Tea at Trianon: Democracy in Africa

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, November 1, 2007

Democracy in Africa

Why has it failed?

Pure democracy is a system that works well in particular cultures, and not all cultures are equally capable of building harmonious democratic societies.

Anonymous said...: I probably do not have to point this out, but our colonial fathers had a 1000 year history preparing themselves for it dating back to the Magna Carta.; November 1, 2007 at 11:32:00 AM EDT
Jeff said...: alaughland is right...it's too soon to judge.

Africans are going through the hugest jump imaginable, straight from tribal socieities into the modern world. It's immensely disruptive and taking place in the context of countries formed artificially, dividing and combining tribes in a crazy quilt.

It used to be commonly said and assumed that Balkan people were wild and impossible to democratize. Also Latin Americans.

Now we aren't so sure.

So, I think we need patience. And we need to remember than opposing gross forms of tyranny is noble. It was noble to oppose the tyranny of Soviet Russia because it was a tyranny. Too many conservatives have learned to affect an indifference to such matters.; November 2, 2007 at 1:06:00 PM EDT