In this dazzling age of science and technology, people have come to realize that life is affected by a series of questions about the nature of identity and the politics of character. 

        Who am I? What is the future of my existence, and how does society contribute to my life transformation? What is the role and place of family in my understanding the self?  While these are philosophical questions but in the final analysis they are part of our social makeup that helps shape our personality and character. If this assumption is correct, then what is political character in the modern world? Who and what determines the contents of my character? Martin Luther King raised this question when he warned fellow Americans in the 1960’s to judge him by the contents of his character not by the color of his skin. The term character is a subject that is open to manipulation especially when those in control pull the wool over the eyes of the majority of the society, and impose mythology on them.

        Prejudice and ignorance have always triumphed in our world largely because intelligent people were willing to trade personal gratifications over the rule of logic and the triumph of reason. Under such conditions character becomes a dress that can be refashioned according to the whims of the powerful or the herd mentality.        

         This discourse leads me immediately to the issue of politics and its influence on the politics of character. How does politics relate to character and what are the ingredients that go into the making of this widely discussed psychological phenomenon. What is politics and how does it help us understand the contents of one’s character? In responding to these questions, I am inclined to make the following arguments. Politics, according to David Easton “is the authoritative allocation of values” and the creation of a community where law and order is the product of cautious and careful thinking about destiny in this sublunary world.

        Another way of looking at politics and its effects on the politics of character is to see politics as a process in which the leaders and the led in a given society recognize the awesome nature of the modern state and agree to leave the allocation and administration of this power in the hands of a select few who are subject to reformative changes or radical revolutionary uprisings. Regardless of whether one lives under a democracy or not, the fact remains that the individual and his society are affected by the political process and by the manner in which men and women identify with their state and society. In the last century two political philosophies, namely communism and fascism, seized power and changed the characters of their people.

         A society is shaped by the manner in which it interacts with the state; it is also affected by the engagements of its citizens and by the way they respond to its policy-making processes. Similarly, an individual is affected by his or her society. If the individual embraces the values of socialization of his or her society, then that individual could easily become a carbon copy of a projected personality by the leaders of that society. Although most of the citizens of the society may not at all be pure representations of the ideal image of the society, chances are such persons who go through that socialization process may begin to think that they are living embodiments of their tribal, nationalist or ideological ideal.

         Therefore in examining the nature of politics and character, independently and collectively, one may be able to figure out the meaning and significance of the idea of the politics of character. Here I am willing to contend that persons who command respect in history are those who worked energetically to meet certain objectives in this life realizable. Not only do such men and women believe in the reality of existence, but they also believe that through hard work and dreams they may be able to influence the historical process and inspire countless others who care about the purpose and the reality of life beyond the grave. Such men do not have to be theistic; rather, they may be atheists who believe that their good works will vindicate or absolve them in the future. Their numbers include people from the left to the right in our sense of political alignments.

        Let us take this opportunity to introduce four different personalities in addition to Martin Luther King . The first two individuals are Mahatma Gandhi of India , Nelson Mandela of South Africa . The remaining two are Saddam Hussein and Robert Mugabe . These four individuals provide us with biographical details and sufficient political actions for us to trace aspects of human character in their thoughts and practice.

        In respect to the first two personalities, Mandela and Ghandi, one is led to believe that the politics of their character centers on peaceful approaches in the resolution of human conflict. Like King , who was influenced by David Thoreau the American and Gandhi the Indian, Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Ghandi deserve attention in any serious discussion of the politics of character. Mandela could have settled under apartheid as a lawyer and lived life as some of his contemporaries did. To the contrary, he demonstrated commitment to social and political change in South Africa when life was made difficult and deathly by white racism. Modern science and technology were used to suppress and control the African populations.

        In his desire to bring about change in South Africa he persisted against many odds and in the end got freed from jail and then became the first elected black president of South Africa . His biography demonstrated that personal character has a lot to do with political suffering and the capacity to be who you really are when all the odds seem to be going against you.

         The life story of Mahatma Ghandi which inspired King and many other black leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia , is equally telling. Here was an Indian who tried to change the racist situation in South Africa without success. Returning to his hometown of India he successfully mobilized his people to effect the greatest change in the lives of the Indian subcontinent. Not only did India gain her independence from British colonial rule, but she set out to become a major democracy and a nuclear power in the modern world. The contents of Ghandi’s character were definitely not determined by the brownness of his skin color but by the manner in which he used Hindu concepts of peace to galvanize and energize his people. He too was a personality whose character was not negatively affected by politics. Rather, politics became his errand boy on the path of peace and reconciliation.

        Opposed to these two men of peace are Saddam Hussein and Robert Mugabe whose belligerent behavior suggests that the politics of character encourages the use of violence in the resolution of conflict. Unwilling to dance to the tune proposed by their foes or enemies, they prefer the politics of confrontation and violence. Saddam used violence against his own people, whether Shia or Kurdish, and he hesitated little to use all the worse forms of military attacks on the Iranian population during the Iran-Iraq War. His character propelled him to recognize only force as the best arbiter. In retrospect, one can remember Saddam as an Arab who trusted too much the efficacy of political force and his allergy to signs of political compromise and bargaining, made him a sure loser in the war against a superpower like the United States of America . His character was to be defiant to the last moment and his courage and sense of destiny came through in his defiance to his executors.

        Sharing the same political space with Saddam Hussein is Robert Mugabe . Opposed by many of his own peopel, and oppressive enough to drive away from his country millions of people, Mugabe has become a political liability to his party and to his country. Reluctant to leave office peacefully and gracefully, this African ruler has demonstrated how personal character could affect the course of history in an African country. He came to power with much goodwill, but at this moment in Zimbabwean history, he has forced many to deny him all benefits of the doubt. To him the odds are too much for voluntary departure. It is do or die at home and not abroad.

        We have already made reference to Martin Luther King . What was not developed fully above was how the power of faith in God strengthened his belief in the changeability of the human condition. The civil rights movement owed a great debt to this man not because he was the wisest of all strategists working for the improvement of the lives of the African American. In my view, King did not allow the dominant segregationist philosophy of the South in the post Second World War era defined the contents of his character. Had he yielded to that kind of logic, then those who believed in his vision would have been permanently crippled. Such was the order of the post civil war period. Standing for his individual right in the community of the violated and victimized, he regained his humanity and in doing so get the law to be in front of him and behind him.

        The civil rights movement benefited from the courage of the reverend minister and his bold acts of defiance gave him the opportunity to spread the word. Banking heavily on the teachings of the Christian Scriptures, King tried his very best to convince the doubting Thomas’s in both the white and black communities to put their faith in the hands of the Creator and to use the biblical and religious statements of their Abrahamic religions to rein in the social forces of racism.

        The changes that were brought about by modernization and globalization could not exist together indefinitely. Modernization favors the path of capitalism and its ever-growing markets; it dances at the amphitheater of science and technology. For these forces of the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries to make possible the cell phone and the Internet possible, the walls of racial Jericho must come down. Down they fell and here we are in the twenty first century. The politics of character is still begging for verve and nerve. 

         By emphatically rallying for his personal victory over the petty machinations from the defenders of the old order of racism and segregation, the reverend minister from Atlanta helped redirect the course of history. This radical transformation helped create social vehicles for the mobilization of others and together all of them helped move America forward. The contents of his character served as a bridge linking the possible and the probable, the visible and the invisible. I guess, feeding on the biblical metaphors of the Hebrew people through the texts of the Old Testaments, he spoke like Prophet Moses when he told a Memphis audience that he “has been to the mountaintop.” He was not sure whether he would complete the journey with them. Hence his words: “I am not sure whether I will get there with you. But I have seen the promise land.” With such words and with such determination he arrived at the point of victory over his foes both historically and psychologically.

        In summary, the character of an individual could be materially determined if the person is wedded to the material world and has no desire to transcend his moment and project his thoughts, ideas, dreams and hopes into the future. Politics is the art of the possible, but those who allow themselves to be captives of political conveniences of their times are least likely to affect the course of human history. All the great men who tried to woo and win their contemporaries and subsequent generations felt comfortable in the languages and cultures of their days, but their hopes and dreams made them unwilling prisoners of their times. They saw the moods and looks of their people, but their creative imagination offered them the power to dream dreams and to hitch their wagons to the stars of the greater forces, be it God the Almighty or history, the eternal traveling companion of conscious man in the universe.

Robot  Villager

# 1 var sbtitle7383=encodeURIComponent(The Politic...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 03.06.2007 08:28

Oguguo Yakere  Villager

# 2 This is a supper dupper article!!! It is one of those building blocks for relating to any prevailing challenge in the politics of a society. Good examples were given using both sides of the isle of approach though to a limited point. Good job. Further to one of the sides is to fight or get ready for war to get peace, though not like Saddam. Here is an example and it is well known; America's journey to freedom. Had the Americans not revolted with force against the British after fruitless efforts to be free from the British yoke and oppressive rule across the Atlantic, the free American nation that we are enjoying today would not have come to be. Read their declaration of Independence, their complaint is similar to what many are complaining about today in Nigeria. The same America believes in vigilance against bad leadership. That vigilance casted the mold for the character of their leaders to the point that any character that cannot fit into that mold, never makes it to the presidency and if they do by some oversight, and they are later discovered, the same Americans would invoke their impeachment tool and do what they have to do. Late Richard Nixon is a vivid example. Consider this fact. Arms bearing by individual Americans did not originate from fear of criminal elements in the society but as a result of the people's resolve to check any government in power that would dictate to them against their will and try to do so through the army and other security elements in their government's control. In other words arms bearing by ordinary citizens was approved by Americans to be able to fight any of their governments that comes into power and becomes a sit tight or oppressive dictator. For example using a "do or die" means to achieve the president's interest against the people's will is impossible in America. In this regard, please do not take my word for it, instead ask an authority of American history if you have access to any or go into the Library (preferably of Congress) and check this out if you may. Try even the internet means. I personally recommend that Africans should become so allergic to bad leadership that they should draw a line somewhere and resolve to have zero tolerance for any leader that tries to cross that line. Africans in the diaspora must now resolve if what they want in Africa is the kind of thing going on over there now. If not, they have a lot of work tod in the various countries that they sojourn. It is time to get up and influence those government before new and old bad leaders begin to travel to them to woo them with the very resources meant for your brothers and sisters at home. The failure of the third term move by Obasanjo which battle Nigerians later lost to his "do or die" weapon is a good example. Nigerians succeeeded in stopping him, but like a bully he came back and subdued the whole nation. In resolving to be zero tolerant for bad leadership Africans should know that they have the power to defeat even a bully by refusing to cooperate with any government forced on them. That means; you just refuse to work cooperatively with it. It might range from a total strike by the labour to commercial sit-home-tight with your stores locked up for as long as you can, to refusing to attend ceremonies or accept awards like Chinua Achebe did. As a matter of fact civil servants only can bring down any government by refusing to work for it. People must not remain slaves to any system in this day and age. Every human being on the surface of this earth should have his or her inalienable right to live free and be able to pursue happiness. Thanks to America. We all know that even in America the President is law abiding. Anyone who breaks the law and is caught face the consequences of the law. I have a dream that one day Africans would be free from their own leaders. Thanks to Mandella and all the freedom fighters who persisted and got their freedom. Mandella could not have done it alone but thanks to him for being the arrow head. Africa must be free. Oguguo Yakere Posted by Oguguo Yakere| 03.06.2007 13:03