Somalilandsun- Vladimir Putin was among a few leaders that openly congratulated Donald Trump for being voted the 45th president of the United States of America. Others are William Ruto, the deputy President of Kenya, Raul Castro, and as well the French opposition leader Marine Le Pen. They did all these when all leaders and people in the world are scared of Trump being the President of America. The fear across the world being rational one given the hard power approach Trump has been adopting in his campaign speeches, he has severally promised punitive approach topolitical issues whether in America or around the world. Contrary to the negative nationalism of the American people, the world society was hopeful that Hillary Clinton would win over Trump for her democratic and soft power culture in the manner of herdomestic and global relations in politics. Most interestingly, Vladimir Putin of Russia overlooked Trump’s overt militancy only to send out a message of congratulations. This must be a diplomatic racket, mockery or maybe a special innuendo like the ones Julius Nyerere often used against Id Amin Dada. Thus, it is logical to premise that such political events that emanate from failures of democracy should not be left to oblivion as casual omissions, but they must trigger and inspire literary and political reflections about what is supposed to be an ideal system of politics in the post-modern world.
Primarily, there are positive lessons and negative lessons to learn from Trump and the electoral behavior in the politics of the people of America. First, Hillary Clinton deserves a warm pat on the back. She is a beacon and paragon of democracy for having showing to the world through her political adventures that in most cases they are not leaders that perpetrate bad politics but instead they are followers that give virgin grounds for entrenchment of bad politics that promises social exclusion. An act which the American people of omitted without fear or shame. The fact is that Clinton has won with humanity all over the world, but Trump has only harvested an opportunity in the politics of sectarianism fuelled by the palpable feelings and sentimentality of white nationalism among the people of America.
Technically, they are not only Americans to be blamed for thecollective irrationalityinherent political perpetration of white nationalism; very many other political civilizations are blameworthy for the same, given very many cases of evidence in the recent past. Vladimir Putin’s treatment of the Crimea question, British exit from the European Union and formation of the state of Israel are all but loud examples of neo-nationalism or politics of one community intending to dominate over other communities.
Africa is replete with myriad examples that confirm conventional superiority of nationalism as a political torrent against the class and professionalism. Using the cases from the recent past, wehave the black African nation separating itself from the Arabic African nation in Sudan and thence forming Khartoum Sudan and Juba Sudan. The Igbo nation in Nigeria is ever struggling to separate itself from Federal Nigeria, Scotland and Ireland are never comfortable with their union in the United Kingdom, South African natives enjoy state support in lynching xenophobic violence against the minorities like the migrants, temporary job seekers, tourists and visitors. The most dramatic of all is when Kenyans recently voted two criminal Suspects facing charges of rape, crime against humanity and murder at the International criminal court to be their Presidentand the deputy President in total defiance of collective expectations of the international community. All This has been nothing else but an irrational omissions fuelled by collective sentimentalities inherent in neo-nationalism.
Reading Misra and Asirvabatham in their book political theoryyou come to an argument that electoral democracy is not as good as it has been theorized. It is only good at an ideal stage but very defective when battle-tested for pragmatism. It is electoral democracy that breeds such irrationalities like the ones evinced in Americans voting for Trump, Government officials in Kenya committing corruption and quickly rushing to hide behind the parliamentary tyranny of tribal numbers, and so forth. Thus electoral democracy has more negative contributions than positive ones. It breeds irrationality, tribalism, racism, dis–education, unfair despotism of the majority, corruption, political opportunism-cum-money making, rigging, selfishness and cheapness in the quality of political thought.
Evidently, very many literary andpolitical thinkers have often bungled when dealing with the question of tribal or racial identity versus professionalism. If we can go by examples from Africa, you will readily come to mind-boggling experiences like those of Wole Soyinga thinking political as a Yorubafirst other than aNigerian,Chinua Achebe expressing his concern for the formation of tribal based state of Igbo or Biafra in his two books, There was a Country and then The Education of a British Protected Child and even also in his short story Civil Peace. In eastern Africa you easily come by Ngugi and Binyavanga always preaching the Gospel of Gikuyu Literature not out of anything but tribal consciousness just the same way Frantz Fanon failed to reconcile the tribe, race and socialist consciousness in Black Skins, White Masks.Beyond our boundaries to the overseas; Phillip Roth openly derogates other nations in praise of his Jewish nationalism as it is seen in the collection of his short stories, Goodbye Columbus, Just as Leo Tolstoy initially derogated the Germans as he praises the ethnic French and The ethnicRussians in his War and Peace as well his collection of short stories.
This means what? It means the tribe and the raceas obviousbuilding blocks of political nationalism is not going to disappear from human thought; they will persist in influencing political choices and human treatment of the fellow humans. Unfortunately, Political and economic nationalism among thesocieties in rich nations is obviously going to harm poor societies, thus it is the duty of the poor nations to promptly take positive and negative lessons from political eventualities of Brexit, Trump and Vladimir in Crimea, to realize this exclusive intentions of the rich world, then quickly re-organize their understanding of the new dynamics in world politics and economic relations, this will guarantee their survival. Otherwise the future is not very good.
By
Alexander Opicho
From Lodwar, Kenya
