Democracy and Dictatorship in Modern Africa

The people of the emerging nations, as Stanley Diamond has rightly said (“Modern Africa: the Pains of Independence,” DISSENT, Spring 1963), need our “humane insight, fraternal sympathy, and concrete historical perceptions.” They also have a right to constructive criticism. To suspend our critical faculties simply because these nations are “young” would be insufferably condescending. In his defense of the inevitability—and indeed, desirability —of dictatorship in West Africa, Diamond comes dangerously close to such a position.

No one can deny the truth of some of Diamond’s generalizations: Colonialism has, in many respects, left an unfortunate heritage. Developing nations do need to div...