Africa must organise itself or let others organise it

IN THIS column I recently pointed out that Africans are set to benefit from an emerging global environment if they remain strategic in how they pursue their interests and as long as they reject being patronised by their Eastern or Western suitors. I must admit, however, that things are a bit more complex. Some cold truths are warranted. Africa will continue to be patronised until it puts its house in order. This means addressing the political and economic ineptitude that threatens to tear whole societies asunder. The extent to which minor political disagreements retain the potential to trigger violence and suck whole communities in is deplorable. However, these are simply the symptoms of internal disorganisation that undermines Africa’s assertion of the right to take charge of its own destiny. It is a deficiency that invites and justifies the conduct of outsiders motivated by a desire to fill the ‘governance deficit.’ To be sure, a number of African countries have been able to establish coherent political and economic thought structures on which programmes and initiatives for improving the social welfare have been crafted and erected. In such countries, an agreed set of guiding principles and policy coherence can be observed, as well as a clear development trajectory. Without this kind of internal organisation, many will find themselves ill-prepared to take advantage of the emerging opportunities. Failure to change course could vindicate the idea that perhaps colonialism ended far too soon for Africans and that someone should come and put things in order. Thereafter is the issue of self-definition and how Africans wish the rest of the world to perceive them. This is a question of a value system to which a people subscribe. One can argue that the inability to organise internally implies an inadequacy in the values that guide present action and also myopia regarding the future. This suggests that the whole East-West debate is about whose value systems should prevail. For us, it appears we are neither sure about what our values should be nor whose values we want to mimic and claim as ours. Such circumstances point to the reality that what matters is that Africa is organised enough to take advantage of the opportunities either side offers without distancing itself from the other. This attitude prepares us for the observation that our debilitating poverty points us to the East for inspiration. According to World Bank figures, socioeconomic progress in East Asia over the past three decades saw people living in extreme poverty (defined as living less than $1.25 per day and adjusted to inflation) dramatically reduce from 77 per cent to 14 per cent from 1981 to 2008. For many of us, therefore, the story that poverty can be escaped is best told by the countries in the East whose most recent experience allows us to identify with them as we respond to perhaps the most pressing need of our time. Thus, pragmatism makes the East a very attractive suitor. And the West can be as attractive. We go way back. With the gospel that touches the hearts and massages the mind of many Africans, this has been a suitor who simply knows how to say all the right things. Some of these are just too good to pass: democracy, human rights, freedom. True, we see less tangible things when we look West than when we look East. However, the truth is that if we didn’t find them attractive we would not glance there in the first place. Because we go far back, the West has developed much more sophisticated methods to lure us, some of which act like megaphones for transmitting a song that eventually becomes catchy: USAID, DFID, McDonalds, Coca Cola, and Hip-pop music. As noted, the West always had an upper hand because of what we perceived as the power of their convictions. However, something happened over the past decade and a half or so that made us question the extent to which they are committed to the things they are promising us. American exceptionalism was sacrificed at the altar of the War on Terror. What was lost was the claim that the United States, as the ‘leader of the free world’ has moral authority over everyone else and that this gives it legitimacy to police the rest of the world. It is an argument that was greatly undermined by the War on Terror through questionable conduct whereby allegations of inhumane treatment of prisoners and the use of torture methods, such as water-boarding, to induce confession from suspected terrorists were confirmed. Our suitors have dimples and warts. Neither we nor they are perfect. However, present circumstances dictate that unless Africa organises itself, it will remain exposed to continued exploitation from the West or to new would be exploiters of the East.

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Africa must organise itself or let others organise it