Week 7 commentaries: Migration and (Il)licity: Qat in transit

Dear friends,


I was unable to post the week 7 commentaries because I was very sick last week. I have asked professor for permission to post my commentaries and he said it would be okay. Once again, I am very sorry for this inconvenience and wish all the best to everyone in our class.

Cheers,

One of the last week readings discussed about democracy and its limitation in its definition and practices. The article “politics of deliberation” challenges the idea that democratic government is a key factor for political identification in the Middle East. The article divided into four sections, in which the first part talked about the limitation of ‘democracy’ definition. The second part of the essay argued that everyday practices of vibrant political contestation in Yemen challenged several aspects of the public sphere theory. Then part three gave in-depth analysis by using ethnographic evidence to specify how qat chews operate as performative, democratic practices. And in the final section, the article helps to address on why vibrant public sphere activities like those found in Yemen do not necessarily lead to contested elections. Furthermore, it argued that there is a distinction between democratic practices and liberal values in the case of Yemen.

Among many important points, I found two things that was interesting: In the first part of the essay, the author wanted to show that there is a serious problem with the definition of democracy. He thought that democracy should not just be about having competitive elections. In this regard, he posed a very interesting question: “when outcomes are all but uncertain because a candidate is obvious popular or the political machine proves particular efficacious, such as in Chicago, does this mean the system is undemocratic?” I must admit that I agree with his view because I also think that by saying it is a democratic government, one cannot just rely on the outcome of the elections. There is a very thin line between an outcome of elections and popular votes; different countries treasure different values and they interpret democracy differently.

The debate on the relationship between democracy and development has been controversial. Yet we do not know whether democracy is a prerequisite for a country’s economic development or the other way around. The article also touched upon this issue although it was briefly discussed.

The second interesting point was the statement that the author mentioned “…authorization position-makes elections the key criterion of representative democracy; representation is “seen as a grant of authority by the voters to the elected officials”… The problem with the formalistic approach from this perspective is that “if representing means merely acting with special rights, or acting with someone else bearing the consequences, then there can be no such thing as continual accountability or immediate responsiveness, no account of how those elected actually govern, and no standards for assessing whether their policies work for or against the citizens who have elected them”. I found these quotations are very interesting because it is true that the idea of democracy is contradicted within itself. On one hand, the idea of having democratic government is to have the government elected by its people and is accountable for its people. On the other hand, it seems to be not practical because how can we measure accountability at the first place since every country has different set of value? Furthermore, can a country expect an ongoing accountability without having discontinuity or a break in the transaction period?

The article was clear from its start to its end about what the author was trying to argue. However, I find it difficult to make connection between the meaning of the article and course material. Since our course is dealing with diaspora object and the reading is talking about political integration, what is the connection between the two?

Unlike the first article, the second article “Khat and the creation of tradition in the Somali diaspora”, Alex Klein looked at the Somali community in the UK. He found that it was not true that the root of social and medical problems lie within the community. In other words, he argued that the problems is associated with khat use are not simply reducible to the pharmacological drug, but need to take into account a new cultural context of its use within the UK. Particularly, he wanted to show how the Somalis in the UK are divided in terms of khat status that might link them to unemployment, social exclusion, family breakdown and poor health.

Overall I found the article is short and well written with clear evidences supporting the author’s argument. I found the article is also interesting because I never heard anything about Somali diaspora before; thus, I learn a lot about the group after reading this article.