The slide in the United States of America away from Abraham Lincoln’s concept of democracy has parallels in Africa, writes Emmanuel Koro, an environmental journalist based in Johannesburg.
When governments “of, by, and for the people” start to slip backward, it is time to examine what is replacing them, says American public policy specialist, Godfrey Harris who worked as an advisor to the 36th U.S. President Lyndon Johnson.
“In the U.S. today, lobbyists and bureaucrats, supported by an army of lawyers, now effectively control the federal government,” said Harris.
“America’s elected officials have become mere facilitators and American voters have been reduced to observers.”.
The magic ingredient for the sauce that changed how the U.S. government works, he said, is money.
Lobbyists for major corporations, non-profit organisations, labour unions, and ethnic groups are now permitted to provide unlimited funds to benefit the decision-makers in Congress and the Administration – and these decision-makers, as a consequence, tend to formulate government policy for the benefit of these lobbying interests.
“It effectively keeps the public out of the arrangement,” said Harris.
“All very neat – and on the road to authoritarian government.”
He revealed this often overlooked slow-motion change in how the world’s most powerful country is governed in a conversation about the second life his book, Lobbycratic Governance, is now having in the U.S.
Harris points out that there are only 535 legislators in the U.S. Congress and some 1 200 Senate-confirmed Presidential appointees.
But there are more than 100 000 registered lobbyists in Washington and about 80 000 lawyers living in the area.
This group, together with the senior civil servants working for the agencies of the executive branch and congressional committees, create the rules and regulations that favour their past, current, or future employers – those major corporations, non-profit organisations, labour unions, and ethnic groups.
Similarly, lobbyists and bureaucrats taking over government policy happened in elephant-over-populated and wildlife-rich Botswana in 2014.
Former President Ian Khama, along with unelected senior government officials, introduced a wildlife management policy dictated, controlled, and funded by animal rights groups.
The policy involved a ban on international hunting.
Khama imposed it without consulting any of the hunting communities impacted by this decision.
The hunting communities protested with wildlife revenge killings.
When President Masisi assumed office in 2019 he lifted the international hunting ban.
His former minister of environment and tourism, Engineer Kitso Mokaila had warned that the biggest threat to successful wildlife conservation and the economic well-being of Africa comes from outsiders.
He said that these Western countries and their animal rights groups “continue to dictate to Africa on how it should manage and use its wildlife as if we do not know how to do it ourselves.”
It is the same type of public harm that such lobby groups and bureaucrats are causing in the U.S..
Harris said that their actions deepen the divide that is now separating the far left and far right in American politics.
He believes that a country left to the dictates of lobbyists and bureaucrats risks losing the benefits that democratic values provide.
As a result, Harris fears that the U.S. as the oldest continuously governed democratic country in the history of the world – now just three years from the 250th anniversary of its founding and independence from England – may slip further into authoritarian ways.
He believes that the solution lies in using 21st-century technology to make democracy “of, by, and for the people” function once again.
Accordingly, he is working on bringing a social media platform to life that concentrates on engaging the public with political issues of importance to them.
Harris wants to provide an independent means to follow, comment, critique, and support governmental activities in real-time and totally separate from the activities of the lobbyists, bureaucrats, and media clustered in Washington.
He said that the new social media platform to enhance democracy is called Involved Citizens (IC).
“It will be a social media site with a difference,” said Harris.
“It will go beyond polls, focus groups, and elections to determine what a concerned citizenry wants.”
It will use an artificial intelligence (AI) assistant named “George” to get any participant’s idea, comment, or complaint to the right people with the right authority to resolve a particular issue.
To reinforce the importance of any matter, George can show elected officials in real-time how many in their districts are following an issue.
There is nothing better than voters’ interests expressed in solid percentages to capture the attention of an elected official.
Harris noted that while the organisations sponsoring lobbyists can put a lot of money into any official’s election campaign, money can never trump votes in a democracy.
He thinks that the new social media site IC if properly managed and secured from manipulation, can be the great equaliser to the huge sums now spent on getting the right (read compliant) people elected to office.
Harris also believes that George and the IC site, in the hands of southern African managers, can work to benefit SADC wildlife producer communities to weaken the influence of the animal rights fundraising industry NGOs.
Harris is introducing a solution for America’s failing democracy. That same solution could also be a game changer in wildlife-rich southern Africa.
Now, many involved in conservation seem to enjoy what the role of “victim” provides.
Being “victims” gives them the cover for doing nothing and trying nothing new to improve the conservation and socio-economic needs of southern Africa.
“It is high time that those in charge of SADC countries’ conservation policies start studying some of the new and legal international wildlife proposals already on their tables,” said Harris.
“Those proposals can fund sustainable conservation and development initiatives for the benefit of local communities and the wildlife that surrounds them.”
*About the Writer: Emmanuel Koro is a Johannesburg-based independent international award-winning environmental journalist who writes extensively on environmental and developmental issues in Africa.
*The views expressed by the author of this article, Emmanuel Koro, are not necessarily those of The Bulrushes
