocratic regimes
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and led to the introduction
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of multiparty elections across the continent.
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The ongoing third wave is correcting the shortcomings of the earlier two.
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If the first wave brought liberation but not democracy,
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and the second, elections but only for the elites,
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then it is the third wave
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that is most concerned with transforming democracy
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into the rule of the people.
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It includes movements like Y'en a Marre in Senegal,
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Le Balai Citoyen in Burkina Faso,
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Tajamuka in Zimbabwe,
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LUCHA and Filimbi in the Democratic Republic of Congo,
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movements that work outside of more conventional nongovernmental organizations
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and political parties
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to challenge the economic and political system itself,
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often at great risk.
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Brilliant young activists like LUCHA's Fred Bauma
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have been detained and tortured,
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often with little to no outcry from the international community.
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The list goes on, as you can see from some of the data we collected.
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There have been large popular protests
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in over 40 African countries since 2005,
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and if you look, you'll recognize that in 2011,
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the year of the so-called Arab Spring,
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was actually the spike of this broader wave.
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Contrary to popular belief,
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many of these protests have been successful.
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We know of the dictators falling in Tunisia and in Egypt,
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but popular movements have prevented presidents from stealing third terms
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in Senegal, in Malawi and Burkina Faso as well.
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What's driving this upsurge of protest?
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Demographically, Africa is both the youngest
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and the fastest-growing continent,
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with the largest age gap between the people and their rulers.
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It is urbanizing at a tremendous pace.
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Economically, African countries have been growing for over a decade now,
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largely driven by investments from Asia.
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But little of this wealth is trickling down.
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Formal jobs in the industrial sector are actually decreasing,
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with informal labor the only option left for people to eke out a living.
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As a result, inequality is skyrocketing,
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and political leaders are increasingly disconnected
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from their much younger populations.
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For those of us from outside of Africa,
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we're familiar with parts of this story:
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a massive spike in inequality,
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the product of a decline in good jobs for good wages
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that were once considered the hallmark of an advanced society;
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the capture of our political parties by elites
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accompanied by the hollowing out of civil society
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that once provided a voice to ordinary people;
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that sinking feeling that no matter what you do,
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external factors related to the global economy
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can disrupt our lives for the worse.
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Our political leaders seem helpless,
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insisting on austerity,
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even as public goods diminish to levels unseen in decades.
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And this is when they're not succumbing to exclusionary nationalism,
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blaming our woes on the weak rather than the powerful.
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What those of us from North America and Western Europe consider to be new
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has been the normal condition of African life since the 1970s.
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So who better to learn from
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than those who have been engaged in resistance to these conditions
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for the longest period of time?
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What can we learn from African protest democracy?
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First, democracy must begin with ordinary people.
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Viewing democracy as only elections has led to widespread disillusionment.
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We must instead work to center ordinary people in democratic life.
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Protest provides us one way to do that.
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Regardless of your age, sexuality, your gender,
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whether you're a citizen or a non-citizen, able-bodied or disabled,
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anyone can participate.
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In contrast to elections,
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protests are not confined by rigid electoral cycles.
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They offer a much more immediate form of action
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in our era of instant feedback.
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Second, while protests may be messy,
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this is what makes them powerful.
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Protests are contentious and contested processes,
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defined by contingent actions,
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often devoid of clear messaging,
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characterized by incomplete organization.
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These dynamics are what makes it easy to dismiss protests as riots
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or to assume they are of limited political utility.
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But it also makes them easier to suppress.
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Too often, governments do not view protests as elementary to democracy.
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Instead, they violently crush social movements
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or work to discredit their message.
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Third, as I already hinted,
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protest is the space from which new political imaginations may emerge.
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Protests are about coloring outside the lines,
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a way for ordinary people to rewrite the rules of the game
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that too many feel are stacked against them.
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Many young people in Africa have grown up in societies
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where a single ruler has ruled their entire lives.
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Protest is the space for new possibilities to emerge,
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as young people begin to discover their own power.
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Consider the situation of my friend Linda Masarira,
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a single mother of five,
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who is leading protests against the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe.
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She has been beaten, arrested, harassed.
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But Linda perseveres, because as she told me a few months ago,
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protest has given her a sense of meaning and direction.
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And though she knows the odds against her,
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Linda perseveres.
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Like Linda and other young African activists,
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we all must work to redefine democracy
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as something more than just elections and political parties.
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Democracy is a creative process,
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and protest has always been the vehicle
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for expanding our political imaginations beyond what we are told is possible.
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(In Swahili) Thank you very much.
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(Applause)
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