Reflections on the Annals of Neocolonialism a Record of Post-Colonialism in Africa and the Challenges Ahead
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Reflections on the Annals of Neocolonialism A Record of Post-Colonialism in Africa and the Challenges Ahead. Keynote Address to the, International and Multi-Disciplinary Colloquium on “Independence and Future Prospects in Sub-Sahara Africa.” 1st – 5th August 2010. Yamoussoukro, Cote d‟Ivoire Kwesi Kwaa Prah, Centre for Advanced Studies of African Society (CASAS) Cape Town Introduction A half-century of post-colonialism is a good point in time to take stock. The era was ushered in with hubristic euphoria, vaulting ambitions and great expectations. Many of us believed too easily that with a little bit of effort, Africans were going to confidently develop and eminently prosper. Noticeably, each state that has emerged in the independence era has been accompanied in the initial years with the same type of ethos of rising expectations. In each country, we have believed almost without fail that we will succeed where others have failed; that our specific case is unique; we will therefore triumph where others have floundered. A decade or a little more, down the road, our increasing failures teach us otherwise. Indeed, the visible and shabby record of a half- century of post-colonialism has largely proven that we have been excessively optimistic. Our opening assumptions were unfounded; we had therefore grossly misread and misinterpreted our realities. With the benefit of hindsight we can say that, it was optimism without sagacity; a putative surge forward without a plausible or well- considered game plan. Today, about a third of people in Sub-Saharan Africa survive on less than one dollar per day. A third of the African population – suffer from malnutrition. During the 1990s, the average income per capita decreased in 20 African countries. Less than 50% of Africa‟s population have access to hospitals or doctors and even when and where they have, they cannot afford the cost of medicines. Over half of Africans do not have access to safe drinking water. The average life expectancy in Africa is 41 years. Only 57% of African children are enrolled in primary education, and only one of three children complete school. One in six African children dies before the age of 5. This figure for sub-Saharan Africa is 25 times higher than in the OECD countries. Children account for half of all civilian casualties in wars in Africa. It is estimated that the HIV/AIDS pandemic has killed more than 20 million people. Of this number over 3 million were children. More than 25 million adults are currently infected. This in turn will result in the steady increase in the number of orphaned children. Each year, malaria kills more than a million people worldwide; 90 percent of them in Africa; 70 percent children under the age of five. The 1 African continent lost more than 5,3 million hectares of forest during the decade of the 1990s. This relentless denudation of our forests continues. Less than one person out of five has electricity. For every 1.000 inhabitants only 15 have a telephone line, and only 8 persons out of 1.000 people have access to the Internet. These indicators are chilling and benumbing. Admittedly, some progress has been made in a number of areas of African life and society. In education and infrastructure some headway, often limited and patchy, have been effectuated. We definitely have more roads than we have ever had and the numbers that have passed through formal education are in many instances remarkable. However, in this latter case one may want to question the relevance of the education that we receive. Increasingly many want to argue that it is more mis-education than education; education which in effect alienates us rather than empowers us; education which imprisons rather than liberates our creativity as Africans; education which does not build on who we are and what we have, our languages, indigenous knowledge, values and memory. In both form and content, the educational systems we operate do not help us to be able to strategically deal with the problems we face as Africans. In dimensions of social life like health, sanitation, housing and economic growth, the record is in most cases unimpressive. In addition to these problem areas, we have also seen interminable crises especially in politics and social organization. Corruption and endemic kleptocracy have swept through Africa like uncontrollable malignant forms. We can say without fear for controversy that in most African countries, bribery, corrupting relations, looting of the public exchequer, have informally acquired the institutional status of normality. Such practices run through the whole edifice of the social system, from the rich to the poor classes, but led from the front by the acknowledged leaders of our countries. Leaders (and their families) like dos Santos of Angola, Moi of Kenya, Masire of Botswana, Bongo of Gabon, Mobutu of Zaire, Chiluba of Zambia, Rawlings of Ghana, Babangida and Abacha of Nigeria, Taylor of Liberia (indeed the list is extensive) reputedly became inordinately rich while in power; in some cases they became the richest Africans in their countries. Some of their wives in turn became the richest women. Sometimes the ill-gotten wealth spreads into their extended families; The Kenyatta family in Kenya; the Moi family in Kenya; the Museveni family in Uganda; Mugabe‟s family and close kinsmen and women provide example of such instances. These realities are not lost on the general populace. It affects the moral fibre of the whole society. If it is okay for leaders to pilfer in tranquillity why should lesser social elements be more upright, they ask? The greater societal ideals of the 20th and 21st centuries continue to elude us. The principles of democratic practice adapted to our realities are not meaningfully catching on. Societal prerequisites for democracy like tolerance, free speech, free association, free press, transparency and accountability, religious freedom and secularism, human rights, gender equality e.t.c. have not been able to take firm roots in our states. They are 2 rhetorically adhered to but readily transgressed and contravened with contempt whenever it suits the powers that be to disavow these tenets. Kofi Annan somewhere says to good effect that; “one cannot pick and choose among human rights, ignoring some while insisting on others. Only as rights equally applied can they be rights universally accepted. Nor can they be applied selectively or relatively, or as a weapon with which to punish others. Their purity is their eternal strength…” We can make progress only if we substantiate and uphold the culture of respect for human rights. A structural feature which inhibits good and effective governance in Africa is the idea which was built right from the start into the make-up of the postcolonial state; that so- called “national unity” required that all differences of a cultural, linguistic, localist or regional character needed to be discouraged, obstructed and if necessary dissuaded through forceful intervention. African regimes have therefore easily trampled on ethnic, regional, localist sentiments and expression. These latter are in fact part of the African historical and social heritage and are positive or negative depending on how we treat them or what use we make of them. They should be a source of strength. The celebration and acknowledgement of diversity can be a societally enriching factor in Africa, but this depends on how we provide democratic expression to these historical and cultural belongings. A key element in this approach should be decentralization and local control over issues which primarily affect people in their own localities. This indeed, strengthens democracy and allows it to adapt to local institutional usages. The decade running roughly between 1960 and 1970 saw the proliferation of coups and military rule.1 These coups were sudden seizures of state power resulting from rivalries by sections of the elites dominated by the military in direct concert with the bureaucratic elites. Putschists in their political rhetoric use populist moralism to justify their actions, but the real reasons are their contestations over resources. Poor governance practices, authoritarianism, state-sponsored violence, intolerance of political pluralism, corruption, the suppression of opposition and the lack of a free press have also been convenient and frequently used justifications for the military to seize power. In practice, as incumbent ruling groups, they prove to be no better than their predecessors; civilian or military. Africa has in the past half-century seen more military administrations than any other part of the world.2 However, in recent years pressures and sanctions by the metropolitan 1 Congo-Kinshasa, 1960. Togo, January 1963. Congo-Brazzaville, August 1963. Dahomey, December 1963. Gabon, February 1964. Algeria, June 1965.Dahomey; December 1965. Burundi, October 1965.Central Africa Republic, January 1966. Upper Volta, January 1966. Nigeria, January 1966. Ghana, February 1966. Nigeria, July 1966. Burundi, November 1966. Sierra Leone, March 1967. Algeria, December 1967. Sierra Leone, April 1968. Mali, November 1968. Sudan, May 1969. Libya, September 1969, Somalia, October 1969. 2 Algeria (1965-1978; 1992-1994); Benin (1963-1964; 1965-1968; 1969-1970; 1972-1975); Burkina Faso (1966- 1977; 1980-1991); Burundi (1966-1993; 1996-2003); Central African Republic (1966-1979; 1981-1991; 2003- 2005); Chad (1975-1979; 1982-1993); Comoros (1975-1976; 1978; 1999-2002); Democratic Republic of the Congo (1965-1990); Republic of the Congo (1968-1979); Cote d’Ivoire (1999-2000); Egypt (1952-1970); Equatorial Guinea (1979-1987); Ethiopia (1974-1987); The Gambia (1994-1996); Ghana (1966-1969; 1972-1979; 1981-1993); Guinea (1984-1991; 2008-); Guinea Bissau (1980-1984; 2003); Lesotho (1986-1993); Liberia (1980-1984); Libya (1969-present); Madagascar (1972-1989); Mali (1968-1991); Mauritania (1978-1992; 2005-2007; 2008-2009); Niger (1974-1989; 1996-1999; 2010-present); Nigeria (1966-1979; 1983-1989; 1993-1998); Rwanda (1973- 3 powers and the OAU/AU have tended to discourage such options in the interplay of intra-elite rivalries.