The three best known classical philosophers of social contract theory, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Thomas Hobbes bequeathed unto us the basic understanding of the efficacies of a representative government as we have it today, under a democratic dispensation.
The basic teachings of the social contract thesis are explanations about how the idea of government came about. The theory teaches that in the beginning people lived in a state of nature wherein there were no laws to regulate their conduct and there was no government. Hardship, oppression, selfishness and insecurity were part of life and to guarantee security for the greatest number of the members of the society, people came together and entered into two types of agreements, the Pactus Unionis, and the Pactus Subjectionis.
The Pactus Unionis allowed people to agree that they would look after one another’s safety and their property so that they could live in peace and harmony. Under the Pactus Subjectionis members of the society united and pledged to obey an authority to which they surrendered the whole or part of their freedoms and rights. The authority in turn guaranteed to all members under its jurisdiction protection of life, property and to an extent liberty.
Unlike in the state of nature, the social contract compelled the people to surrender their powers and freedoms to a person or an assembly with authority, power and mechanisms to enforce the contract under common laws.
Thomas Hobbes in his treatise, Leviathan, expounded further that in the state of nature human life was mean: solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. Hobbes was pretty pessimistic in concluding that human beings by their very nature are selfish and greedy, that life as such is always a state of war: ‘Bellum Omnium Contra Omnes’, all waging war against all!
In religious terms, and in accord with the history of human civilisation, this points to one cardinal and undeniable condition, the phenomenon of sin. We are all sinners, and when left on our own and to our own devices, we are dangerous to one another and even to ourselves. Thus without religious, moral or ethical teachings by which to conduct our lives in society, we are our own worst enemies.
This is why we, as human beings, subscribe to religion to help us navigate our ephemeral affairs while being mindful that we are deficient and in need of higher rules and precepts as compasses to illuminate our roads, as we move forward, and to enlighten our relationships with other people and with the rest of the ecology and environment.
George Orwell uses animals to illustrate that in the scheme of life we are subject to the human condition of life and death, love and hate, happiness and sadness, hope and despair, trust and disappointment, altruism and wickedness, empathy and indifference, generosity and greed, strength and fragility, honesty and deceit, and the list continues endlessly.
The first thing the animals in Animal Farm forgot is the reality that when left alone, human beings are selfish and, therefore, need laws and regulations to assist them to live a decent life in relation to one another. The executive animals arrogated to themselves the right to determine that which they considered important was important – no matter what – and that they would never be at fault by virtue of having defeated the enemy and/or being in power.
* In post-nature community, life is regulated by the above-mentioned Pactus Subjectionis, in the form of the State and with laws that are blind. And indeed, societies that are more stable and peaceful are those that have clear rules, regulations and laws, i.e. legislation culminating in institutions that are not respecters of persons, but fair and transparent exponents, executors of this kind of legal, even democratic dispensation. Where laws are not adhered to, or applied, to suit whoever benefits or suffers respectively, stability and peace are compromised, as such practices invite the condition of sin to rule.
* Paulo Freire in his seminal book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, suggested that the fact that some people are subjected to oppression at some point in their life does not ensure that they do not become oppressors when they have power in their hands. In fact, formerly oppressed people are the best oppressors of others, since they have learned from their oppressors how to oppress, and they invariably understand only freedom from (oppression) and not freedom to (allow others to be free and to become).
Formerly oppressed leaders have a harder time entering into dialogue with others as they continue to suffer chronic paranoia that the past can return, on the one hand, and self-righteousness on the other.
*Life and history teach that experience, good and bad cannot be borrowed and is not transferrable. People who suffered the worst oppression or had the worst experience at the hands of others, are more likely to do the same to others. For instance, a boy who grows up in an abusive household is more likely to become abusive as an adult, and leaders who fought oppression most fiercely, become fiercer in suppressing those who disagree with them when in power.
Consider what the Jewish people went through throughout their pre-World War history and what they do to the Palestinian people now. Consider what the Afrikaner in South Africa went through under British rule and what they did to black people once in power. Consider what was done to us and what we do to one another once in power. The list is endless!
*In any situation of oppression, there is a symbiotic relationship between the oppressor and the oppressed. There cannot be no oppression without the participation of the oppressed in their own oppression. The oppressed is the converse of the oppressor, or the oppressed is merely the other side of the coin. In other words, the oppressor can never succeed without the participation and acquiescence of the oppressed, and the oppressor oppresses the oppressed through other oppressed.
Hence, colonialism and its latter-day version of apartheid would not have succeeded without the participation of the colonised. Sadly, the ex-colonised subsequently will re-narrate their story, depending on the outcome or the final chapter. Logically the narrative will then be re-edited again, as necessitated by the course of events further down.
* In every situation of power relations there are always sycophants, i.e. people who suck up to power purely for convenience sake. Jean-Francois Bayart has called this common experience in Afrika “The Politics of the Belly”. This lot would do anything to please the master, even sell their mothers for positions, or personal security. In politics they are the most dangerous, as they are not guided by principles, but only by what is good for them today.
* Good laws are those that aim higher than just the convenience of the lawmakers during their time, and that has future uncertainties at the centre.
* Good leaders who endure in time and leave good legacies are those who conduct themselves in times of challenge in ways that make them counter-positional, by making decisions while they consider their decisions from the perspective of those affected, not just their own. In other words, good leaders are those who go beyond personal triumphalism and ask the question: How do I want to be remembered after this moment?
* As George Orwell so poignantly illustrated by way of the contradictions within the life of the executive animals, the pigs that seized power and forgot where they came from, through their abuse of power, sowed the new seeds for the future revolution. They lacked discernment of the future as they concentrated only on what was good for them while they had power. All the while they made reference to the vulgarity of the system they replaced, whilst forgetting that they began to behave just like the former enemy.
Hobbes argued that we as human beings are ‘Homo homini lupus’ (a man is a wolf to another man), therefore a danger unto ourselves, whether we were oppressed at one point or another by someone. Is this not where we are at as Afrikans, many years after attaining political freedom? Yet we deny our people freedom and blame those who look to the future as ones who behave like the enemy.
At times it is not easy not to think that maybe we Afrikans are the least developed members of the human family in so far as the social contract and management of power go. Something must give if we want to be considered equal and respected in the family of free nations. While other nations develop institutions and laws that are transparent, we as Afrikans continue to be ruled by fear.
Mambungu ghana kudhira kuturaritha turo! Our nights are haunted by the fear of the wolves in and amongst us that are prowling the neighbourhood in search of food, security and who knows what else!