RELIGION, DEMOCRACY AND SECURITY

 Dayo Sobowale contends that many acts, across nations, are coloured by religion

Israel’s unending retaliatory military strikes against Hamas over its attack on Israel on October 7 2023 has thrown the watching global audience into turmoil and anguish in a way not experienced in any historical dispute between two nations. No one dare call the dispute an Armageddon for the simple reason of the religious depth of a dispute between two peoples, once one, but divided by history since ancient times and now in terms of contemporary history, since the establishment of Israel in Palestine in 1948. An indignant reaction to the horror of the Holocaust by the victors of WW2, who defeated Hitler, the German leader who swore to wipe out the Jews in Europe but lost the war to achieve that horrendous goal. The ongoing Israeli elimination of Hamas before a watching world has shown again that religion is not only the opium of the masses, like the socialists claimed in days of yore, but the soft underbelly of western civilization and the harbinger of the death of free speech and protests, which are the defining characteristics of democracy, the prevailing ideology in the free world as we know it today.

Anti Jewish or anti semitic and anti Israel protests have broken out all over Europe and the US the main promoters of free speech and democracy in the world and their police have been hard put to keep a straight face and pretend that it is business as usual as it is the dictum of democracy that dissent and protests are human rights and that the majority may have its way but the minority must always be allowed to have its say. Those two democratic values are being tested on security grounds not only on the streets of the US and Europe but in the way religion is holding many nations by the balls not only in terms of the safety of lives and property, but indeed on the important and sacred ground of political stability, which is the fundamental enabling environment for peace, prosperity and economic development.

In the UK the former Minister of Interior or Home Secretary Suella Braverman was forced to resign by the PM Rishi Sunak because of her criticism that the PM has reneged on the manifesto that brought his government into power and that the Metropolitan Police has been less than even handed or firm in the way that it is handling the massive anti semitic, pro Hamas protests in their thousands on the streets of London. As against anti – migrants demonstrations by the nationalistic groups usually branded as xenophobic in Britain. In Nigeria, the Chief of Defence Staff accused warders in Nigeria’s prisons of colluding with Boko Haram terrorists in their custody for a fee in formulating and executing terrorist acts against the Nigerian state. Also in Nigeria a former military and elected Head of State finally discovered that democracy is not serving the desired goal of lifting Nigerians out of poverty and that the nation should look for succor from a brand of democracy he called Afro Democracy.

What is important about these three views is that they are literally from the horses’ mouth of those who have the knowledge, the facts and know how of what they are saying in that they have been consummate participant observers on the issues they have raised . Such views are pertinent and relevant for any democracy to succeed and thrive and that is the essence of any democracy which must indeed look for the ultimate welfare of it electorate. If it is not to descend into massive dissent and violence which invariably is the precursor of anarchy, the antithesis of democracy.

In Suella Braverman’s letter of disapproval of the PM ‘s failure to deliver on their party’s manifesto , a key component of democratic performance and leadership of the ruling Conservative Party , she challenged as follows – ‘You have manifestly and repeatedly failed to deliver on every single one of these key policies. Either your distinctive style of government means you are incapable of doing so. Or, as I must surely conclude now, you never had any intention of keeping your promises ‘ . She concluded brutally on the British PM Sunak’s leadership style – ‘Our deal was no promise over dinner , to be discarded when convenient and denied when challenged ‘.

 I see Braverman as a future PM of Britain for the single fact that her colonial background has emboldened her to see and say what others, like the Mayor of London, a Pakistani origin Muslim British citizen , cannot see or say, in the tacit support for Hamas which the former Home Secretary saw and acted on, in accusing the Metropolitan Police of leaning towards the Anti Jewish and pro Islamic protests rocking London over the war on Gaza.

In the same vein the Nigerian Chief of Defence Staff General Christopher Musa is bold man indeed to call out the Nigerian prisons warders on their collusion with Boko Haram to formulate terrorist strategies against the Nigeria state in Nigerian prisons .It is a well known but never spoken fact that religion has played a major part in stalling the Nigerian military in their patriotic role to defeat Boko Haram. There is an unspoken empathy for this terrorist group against the Nigerian military both in the use, gathering and misuse of intelligence to eliminate the terrorists. I am sure that very soon the Nigerian military chief who defiantly has revealed this prison conspiracy with Boko Haram would soon be condemned because of his not being a Muslim. Even though his revelation is a commendable act of bravery in ensuring our collective security and political stability.

With regard to OBJ’s brand of Afro Democracy, I beg to differ with his style of categorization, even as I acknowledge , as he too must, of being the strongest promoter of the ill- fated democracy he now denounces, almost belatedly, in the twilight of his long and controversial career, as a well known democrat of the chequered and Eminent Citizens mould of old. I differ with Afro Democracy as a choice because that ideology will be banalised in the wake of Afro Music which has a global entertainment niche of recognition and importance of its own. I will rather call the democracy that will lead us out of unending poverty and reduce our inequalities and corruption – Responsive African Democracy in the hope that African and especially Nigerian politicians will make the welfare of the electorate their main goal and ambition. Such that they will elude the accusation levied against the British PM by the Home Secretary he just sacked, for telling him the bitter home truth on security and responsiveness, in a leading democracy like Great Britain, Nigeria’s colonial godfather of a poverty-ridden democracy.

Sobowale is a news analyst with Arise News