Democracy is as old as mankind

Democratic values such as the right to speak out and to take part in decision making are universal. However democracy is expressed differently in different societies. Partnernews asks Professor Godfrey Muriuki for his contribution to understanding democracy from a historian’s point of view.

Professor Godfrey Muriuki, University of Nairobi.

Even before the interview gets started, professor Muriuki has an answer at hand – at least to the question he raises himself: “First, let me ask: What is democracy,” the elderly man asks and reaches out for the Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary next to him on the desk in is office at the University of Nairobi.

“…that allows people to participate in decision making and implementation of the decisions made by the rulers,” he reads out before putting the book aside.

“To me the last part is the most important,” he adds.

“From that perspective I would like to suggest that in fact democracy is as old as mankind. The differences comes when discussion the manifestations and the processes of democracy. But the manifestations should not be confused with the concept.”

The right to speak up

According to Muriuki it is a universal idea that people should be allowed to speak up and be consulted before decisions are made. That is the kind of ideas you find in the UN Human Rights resolution, he argues.

“Take the maasai here in Africa. Each age group appoints its own spokesman. For instance the junior warriors, they choose a spokesman and leader among themselves. He is their leader and act as a go between to the senior warriors and to the elders.

Before the community make major decisions, each group will get together and discuss what to do. For a decision to be made they would sit together, and a staff would be passed from individual to individual and whoever holds the staff will have to right to speak. That staff is a symbol of authority.

A masaai in Kenya gets a chance to influence decisions when members of his age group gather for meetings.

Everybody is free to express their opinion either against or in favor of the decision that is under discussion.  

Once the decision is made the spokesman will report to the group to the elders. If the decision is to be carried out by the junior warriors, they will ask for the blessing of the elders.”

Imported institutions

However today traditional democracies in Kenya are only being practiced by groups suchs as the maasai, the turkana or the samburu, Muriuki remarks.

“When the Western sense of democracy came with the British take over Kenya in 1895, the British decided to impose a lot of British institutions such as the idea of a parliament and a judicial system, and the old traditional democratic processes were set aside and seriously undermined. But don’t forget that British institutions were not introduced for the sake of democracy but for the purposes of exploitation and control. But for them back home it was a symbol of democractic processes.”

After independence in 1963 Kenya officially chose to become a democracy.

“From 1963 to 2002 people were clamoring for democracy because democracy had been sabotaged. People wanted a chance to air their views like they had in the traditional system.

Today what Kenya still needs is the possibility for people to air their views and for decision to be made after consultations with for instance civil society organizations.”

Parallel systems 

Today the traditional system is seriously undermined, although it is still being used, he explains.

“Let me give an example from when my uncle died. He had two wives who each were allocated a piece of the land. The youngest one thought that the elder had had larger piece and wanted the land to be subdivided between the two.

On that occasion we did not go to the local magistrate’s court. We simply called the clan elders to decide on what we should do. We kept minutes of the meetings i.e we were using both the traditional Kikuyo judicial system and the present modalities and we were able to say: Yes, this is what to clan decided.”

With that decision Muriuki and his relatives went to the magistrate’s court and got permission to approved the subdivision of the land in accordance with the clan’s decision.

“It is faster, it’s cheaper, it’s convenient. And it doesn’t deal with punishment because in traditional Kikuyo judicial systems it was believed that amity was the most important feature, that you must have peace and stability in a society.”

Democracy is universal

Until very recently traditional systems as the one being used after the uncle died was the most widespread throughout the world, Miruki asserts.

“Look at Papua New Guinea, look at the aboriginals in Australia or at the native North Americans.” 

Traditional democratic structures are intact in many communities among pastoralist tribes such as the maasai, the turkana or the samburu.

One of the things that has caused systems all over the world through history to change from the traditional clan based systems to modern democratic and judicial processes has been the increase in population and in various economic activities.

“The traditional system will be able to operate so long as the population is not very large and lives in a limited area. As soon as people start to interact with other clans or tribes and i.e start trading, they will need a political and legal mechanism that go beyond the clan or tribe. As a result of increased population and increased interaction you begin to see the development of laws that take in to account that you are dealing with a much bigger society,” Muriuki states using another historic example:

“Take the Egyptians, the first world civilization. When they started to trade with the rest of Africa and the Mediterranean World, and with what is today known as the Middle East, they had to modify their rules out of necessity.”

In Kenya today rulers have to take into account that there are 42 indigenous tribes plus the muzungus, the muhindis and the arabs.

But even in a multicultural society the traditional democratic systems work very nicely alongside the modern system, Muriuki claimes:

“To say that a pure country needs one strong leader to show the way for the people is nothing but an excuse for holding on to power. It is not true that the leader knows everything. It is the people themselves on a grass root level who knows what is best for them.”