Breaking the Deadlock through our Common Humanity – By Thierno M. Diallo

This article focuses on our common humanity in an attempt to build a bridge of unity and reconciliation among Guinean citizens. If Guinea succeeds to go through its first democratically held election which is currently pending for a run-off between the two most popular candidates (Cellou Dalein Diallo and Alpha Conde) in peace without any flaw or imminent insurgence by ethnocentric “Goliath”, this would be a new beginning in the quest for change for the common good of our people. Nothing is late; the country is still at an early stage of human history and needs to make many reforms and changes to build a legitimate political system and a viable government. Positive reforms to legitimize our system would no doubt move us from our long-awaiting entrapped position which could regrettably turn into a civil uprising. The task for new reforms could only be tackled by a legitimate and democratic government that is committed to uphold political equality.

What is our common humanity as Guineans? This concerns our moral potentials as human beings living together in the same sovereign territory. It is the ability to feel sympathy or empathy at the sight of our fellow beings in sufferings. And this sagacity of empathy can in turn lead to a sense of moral action. For instance, when we say the sufferings and the massacre of peaceful protesters at the stadium in September 2009 is wrong (and should never be allowed to repeat again); the feelings or compassions we all have for our starving population doomed to constantly leave in abject poverty, and the common feelings we have for the deliberate destruction of our environment – this is what I mean by our common humanity which is in fact universal to all human beings, be it Guinea or elsewhere. I think it’s unjust and illogical to allow our tribal or ethnic-identities to override our human or national identities. The killing of our people for the sake of selfish interests in the pretext of protecting our nation is unacceptable and should never be allowed to happen again. And I encourage my fellow compatriots to forgive and let’s continue to move forward with the hope that justice and honor will one day be given to the victims.

It’s high time we start looking at Guinea from a potentialist perspective. Recognizing the fact that we possess a mass of potentials and each of us has the potential to do good, bad or indifferent; it’s time we try to decide which of theses potential we should seek to realize. And I think opting for the one that society will benefit from most is indispensable. We should bear in mind that, all our misfortunes in the struggle against backwardness could be explained as the inevitable consequence of illegitimate political system or government rather than a mysterious outbreak caused by phantoms. Logically, our human potentials could be explored as guiding principle in search of a conscientious and elaborative political legitimacy. This can be fostered by developing policies that are consistent with all our ethnics or natives, giving them the equal opportunity to benefit from our common heritage. The term benefit is used here in conformity to outcomes that are not only consistent with our values and customs as mentioned, but also with our yearning for development. Any future government should seek to desist the reliance on national political system that is partial to sub-group interest, often referred in our local languages as “angbangsande or soussounjaakhi” instead it should seek to generate benefit in a way consistent with all our citizens having the equal opportunity to gain from the prospect of development.

The lavish spending on military by the incumbent regime, (and as well as its predecessor), is a result of illegitimate political system. I know this may sound strange to you, but the fact about this is that never in the history of mankind that any illegitimate government (or junta in our case) armed to the teeth succeeded to bring security to its people. Even though militant-juntas and national leaders always proclaims or justify using force for security reason, the hard fact is that, successful use of force will never bring security. This is indeed evidence in our country. What happens is that the regime must constantly maintain military preparedness for the subsequent uprising. The main reason why I firmly believe force will never bring stability or security in a country is because force cannot defeat illegitimacy even it succeeded in crushing down uprising oppositions, it’s still illegitimate and must rely on force to survive.

I truly believe a better way to security and stability is to build a legitimate political system through the ballot (and I wish every Guinean a success in the upcoming run-off election). Unless we succeed in voting our leaders democratically, force or illegitimate rule will achieve nothing other than an intermission for the next uprising. Furthermore, once we open our eyes to the illegitimacy of the current system we can see the perpetual eruption and instability as a flowed illegal political system. And learning form history will help us build upon our moral potential to develop solidarity concepts that will eventually lead to our sense of common humanity. Without having a moral potential, no one can be trusted and we will never be able to form a well functioning society. In such instances, we are left with no option but to opt for a common feeling of national identity; identifying ourselves with the state as patriot Guineans, (not as tribalists, regionalists, or religionists), having a common goal to defend our nation from all short of misfortunes like poverty, disease, insecurity and to demand political justice for every citizen within our sovereignty. We ought to abandon all short of identification pertaining to tribe, religion and the like, which has always turned to be an artificial conception of socially constructed group rather than an inherent part of our existence.

The people of Guinea have, for several decades, experienced in an unprecedented degree of mysteries of evil, falsehood and manipulation; we can’t afford to continue this path any longer. To break this deadlock, our politicians should opt for the politics of truth, inclusion and equality. And our expectation from future reforms and political system is the opportunity to cultivate our moral potential in order to make social life more amiable among our citizens. Finally, we also expect the new leadership to banish the governance of manipulation and deception, without sweeping away this evil we will never develop a trusting or loving relationship with one another. So the greatest threat in our society today is the lack of cultivating our moral potential due to false manipulation or the adherent to factionalism and ethnocentrism. In other words, as a result of the failure to develop our moral potential to identify our commonality as human being “born free with equal dignity and rights”, as enshrined in article one in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, we are been labeled as “couyon” which literally mean stupid. We should resist such labeling by breaking the deadlock through our common humanity which certainly is the compassion and love we develop for each other in time of distress and affliction. God bless la Guinée.

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