We have capacity to interrogate global political environment

United States President Donald Trump at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia on May 13, 2017. PHOTO | BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI | AFP

What you need to know:

  • With the growth in technology, flow of information has become the one common denominator that unites all those in the global society that have the technological infrastructure available to them.

  • Whatever is happening in any one corner of the world is consumed by and becomes common knowledge to all.

  • What I find interesting in this is that this interrelatedness may sometimes help redefine the democratic culture in some places and probably confirm others in their undemocratic thinking.

Last Sunday, I wrote about freedom of the press and its connection with the whole project of proper democratic growth. One cannot overstate the importance of the free flow of information regarding the social, economic, cultural and political events taking place in a society at any given time. This is because it is such information that makes citizens aware of the factors affecting their present lives and empowers them to plan for their future.

With the growth in technology, flow of information has become the one common denominator that unites all those in the global society that have the technological infrastructure available to them. Whatever is happening in any one corner of the world is consumed by and becomes common knowledge to all. What I find interesting in this is that this interrelatedness may sometimes help redefine the democratic culture in some places and probably confirm others in their undemocratic thinking.

One event that has taken place in presumably the biggest modern democracy in the world in recent days has caught my eye. This week, United States President Donald Trump fired Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey. This happened at a time when the director was in the process of conducting an investigation into allegations that the Trump campaign team in the last presidential campaigns did have some kind of association with Russians.

PRAISED HIM

Everyone knows how President Trump, during the time of the campaign, praised the same man he has fired for apparently doing a good job with the Hillary Clinton e-mails investigation. The reasons given for his firing this time did not therefore sound satisfactory or even convincing. The enthusiasm and almost sheer anger with which media operators responded to this event was, to say the very least, a declaration of war against highhandedness on the part of that president. One media outlet said something like “this is what one would expect in far-off dictatorships.”

If President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe or some other leader in what is called the Third World had done something of that kind, it would probably not have been a big surprise. Trump then goes ahead and meets the Russian foreign minister together with the Russian ambassador to America. In an interview later, he talked about President Vladimir Putin of Russia having requested him to meet the foreign minister.

With such information, we have the capacity to interrogate the global political environment.

Fr Dominic Wamugunda is the dean of students at the University of Nairobi.