BiAS 7 – The Bible and Politics in Africa
tion in a pluralistic democracy?’ the indispensability of Christianity in
the modern age;
...pluralist democracy is never simply made secure. It does not of itself re-
main the kind of thing that unifies its citizens in a fundamental assent to
the state they have in common. Even when it is run fairly well, as despite
everything has been the case with us over the past thirty years, it does not
automatically bring forth the conviction that with all its shortcomings it is
the best form of state. It is not only economic crises that can bring it to col-
lapse; the pounding of intellectual waves can also wash away the ground on
which it stands.^64
For Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), democracy aims at perfection
and such perfection does not exist and therefore a utopia! He points out
that pluralist democracy remains a product of the fusion of the Greek
and the Christian heritage and can therefore advise that
If we do not grasp this once again and learn in keeping with this to live de-
mocracy on the basis of Christianity and Christianity on the basis of the free
democratic state we shall certainly gamble democracy away.^65
This provokes the African mind to what the opponents of pluralism used
to point out that democracy and especially pluralism was an alien ideol-
ogy to Africa. It was argued that pluralism would only divide the people
and bring chaos. It was claimed that people would be divided along
ethnic groups. To a certain degree this may be true and especially when
it is evident that most of political parties have no ideology or pro-
grammes different from the other one in their manifestoes. People fol-
low their tribal leaders irrespective of absence of a national agenda.
However we have witnessed countries like Somalia who have only one
ethnic group and religion collapse. It is for that reason we would argue
that the Bible still remains a tool to enhance democracy and pluralistic
politics in Africa. At this juncture we also question the discriminative
manner in which the Western countries demand democratic systems in
the developing countries. Countries like the Kingdoms of Saudi Arabia
and other Arab countries are encouraged to continue with their un-
democratic ways and violations of human rights and remain the darlings
of the Western governments. Some western governments also retain the
monarchies and yet rebuke the African countries that have such sys-
tems. The difference however is that these western countries have put in
(^64) Joseph Ratzinger, Church Ecumenism and Politics, St. Paul Publications; Middlegreen,
1988, p 205.
(^65) Ratzinger, Church Ecumenism and Politics, p 215.