Godfrey Mutisya Crossfire
The United States of Africa is becoming a buzzword across the continent in a manner reminiscent of classical pan-Africanism. A significant number of academics, politicians, journalists and political activists seem convinced that the current political and economic conflicts, poverty and endemic crisis of democracy and governance are evidence that the post- colonial state is not sustainable. The plight of the poor and the luxury of the wealthy in Africa are well documented. The loss of so-called independence to the institutions of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, especially from the early 1980s, also speaks volumes about the nature and character of the post-colonial state in Africa. Extreme forms of poverty are worsened by the Aids pandemic, malaria and other diseases. But the debate does not end there. As Mwayile Tshiyembe has recently argued in the Mail & Guardian (“Would a United States of Africa work?”, October 13 to 19), we are too quick to criticise and mourn, yet we hardly suggest alternatives to the territorial post-colonial state. The post-colonial state is an imposed, exploitative, oppressive and undesirable alien state. It is an alien rule designed to serve the interests of small groups of Western-educated elites. The Western notions of a political community are irreconcilable with the traditional moral anchors of political participation and authority. But it is a fact that if Africa is to come out of its present political, social and economic quagmires in the era of globalisation, it must get rid of post- colonial governing structures and systems. Pre-colonial Africa was culturally diverse with some communities preferring to stay without a central authority for various reasons. Others had central authority, which did not perform the role of a modern state. A nation therefore was not a legal entity characterised by a relatively stable population, defined territory and a government in effective control. Cultural boundaries were imaginary and people could cross them, as the social and economic needs of the people required. The Berlin Conference of 1884/1885 partitioned Africa into European spheres of influence followed by effective occupation, with the result that different nations were put together within the territorial state. This is in contradiction to the sociological pre-colonial nation. To make it easier for the colonisers to rule, a new ideology of tribalism, as Archie Mafeje calls it, was introduced. The results were predictable from the outset. Genocides, border wars, national liberation wars and secession wars, to name just a few. While Africans fought among themselves, the colonial powers focused on research to identify where natural resources were and how best they could be utilised, with native labour of course. Colonial rule worked at two fronts. At the political level, colonial education, a monopoly of the missionaries, was introduced and within a decade emerged the African elite, missionary- and Western- educated who eventually inherited the post- colonial state in “toto”. Masses, most of them illiterate by Western standards but wise traditionally and full of self- confidence, supported the new emerging African elite. The result: the elite captured the state and the state captured the elite. The new elites, under the false ideology of nationalism, turned against the masses and imposed standard constitutions based on the metropolitan model, education, law and economics. The drive for “African renaissance” is a desirable and positive development. However, it is rooted on the wrong assumption that the post-colonial state can be transformed to take an African form. By contrast, the United States of Africa vision should stress ethnicity as a positive development and its diverse cultures as supportive structures. This will ensure self-confidence and boost cultural affirmation. The post-colonial state, which thrives through a foreign ideology of law and order, will have to renegotiate a new political space within a new framework. While Tshiyembe is advocating a multinational state in the political sense, a traditional African state in the economic sense would be a viable option. Having resolved the political question, the economic factor perhaps is the overlooked question when people discuss the “African renaissance”. First, the governing structures are supposed to ensure that wealth of the continent is produced and shared equitably. Rulers thrive on the productivity of the citizen through taxes and innovation to generate wealth. The ruled produce and the rulers appropriate. It is not, therefore, surprising that the post-colonial state has remained a tool for doing business, not with the citizens, but the international investors. Official and secret business deals are a hallmark of political conflicts in Africa. It is not by coincidence that the people are the enemies of development, though there is none to show after more than 30 years.
Colonialism is a long-term project. The administration record of African leadership over the past 30 years has been dismal. Almost all leaders in Africa are proto- nationalists, primarily concerned with imperial domination without resolving the national and the continental question. By electing to inherit the post-colonial state, whether through popular mandate or otherwise, an African leader carries a tag of continuity or as a colleague calls it, you choose to carry a crown without the jewels. In a word, such a leader is compelled to be a problem to the continent. With time, you mature and graduate into a firefighter across the continent. In addition, one inherits national debts and shame. Therefore, can “African renaissance” be achieved within the post-colonial nationalist framework? The answer is no. Colonialism had many objectives and the most enduring is economic domination and subjugation, not of nations alone, but also the people who were involved in actual production of wealth. In the era of globalisation and renaissance, the battlefields are economic and cultural in nature. We have been responding to globalisation and crisis of the postcolonial state through regional integration, democratisation and cultural revivalism. But regional integration is supposed to deliver what the leadership has failed to deliver at the political level, the unification of their tiny national economies. Cultural renaissance is, of course, correlated to economic renaissance or vice versa. It is also supposed to guard against harmonisation of trade policies and continental currencies forcefully pegged to the United States dollar.
Even more importantly, who is integrating with whom? In Africa the formal economy is in the hands of either the state or the multinational corporations. The state seeks largely to maximise profits to meet its international debt obligations, while multinational corporations want to control natural resources for the benefit of their home countries. The common denominator is that both focus on the economy of growth. Economic growth is not the same as social development. If, then, “African renaissance” is state-driven, how do we stop the elite from doing what they have traditionally thrived and perfected over time: stealing from the masses and handing over resources to fellow elites, sometimes behind peoples’ backs, or through naked use of force. For the notions of a United States of Africa, African Union or “African renaissance” to work, we must first resolve class contradiction, elite manipulation, debt crisis, economic injustice and democratisation with justice. The idea of Tshiyembe is a positive move in the right direction but concrete economic issues remain unresolved. Godfrey Mutisya is a researcher at the Africa Institute of South Africa