Mali’s CODE of Persons and The Family
Until now, the life of Mali has been guided by a hodge-podge of religious and customary edicts. The edicts are as diverse as the profuse number of ethnic traditions, lore, and religion. More often than not, these traditions, customs, and religious edicts have emphasized the superiority of the Male and while not actively suppressing the Female and the Child, they had a resultant affect of depreciating the value of the latter two, thereby exposing the family unit tothe cancers of artificial orphanage, lethargic community investiture, and diminished net value for the society.
Mali’s sojourn into democracy has not been easy and will continue to challenge courage and faith. In our DEMOmetrics, we have long recognized the insiduous nature of certain structural deficiencies to democratic life. These structural deficits retard sojourns in democracy and severely malign the quality of democratic life. One of these structural deficits is a malignant qualitative partner (Qp). Mali’s CODE brings us a step closer to realising the value of a qualitative partner.
Mali’s CODE just passed by her National Assembly, has been deliberated on for a decade beginning in the 1990’s. The conversation brought together community elders, ethnic and religious partisans, political representatives, representatives of the Judiciary, and Non-governmental organisations. The idea was to create the proper ambiance and accompaniment for Mali’s democratic life by harmonising the disparate edicts and fancy dating back to the time of Mali’s independence. A landmark effort frought with suspicion, fear, charlatanry, epochal disenchantment, and internecine paranoea. In the end, a CODE was crafted of some 1150 articles, spanning the gamut of Mali life from marriage, succession, inheritance, children’s rights, to women’s rights. The magnitude of this achievement can be easily overlooked. Polygamy and monogamy co-existing in Mali further complicated their efforts, not to mention a raging Tuareg secessionist movement in the northern frontier pronvinces, the boomerang Algerian Salafist expeditions, the Tuareg-Peul difficulties, and the Minianka’s search for a permanent and safe home inside Mali. I am aware of the Pyramids of Egypt, the Great wall of China, The English tunnel, The Oresund Bridge, and many other marvels of human civilisations and I declare, all but Mali’s CODE was achieved in relative calm and benign contract. Perhaps the enormity of the challenge is now in its proper perspective.
The crafting of the CODE and its passage were a pilgrimmage of sorts. When Mali decided to live a democratic life, she had envisaged a seamless transition from age-old traditions and lore into contemporary and more democratic life guided by her omnipotent constitution. That would have been the case but Mali needed to join the community of nations who pledged allegiance to universal human rights. It became evident that Mali can therefore no longer rely on the passive harmonization of her disparate edicts in order to fulfill allegiance to universal human rights. The good gods of democracy are smiling on Mali however becaue as it turns out, The Universal Human Rights Codes are themselves the resultant synthesis of a myriad customs and lore, more comprehensive than obtains in Mali. The bottleneck now is to inform and educate Malians that the adoption and implementation of their CODE has been made easier by international stewardship of a critical component of the CODE, the part dealing with Universal Human Rights.
We are therefore comforted in the prospects of widespread acclaim for Mali’s CODE of Persons and The Family. It could serve as blueprint for many a nation of similar constittion to Mali and yearning for democratic life.
Haruna.
Framework
There is a proliferation of organisations aimed at promoting and encouraging democratic life. This is both valuable and hopeful because it indicates a healthy desire for a progressive way of life and a hightened sense of recognition for democracy’s potential yield.
Intervening time and global events have helped to inform us that democracy, like dictatorship, communism, socialism, and all other lifestyles, do have to be actively chosen, and that such choice comes with costs and benefits. The choice of democracy, although seemingly benign, does have its base opportunity cost amid the values of other lifestyles and because of the inevitability of natural disasters that may not readily be attributable to particular governance regimes. At the very least, democracy must address the probability and aftermath of such events if it is to compete effectively in the marketplace of ideals. Unlike the other forms of governance, democracy inherently lacks the power of force, intimidation, and coercion. This deficit in its fortunes however is its saving grace. In essence, the extent of lack of force, intimidation, and coercion will prove to be the sustenance for democracy and barometers of its health. We are encouraged therefore to measure the health of democracy by processing traditional demographic information differently. At The GDP, we will call this measure DEMOmetrics. We will gather and process demographic data in reverse superlative order to enhance the democratic lifestyle. How far in the other direction is the measure? The lack of the measure so to speak.
This is significant especially for diverse partners to a constitution who may also have severe deficits in literacy in a lingua-communalis (linguacom). We describe linguacom here to mean the language in which a common constitution is written. As an example of a metric, it is valuable to consider the qualitative number of citizens (Qp) or partners who are not literate in the linguacom as opposed to the number of partners who are literate in it. This reverse or far-side metric affords more opportunity for improvement and growth than the nominal positive metric perhaps because it assumes all citizens have equal acess to learn the linguacom. In addition, there are inherent difficulties in assessing the quality of the literacy itself in a contract (constitution) which requires professional and academic study to decipher its intent and spirit. The period of professional and academic readiness has always disadvantaged the health and growth of democracy in diverse populations.
Qualitative Partners (Qp):
This is the number of citizens who are literate in the linguacom (as described above) to the extent they can appreciate its minimum value. In other words, if the linguacom of a certain nation is English, literacy, as an adjective, in English, is not sufficient to qualify the health of democracy in such a nation. A level of education commensurate with a high school diploma with some knowledge of law and due-process is a more useful base measure of comprehension and appreciation in DEMOmetrics.
Additionally, in diverse populations, the character of the partner in Q, adds a more comprehensive dimension to the measure by accounting for impediments to or possibilities in the measure.
This measure (Qp) therefore will form our base unit in tracking appreciation and in describing the other measures in DEMOmetrics. It will become evident that this idea of reverse superlative metrics can indeed be readily applied to all other measures with valuable results, affording demographers and advocates a valuable tool that will render the growth and life of democracy more tractable.
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As we journey through democracy, it will be valuable to afford ourselves a measure of progress in democracy’s fortunes. It is said that the road ahead is explored more efficiently from experience in the road before. This activity will assist us in prioritizing investments in energy and other resources to yield more value for democratic life.
We will take stock of our fortunes by ranking our ROPs in decending order of democratic health. The ranking will be based on public policy and government-public relations. It is generally recognised that public interest, participation, and perception are the benchmarks for the measure of democratic health. Some part of this measure will rely on our Profiles In Democracy page and active surveys of citizens.
We will establish a point system, from 1 to 99 and any new gains therefore can be properly catalogued to serve as further encouragement in the pursuit of democratic life. The DEMOmeter, as the name implies, will therefore be a dynamic measure aimed at encouraging effort for further improvement and growth. The following metrics will be considered:
1. Degree of independence of branches of government.
2. Freedom of Expression and Quality.
3. Freedoms of association for governance, industry, and worship
4. Health of Industrial and Professional Unions.
5. Access to, and quality of information.
6. Civic Participation and perceptions.
7. Clean Water, Clean Air, and infrastructure capacity.
8. Laws affecting the physically and mentally challenged.
9. Scale of ethnic integration and cooperation.
10. Scale of investment in, and quality of Education and Health.
We will effort to be as thorough and as comprehensive in our review as possible. We encourage you, the public, to assist us in identifying areas of concern or celebration.
Thank you.
