Africa enters 2014 with excess negative baggage. Unrest in South Sudan, the world's youngest country, has killed more than a thousand people in the past two weeks and displaced close to 200,000, raising the spectre of civil war and unnerving oil markets. The Democratic Republic of Congo, struggling to emerge from decades of violence and instability (particularly in its east) in which millions of people have died mostly from hunger and disease, continues to experience pockets of lethal clashes. In Central African Republic, French and African troops are struggling to contain violence between Muslim Seleka rebels and Christian militias that has already killed 1,000 people and displaced hundreds of thousands. Stability is yet to be attained in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt.

Divergent  socio-political and economic viewpoints are healthy in any democracy. These however should not be allowed to be a platform to unleash loss of life, halt the provision of goods and services and destroy property.