It’s the contradictions that get you down in the end — the extreme contradictions in this space that is Africa. I have been hanging around in Abidjan for a week, wondering when this conference is going to kick into gear. It is another in a long series of conferences about Africa’s future, a debate about where we are going as we head into the uncharted John
waters of the 21st century and the Third Millennium.
The contradictions rage both inside and outside the conference chamber. Outside, poverty, desperation, the scars of an all-too-recent and inconclusive civil war. Inside, our elite group of intellectuals, scientists, lawyers and predominantly, of course, people who have made their careers out of attending conferences about Africa’s future. This is the NGO gang, comfortably supported by sinecures at the African Union and the various agencies the United Nations has managed to create to keep itself in business since the end of World War II. They make the same speeches at every conference –dignified, indignant and ineffectual.
One or two of them have the decency to recognise themselves for what they are. “I am sometimes amazed,” says an Ethiopian delegate, “when I realise that I have been working in the field of African development since 1962 and find myself, 40 years later, still making speeches and seeing no development on the African continent. What have we actually been doing all these years?”
His is a rare and refreshing voice (even if those noble sentiments do not prevent him from enjoying the perks of business-class travel and the luxurious lifestyle that goes with NGO territory). Most of the rest is self-congratulating bluster, which some brave individual has to go out on a limb and cut through from time to time in order to try to make a serious point.
The truth, though, is that almost every point made about the condition of the African continent is serious, even when it has become banal through endless repetition. The fiercely bearded man from Equatorial Guinea makes the point that “in Africa, it is easier to buy a gun than to buy bread these days”. He nods at his own wisdom. Most delegates are listening politely, or dozing impolitely, waiting their turn to make their own banal repetitions of the obvious.
But you snooze through a statement like that at your peril. A continent that is not in a position to produce reliable supplies of flour, and yet has handguns and AK-47s cheaply available amid the appalling desperation of its shabbiest shanty towns, is a continent that is in trouble indeed.
The same man makes another point during his 15 minutes of fame on centre stage: “The whole world closes its doors against Africans,” he says, “and yet Africa’s doors are open to the whole world. How can this be?”
This is another banal truth. But if you have been a black African in an endless queue at the visa section of a European embassy or have lived through a grilling at a European or American airport (in spite of having a clean passport and impeccable credentials) you know where he’s coming from.
At the same time, you cannot help but notice how the continent’s stupendous natural resources seem to slip through its fingers and sail away to the other side of the world, day in and day out, to be reimported sometime later as finished products at impossible prices. And then you have to deal with impossible debt.
At this conference, as in most conferences, we are a mostly male crowd. We sit in our inappropriate suits in an inappropriately air-conditioned, windowless room without natural light. We could be anywhere in the world.
We rail against the plight of Africa’s women and children. But when it comes to doing something about it, we fall back on tradition — or what we have persuaded ourselves is tradition, which is actually reactionary guff that would never have been allowed to see the light of day in a self-respecting society — not even in ancient Africa.
For example: I have been drafted on to the report-back group that is supposed to pull together the gist of our deliberations into comprehensible and, preferably, attractive language. After all, we want the world to know that we are serious and decent people who are capable of delivering viable solutions. That’s why they spent all this money to bring us together for another conference about viable African solutions.
Almost immediately, the report-back group begins to fall apart. It is hard to find agreement about what we have agreed on in the plenary sessions. But what really causes hell is when the leader of our sub-group, a professor of law from Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, insists on including a paragraph on the rights of women and children in our final manifesto.
“Madam, this is quite unnecessary,” interrupts a vocal priest from one of the smaller, voodoo-oriented West African states. “We have not been discussing women and children. In any case, women and children are automatically included within the category of human beings.”
“Monsieur,” the professor retorts, “I have been sitting through meetings like this for I don’t know how many years, and have seen no progress in the condition of women and children on this continent. I don’t see what your objection is, anyway.”
The priest is on his feet, threatening to walk out of the room.
“You don’t have to tell me about women,” he says. “I have five sisters.”
“Then you will recognise,” says madame la juriste, “that women make up the majority in Africa and in the world. Which is why I say it is essential that our voice should be heard.”
A spirit of hostility, rather than unity, is thickly palpable in the windowless room. Once again, a sense of direction is slipping out of our hands.
We take a break. We produce a final document that is scornfully torn apart by the plenary. We have a sumptuous closing dinner and disperse.
Another African conference has come and gone.
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