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224 | denis beckett<br />
and category and “the blacks” and “the whites”. I become<br />
more cognisant of the depths of decency so often suffocated<br />
by poverty and disarray. all of which is terrifically inspiring for<br />
how things could be, will be, when the day comes that we dig<br />
our way past the political bullshit.<br />
Which is not today and sure isn’t looking like tomorrow. This<br />
is a society in such dysfunction that it hurts to think about it. I<br />
realised recently, with a shock, that I have known more than a<br />
hundred people who have been murdered. That’s a statement<br />
I do not want the young people coming behind me ever to be<br />
able to say. and it goes hand in hand with the daily process of<br />
running-down, the constant withering as wheels turn slower,<br />
things all the time being run by ever less-trained people in a<br />
less-disciplined environment with a rising acceptance of bribes<br />
and back-pocket payments.<br />
How do I put these things together – the peculiar human<br />
beauty in which africa quietly specialises and the spectacular<br />
organisational failure for which it grows more notorious all the<br />
time? Well, I may be wrong but with respect I offer a better<br />
answer than the either of the answers that get the air time, the<br />
one that says blame africans for being inferior and the one that<br />
says blame whites for distorting the continent. My answer is<br />
that democracy as it exists is not big enough for the demands<br />
africa makes. It has been big enough for Sweden, yes. It is<br />
patently not big enough for Somalia. Most places fit between<br />
and it is going to be places halfway up, middling-stuffed but<br />
not broken, that will first get into using Version 2 democracy as<br />
their anchor of stability.<br />
Which brings me back to Patrick’s question: “It hasn’t done<br />
much for you, has it?” Yes and no. I’ve always done pretty much<br />
what I believed in, as opposed to what paid best, and for me<br />
that is unequivocally the right formula. But then … the thing<br />
I most believe in is exploring and promoting the notion that a<br />
better, fairer, squarer, nicer way of living is waiting to be had,<br />
accessible by no more than turning the theory that “the people<br />
rule” into the reality of the people ruling.
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