Africa: What is the problem?

[SOO MAAL]

Conflicts in Africa

[SOO MAAL]

ROOT CAUSES AND CHALLENGES OF THE GREAT LAKES CONFLICTS

SPEECH BY HIS EXCELLENCY PAUL KAGAME,

PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF RWANDA

TO THE FACULTY MEMBERS AND STUDENTS

OF THE UNIVERSITY OF DAR ES SALAAM

 

 

Dar es Salaam May 14 th , 2005

The Vice Chancellor;

Deans of Faculties;

Faculty Members;

Students;

Ladies and Gentlemen;

I am delighted to be here today and to have a chance to speak at this historic Institution.

The University of Dar es Salaam has always been an outstanding centre for education, where men and women have nurtured ideas, concretised their thoughts, stretched their talents, and realised their dreams.

This University has always grappled with the challenges of development.

It has produced thinkers and activists who have gone on to play crucial roles in the liberation of their countries, and of Africa in general.

I would like to point out that three of our Cabinet Ministers are alumni of this University.

We should all be proud of this legacy, and of the fact that this Institution has refused to be a mere ivory tower, producing unworkable ideas, totally unrelated to the lives of the majority of our people.

I have been asked to talk to you about “The Root Causes and Challenges of the Great Lakes Conflictsâ€.

This is a wide and complex topic. I will, therefore, share with you a few points that I think are fundamental, and then invite questions, comments, and dialogue at the end.

First of all, let me say that conflict is not exclusively an African phenomenon, neither is it endemic in the Great Lakes Region.

Although recent years have seen many Regions of Africa involved in war and external or internal conflict, we should not accept the prevailing view that Africa is conflict-centric.

The conflicts our Region has experienced are a manifestation of serious structural weaknesses.

Their underlying causes have internal as well as external components.

The interactions between the legacy of our colonial history and the post-independence models of governance, as well as the international political, social, and global economic milieu in which this interaction occurs, is the appropriate context in which to place the recurrent conflicts.

The structural causes of the conflicts include bad governance, the politics of exclusion, and widespread state sponsored or state condoned human rights violations.

I would, however, like to dwell on some of the more fundamental causes that are hardly ever subjected to analysis by so-called experts on the region.

In my view, the legacy of European colonialism has had a more devastating impact than we had imagined and we are only now beginning to see the ramifications of this legacy.

First , the artificial boundaries created by our former colonial masters had the effect of bringing together many different people within nations that were not prepared for the cultural

and ethnic diversity.

The leaders of these communities, instead of building on this diversity, sought to exploit it for their own ends.

In the process they ruptured social cohesion, and dislocated social entities and culturally homogeneous groups of people.

In other words, post-colonial ethnic conflicts in the Great Lakes Region, and in many parts of Africa, have their roots in the colonial policy of separating language, religious and ethnic communities.

Where ethnic communities, scientifically speaking, did not exist, as in Rwanda, they created them.

Where language served as a uniting factor, they discouraged its use, and substituted it with their own.

We ended up becoming Anglophone, Francophone, and others, depending on the whims of the colonial master.

So now, curiously, African leaders can talk to decision makers in Paris, London, or Washington more easily, than they can to some of their communities. Or they even prefer to see themselves as closer to, or representatives, of those decision makers from abroad.

By contrast, if we look at the history of ancient African civilisations, we find that ancient African kingdoms and empires, were strong entities, with a well knit social fabric, sharing a strong sense of patriotism and a strong desire for nation building and social development.

Even those kingdoms which were involved in expansionist wars, which some anthropologists have used to try and explain the current conflicts, never indulged in ethnic massacres, let alone genocide.

This is not to say that they were without inherent weaknesses, which colonialists were able to exploit.

Second , we could cite the infamous divide-and-rule techniques that were used to weaken and subjugate the African people, and helped to implement policies that weakened indigenous

power networks and institutions.

Third, was the emphasis on the exploitation of raw materials for export, and the generation of wealth for the colonial power, at the expense of a genuine desire to develop the basic infrastructure and to provide basic social services to the Region.

The concentration on a few major cash crops and extraction of minerals left the countries in the Region vulnerable to fluctuations in the prices of these commodities on the world market.

There was a deliberate effort to produce for markets of the metropolis while ignoring national and regional markets.

As a result, our internal markets were destroyed; and our creative spirit was subdued.

Thus, in Rwanda for example, while we were forced to grow and produce coffee for export, at the expense of subsistence crops that our populations needed then, the country saw the first waves of migrants fleeing recurrent episodes of famine.

It is no wonder we have witnessed the increase of poverty levels among the ordinary people, and a heavy debt burden which has crippled the Region's ability to develop.

And as you know, poverty, ignorance, and the feeling of marginalisation are some of the factors that fuel conflict in Africa.

In Rwanda, we know that economic distress was exploited by extremists to recruit the masses into the ideology of genocide, who turned out to be willing converts because they had nothing to lose.

Another factor that, in my view, contributed to the conflicts in the Region that we know today, is the weak states and the self-serving leaders who appeared on the scene as colonialists departed.

These leaders did not have any interest in the socio-economic development of their countries, but rather supported the colonial type of policies and, in effect, continued the siphoning of the Region's wealth.

With few exceptions, the colonialists left behind African cadres who widened and deepened the social cleavages entrenched by brutal colonial policies.

The point I am making is that, although we need to take responsibility for the sorry state of affairs in the Region and the rest of Africa, and although we must address the urgent and critical issues of corruption, mismanaged leadership and governance in our Region, we must also seek to reverse the legacy left by external actors, including the ideology of genocide, and the dire socio-economic performance during the last decades of the post-colonial era.

A critical review of the post-colonial era would show:

• Failed institutions that undermined nation building;

• Rulers who were conveyor belts of the worst policies initiated during the colonial era;

• Massive poverty and a heavy debt burden;

• Over-reliance on external charity as a strategy for long-term survival;

• Exclusion of the majority of the population from participation in governance and formulation of policies, including in areas that critically affect them; and

• The lack of political will on the part of the international community to take a hard look at the anatomy of conflicts-in-the-making.

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen;

You will agree with me that this lethal cocktail of factors created the conditions for the Region's crises.

And no wonder the 1994 genocide in Rwanda took place when it happened. No wonder also we have had recurrent wars and conflicts in the Region.

What all this means is that rebuilding and developing the Region from centuries of exploitation and destruction will not happen overnight.

We should not expect the effects of the colonial legacy and decades of misrule that followed to be overcome in just a few short years.

This is the great challenge of our time and we need to work together to reverse that legacy.

In any case, we all recognise that our Region cannot develop while we continue to lose people in violent conflicts.

We cannot give hope to future generations if we destroy our infrastructure today, and the following day we out-compete each other in begging the rich countries to bear the cost of reconstruction.

We cannot join and benefit from the international trading system if conflicts in the Region deter us from concentrating on our competitive advantage.

So, what have we learnt from our past experiences, and how can we prevent and manage conflicts in our Region in the future?

First of all, we need to carry out a serious and rational enquiry into the root causes of any conflict if we are to avert conflicts in the future.

This will enable us to make the right interventions in the right place, and at the right time.

Not all conflicts are similar in nature and there cannot be a one-size-fits all solution to them.

Second, we in the Region, must own all conflict management and peace building processes.

This is not to deny that the international community has a role to play, but that role can only be complementary to our own efforts.

It is crucial that Regional and African problems find Regional and African solutions.

The way we have handled the conflicts in Burundi, Somalia, and on-going efforts in South Sudan and Darfour gives us hope that Africans are finally beginning to take charge of their own problems, and design appropriate remedies.

In the Region, the Dar es Salaam declaration on Peace, Security and Development, signed by eleven Heads of State of core countries, is a reflection of the determination to turn our Region into a hub of peace and development, while addressing the root cause of conflict in the Region.

Besides, in the African Union and the New Partnership for Africa's Development, we have the appropriate framework for preventing and solving conflicts.

We also need to build strong institutions that deter and prevent the scourge of corruption, that promote transparency and accountability in our Region.

Most importantly, the Region needs:

• Leaders and institutions that unite and reconcile its peoples, especially after this turbulent history;

• Leaders and institutions that embrace diversity;

• Leaders and institutions that seek to improve the livelihood of all citizens without discrimination;

• Leaders and institutions that look beyond boundaries for what we have in common. Regional economic integration is a step in the right direction;

• Leaders and institutions that progressively work towards shared prosperity and sustainable peace.

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen;

Before I conclude, I would like to mention that when war and conflict break out, it is our women and children who bear the brunt.

Our people have suffered long enough and they certainly deserve better.

It is our obligation, and indeed our mission, to turn our region from a battlefield into an area of shared peace and prosperity.

We all have a role to play: leaders, politicians, academics, and all of you students who have the ability to analyse, assess, and act in order to have a positive influence.

We, in Rwanda, are working hard to realise that ideal.

Nawashukuruni Sana.

Kidumu Chuo Kikuu cha Dar es Salaam

(Long Live the University of Dar Es Salaam)

[SOO MAAL]

An American Confronts Africa

[Reprinted from Issues & Views Winter 1997]

Journalist Keith Richburg knows he has written an explosive book. When Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa was published, Africans and American blacks alike denounced him with venomous words. "A shallow low-grade African-American who has sold his soul," one angry African said of him. Richburg has the audacity to express, without apology, that which many an American black feels in his gut--that we blacks are lucky that a "quirk of fate" brought our ancestors to these shores, which means that we will not be forced to endure the tender mercies of the Third World.

Richburg has heard all the stories about the supposed reasons for the ongoing chaos that still sweeps most of the African continent--he's been educated about the consequences of white colonialism, the rape of Africa's natural resources, the time that's still required for all of this to be overcome, etc., ad nauseam. At one time he unquestioningly believed all of the excuses. But after years of close-up scrutiny, living in the heartlands of several nations, he's not buying it. He has watched firsthand the rape of the African continent by its own sons, who should know better.

Following are excerpts from Out of America:

 

Before my arrival in Africa, I had spent four years reporting from southeast Asia. What I found in Asia was a region of amazing economic dynamism, a place largely defined by more than a decade of steady growth and development, vastly improved living standards, and expanded opportunities. Almost all of the Southeast Asian countries had risen from poverty to relative prosperity, creating huge and stable middle classes and entering the first tier of newly industrialized economies.

Why has East Asia emerged as the model for economic success, while Africa has seen mostly poverty, hunger, and economies propped up by foreign aid? Why are East Asians now expanding their telecommunications capabilities when in most of Africa it's still hard to make a phone call next door? Why are the leaders of Southeast Asia negotiating ways to ease trade barriers and create a free-trade zone, while Africans still levy some of the most prohibitive tariffs on earth, even for interregional trade? . . . .

It's an ugly truth, but it needs to be laid out here, because for too long now Africa's failings have been hidden behind a veil of excuses and apologies. . . . Talk to me about Africa's legacy of European colonialism, and I'll give you Malaysia and Singapore, ruled by the British and occupied by Japan during World War II. Or Indonesia, exploited by the Dutch for over three hundred years. And let's toss in Vietnam, a French colony later divided between North and South, with famously tragic consequences. Like Africa, most Asian countries only achieved true independence in the postwar years; unlike the Africans, the Asians knew what to do with it.

Talk to me about the problem of tribalism in Africa, about different ethnic and linguistic groups having been lumped together by Europeans inside artificial national borders. Then I'll throw back at you Indonesia, some 13,700 scattered islands comprising more than 360 distinct tribes and ethnic groups and a mix of languages and religions.

Now talk to me about some African countries' lack of natural resources, or their reliance on single commodities, and I'll ask you to account for tiny Singapore, an island city-state with absolutely no resources--with a population barely large enough to sustain an independent nation. Singapore today is one of the world's most successful economies.

I used to bring up the question of Asia's success wherever I traveled around Africa, to see how the Africans themselves--government officials, diplomats, academics--would explain their continent's predicament. What I got was defensiveness, followed by anger, and then accusations that I did not understand the history. And then I got a long list of excuses. I was told about the Cold War, how the United States and the Soviet Union played out their superpower rivalry through proxy wars in Africa, which prolonged the continent's suffering. And I would respond that the Cold War's longest-running and costliest conflicts took place not in Africa but in Korea and Vietnam; now tell me which continent was the biggest playing field for superpower rivalry.

When the talk turns to corruption--official, top-level plunder--then at last we are moving closer to brass tacks. Corruption is the cancer eating at the heart of the African state. It is what sustains Africa's strongmen in power, and the money they pilfer, when spread generously throughout the system, is what allows them to continue to command allegiance long after their last shreds of legitimacy are gone.

Of course, there's corruption in East Asia, too. One watchdog group ranked Indonesia as the world's most corrupt country, and Hong Kong risk consultants have placed it third in Asia, behind only Communist China and Vietnam. Yet Korea is an economic superpower, Indonesia has reduced poverty more per year for the last quarter century than any other developing country on earth, and Thailand, Vietnam, and China have all been posting annual growth rates of about 8 to 10 percent. . . .

Instead of straight talk about Africa, you're more likely to get doublespeak, apologies, excuses--and above all, hypocrisy. It's one of the things I found most frustrating about Africa, the unwillingness of even some of the most seasoned academics and "Africa experts" to give me their honest, coldhearted, unsentimental assessment of the continent and its problems. When it came to discussing the ruthlessness of the dictators, the difficulty of democracy finding a foothold, the ever-present problem of tribalism, Africa has consistently been held to a double standard, an "African standard." There's a reluctance to push too hard, too fast for reform. There is a tendency not to want to criticize too openly, too harshly.

The reason, of course, is that Africans are black. Too much criticism from white countries in the West comes dangerously close to sounding racist. And African leaders seem willing enough to play that card, constantly raising the specter of "neocolonialism." Most Africans were born in independent black countries, but their leaders still harp about colonialism the way black America's self-described "leaders" like to talk about slavery and Jim Crow. Th ere's another similarity, too. Black African leaders talk about foreign aid as if they're entitled to it--it's something that is due to Africa, with no strings attached--the same way many American blacks see government assistance programs as a kind of entitlement of birth. In both cases, you're left with black people wallowing in a safety net of dependency.

Out of America is currently in bookstores or can be purchased from Basic Books at (800) 331-3761, or online from Amazon Books.

[SOO MAAL]

The African Paradox: The Tribalist Implications of the Colonial Paradox

Sheila McCoy

 

On October 30, 1999, President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria spoke to an audience at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. In a speech entitled "Democracy and Development in Africa," President Obasanjo discussed the deleterious effects of European colonialism, and the ways in which the colonial legacy had prevented the development of African nations. "It is virtually impossible to estimate the full social costs of colonialism, from its inception, through its exploitative existence, to the huge human and material resources that went into dislodging it from our continent," he commented. Moments later, President Obasanjo referred to the colonial legacy as "an impediment to Africaís progress and development."1 President Obasanjo is not the only individual to have expressed such concerns and criticisms. Indeed, many Africans, common citizens as well as leaders, and non-Africans, have traced the current problems of underdevelopment to the colonial legacy that continues to mar the African landscape.

 

Regardless of whether one chooses to refer to them as developing nations, less developed countries, countries of the South, or Third World nations, the fact remains that the vast majority of states on the African continent have not succeeded in creating the proper environment in which economic, political, and social progress are able to meet Western standards of development. Nor have many nations succeeded in meeting standards of development that do not have their roots in the Western tradition. In 1998, the National Summit on Africa issued a report entitled Economic Development, Trade and Investment, and Job Creation. The introduction to the report contextualizes the peculiar nature of African underdevelopment.

 

"Africa is a paradox: Second in size and population among the continents, and arguably the richest of all in terms of natural resources, Africa consists of a disproportionate number of the poorest people in the world. In 1995, U.S. per capita income was $26,980; in the same year, sub-Saharan Africaís per capita national income stood at $490."2

 

Many analysts, like President Obasanjo, in their examination of the current condition of African development, are likely to point to colonialism in their attempt to explain the factors that have prevented progress in the realms of society, economics, and politics. For the most part, these considerations focus upon the economic ramifications of the colonial legacy. Those sympathetic with the plight of African underdevelopment are likely to suggest that colonizing powers restricted the ability of African nations and leaders to choose the terms of their economic growth, and that this limitation has in turn constrained progress on all fronts.3

 

Though these economic considerations are surely one component of the development equation, other factors have received considerably less attention from experts in the field. One factor in particular has been overlooked with great frequency, and an in-depth study of its role in stunting regional and continental growth can provide a helpful way for us to examine the dilemma of African development through a new lens. This issue pertains to the matter of tribalism and ethnic conflict. We shall explore the concept in broad terms before turning to case studies of two nations to examine the ways in which such difficulties serve as impediments to progress.

 

It is essential that we first recognize the ways in which the African continent was divided by the colonizing powers. The Berlin Conference of 1884 provided the forum in which the debate regarding the division of the continent occurred. Richard Kranzdorf explains the situation of Africa prior to the conference as he writes that "Despite the increasing presence of Europeans [in the middle to late nineteenth century], 90 percent of the continent was ruled by Africans until the last two decades of the nineteenth century."4 When the conference had concluded, only isolated pockets of African-controlled territory existed. The rest had been partitioned by the European powers. Though some, including Kranzdorf, have suggested that the partitioning of the continent was performed with complete disregard for "preexisting ethnic, linguistic, and cultural units,"5 a closer examination of the subject may indicate that the decisions made were quite both deliberate and carefully calculated.

 

Gamal Nkrumah, in an article entitled "Battling Africaís Colonial Legacy," explains that "the laws and institutions inherited from the colonial powers were often designed to exploit ethnic, religious, and linguistic differences within and between African states."6 (emphasis added) Far from ignoring these divisions among the peoples of Africa, it would instead seem that efforts were made to "divide and conquer." In fact, Lana Wylie notes that "European conquest also generated new hostilities among Africans."7 The exploitation of these differences allowed the colonizing powers to wield an upper hand and were most likely intended to render imperial powers virtually immune from an organized and systematic rebellion of the colonized peoples of Africa. So long as drastic cleavages existed to separate distinct tribes and ethnic groups within Africa, it was unlikely that energy would be diverted towards expelling the colonizing powers. In the same article, Nkrumah refers to the terms of the partitioning of the continent as the "European balkanization and colonialism of Africa."8 In most circles, it is understood that balkanization refers to the process of imposing, or allowing the development of, dangerous ethnic and cultural divisions that could threaten to erupt at any moment. In many ways, it was in the best interest of the colonizing powers to allow such ethnic and tribal divisions to be magnified by supposedly arbitrarily imposed political boundaries, lending credence to the supposition that the balkanization that began under colonial rule was planned.

 

Clearly, sharpened ethnic divisions increase turmoil, both within nations and within less clearly defined regions. In many cases, the escalation of turmoil generates external conflicts and civil wars that can embroil a particular region and threaten pervasive instability. Of course, it goes without saying that populations engaged in military conflict do not represent fertile grounds for political, social, or economic development. Indeed, where a large portion of the population is forced to become actively involved in such conflicts, it is unlikely that the seeds for progressive change can ever be sown. Masloweís hierarchy of needs, with its explicit divisions between the stages of personal human development, provides the key to contextualizing the psychological foundations that can help to explain the lack of development in war-torn regions.

 

First and foremost among human needs are the physiological needs for shelter, food, and clothing. Without these essentials, human life cannot continue. Even physical safety becomes secondary with respect to these concerns. But note that if an individual is not capable of securing physical security (and most individuals who find themselves as part of violent military conflict are unable to attain that personal protection), then concerns pertaining to society, personal esteem, and self-actualization may not be realized. Therefore, an individual preoccupied with the task of securing personal needs on the lower levels of the pyramid are often incapable of expressing concern for the broader goals that one can realize in concert with other members of a particular society. For our purposes, this indicates merely that individuals who do not have a solid base upon which to build a meaningful life are unlikely to focus upon development goals that may ensure a more equitable distribution of goods or the growth of political and social institutions and structures from which everyone may benefit.

 

The partitioning of Africa and the subsequent conflicts generated by said partitioning therefore created an environment in which most individuals struggled to attain their basic needs. Without provisioning for these fundamental needs of human existence, little energy was invested in the process of development. Explained in this way, it is easy to understand why the colonial legacy of ethnic divisions and tribalism has prevented many sub-Saharan African nations from attaining the desired levels of development. As we shall see, such conflicts also create large populations of displaced refugees whose presence can also have a deleterious effect on national economies.

 

At this point, it would be most useful to turn to particular cases to determine specific ways in which such cultural divisions and ethnic conflicts have, in fact, hindered the development process on the African continent. As Kranzdorf notes, "Ongoing struggles in such diverse states as Angola, Burundi, Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Mauritania, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone may be explained, in part, by deep-seated ethnic divisions."9 Therefore, an examination of any of these struggles and continuing conflicts, or others like them, would illustrate the point equally well. In the analysis that follows, we shall utilize as pared down case studies the nations of Somalia and Rwanda, both because they demonstrate the point well and because they represent highly salient examples.

 

Somalia

 

Recent data indicate the frightening degree of underdevelopment in Somalia. In 1998, the nation ranked as one of the five poorest nations in the world. Its annual per capita income in US dollars stood at only $176. Infant mortality rates are among the highest on the African continent (125 deaths per 1,000 live births), and the nation continues to exist as a "stateless" entity virtually devoid of the political leadership necessary to constitute effective governance.10 Without question, the situation in Somalia is such that political, social, and economic decay seems to be the norm. The effects of the tribal divisions perpetuated by the colonial powers have contributed substantially to this unfortunate state of affairs.

 

Gamal Nkrumah explains the effects of the colonial legacy in Somalia with reference to tribalism when he writes that

 

"Even where there was a homogenous culture as in Somalia, the colonial authorities conspired to carve up separate colonies to exacerbate tribal divisions. The Somali people who formed one ethnic group, speaking one language, Somali, and sharing one religion, Islam, were divided by colonial boundaries and subjected to five different colonial authorities: French, Britishóin Somaliland and in KenyaóItalian, and Ethiopian."11

 

The conditions of independence stipulated that British Somaliland be united with Italian Somaliland, and when these conditions had been agreed to, independence was granted on July 1, 1960.12 During its early days, the independent Somali Republic was plagued by "increasing corruption, clanism, and political gridlock," and the system of national politics was defined on the basis of clan/tribal identity. Severe conflict began to tear away at the nation in the late 1980s and early 1990s, warranting an influx of United Nations peacekeepers sent to quell the hostilities and make viable the creation of a peaceful environment. Canada was among the nations that supplied peacekeepers for this particular mission, but before it sent its troops to the region, a Commission of Inquiry was established to determine the nature of the conflict in Somalia. This Commission provided a detailed analysis of the current situation:

 

"After the country's independence in 1960, economic growth failed to keep pace with the rise in population caused by the influx of refugeesÖ Following the civil war, the towns between Ethiopia and the port of Bossasso in the Mudug region showed some increased economic activity, while the surrounding countryside showed signs of serious economic collapse. In the south, economic collapse followed inter-clan warfare."13 (emphasis in original)

 

The preceding analysis begins to suggest the ways in which conflict generated by tribalism can tear away at national unity and contribute to an unstable environment in which little time, money, and effort are invested in the processes of development.

 

Though they may not utilize the same terminology (Masloweís Hierarchy of Needs) to discuss the nature of their problems, Somalians also recognize that their current situation prevents them from realizing the type of development needed to protect and guide the nation. In September 1995, a Somali elder commented:

 

"Development is about human beings. They need four things. First is water. It is the first thing needed to live. Without it a plant, an animal or a baby dies. Second, is food. Without enough of it, life is miserable and short. Third, once water and food are won, is health - otherwise the human being becomes sick. Fourth is education, once a human being has water, food and health he needs to learn to open new horizons and unlock new possibilities. And there is a fifth - peace and order. Without those none of the four basic needs can be sustained."14

 

There can be no doubt that without colonial influence, the ethnic divisions that currently exist would not have became such dominant and overriding concerns. And, in the absence of such divisions, it is likely that the nation would have developed at a substantially faster rate, and with fewer barriers to impede its progress.

 

Rwanda

 

Rwanda, of course, forms the quintessential example of African tribalism at its worst. Once again, the variety of tribalism present in that nation had its origins in colonial influence as well. Of course, because the particular conditions of the war between the Hutu and Tutsi factions in Rwanda have received such considerable attention, it is not necessary that much time be spent elaborating the particular conditions that led to the systematic genocide that tore the nation apart in the early 1990s. It is, however, worth briefly mentioning the magnitude of the slaughter that occurred. The pace of killing, it has now been confirmed, was so rapid that it by far exceeded that rate at which Jews were exterminated at the peak of the Holocaust. Estimates of the number of those killed range, on the conservative end, from 500,000 to 1 million at the other extreme. Most scholars and international observers seem to have come to some agreement that approximately 800,000 civilians lost their lives during the brief span of three months in 1994 during which the ethnic cleansing campaign was waged in Rwanda. The brunt of this analysis will focus upon the ways in which colonial rule was responsible for exacerbating tribal divisions and creating an environment in which conflict was imminent. Consider the following discussion of colonial-generated tribalism in Rwanda:

 

"The ordeal of colonialism transformed Rwandan society in a highly detrimental fashion. German, and later Belgian, rulers came to Rwanda and the rest of Africa with firmly held convictions about race and race hierarchy. Whites naturally were thought to be superior, but among Africans certain tribes (or what were thought of as tribes) were deemed to be more worthy than their fellow blacks. The Tutsis impressed Europeans with their grace, nobility, and European-like features. In short, Germans and Belgians considered the Tutsis to be born to rule, and decided to administer the country indirectly using the power structure they had found in place. Thus, it was colonial authorities (especially Belgians) who were largely responsible for creating tribal identities among the Tutsis and Hutus. Europeans first ruled through Tutsis, and then after World War II Belgian radicals (Marxists who thought in terms of class war) encouraged Hutus to intensify their struggle against their Tutsi oppressors."15

 

These divisions have continued to persist and they were central to the conflict that ultimately erupted in 1994. In the war that ensued between these competing tribal factions, more than 800,000 people lost their lives during the course of 100 days of fighting.16 This substantial decrease in the national population, and the inability of most citizens to contribute to economic, social, or political development while the war was being fought clearly exacerbated to the underdeveloped status of Rwanda.

 

Of the 174 nations evaluated in the 1999 Human Development Index, Rwanda ranked 164th in terms of overall development. Not surprisingly, the last twenty-four nations on the list are located in sub-Saharan Africa.17 To be sure, the ethnic divisions between the different tribal groups of Rwanda explain many of the reasons for the present state of underdevelopment.

 

Conclusion

 

Colonialism has played a crucial role in the underdevelopment and decay of the nations of sub-Saharan Africa. Most analysts agree that the economic ramifications of colonialism were a determining factor in shaping the lesser-developed status of these nations in the present context. Despite the validity of this analysis, however, it is essential that we look also to other factors in our evaluation of the legacy of colonialism. Colonial nations, it has been shown, made an effort to protect their own interests and national security by creating within Africa a patchwork of nation-states that seemed to have been drawn without consideration for existing cultural and linguistic patterns of settlement. Closer examination, however, indicates that these boundaries were, in all likelihood, intended to provoke intra-continental conflict so as to prevent the spread of conflict to include European troops. Colonizing powers understood that there is always the potential for conflict when imperialistic missions are undertaken. But if the powerless and conquered peoples can be made to fight among themselves, they are considerably less likely to turn their collective efforts against their oppressors. Such was the reasoning of colonial powers.

 

Though it is impossible to predict what may have happened had the colonial powers partitioned the continent in a manner that reflected respect for existing ethnic divisions, we may reasonably speculate that the conflicts that have defined the African continent since de-colonization would not have been as pervasive or devastating under such circumstances. Therefore, it is apparent that European colonialism most certainly contributed to the fact that African nations lag behind most others in terms of development.

 

Of course, one could cite countless examples of tribal conflict that has been generated by the divisions that continue to be maintained today. These struggles have had as much of an effect on the underdevelopment of African nations as the economic limitations imposed by colonialism. Therefore, any future attempts to encourage development must take into consideration ethnic divisions that have, for too long, been virtually ignored. Foreign affairs columnist Jonathan Powers explains that

 

"There are really two choices for those parts of Africa besieged by tribal conflict--and that goes for Rwanda, Nigeria, the Sudan or Angola as much as it does for the Congo. To start a civilized divorce, if necessary with help from neutral outsiders. Or to build a federal democratic state, as South Africa has done. The day when the strongman can hold sway from the centreÖis obviously over."18

 

This process does not promise to be easy, but the difficulty of the task should not prevent us from acknowledging that it must be accomplished. The future threatens to bring more tribal conflicts, more deaths, further decay, and less hope for development. Until these problems are solved, little hope exists.

[SOO MAAL]

HOWARD W. FRENCH, "Europe's Legacy in Africa: Domination, Not Democracy," New York Times, January 16, 1999

 

By the late 1960s, scarcely a decade after Africa's great independence wave had begun, many of the continent's new political creations already had begun to resemble disasters. With no ready answers to their problems, many African leaders struck upon a new strategy for explaining their failings to impatient populations while simultaneously drawing more outside aid: blaming the European colonizers for Africa's seemingly intractable difficulties.

 

But if this approach was at least temporarily successful in many cases, the increasing stridency of the claims made against the West, set against the backdrop of the growing despotism of the new leaders, quickly backfired, as both foreign sympathy and assistance dwindled.

 

For the next two decades or so, conventional wisdom largely rejected African assertions of outside responsibility for the continent's problems, and many in the West argued, often with a growing vehemence of their own, that Africa's bad leaders were primarily to blame rather than any European legacy.

 

In the closing years of this century, though, historians, political scientists and other students of African affairs have begun a searching re-examination of the continent's recent past. Increasingly they have concluded that many of its most persistent curses -- from the plague of ethnic hatred widely known as tribalism to endemic official corruption -- have powerful roots that are at least partly traceable to European subjugation and rule.

 

Among the writings that helped forge this reconsideration are works like "Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism," by the Ugandan scholar Mahmood Mamdani. Mamdani's 1996 book draws extensively on colonial records to show how Europeans administered their new subjects through a deliberately authoritarian form of indirect rule -- for which the author coined the term "decentralized despotism" -- that greatly reinforced or even created notions of ethnicity, helping set the stage for the tribal conflict that wracks the continent today.

 

Another work, Basil Davidson's "Black Man's Burden: Africa and the Curse of the Nation-State," depicts the European process of decolonization in Africa as one of hasty, even offhand decision-making filled with a disdain for Africans and their history and an unquestioning arrogance that assumed that the political structures of the West were appropriate for Africans even when they had been given no preparation for making them work.

 

In these and other scholarly works, African specialists have made the point that the example left by European rule was one of politics by sheer domination and not democracy. Then, as is so often the case now, African states were run with little thought to the benefit of their subjects.

 

Perhaps no country in Africa today displays the consequences of Europe's African past as harshly as Congo, where the three-decade-old Mobutu dictatorship was violently overthrown in 1997, only to be followed by a bumbling new authoritarian figure, Laurent Kabila, and more recently by a succession of new rebellions that are tearing his vast country apart.

 

Shortly before suddenly granting independence in 1960, amid a wave of simultaneous African independence ceremonies, Belgian colonial planners still spoke dreamily of holding onto their possession -- a country 77 times as large as their own -- for decades more.

 

At independence in 1960, Congo entered the modern era, nominally at least, with only a few score high school graduates and less than 500 miles of paved road. The country's first university had been created by the Belgians only six years before.

 

"The colonial history of the Congo has inclined that country in a more tragic direction than even most other African countries," said Zine Magubane, a South African professor of sociology and African studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana. "The Belgians had no interest in establishing any sort of permanency or any true state. The country was instead run by a series of companies that had a free hand at pillaging the land."

 

Other African scholars place an emphasis even further back, on the last decades of the 19th century, when Europe's imperial powers divided up the continent and defined the borders that remain today.

 

"What you had before the imposition of this great iron grid of colonialism was an extraordinarily variegated network of cultures," said Rene Lemarchand, a professor emeritus of the University of Florida at Gainesville and a lifelong student of Africa. "That certainly included some rather extensive and elaborate kingdoms -- take the case of Ashanti, of Buganda, of Kongo or of the Zulu.

 

"When the iron grid was removed," he continued, "what resurfaced were residues of traditional systems, and in many cases pre-colonial antagonisms resurfaced."

 

What is worse, many Africanists say, colonial subjugation brutally ended Africa's sovereign evolution toward modern nation-states, a gradual process of conquest and agglomeration that has occurred throughout history around the world.

 

In the Americas, native populations were exterminated by arriving Europeans or saw their cultures marginalized by the makers of new states. In India and many other parts of Asia, conquering Europeans imposed their new colonial order on states that already had begun to coalesce to one degree or another around an idea of national identity.

 

In Africa, meanwhile, Europeans carved out new frontiers as a function of the existing power balance among themselves, giving an occasional nod to natural features of the continent like broad rivers but almost never paying heed to the chosen identities of Africans themselves or to the political systems already in place.

 

"The example I like to think of is if an African imperial army had marched into Europe in the Middle Ages and required Germany, France and England to live together by force of arms," said Makau wa Mutua, a Kenyan scholar who teaches law at the State University at Buffalo. "It would have unleashed untold mayhem, and not to excuse the villainies of Africa's subsequent leaders, that is precisely what happened when Europe did this to Africa in the span of 30 years by destroying Africa's existing political structures, some of them powerful and far-ranging kingdoms, and imposing its own borders, religions and administration."

 

In cataloguing and later registering their African subjects, Europeans everywhere reinforced and sometimes completely invented ethnic distinctions that Africans themselves had hitherto managed with far greater suppleness.

 

The most famous case of this now is that of the Hutu and Tutsi who predominate in Rwanda and Burundi and are a small minority in Congo. For centuries the two groups had coexisted peaceably, marrying, sharing a language and a king. When Belgium imposed its administration, however, it glorified the minority Tutsi peoples for their supposedly more European features, creating a de facto ethnic underclass of the majority Hutu and sowing the seeds of the cycles of mass killings that have afflicted the two groups since.

 

Similarly, almost every time the Europeans created a state, ethnic groups or previously existing African polities were split by the new borders, undermining the new states' claims to legitimacy in the eyes of their inhabitants.

 

The emerging African nations' first brush with legitimacy came with the independence movements that swept the continent in the 1950s. But in the case of Congo, as with many other countries, the nationalism of the leader who best channeled pro-independence sentiment, Patrice Lumumba, quickly was seen as a threat by Belgium and by a Cold War-driven United States.

 

Both countries worked to undermine and ultimately overthrow Lumumba, who was subsequently assassinated under murky circumstances. The man they helped replace him with was Mobutu Sese Seko, the dictator who ruinously ruled over Africa's third largest country with strong Western backing for 32 years.

 

For most of that period Mobutu loomed over his country and over the continent's affairs. The West had decided that Zaire, as he renamed his country, with its borders with nine other African countries, was of strategic importance. Acting on behalf of his foreign sponsors, Mobutu intervened freely in his neighbors' affairs.

 

With the end of the Cold War, however, Western interest in propping up Mobutu, Western interest in Africa generally, evaporated. It was then, through the collapse of Mobutu and the crumbling of a dozen or more countries that the myth of the modern African state began to crumble.

 

For Mobutu the end came quickly at the hands of Kabila, long an obscure and inconsequential rebel leader who this time had the critical backing of Rwanda and Uganda, two neighbors that decided to pursue their own security interests in Congo aggressively.

 

Shorn of foreign assistance, the Mobutu government, a creation of the West, could not pay its civil servants, equip its army or even move its ill-disciplined troops from one part of the country to another when war came.

 

Now Congo, which owed its definition and preservation to the outside world, is being dismembered by its neighbors while the West averts its suddenly disinterested gaze.

 

The first to feast on Central Africa's largest piece of real estate have been Uganda and Rwanda, two of Africa's Western favorites now.

 

Following the lead of these two nations, which already have carved out large spheres of interest for themselves in the country's eastern regions, other neighbors, some less favored by the West, aggressively are asserting their interests too.

 

Zimbabwe and Angola, Congo's southern neighbors, have rushed to Kabila's defense, invoking the principle of territorial integrity as they position themselves to profit from the country's immense mineral wealth.

 

"States which are more stable and can project more economic or military power are going to interfere more readily in the affairs of their neighbors," Mutua said.

 

A century after Europe created the edifice of African nation-states, many observers of the continent's affairs say they foresee a potentially perilous period in which the structure progressively crumbles, with no one quite sure what to expect next.

[SOO MAAL]

Africa and Europe: Burying colonialism?

 

 

Delegates from Germany and Sierra Leone mingle in Cairo

 

The Cairo conference of African and European Union leaders brings together for the first time the world's poorest continent and the rich club of Europe, with all the imbalance that coupling implies.

Their shared aim is to forge a strategic partnership for the 21st century, burying the colonial legacy of earlier centuries. But they have come to Egypt with sharply different agendas.

 

EU agenda

Democracy

Corruption

Human rights

Conflict prevention

Arms/Drugs trafficking

Africa is crippled by mounting external debt, currently estimated at $350bn, which has risen at a rate of about 12% a year in the last 20 years.

 

African agenda

Debt relief

Foreign investment

Trade terms

The EU also wants to promote prosperity in Africa, from which it would benefit by creating larger, richer markets for European goods. But its priorities are fostering democracy and human rights on the continent, reducing corruption and finding ways to resolve or prevent the dozens of conflicts which have rocked many of Africa's 50-plus states.

 

Problem of debt

 

African leaders are reluctant to listen to European lectures on stability and good governance.

 

 

Africans want a fairer share of the global economy

 

Many resent what could be seen as little more than a revival of colonial interference, a reminder of the time when western European powers enriched themselves at Africa's expense.

 

African demands for a cancellation of ruinous foreign debts are unlikely to succeed, but they serve to dramatise the scale of the problem and might perhaps pave the way to a reduction or rescheduling.

 

As long as debtors must expend their capacities repaying loans and interest, they cannot afford to develop education, infrastructure and healthcare systems, to encourage investment and revive their economies.

 

In 1999 the EU put up nearly a billion dollars for debt relief in the world's poorest countries, but given the size of Africa's debt, the funds do not go very far.

 

Europe favours a solution which comes from existing bodies, such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, but have agreed that meetings of a Europe-Africa working group will study the problem further.

 

Equal rights

 

Europe is offering better access for the sale of African goods in its markets on condition African countries take more care of their populations' human rights and root out corruption.

 

Rich and Poor

 

Case 1: France

Per capita GDP

 

$22,600

Life expectancy

78 years

Literacy

99%

Case 2: Burkina Faso

Per capita GDP

$1,000

Life expectancy

45 years

Literacy

19% (female 9%)

The bold aim is to halve poverty in Africa over the next 15 years, while African nations embrace liberal economic reforms and uphold democratic principles.

 

The other side of the argument is that equality is a human right too, and allowing Africa a fairer share of global wealth would have a far more significant impact on ordinary people than an end to authoritarian government.

 

In the end, it is in everyone's interest to reach a consensus on what should come out of European-African dialogue and the signs are that officials on both sides are prepared to overlook their disagreements in order to encourage a mutually beneficial partnership.

Search BBC News Online

 

 

 

Advanced search options

 

 

 

 

BBC RADIO NEWS

 

 

BBC ONE TV NEWS

 

 

WORLD NEWS SUMMARY

 

 

BBC NEWS 24 BULLETIN

 

PROGRAMMES GUIDE

 

Africa Contents

 

Country profiles

 

See also:

 

 

15 Mar 00 | Africa

Debt relief for Mozambique

18 Jan 00 | Africa

Seeking growth in Africa

02 Jan 00 | Africa

Call to stop African arms trade

03 Apr 00 | Europe

Agenda wrangle in landmark summit

Internet links:

 

 

Egypt State Information Service

Organization of African Unity

European Commission

 

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites

 

 

Links to other Africa stories are at the foot of the page.

[SOO MAAL]

The myth of Neo-colonialism

By Tunde Obadina

 

More than three decades after most African nations became independent, there is no consensus on the legacy of colonialism. With most African countries still only tottering on their feet and many close to collapse, some people ask whether the problem is due to Africa's colonial experience or inherent adequacies of the African? For apologists of colonialism the answer is simple. Whatever may have been the shortcomings of colonial rule, the overall effect was positive for Africa. Sure, the colonial powers exploited Africa’s natural resources but on the balance, colonialism reduced the economic gap between Africa and the West, the apologists argue. Colonialism laid the seeds of the intellectual and material development in Africans. It brought enlightenment where there was ignorance. It suppressed slavery and other barbaric practices such as pagan worship and cannibalism. Formal education and modern medicine were brought to people who had limited understanding or control of their physical environment. The introduction of modern communications, exportable agricultural crops and some new industries provided a foundation for economic development. Africans received new and more efficient forms of political and economic organisation. Warring communities were united into modern nation-states with greater opportunity of survival in a competitive world than the numerous mini entities that existed before. Africa is in political and economic turmoil today, defenders of imperialism say, because it failed to take advantage of its inheritance from colonial rule. It was, they summarise, Africa’s inadequacies that made colonisation necessary and the outcome of post-independence self-rule suggests that the withdrawal by the colonial powers was premature.

 

Critics of colonialism dismiss such arguments as racists. They maintain that colonial rule left Africans poorer than they were before it began. Not only were African labour and resources super-exploited, the continent’s capacity to develop was undermined. Guyanese historian Walter Rodney in his book ‘How Europe Underdeveloped Africa’ contends that under colonialism "the only thing that developed were dependency and underdevelopment." As far as Rodney and other critics was concerned "The only positive development in colonialism was when it ended." Under imperial rule African economies were structured to be permanently dependent on Western nations. They were consigned the role of producers of primary products for processing in the West. The terms of trade in the western controlled international market discriminated against African nations who are unable to earn enough to develop their economies.

 

Colonialism bred political crisis

 

In disrupting pre-colonial political systems that worked for Africans and imposing alien models, colonialism laid the seeds of political crisis, say its critics. By redrawing of the map of Africa, throwing diverse people together without consideration for established borders, ethnic conflicts were created that are now destabilising the continent. The new nation-states were artificial and many were too small to be viable. Fewer than a third of the countries in Africa have populations of more than 10 million. Nigeria, the major exception to this, was imbued with ingredients for its self-destruction. Western multi-party democracy imposed by colonial powers polarised African societies. "It was the introduction of party politics by colonial administration that set off the fire of ethnic conflicts in Nigeria," wrote one Itodo Ojobo in the New Nigerian newspaper in 1986.

 

It is difficult to give an objective balance sheet on colonialism. Those who contend that it made no positive impact are as dogmatic as those who present it as the salvation of Africa. What is unequivocal is that it was an imposition of alien rule. Whatever may have been its pluses and minuses, colonialism was a dictatorial regime that denied peoples’ right of self determination. It brought death, pain and humiliation to millions of its victims. The notion that colonialism was a civilising mission is a myth - the system was propelled by Europe’s economic and political self- interest. However, to meet their economic and administrative needs colonial powers built some infrastructure, like railway to carry export commodities, and they educated a few Africans to help them run the colonies. But nowhere in Africa were positive contributions made to any substantial extent. Countries like Nigeria and Ghana, which were among the better endowed colonies were left with only a few rail lines, rudimentary infrastructure and a few thousand graduates. This was better than others. For instance, the Portuguese left their colonies with very little. At independence in 1975, Mozambique had only three dozen graduates.

 

If the legacies of the different colonial powers were rated by Africans today, the powers that bequeathed the greatest amount of western culture to its colonies would likely score most votes. Only reactionary aristocrats in northern Nigeria would today thank the British for keeping out western education in their region. It is clear to most northerners that they were placed at a disadvantage to the south by the educational gap between the two regions. When Flemish missionaries in the Belgium Congo learnt African languages to teach local children in their mother tongues, the children did not thank them. Young Congolese protested repeatedly and demanded to learn French because this was the way to gain access to the wider world.

 

It is impossible to say what would have been the shape of contemporary African history had colonial rule never taken place. Some Western historians have argued that most less developed regions of the world, particularly Africa, lacked the social and economic organisation to transform themselves into modern states able to develop into advanced economies. "If they had not become European possessions the majority would probably have remained very much as they were," wrote Cambridge historian D.K. Fieldhouse.

 

African nationalists dismiss this claim. "It is not true that Africa couldn’t have developed without colonialism. If it were true, then there is something wrong with the rest of world which developed without it," the late Nigerian politician Moshood Abiola told a conference in 1991. Africans point out that Japan, China and parts of Southeast Asia were never colonised, yet they are today major world economies. These countries, however, had certain attributes in the nineteenth century that enabled them to adapt more easily to modernisation than might have traditional African societies in the same period. The Asian nations had more educated labour force and were technologically more advanced. Most importantly, their ruling classes were more ideologically committed to social progress and economic development.

 

It is, of course, a presumption that modernisation is desirable. The fact that western society is more complex than traditional African society does not necessarily mean that it is better. Complexity does not equal human progress. Pre-colonial African societies were materially less developed than societies in other regions of the world, but they were no less balanced and self-contained than any elsewhere. Africans were no less happy or felt less accomplished than Europeans or Japanese. Who is to say whether people living in agrarian societies are less developed as human beings than inhabitants of industrialised ones?

 

However, had Africa not been colonised, the likelihood is that its elites would still have wanted to consume the products and services of western industrial nations. It is unlikely that African chiefs and traders would have been content with the simplicity of communal life to shut off their communities from Western advances. If during the slave trade, rulers and traders happily waged wars and sold fellow humans to buy beads, guns and second-hand hats, one can only imagine what they would have done if faced with offers of cars, televisions, MacDonalds etc. Undoubtedly, without colonisation African societies would still have sought industrialisation and western type modernisation, as have peoples in virtually every other region in the world.

 

As there is no basis to assume that Africans would have independently developed electricity, the motor engine and other products of advanced technologies, it is fair to suppose that if Africa had not been colonised it would today still have to grapple with problems of economic development. Africa would have needed to import western technology and therefore would have had to export something to pay for it. Like other pre-industrial societies, African nations would invariably have had to trade minerals and agricultural commodities for western manufactures. So Africa’s position in the international economy, particularly as a producer of primary products for industrialised countries, should not be blamed solely on colonialism. It is largely a function of unequal development.

 

'Real or false Independence?'

 

Many African nationalists and critics of colonialism see the independence gained from the withdrawing colonial powers as only partial liberation. Some call it ‘false independence’. Full or real freedom, they believe, will come with economic independence. African nations are said to be currently in a phase of neo-colonialism - a new form of imperial rule stage managed by the colonial powers to give the colonised the illusion of freedom. At the 1961 All-African People’s Conference held in Cairo neo-colonialism was defined as "the survival of the colonial system in spite of the formal recognition of political independence in emerging countries which become the victims of an indirect and subtle form of domination by political, economic, social, military or technical means."

 

The implication is that western powers still control African nations whose rulers are either willing puppets or involuntary subordinate of these powers. The main economic theories supporting the neo-colonialism concept come from the dependency school developed in the late 1950s by Marxist economists who initially focused on Latin America. According to them poor countries are satellites of developed nations because their economies were structured to serve international capitalism. The natural resources of the satellites are exploited for use in the centre. The means of production are owned by foreign corporations who employ various means to transfer profits out of the country rather than invest them in the local economy. So what these countries experience is the ‘development of underdevelopment’. The unequal relations between developed and underdeveloped countries make economic progress impossible for the latter until they break economic links with international capitalism. Only by becoming socialist can they hope to develop their economies. Some theorists went further to postulate that revolution in dependent countries would not be enough because of the structure of world capitalism made any national development impossible. Only the ending of capitalism at the centre would permit underdeveloped nations to achieve development. As desirable as it would be for African nations and indeed the world to become socialist, the experiences of former Third World nations that have transformed into advanced economies, made the generalisations of the dependency school less credible in the 1990s.

 

However, there is still the tendency to view post-fifteenth century African history solely in terms of the continent’s subjugation by western nations. History is discerned as a plot; a cut and dry conspiracy by white nations to keep black peoples subordinated. Grey areas are overlooked. African involvement in the making of their own societies is discounted in favour of a view that focuses on outsiders as the active element.

 

Blaming all of Africa’s problems on colonialism and the machination of neo-colonialists strikes a cord with many educated Africans angry at the west because of its historical humiliation and exploitation of their continent. Western-bashing also plays on the guilt of white liberals who are happy to bear the burden of the historic sins of their ruling classes. Some right wing whites, still regretting the end of the Empire, may be flattered by it because it acknowledges the all-embracing supremacy of the white man.

 

Simple clear cut ‘them and us’ explanations of complex developments are rarely helpful. Focusing on imperialism has drawn attention away from internal forces that are crucial to the understanding of the African condition and which, unlike external demons, can be changed ordinary Africans. At every Organisation of African Unity summit African leaders and ministers who have looted their nations’ coffers are applauded for speeches that mix cries against regional marginalisation and criticism of the IMF with insincere pleas for African unity and calls for debt forgiveness. Not so long ago these reactionary leaders only had to spice their speeches with some anti-imperialist rhetoric to be acclaimed at home and abroad as defenders of their people. It took little effort for reactionary leaders to sell themselves to their own people and to liberals in the West as representatives for the oppressed. There was an expectation that leaders from the Third World would by the fact that they were from the oppressed be radical in their vision for their people and indeed the world. It was somewhat similar to the popular perception of the black nationalist movement in the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s. As long as black nationalists verbally attacked whites, they qualified as militants. It did not seem to matter that some of these so-called black radicals were reactionary in relation to other social groups, including abusing black women. A few were down right crooks who exploited poor blacks and for whom politics was merely an opportunity for individual gain.

 

The fatalistic view that Africa is caught in a neo-colonial straitjacket has hampered the growth of popular political movements for social and economic change in the continent. The message often implied by people who stress external causes of underdevelopment is that nations must endure poverty until there is a revolution that pulls them out of the international capitalist orbit. If African nations are trapped in underdevelopment, there appears to be little point in seeking internal change. This pessimism perhaps helps to explain why few political movements in Africa campaign for fundamental social and economic transformation. Opposition and pro-democracy groups tend to limit themselves to condemning state corruption and human rights abuses.

 

At independence former colonies became free nations, able to chart for themselves whatever course they had the ability and determination to follow. They could have, as some did, nationalise foreign owned corporations. They could have stopped primary commodity exports and ended imports from the West. Of course, such radical policies would have consequences. But these were more likely to have involved the elite losing the benefits of foreign aid than Western powers sending in gunboats to kill ordinary Africans. If Cuba, only a few kilometres from the capitalist mega-power, the U.S., could pursue an independent economic agenda and survive, there is no reason why African nations could not have done the same. They did not because it was not in the interest of their rulers to do so and not because they were shackled by neo-colonialism.

 

Integration into global market

 

The prime legacy of colonialism was the integration of colonies into the international capitalist economy. The main force keeping economies in the global system and sustaining imperialism is the market itself. For people with the means to pay the market is a very seductive place, offering everything and anything. It enables African elites to consume products of western civilisation without having to go through the difficult and long-term process of building the productive base of their societies. It is far easier to shop in the global market than try to build industries yourself.

 

When considering the economic conditions of people in the world it is useful to think of them as belonging to different layers in the global pyramid. At the bottom are the absolute poor, the majority of humanity who are too impoverished to participate fully in the economic, cultural and political life of their society. At the apex of the pyramid is a tiny minority of super-rich. In between are layers of people of varying degrees of wealth and access to local markets and the global economy. The richest fifth of the world’s population consumes more than eighty per cent of global wealth. Most Africans are in the bottom fifth, consuming less than 1.5 per cent of global wealth. There are a few African elites among the top fifth and many more are scrambling to get there.

 

The wealth pyramid is a better way of considering income distribution than seeing it strictly in national terms. For instance, to say that Nigeria is poor because its GDP per capita income is less than $300 per annum says nothing about the affluence of the country's rich minority that feed off its resources to maintain its position high on the global pyramid.

 

Africa’s poor gained little or nothing from colonialism. But its elites bloomed as a result of it. They were given a ladder to climb the global pyramid. African millionaires who today live on the upper layers of the pyramid with bank accounts in Western capitals, certainly owe their fortune to colonialism. Without opportunities created by the linking of Africa to the western world, it is unlikely that indigenous ruling classes would have catapulted themselves from pre-capitalist levels of wealth to modern bourgeoisie affluence. So the answer to the often posed question, ‘did Africans benefit from colonialism’ is, the elites definitely gained while the poor majority did not.

 

Having tasted life as consumers in the international market, African elites became ardent believers in the global economy. Imperial powers no longer needed to administer their colonies, at least not for reasons of economics. Local ruling classes would out of their own volition keep their nations in the market and direct the bulk of their national resources and capital to the west.

 

The strength of the global market is its attractiveness to classes of men and women who have the wealth to participate in it. For the wealthy, the market offers the means to realise all material dreams. For those who aspire to become rich, it is the "open sesame". The market is an alluring, even corrupting force that requires strong ideological or moral commitment to resist. It was its appeal that eventually subverted socialist regimes in the former Eastern Bloc and is now transforming China. Much of the trouble in Africa today stems from a scramble to climb the global pyramid.

 

The idea of progress

 

The most subversive act of colonialism was to introduce into the minds of Africans and peoples of other pre-capitalist societies the idea that material progress and prosperity were possible for the masses of people. Ordinary people in pre-colonial times assumed that their material conditions were fixed. A good harvest may provide a few more yams to eat but the idea that living conditions could be fundamentally altered was alien. The prospect that rather than trek miles to fetch water, running water could be piped into homes was unknown. With colonialism came the idea of progress - that humanity is capable of improving its condition of existence - today can be better than yesterday and tomorrow better than today. After or even before people’s basic needs are met, there is an endless world of consumer products and services for self-satisfaction. Africans learnt that they live in a world that offers a variety of experiences that were beyond their wildest dreams. Like people elsewhere in the world, they want what the West has.

 

More than anything else, it has been peoples’ desire for material improvement and wealth that has given western civilisation its overwhelming strength. Its main power has not come from its armies or colonial administrators or even its multi-national corporation bosses. It is the simple fact that most people in the world believe in material progress and desire most of the things the West has to offer. Coca cola sells in 200 countries and the brand is recognised by the majority of humanity not because it was physically forced upon the world but because through the power of advertising people have taken the drink as a symbol of progress and modernisation and of course many people like the sugary elixir.

 

It was the allure of modernity, with its promise of greater material self-fulfilment, that subverted African societies during colonialism. It was not the handful of European troops sent to conquer and maintain colonial order that was irresistible, but the power western materialism. Subjugated Africans may not have liked the arrogance of the colonisers, but they wanted the civilisation that the Europeans had to offer.

 

Virtually every nation in the world, whether colonised or not, has had to deal with western hegemony. Antonio Gramsci defined hegemony as an order in which a certain way of life and thought is dominant and one concept of reality prevails throughout society. The dominant ideology permeates every facet of human existence - taste, morality, customs, religious and political principles. Since the nineteenth century the West has defined human development and set the pace of change which others have followed. The West has not imposed its will on the world by force but by the sheer attractiveness of its civilisation and the belief in the desirability of material progress and prosperity. It is able get people in other nations to desire what it desires and thereby manipulates their aspirations. This is the bedrock of imperialism. It is what enables it to control and use the resources of underdeveloped nations in a manner advantageous to the developed nations and at the expense of the economies of underdeveloped countries.

 

The dilemma facing Africans is how to deal with the overwhelming presence and power of western civilisation. If the desire of Africans for modern facilities - electricity, pipe borne water, cars, modern medicine, television etc., is legitimate, then we should accept the position of 19th century evolutionists that western civilisation is of a higher material order to African civilisation. It is able to meet the new aspirations of Africans, which traditional society cannot. Putting aside for a moment the physical unpleasantness of colonialism, it can be argue that its failing was not to have sufficiently transformed African society and laid solid foundations for modernisation. It introduced the idea of material progress, but did not give people the tools to build the new civilisation that would enable them to realise their new dreams. Africans came through the colonial experience full of desire for modernity but without the wherewithal to create the coveted civilisation. Besides the shortage of skills and infrastructure, Africans lacked an appreciation of the total and complex nature of the transformation from simple agrarian society to modern technological civilisation. Having blamed Africa's material backwardness on colonialism, independence African thinkers and leaders believed that the removal of the external force would automatically result in modern development. There was little understanding that modernisation required radical internal changes.

 

Modernisation requires internal changes

 

The 19th century German philosopher Karl Marx thought imperialism could play a progressive role by creating in underdeveloped countries the basis for a similar process of industrialisation that took place in the West. He thought that colonial powers should destroy primitive pre-capitalist cultures and lay the material foundation for modern western society. For Marx all societies were destined to be like Europe. "The country that is more developed industrially only shows to the less developed, the image of its own future," he wrote. Some African nationalists accuse Marx of ethnocentrism. These nationalists do not understand that modernisation is as much a cultural phenomenon as a technological achievement. Marx was correct - it is impossible for a pre-industrial culture to create and sustain an industrial civilisation.

 

The idea that societies head in the same general direction seems proven by the development of the global economy. Nations that have made economic progress have irrespective of ideology, undergone similar processes. Development has involved capital accumulation, industrialisation, the transformation of productive forces through machine technology and the introduction of factory systems of production. It entailed urbanisation, the rationalisation of thought and changes in social beliefs and institutions, including family life. Investment in physical and human capital has been indispensable. In all developed countries, the economy was given primacy in the political system. Perhaps most importantly, development has been underpinned by certain values, including efficiency, hard work, precision, honesty, punctuality, thrift, obligation to one’s duty and wealth creation. All modernisation involved a move away from traditionalism

 

There have been differences in the methods of organisation adopted by modernising nations. Under socialism, the means of production were state-owned and emphasis placed on ideology in the mobilisation of workers as against private ownership and wage labour under capitalism. Nevertheless, both socialists and capitalists followed the same fundamental steps to economic development. "Development" said the American economist J.K. Galbraith "is the faithful imitation of the developed."

 

African nationalists find this basic idea difficult to accept. Despite the failure of African Socialism there remains a belief among some African thinkers and writers that there is an African way to development that is different from the European path. No one has been able to describe this African way in any detail. However, the search for an African model continues. Some liberal western writers have supported the notion that Africa is a special case and not subject to the laws that govern societies in other regions of the world. British economist Michael Barratt Brown in his book ‘Africa’s Choices’ said his old friend Basil Davidson had in his book ‘The Black Man’s Burden: Africa and the Curse of the Nation-State’ given him a clue to the explanation of Africa’s development problem. "African society was different and apparently immune to economic rationality which is the basic assumption of European political economy," said Brown. I am not sure how Davidson shows Africa’s immunity from economic rationality. In his book Davidson argued that Africa’s crisis is due to it being forced by colonialism to abandon its traditional systems and values for unsuitable western institutions. Brown also quotes several African writers who believe that an African way to development exists. They included Hassan Zaoual of Morocco who wrote "The African model exists and is alive but it is not a model of economic rationality."

 

I do not know how economic non-rationality can possibly result in development, which occurs in the material world and not the spiritual domain. Development is not abstract art, where any combination of brush strokes and colours can pass as a completed picture. What we have seen in Africa is a tragedy in which intellectual opposition to the West has prevented African thinkers from developing a coherent ideology for change. Ironically, in its penchant to criticise colonialism and defend the integrity of traditional African society, African political and economic thought has been trapped by its own myths.

 

The search for an alternative model continues, but it is unlikely that one will be found. It is an uncomfortable truth that if the objective is to improve the material conditions of the people, then most of the institutions and values introduced into Africa during colonialism are more conducive to modernisation than are many traditional ones. Modern institutions and principles such as representative democracy, judiciary, banking, factories, provide more effective means for meeting the new desires of Africans than what existed in pre-colonial societies. Every society, whether capitalist or socialist, that has developed has used the same set of institutions. What differentiate modern societies are the ethics and rules applied in the operation of the institutions. Leaving aside variances in ideology and cultural style, there is a single modern civilisation in the world. The same features of this civilisation exist in every nation that has modernised. Similarly, values that are venerated in modern nations are alike. They include, efficiency, innovation, inquisitiveness and time-keeping. Even social customs are similar. For instance, monogamy, women’s rights, individual freedom are the accepted standard in most societies.

 

Nineteenth century evolutionists may have been correct. Nations have evolved to share the same civilisation. In the move to the new way of life modern nations left behind pre-industrial institutions, customs and beliefs. So where does this leave us in terms of evaluating the impact of colonialism? European powers had no right to exploit Africans and impose their culture on other people. But having been drawn into a more advanced civilisation Africans and other non-westerners have to master the new civilisation to strengthen themselves and benefit from the advantages.

 

Tunde Obadina is director of Africa Business Information Services

[SOO MAAL]

Christian African’s views

 

INTERVIEW: AFRICA'S CHALLENGES

 

 

Mike Chibita of Uganda

 

 

Question: Africa is the real front-line for Christian-Muslim relations in the world, which has become a very important topic since September. In some African countries the two religions seem to be able to get along, but in others, such as Nigeria, there is serious conflict and violence. What do you see as the future of Christian-Muslim relations in Africa?

 

 

Mike Chibita: Some have observed that where Muslims are in the minority, they try to get along, but when they are the majority, as in northern Nigeria, they try to assert themselves aggressively. The situation here in Uganda has been cordial. As a Christian, I have some very good friends who are devout Muslims. We have both realized that we cannot win each other over so we try to highlight our similarities rather than our differences. We respect each other's faith and move on. We are professionals who try to put issues in perspective.

 

 

The future therefore would be much brighter if both sides emphasized education for their people and if people moved from their cocoons and made the effort to know each other better. Of course confrontational methods of winning converts from each others' camp do not help the situation. We can talk of lessening the tension but a total resolution might not be possible in our lifetime.

 

 

Q: Despite many dictatorial regimes and the volatile mix of religions, including native animism, religious liberty seems to have a pretty good record in Africa. Would you agree with this? If so, why is this?

 

 

Chibita: I have observed that Africans are greatly spiritual people, for better or for worse. They believe in one kind of spirit or another. Therefore it becomes difficult to restrict these expressions, as they are a way of life. Even when Idi Amin banned a number of Christian denominations here in Uganda, he had to allow several others to operate. Otherwise a total restriction of religious liberty would pose a very difficult problem of enforcement and adherence. Yes, on the whole, apart from a few countries dominated by Islam, Africa has a good track record on religious liberty.

 

 

Q: Tribal and ethnic tensions seem to constitute a much larger danger in Africa, e.g., the Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda. What creates these deep tribal hatreds and what can be done to alleviate it?

 

 

Chibita: It should be noted that the Tutsi and Hutu speak one language and are one tribe. So are the groups in Somalia. They are even one religion. I cannot pretend to have the answer to this. I was talking to a friend from Rwanda and he said the major problem is mistrust. However much they try they just cannot bring themselves to trust each other. Previously, the Tutsis were rulers over the Hutu. With colonialism this traditional balance was upset. The kingdom was overturned, the Hutus took over and forced the Tutsis out of the country. The Hutus therefore fear the Tutsis may dominate them again while the Tutsis fear that the Hutus will always try to annihilate them, given the opportunity. Power-sharing and the true practice of Christianity should be able to help alleviate these hatreds. this would help rid people of superiority and inferiority complexes so that they see themselves and others as equal before God. But ethnic and tribal rivalries are not unique to Africa.

 

 

Q: It is often said that official corruption in many African countries is at near epidemic levels and harms both the national economy (such as Mobutu's looting of Zaire) and affects the morale of citizens. What are your thoughts on this?

 

 

Chibita: Of course corruption anywhere, whether official or not, is a great vice that undermines development. Unfortunately most of the money accumulated by corrupt officials ends up in Western banks, and it never gets returned to Africa if these people, like Mobutu or Sani Abacha of Nigeria die. The other unfortunate thing is that some of the international bodies working in these countries themselves promote these corrupt tendencies, which makes the corruption cycle even more complex. Again true Christianity has proved that corruption can be resisted and that ill-gotten wealth does not pay.

 

 

Q: Related to official corruption is the "big man" problem, namely that many African nations have been ruled by ruthless dictators, often military strongmen. Idi Amin is of course the most notorious, but there have been many others. What causes this? Is it an inherent part of the older African tribal structures?

 

 

Chibita: There are three major explanations for this. One is that most African countries were once kingdoms ruled by kings. The people are therefore used to giving allegiance to a royal figure. The "big man" fills that vacuum. Secondly, this kind of situation thrives where illiteracy levels are high. People's ability to make independent decisions are greatly hampered; hence they have to follow what the big man says. Thirdly poverty leads to people to look towards the one man who can solve their material problems. After all, political power usually comes with economic power. Illiteracy and poverty inevitably breed subservience and subservience breeds dictatorship.

 

 

Q: South Africa has done a good job under Bishop Tutu with their process of national reconciliation. Do you think that that is a good and workable model for other African nations?

 

 

Chibita: The South African model definitely has very much to recommend it. However, figures of such stature as Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Tutu have to be present on the national scene for such a miraculous solution to occur.

 

 

Q: When one thinks about Zimbabwe and South Africa, the difficult legacy of European colonialism of course comes up. So many of modern Africa's problems are a result of colonial rule. In what ways have colonialism hurt Africa - and did it have any positive effects? Also, how can the old European masters - today's modern and liberal European community, help Africa now?

 

 

Chibita: Colonialism had some positive aspects. Languages, like English and French, have unified tribes which would otherwise not be able to communicate with each other. I speak to my wife in English. Education is another positive legacy of colonialism and in developing the infrastructure of some countries.

 

 

The major wound that colonialism inflicted upon Africa was the senseless demarcation of the continent into small political divisions and the resultant disruption of existing political systems. The introduction of a dependent economy based on selected cash crops, the slave trade and the plundering of African resources were of course also very harmful. The old colonial powers have an obligation - for their own good as well - to help Africa now. We have seen how refugees and other exiles can overwhelm one country, coming from another which is deprived. Also, Africa has a lot to offer in terms of resources, trade and other areas of cooperation. If Europe doesn't do more, then perhaps China or other nations will help Africa to pull through. How then will Europe be able to come in later to cooperate when they didn't help us in our hour of need? It should not be looked at as an obligation but rather as a new partnership that is essential in the global village.

 

 

How can such help be extended? There are many ways, but I will just touch on micro-finance. I sit on the Board of a Christian micro- finance agency called Faulu. It gives out small loans of about $50 to small enterprises. These loans are able to transform many people's lives in a very basic way. The challenge for Faulu is that there is no steady source of grants, or loans at affordable interest rates from which to borrow and lend. These small loans reach deep into the villages and help the really needy people to move out of poverty. This is just one way of engaging, but there are also so many schools, health centers are other areas where an impact can be felt. Europe and indeed the rest of the world have to make up their minds whether to be involved with Africa for better or for worse or to forever leave the continent alone. otherwise a selective engagement cannot work.