|
|
Africa: Oratory And Debate in Democratic Process
 |
 |
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
The Monitor (Kampala)
OPINION
10 May 2008
Posted to the web 9 May 2008
Prof. Ali A. Mazrui
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are the two remaining candidates for nomination by the Democratic Party for the US presidency. If finally elected to the White House in November 2008, Clinton would be the first woman President of the USA. On the other hand, if it is Obama who enters the White House in January 2009, he would be the first Black President of the United States.
In this 2007-2008 campaign these candidates have so far participated in over twenty primary debates. As orators, Obama is by far more eloquent than Hillary. As debaters, the two are about even. Their face-to-face confrontations on television probably have been the highlights of the entire primary elections season.
This column is not about Obama and Hillary per se. It is on the role of debate as a crucial component of the democratic process. Televised debates were initiated in 1960 when John Kennedy confronted Richard Nixon in a face-to-face debate on American television. They were both candidates for the most powerful office in the world, the presidency of the United States.
I was a graduate student at Columbia University at the time and watched the debate live. Since then all US presidential contenders have debated each other on television. Without debate there can be no democracy. Debate is the exploration of conflicting visions of the truth as part of civilised discourse.
The entire parliamentary system in British governance is based on the principle of debate. On one side in the House of Commons is the government and its front bench; on the opposite side is Her Majesty's opposition. Much of the business of the House of Commons is conducted in the adversarial relationship between Government and Opposition, in form of open debate.
In legal training in the United States, the Socratic method is often used in the best law schools. The method is derived from the ancient Greek philosopher, Socrates, and attempts to arrive at the truth by propositions and rebuttals. The teacher engages the students in the dialectical method of debate, partly in preparation for the adversarial style of argumentation in the courtroom.
The legal process in the courtroom is often based on the principle of debate. Far from being intellectual exercises between school children, courtroom confrontations between prosecution and defence can be a matter of life and death. Where the death penalty is concerned, the relationship between prosecution and defence can be literally 'deadly.'
The history of debate goes back a long time. John Milton in Paradise Lost traced it to the original confrontation between Lucifer and God. Lucifer became Satan and proclaimed 'Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.' Satan was rebelling against a vainglorious God, excessively preoccupied with being worshipped and being praised. The first debate was between the fallen angel and his Creator, between Satanic vanity and Divine pride.
In 1960 I witnessed in the US a resurrection of a debating tradition when Kennedy clashed with Nixon on television. This American legacy went back to the debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas in 1858. They were not competing for the presidency but for a US Senate seat.
Lincoln lost the Senate race, but the debate propelled him to national prominence. It was partly the debates with Douglas that helped to make Lincoln eligible for the 1860 candidacy for the presidency, Lincoln's real destiny with history. It was indeed a case of debate spelling out destiny.
The writer is a professor of Political Science and African Studies at State University of New York
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright © 2008 The Monitor. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Make allAfrica.com your home page | RSS Feed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | Subscribe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
