Rethinking the country as a nation is legitimate for Kenya and Africa. Many recognize the colonial history of African states established upon a divisive agenda with the aim of dismantling traditional polities, controlling and manipulating people and exploiting resources. The inability of an educated class to offer a viable idea of a “nation” uniting citizens in a common project remains a mystery. In Kenya, even the highly publicised Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) has not achieved much. Doubts linger as to whether constitutions adopted in Africa have improved peoples’ lives or whether they are just instruments for taking complete control of power.
Critics of the nation-state find fault with it from two main perspectives. Some consider the Nation-State a dangerous concept because it creates room for nationalism. Others are proponents of very powerful globalising forces very keen to disband the whole idea and reality of national sovereignty. Interestingly, both positions conveniently ignore an important factor for there to be a polity: the common good of the people. The question of which philosophical direction to take is the basis of rethinking the country as a nation. What is it for and what are the foundations that have been lacking? It is a question of the state as a polity and its purpose, which must touch its foundations.
The nation-state and its purpose
The nation-state has been the most enduring polity given its ability to maintain an order allowing people to coexist as diverse communities. It has created a way of balancing liberty and the public good so that individual members can live together with dignity. It could achieve that balance using the rule of law, which guaranties the exercise of freedom and the pursuit of wellbeing for all. The function of the state is to govern, exercising power for the protection of rights and the guarantee of the wellbeing of the citizens. That is what the rule of law is for. Joseph Ratzinger says that it is not the mission of the state to create paradise within its borders. Its mission is to make sure that citizens do that for themselves within its legal framework.
That is why government should always be limited. Government is solely the fiduciary of an order that allows the citizens to achieve their living as individuals and communities. When fulfilling such a function, government is legitimate and should be obeyed by all citizens, in accordance with the law. Complying with the law is expected of the government itself and of the citizens. It does not curtail the freedom of either. It is the condition for the proper exercise of liberty. A polity, as Aristotle stated, is a body of citizens, who are important because there is no nation without people and there is no democracy without “demos” or people, the first basis of a nation.
Four pillars must be considered in rethinking Kenya, or any other African country, as a nation: people, trust, citizenship and territory. In a time of pervasive neo-liberal trends, it is common to think that the basis of a stable polity is economic growth because it enhances sustainability. This is not strictly true since the most fundamental basis is the people. However, one might ask, who are the people and what unites them as “a people” in a state? Concerned about the nation-state being threatened by global corporations and global policy-making Institutions, Roger Scruton contended that any workable democracy necessitates a community to which the people recognize that they belong and to which they owe an unmistakable loyalty that transcends their diversity. No state, no government can be possible where its people do not recognize their shared or common “belonging”, with the rights and duties that come with that. Scruton expresses this first basis thus:
Government requires a “we,” a pre-political loyalty that causes neighbors who voted in opposing ways to treat each other as fellow citizens, for whom the government is not “mine” or “yours” but “ours,” whether or not we approve of it. This first person plural varies in strength, from fierce attachment in wartime to casual acceptance on a Monday morning at work, but at some level, it must be assumed if we are to adopt a shared rule of law.
Such people live by an awareness of bonds of mutual duties marked by reciprocity in times of adversity, need or crucial political processes, whether their side wins or not.
Such bonds point indicate the second basis of a nation, which is harder to achieve, or even understand today: trust, understood as belief in each other. It is not possible to rethink the country as a nation without reckoning with the question of social trust, “cementing” the people’s belonging together. Scruton thinks that yes, a country’s stability is enhanced by economic development,
but it depends far more upon this sense that we belong together and that we will stand by each other in the real emergencies. In short, it depends on a legacy of social trust. Trust of this kind depends on a common territory, resolution in the face of external threat and institutions that foster collective decisions in response to the problems of the day.
Where there is social trust and shared belonging, the third basis of a nation is possible: the relationship referred to commonly as citizenship. It exists between the state and the citizen when both parties hold each other accountable for their respective contribution to building the polity. It is more than a formal and abstract relationship since it entails a compounded set of rights and duties, to be upheld by each side, in virtue of the rule of law. This means that they are both subjects of the law holding both equally accountable for their obligations. Scruton explains that, even if the state is in charge of enforcing the law, it is expected to enforce it “equally against itself and against the citizen”, as the case may require.
People are actual citizens in a state that is bound by the law to fulfil its duties towards the citizens and they, in turn, acknowledge the state’s right to enforce the law as far as their freedoms end. Consequently, where the state is not accountable to the citizens, citizenship as a relationship is broken, since the state acts as a despot considering citizens as mere subjects. Even if in such a state there is law, it cannot be said to be ruled by law because the government considers itself to be above the law.
Understanding the concept of citizenship as a relationship where the citizen and the state are accountable to each other demonstrates a stark difference between being a citizen and being a subject. For Scruton, citizens are freer than subjects are, not because there is more that they can get away with, but because their freedoms are defined and upheld by the law. He further considers that people, who are subjects, normally want to become citizens as only citizens can be sovereign to the point of securing their own lifestyle, and the security of their family and property against any threat within the state. From a conceptual point of view, this fact explains immigration in search of countries in which citizenship entails such benefits.
The fourth basis of a Nation is the territory. People who form a polity live in a specific place, share history, institutions, norms and customs within specific boundaries. They participate in an equal commitment to all that they share: the land, the institutions and laws, which also means the political processes used to govern their polity. “Vital to the sense of nationhood is the idea of common territory, in which we are all settled, and to which we are all entitled as our home”. A sovereign nation refers to a people of citizens formed by a social trust, with a common history, within a territory, governed by shared laws.
Citizens are freer than subjects are, not because there is more that they can get away with, but because their freedoms are defined and upheld by the law.
Kenya, and any other African country, could claim to be a nation, if only as a country it had something to show for the trust, the citizenship described earlier and true rule of law. There are obstacles to such a claim.
Obstacles to the reality of a nation
In Cry, the Beloved Country, while discussing the dramatic changes in South Africa as a country, one of the characters says:
The tragedy is not that things are broken. The tragedy is that they are not mended again. The white man has broken the tribe. And that it is my belief (…) that it cannot be mended again. But the house that is broken, and the man that falls apart when the house is broken, these are tragic things. That is why the children break the law. (…) It suited the white man to break the tribe. But it has not suited him to build something in the place of what is broken.
Breaking the tribe, by colonial policy, came with the breaking of every basis of a nation: the people, the social trust, the citizenship and the territory. Today some speak of a new colonialism. Without denying it, there is a need to assess matters differently from two fronts: the neo-liberal urban elites and the global networks. There are inner divisions purported and sustained by local elites on the one hand; and on the other, the control exerted by global policies from foreign markets and global institutions. They all undermine the possibility of rebuilding what was destroyed: a shared identity, the creation of a true citizenship, and the possibility of nationhood.
The problem of urban elites
In the words of Scruton again,
Urban elites build trust through career moves, joint projects and cooperation across borders. Like the aristocrats of old, they often form networks without reference to national boundaries. They do not, on the whole, depend upon a particular place, a particular faith or a particular routine for their sense of membership, and in the immediate circumstances of modern life, they can adapt to globalization without too much difficulty. They will identify with transnational networks since they see those things as assets, which amplify their power.
In Kenya, the elites can hardly identify with the ordinary citizen upon whom they depend for their amenities, for the votes they crave. Unfortunately, the communities, which cannot identify with urban elites, still rely on them because they run government and enact policies. But there is a yawning gulf between the two sides since there is no shared identity between them. Like many other African countries, Kenya is a country of two worlds. Such a gulf demonstrates the impossibility of accountability of the elites towards the citizens. Citizens are totally powerless despite some constitutional provisions and other statutes formulating mechanisms of accountability.
Even where constitutions that are deemed progressive have been adopted, their implementation is still at the mercy of the same elites. The gulf also confirms that there is no proper citizenship understood as a relation of accountability between the leaders and the governed. There cannot be patriotism where citizenship is weak or inexistent.
In a world marked by pervasive neo-liberal policies, the implications of this gulf are huge, since the same elites in government decide market policies too. They are keen to create prosperity, but it is a prosperity that invariably forsakes the majority because of its unfair competition. Competition is good. However when it happens with competitors who can never win, it is unjust. This logic of unfair markets appears also in political processes: who wins in politics? Only those who have control over the reins of power, which turns processes such as elections futile exercises in role-play. The citizens’ vote ends up never contributing to the improvement of their lives. Such processes create power that is accountable only to itself; not to the people, but to the interests that control it, including global networks.
The problem of global networks
The concept of global networks includes global and regional institutions, and multinational corporations. It is common to hear arguments in support of things like global government, or global order. However, no such networks exist without a series of conditions made possible only by the nation-state systems. Robert Rowthorn argues that,
organisations such as the United Nations, the European Union, the World Trade Organisation or multinational corporations are no alternatives to the Nation-State (…). The very existence of such entities pre-supposes a network of strong nation states to underpin them (…). If nation states are seriously undermined, the result will not be global harmony, as liberal utopians believe, but global anarchy
Problems appear when global networks control governments and systems run by the elites discussed earlier. Policies arising from such combination do not bridge the rift between the elites and the people. The result is a greater rift, greater disenfranchisement, and greater alienation of the people. The greater the control by global players, the lesser the accountability, no matter how loudly they claim to promote good governance, rule of law, or free market. There is an accomplice-type of relationship between the elites and the leadership of global networks that exists to the detriment of the people, to the point that the elites can even violate global policies and get away with it.
A case in point would be the claim of universal rights from global institutions. Recent history shows violations by governing elites because the institutions promoting the policies are far removed from the people in need of their defence. The same goes for international courts, which raises the question of which justice is rendered and for whom.
The basis for rethinking nation-building or what legitimate authority is, is the same as the principles of cohesion derived from the nature of a polity: people, citizenship and natural and historical boundaries as bonds of a shared destiny. People are communities formed by families living on a given territory and sharing in a system of values, built on trust that is necessary for the survival of a polity. Social trust does not mean that the people agree on everything. It means that they agree on the fundamentals of a social order that works for their common interest. The idea of a social contract resonates with people because it assumes such trust.
There cannot be patriotism where citizenship is weak or inexistent.
However, today’s social contracts are devoid of trust, they are lacking in Scruton’s “we” and tend to revolve around an “I”, whether it is an individual, an elite family or private interests. That is why they fail. A polity formed without trust and loyalty is already fractured. This is the case of political parties, for example. They don’t change anything because, as institutions, they tend to drive division instead of unity. Anyang Nyong’o acknowledged that after so many years of experimenting with multi-party politics, it is time to rethink the direction because “people are fighting to live better and in peace, to see their lives go forward and to guarantee the future of their children”. Parties could become meaningless in terms of building the necessary unity for legitimacy because they have proved to be incapable of impartial government for the common good of the people. Instead, they tend to engender some pathological nationalism, indifferent to the plight of the common citizen.
A polity formed without trust and loyalty is already fractured.
There is a general reluctance to appreciate that rethinking the nation is a moral issue and a moral responsibility. Yet political philosophy is a moral science. The basis of rethinking the nation discussed is of a moral nature: people, trust, citizenship and loyalty to the land where the people belong. They have been broken by colonial policies and our elites’ policies. They must be mended. Cry, the Beloved Country brings this moral dimension in sharp focus, expressed as if it was written today:
It was permissible to allow the destruction of a tribal system that impeded the growth of the country. It was permissible to believe that its destruction was inevitable. But it is not permissible to watch its destruction, and to replace it by nothing, or by so little that whole people deteriorate, physically and morally
Paton concedes that though the tribal system was not perfect, it was a moral system nonetheless. He states that if the people have become criminal and depressed in the various ways, it is not because it is their nature to be so. It is because the basis of their social order has been destroyed. He emphatically appeals to the “inescapable duty”, to set up another system of order.
Nyong’o, Scruton and Paton coincide in indicating that a way of rebuilding the basis of the nation must be found because only then can the formation of loyalty and service to each other, neighbours and strangers alike, that is necessary to the existence of a functioning state take place. Today’s youth are willing to die for a company that can pay them a salary but not for their country. Proof of broken social trust broken by inadequate political experiments. National loyalty, from both leaders and citizens, is a condition for constitutional and democratic government. Building it requires a strong resistance to global players and local elites, who are so heavily invested in expropriating not only the resources but also the sovereignty of the people, overtaking the sovereignty of the nation-states politically and market-wise. Only the people can resist against such formidable powers.
