Open Society and its Enemies

Eternal Vigilance is the price of democracy
George W. Bush
The writer sets out to use Karl Popper's submission on open society to analyze the paradox of democracy in Nigeria. Karl Popper the Austrian Philosopher defines “open society” as simply the locus of "the traditions of a free people", the site of myriad personal decisions. The open society liberates the critical facilities of human beings. In his book titled The Open Society and its Enemies, Popper provides not only a devastating philosophical critique of the underpinnings of totalitarianism, particularly as they had been realized in the then contemporary evils of both Marxism and fascism, but a passionate defense of democratic liberalism.

Popper sees totalitarianism of all stripes as essentially “tribal,” as a “closed society”, a rebellion against the “strain of civilization”. He assaults it by using his philosophy of science (which greatly emphasizes “falsification”, i.e. the refutation of statements and theories) to criticize the doctrines of those whom Popper takes to be behind modern totalitarianism, namely Plato, Aristotle, Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx.

Nigeria today is going through a very torrid epoch as enemies of open society assault the state in the most hideous manner. The Nigerian democratic landscape is a collection of strange bed fellows; however only those considered most contradictory, controversial and most malignant would be discussed in this write up.

General Muhammadu Buhari is a prominent face of the opposition trying desperately to wrestle power from the ruling party; his democratic credentials are not particularly encouraging. As a military leader he assaulted the symbols of democracy, press freedom and rule of law through the incessant harassment of the media and illegal imprisonment of politicians and members of opposition. It is an irony that in this democratic dispensation, he has sought redress in the law courts more than any other presidential aspirant (the same law courts he routinely battered), stating and justifying his claims through the press (the same press he almost completely suppressed).

Moreover, Gen Buhari who ruled Nigeria from the 1984 to 1985 put in place the notorious Decree 2, a government legislation which permitted the authorities to declare any individual a state risk and detain the suspect indefinitely without being charged to court. This decree remains the most devastating assault on human and citizen's rights in Nigeria's history.

Gen Ibrahim Babangida, on the other hand has always argued that he is the biggest advocate of democracy in Nigeria, to his credit he helped midwife democracy only for him to assist in strangulating the product of his own democratic experiment through the annulment of June 12 Presidential election of 1993(generally adjudged to be the freest and fairest in the history of Nigeria). This pitiless act not only terminated the third republic equidistantly, it brought Nigeria to the brink of another civil war.

They both claim to be repentant democrats who should be given a chance to contribute their democratic quota. Their democratic transformation is remarkable and almost unbelievable (which is exactly what some have argued). How is it that one goes from being anti-democratic to being pro-democratic? Is there a process or set of rituals required from being anti to being pro democratic? What benchmark or yardstick should be used in testing or clarifying the sincerity and devotion of the new faith the said individual professes? (This while keeping in mind that one is whatever one claims to be).

Furthermore, within the Nigerian State are groups who do not pledge their allegiance to the state much more the democracy it practices, but who expect to be protected somehow by the state, while claiming that democracy entitles them to rights as citizens of the state. Such groups exist in primeval and primordial forms with ethnic or religious structures and appearances. Their loyalty is to their own leadership only, and often times not to the central authority that they view as debauched and unworthy of their adherence.

Moreover, there also are politicians who do not in the slightest way believe in the democratic institutions they are assigned to manage and sustain. They only use these institutions as a means to economic and political ends. They use public for personal gratification, personalize the office they occupy, and out rightly criminalize state power.

State apparatus and resources are routinely mobilized and deployed to nefarious activities and vices of different sorts. State financial resources and tools of government office are deployed to committing acts of piracy on the high sea, stealing natural mineral resources, money laundering, drug and human trafficking and even acts of state sponsored terrorism (including the murder of political opponents and their families, promoting ethnic bigotry and inciting religious zealotry and extremism).

In addition, they attempt to distract sincere leaders in the society who dare to take their oaths of service seriously. Under the guise of protecting the constitution or upholding some obscure and unintelligible notion of federalism and democracy they distract and perturb sincere and committed leadership through blackmail, intimidation and acts of executive recklessness.

They subjugate the very norms and principles of democracy and free society that make their very existence possible. The importunate question is how does the society deal with such people or groups of people who can be identified as enemies of open society? Moreover, is it democratic to prevent enemies of democracy from coming to power using democratic institutions while keeping in mind that once they get to power there is a very high possibility that they will abase these same democratic institutions that brought them to power? Individuals and groups attack democratic institutions but turn around to hid under the banner, and are protected by the rights that are guaranteed under democratic rule. Political elites have reduced democracy to the dictatorship and tyranny of the majority over the minority with very little and in some instances absolutely no regards for the governed, the minority and the opposition; the paradox of democracy.

The writer suggests that an entirely new problem should be recognised as the fundamental problem of a democratic rule in Nigeria. The new problem, as distinct from the old “Who should rule?” can be formulated as follows: “How is the state to be constituted so that bad rulers can be got rid of without bloodshed, without violence?”

How is such a state to be constituted? A close look at Popper's theory of knowledge could provide some assistance.

Popper developed an approach to knowledge and to politics which was free of authoritarian assumptions. As for his theory of knowledge, Popper argues that we learn from our mistakes, by trial and the elimination of error. He applied this simple idea to science and to politics. According to Popper, all our beliefs are guesses about the world, mere conjectures. What is distinctive about science is that it seeks systematically to make its theories open to interpersonal criticism and empirical testing, with a view to discovering its mistakes as soon as possible.

Brian Magee while summarizing Popper's reasons for defending the open society identifies a crucial aspect of societal growth and progress. Living is argued as first and foremost a process of problem-solving, thus the need for societies which are conducive to problem-solving. And because problem-solving calls for the bold propounding of trial solutions which are then subjected to criticism and error elimination, there is a further need for a society which permits the untrammelled assertion of different proposals, followed by criticism, followed by the genuine possibility of change in the light of criticism. Regardless of any moral considerations, a society organized on such lines will be more effective at solving its problems, and therefore more successful in achieving the aims of its members, than if it were organized on other lines. Such a society is example of social democracy, entailing the “problem-solving” of piecemeal social engineering.

The Popperian methodology for managing ongoing social development requires that politicians/ leaders identify and clearly formulate problems, then propose alternative tentative solutions (the stage at which creative politics comes in), then critically examine solutions before they are put into practice, and continuously monitor them once they are implemented for unintended consequences.

In the sphere of public policy, what is recommended is negative utilitarianism; whereby the role of the state is not to make people happy (i.e., not to maximise the general welfare) but to relieve avoidable suffering. Further pursuing the connection between epistemology and ethics adds to clarity in the field of ethics if the society formulates demands negatively, i.e. demand the elimination of suffering rather than the promotion of happiness.

Moreover, the writer agrees with Popper in the development of the argument for the “rational unity of mankind” according to which all considered to be of value, and to be equal in rationality, because of one' role as sources of possible criticism. Criticism is the most effective agent of desirable change. The upshot is that the need for constructive criticism must be taken into account in respect of the institutional arrangements. Under the modified Presidential system practiced in Nigeria, criticism, while it may be voiced, is frequently ineffectual because of the weakness of the public forum and because the various internal divisions within governmental responsibility make it difficult to hold anyone politically responsible for anything.

In addition, the political institutions in operation are often woefully under-equipped to perform the function of mutual criticism. As the writer argued earlier, the whole issue of the reconstruction of a public sphere, in the sense of a forum within which most activities are opened to scrutiny, seems particularly crucial and the need very urgent.

However, democratic social reconstruction should not be viewed as just the fine-tuning of the economy, the reign of countless redistributive social programs designed by activists and pressure groups to meet those alleged social needs that a host of interest groups are pressing upon the political systems as non-negotiable demands. Caution must be the watchword so that piecemeal social engineering and democratic social reform, does not get the government into a grand mess. Intervention piled upon intervention; regulations been continually modified in unpredictable ways could lead to precisely those consequences that it was set up to prevent: economic stagnation and political conflict.

The path to progress in the Nigerian Society cannot be smooth or straight forward because of the many internal problems entrenched in the system. The Nigerian democratic institutions themselves are threatened by those whose vested interests are entwined with the State apparatus. Leaders tinkering with everything even freedom, criticism and revision, is leading to the closed society that is very dangerous.

Nevertheless, advancement and development is a possibility even when the reactionary forces are mounting a counterattack to the steps towards progress being embarked upon by the society. Ian Jarvie argues, that "history is the struggle to navigate the transition from an earlier and less desirable form of society to a later and more desirable form." The transition, it must be warned, is not going to be smooth, but revolts and relapses are nonetheless only temporary. History is a one-way street that leads from the closed to the open society. There are no doubts that, however long it takes, the open society will eclipse the closed.

As Popper rightly argued, it is the insecurity of a challenged privileged class that is the most likely source of violent reaction. Signs of these violent reactions already abound all over Nigeria particularly in places and sectors where positive change is taking place and progress is noticeable.

What is happening is that the privileged, elitist strata of the old order are seeking to arrest the opening up of a society they have been used to ruling. They are resorting to blackmail, intimidation, and violence, imposing tyranny, and conducting a reign of terror against the people. They are seeking the support, including even the armed intervention, of any other closed society (primordial/ primeval groups) that has managed to arrest modernizing trends. They are attacking prominent symbols of the open society wherever they find them. Although their slogan is "back to the society of our fathers to the old days when all was well,” they themselves are morally bankrupt and nihilism is rife among them. Moreover, they are trying to wrap the whole business in a hypocritical and even cynical exploitation of ethnic and religious sentiments. Although educated themselves, they are leading a revolt against education, reason and freedom.

Despite the ferocity of their attack, their defense of the closed society will fail, for there can be no turning back. The society must never return to their alleged innocence and beauty of the closed society, the so called heroic age of tribalism. The more the society attempts to go back to this period, the more the society will surely arrive at the endless internal strife, slavery and slave trade, banditry, gangsterism and the likes. A predictable end to all these is the most brutal and violent destruction of all that is human in this society. There is no returning to the alleged harmonious state of nature. If the society turns back, then it must go the whole way, a return to bestiality.

Thus alertness is crucial and imperative. World War Two (WWII) Navy Officer and later US President John F Kennedy argued in his book “While England Slept” that the evil represented by Nazi Germany was able to advance as far as it did because England which was in the best position at that time to contain its aggression did very little, in fact rather than confront, England appeased Hitler and his Nazis until things got worse and full scale war broke out in Europe. All Nigerians and aficionado of democracy both local and in Diaspora must be resolute and steadfast against enemies of democracy and open society both within and without. Former US President George Walker Bush jnr warns that for democracy to survive, all stakeholders must be alert so that the enemies, who hate the freedom democracy stands for, do not destroy it when the stakeholders are not paying attention. “Eternal Vigilance is the price of democracy”.

What man seeks is the ultimate good; however, what is obtainable is the lesser evil. It then becomes imperative to make the best of what is obtainable in making the world a better place.

Emmanual Kant's asserts that “It is wisdom that has the merit of selecting, from among the innumerable problems which present themselves, those whose selection is important to mankind.”

God give the Nigerian Nation the serenity to accept the things that cannot be changed, the courage to change the things that can be changed and the wisdom to know the difference. Amin.


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Articles by Akinniyi Abioye Oyewusi