Recently, Nigeria conducted its Presidential elections, while across the Mediterranean, French citizens went to the polls for local elections. In both cases, people weren’t provided a real alternative; they were confined to a political-electoral sphere that is utterly incapable of producing desired results. Unfortunately, we live in a world in which fear often determines one’s electoral choices, not utopian visions or meaningful ideals.
In the modern-era, elections have rarely resulted in substantial victories for the Left. Whether we’re discussing parliamentary procedures in Europe, or Africa, Left-Wing political parties are either non-existent, willing to capitulate, or completely beholden to capitalist interests.
Sure, SYRIZA recently gained power in Greece, but only by a slim margin in terms of seats and power. Plus, it remains to be seen how the new government in Greece will navigate the world of capital, militarism and parliamentary paralysis. Similarly, recent events in Venezuela indicate that even the most vibrant Left-Wing electoral victories do not ensure long-term success or an inherently stable, peaceful and cohesive society. Indeed, outside powers and internal conflict play an omnipresent role in global affairs, undoubtedly generating cynicism in even the most committed of Left-Wing activists.
Ideologically speaking, many candidates and parties lead people to believe “there is no alternative” (TINA), as Margaret Thatcher infamously said, to the status-quo neoliberal system. These sentiments must be challenged, as people are consistently resigned to endure status-quo electoral options and outcomes. In short, people around the world are looking for alternatives to electoral politics.
It would be foolish to try and compare and contrast the Nigerian and French elections, for they each contain specific and unique elements. Yet, I find both elections yield worthwhile reflections. In the case of Nigeria, I’m reminded of how terror and violence can have a tremendously toxic effect on the political process. In short, how can a society make rational long term political decisions in the midst of torture, repression and wanton violence?
From a different angle, the French political situation is reminiscent of that which takes place in Australia, England and North America: standard parliamentary procedures fail to deliver meaningful results for average citizens, as the existing progressive parties drift further and further to the Right.
Nigerian Elections and the Landscape of Terrorism
During the recent Nigerian presidential elections, citizens were relegated to choosing between the Muslim candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, or the Christian incumbent, Goodluck Jonathan. They chose Muhammadu Buhari. To be fair, there were twelve other candidates in the race, but none of the alternative candidates stood a chance at obtaining victory. They, like so many alternative candidates and parties around the world, must return to the hard work of building political movements and developing viable alternatives.
Like the vast majority of modern elections, the spectrum of viable choices was extremely narrow in Nigeria, unquestionably deterring many good-hearted people from participating or mobilizing. Interestingly, like many Western elections, the Nigerian presidential race was largely defined, understood, and tested, against the backdrop of terrorism and its psychological counterpart, fear.
Without doubt, Boko Haram is a horrific entity. So far, it has driven more than 1.5 million people from their homes, while slaughtering tens of thousands of civilians. By any standard, the people of Nigeria are experiencing drastic humanitarian circumstances far beyond the scope of what many people in the West could possibly fathom.
Consequently, we should expect mediocre, at best, or utterly criminal, at worst, political ramifications when choosing candidates based on their ability to combat terrorism. Filtering political assessments through the prism of anti-terror operations is the new norm in the post-9/11 world. In other words, terrorism trumps democracy. Understanding elections and politics through the prism of terror has had profoundly negative implications for the real world, as surveillance, policing and day-to-day life have been fully militarized by the dominant capitalist system.
With regard to the issues, both Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari adhere to the neoliberal doctrine. Their policies, or proposed policies, are virtually identical. Goodluck Jonathan promises to tackle corruption, although one might wonder how that’s possible, seeing as Jonathan’s People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has been in power since 1999. Similarly, Muhammadu Buhari’s All Progressives Congress (APC) seeks to reestablish “market-certainty” and control over Nigeria’s vast supply of oil fields and natural resources. Both candidates and parties seek to implement market-reforms. Infrastructure, employment, energy, corruption and security were the issues that dominated the pre-election debates.
Prior to Shell-BP’s 1956 oil coup, Nigeria, like most African nations, was primarily an agricultural economy, exporting large quantities of palm oil to the industrialized North. Today, the economy is beholden to oil markets and their irrational fluctuations. Unfortunately, Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s newly elected President, seeks to maintain this exploitative relationship.
At some point, the people of Nigeria will require a political movement capable of transcending not only a politics of fear, but also the nation’s ecologically destructive and disastrous political economy. For instance, even if the most radical Left-Wing political movement grabs power in Nigeria, it will be left with difficult choices, particularly with regard to the energy sector and the overall economy.
What form would an emancipatory political project take in Nigeria? How would it deal with Boko Haram? Could such a movement break Nigeria’s dependence on oil exports? These are questions the people of Nigeria must answer, but they’re also questions activists in the West must wrestle with, as the West’s current policies and colonial legacies have profoundly shaped the political landscape of Nigeria.
French Elections and a Return to the Right
In some circles, France is seen as a liberal bastion, a country where the Welfare State and socialist policies find a comfortable home. In other circles, France is considered a Right-Wing stain on Europe’s routinely distorted and mythologized history. France, like any other nation, enjoys a diverse history of political movements, parties, revolutions and counterrevolutions. No less, the oscillation between progressive and regressive political ideologies is a defining feature of French political history and culture.
Over the past decade, however, France has shifted further to the right, creating a context in which Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Front (FN) party was able to gather 22% of the popular vote in recent elections. In contrast, the “dwindling communist party,” as the New York Times described it, “lost one of the two departments it controlled and earned just 100,000 votes nationwide, barely a half percent of those who voted.”
Jean-Yves Camus, the director of the Observatory of Radical Politics described the FN’s prospects for the upcoming national elections that will take place in December, “While the party managed to gain only 62 council member seats from among the 4,108 that were voted for on Sunday, they won more than a fifth of the popular vote, suggesting that if they maintain that level of support they could do very well in nationwide elections.”
The Socialists, in typical fashion, downplayed the FN’s successes, and those of Nicolas Sarkozy’s Union for a Popular Movement party (UMP). The current Socialist prime minister, Manuel Valls, had this to say about his party’s performance, “Our economy is doing better thanks to the reform that we’ve implemented to improve the competitiveness of our companies, to support industry and encourage innovation.”
Valls, mimicking his neoliberal counterparts, is a lapdog for capitalist interests, misunderstanding the basic role of Socialist policies: namely, providing a reasonable alternative to the neoliberal programs that now dominate French society. Mr. Valls also had little to say about his nation’s military policies. War, the ever-seductive political aphrodisiac, still plays a central role in French political culture.
Reflecting on his nation’s electoral malaise, French philosopher Alain Badiou notes in his book, The Meaning of Sarkozy:
“For both electoral camps, indeed, the world does not exist. On such questions as Palestine, Iran, Afghanistan (where French troops are engaged), Lebanon (likewise), Africa (swarming with French military personnel), there is a total consensus, and no one envisages opening the least public discussion on these questions of war and peace. Nor is there any serious questioning of the villainous laws voted day after day against undocumented workers, youngsters from the poor districts and the incurably ill. Since fear is set against fear, the implication is that the only questions that really move people are of this kind: Should we be more afraid of the Tamil street-sweeper or the cop harassing him? Or is global warming more or less of a peril than the arrival of Malian cooks? This is the way of the electoral circus.” (pg. 10-11)
With Badiou’s words in mind, is it any surprise that half of France’s electorate didn’t even bother to show up and cast a vote? Is it any surprise that those numbers are only slightly “better than the 55.3% abstention rate in the last local elections in 2011[?]” Surely, we should expect more of the same, as France’s dominant political parties do not truly provide alternatives for society’s most marginalized, leaving many potential voters disenchanted and uninterested in parliamentary processes.
Emancipatory Potential
In sum, less than 42% of Nigerians, and around 50% of the French population, even bothered to vote. It’s imperative for activists to create viable, radical and creative alternatives to society’s dominant institutions and procedures. Undoubtedly, French and Nigerian activists should heed the words of the great Howard Zinn, who once said, “What matters most is not who is sitting in the White House [Parliament], but ‘who is sitting in’ — and who is marching outside the White House [Parliament], pushing for change.”
Badiou, echoing Zinn, insists that “to hold a public meeting able to reach a conclusion and establish a duration sheltered from the schedules of the state, with four African workers from a hostel, a student, a Chinese textile worker, a postman, two housewives and a few stragglers from a housing estate, is infinitely more important, in an infinity itself incommensurable, than to drop the name of an indiscernible politician into the state counting-box.”
Generally, I agree with both Zinn and Badiou: activists and decent minded citizens would be wise to spend their time outside the existing political-social structures, developing new political coordinates and frameworks. Yet, basic questions remain: How can political movements pushing for radical social changes, or even meaningful reforms, codify their efforts and realize their emancipatory potential? Surely not through the ballot-box.
Vincent Emanuele is a writer, activist and radio journalist who lives and works in the Rust Belt. He writes a bi-weekly article for TeleSUR English. Vince routinely conducts interviews with political organizers, artists and authors from around the world and transcribes the segments for various online publications. He can be reached at [email protected]
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