These basic principles cannot be compromised even in one single case. Democracy as a participatory and inclusive social institution that guarantees freedom and social justice is a very recent occurrence in human history. It is also very fragile and subject to sudden reversals, threats and attacks from competing allegiances and identities that define the human condition in terms of bondage to the dictates of creed, race, ethnicity, class, social status and other petty narrow interests. We see the trends of such attacks and reversals every day in Africa. In many African countries, governments and regimes flagrantly breach the rule of law and human rights, which they have not only sworn to defend, but, in certain cases they had themselves established.
Attacks also come from sources beyond governments and regimes.
The enemies of democracy are not only in governments. They are in churches, mosques, temples and shrines, and also in homesteads, kraals, shantytowns, high-income estates, communities and in civil society. These enemies are everywhere that intolerance, exclusion, injustice, domination and unmitigated exploitation and victimization of others are. It is as a result of this that we get the genocide in Rwanda, the ethnic riots and killings in Burundi, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and Uganda. Democracy is a life condition that includes social values and attitudes, relevant institutions and the definition of specific kinds of social relations that demand awareness and endless vigilance by citizens and communities.