Ability to choose varies with capacity which includes socio-cultural, economic might

Photo:Courtesy

There is a growing threat to the existence of state through the spread of a dangerous narrative. This narrative implies that a state does not have rights to defend itself, whether from anarchists or agents of deliberate institutional destruction.

The subsequent effect of the narrative is to negate the state but strangely the focus of that negation seems to be confined to Africa. This is not new given that the Euros who study Africa, named “Africanists”, called for the abolition of African states in the 1990s. Currently, that narrative takes the form of Euro encouragement of lawlessness and then “advising” states not to act on lawless behavior.

This questions the validity of the state, currently the only recognised form of organising people in terms of administrative geo-political units. Those units have fixed and identifiable borders to which the United Nations, the accepted recognizing authority, then bestows global legitimacy. Within those borders, people theoretically choose their governing structure.

NATION STATES

The ability to choose varies with capacity which includes socio-cultural and economic might, population size and type, technological readiness and military prowess, and the will/loyalty of the people to the state.

The last, the will/loyalty of the people, is fluid and can be a source of threat to the very state. Not all states came into being the same way. Recognition of European nation states was largely the result of 1648 post war agreements at Westphalia on what territory and religion belonged to whom in Europe.

They became imperialistic and competed to loot outside Europe, what became the basis of international law, and created such imperial children as the United States, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, and New Zealand. Recognition and legitimacy for these, and later in Africa, was derived from territory grabbing agreements in European capitals.

That Euro-imperialism created colonial states in Africa, with the people in them as “subjects”. Among the changes that World War II brought was the sense of the source of legitimacy for geopolitical units. The United Nations, the new global legitimizing authority, made colonies illegitimate as it called for the dismantling of colonial states.

The colonial states became part of independent post-colonial states, transformed “subjects” into “citizens”, and received recognition through admission to the United Nations. It is these entities that are subject to new threat to their existence.This threat is in the form of deliberate political misbehavior to undercut the state. For those who misbehave ignorantly, the cure is education, but for those who know they are being anarchical, civic or other forms of education are not the issue. Such mischief makers often mount sophisticated arguments for their anarchy.

DOUBLE STANDARDS

The cure is for the state to exercise the right of self-defense because, by their very nature, states have rights to defend their existence. A state that cannot defend its own existence cannot defend its institutions and citizens and ceases to exist in reality. This is what happened in Somalia because it failed to defend itself.

Thus political misbehavior in any place is a national threat when its ultimate aim is to negate constituted state or the accepted geopolitical structure. Mischief makers hide behind platitudes that include human rights, freedom of speech and press, freedom of assembly.

Kenya has had problems responding to challenges emanating from the contradictions in the 2010 Constitution in which some provisions outsource functions of state to foreign entities whose primary loyalty is not to Kenya.Among the provisions is one on the question of divided loyalties, especially when a conflict arises between the countries of dual citizenship. When, for instance, chaos makers get in trouble, “home” countries intervene to stop Kenya from holding them accountable.

There are two examples of Kenya appearing to bend backward to accommodate the wishes of friendly countries. First, after being arrested on terrorism suspicion, Kenya released a Nigerian Briton to return “home” to England because Britain wanted its “citizen”. The man, with another Nigerian Briton, ended up butchering a British soldier in London. Second, Canada also intervened for its “citizen” who was accused of fomenting disturbances. Nairobi accommodated Toronto by giving the alleged trouble maker free ride to his Canadian “home”, for Canada to worry about.

While the two incidents buttressed the sense of Kenya’s friendship with Britain and Canada, they were secondary to the primary issue of a state defending itself. Should it wait for master states to give “advice” or simply act in its own best interests?