An act of evil that recalled the atrocities of the SS

Fergus Pickering

Comparisons with the SS are a bit overv the top, don't you think? The SS was an arm of the German state. These are 'youths with machetes'. Not the same at all. We have our own youths with machetes though it's true we generally manage to stop them behaving on such a large scale. But they would if they could. What stops them is not Democracy but Law. Africa may or may not need more Democracy but it sure as hell needs more Law. And that is not in our gift any more since we abandoned ship fifty years ago. What it is best we do now is to leave them alone and stop screwing them through unfree trade. Not much chance of that though. Let's go on about Democracy instead.

Herbert Thornton

I agree with Fergus Pickering that Africa's greatest need is not democracy, but Law. However, I don't think that comparisons with the SS are over the top at all. The SS was of course an arm of the German state, but a tribe is a state too, though on a smaller scale. These 'youths with machetes', are arms of their tribes just as much as the SS was an arm of the much larger German tribe.

Indeed, I also suggest that whether we think of the German SS, or of tribal youth armed with Machetes, or of Arab and Pakistani terrorists armed with hijacked aircraft or bombs, they are all essentially tribal phenomena. The same is true too in Sudan where, encouraged by Islamic fervour, Arabs are committing genocide against black Africans regardless of whether they are Muslim or infidel.

What if anything, we ought to do about it all, is another question. I believe that rather than worrying about Kenya, we should, for a start, recognise the foolishness of imagining that we can preserve our own society (and recover its former decency) by decreeing that our own tribal identity is worthless and that we must abandon it and substitute multiculturalism.

Bernard Mahan

It ill behoves a society such as exists in the UK to advocate democracy in any other country. We live in a society where democracy has been eroded to the extent that it is virtually non existent. We are allowed to demonstrate only with the permission of authorities and it is intended to monitor our every movement. It would seem that we are embracing all the worst elements of authoritarian regimes while still suggesting that democracy is alive,well and the way forward for the rest of the world.

FluffyRos

1. Recall that the Germans were vicious even in WWI, massacreing thousands of civilians, villagers, etc. It was that Prussian culture. BRRR.
2. I have heard/read of different African regions engaging in these unspeakable brutalities? Where is it learned? In South Africa, the rubber tires burning live people, the machete murders, the wholesale rapes. Please, assess blame to the cultures...loathesome!

John Muir

When some of the worst examples of tribalism and corruption flourish in the (dis) United Kingdom and democracy is evident principally on account of its absense, it ill-behoves Michael Gove to wax lyrical about the West's role in promoting democracy abroad, let alone to make the spurious association contained in the headline to his article. The sooner all Western governments stop meddling in Africa and let it( in the immortal words of 'Africa's Plea'),'...for God's sake, be me!' the sooner Conrad's novella can be rewritten as the 'Heart of Lightness'.

Bruce Robertson

I note the evils of the British tribe in Kenya ni the 1950s are completely forgotten.

Nick S

Bernard Mahan - democracy may not be perfect in the UK, but this is far from being an authoritarian country. The worst elements of autoritarian regimes - censorship, restriction of travel, arbitrary arrests, torture, executions, pervasive fear etc - are all conspicuously absent. The Spectator would not last a nanosecond in a true authoritarian regime.

Judith Razek

That Michael Gove is so prejudiced is hardly his fault. Like so many others in the west he has been brain-washed into believing that democracy must be forced onto every country regardless of the cost in lives and property.Like Blair and Bush, Gove appears to need a 'crusade.' Yes the recent murders of innocents in Kenya are horrific, but they were caused by the 'democratic' elections.(As were recent events in Pakistan) Yes the Kenyans need change, but please Mr Gove, find another way. I'm sure you will never accept this, but democracy is not for everyone. Much could be learned from a country like Oman ruled by a well-loved and benevolent leader.The Omani people are tolerant of all races and religions.Why not take a closer look at countries that are functioning successfully and happily without so-called 'democracy'and learn from them? Mr Gove, you are privileged to be a media contibutor and need to earn a living,but surely with this comes the moral duty to be responsible. It would indeed be dreadful to imagine that your words incited some people to further violence and I am sure this is far from your intention.

Mr A,T,McCabe

I,m afraid thatthough I set out to do so, I cannot read your pages because the adds are too intrusive on vision, thus on interest

Grazing Zebra

It strikes me as a tragically humorous matter when I see armchair philosophers passing their commentaries on what Africa needs, be it law or democracy, or indeed and ideally, both. As a former resident of Kenya, I assure you it is (happily) nothing more and (disappointingly) nothing less than what Michael Gove states in the penultimate paragraph : a case of "traditional rivalries". The Luo and the Kikuyu have had feuds immemorial. It is not that the Kenyan nation (unlike the pitiful Zimbabwe, forever unable to assimilate her own peoples like her South African neighbour, and cause their imminent downfall) is not able to deal with change and democracy. Michael himself even acknowledges this early in this view : Kenya always was the favoured child of the East African nations. But to state that democracy be the unquestionable solution to all problems is naive at best, and hopelessly misinformed at worst. Kenya cannot be classified in the same stream as the other nations in Africa, who for whatever reasons, have problems of their own peculiar kind: I regret there is no magical antidote!

S

Actually Fergus Pickering we did not entirely abandon ship more than 50 years ago. My father and others were employed in the judiciary for many years after independance paid effectively by the British Government. These judges held the line against a rising tide of corruption. My father ceaselessy tried to point out what was really happeningin Kenya to people in the UK. Sadly his warnings were usually met with deaf ears as it didnt suit the prevailing liberal, post colonial climate in the UK to condemn criminal African Governments. I think that many of those who just chose not to notice have a great deal to answer for.

Austin

Maybe the thugs in Kenya got the idea to burn women & children in a church from Mel Gibson's historical travesty "The Patriot".

Kevin

Your recommendations for Kenya appear devoid of any moral content. You know the expression applied to computing: "Garbage in, garbage out"? Parliamentary representation only does what you tell it to. The input to that process is the national culture and the output is legislation and executive policy. In order to have a peaceful nation you need a culture that embraces a morality that is orientated towards peace. The "checks and balances" for a civilised government consist in the will of the people to defend that morality, regardless of whether they have a vote in national elections.

David L Nilsson

Yawn. Standard save-the-world neocon tripe, down to the obligatory but totally inapposite comparison with the Evil Narzees (Oradour was a calculated act of intimidation by a beleaguered state actor, not a spontaneous outburst of tribal savagery in an artificial and shambolic low-IQ nation). When will armchair warriors such as little Mr Gove MP stop fussing about what happens in foreign countries and direct his lofty gaze to the affairs of his own? A real conservative, instead of a pale-blue-liberal crusader, would accept that Africa has its folkways and we have ours. As a taxpayer, I can't afford all this arse-wiping of aliens. The best "we" could do for Africa would be to let it settle down and find its own level, with neither aid nor hindrance from the do-gooders of democracy and fussbudgets of freedom.

Tony Hickin

Re the problems with the 5th Januaury issue, thank you for redressing the balance by reproducing Michael Gove's article on Kenya online. However, I could have done without either of the two identical Clemency Burton-Hills on pages 14 and 16 respectively of my hard-copy issue!

Steve the Student

Democracy is now a word almost devoid of meaning, having become a byword for stable, successful former-bad places that are now full of happy people and rainbows and fluffy things etc. But the proper denotation of the word is merely a mode of governance, specifically where the governers are selected by the governed. By itself it is no guaranteer of the aforementioned utopia. What is needed is a tradition of liberal constitutionism, the kind that has been developing in Britain since the signing of the Magna Carta. However much our own leaders may wish it, you cannot plant democracy in a failed/failing state, add water and get an instant free'n'fair nation.

Mark Kasozimusoke

Mr Gove may be over the top with comparing African tribalism to the SS. However his comments deserve to be heard. Clearly the Narzees were systematically calculating whereas African regimes will indescriminately exploit the whole country, eventually rounding on their own tribe once the main opponents have been eliminated. The main problem for the West is that throughout modern times "we" promoted tribe over nation and have propped up undemocratic, despotic regimes for our own convenience. Now the World has changed and people are surprised that "democracy" is not common place across Africa and elsewhere. Aid is essentially useless because kleptocrats eventually eat into it. Western nations should simply build and pay for all the infrastructure of the countries it historically has raped. Then "we" can consider fair, "free" trading. A middle class will gradually develop and the brain drain may stop. After all this, only then can we look on in bemusement as they tear each other apart! In our dreams.......

C Byass

Reading the article omitted from this week's edition was made difficult and uncomfortable by bordering it with rapidly flashing advertisements - an example of poor website design.

W

Sadly 'democracy' has become a hackneyed word and in the case of my country, Kenya, and of many others it often means not much more than elections. However, we expect to be able to chose our representatives and when that opportunity is denied us, we become angry. The context of our anger is the impunity of a small group of people, not just during the elections but over the last 5 years and longer. Any observer of the Kenyan scene will be aware of the deep frustrations and resentment at the high handedness of the ruling Establishment duing what has essentially been a weak Kibaki presidency led by an old and unwell man who, left to his own devices, would probably prefer to relax at his beloved golf club. These elections have been a defining moment for Kenya, and in all the controversy about the Presidential vote, little is understood about the punishment beating administered to the political class by an angry and sophisticated electorate in the Parliamentary elections. Kenya had been running on empty for quite a while and what has happened does not come as a surprise. It is however an opportunity to now deal with all the hard questions we have been avoiding in our country. It is not going to be easy. Not least becasue 'democracy' functions through Parliament. In Kenya, Parlaiment has itself beocme a monster, one of the best paid, most indolent, corruptible and opportunistic in the world. Sometimes - and this sounds cruel and frightening - blood has to flow and fires burn, before things begin to change. Yes, there is a place, an uncomfortable place, for political violence in the evolution of political order. When impunity sets in and the cries of orphans and of the destitute go unheard for years, a terrible fate awaits the deaf...

JohnC

Hysterical title? Yes! Validity none, unless you apply the same rant to every massacre in Africa. Mr Gove I hope your judgement is not so ridiculous if you ever attain cabinet status in a Conservative government if so you truly frighten me.

Alan Yates

Democracy and tribalism don't work together. Tribe will always over trump policies on health, education, transport, agriculture, tourism, and all the other usual bases for voting .

CS

***A real conservative, instead of a pale-blue-liberal crusader, would accept that Africa has its folkways and we have ours.*** Which translates as what? They're African and black so naturally they lock children in a church and set fire to it? What quaint folkways. Folkways is an unusual word, by the way. It wouldn't be a translation from German by any chance?

Peter Walker

To those complaining of the flashing adverts, try clicking on 'print this article'. Hey-presto, eye-friendly presentation (plus it can be printed if you like)

Mutimba

Herbert Thornton, Africa does not need Law, it needs people who understand the meaning of democracy. Kibaki was 'forced' to win the elections by selfish tribal leaders. Good luck to African leaders if they can listen