Health of Indigenous people in Africa Ohenjo, Nyang'ori; Willis, Ruth; Jackson, Dorothy ...
The Lancet (British edition),
06/2006, Letnik:
367, Številka:
9526
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Our paper is part of a series focusing on Indigenous peoples' health in different world regions. Indigenous peoples worldwide are subject to marginalisation and discrimination, systematically ...experiencing poorer health than do majority groups. In Africa, poor health in the general population is widely recognised, but the consistently lower health position and social status of Indigenous peoples are rarely noted. Disputed conceptual understandings of indigeneity, a history of discriminatory colonial and post-colonial policies, and non-recognition of Indigenous groups by some governments complicate the situation. We discuss two case studies, of the central African Pygmy peoples and the San of southern Africa, to illustrate recurring issues in Indigenous health in the continent. We make recommendations for the recognition of Indigenous peoples in Africa and improvements needed in the collection of health data and the provision of services. Finally, we argue that wider changes are needed to address the social determinants of Indigenous peoples' health.
Against all odds, Botswana was able to construct an electoral democracy, following a deviant transition. How and why Botswana made a transition to democracy and consolidated the system, as well as ...the limitations of the Botswana case in terms of accountability and democratic consolidation, is discussed in this article. The article argues that although the country posseses a functioning electoral democracy, it is marked by illiberal authoritarianism and presidentialism characterized by elitist top-down structures. This fits with what O'Donnell has described as enduring features of oligarchies, namely clientelism, particularism, and executive dominance. In Botswana these all serve to destabilize not only horizontal liabilities between and among state institutions but also to undermine a prescribed competitive spirit supposedly intrinsic to democracy.
In light of the democratization of Namibia and South Africa, as well as across the southern African region more generally, Botswana's exceptionality has actually become less remarkable, opening up greater space for a closer engagement with the realities of Botswana's democratic credentials. This is important given the usual celebratory rhetoric around the country. Although the country's transition to democracy was deviant given the circumstances at independence, its consolidation has been marked by an elitism that undermines the rhetoric usually associated with Botswana, namely that of the 'African Miracle'.
In association with the industrial revolution, a wide range of new self-help organisations, from friendly societies and cooperatives to trade unions, were constructed by rising urban working classes ...and a lower middle class in nineteenth century Britain. The process was broad and deep, built upon a pre-existing culture of democracy, and extended through a vibrant autodidact workers' society. Against entrenched oligarchical power, the popular movement aimed not only at universal suffrage and governmental power, through the formation of a Labour Party, but also at clean government and a participatory democracy of self-determining groups and institutions. After a century of struggle the successes of the British working classes were intermixed with failure. Their efforts nonetheless represented an exemplar of democratisation based on a burgeoning civil society and strong trade union movement within advancing capitalist development, as witnessed again in South Africa through the 1980s and possibly beyond.
Botswana in the twenty-first century has retained an elitist and authoritarian form of liberal democracy and enjoyed the limited fruits of an undiversified, high-growth economy. Big underlying ...problems exist, resulting from the 'resource curse' - the acute over-reliance on diamonds - and embracing ethnic predominance, the deep subordination of the indigenous San/Basarwa, among other social inequalities, and various other forms of structural violence. These are all diamond-based factors which in turn have promoted injustice, potential instability and restricted democratisation. In 40 years of free, open, but largely unfair or unequal elections in the narrow-based socio-economic system, no change of government has ever been likely. Other resource-dependent countries such as Angola and Nigeria, with little or no pretence to democracy and with actual conflict in the recent past or present, have been even worse placed. Reprinted by permission of Carfax Publishing, Taylor & Francis Ltd.
Kenneth Good was Professor of Political Studies at the University of Botswana and a resident of the country for 15 years until 31 May 2005, when he was taken from the country's High Court by security ...personnel and, seven hours later, put on a plane out of the country. His 14-week challenge to the declaration in February 2005 by President Festus Mogae that he was a Prohibited Immigrant on grounds of being a threat to national security had failed. Professor Good examines the fragility of democracy in the Southern African region and suggests that intolerance of criticism is not confined to the one country that expelled him.
The rise of wealth and power within the cattle-owning economy of Botswana
has been accompanied by the creation of poverty and weakness. The impoverishment
of the San and ‘destitutes’ was a ...structured, comprehensive,
and long-term process, caused less by phenomena such as periodic drought
than by an elite of economic and political power, and the exploitation which
they practised. The growth economy of recent decades has not ameliorated
the situation, but has strengthened the wealthy while neglecting or worsening
the plight of the San. The state possesses the financial resources and developmental
capacities to alleviate poverty, but its controllers continue to prioritise other matters.
Mounting repression in Botswana Good, Kenneth; Taylor, Ian
Round table (London),
20/6/1/, Letnik:
96, Številka:
390
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Botswana is routinely celebrated as a 'model' for Africa and is habitually portrayed as an exception to the general slide to autocracy that has characterized much of post-colonial Africa. In fact, ...Botswana's polity is typified by an unaccountable president, an extremely weak civil society, and grotesque levels of inequality. There are growing indications that Botswana is descending to autocracy and arbitrariness and its democratic profile is in serious danger. Such realities are however seriously ignored by most academics, spellbound as they are by The African Miracle. When observers point out such anomalies, they are either physically deported from Botswana or banned from entering the country.
The question of whether publics can control political elites within present-day Southern African nations is addressed. Although many Southern African democratization movements have promising ...beginnings, analysis of the democratization processes in several nations reveal extreme difficulty in controlling Southern African political elites. Despite initial forays with democracy in Namibia, Zambia, Malawi, Angola, & Mozambique during the early 1990s, it is stressed that these systems of government eventually devolved into autocratic or oligarchic political systems. The international community's contention that the results of the March 2002 presidential election in Zimbabwe appear to have been rigged & Southern African leaders' contention that this election was indeed legitimate is deemed symptomatic of the undemocratic processes characteristic in many Southern African nations. The classical Greek understanding of participatory democracy is subsequently contrasted with the democratic processes prevalent in Southern African governments. The prospects for liberalizing democratic processes throughout Southern Africa in the immediate future are also considered. 54 References. J. W. Parker
