A PAPER PRESENTED TO INTERNATIONAL NEGOTIATIONS SEMINAR
MAY 30, 2007
THE LANCASTER HOUSE NEGOTIATIONS: A GAME, LEADERSHIP, AND POWER- THEORETIC ANALYSIS.
Theoretical Framework
The intent of this paper is to extend theory and provide tools for analyzing the complexities of the Lancaster House negotiations. Coalition theory, decision theory, game theory, and leadership theory are each applied to the negotiations leading to the independence of Zimbabwe. Definitions of most concepts in Social Sciences are disputed, that holds also true for negotiations. There is no common and shared definition of what a negotiation is. Zartman(1994) defines negotiation as a “process of combining conflicting positions into a common position under a decision rule of unanimity, a phenomenon in which the outcome is determined by the process”(p.15).
However, most theories of negotiations share the notion of negotiations as a process. Yet, they differ in their description of a process. Structural Analysis considers this process to be a power game. Strategic analysis thinks of it as a repetition game (Game Theory). Integrative Analysis prefers the more intuitive notion of process, in which negotiations undergo successive stages, e.g. pre-negotiation, stalemate, settlement. Especially structural, strategic and processual analysis build on rational actors, who are able to prioritize clear goals, are able to make trade-offs between conflicting values, are consistent in their behavioral pattern, and are able to take uncertainty into account( Watkins et al, 2001, pp. xvii-xxi).
Domestic Parties to the Dispute
Ending a civil war is usually difficult. Organizational inertia, tunnel vision, thinking, and miscommunication all work against early reconciliation and make cooperation difficult. Once fighting begins, plans are set in motion and attitudes toward the enemy become fixed in ways that are not easily reversible (Walter, 1997, p.336). Even if opponents agree to negotiate, they still face the risks and uncertainties of cooperation difficult. Will an opponent fulfill its side of the agreement? Or will the compromise itself turn out an inherently bad deal? Civil wars do not end up with some type of explicit settlement. Current explanations claim that power asymmetries, indivisible stakes, bargaining difficulties, opposing identities make settlement in civil wars nearly impossible.
In Rhodesia, successive white settler colonial leaders, including Ian Smith, repeatedly rejected power-sharing solutions from 1976. The October 1976 All-Party Geneva Conference on Rhodesia mediated by U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger and John Vorster failed to achieve the goal of power-sharing. The so-called internal settlement of March 3, 1978, the Rhodesian Front own attempt to come to terms with the black majority without the Patriotic Front of Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe, reached an agreement on granting one person one vote but interests of the white settlers were protected. Thus, it gave the White population 28 of the 100 seats in parliament, a blocking fourth for constitutional change under the new constitution. In addition, control over public service, police and defense forces remained on white hands , preserving the power to undemocratically alter policy outcomes ex post facto.
Habeeb(1998) has developed a power theory that applies to the issue under discussion in this study. Based on the conceptual framework, Habeeb develops a theory that presumes that the process and outcome of any asymmetrical negotiation is essentially determined by the dynamic changes in the balance of issue-specific power. Whereas aggregate structural power(which essentially refers to an actor’s resources, capabilities, and position vis-à-vis the external world as a whole[p.17]) has a major direct and indirect (through its impact on the tactical power) influence on negotiations, it does not determine the process and outcome of negotiations.
Hence, in the case of Ian Smith, despite all his aggregate power, in October 1979, he compromised, revealing the preferences in a Game Theory T(Temptation) >DC(Democratic Compromise) > CW(Civil War) > S(Sucker) (Prisoner’s Dilemma). But Ian Smith himself refused to budge and had to be removed by his own party. This incident has been interpreted in two ways. The first is that he was sincere in his wish to go down fighting rather than compromise, giving Deadlock preferences, again, in a Game Theory T > CW > CR > S (Stedman, 1991). The second is that this was tactical ploy where he counted on being removed, allowing himself to be seen fighting to the bitter end, giving Prisoner’s Dilemma preferences (Tamarkin, 1990).
The war in Rhodesia was about majority rule but not necessarily about democracy since an undemocratic Black regime was possible(Nyhamar, 1999, p.6). Both the Zimbabwe African Union (ZAPU) led by Joshua Nkomo, and the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) led by Robert Mugabe officially endorsed democracy as a solution to end the war. The split between the two parties in 1963, had occurred over whether Zimbabwean should be their own liberators and therefore adopting a military strategy, and ZANU broke away to begin the armed struggle. In the meantime, in both 1976 and 1978, Nkomo’s attempts to negotiate a separate agreement with Smith failed because Smith was not prepared to accept majority rule. It was therefore not surprising that Nkomo adopted the military strategy only when compromise failed, and when military inactivity had become a military liability(ibid, p.7).Interestingly, Nkomo did not opt for guerrilla warfare, building a conventional force to deliver Salisbury the final blow(Tamarkin, 1990, p.100). It was no coincidence that Nkomo’s military strategy led to very little actual fighting. Assurance Game players will opt for the military strategy if others choose the military strategy, but Nkomo’s first preference remained the CR outcome, yielding the preferences, CR > T > CW > S (Assurance Game)
Robert Mugabe did want majority rule in Zimbabwe, but ideologically he believed that allowing multiparty parties might cause ethnically diverse African countries to fall apart. He never thought that Ian Smith would yield on the crucial issue of majority rule before the military situation was ripe, and considered negotiating with him politically harmful. In any case Smith had vowed that majority rule would come to Rhodesia not in a thousand years. But Mugabe’s reluctance did not stem for ideology or principle, as a British diplomat stated, “He believed in armed struggle, because of Smith” (Stedman, 1993, p.138). ZANU was militarily stronger and more active than ZAPU in the armed liberation struggle, suffering large loses---7ooo dead in 1979 alone out of a total of force of 50,000. The morale of ZANLA forces unbroken and Robert Mugabe was on his way to military victory, but he was not ideologically opposed to a settlement ( Stedman, 1993, p. 138). Thus, applying the power theory, Mugabe had alternatives, commitment and control to shape the direction of power balances in the negotiations. His preferences in the Game Theory were thus T > DC > CW > S (Prisoner’s Dilemma).
External Parties to the Dispute
I call these secondary parties, the Front-line- states, South Africa, Great Britain, and to a lesser degree the United States of America, Nigeria, Commonwealth and the Organization of African Unity.
The Front-line Presidents had made it clear to the leaders of the Patriotic Front that they wanted peace.
Although remaining on the periphery, the Carter administration did make certain contributions that ultimately led to a successful conference. The conference had stalemated over the question of financing land resettlement and redistribution schemes a majority rule government rule government might undertake. Nkomo and Mugabe balked at the idea of compensating whites for land that the PF felt had been stolen from its original African owners. While Carter,s commitment on this issue was rather convoluted and cautious, just offering the possibility of U.S. aid to compensate landowners was enough to offer the PF a face-saving way out of the impasse (Davidow, p.65).
ANALYSIS
The Importance of The British Mediation
Acting as a bridge between internal decision making and external negotiating and reconciling the divergent interests of fractious constituencies demands leadership grounded in credibility and skill rather than authority(Watkins et al, p.xxi). Lord Carrington was the British mediator and he had two sources of power. One was the power emanating from his position as foreign secretary of Great Britain which automatically gave him some amount of authority over the sides. However, the Commonwealth’s mandate to Britain (i.e., to Carrington) for a mediation effort was his really power. It was this mandate that gave him a wide-ranging freedom to ‘bully’ the sides into an agreement whether they wanted it or not. Patriotic Front could denounce Britain but not Commonwealth because many of their patrons and allies were part of it.
Stakes of the Mediator
Lord Carrington had his wounded prestige from his previous mediation effort. Moreover, he had mining interests in Rhodesia, South Africa and Namibia. Britain had its prestige to deal with as well. Authorities in Britain probably felt that this conflict had gone on for too long and they were being humiliated. This feeling of humiliation explains why in this mediation effort they tried to keep it ‘in the family’ and not include ‘strangers’ e.g., US. Britain also worried that this problem would affect its relations with the Commonwealth. Prime minister Margaret Thatcher, being more worried about economics, wanted to be rid of this problem. Great Britain had much to lose economically if things continued: its economic relations with sub-Saharan Africa were in jeopardy. Nigeria, Britain’s most important trading partner in Sub-Saharan Africa, was threatening British interests. Nigeria was not allowing British companies to tender for contracts. Britain was economically in dire straits at the time. The OPEC crisis was still in the minds of the British people. This was the fourth mediation effort in as many years and the Rhodesians had declared their independence nearly two decades ago. Thousands of people had already died and many had emigrated or had become refugees. Rhodesia’s economy was in bad shape but so was the region’s economy. Militarily, Rhodesia’s position was worsening. Therefore, this mediation effort cannot be called early. All sides seem to have been ready for another mediation attempt either because they were coerced into it or because they saw it as being in their interests.
Leadership
Leadership defined in terms of innovative thinking, inventiveness and problem-solving skills, seems to have been evident throughout the course of negotiations. Lord Carrington obviously played a key leadership role in the negotiations by structuring and shaping the agenda, moving negotiations forward and inventing novel solutions to at first glance seemed to be intractable problems.
Lord Carrington realized that white economic privileges not only made the democratic compromise outcome more attractive, but, importantly offered a credible guarantee of long-term benefits for a group surely facing long-term political marginalization. Thus white economic privileges made the Democratic strategy rational even if the Whites were to become a permanent minority without any say in the iterated political game or if the iterated political game is cut short by the winners of the first elections, making it difficult to generalize this aspect of the Zimbabwe experiences to cases where the parties can only be rewarded by the political game (Nyhamar, p.18). Hence, Carrington’s tactics at Lancaster House was to keep issues strictly separated. The first issue was the constitution, then the transitional arrangements, and finally the ceasefire. After six weeks of hard negotiations, ZANU and ZAPU, who had united politically under the PF umbrella for Lancaster House, accepted the constitution on September 18, 1979. Agreement was reached with Lord Carrington fully in control of issues and proposals, in spite of many PF attempts to wrestle the initiative from him (Davidow, 1984, p.61). Moreover, no ultimatum from the Front Line presidents was necessary to make the PF accept the Constitution, even with property rights enshrined in the Constitution: Land had to be voluntarily sold and paid for at once with full, market-level compensation. This provision made land reform impossible, setting aside the most important political issue in Zimbabwe. It is true that one persistent source of tension has always been land segregation. This complex feature of Rhodesian life permeates all questions of economic, social, and political life and no aspect of Rhodesian politics can be understood without finding a solution to the land issue(Bowman, 1973, pp.11-12)
Equilibrium Outcomes
Lord Carrington gained control over the agenda by preserving the privilege to present proposals. Moreover, he and his team engaged in a kind of shuttle diplomacy; the actors sat in separate rooms, bargaining with Carrington rather than with each other. This minimized the problem created by the many equilibrium solutions, because all actors were forced to concentrate on this one and same solution. Note should, however be taken that this does not necessarily mean that the parties at Lancaster House had a wide zone of acceptable solutions. Roughly the same amounts of utility may be represented in many concrete ways, giving considerable leeway even with the thinnest of acceptable zones. Davidow (1984:110) argues that Carrington’s tactics enabled him to obtain concessions from each party they would not otherwise have granted, but more importantly, the parties were able to converge on an acceptable outcome in only four months.
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Implication for transition to majority government
There was an agreement which resulted in the establishment of the Republic of Zimbabwe. It was mostly an integrative solution. Almost all types of integrative bargaining took place.
Neither of the conflicting parties achieved their initial demands and were faced with unfavorable British options. The options were disliked by both parties. The British believed that the only way forward was for them to formulate the options and then to present it to the conflicting parties (while making it clear that the choices were between accepting it and leaving the table). Bridging was thus used. The Rhodesians had initially demanded recognition and the ending of economic sanctions. They were not granted these but rather received some provisions and safeguards which, when compared to what they had, must have looked weak. Yet the remnants of Colonialism. Instead, they agreed (with pressure from their patrons) to not only give the Rhodesian citizens automatic rights to Zimbabwean citizenship but also to reserve twenty seats in the parliament for the whites.
The reestablishment of British colonial power was another example of bridging. The Rhodesians were not seen as directly turning power over to the PF, and free elections (under British control) could take place; the PF was sure that it would win. Both sides had initially different goals than what they finally agreed to but the final deal that they offered was still acceptable (or forced to be acceptable).
Expanding the pie can be seen in at least three cases. The PF obtained the promise of funds from the U.S. in return for dropping their demands for compensation of land. The PF also received more assembly points for their freedom fighters (a critical issue as the PF knew that their soldiers would be vulnerable to a conventional attack, especially from the Rhodesian air force). British and Commonwealth forces were also stationed in these points which would have meant that an attack on the freedom fighters would also have meant an attack on the British.
It can be argued that the most important case of expanding the pie was when Britain made it clear to the parties that its role would not end at the table but that it would also be involved in implementation of the agreement. I think this factor of bringing a ‘policeman’ was helpful to the parties who greatly mistrusted one another.
Logrolling can be seen in the issue of peacekeepers. The British knew that the Rhodesians would not accept UN peacekeepers but they also knew that the PF insisted on the presence of peacekeepers. Therefore, the British (with some nominal Commonwealth contribution) took over the role of peacekeeping. It can also be said that there was logrolling on the two most important issues: land and democracy. The PF “had got the main concession of the creation of democracy” and compromised on the land (Charlton: 129).
All of the sides believed that the elections would create a result favorable to them and the British used this belief. This can be considered a form of non-specific compensation because the British held out the bait of elections in return for acceding to the agreement.
The Rhodesians said that the British had given them (secret) assurances that Mugabe would not be allowed to form a government and that instead Nkomo would be part of a coalition government. The Rhodesians maintained that it was this belief that made them lenient ( Bayer, 2002: 14). In my opinion, this would be a form of cost-cutting: elections take place but the most militant side is not allowed to form a government. Incidentally, the British admit that while such a coalition government was one of the suggestions, there was nothing that could be done once Mugabe received a clear majority.
A case can also be made that this was a distributive agreement. It is true that the mediator had the parties lower their resistance points. Compromise settlements that were not to the liking of either party were pushed forward, e.g., having to return to colonial rule. Deadlines were imposed and a bleak future was forecasted to whichever party withdrew from the table first. Outsiders (i.e., patrons) were constantly used to bring the parties into line, e.g., when the PF initially only offered partial acceptance of the cease-fire, the British the British had the Americans tell the Front-line countries that they were going to be lifting the sanctions applied to Zimbabwe-Rhodesia which resulted in the PF being pushed into an agreement by the Front-line Presidents. The British scheduled and controlled the negotiations, e.g., the PF’S answer was always asked after that of the Salisbury delegation and the parties were not allowed to engage in free debates. Carrington was aggressive in general, e.g., when Smith went up to Carrington during the negotiations and told him that these were the worst terms they had ever been offered, Carrington replied, ‘“Well, of course they bloody well are! You’ve turned down everything since the talks on [HMS] Tiger and [HMS] Fearless, and ever since the 1960s!”’(Charlton: 130).
Conclusion
The fate of the attempt to solve the conflict in Zimbabwe is neither explained by the intensity of the racial conflict, nor by the actors preferences about democracy, nor by their political differences. Political outcomes such as transitions to democracy are influenced by but not determined by social forces. The chance that the leaders of armed groups choose democracy increases if constitutional issues are kept separate from substantive ones. Furthermore if the path to democracy is an iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma, each player must succeed in striking a balance between the need for establishing a credible threat to punish future defections from democracy and the need to alleviate the fear of defection from democracy. Third party intervention may thus aid the parties to achieve spontaneous compliance during the transition, but is no substitute for it.
References
Bayer, Resat. 2002: Lord Carrington’s Mediation of the Rhodesian Settlement:
Zimbabwe’s Second Chimurenga Concludes: Journal of Peace
and Conflict Resolution 1.4
Bowman, Larry, W. 1973. Politics in Rhodesia: White Power in an African State: Harvard
University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Charlton, Micahel. 1990: The Last Colony in Africa: Diplomacy and the Independence
of Rhodesia. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Davidow, J. 1984: A Peace in Southern Africa: The Lancaster House
Conference on Rhodesia 1979. Boulder: Westview.
Habeeb, William, M. 1988 Power and Tactics in International Negotiations: How Weak
Nations Bargain with Strong Nations: Baltimore: John Hopkins
University Press
Nyhamar, Tore. 1980. Transition To Democratic Constitutions In Ethnic Conflicts.
http//www.gmu.edu/academic/nyhamar.html
Stedman, S.J. 1991 Peacemaking in Civil War: International Mediation in
Zimbabwe, 1974-1980: Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Stedman, S.J. 1993. “The end of the Zimbabwean Civil War.” In R.Licklieder,
(ed.) Stopping the Killing: How Civil Wars end. New York
University Press, pp.125-163.
Tamarkin, M. 1990. The Making of Zimbabwe: Decolonization in Regional and
International Politics. London: Frank Cass. Walter, Barbara F. 1997. The Critical Barrier to Civil War Settlement: International
Organization, Vol. 51. No. 3.(Summer,1997), pp.335-364. Watkins, M; Rosegrant, S.2001. Breakthrough International Negotiation: How Great Negotiators
Transform The World’s Toughest Post Cold War Conflicts.
JOSSEY-BASSEY: A Wiley Company, 989 Market Street
San Francisco, CA 94103-1741
Zartman, I. W. 1989. Ripe for Resolution: Conflict and Intervention in Africa.
Oxford: Oxford University Press: (ed.) 1993. The Unfinished
Agenda: Negotiating Internal Conflicts. In Stopping the killing:
How Civil Wars End, Edited by Roy Licklider. New York:
New York University Press.
Sunday, September 2, 2007
The IMF and World Bank Economic Adjustment Programme (ESAP) In Zimbabwe
IS THE WORLD BANK AND THE INTERNATIONAL MONETORY FUND (IMF) ECONOMIC STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT PROGRAM (ESAP) RESPONSIBLE FOR ZIMBABWE'S POVERTY?- A Literature Review
Abstract
A number of scholarly works, reviews and reports have attempted to shade light on the complex mix of factors that are responsible for Zimbabwe's current crisis of poverty. While there are sharp differences in views on the relationship between neo-liberal globalization policies and poverty in Zimbabwe, there appears to be a consensus that there is also a link between the country's agrarian issue and the government's political decisions largely taken without any economic considerations. This review therefore does four things. First, it analyzes debates on an historical bookmark for the period of colonial economic policies in the hope that lessons from that experience will not be lost in the process of the review. Second, it reviews some of the major outcomes of pre-ESAP period economic policies. Third, it sets the stage for debate on the major issue of this review by examining the World Bank poverty paradigm of economic development. What is the World Bank strategy for poverty reduction and why has it come under severe attack from independent academics and activists worldwide? Finally, as a caution of those who will shape Zimbabwe's future, it provides some reminders of the interlocking relationships among property, poverty and conflict.
INTRODUCTION
Background to the Review
Poverty has been on the increase in Zimbabwe, particularly since the implementation of the structural adjustment program (ESAP) in 1991 leading people to blame the reforms for increased poverty. It has been difficult to pinpoint those policies, which have had an adverse effect on poverty and income distribution. This is because a wide range of policies, ranging from trade, to exchange rate to monetary to fiscal and other social policies have been implemented, often at the same time. In addition there were other exogenous shocks such as droughts during the reform period which would have contributed to poverty. Since it is difficult to pinpoint specific policies as the culprits for the growing suffering of Zimbabweans, it is difficult for policy makers to react to these increasing problems. However, there has been substantial literature praising ESAP for the economic, political and social successes the country experienced during and after the period of implementation. The literature argue that the program supported by the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), dismantled many of the controls confining the country's economy. Implemented during a severe recession brought on by Zimbabwe's worst drought in more than a century, the program made impressive strides in trade and domestic regulatory policy, creating the basis for self-sustaining growth (World Bank Report 1998). However, opponents of this view strongly argue that the program failed to meet its goals. Poverty and unemployment increased , fiscal reforms made slow and uncertain progress, keeping the budget deficit higher than its 1989 level ( Richard Saunders 1996:8).
Problems of Absolute Conclusions and the Poverty Profile.
Poverty has many manifestations, including lack of income and productive resources sufficient to ensure sustainable livelihoods; hunger and malnutrition, ill health, limited or lack of access to education and other basic services; increased morbidity and mortality; homelessness and inadequate housing; unsafe environments; and social discrimination and exclusion; it is also characterized by a lack of participation in decision-making and in civil, social and cultural life (World Summit for Social development 1995). Thus, it is defined and interpreted in different ways and academic debates on the subject are packed with controversies over how to differentiate the poor from the non-poor and ascertain the different levels and causes of poverty among the former. Indeed, there are also competing and complimentary conceptions of poverty and inevitably the ongoing debates are, in my view, politically and ideologically charged. I also think that constructions of poverty by researchers and policy advisors, vary due to disciplinary biases and ideological values. They also vary over time and space due to differences in the political, economic, cultural and ecological conditions of the contexts in question and these contexts are neither static nor closed to the outside world. It should also be noted that the distinction between absolute and relative deprivation/poverty has also been a controversial issue ( Sen,1985, 1985, Townsend 1985). In the context of this review, globalization has become a major frame of reference for debates on poverty whether the focus is sub-national, national or international. The World Bank is actively engaged in the formation and dissemination of paradigms and interpretations of international poverty, including generally adopting a strong optimistic view of the benefits such as poverty reduction that would accrue to developing countries like Zimbabwe which have adopted its policy prescriptions for global integration. I also note that there are others who have taken more radical positions on globalization and its implications for people's well-being and constantly remind the world of the power structures behind the growing global inequalities ( Bircham and Charlton, 2001).This overview is meant to give an idea of the diversity of perspectives in examining the real factors contributing to poverty in Zimbabwe.
Methodology and Purpose of the Review
This review undertaken here compares interdisciplinary quantitative and qualitative literature , reports, conference deliberations and public opinion in order to make an assessment of the extent to which other factors apart from ESAP, are responsible for the poverty crisis in Zimbabwe. The method used is based on comparing and contrasting different literal views to determine outcomes. The review examines historical perspectives of the impact of Zimbabwean economic policies and the origins of structural adjustment, the targets of the program and an assessment of the achievement of its goals.
DISCUSSION
Lamenting the plight of Third world countries strangled by debt, Megan Ferstenfeld (1998), work traces the origins of structural adjustment and, and why the World Bank and IMF have come to exercise so much influence over the economies of countries whose debt crisis has its roots in the larger and inherently unequal system. Historically, he documents the underpinnings of these countries' current financial disaster and traces them back to the end of World War 11, when the USA found itself in a position of great surplus relative to the rest of the world. His argument is that, not wanting to sacrifice the high levels of output it had achieved during wartime, the USA, through commercial banks, began to administer loans to developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, so that these countries, I believe, could keep purchasing American goods. Ferstenfeld further notes that this North-South pattern of capital flow continued to gather momentum through the 1970s when unprecedented increases in the price of oil on the part of the nascent Organization of Petrolium Exporting Countries (OPEC) created massive profits for its members, who, in turn, inundated Northern Banks with Deposits. Thus, to properly recycle these “petroldollar” many of these banks greatly augmented their loans to developing world, resulting in virtual lending frenzy ( ibid: 35).The consequences of this situation has provoked debate among economists, academicians and politicians as Third World debt burden began to mount because of mounting interests rates caused by global recession. This meant that many donor countries were rapidly approaching the point of default, or that their accumulated debt would overtake their income from foreign aid, portending financial ruin for Northern Banks. In a desperate attempt to stop this burgeoning debt crisis the World Bank and the IMF stepped in, offering to effectively bail out the commercial banks. It was therefore in this context the concept of Structural Adjustment Lending first came into light. In my opinion , the heart of the matter is essentially that these two institutions offered to provide debtor countries with necessary loans to enable them to continue servicing their debt provided they 'adjust' their economies according to specific requirements and these requirements as Zimbabwe was to realize, soon came to be in the country’s ESAP and were reflective of a concomitant neo-liberal revolution in economic thought. In my view the granting of a loan from the World Bank and the IMF implied two issues for the country. First, obtaining a loan in order to service a debt is a confirmation that Zimbabwe would be perpetually indebted. And, second, the loan has too many strings attached to the extent that the country's economic, political and social development is very much dependent on the lender. A study by Allen (1995) picked up the argument by asserting that the IMF and World Bank guidelines are not intended to benefit the implementing country but to guarantee that these two institutions could cover money loaned to Third World countries.
. It has been observed that an important theoretical strand within academics and reporters on the causes of poverty in Zimbabwe revisits the colonial period to re-assess the impact of ESAP on the poverty crisis in the country. Challenging the neo-liberal view that amid the seeming success story of post-colonial Zimbabwe, there existed inherent weaknesses in the country's economy, many academics and economists are increasingly asserting the generally expressed view that the World Bank and the IMF poverty reduction program, more than any other variable, devastated the Zimbabwean economy to the extent that the incidence of poverty was immediate. (Saunders 1996) documents the manner in which the Zimbabwean government has allowed its embrace of the structural adjustment to drive many more Zimbabweans closer to the wall of poverty. Havena S .Dashwood (2000) documents the Zimbabwe government shift from a social welfare orientation in the early 1980s to a market-based development strategy with little to no emphasis on developing rural areas or meeting the needs of the poor. She explains this shift in terms of the embourgeoiesiement of the ruling elite rather than the pressure from the IMF or the WB. It can therefore be argued that ESAP was not harmful to the poor; instead, the failure of the ruling elite to integrate poverty-related policies within ESAP hurt the interests of the poor. To support the argument, Dashwood analyzes both the domestic and international levels. At the domestic level, she argues, three factors led to the shift away from social welfarism: 1) an agreement among some senior decision makers that market based reforms were necessary; 2) support from entrepreneurial and agrarian elites for market reforms; and 3) the embourgeoisement of the ruling elite which refers to the acquisition of large-scale farms and big business by senior politicians and their associated desire for market reforms. At the international level, the evidence is that Zimbabwe was not in a state of crisis,(as is shown later in this review) prior to the introduction of ESAP. This indeed gave the government room to negotiate the conditions attached to ESAP. For an example the government made some attempt to protect the industrial sector during the reform period and this shows that the government had some control over the design of ESAP and could have included measures to address poverty-related concerns. In fact it was obvious that the World Bank tried to persuade a reluctant government to increase investment in social services and include a social dimensions of adjustment component within ESAP. In fact, I find this argument interesting because, I think it contributes to the debate on the African political economy literature over the relative pressure from international finance institutions versus internal domestic factors that lead to changes in economic policies. A common perception is that structural adjustment programs are forced on countries against the will of the government or the people. Thus, in my opinion, while the World Bank did exert some pressure, the impetus for reform in the case of Zimbabwe came from changes in the domestic class structure.
However, work by Saunders (1998), Ziumbe (1999), Sichone (2003) and Machemedze (2004) contradicts Dashwood's argument by contending that in 1990, the Zimbabwe government succumbed to Western donor pressure and grudgingly agreed to implement the five year economic structural adjustment program, as a response to the economic crisis which had been afflicting the country since independence in 1980. Collaborating this argument, Kanji's(1991) work reveals that some adjustment measures had already been introduced but the adoption by the Zimbabwe government of ESAP marked the beginning of a new, more intensified phase of structural adjustment. Thus the argument presented here, in my view, is that Zimbabwe asked for WB and IMF intervention in order to transform the country's tightly controlled economic system ( a legacy of a sanction-inflicted economy of the colonial regime), to a more open, market-driven economy. In fact, my observations are that there were a number of factors that had held back growth and participation by the poor. A study by Chimanikire (1991-92) also links poverty to the country’s history. His argument is that the pre-independence conditions tended to bestow economic and political benefits on whites as opposed to blacks. It is true that the African population was settled on poor quality and small portions of land whilst whites occupied vast tracts of fertile land. Blacks were also denied equal education and employment opportunities and even salaries for the same job differed with race. These policies introduced great inequalities and also perpetuated poverty among the African population. Works by Nyathi T, and Makoni, K.,(2000) notes that the prolonged liberation struggle which led to independence in 1980, had adverse effects on the entire African population and the resulting economic hardships were felt most severely in the rural areas. Loewenson, and Chisvo (1997) also observed that the imposition of sanctions on the then Rhodesian regime affected the entire country particularly the African urban and rural poor. Thus, my argument here is that colonialism had a determining influence on Zimbabwe’s economic condition. While it is increasingly implausible to attribute the country’s economic ills to colonialism, the neglects of that period—in the development of the physical and human capital stocks, technological capabilities, and institutions—made it predictable that the new state would have great difficulties in sustaining reasonable rates of economic progress, just as it is not surprising that the colonial experience, and the way this interacted with traditional social structures, resulted in a post-independent Zimbabwean state that would often prove incapable of responding adequately to emerging economic deficiencies.
But what of the contemporary influence of the world economy as represented by international institutions? In taking up this set of issues, Rukobo’s ( 1997: 18-19) study examines the methods the new Zimbabwean government adopted in dealing with the economic imbalances of the pre-independent era. At independence, one of the major challenges for the new state was that of redressing the inequalities of the past, as already mentioned above. Rukobo notes that this was done through the adoption of welfarist policies, influenced by socialist convictions of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) government. With growth with equity, as a major objective, accent was placed on education, health, rehabilitation of the war raged infrastructure, removing discriminatory laws and promoting the advancement of women (Chitiga-Mabugu 2001), and the resettlement of the landless people. Studies by Chisvo and Munro (1994) examined agricultural production as the other major area of policy emphasis. The work reveals that agricultural production led to sustained agricultural production by the peasant and small scale sector. It would therefore seem to me that the first 10 years of independence witnessed remarkable progress in redressing social imbalances, and laid a foundation for a sound human resources development policy. Nevertheless, it should be noted that , the economic policy operated on a regime of controls and regulations, which was exacerbated by the monopolistic nature of the economy. Development and growth by 1990, were thus sluggish, unemployment levels rose, and balance of payments problems became intractable. Climatic factors, particularly drought, added a thorn in the flesh, especially in 1992.
The Zimbabwe government Central Statistical Office ( July 1998: 1-2) shows how imbalance between central government expenditure and revenue compromised the sustainability of the spending program. The Central Statistics reveals that central government expenditure as a share of the national economy was always high and international standards, and revenue fell short of expenditure through the 1980s. It further notes that at independence, central government expenditure accounted for about 35% of GDP, and partially due to the social sector investment of the 1980s, this share rose 47.4% by 1988/89. The gap between expenditure and revenue and interest payment on the national debt began to consume greater share of the government budget. Budget deficits also crowded out private investment and created inflationary pressures. In my view, though the policies of the 1980s seemed conducive to sustained economic growth, the Zimbabwean economy began to stagnate in the mid to late 1980s. This is evidenced by Government’s recognition of the need for a strong economy that could provide resources necessary to combat poverty and redress the imbalances of the past. As a result of the deteriorating economic growth, high inflation rates, high levels of unemployment, and increasing fiscal budget deficits, Zimbabwean authorities fell under pressure to abandon the interventionist policies of the early 1980s in pursuit of market-oriented reforms.
The evidence surveyed would support Zimbabwe’s move to economic reform. My argument is that when the country embarked on its economic structural adjustment program (ESAP) in 1991, the decision came from the recognition that main constraints to growth were the low levels of investment, and the administrative management of the economy inherited from the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) period, reinforced by the socialist experiment of the 1980s. In the context of this review, it is significant to note that the Zimbabwe government approached the World Bank, the IMF and other donors for financial support for ESAP. Indeed the support was forthcoming, although it was conditional on the implementation required. Indeed, Zimbabwe today faces political and economic crises as a result of multifaceted chain of events emanating from ESAP, which was introduced by the IMF and the World Bank (WB). But to say the IMF and the WB are solely responsible for these crises, in my opinion, would be a misrepresentation of facts but their policies have played a huge part in triggering the problems the country is facing. Allen (1999) and Machemedze ( 2004) h studies on the agreements and implementation of ESAP show that when Zimbabwe started implementing ESAP, a number of sectors of the economy were affected and this led to ordinary people suffering the consequences. The studies also note that in implementing the structural adjustment program, the government adopted the so-called Washington Consensus (WC) principles, which in effect reversed the otherwise steady growth of the economy that the country was experiencing. This view of course is refuted in the studies by Chitiga (2004) and White et al.(2001) who are of the view that there were other exogenous shocks such as droughts during the reform period whichcould have contributed to poverty. However, Allen and Machemedze note that the IMF and WB principles included:
1. Fiscal and monetary policy reforms, including budgetary and monetary stabilization measures, and the liberalization and deregulation of banking and finance.
2. Trade liberalization, including the abolition of quantitative controls and the reduction and harmonization of tariffs and duties.
3. Deregulation of wages, interest rates and exchange rates.
4. Public sector restructuring, entailing the downsizing of the civil service and the reorganization and commercialization of parastatals.
5. A social safety net in the form of Social Dimensions Fund (SDF) for those vulnerable to the adverse effects of structural adjustment.
Critics of the IMF and the WB in Zimbabwe claimed that these guidelines principles and guidelines were intended not to benefit the implementing country but to guarantee that these two institutions could recover money loaned to Third World by the Northern Banks. It was therefore not surprising that in the midst of implementing some of these principles, the government encountered multiple problems from different fronts, including from its own people, labor unions, the private sector, civil society, from multilateral and bilateral donors, including the IMF and the WB. Donors squeezed the country to enforce further changes to the economy that was rather protected from foreign manipulation before the 1990s Machemedze (ibid:1). It was this situation which, in mid 1990, made Zimbabwe agree with the WB to implement a home-grown five year phased program towards a free market. J.Alwang (1990) study shows how during the first year, Zimbabwe was to lift many restrictions on imports, meaning drastically reducing tariffs on products coming into the country. The study also reveals that at the donor’s conference in Paris March 1991, the WB and western countries promised US$690 million to fund the first year of the program. He shows how the donors backtracked, demanding more rapid changes than originally agreed.
In my own interpretation these rapid changes that the donors wanted entailed free fall financial, capital and trade liberalization. The free fall liberalization exposed the country to foreign products and control thus mortgaging the nation to the dictates of foreign commercial interests at the expense of their social and moral well-being.
According to the WB, the reforms under ESAP could hardly be regarded a roaring success. They did not lead to a marked improvement in investment and savings levels as a percent of the national income. The economy became much more outward oriented, and exports increased substantially. Private sector profitability grew principally in agriculture, tourism and transport, and the informal sector had a strong boost. However, fiscal and monetary stability remained elusive and the standard of living declined for many, particularly urban households, with percentage of households classified as poor rising from 40% in 1991 to over 60% in 1995. Unemployment continued its relentless `rise . Little progress was made in land reform. The considerable achievements in health and education made during the first decade after independence also came under threat, with the brunt of the fall in public expenditure being borne by the social sector. Dhliwayo (2001) details a study on the impact of public expenditure management on basic social services. In fact his study assesses the situation of basic services in particular health and education under ESAP examine the impact on various sectors of the population, particularly low-income groups children and the poor from the resulting changes in social welfare. His concludes that according to civil society, the removal of subsidies and cost recovery in education and health sectors has resulted in swelling numbers of children out of school, people dying of curable diseases in their homes and women giving birth at home or in scotch carts on their to health centers. Civil society also contends that several health indicators have deteriorated . Participation in parental services have declined; maternal death and mortality rates of babies born before arrival have increased, etc.,
Also, studies by ( Sachikonye , 1997; Kanyenze, 1999; Loewenson, 1999) extensively examine the effects of ESAP on various other aspects of the national economic activities. The studies draw the following conclusions:
a)---The average of employment growth during ESAP period was half the growth of the labor force, meaning that the new jobs were not being created fast enough to absorb new entrants into the labor market. In any case as I have pointed out earlier in this review, by focusing exclusively on the urban formal sector as the engine of growth , the program neglected the sectors with greatest potential for job creation, i,e., the informal and small, medium-sized enterprises
b)---With reduction, or in some cases elimination of subsidies private companies were forced to reduce costs in order to remain competitive. Deregulation allowed them to make increased use of temporary, part-time contract workers who did not receive benefits and had no job security. These changes increased unemployment and decreased real wages. As a matter of fact, those who found full time jobs were no longer guaranteed a living wage, and the effects of these reduced incomes had been made even more impotent by rising prices. The collapse of wages meant that workers live below poverty line.
c)---The failure to modernize technologically also devastated local industries hit by cheap imports , as well as by the loss of government subsidies, high interest rates, and the increased cost of raw materials. Small and medium-sized industries were forced to reduce production, go out business or switch from manufacturing to importing, leading to a large drop in manufacturing input. With companies forced to lay of workers, employment dropped sharply between 1991 and 1998, accompanied by a serious erosion of wages and salaries.
d) In the agricultural sector, note should be taken that at the time of ESAP, the country met all its domestic food needs and still had enough maize and wheat to export to other countries in the region. With the advent of structural adjustment, trade barriers, price controls, subsidies and price quotas were removed. Farmers were no longer required to produce food for local consumption. In fact, some commercial farmers shifted from maize growing to even producing flowers for the international market.
e) The studies further show that with budget allocations for rural infrastructure in rural areas down, farmers lacked good roads and adequate transport systems, as well as proceesing, storage, and distribution systems, they required in order to be competitive. Other key problems faced by farmers under ESAP, include lack of access to land, difficult with availability and price of farm inputs , the loss of important and timely information previously provided by the marketing boards.
CONCLUSION
Economic policy during colonial and post-colonial Zimbabwe has not resulted in improved socio-economic welfare of the populace. Consequently, economic decline has resulted in widespread political discontent and disaffection with the present regime. As political tensions have reached a political impasse, there are concerns that Zimbabwe’s economy is on the brink of collapse primarily because of the IMF and WB – sponsored ESAP, and, in my opinion, because both the government and markets have failed the poor. In fact most institutions in the country still have colonial structures not capable of responding to new socioeconomic and cultural demands. Central government institutions still emphasize control and are sectorally structured. To ensure continued human development and poverty reduction , the country needs to provide adequate resources and targeting on activities most in need of public support---and to devise burden-sharing mechanisms that will ensure that the poor have access to basic social services.
Reducing poverty will require growth in employment and increased productivity in smallholder agriculture. These in turn will be dependent on economic growth, continued investment in human capital, and an increase in the assets owned or controlled by the poor, including land. Also, while sound macro management and an improved incentive framework will help to put the economy on a stronger growth path, public expenditure will need to enhance participation , provide supportive infrastructure, and protect those whom the benefits of growth do not reach.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Allen, T.W. Structural Adjustment in Zimbabwe: The World Bank Perspective; Harare, September 2, 1999, pp. 3-4
2. Alwang, J. “Changes in Poverty in Zimbabwe Between 1990 and 1996:” Development in Southern Africa, Vol. 18, No. 5, December 2001, Routledge , Taylor and Francis, 2001
3. Baulch, Bob, and Ursula Grant, “Poverty Inequality and Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa, ( quoted in African Poverty at the Millennium: Causes, Complexities, and Challenges 2001
4. Chimanikire D.P. Zimbabwe and trade Liberalization, Peace Review, Winter 1991-92 California, pp. 49-51
5. Chitiga, M-Mabugu , L.“Income Distribution Effects of Trade Liberalization: A CGE Analysis” in C. Mumbengegwi (ed.) Macroeconomic and Structural Adjustment Poliies in Zimbabwe 2001
6. Chisvo, M. and Munro, L. A Review of the Social Dimensions of Adjustment: UNICEF, Harare, 1994
7. Chitiga, M. Report submitted to poverty and economic policy (PEP) research network (first version still unedited) 2004
8. Central Statistics Office(SCO), Government of Zimbabwe, Harare, July 1998, pp. 1-2
9. Dashwood, Hamena. Zimbabwe: The Political Economy of Transformation: Changes in Structure and Development in Zimbabwe During the Period from 1980-1997; Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 2000, ppxii 252
10. Dhliwayo, R. The Impact of Public Expenditure Management Under ESAP on Basic Social Services: Health and Education: SAPRI/ Zimbabwe 2001
11. Ferstenfeld, Meagan. Structural Adjustment: Time for Reform: Third World Countries Strangled by Debt: in Houston Catholic Worker 11/12/98
12. Loewenson, R.and Chisvo, M. (1997) “Rapid Transformation Despite Economic Transformation and Slow Growth: the Experience of Zimbabwe, in S. Mehrotra and R Jolly (eds) Development with a Human Face: Experiences in Social Achievement and Economic Growth, Clarendon Press; Oxford, 1997.
13. Loeweson, R. “2001 Budget : Enough to Make You Sick, Daily News, 21 November 2000
14. Kanyenze, G. “The Implication of Globalization on the Zimbabwe Economy: Paper Prepared for the Poverty Reduction Forum, Harare,1999
15. Machemedze, R. Zimbabwe and the IMF—Time for shifting from neo-liberal paradigm to people centered development alternative: Zimbabwe and the IMF-SEATIN-2004
16. Nyathi,T. and Makoni, K. ESAP and Ordinary People , SAPRI, 2000
17. Rukobo, A.M. Structural Adjustment and Poverty Alleviation Strategies in Zimbabwe: Institute of Development Ecnomics, (IED) Tokyo, 1997
18. Sachikonye, L. Report on Assessment of the Impact of Land Reform Program on Commercial Farm Worker Livelihoods, Farm Community Trust of Zimbabwe, May 2002
19. Saunders,Richard, Economic Structural Adjustment Program (ESAP) Fables11, Southern Africa Report, SAR, Vol.11, No. 4, July 1996, p8 “Zimbabwe”.
20. Sen, A.K. A Sociological Approach to the Measurement of Poverty—A reply to Professor Peter Townsend, Oxford Economic Papers 1985: 37: 669-676
21. Townsend, P.A Sociological Approach to the Measurement of Poverty –A rejoinder to Professor Amartya Sen, Oxford Economic Papers 1985: 37: 659-668
22. Ziumbe, F. Africa View, Work on a Sustainable Society: A view from Africa, 1999
Abstract
A number of scholarly works, reviews and reports have attempted to shade light on the complex mix of factors that are responsible for Zimbabwe's current crisis of poverty. While there are sharp differences in views on the relationship between neo-liberal globalization policies and poverty in Zimbabwe, there appears to be a consensus that there is also a link between the country's agrarian issue and the government's political decisions largely taken without any economic considerations. This review therefore does four things. First, it analyzes debates on an historical bookmark for the period of colonial economic policies in the hope that lessons from that experience will not be lost in the process of the review. Second, it reviews some of the major outcomes of pre-ESAP period economic policies. Third, it sets the stage for debate on the major issue of this review by examining the World Bank poverty paradigm of economic development. What is the World Bank strategy for poverty reduction and why has it come under severe attack from independent academics and activists worldwide? Finally, as a caution of those who will shape Zimbabwe's future, it provides some reminders of the interlocking relationships among property, poverty and conflict.
INTRODUCTION
Background to the Review
Poverty has been on the increase in Zimbabwe, particularly since the implementation of the structural adjustment program (ESAP) in 1991 leading people to blame the reforms for increased poverty. It has been difficult to pinpoint those policies, which have had an adverse effect on poverty and income distribution. This is because a wide range of policies, ranging from trade, to exchange rate to monetary to fiscal and other social policies have been implemented, often at the same time. In addition there were other exogenous shocks such as droughts during the reform period which would have contributed to poverty. Since it is difficult to pinpoint specific policies as the culprits for the growing suffering of Zimbabweans, it is difficult for policy makers to react to these increasing problems. However, there has been substantial literature praising ESAP for the economic, political and social successes the country experienced during and after the period of implementation. The literature argue that the program supported by the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), dismantled many of the controls confining the country's economy. Implemented during a severe recession brought on by Zimbabwe's worst drought in more than a century, the program made impressive strides in trade and domestic regulatory policy, creating the basis for self-sustaining growth (World Bank Report 1998). However, opponents of this view strongly argue that the program failed to meet its goals. Poverty and unemployment increased , fiscal reforms made slow and uncertain progress, keeping the budget deficit higher than its 1989 level ( Richard Saunders 1996:8).
Problems of Absolute Conclusions and the Poverty Profile.
Poverty has many manifestations, including lack of income and productive resources sufficient to ensure sustainable livelihoods; hunger and malnutrition, ill health, limited or lack of access to education and other basic services; increased morbidity and mortality; homelessness and inadequate housing; unsafe environments; and social discrimination and exclusion; it is also characterized by a lack of participation in decision-making and in civil, social and cultural life (World Summit for Social development 1995). Thus, it is defined and interpreted in different ways and academic debates on the subject are packed with controversies over how to differentiate the poor from the non-poor and ascertain the different levels and causes of poverty among the former. Indeed, there are also competing and complimentary conceptions of poverty and inevitably the ongoing debates are, in my view, politically and ideologically charged. I also think that constructions of poverty by researchers and policy advisors, vary due to disciplinary biases and ideological values. They also vary over time and space due to differences in the political, economic, cultural and ecological conditions of the contexts in question and these contexts are neither static nor closed to the outside world. It should also be noted that the distinction between absolute and relative deprivation/poverty has also been a controversial issue ( Sen,1985, 1985, Townsend 1985). In the context of this review, globalization has become a major frame of reference for debates on poverty whether the focus is sub-national, national or international. The World Bank is actively engaged in the formation and dissemination of paradigms and interpretations of international poverty, including generally adopting a strong optimistic view of the benefits such as poverty reduction that would accrue to developing countries like Zimbabwe which have adopted its policy prescriptions for global integration. I also note that there are others who have taken more radical positions on globalization and its implications for people's well-being and constantly remind the world of the power structures behind the growing global inequalities ( Bircham and Charlton, 2001).This overview is meant to give an idea of the diversity of perspectives in examining the real factors contributing to poverty in Zimbabwe.
Methodology and Purpose of the Review
This review undertaken here compares interdisciplinary quantitative and qualitative literature , reports, conference deliberations and public opinion in order to make an assessment of the extent to which other factors apart from ESAP, are responsible for the poverty crisis in Zimbabwe. The method used is based on comparing and contrasting different literal views to determine outcomes. The review examines historical perspectives of the impact of Zimbabwean economic policies and the origins of structural adjustment, the targets of the program and an assessment of the achievement of its goals.
DISCUSSION
Lamenting the plight of Third world countries strangled by debt, Megan Ferstenfeld (1998), work traces the origins of structural adjustment and, and why the World Bank and IMF have come to exercise so much influence over the economies of countries whose debt crisis has its roots in the larger and inherently unequal system. Historically, he documents the underpinnings of these countries' current financial disaster and traces them back to the end of World War 11, when the USA found itself in a position of great surplus relative to the rest of the world. His argument is that, not wanting to sacrifice the high levels of output it had achieved during wartime, the USA, through commercial banks, began to administer loans to developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, so that these countries, I believe, could keep purchasing American goods. Ferstenfeld further notes that this North-South pattern of capital flow continued to gather momentum through the 1970s when unprecedented increases in the price of oil on the part of the nascent Organization of Petrolium Exporting Countries (OPEC) created massive profits for its members, who, in turn, inundated Northern Banks with Deposits. Thus, to properly recycle these “petroldollar” many of these banks greatly augmented their loans to developing world, resulting in virtual lending frenzy ( ibid: 35).The consequences of this situation has provoked debate among economists, academicians and politicians as Third World debt burden began to mount because of mounting interests rates caused by global recession. This meant that many donor countries were rapidly approaching the point of default, or that their accumulated debt would overtake their income from foreign aid, portending financial ruin for Northern Banks. In a desperate attempt to stop this burgeoning debt crisis the World Bank and the IMF stepped in, offering to effectively bail out the commercial banks. It was therefore in this context the concept of Structural Adjustment Lending first came into light. In my opinion , the heart of the matter is essentially that these two institutions offered to provide debtor countries with necessary loans to enable them to continue servicing their debt provided they 'adjust' their economies according to specific requirements and these requirements as Zimbabwe was to realize, soon came to be in the country’s ESAP and were reflective of a concomitant neo-liberal revolution in economic thought. In my view the granting of a loan from the World Bank and the IMF implied two issues for the country. First, obtaining a loan in order to service a debt is a confirmation that Zimbabwe would be perpetually indebted. And, second, the loan has too many strings attached to the extent that the country's economic, political and social development is very much dependent on the lender. A study by Allen (1995) picked up the argument by asserting that the IMF and World Bank guidelines are not intended to benefit the implementing country but to guarantee that these two institutions could cover money loaned to Third World countries.
. It has been observed that an important theoretical strand within academics and reporters on the causes of poverty in Zimbabwe revisits the colonial period to re-assess the impact of ESAP on the poverty crisis in the country. Challenging the neo-liberal view that amid the seeming success story of post-colonial Zimbabwe, there existed inherent weaknesses in the country's economy, many academics and economists are increasingly asserting the generally expressed view that the World Bank and the IMF poverty reduction program, more than any other variable, devastated the Zimbabwean economy to the extent that the incidence of poverty was immediate. (Saunders 1996) documents the manner in which the Zimbabwean government has allowed its embrace of the structural adjustment to drive many more Zimbabweans closer to the wall of poverty. Havena S .Dashwood (2000) documents the Zimbabwe government shift from a social welfare orientation in the early 1980s to a market-based development strategy with little to no emphasis on developing rural areas or meeting the needs of the poor. She explains this shift in terms of the embourgeoiesiement of the ruling elite rather than the pressure from the IMF or the WB. It can therefore be argued that ESAP was not harmful to the poor; instead, the failure of the ruling elite to integrate poverty-related policies within ESAP hurt the interests of the poor. To support the argument, Dashwood analyzes both the domestic and international levels. At the domestic level, she argues, three factors led to the shift away from social welfarism: 1) an agreement among some senior decision makers that market based reforms were necessary; 2) support from entrepreneurial and agrarian elites for market reforms; and 3) the embourgeoisement of the ruling elite which refers to the acquisition of large-scale farms and big business by senior politicians and their associated desire for market reforms. At the international level, the evidence is that Zimbabwe was not in a state of crisis,(as is shown later in this review) prior to the introduction of ESAP. This indeed gave the government room to negotiate the conditions attached to ESAP. For an example the government made some attempt to protect the industrial sector during the reform period and this shows that the government had some control over the design of ESAP and could have included measures to address poverty-related concerns. In fact it was obvious that the World Bank tried to persuade a reluctant government to increase investment in social services and include a social dimensions of adjustment component within ESAP. In fact, I find this argument interesting because, I think it contributes to the debate on the African political economy literature over the relative pressure from international finance institutions versus internal domestic factors that lead to changes in economic policies. A common perception is that structural adjustment programs are forced on countries against the will of the government or the people. Thus, in my opinion, while the World Bank did exert some pressure, the impetus for reform in the case of Zimbabwe came from changes in the domestic class structure.
However, work by Saunders (1998), Ziumbe (1999), Sichone (2003) and Machemedze (2004) contradicts Dashwood's argument by contending that in 1990, the Zimbabwe government succumbed to Western donor pressure and grudgingly agreed to implement the five year economic structural adjustment program, as a response to the economic crisis which had been afflicting the country since independence in 1980. Collaborating this argument, Kanji's(1991) work reveals that some adjustment measures had already been introduced but the adoption by the Zimbabwe government of ESAP marked the beginning of a new, more intensified phase of structural adjustment. Thus the argument presented here, in my view, is that Zimbabwe asked for WB and IMF intervention in order to transform the country's tightly controlled economic system ( a legacy of a sanction-inflicted economy of the colonial regime), to a more open, market-driven economy. In fact, my observations are that there were a number of factors that had held back growth and participation by the poor. A study by Chimanikire (1991-92) also links poverty to the country’s history. His argument is that the pre-independence conditions tended to bestow economic and political benefits on whites as opposed to blacks. It is true that the African population was settled on poor quality and small portions of land whilst whites occupied vast tracts of fertile land. Blacks were also denied equal education and employment opportunities and even salaries for the same job differed with race. These policies introduced great inequalities and also perpetuated poverty among the African population. Works by Nyathi T, and Makoni, K.,(2000) notes that the prolonged liberation struggle which led to independence in 1980, had adverse effects on the entire African population and the resulting economic hardships were felt most severely in the rural areas. Loewenson, and Chisvo (1997) also observed that the imposition of sanctions on the then Rhodesian regime affected the entire country particularly the African urban and rural poor. Thus, my argument here is that colonialism had a determining influence on Zimbabwe’s economic condition. While it is increasingly implausible to attribute the country’s economic ills to colonialism, the neglects of that period—in the development of the physical and human capital stocks, technological capabilities, and institutions—made it predictable that the new state would have great difficulties in sustaining reasonable rates of economic progress, just as it is not surprising that the colonial experience, and the way this interacted with traditional social structures, resulted in a post-independent Zimbabwean state that would often prove incapable of responding adequately to emerging economic deficiencies.
But what of the contemporary influence of the world economy as represented by international institutions? In taking up this set of issues, Rukobo’s ( 1997: 18-19) study examines the methods the new Zimbabwean government adopted in dealing with the economic imbalances of the pre-independent era. At independence, one of the major challenges for the new state was that of redressing the inequalities of the past, as already mentioned above. Rukobo notes that this was done through the adoption of welfarist policies, influenced by socialist convictions of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) government. With growth with equity, as a major objective, accent was placed on education, health, rehabilitation of the war raged infrastructure, removing discriminatory laws and promoting the advancement of women (Chitiga-Mabugu 2001), and the resettlement of the landless people. Studies by Chisvo and Munro (1994) examined agricultural production as the other major area of policy emphasis. The work reveals that agricultural production led to sustained agricultural production by the peasant and small scale sector. It would therefore seem to me that the first 10 years of independence witnessed remarkable progress in redressing social imbalances, and laid a foundation for a sound human resources development policy. Nevertheless, it should be noted that , the economic policy operated on a regime of controls and regulations, which was exacerbated by the monopolistic nature of the economy. Development and growth by 1990, were thus sluggish, unemployment levels rose, and balance of payments problems became intractable. Climatic factors, particularly drought, added a thorn in the flesh, especially in 1992.
The Zimbabwe government Central Statistical Office ( July 1998: 1-2) shows how imbalance between central government expenditure and revenue compromised the sustainability of the spending program. The Central Statistics reveals that central government expenditure as a share of the national economy was always high and international standards, and revenue fell short of expenditure through the 1980s. It further notes that at independence, central government expenditure accounted for about 35% of GDP, and partially due to the social sector investment of the 1980s, this share rose 47.4% by 1988/89. The gap between expenditure and revenue and interest payment on the national debt began to consume greater share of the government budget. Budget deficits also crowded out private investment and created inflationary pressures. In my view, though the policies of the 1980s seemed conducive to sustained economic growth, the Zimbabwean economy began to stagnate in the mid to late 1980s. This is evidenced by Government’s recognition of the need for a strong economy that could provide resources necessary to combat poverty and redress the imbalances of the past. As a result of the deteriorating economic growth, high inflation rates, high levels of unemployment, and increasing fiscal budget deficits, Zimbabwean authorities fell under pressure to abandon the interventionist policies of the early 1980s in pursuit of market-oriented reforms.
The evidence surveyed would support Zimbabwe’s move to economic reform. My argument is that when the country embarked on its economic structural adjustment program (ESAP) in 1991, the decision came from the recognition that main constraints to growth were the low levels of investment, and the administrative management of the economy inherited from the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) period, reinforced by the socialist experiment of the 1980s. In the context of this review, it is significant to note that the Zimbabwe government approached the World Bank, the IMF and other donors for financial support for ESAP. Indeed the support was forthcoming, although it was conditional on the implementation required. Indeed, Zimbabwe today faces political and economic crises as a result of multifaceted chain of events emanating from ESAP, which was introduced by the IMF and the World Bank (WB). But to say the IMF and the WB are solely responsible for these crises, in my opinion, would be a misrepresentation of facts but their policies have played a huge part in triggering the problems the country is facing. Allen (1999) and Machemedze ( 2004) h studies on the agreements and implementation of ESAP show that when Zimbabwe started implementing ESAP, a number of sectors of the economy were affected and this led to ordinary people suffering the consequences. The studies also note that in implementing the structural adjustment program, the government adopted the so-called Washington Consensus (WC) principles, which in effect reversed the otherwise steady growth of the economy that the country was experiencing. This view of course is refuted in the studies by Chitiga (2004) and White et al.(2001) who are of the view that there were other exogenous shocks such as droughts during the reform period whichcould have contributed to poverty. However, Allen and Machemedze note that the IMF and WB principles included:
1. Fiscal and monetary policy reforms, including budgetary and monetary stabilization measures, and the liberalization and deregulation of banking and finance.
2. Trade liberalization, including the abolition of quantitative controls and the reduction and harmonization of tariffs and duties.
3. Deregulation of wages, interest rates and exchange rates.
4. Public sector restructuring, entailing the downsizing of the civil service and the reorganization and commercialization of parastatals.
5. A social safety net in the form of Social Dimensions Fund (SDF) for those vulnerable to the adverse effects of structural adjustment.
Critics of the IMF and the WB in Zimbabwe claimed that these guidelines principles and guidelines were intended not to benefit the implementing country but to guarantee that these two institutions could recover money loaned to Third World by the Northern Banks. It was therefore not surprising that in the midst of implementing some of these principles, the government encountered multiple problems from different fronts, including from its own people, labor unions, the private sector, civil society, from multilateral and bilateral donors, including the IMF and the WB. Donors squeezed the country to enforce further changes to the economy that was rather protected from foreign manipulation before the 1990s Machemedze (ibid:1). It was this situation which, in mid 1990, made Zimbabwe agree with the WB to implement a home-grown five year phased program towards a free market. J.Alwang (1990) study shows how during the first year, Zimbabwe was to lift many restrictions on imports, meaning drastically reducing tariffs on products coming into the country. The study also reveals that at the donor’s conference in Paris March 1991, the WB and western countries promised US$690 million to fund the first year of the program. He shows how the donors backtracked, demanding more rapid changes than originally agreed.
In my own interpretation these rapid changes that the donors wanted entailed free fall financial, capital and trade liberalization. The free fall liberalization exposed the country to foreign products and control thus mortgaging the nation to the dictates of foreign commercial interests at the expense of their social and moral well-being.
According to the WB, the reforms under ESAP could hardly be regarded a roaring success. They did not lead to a marked improvement in investment and savings levels as a percent of the national income. The economy became much more outward oriented, and exports increased substantially. Private sector profitability grew principally in agriculture, tourism and transport, and the informal sector had a strong boost. However, fiscal and monetary stability remained elusive and the standard of living declined for many, particularly urban households, with percentage of households classified as poor rising from 40% in 1991 to over 60% in 1995. Unemployment continued its relentless `rise . Little progress was made in land reform. The considerable achievements in health and education made during the first decade after independence also came under threat, with the brunt of the fall in public expenditure being borne by the social sector. Dhliwayo (2001) details a study on the impact of public expenditure management on basic social services. In fact his study assesses the situation of basic services in particular health and education under ESAP examine the impact on various sectors of the population, particularly low-income groups children and the poor from the resulting changes in social welfare. His concludes that according to civil society, the removal of subsidies and cost recovery in education and health sectors has resulted in swelling numbers of children out of school, people dying of curable diseases in their homes and women giving birth at home or in scotch carts on their to health centers. Civil society also contends that several health indicators have deteriorated . Participation in parental services have declined; maternal death and mortality rates of babies born before arrival have increased, etc.,
Also, studies by ( Sachikonye , 1997; Kanyenze, 1999; Loewenson, 1999) extensively examine the effects of ESAP on various other aspects of the national economic activities. The studies draw the following conclusions:
a)---The average of employment growth during ESAP period was half the growth of the labor force, meaning that the new jobs were not being created fast enough to absorb new entrants into the labor market. In any case as I have pointed out earlier in this review, by focusing exclusively on the urban formal sector as the engine of growth , the program neglected the sectors with greatest potential for job creation, i,e., the informal and small, medium-sized enterprises
b)---With reduction, or in some cases elimination of subsidies private companies were forced to reduce costs in order to remain competitive. Deregulation allowed them to make increased use of temporary, part-time contract workers who did not receive benefits and had no job security. These changes increased unemployment and decreased real wages. As a matter of fact, those who found full time jobs were no longer guaranteed a living wage, and the effects of these reduced incomes had been made even more impotent by rising prices. The collapse of wages meant that workers live below poverty line.
c)---The failure to modernize technologically also devastated local industries hit by cheap imports , as well as by the loss of government subsidies, high interest rates, and the increased cost of raw materials. Small and medium-sized industries were forced to reduce production, go out business or switch from manufacturing to importing, leading to a large drop in manufacturing input. With companies forced to lay of workers, employment dropped sharply between 1991 and 1998, accompanied by a serious erosion of wages and salaries.
d) In the agricultural sector, note should be taken that at the time of ESAP, the country met all its domestic food needs and still had enough maize and wheat to export to other countries in the region. With the advent of structural adjustment, trade barriers, price controls, subsidies and price quotas were removed. Farmers were no longer required to produce food for local consumption. In fact, some commercial farmers shifted from maize growing to even producing flowers for the international market.
e) The studies further show that with budget allocations for rural infrastructure in rural areas down, farmers lacked good roads and adequate transport systems, as well as proceesing, storage, and distribution systems, they required in order to be competitive. Other key problems faced by farmers under ESAP, include lack of access to land, difficult with availability and price of farm inputs , the loss of important and timely information previously provided by the marketing boards.
CONCLUSION
Economic policy during colonial and post-colonial Zimbabwe has not resulted in improved socio-economic welfare of the populace. Consequently, economic decline has resulted in widespread political discontent and disaffection with the present regime. As political tensions have reached a political impasse, there are concerns that Zimbabwe’s economy is on the brink of collapse primarily because of the IMF and WB – sponsored ESAP, and, in my opinion, because both the government and markets have failed the poor. In fact most institutions in the country still have colonial structures not capable of responding to new socioeconomic and cultural demands. Central government institutions still emphasize control and are sectorally structured. To ensure continued human development and poverty reduction , the country needs to provide adequate resources and targeting on activities most in need of public support---and to devise burden-sharing mechanisms that will ensure that the poor have access to basic social services.
Reducing poverty will require growth in employment and increased productivity in smallholder agriculture. These in turn will be dependent on economic growth, continued investment in human capital, and an increase in the assets owned or controlled by the poor, including land. Also, while sound macro management and an improved incentive framework will help to put the economy on a stronger growth path, public expenditure will need to enhance participation , provide supportive infrastructure, and protect those whom the benefits of growth do not reach.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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MEDIA IMPACT ON FOREIGN POLICY IN THE USA
MEDIA IMPACT ON FOREIGN POLICY: THE “INDEXING HYPOTHESIS” DURING THE RUN UP TO “ 9-11” GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR
Abstract
The greatest test of a press system is how it empowers citizens to monitor the government’s war-making powers. War is the most serious use of state power, organized sanctioned violence; how well it is under citizen review and control is not only a litmus test for the media but for society as a whole. Those in power, those who benefit from war and empire, see the press as arguably the most important front for war, because it is there that consent is manufactured, dissent is marginalized. For a press system, a war is its moment of truth. Some research studies have even maintained that the media is involved in all the stages of foreign policy formulation and that political leaders take the media into consideration in its national and international aspects. However, I argue in this paper , that even if the media can set the actual policy agenda in some circumstances, this does not necessarily mean that they influence policy. Political rhetoric may appear to signal media impact, but to what extent can it be said that the media maintained this important role to provide wide perspectives and understandings of the aftermath of the 9-11 terrorist attacks? It is the key question that this paper sets out to answer by summarizing the principal arguments and evidentiary claims on the “Indexing hypothesis” made within the political communications literature. To test and extend these claims the study probes a single case study, albeit one of monumental importance during the nation’s recent history; namely the 9-11 terrorist attacks and the declaration of the global war on terrorism. By content-analyzing a census of news coverage in the New York Times and the Washington Post from September 12 to December 18, 2001, the study presents evidence that without dissident Congressional voices or much if any debate journalists scrambled to meet their news norm of objectivity, and that there were lesser elites and even foreign voices filling this objectivity hole in the resultant news void and hence the media’s inability to make a difference in U.S. foreign policy that was determined to pursue a bellicose pattern.
Discussion
A number of journalists and popular commentators have suggested that the terrorist attackd on 9-11, 2001, were defining moments in the United States history (e.g Gibbs, 2001a; Morrow 2001; Zakaria 2001 ). The terrorist attacks upon the United States began an unprecedented level of United States foreign policy news coverage.
This point is highlighted by public opinion data that indicated the “news interest” of U.S. adults was markedly high in the days, weeks, and moths after the terrorist attacks. For example well into December 2001 roughly half of randomly sampled U.S adults indicated they were “very closely” following news about 9-11 attacks and subsequent U.S. campaign against terrorism, the highest level of sustained public interest in news in more than a decade ( Pew 2001).
President Bush laid out his foreign policy strategy only nine days after the attacks in his address before the U.S Congress and a national television audience on September 20, 2001. During his speech, he articulated his administration’s plans for a “war on terrorism.” Included in his address were claims that the conflict would be lengthy in duration and would not specifically target Muslims ( Bush 2001).
Over the next four weeks the President and his top aides routinely and aggressively emphasized specific and worst-case exceptions for a pending global military campaign. Among the administration’s popularly communicated themes, including those mentioned in his national speech, included the possibility of unfortunate-but-perhaps-unavoidable civilian deaths, probably U.S. military casualties, the challenges of defining an exit strategy and the challenge of rebuilding a post war Afghanistan. Indeed, administration-led discussion on these six topics, referred to as “war themes” appeared 58 times in Washington Post and New York Times news content between September 12 and October 7, 2001. These numbers, calculated in the days before the actual Afghan military campaign, seem to give validity to what Maltese (1992) and Cook (1998) have termed the administration “line of the day”, or the ability to control a message, keep it simple and consistently repeat it (p 135).
These elite communications, manifesting themselves with six distinct themes, are notable in that they seemed to be a part of a larger executive level strategy to engender post 9-11 confidence in the administration’s wartime leadership and to assuage potential concerns that the United States and its military was headed toward an historically unwinnable “quagmire” ( e.g. France/U.S. in Vietnam, U.S.S.R. in Afghanistan ). This trend could be called an example of what Manheim (1991, 1994) termed “strategic political communication;” a practice in which leaders craft their public language and communications with the goal to create, control, distribute, and use mediated messages as a political resource. In particular, political elites have become adept at the management of political and news environments ( see Domke, Watts, Shah, and Fan, 1999; Herman, 1993; Pfetsch 1998; Protess et al.1991; Zaller 1992), a process which seems likely during a national crisis such the events and aftermath of 9-11, when political leaders expect citizens to look to them for guidance and vision. This military campaign in November, 2001 was reported in the New York Times article:
“It is not just information that the pentagon leadership is keeping under tight control. It is also expectations…The desire to keep information and expectations at a minimum stems from the experiences of the Vietnam War, longtime military reporters and military historians say. The Johnson administration “oversold greatly the degree the degree of success” of the war before the Tet offensive in 1968, said Don Oberdorfer, a former diplomatic and military correspondent for the Washington Post. The unrealistic expectations turned the Tet battles –arguably a United States military victory—into a massive public relations defeat.”
Exploring the relationship between the administration and the press during the early stages of the war on terrorism ( Sept 12 thru Dec 18 ) is important in that the mass media, through their professional norms of objectivity and neutrality ( Bennett 1984; Cook 1998 ), not only had the potential, but an “institutional” responsibility, to offer counter opinion and criticism within the realm of a quickly unfolding and aggressive foreign policy.
Timothy Cook in Governing with the News, offers support for the theory that newsbeat journalism can, and often do control elite instigated news by “weaving” in collected comments and quotes. He argues that this “weaving” process happens even when or if elite sources restrict journalistic access or attempt to focus on more favorable topic. He reasons that “the news media still has final say over the ultimate product—by raising other issues, interjecting doubts, questioning motives and seeking out critical sources for balance.” ( Cook 1998).
The level of press responsibility becomes heightened when one considers the relatively lack of critical discourse being offered by Congress who, in support of the Bush administration’s outlook for the war on terrorism, politically lined up with the President. For example, votes by Congress authorizing military action against those responsible for the 9-11 attacks ( a joint resolution approved September 14 ) and the ant-terrorism U.S.A.Patriotic Act signed into law October 26 after a month of debate in Congress ) were overwhelmingly in administration’s favor.
This Congressional support is greatly contrasted by that given to President George Bush in the 1990 Gulf war. Congressional criticism of President George Bush Sr.’s Gulf policy became an important theme in reporting, only seven weeks into the crisis. New York Times reporter R.W.Apple, Jr. wrote:
“Congressional criticism of the Bush Administration’s policies in the Persian Gulf, nonexistent in the first days after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, then muted, is growing louder on both sides of the aisle as lawmakers openly attack the President on several major points” ( NY Times 1990)
Likewise, news media criticism of the Vietnam War emerged only when congressional sources began to raise doubts about presidential strategies ( Cook 1998).
From the early days following the terrorist attacks through the height of the U.S. military campaign, the president and his administration enjoyed a unique position with their substantial level of Congressional and public support that continued on into the military campaign in Afghanistan ( Gallup 2001a ). During this same period, the administration was able to concentrate their message and war themes in selling the idea of a war on terrorism to the American people. With the unprecedented speed of moving to an overseas military campaign, near nonexistent criticism and the majority of the country rallying around the flag as a backdrop, my paper analyzes a census of news and editorial coverage of the New York Times and the Washington Post between 9-11 and the December 18th fall of Kabul, with the goal of examining the journalistic adherence of Tuchman’s (1972) and Bennett’s ( 1990, 1996 ) “newsgathering norms.” Specifically, I attempt to discover if they would be discernable patterns in news coverage relevant to not only Bennett’s (1990) Indexing theory, but a host of other academic findings that have since constructed new rules and aspects to Bennett’s original 1990 indexing theory.
Literature Review
The genesis of most studies of media—government interactions stem from a concern about the media’s function within the democratic process; assuming the duty of reporting as independently as possible from government sources ( Entman et al. 1996). One of the primary findings in political communication research is that official sources consistently dominate the views of political stories ( Blumler & Gurevitvtch 1981; Brown et al.1987; Sigal, 1973; Bennett 1996 ). Other findings suggest that dominance of executive branch sources is more pronounced in national security stories than in the news as a whole ( Hallin, Manoff, Weddle, 1990 ) and that official sources are able to dictate what is newsworthy (Cohen 1963). Leon Sigal (1973) summarized this idea succinctly:
“Even when the journalist is in a position to observe an event directly, he remains reluctant to offer interpretations of his own, preferring instead to rely on his news sources. For the reporter, in short, most news is not what has happened, but what someone said has happened.”
Bennett (1990, 1996 ) and Cook (1998) argue that media reliance on officials is firmly rotted in three types of journalism norms: the professional virtues of objectivity and balance; the obligation to provide some degree of democratic accountability; and the economic realities of news business. Tuchman’s (1972) “Objectivity Norm” requires that journalists present “both sides” of a story. Cook (1998) builds on this argument such that, through the routine use of these norms, the press has become a political institution. Bennett (1995) supports Cooks notion in that the result of the press’s push to “get an official reaction” is formally institutionalized among news organizations that operate within a news beat system. It is this institutionalized system Bennett says “that links reporters with officials who are presumed to occupy powerful or authoritative positions in decision-making or policy-implementation processes.”
Through a consideration of these and other media/press relationships, Bennett (1990) formulated the theory of indexing:
“Mass media professionals, from the boardroom to the beat, tend to “index” the range of
voices and viewpoints in both news and editorials according to the range of
views expressed in mainstream government debate about a given topic” (p.106).
Bennett summarized that “other non-official voices fill out the potential population of news sources included in mews coverage and editorials when these voices express opinions already emerging in official circles’ (p 106); essentially that government elites not the press, set the range of argument with lesser actors offering viewpoints within this accepted range. Bennet’s indexing hypothesis appears in a wide body of political communication scholarship. From the original (1990) indexing theory a number of key foreign policy studies has emerged that offered further nuances , conditions and limits for indexing.
In Zaller and Chiu’s (1996) examination of U.S. news coverage of foreign policy crisis, they refined indexing theory by providing “narrower” and more “situational rules” for news trend coverage during the foreign policy crisis, or emergency situations. These situations defined and predicted how journalists would slant foreign policy coverage as either “hawkish” in favor of aggressive foreign policy action or “dovish” representing a more cautious approach for foreign policy conflicts leading Zaller and Chiu to hypothesize that the press indexes its coverage to the views of different actors at different points in a crisis: to the president at the first emergence of a crisis, to the Congress as events begin to settle down and to the opinion of non-politicians ( such as experts or the public at large ), in cases in which the crisis persists over a long period of time.
Livingstone and Eachus(1996) support the notion of indexing theory in news and editorials particular .to news concerning U.S. foreign policy goals and practices.
They further the notion , with comparative case studies, that the press, in a post-cold war environment without a clearly galvanizing or conceptual policy consensus, has greater latitude in including once “marginalized” dissident vices or ideas. Further, studies have shown that dissident voices, when recognized in the news, are contextualized with symbolic cues that can diminish or bolster their silence or credibility for news audiences ( Entman & Rojecki 1993: Gitlin 1980 ). Bennett (1996) suggests that “off beat” viewpoints and the introduction of cues about their credibility or importance suggest the existence of underlying rules or guidelines for making these symbolic decisions. Marginalization of dissent voices was operationalized in Altaus et al’s (1996) study involving the 1985-86 Libya crisis. They advanced the notion that some voices were marginalized and others overemphasized via their amount of front-page coverage. Althaus et al (1996) and Bennett (1996) argued that, under certain conditions, journalists appear to seek out foreign sources to provide counter opinions to the dominant U.S. policy position. The authors called this coverage by the press power indexing, essentially, following the voices of those who are able to control the outcome of a situation despite the nationality. These results demonstrated much higher levels of foreign voices than previous indexing studies. Bennett (1996) and Zaller et al (1996) supported these findings with Bennett offering a follow up journalistic “rule” pursuing a complex developing story: “follow the trail of power.”
Research Questions
It is my view that in the six weeks immediately following September 11, 2001, President and members of his administration publicly engaged in strategic political communication to build support both domestically and abroad for the “war on terrorism.” In doing so, his administration maintained a consistent and aggressive perspective and public discourse on at least the six “war themes,” themes that are the basis for this study. The administration for a variety of reasons, maintained healthy public and Congressional support through a military buildup and an eventual campaign in Afghanistan. In this unique communication environment, and with a lack of elite dissident voices in Congress available to “index’ I propose the following questions:
RQ1: Were non-administration (e.g. lesser government official or foreign ) voices
carried in the news able to introduce this paper’s “war themes” into news
coverage before the administration was able to establish their position
My first research question revolves around the original indexing hypothesis ( Bennett 1990 ) that non-official voices are covered only when they express opinions already emerging in official circles. Wit the high level of bi-partisanship for the war on terrorism fostering “one-sided” discourse among U.S. government elites, the news media would have few alternative viewpoints to choose from within official U.S. circles. U.S government debate was markedly similar to the early stages of the Gulf War buildup when official sources were largely in agreement about deployment of U.S. troops to Kuwait ( see Zaller 1994a ). As a result, journalists who follow the established routine of “indexing” their coverage and language to the U.S. elites, under classic indexing, would have little choice but to adopt the range of voices offered.
Several scholars ( e.g. Bloom 1990; Cottam & Cottam 2001; Hutchinson 1994; Niebur 1967 ) highlight the ability of motivation or U.S. government leaders to manipulate national discourse and symbols in order to engender and mobilize support among the mass public for specific political goals. Further, some scholars ( Bloom, 1990; Calabrese & Burke, 1992; Deutch & Merritt 1965 and Zaller 1994 ) theorize that elites exert their greatest influence over news coverage and , ultimately, public opinion during moments of crisis when greater-than-usual numbers of citizens pay attention to politics and news coverage. It would seem reasonable then, at the early stages of mobilizing support for the “war on terror” Americans would look to the President and his administration for leadership early in the crisis with lesser elites gaining voices as the crisis becomes routine. With unprecedented support of Congress through Afghan military campaign, it becomes an important point of theoretical departure to investigate which news group would follow the President in Zaller’s hybrid (1996) indexing hypothesis.
RQ2: How closely will news coverage of the war on terrorism follow Zaller’s ( (1996) indexing-influenced hypothesis that the president will be featured
Primarily at the emergence of a crisis followed by
Congress and finally to the opinion of non-politicians?
Bennett (1994) found that even though the news media covered dissenting congressional opinions of George Bush Sr’s Gulf War buildup, White House positions received the most prominent news displays even at the height of the debate. As the president is the central newsmaker in American politics today ( Cook 1994 ) it would make sense to find the majority of front-page news featuring him and his administration. But without Congress offering critical voices, the press is forced to find other voices to index. And, in an environment of nationalistic reporting following the terrorist attack ( Hutcheson, Domke, Billeaudeaux and Garland 2002 ), the relative placement of dissident voices with news coverage becomes increasingly worthy of study. Thus my third research question:
RQ3: What level of prominence was given to foreign /dissident voices
In front page war on terrorism news coverage?
Althaus et al (1996) and Bennett (1996) further refined indexing by arguing that when a political situation arises that is not easily solved by domestic elites, journalists will seek out players in other contexts that appear to be shaping the outcomes; thus perceptions of power a key factor in a journalist’s decision to seek out alternative sources. With the international scope of the war on terror context, understanding the relationship between journalists and foreign voices becomes key, thus, my final research question:
RQ4: Will there be evidence of “Power” indexing, through the use of foreign
Sources, in coverage of the war on terror?
Method
The purpose of this study is two-fold. First is to identify emergent and consistent war themes discussed and attributed to the president and his top advisers in the weeks following the 9-11 terrorists attacks. Second, I explore whether this communication was followed by discernible patterns along the same themes in news coverage by a variety of lesser government officials, journalists and a variety of foreign sources.
To study these strategies proved a mammoth task because I had to entirely depend, for the most part, on desktop research method and some copies kept in my personal archive, in content analyzing a census of news coverage in the New York Times from September 12 to December 18, 2001. These dates incorporates three specific and important periods within the Bush administration’s “war on terror.” From the terrorist strikes through October 7th, 2001 I call this the “selling of the war” phase. The period encompassing October 8th thru November 9th represents the start of the military campaign through defeat of the Taliban at Mazar-i-Sharif, a key battle that represented the first significant U.S. military led victory in the campaign. I call this the fighting phase. An my final phase, from November 10th thru December 18th I call the “victory” phase as the Taliban presented little military resistance during this period.
For this analysis I tried to read all news coverage in front section and dedicated “war on terrorism” sections that ran daily beginning in late September, as well as editorials and op-ed pieces.
In undertaking this analysis, and given the constraints of time, I adopted the approach of using the source as the unity of analysis, rather than the story. I did this because I was interested in (a) identifying the specific sources within and outside the Bush administration that might have been engaged in my “themed” discourse (b) systematically distinguishing the valence—i.e., directionality—of language used by the sources measured against that used by the Bush administration sources. This approach allows for examination of whether sources appears to support, criticize or simply reflect upon the administration’s public “wartime” stance. To be specific, as explained below, I was interested in what potential challenges to the war on terrorism were discussed in news content, who was talking about them, when the challenges were discussed, and how they were discussed. Only sources that discussed at least one of the pre-identified challenges to the military campaign were coded for analysis. Each source quoted or paraphrased was coded separately, and the entirety of each source’s statements in an article was taken into account when several source categories were identified in the broader project of which this research is part, including a range of U.S. sources, foreign sources, and journalists themselves. In this study I focus on four source categories:
· Bush administration leaders: This category consisted of comments in news content by President Bush, the then Secretary of State Collin Powell, outgoing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the then Attorney General John Ashcroft;
· Other U.S. government or military sources: this category consisted of comments in news content by any other federal government or military spokesperson such as a Congress member or U.S. Army spokesperson;
· Other U.S. quoted sources: This category consisted of comments in news content by non-government American leaders and regular civilians.
Foreign Sources: This category consisted of comments in news content foreign voices. The category was broken down among Allies ( Great Britain, Saudi Arabia ), enemy ( Taliban ), neutral ( Afghan/Iraq civilian ) or the United Nations spokespersons.
The content analysis focused on source discussion of six distinct “challenges or concerns” about the U.S military campaign. These six were selected because they emerged in the Bush administration’s public discourse between September 11 and October 7. Specifically, sources were code for the presence and accompanying valence of comments and language measured against the administration’s position of the six ( U.S. casualties, Afghan Civilian Deaths, War on Islam, Duration of War, Exit Strategy and Rebuilding of Afghanistan ) themed topics related to the U.S. military campaign.
Sources were coded as “1” on the variable if they were explicitly critical about the theme or administration’s stance on the theme; as “2” if they expressed concern or questions about potential/actual theme or the administration’s discussion of the themes; as “3” if they neutrally presented factual information about potential/actual theme or the administration’s discussion of the theme; and “4” if they were explicitly supportive or positive about potential/actual theme or the administration’s discussion of this subject. Sources who did not mention potential/actual loss of U.S. life or the administration’s discussion of this subject were not coded on this variable.
For instance if a Taliban source was quoted: “It will be an American bloodbath if they attack,” that source recorded as foreign/enemy) would receive a “1” (critical) as it countered the administration’s established stance that the U.S. military campaign would require sacrifice but, it was necessary to rid the world of evil. Three people conducted , (myself, my nephew who holds a Masters in Medicine and practices Internal Medicine and my niece with an MSC in Laboratory Technology), the content analysis. As a check of the inter-coder reliability, my ex- wife, a medical sociologist, (a fourth coder), coded a collection of 15 articles , which included 65 coded sources. For the source coding, this coder agreed on 58 of 65 codings, yielding, roughly, a .92 reliability coefficient. For the six “war challenges” variables, all of which had some coding scheme, this coder agreed on 220 of 273 codings, yielding a .89 reliability coefficient. In the case of disagreement, codings were assigned after a re-reading of the article. There were a total of 653 sources coded between the Washington Post and New York Times.
Findings/Results
In order to establish a foundation to examine theoretically driven indexing arguments, I locate common themes with the war on terrorism news discourse. From this point, news sources are compared in relation to these common war themes. I first examine the patterns that George Bush and his administration established in the “selling of the war” phase. This figure is important in that it represents the administration’s redundant themes, what academics Maltese (1992) and Cook (1998) have termed the administration’s “line of the day,” or the ability to control a message, keep it simple and consistently repeat it. The most discussed category by the administration was the potential duration of the military campaign (24 times over 15 separate days ), followed by Afghan civilian deaths ( 9 times over 6 days ), war on I slam ( 9 times over 5 days ), U.S. casualties (7 times over 5 days), U.S. exit strategy ( 5 times over 4 days ), and Rebuilding of Afghanistan ( 4 times over 4 days ). Further, President Bush was the primary administration source, publicly discussing these concerns during these days: he was present 25 times, compared to a total of 11 appearances by his top aides ( Collin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, and John Ashcroft ) and 21 by other government/military officials.
Conclusion
This study endeavor to investigate how the indexing theory and its follow up findings would work within news coverage gathered from hundreds of news stories featured during the first tumultuous weeks preceding and into the war on terrorism. The patriotic zeal and determination demonstrated by most Americans in the autumn of 2001 hadn’t been experienced in this country since the weeks after Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941—a war most Americans know only from stories or movies. Arguably, these conditions offered a most unique position from which to investigate how, when and where a myriad of mediated voices would ultimately find themselves within the elite media’s foreign policy.
Some of my findings, such as early and dominant presidential coverage, easily meet the expectations offered by indexing theory, while others did not. Without dissident Congressional voices or much if any official debate, journalists scrambled to meet their new norm of objectivity. I find lesser elites and foreign voices filling this objectivity hole in the resultant news void. But these “other” voices, when featured, were unlikely to see front-page coverage and, as their ability to make a difference in U.S. foreign policy was reduced, so too was their opportunity to break into U.S. news coverage at all. Although findings to my research questions remain interesting, I still think and believe it is important to remember the rallying, nationalistic public and government atmosphere that was operating during this period. This atmosphere, I argue, could have muffled potential dissident voices available to journalist (e.g spiral of silence or fear ) as much keeping journalist themselves, concerned for their carriers, far from taboo, controversial or nationalistic issues. Certainly hypothesizing about nationalism in regard to foreign policy and indexing theory was not the goal of this work, but does offer an interesting variable to keep in mind when looking at these results.
The war on terror has eclipsed its fifth anniversary and the administration is already facing huge problems in trying to prevent Taliban-come back in Afghanistan including enormous military and political setbacks in Iraq. But unlike the campaign against the Taliban, Congressional dissent and criticism exists. It is my wish in the future, to conduct a follow up comparative analysis that will include the current, more controversial period of the war on terrorism, conditions well suited to the practice of traditional indexing.
But the problems besetting U.S. journalism, in my view, remain deep-seated and will not go away unless there is structural change in the media system, such that truthful reporting on affairs of the state can be a rational expectation. This requires immediate political organizing to change the policies upon which the media system is based, and it requires making media reform part and parcel of broader movements for peace and social justice. In the end, media reform and social justice will rise or fall together.
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Abstract
The greatest test of a press system is how it empowers citizens to monitor the government’s war-making powers. War is the most serious use of state power, organized sanctioned violence; how well it is under citizen review and control is not only a litmus test for the media but for society as a whole. Those in power, those who benefit from war and empire, see the press as arguably the most important front for war, because it is there that consent is manufactured, dissent is marginalized. For a press system, a war is its moment of truth. Some research studies have even maintained that the media is involved in all the stages of foreign policy formulation and that political leaders take the media into consideration in its national and international aspects. However, I argue in this paper , that even if the media can set the actual policy agenda in some circumstances, this does not necessarily mean that they influence policy. Political rhetoric may appear to signal media impact, but to what extent can it be said that the media maintained this important role to provide wide perspectives and understandings of the aftermath of the 9-11 terrorist attacks? It is the key question that this paper sets out to answer by summarizing the principal arguments and evidentiary claims on the “Indexing hypothesis” made within the political communications literature. To test and extend these claims the study probes a single case study, albeit one of monumental importance during the nation’s recent history; namely the 9-11 terrorist attacks and the declaration of the global war on terrorism. By content-analyzing a census of news coverage in the New York Times and the Washington Post from September 12 to December 18, 2001, the study presents evidence that without dissident Congressional voices or much if any debate journalists scrambled to meet their news norm of objectivity, and that there were lesser elites and even foreign voices filling this objectivity hole in the resultant news void and hence the media’s inability to make a difference in U.S. foreign policy that was determined to pursue a bellicose pattern.
Discussion
A number of journalists and popular commentators have suggested that the terrorist attackd on 9-11, 2001, were defining moments in the United States history (e.g Gibbs, 2001a; Morrow 2001; Zakaria 2001 ). The terrorist attacks upon the United States began an unprecedented level of United States foreign policy news coverage.
This point is highlighted by public opinion data that indicated the “news interest” of U.S. adults was markedly high in the days, weeks, and moths after the terrorist attacks. For example well into December 2001 roughly half of randomly sampled U.S adults indicated they were “very closely” following news about 9-11 attacks and subsequent U.S. campaign against terrorism, the highest level of sustained public interest in news in more than a decade ( Pew 2001).
President Bush laid out his foreign policy strategy only nine days after the attacks in his address before the U.S Congress and a national television audience on September 20, 2001. During his speech, he articulated his administration’s plans for a “war on terrorism.” Included in his address were claims that the conflict would be lengthy in duration and would not specifically target Muslims ( Bush 2001).
Over the next four weeks the President and his top aides routinely and aggressively emphasized specific and worst-case exceptions for a pending global military campaign. Among the administration’s popularly communicated themes, including those mentioned in his national speech, included the possibility of unfortunate-but-perhaps-unavoidable civilian deaths, probably U.S. military casualties, the challenges of defining an exit strategy and the challenge of rebuilding a post war Afghanistan. Indeed, administration-led discussion on these six topics, referred to as “war themes” appeared 58 times in Washington Post and New York Times news content between September 12 and October 7, 2001. These numbers, calculated in the days before the actual Afghan military campaign, seem to give validity to what Maltese (1992) and Cook (1998) have termed the administration “line of the day”, or the ability to control a message, keep it simple and consistently repeat it (p 135).
These elite communications, manifesting themselves with six distinct themes, are notable in that they seemed to be a part of a larger executive level strategy to engender post 9-11 confidence in the administration’s wartime leadership and to assuage potential concerns that the United States and its military was headed toward an historically unwinnable “quagmire” ( e.g. France/U.S. in Vietnam, U.S.S.R. in Afghanistan ). This trend could be called an example of what Manheim (1991, 1994) termed “strategic political communication;” a practice in which leaders craft their public language and communications with the goal to create, control, distribute, and use mediated messages as a political resource. In particular, political elites have become adept at the management of political and news environments ( see Domke, Watts, Shah, and Fan, 1999; Herman, 1993; Pfetsch 1998; Protess et al.1991; Zaller 1992), a process which seems likely during a national crisis such the events and aftermath of 9-11, when political leaders expect citizens to look to them for guidance and vision. This military campaign in November, 2001 was reported in the New York Times article:
“It is not just information that the pentagon leadership is keeping under tight control. It is also expectations…The desire to keep information and expectations at a minimum stems from the experiences of the Vietnam War, longtime military reporters and military historians say. The Johnson administration “oversold greatly the degree the degree of success” of the war before the Tet offensive in 1968, said Don Oberdorfer, a former diplomatic and military correspondent for the Washington Post. The unrealistic expectations turned the Tet battles –arguably a United States military victory—into a massive public relations defeat.”
Exploring the relationship between the administration and the press during the early stages of the war on terrorism ( Sept 12 thru Dec 18 ) is important in that the mass media, through their professional norms of objectivity and neutrality ( Bennett 1984; Cook 1998 ), not only had the potential, but an “institutional” responsibility, to offer counter opinion and criticism within the realm of a quickly unfolding and aggressive foreign policy.
Timothy Cook in Governing with the News, offers support for the theory that newsbeat journalism can, and often do control elite instigated news by “weaving” in collected comments and quotes. He argues that this “weaving” process happens even when or if elite sources restrict journalistic access or attempt to focus on more favorable topic. He reasons that “the news media still has final say over the ultimate product—by raising other issues, interjecting doubts, questioning motives and seeking out critical sources for balance.” ( Cook 1998).
The level of press responsibility becomes heightened when one considers the relatively lack of critical discourse being offered by Congress who, in support of the Bush administration’s outlook for the war on terrorism, politically lined up with the President. For example, votes by Congress authorizing military action against those responsible for the 9-11 attacks ( a joint resolution approved September 14 ) and the ant-terrorism U.S.A.Patriotic Act signed into law October 26 after a month of debate in Congress ) were overwhelmingly in administration’s favor.
This Congressional support is greatly contrasted by that given to President George Bush in the 1990 Gulf war. Congressional criticism of President George Bush Sr.’s Gulf policy became an important theme in reporting, only seven weeks into the crisis. New York Times reporter R.W.Apple, Jr. wrote:
“Congressional criticism of the Bush Administration’s policies in the Persian Gulf, nonexistent in the first days after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, then muted, is growing louder on both sides of the aisle as lawmakers openly attack the President on several major points” ( NY Times 1990)
Likewise, news media criticism of the Vietnam War emerged only when congressional sources began to raise doubts about presidential strategies ( Cook 1998).
From the early days following the terrorist attacks through the height of the U.S. military campaign, the president and his administration enjoyed a unique position with their substantial level of Congressional and public support that continued on into the military campaign in Afghanistan ( Gallup 2001a ). During this same period, the administration was able to concentrate their message and war themes in selling the idea of a war on terrorism to the American people. With the unprecedented speed of moving to an overseas military campaign, near nonexistent criticism and the majority of the country rallying around the flag as a backdrop, my paper analyzes a census of news and editorial coverage of the New York Times and the Washington Post between 9-11 and the December 18th fall of Kabul, with the goal of examining the journalistic adherence of Tuchman’s (1972) and Bennett’s ( 1990, 1996 ) “newsgathering norms.” Specifically, I attempt to discover if they would be discernable patterns in news coverage relevant to not only Bennett’s (1990) Indexing theory, but a host of other academic findings that have since constructed new rules and aspects to Bennett’s original 1990 indexing theory.
Literature Review
The genesis of most studies of media—government interactions stem from a concern about the media’s function within the democratic process; assuming the duty of reporting as independently as possible from government sources ( Entman et al. 1996). One of the primary findings in political communication research is that official sources consistently dominate the views of political stories ( Blumler & Gurevitvtch 1981; Brown et al.1987; Sigal, 1973; Bennett 1996 ). Other findings suggest that dominance of executive branch sources is more pronounced in national security stories than in the news as a whole ( Hallin, Manoff, Weddle, 1990 ) and that official sources are able to dictate what is newsworthy (Cohen 1963). Leon Sigal (1973) summarized this idea succinctly:
“Even when the journalist is in a position to observe an event directly, he remains reluctant to offer interpretations of his own, preferring instead to rely on his news sources. For the reporter, in short, most news is not what has happened, but what someone said has happened.”
Bennett (1990, 1996 ) and Cook (1998) argue that media reliance on officials is firmly rotted in three types of journalism norms: the professional virtues of objectivity and balance; the obligation to provide some degree of democratic accountability; and the economic realities of news business. Tuchman’s (1972) “Objectivity Norm” requires that journalists present “both sides” of a story. Cook (1998) builds on this argument such that, through the routine use of these norms, the press has become a political institution. Bennett (1995) supports Cooks notion in that the result of the press’s push to “get an official reaction” is formally institutionalized among news organizations that operate within a news beat system. It is this institutionalized system Bennett says “that links reporters with officials who are presumed to occupy powerful or authoritative positions in decision-making or policy-implementation processes.”
Through a consideration of these and other media/press relationships, Bennett (1990) formulated the theory of indexing:
“Mass media professionals, from the boardroom to the beat, tend to “index” the range of
voices and viewpoints in both news and editorials according to the range of
views expressed in mainstream government debate about a given topic” (p.106).
Bennett summarized that “other non-official voices fill out the potential population of news sources included in mews coverage and editorials when these voices express opinions already emerging in official circles’ (p 106); essentially that government elites not the press, set the range of argument with lesser actors offering viewpoints within this accepted range. Bennet’s indexing hypothesis appears in a wide body of political communication scholarship. From the original (1990) indexing theory a number of key foreign policy studies has emerged that offered further nuances , conditions and limits for indexing.
In Zaller and Chiu’s (1996) examination of U.S. news coverage of foreign policy crisis, they refined indexing theory by providing “narrower” and more “situational rules” for news trend coverage during the foreign policy crisis, or emergency situations. These situations defined and predicted how journalists would slant foreign policy coverage as either “hawkish” in favor of aggressive foreign policy action or “dovish” representing a more cautious approach for foreign policy conflicts leading Zaller and Chiu to hypothesize that the press indexes its coverage to the views of different actors at different points in a crisis: to the president at the first emergence of a crisis, to the Congress as events begin to settle down and to the opinion of non-politicians ( such as experts or the public at large ), in cases in which the crisis persists over a long period of time.
Livingstone and Eachus(1996) support the notion of indexing theory in news and editorials particular .to news concerning U.S. foreign policy goals and practices.
They further the notion , with comparative case studies, that the press, in a post-cold war environment without a clearly galvanizing or conceptual policy consensus, has greater latitude in including once “marginalized” dissident vices or ideas. Further, studies have shown that dissident voices, when recognized in the news, are contextualized with symbolic cues that can diminish or bolster their silence or credibility for news audiences ( Entman & Rojecki 1993: Gitlin 1980 ). Bennett (1996) suggests that “off beat” viewpoints and the introduction of cues about their credibility or importance suggest the existence of underlying rules or guidelines for making these symbolic decisions. Marginalization of dissent voices was operationalized in Altaus et al’s (1996) study involving the 1985-86 Libya crisis. They advanced the notion that some voices were marginalized and others overemphasized via their amount of front-page coverage. Althaus et al (1996) and Bennett (1996) argued that, under certain conditions, journalists appear to seek out foreign sources to provide counter opinions to the dominant U.S. policy position. The authors called this coverage by the press power indexing, essentially, following the voices of those who are able to control the outcome of a situation despite the nationality. These results demonstrated much higher levels of foreign voices than previous indexing studies. Bennett (1996) and Zaller et al (1996) supported these findings with Bennett offering a follow up journalistic “rule” pursuing a complex developing story: “follow the trail of power.”
Research Questions
It is my view that in the six weeks immediately following September 11, 2001, President and members of his administration publicly engaged in strategic political communication to build support both domestically and abroad for the “war on terrorism.” In doing so, his administration maintained a consistent and aggressive perspective and public discourse on at least the six “war themes,” themes that are the basis for this study. The administration for a variety of reasons, maintained healthy public and Congressional support through a military buildup and an eventual campaign in Afghanistan. In this unique communication environment, and with a lack of elite dissident voices in Congress available to “index’ I propose the following questions:
RQ1: Were non-administration (e.g. lesser government official or foreign ) voices
carried in the news able to introduce this paper’s “war themes” into news
coverage before the administration was able to establish their position
My first research question revolves around the original indexing hypothesis ( Bennett 1990 ) that non-official voices are covered only when they express opinions already emerging in official circles. Wit the high level of bi-partisanship for the war on terrorism fostering “one-sided” discourse among U.S. government elites, the news media would have few alternative viewpoints to choose from within official U.S. circles. U.S government debate was markedly similar to the early stages of the Gulf War buildup when official sources were largely in agreement about deployment of U.S. troops to Kuwait ( see Zaller 1994a ). As a result, journalists who follow the established routine of “indexing” their coverage and language to the U.S. elites, under classic indexing, would have little choice but to adopt the range of voices offered.
Several scholars ( e.g. Bloom 1990; Cottam & Cottam 2001; Hutchinson 1994; Niebur 1967 ) highlight the ability of motivation or U.S. government leaders to manipulate national discourse and symbols in order to engender and mobilize support among the mass public for specific political goals. Further, some scholars ( Bloom, 1990; Calabrese & Burke, 1992; Deutch & Merritt 1965 and Zaller 1994 ) theorize that elites exert their greatest influence over news coverage and , ultimately, public opinion during moments of crisis when greater-than-usual numbers of citizens pay attention to politics and news coverage. It would seem reasonable then, at the early stages of mobilizing support for the “war on terror” Americans would look to the President and his administration for leadership early in the crisis with lesser elites gaining voices as the crisis becomes routine. With unprecedented support of Congress through Afghan military campaign, it becomes an important point of theoretical departure to investigate which news group would follow the President in Zaller’s hybrid (1996) indexing hypothesis.
RQ2: How closely will news coverage of the war on terrorism follow Zaller’s ( (1996) indexing-influenced hypothesis that the president will be featured
Primarily at the emergence of a crisis followed by
Congress and finally to the opinion of non-politicians?
Bennett (1994) found that even though the news media covered dissenting congressional opinions of George Bush Sr’s Gulf War buildup, White House positions received the most prominent news displays even at the height of the debate. As the president is the central newsmaker in American politics today ( Cook 1994 ) it would make sense to find the majority of front-page news featuring him and his administration. But without Congress offering critical voices, the press is forced to find other voices to index. And, in an environment of nationalistic reporting following the terrorist attack ( Hutcheson, Domke, Billeaudeaux and Garland 2002 ), the relative placement of dissident voices with news coverage becomes increasingly worthy of study. Thus my third research question:
RQ3: What level of prominence was given to foreign /dissident voices
In front page war on terrorism news coverage?
Althaus et al (1996) and Bennett (1996) further refined indexing by arguing that when a political situation arises that is not easily solved by domestic elites, journalists will seek out players in other contexts that appear to be shaping the outcomes; thus perceptions of power a key factor in a journalist’s decision to seek out alternative sources. With the international scope of the war on terror context, understanding the relationship between journalists and foreign voices becomes key, thus, my final research question:
RQ4: Will there be evidence of “Power” indexing, through the use of foreign
Sources, in coverage of the war on terror?
Method
The purpose of this study is two-fold. First is to identify emergent and consistent war themes discussed and attributed to the president and his top advisers in the weeks following the 9-11 terrorists attacks. Second, I explore whether this communication was followed by discernible patterns along the same themes in news coverage by a variety of lesser government officials, journalists and a variety of foreign sources.
To study these strategies proved a mammoth task because I had to entirely depend, for the most part, on desktop research method and some copies kept in my personal archive, in content analyzing a census of news coverage in the New York Times from September 12 to December 18, 2001. These dates incorporates three specific and important periods within the Bush administration’s “war on terror.” From the terrorist strikes through October 7th, 2001 I call this the “selling of the war” phase. The period encompassing October 8th thru November 9th represents the start of the military campaign through defeat of the Taliban at Mazar-i-Sharif, a key battle that represented the first significant U.S. military led victory in the campaign. I call this the fighting phase. An my final phase, from November 10th thru December 18th I call the “victory” phase as the Taliban presented little military resistance during this period.
For this analysis I tried to read all news coverage in front section and dedicated “war on terrorism” sections that ran daily beginning in late September, as well as editorials and op-ed pieces.
In undertaking this analysis, and given the constraints of time, I adopted the approach of using the source as the unity of analysis, rather than the story. I did this because I was interested in (a) identifying the specific sources within and outside the Bush administration that might have been engaged in my “themed” discourse (b) systematically distinguishing the valence—i.e., directionality—of language used by the sources measured against that used by the Bush administration sources. This approach allows for examination of whether sources appears to support, criticize or simply reflect upon the administration’s public “wartime” stance. To be specific, as explained below, I was interested in what potential challenges to the war on terrorism were discussed in news content, who was talking about them, when the challenges were discussed, and how they were discussed. Only sources that discussed at least one of the pre-identified challenges to the military campaign were coded for analysis. Each source quoted or paraphrased was coded separately, and the entirety of each source’s statements in an article was taken into account when several source categories were identified in the broader project of which this research is part, including a range of U.S. sources, foreign sources, and journalists themselves. In this study I focus on four source categories:
· Bush administration leaders: This category consisted of comments in news content by President Bush, the then Secretary of State Collin Powell, outgoing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the then Attorney General John Ashcroft;
· Other U.S. government or military sources: this category consisted of comments in news content by any other federal government or military spokesperson such as a Congress member or U.S. Army spokesperson;
· Other U.S. quoted sources: This category consisted of comments in news content by non-government American leaders and regular civilians.
Foreign Sources: This category consisted of comments in news content foreign voices. The category was broken down among Allies ( Great Britain, Saudi Arabia ), enemy ( Taliban ), neutral ( Afghan/Iraq civilian ) or the United Nations spokespersons.
The content analysis focused on source discussion of six distinct “challenges or concerns” about the U.S military campaign. These six were selected because they emerged in the Bush administration’s public discourse between September 11 and October 7. Specifically, sources were code for the presence and accompanying valence of comments and language measured against the administration’s position of the six ( U.S. casualties, Afghan Civilian Deaths, War on Islam, Duration of War, Exit Strategy and Rebuilding of Afghanistan ) themed topics related to the U.S. military campaign.
Sources were coded as “1” on the variable if they were explicitly critical about the theme or administration’s stance on the theme; as “2” if they expressed concern or questions about potential/actual theme or the administration’s discussion of the themes; as “3” if they neutrally presented factual information about potential/actual theme or the administration’s discussion of the theme; and “4” if they were explicitly supportive or positive about potential/actual theme or the administration’s discussion of this subject. Sources who did not mention potential/actual loss of U.S. life or the administration’s discussion of this subject were not coded on this variable.
For instance if a Taliban source was quoted: “It will be an American bloodbath if they attack,” that source recorded as foreign/enemy) would receive a “1” (critical) as it countered the administration’s established stance that the U.S. military campaign would require sacrifice but, it was necessary to rid the world of evil. Three people conducted , (myself, my nephew who holds a Masters in Medicine and practices Internal Medicine and my niece with an MSC in Laboratory Technology), the content analysis. As a check of the inter-coder reliability, my ex- wife, a medical sociologist, (a fourth coder), coded a collection of 15 articles , which included 65 coded sources. For the source coding, this coder agreed on 58 of 65 codings, yielding, roughly, a .92 reliability coefficient. For the six “war challenges” variables, all of which had some coding scheme, this coder agreed on 220 of 273 codings, yielding a .89 reliability coefficient. In the case of disagreement, codings were assigned after a re-reading of the article. There were a total of 653 sources coded between the Washington Post and New York Times.
Findings/Results
In order to establish a foundation to examine theoretically driven indexing arguments, I locate common themes with the war on terrorism news discourse. From this point, news sources are compared in relation to these common war themes. I first examine the patterns that George Bush and his administration established in the “selling of the war” phase. This figure is important in that it represents the administration’s redundant themes, what academics Maltese (1992) and Cook (1998) have termed the administration’s “line of the day,” or the ability to control a message, keep it simple and consistently repeat it. The most discussed category by the administration was the potential duration of the military campaign (24 times over 15 separate days ), followed by Afghan civilian deaths ( 9 times over 6 days ), war on I slam ( 9 times over 5 days ), U.S. casualties (7 times over 5 days), U.S. exit strategy ( 5 times over 4 days ), and Rebuilding of Afghanistan ( 4 times over 4 days ). Further, President Bush was the primary administration source, publicly discussing these concerns during these days: he was present 25 times, compared to a total of 11 appearances by his top aides ( Collin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, and John Ashcroft ) and 21 by other government/military officials.
Conclusion
This study endeavor to investigate how the indexing theory and its follow up findings would work within news coverage gathered from hundreds of news stories featured during the first tumultuous weeks preceding and into the war on terrorism. The patriotic zeal and determination demonstrated by most Americans in the autumn of 2001 hadn’t been experienced in this country since the weeks after Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941—a war most Americans know only from stories or movies. Arguably, these conditions offered a most unique position from which to investigate how, when and where a myriad of mediated voices would ultimately find themselves within the elite media’s foreign policy.
Some of my findings, such as early and dominant presidential coverage, easily meet the expectations offered by indexing theory, while others did not. Without dissident Congressional voices or much if any official debate, journalists scrambled to meet their new norm of objectivity. I find lesser elites and foreign voices filling this objectivity hole in the resultant news void. But these “other” voices, when featured, were unlikely to see front-page coverage and, as their ability to make a difference in U.S. foreign policy was reduced, so too was their opportunity to break into U.S. news coverage at all. Although findings to my research questions remain interesting, I still think and believe it is important to remember the rallying, nationalistic public and government atmosphere that was operating during this period. This atmosphere, I argue, could have muffled potential dissident voices available to journalist (e.g spiral of silence or fear ) as much keeping journalist themselves, concerned for their carriers, far from taboo, controversial or nationalistic issues. Certainly hypothesizing about nationalism in regard to foreign policy and indexing theory was not the goal of this work, but does offer an interesting variable to keep in mind when looking at these results.
The war on terror has eclipsed its fifth anniversary and the administration is already facing huge problems in trying to prevent Taliban-come back in Afghanistan including enormous military and political setbacks in Iraq. But unlike the campaign against the Taliban, Congressional dissent and criticism exists. It is my wish in the future, to conduct a follow up comparative analysis that will include the current, more controversial period of the war on terrorism, conditions well suited to the practice of traditional indexing.
But the problems besetting U.S. journalism, in my view, remain deep-seated and will not go away unless there is structural change in the media system, such that truthful reporting on affairs of the state can be a rational expectation. This requires immediate political organizing to change the policies upon which the media system is based, and it requires making media reform part and parcel of broader movements for peace and social justice. In the end, media reform and social justice will rise or fall together.
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The Crisis In Africa
THE CRISIS IN AFRICA: TOWARDS A TRUE LIBERATION.
By Musafare TAKAENDESA. Mupanduki –BA.MA. DIPLOMA IN International Relations: PH.D. CANDIDATE
INTRODUCTION
♦ After decades of domination, the dominated in Africa have developed massive inferiority feelings. These feelings manifest themselves in an acute dependency on their colonial masters, a state, which can only be redeemed by a decisive act of a program of massive continuation education awareness campaign reaching all progressive forces -in the African continent.
♦ One of the greatest paradoxes of all time is that, the richest and the most generously endowed continent in the universe has the poorest people. There are great opportunities everywhere, but Africa is too blind to see that we literally walk on gold and yet we are too lazy to stoop and collect the treasure. Africans sit and wait for the colonial master (under the guise of foreign investment) to come to their aid, forgetting that the immutable law of the universe is survival of the fittest.
♦ In spite of the vast stretches of the Sahara and Kalahari deserts, Africa has more arable and pastureland than the U.S.A., the Soviet Union or China and India, all put together. African lands are futile and require, at the initial stage of use, little fertilization. Such great rivers as the Nile, the Congo, the Zambezi, and the Volta richly water these lands.
♦ Africa has 53 of the world’s most important and basic minerals and metals but Africans do not know what to do with them besides shipping and airlifting these treasures of Africa to foreign lands in exchange for a pittance. Africans again import these same materials in one form or the other at a hundred times the original value. To sell tobacco is pardonable, but to sell minerals discriminately is to be like a man who sells his muscle because he is hungry.
♦ Africa’s estimated coal reserves can last for another 300 years. Petroleum fields are being discovered every year to increase Africa's power potential; solar energy is merchantable and Africa has uranium for nuclear energy. But in spite of the fact that the continent possesses industrial raw materials and abundant power and energy, Africa is the least industrialized continent. This is the truth of Africa: It has everything, and yet possesses nothing.
♦ Yes at independence, Africa was given the national anthem, the flag, the twenty-one gun salute and the governors’ residence. Nothing changed. A model of Westminster and Whitehall remained in operation; yet that was a solemn moment, a moment of thought and not jubilation, a moment to consider the meaning and problems of statecraft, a moment to discover the philosophic and eternal meaning of the state as a concept. Africa had, at that moment, an opportunity to eclipse the colonial experience and drag the African countries through the usual course of history - injustice, class-war revolution and destruction. Africa chose the latter. African leaders squandered the reserves left by the colonialists' governments, like prodigal sons and took the begging-bowl around, to the same colonial masters, forgetting that even in those seemingly adverse conditions, we were part of the most richly endowed continent on the face of the planet.
♦ It is often said that the enemy of African development is neo-colonialism. This is false. Neocolonialism is the advantage, which the strong nations have over the weak ones: it is a law of life. “… to him that hath, shall more be given and from him that hath not, shall be taken away even that which he hath”.
♦ Europe is in danger of American domination; Asia is in danger of Chinese and Japanese domination; South America is in danger of North American domination and Africa, the weakest of all continents is in danger of domination by all of them.
♦ The truth is that no one can teach his competitors against himself Colonial countries cannot teach us how to compete successfully with them; they cannot teach us how to exploit our natural resources to our advantage. They must rather take advantage of our ignorance in order to survive.
♦ It is generally observed that nations emerging from long foreign domination generally lack an independent administrative traditional social structure within which it is easy to build a class of national administrators. It is true that in some of the countries concerned, the former administering authority has bequeathed a valuable legacy in the form of an efficient administrative apparatus and sizeable cadres of experienced local officials at many levels. But this by no means is generally so. Even where it is, it does not meet the needs of people whose awakening has stirred much deeper feelings of hope and endeavor than were felt under the most enlightened colonial regime.
♦ Having been into the world characterized by an almost unshakable belief in economic growth and progress, Africa's first steps towards `Uhuru' were inevitably influenced by the spirit of development that had seized the rest of the world. Compared to Asia and Latin America, Africa was viewed as having a special opportunity of making rapid and steady progress because it lacked the oppressive social structures and cultural impediments believed to exist on the other two continents. This was an erroneous belief and a false start in Africa.
♦ In this climate, the temptation for African leaders to ignore the past and treat their societies as clean slates' was understandably great. Often trained in Universities in the metropolitan of the colonial countries, they wanted their countries to catch up with the rest of the world as quickly as possible and without the pains and strains that had accompanied the march to progress elsewhere. Against this background, it is therefore not surprising that the first decades of independence have been a period of endless imitation and experimentation. Applying pet notions from both east and West with the view to bringing Africa into the mainstream of economic development, the continent was treated much like an empty box.
♦ The time span of a generation later, it is now clear that it was an imaginary expectation that the transfer of power from imperialist countries to sovereign African States would usher in a new era and lead to an up liftment in the living standards of the masses of the people and a combination of effective and democratic governments. Progress in the sense outlined above, has been much harder to achieve than was held more than forty years ago and today, Africa is faced with a steady increasing ma-development i.e. with costly legacies of the efforts to find shortcuts to progress! Rather than being closer to the industrialized countries Africa is farther away, rather than being more self-reliant, it is more dependant and rather than being more stable the continent is more volatile and conflict-ridden. In fact the situation has deteriorated even much farther, famine disease and civil wars resulting in an alarming loss of human life and total abuse of human rights with a complete disregard for the sanctity of human life, replacing other historically entrenched stereotypes. Indeed the prevailing image of Africa is that of a continent in permanent need of assistance and salvation from outside; the African having been reduced to a level of consumer apprentices incapable of analyzing their own problems or becoming the protagonists of their own development.
♦ The shortcomings in economic and social performance in Africa over the past decades are the results not only of the misconception of development indicated earlier in this analysis but also symptomatic of an institutional crisis which has not been given the attention in deserves. Public sector institutions created in the optimistic years after independence have found difficulty in adapting to a situation requiring restrain and belt tightening. This problem is particularly pertinent in Africa because of the dominant position taken by the state in development and the weakness of the other institution in society.
♦ The state-centered approach is at least in part a colonial legacy. Created quite arbitrarily by the colonial powers to respond to their own interests the modern state in Africa was set up with little or no regard for the ethnic linguistic, economic or geographical features of the continent. Nor was it created with a view to encouraging peoples’ participation in the economic and political business of their countries. A class of colonial civil servants controlled development in the colonial set up. For reasons of political control, the colonial authorities were reluctant to promote the establishment of associations outside the immediate tutelage of the colonial state.
♦ Ironically, independent Africa inherited this legacy. Initially, as long as government involvement in public affairs and development was relatively limited, the problem was manageable. But, as the demand for social change accelerated, and foreign donors increased their contributions, state participation in development grew rapidly and in some cases indiscriminately. The weaknesses of the private and voluntary sectors were used as an excuse for the rapid growth of state involvement in both social and economic development. There was a strong and erroneous belief that through manpower development programs, institutional shortcomings could be overcome. However, today, it is increasingly clear that Africa's problem is not primarily lack of talent and know-how but the institutional imbalance created in decades past, both prior to and after independence. In fact, the excessive reliance on the state as the principal mechanism of change and development has left most African countries in a corner from which they have great difficulties extricating themselves.
♦ The combination of artificiality and predominance has placed great strains on governance. Although an African state was a judicial reality in international law, it was not necessarily at the time of independence an empirical reality in national fact. Independence therefore, opened a gap between the international legitimacy and the internal marginality of many emergent African states. The gap often presented a real political dilemma to the new African leaders. They usually could retain European officials only by compromising their national independence and could dispose with them only at the risk of undermining government performance. Because of the fragile empirical reality of African states, power also tended to become highly personalized. Against this background, it is not surprising that the greatest threats to political stability in Africa have come from internal rather than external forces, which is not to deny that external forces have played and continue to play a sinister role in the power politics of many African countries. Illustrations of this whole problem is the fact that there have been over 150 attempts to overthrow incumbent governments by force in Africa since 1960 and a good number of them have been successful. An important reason for this is that personalization and monopolization of power, stemming from the empirical predicament of African statehood, has limited the scope of power sharing and this drives opponents of incumbent rulers to use force.
♦ It is with a view to throwing light on these issues that this analysis, wish to differ from other analyses on the crisis in Africa. This analysis gives an exclusive priority to the articulation of an African as opposed to a Western or foreign perspective on trends and events in Africa emphasizing the often-neglected historical dimension. The objectives of this analysis is therefore to:
♠ Critically and self-critically analyze past development experience in Africa.
♠ Examine the role of internal forces in the present crisis in Africa.
♠ Encourage the emergency of a new alternative Africa perspective on future developments in the continent.
♠ Identify ways and means of more effectively tapping Africa's largely underutilized or poorly utilized potential, both human and material.
♠ Redefine the role of the state in African development and its relations to groups and institutions in society.
♠ Critically analyze the dangers of armaments against a background of human of human rights, dignity and the sanctity of human life and international law
♦ The struggle of the African people for independence was accompanied by many a protestation of anti-imperialism. Even now, many African leaders articulate anti-imperialist slogans while collaborating with the same imperialists against the real interests of the people. This is because nothing in substance has changed. It is high time that anti-imperialism was given a concrete content in the examination of the crisis in Africa. What is the role of imperialism in the era of an African independent state? How does imperialism operate in the conditions of political organizations like the OAU and regional economic grouping like ECOWAS, COMESA, SADCC etc? How do international finance agencies such as the IMF, World Bank etc, serve the interests of imperialism and how can this be countered?
THE CRISIS IN AFRICA
CRISIS OF THE INHERITED STATE
The crisis in Africa is largely an institutional crisis. In particular, it is a crisis of the state. The dilemma facing the African State is that because it was inherited, in many instances, just like an empty shell, from the colonial powers, the African leaders, in filling this lacuna, have devoted prime attention to defining and redefining power relations within their societies. They are at the same time being asked to implement, often ill conceived and usually donor funded development programs and projects with unrealistic time horizons. It is therefore not surprising that in this situation short-term considerations have taken precedence over long-term ones; power over welfare; personal over institutional considerations and security over development. But in a situation where not only human welfare, but also human life is increasingly at stake in the continent, how much longer can Africa afford to be caught in these contradictions. The continent is certainly witnessing an alarming waste of human life and a total abuse of human rights in conflict situations like in the Great Lakes Region, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Angola and Sierra-Leone. Indeed millions of precious lives have been callously wasted in Burundi, Rwanda, The Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola. What are the options of getting out of this present predicament? How can African statehood be enhanced and development accelerated in a parallel fashion?
♦ These are the questions that are increasingly pre-occupying the minds of progressive - thinking policy makers in and outside Africa. In fact, one should not lose sight of the machinations of the western world in the crisis in Africa. Africa's attempt at economic and political groupings has been very disquietining to the U.S.A and Europe. The extent of the West's economic interests in Africa is not a secret. A scientific analysis of the African continent should look beyond empirical data to discover the forces that sustain and nurture political instability and economic stagnation in Africa. Why does the U.S.A find itself so much involved in the affairs not only of some African countries but also of South East Asia, the Middle East and other areas where European countries prior to World War H were predominant? An analysis of the structure of world economy will reveal the relative position of states and their role today in the global world economy that has led to the crisis in Africa.
♦ There is no doubt, whatsoever, that between Britain, the United States, France, West Germany, Canada and Japan, there exists a complete network of horizontal and vertical network and ties expressing the fact that individual national economies ultimately become links in the western economies. In these economies, each economic unit plays an assigned role in the international division of labor. Historically the position occupied by a particular country in the imperialist chain changed as a result of:
a) world war
b) changes in financial resources,
c) the correlation of classes and class struggle within each country.
When Britain was the leading imperialist country, she was also the main beneficiary of the world economy.
♦ After World War 11 when the fortunes of British imperialism began to decline, the United States saw itself (especially in relation to British dominions) as the heir apparent and political centre of the English speaking world. After World War II the U. S. carried its imperialist aims both against and in cooperation with Europe colonial powers and especially in collaboration with Britain and through the latter’s agency. But for Britain and Europe, this collaboration was merely expressive of their own decline as world powers and in which their dependence on the U.S.A was revealed. Under imperialism economic annexation of one country by another was fully achievable without political annexation. This fact must be born in mind in analyzing the changes in the role of particular countries in the present historical epoch. It makes it possible to understand the ascendancy of U.S. imperialism in the course of the break up of the old colonial systems - a fact African leaders failed to understand in their post independent relations with the western world. The penetration of U.S capital in the various regions of the world is one of the prime economic foundations of the U. S ascendancy. The strategic aim of the US capital investments after the break up of formal colonialism was/is to keep countries within the bounds of the capitalist world economy strongly controlled by the US. It is therefore not surprising that the US and the European countries, particularly Britain under the Conservative government led by Margaret Thatcher tirelessly worked towards the total eclipse of the communist world. In fact the emergence of African Continental and regional groupings which are striving to link both political with economic independence has greatly aggravated the U.S and its allies problems of economic control in Africa. But what are the options for getting out of this present predicament? This is the question that needs answers from an African Point of View. The Lagos Plan of Action and subsequent statements adopted by African Heads of State (including the African Priority Program for Economic Recovery) are indicative of this concern at governmental levels in Africa. They also feature on the agenda of the growing community of non-governmental organizations, African or international, involved in African development matters. Even certain genuine donor agencies are taking a serious look at what they have been doing for Africa.
♦ While all these efforts seem encouraging, it is not clear whether the full dimensions of the African crisis are realized. There is still a widely held belief that with more money and better technology, Africa's problems will be solved. Surely, such a `business as usual' recipe is the surest road to disaster at a time when old relations between ends and means do not hold; action frustrates its own intentions; and new purposes flounder for want of understanding and knowledge. At the same time, it is clear that it is easy to describe the problems in Africa and preach large changes of heart, yet neither description nor exhortation suffices at the time. More respect for the African Voice, independent analysis, more frequent dialogue and interaction and an extension of the number of actors involved in thinking and deciding about public matters, are some of the means that need to be considered in the present situation. In short, there must and ought to be greater participation by the broader base of the African people in the political and economic business of their countries.
♦ In a historic perspective, the crisis in Africa facing the African State, today, centers on its role as (1) actor in the international arena - the sovereignty dimension (2) determinant of power relations in society - the accountability dimension and (3) executor of policy - the delivery dimension. The problematic condition affecting the African state, inherited from the colonial masters, with regard to these three dimensions, is that, as actor in the international arena, it is set apart and as executor of policy, it is overloaded.
♦ In analyzing constraints and opportunities in order to resolve the present contradictions in Africa, we have to consider the pre-colonial, colonial and post colonial legacies assuming that each contained elements of significance to the present challenge. We believe that out of this rationale, we can come out with the rationale for a new perspective.
THE PRE-COLONIAL LEGACY
One of the pernicious effects of colonialism was to implant, notably among the educated Africans, the racist idea that Africa had neither history nor culture, or at best, that if there was one it was of no relevance today. The idea of colonialism as a civilizing mission and the policies of colonial powers pursued were calculated to destroy African resistance and to justify the brutality that would not normally be meted out on human beings.
♦ While the need to study Africa’s history should naturally be motivated by idealism designed to counter colonialist myths by other myths. Such as glorifying everything in Africa’s past, it should, however, as in all other countries, be studied and made to serve objectively and subjectively the present and the future of the African continent. On this premise, I hope that my analysis of Africa’s pre-colonial institutions will enable us to arrive at a number of useful conclusions.
♦ Before colonization, African societies were not organized in ‘States’ in the modern Sense. Centralization of power and bureaucratization - two important attributes of the state - had not developed in Africa or they were only at the most embryonic stages. Some of the reasons for this were:
a) the rarity of writing
b) the non-existence of wheeled vehicles, which by limiting long distance travel, limited centralization
c) the late arrival of firearms which prevented state absolution until recent times d) the absence, in large parts of Africa, of religions with ambitions of Universality and
e) the rarity of unifying language.
♦ This broad generalization of the pre-colonial situation in Africa should not by any means imply that family and kinship systems were the only social and political structures of importance in this period. The development of productive forces and social formations five centuries ago, in key areas such as iron and copper smelting, cloth manufacturing, leather tanning and dying as well as in trade in these items were unevenly distributed across the African continent. In Egypt, Nubia, the Maghreb, Ethiopia, the Western Sudan (comprising Ghana, Mali and Songhai) the inter-lacustrine kingdoms of East Africa and Zimbabwe were elaborate political-military and economic systems, which bore similarities with feudal societies, especially in Asia. These states had developed as early as a thousand years before Africa's permanent contact with Europe. However, quite significantly, the African societies were not given the chance to undergo social revolutions such as those that gave rise to the capitalist revolution in Europe in the 19th century. This was one way Europe underdeveloped Africa.
♦ The fundamental traits that existed in the political life of pre-colonial African societies, which could be emulated, were as follows:
– The basic principle in African political life, which was ignored by subsequent colonial systems, was the socialization of political and economic power. Inspite of differences between the village community and more centralized kingdoms in West and Central Africa dating back to the 10th Century, this principle prevailed. While social differentials existed within these classless societies, there were no contradictions, which could not be resolved without Se overthrow of one social stratum by another.
– Although there were tyrannies and abuses of power in both state-societies and stateless societies during the pre-colonial period, there were also ideal principles, which governed them. Community interests invariably eclipsed individual rights, but there also existed principles and practices for their protection. The situation was more expressive for the women although at the same time, in some parts of Africa, women played important political and military roles. In Egypt, Namibia, Benin, Angola, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe, in different periods, women ruled and produced some of the legendary names in the military history of Africa. Women, religious leaders as well as leaders of secret societies enjoyed privileged positions which also had political and economic power and led in the feudal period, for example in Ethiopia to the widely held idea of the divineness of the role of the solomonic line. Nonetheless, the most important postulate of the African exercise of power was the search for an equilibrium between political actors, in essence the application of three great principles;
a a) limitation of power
b b) sharing of power
c) rule of law.
♦ In order to realize the first principle, power was limited by tradition and custom which also assigned roles, responsibilities and power according to age, place occupied in the production process and social hierarchy. It was also guaranteed by extensive freedom of expression in the context of well-established and scrupulously respected codes. Indeed it was not only the liberty to speak that was given, it was an obligation to speak on behalf of those ones represented (family, caste or clan). This right of expression was not without its limitations for the ordinary people, but councilors, historians, minstrels and other dignitaries retained full rights to express themselves and their opinions even if these were unpopular and critical of the rulers.
♦ Yet, another factor limiting power in African society was the disassociation of political power from economic power. In some societies, the Barbara for instance, the political head of a village (teng naba) was different from the soil (economic) chief (teng soba). In Buganda, the ‘bataka’ clan leaders were the custodians of land for their clansmen, while the kabaka and his chiefs were the political leaders.
♦ The second great principle throughout Africa was power-sharing. It was always believed that the best way to keep power was to share it with as many groups as possible so that each had interest in its preservation. In the Mossi Empire in Mali, for example, the king was elected by an electoral college made up of non-nobles so that they could observe the principle of neutrality between competing members of the nobility. In some countries (Rwanda and Burundi Kingdoms) elaborated legal procedures existed in which ordinary people were chosen to serve as judges, notary public and ‘ombudsmen’ on the basis of their knowledge of customs and traditions and because of their personal integrity. Armed forces in Africa were only mobilized for action against external enemies, or against rebellions by feudal lords against their kings. Before the 13th century, the professional armies in other countries were first and foremost used for conquest of domestic power rather than for defense from external enemies.
♦ Finally, the African State was governed by the rule of law. Law was prescribed by custom and not even the king was above it. In many African Kingdoms, the king was sub-ordinated to the interest of the people that when he became so old and weak as to be considered harmful to their well-being, he was killed in ritual - a measure which would also be taken in case of gross violations of custom and tradition or in case of treachery. In some societies, the king was merely the representative of the ancestors in whom power resided or the `Stool' descended from heaven which was the real symbol of authority.
♦ It is recognized that the most fundamental reality, from which the present features of the crisis in Africa originate, is the inherited colonial state, its methods of conquests, legitimization and perpetuation in the different phases of colonization. It is further recognized that far from negating the effects of the slave trade, which had existed in Africa from the tenth century onwards, colonization reinforced, in many ways, the important effects of the slave trade, particularly in the formation of primary institutions and their chance of enduring.
♦ From the tenth century to the sixteenth century, Muslim trans-Saharan and Trans-Indian Ocean slave trade had the impact of dislocating the autonomous development of African societies and institutions. Political systems and social traditions which elsewhere in Europe and Asia provided the setting for the development of `high cultures' and which were evident in many societies in Africa were destabilized although they were still evident and could have survived that slave trade. The appearance of European slave traders in the 16th century with more efficient weapons accelerated the pace and enlarged the extent of the slave trade. Even the most conservative estimates of the number of slaves taken from Africa, to which must be added those who died from diseases, wars and famines which accompanied the accursed trade, would still provide sufficient evidence of the devastation by and of the lingering effect of slavery and the slave trade. That most sought after slaves were those in the prime of their lives, able-bodied men and women, is an often ignored significant fact in considering the demographic and economic consequences of the slave trade. It was indeed a sin that no saint can ever cleanse.
♦ The destruction by the slave trade of the political and social formations which hitherto had provided protection of the individual led to the reinforcement of dependency on kinship systems and kin groups - the most basic units of social organizations. At the advent of colonization, the kinship system had remained and retained the function of being, in the absence of the state, the most valued social defense of the African individual.
♦ Furthermore, with few exceptions, slavery deprived Africa of the possibility of developing the feudal mode of production which in Europe an 4 a encouraged political structures and social moves that gave the state power in the defense of individuals against external danger and in reconciling their conflicting interests. Under feudalism submission to legitimate political authorities, and to demands as were made by those authorities, was reinforced by defense and protection of the individual and his property. Rights and duties were established and scrupulously followed and the notion of citizen took root. Systems of demarcation between public and private interests were evolved in the long history of conquests, regrouping and domination; from small territorial units and different ethnic groups to larger and politically and culturally more integrated societies in which traditions of leadership and accountability were perfected and firmly rooted. In Africa, by contrast, colonialism did not integrate different societies into larger and more viable systems. It set out to dominate all of them using as its most effective weapon, the strategy of “divide and rule”
♦ The colonial state distinguished itself by an excessive use of force. Unlike development in Europe, where the state evolved over centuries of colonialism achieved its objective in a very short time because it had monopoly over arms. Acting without any moral restraint in its use of force, the colonial state first made war on society and thereafter used the same instruments of war to keep society under its domination.
♦ The response by Africans, which also suited the colonial order, was the withdrawal even more deeply into pre-colonial kinship systems in which the individual was protected and fulfilled, and which he/she gave total allegiance. At the same time, being so weakened, these systems could not individually and separately pose any threat to the colonial order. These factors of the colonial state gave rise to the following phenomena:
■ State and society were set apart as were their interests.
■ The state did not exist in the context of the morality of the African society at was therefore not responsible to it.
■ The state was essentially in a permanent situation of war with society, which in turn was in a situation of permanent resistance.
■ Being amoral, the colonial state would only be dealt with amorally by the society. Thus individual and collective behavior internalized these features and relations between the colonial state and society.
STATE AND SOCIETY SET APART
The state -society relations which developed out of the slave trade and colonialism engendered two realms in constant conflict: an amoral and ill-conceived civic realm on one hand and a circumscribed community-based on moral realm on the other. Attitudes towards organization, management and control of public affairs and resources reflected, and continue to reflect, this basic divergence of interests of state and society. Embezzlement of public funds and disregard for public property including nepotism and other forms of corruption must be understood in part as the defense of self and immediate family/clan against the state. By the same token family, clan or ethnic group will tax itself severely and willingly because the taxes go into a common pot for the benefit of all. In contrast, the colonial state did not take into consideration the interests of the society. In its exploitation of labor, for example, it paid such low wages that the laborers had to fall back on their families for their livelihood on returning from mines and plantations where they were employed. In the final analysis, the labor demanded of the head of the family was to enable him to pay the head tax in return for the individual's freedom and that of the family. Failure to pay tax made him a real prisoner or permanent fugitive in hiding from the agents of the state. Taxes were therefore considered a punishment rather, than a duty conferring on the tax payer entitlement to social benefits, human and political rights in a free society. Payment of tax did not give the payer the right to question the reason and manner in which the taxes would be dispensed, reinforcing even further the non-accountability of the state to the individual.
One important question, as we examine the first crisis in Africa, in the Congo, Lumumba’s dilemma in 1960, is; can real liberation be carried out within the framework of the colonial state? The question is predicted on the fact that the post colonial state carries most of, if not, all of the features of the colonial state and is perceived by the citizenry to be performing the same role with more or less perfected instruments and structures.
THE POST-COLONIAL LEGACY
Africa’s struggle for independence was the outcome of contradictions inherent in the colonial system itself. Having secured territorial boundaries and control of the population, the administration of the state and the organization of production imposed the need to train a small fraction of indigenous people to perform supporting roles. Education was the vehicle through which the state indoctrinated the African colonial servants into accepting as unquestionable the imperatives of the colonial state, essentially autonomy and hegemony, inviolability and security of territory, in spite of the arbitrariness of the colonial boundaries and diversity of the population.
♦ Where the pre-colonial African society had already advanced towards clearly defined social class formations and, in particular, where the model of production and social relations had created ruling families/clans, the colonial state instituted `indirect rule', in order to use them as intermediary class between the state and the people. The sons and daughters of the chiefs, and chiefly clans, religious converts and traders were consequently educated into accepting the basic ideology of the colonial state.
THE POST COLONIAL LEADERSHIP
In order to understand the nature of the post-colonial state, it is important to look into the condition of the class that led the nationalist independence movement and see, whether, given the circumstances that had nurtured it, it could bring about the results which the people expected once it took over power from the colonialist.
♦ In the chapter on the pitfalls of National consciousness Frantz Fanon in ‘THE WRETCHED OF THE EARTH’ made the sharpest critique of the African Middle Classes which led the independence movements and were the architects of the postcolonial state. The educated t mi die classes as already observed, were drawn from traditional ruling families, land owners, merchants and traders and those who accepted conversion to the religion of the colonizing power. These latter were sent to mission schools where they were taught not only to give God his due, but Caesar as well in proportions set by the missions and the colonial state respectively. Through the education they received and the place they occupied in the colonial state administration the mostly non-productive role in the economy and its appetite for European goods and culture, the African middle classes lost all but the most superficial links with the people. In the name of the people the middle classes agitated for independence without any concrete notion of what that independence meant for the people.
♦ The middle classes - the petit bourgeoisie - were only certain of their immediate interests, which were not different from those of the colonial state agents. Abolition of the most naked abuses of the colonial state - inequality of remuneration between equally trained African and European technicians, forced labor, disenfranchisement and racial discrimination in social intercourse, constituted for the petit bourgeoisie the most urgent task of the independence movement. For example the ANC of Southern Rhodesia declared its aims and objectives is as primarily dedicated to a political program, economic and educational advancement, social service and personal standards. Its aim is the national unity of all inhabitants of the country in true partnership regardless of race, color and creed congress affirms complete loyalty to the crown as the symbol of national unity. It is not a racial movement. It is equally opposed to racialism and tribalism … congress believes that individual initiative and free enterprise are necessary to the life of a young country and must be fully encouraged, but that a considerable measure of government control is necessary in a modern state …”
This country greatly needs capital from overseas … (and) government must therefore establish conditions under which capital may be invested and industry established with sufficient security to encourage investors.’ Being numerically small and struggling against western colonial systems which originated from countries practicing bourgeoisie democracy, it was necessary for the middle class to seek the following of the masses of the people so as to swell their numbers, and to make it impossible for the colonial state to govern.
Such mass following was also important in mobilizing international public opinion and especially the opinion of the progressive people in the metropolitan countries, where their pressure would play an important role in the decolonization process. Therefore, unity among the people and submerging all class and ethnic differences was of the utmost strategic significance.
♦ The petit bourgeoisie isolated, for maximum concentration, only the contradiction between imperialism and the African people irrespective of classes (the national struggle) and suppressed, those other forces which wished to make this struggle an all-out war against the local and international forces of exploitation (class struggle). The nationalist leaders, in their naivity and lack of proper understanding of the essence of imperialism, could formulate such slogans as, “seek ye the political kingdom first and all others shall be added unto ye”, as if, all others – economic, social and cultural liberation could be separated and relegated to second place.
♦ In summary, the class that took over the state on being granted independence by the metropolitan country saw as its mission the replacement of foreign rule by African rule. Approaching the question of exploitation from a racial perspective, the nationalist government leaders legitimized local exploitation carried out by its supporters as ‘fruits of independence,’ and explained away the increasing misery of its people resulting from, among other things, iniquitous laws of the international economic order about which they could do nothing.
♦ The African post-colonial state was exposed to two international political models - the Westminster parliamentary democracy and the Stalinist one-party absolutism. Neither of these was particularly relevant to Africa and increasingly criticized in their respective countries of origin. Trying to make sense of these models, African leaders turned democracy into personality cults, factors that invariably contributed to the phenomenon of the coup d’état.
COUPS AND REPRESSION
Not surprising the coup makers always promised to honor international agreements entered into by the overthrown governments. These promises were made basically in order to assure the transnational corporations and other foreign capitalists that their interest would not be touched. The promises made to the people on the other hand were seldom kept. The people who always rose in support of the coup-any coup-soon found out the true colors of the coup makers. The state was hardly ever affected by the coup. When coup attempt failed, mass arrests, imprisonment and firing squads became the lot of those caught and those suspected of complicity. Successful coups usually led to even worse orders. Not having any roots among the people, the only way the new regimes could survive was through suppression of the people and physical liquidation of real and imaginary enemies.
♦ Even where scientific methods and modes were claimed, the exhortations and left wing slogans were only designed to conceal the wishes of the state for unquestionable compliance from the people. Even when the state came about as a result of armed struggle like in Angola, Algeria, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, in which tremendous sacrifices were made by the fighters and the entire population, the situation was no better than in those countries where it came about through some peace. It was more disappointing as expectations were high, that in those states greater identification of the state and people would be painstakingly nurtured and that out of experiences of the savage wars of liberation, the state would not betray the people’s confidence. The unity that was the liberation movement's strongest weapon against the colonial power, however, did not take long to erode once independence was achieved. What were claimed as ideological differences among the leadership were often smoke screens for struggles for power and resulted from lack of democracy in the workings of the state. As internal conflicts within the leadership developed, less and less attention was paid to real issues. Contact with the people was gradually lost.
♦ The post colonial legacy is replete with examples of states’ perspectives on problems being too often dictated by one leader of groups of state supported intellectuals who behave and act as if their ideas are valid.
Because these perspectives are not debated by the people, or at best only superficially explained, they lack practicability and are almost invariably the cause of great waste of resources, suffering and despair. Stubborn refusal to learn from experiences world wide (and even of one's own) and preferring instead to invent and propagate new (isms) which only exist in their minds, has made most present day policy makers in Africa forget their people and often side with foreign interests. It is increasingly evident that policies are being determined solely by concern with the means rather than conditions of development. The former has given rise to preoccupation with structures leading to centralization and expansion of the state beneficiaries and has strongly encouraged a top-bottom approach to management of public affairs. This has resulted in preventing the majority of the peoples of Africa from active participation in the political, economic, social and cultural business of their various countries.
RATIONAL FOR NEW PERSPECTIVE
The leaders of the mass movements, which brought about legal independence in Africa, inherited the totality of the colonial state they had been fighting against. Lowering the ‘Union Jack’ or the ‘Tricolor’, African Heads of State moving to former governors’ residences (thereafter renamed ‘Peoples’ Palace or State House), the twenty-one gun salute or the national anthem, did not signify any basic change. Rather than question its relevance, the colonial state was adopted and legitimized. As a matter of fact, far from bringing the promised salvation to the people of Africa, the African leaders sunk deep into the love for flashy scenes and high faulting words. More important is the historical fact that in a very radical sense the nationalist leaders of Africa have found themselves sucked into the role of hypocrites and actors involved in a make-belief situation.
♦ Whereas bureaucracy had run the colonial state, the emergent African State lacked the administrative structures, personnel and the culture necessary for the efficient management and organization of state and society with different objectives from those of the colonial state. ‘STATIZATION’ of all aspects of the economic social and cultural life of the people which necessitated the expansion of the bureaucracy was the response of the post-colonial African states. It however did not increase efficiency. On the contrary, it became a burden to society as more and more resources were required to maintain it. The African state not only became the principal industry, it also sought and succeeded in interfering in the most personal and private lives of its citizens. The African state developed fastest in setting up capacities for repression and in systematically attempting to control and to organize society and individuals so as to gain their unquestioning allegiance.
Indeed revolutionary fervor gutted into political betrayal. Personal liberties were severely eroded.
It is because of these policies of African States in the last forty years that the masses of African people have witnessed political and economic stagnation, mass starvation, wars, torture and other forms of repression. Most of these are traceable to the state by the internal and external policies it pursued or by its inaction where intervention was required.
♦ Africa has learnt through great pains that the content of independence lay not in the seizing of power from the colonialist, but in how and for what that power was exercised. At the time of independence, African household by and large cold feed themselves. The African continent was not the major recipient of food aid than it has become, and its prospects for development were as less evident than in countries of Asia, which had been under the same colonial empires.
♦ The political crisis beginning with the Congo in 1960 multiplied in the sixties and seventies. These crises were to result in Africa’s inability to organize internal political and economic policies, which would make them economically self-sufficient and independent actors in the community of nations.
♦ As the crisis deepened, so did theories to explain its origin, nature and magnitude and to propose ‘appropriate’ paths to development. Various schools of thought sprang up and many theories were advanced to explain Africa's underdevelopment. Too often African policy-makers accepted lock, stock and barrel, these theories without questioning their reliability even when their own empirical experiences were enough to expose the inadequacy of these theories most of which are mainly western and form part of aid packages which have become the intellectual mentors of these African policy-makers.
♦ One of the theories propounded is the one termed ‘development studies’. Development studies is itself in a crisis because from its inception, after the Second World War, as a branch of economics, not a single country can be shown to have developed on any of the numerous models it has produced. On the contrary, development studies has itself become another opium for the people, designed, (as they often were), to stop the peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America from objectively investigating the real causes of their underdevelopment. At the same time, the establishment of multilateral institutions like the IBRD, the IMF, the OECD and the EEC pursued a strategy, which opened up the African economies to further penetration through erroneously much sought after foreign investments, which in reality meant further exploitation.
In fact, we believe that the crisis in Africa is not only about balance of payment problems and inadequate or misdirected external aid. The political and social upheavals, intensive wars, the enormous Africa refugee problem, extensive migration of African laborers within and outside Africa, authoritarian one partyism (whether by proponents of capitalism or various brands of socialism) encompass broader moral and political issues.
Understanding of the root causes of Africa’s underdevelopment, namely European Capitalism, through its slave, colonial and neo-colonial phases, while being necessary in raising the consciousness of the people, is too often used by the state intellectual apologists, to exculpate themselves from the responsibility of conceptualizing new paradigms within which the people could be mobilized to make their own history. For much too long, Africa's intellectuals in their typically middle class superficiality, have harped on everything negative in the political, social and cultural life of Africa as being the result of external pressures or constraints. By so proselytizing, the implication is that the correction of these wrongs will also have to come from outside.
♦ More than thirty five years of independence have given us rich experiences, even if, for the most part, they were of a negative character. They, however, provide a platform for an in-depth process of thought and action, geared towards the creation of a new domestic order that is culturally relevant, morally justifiable, economically vibrant and politically geared towards real liberation. That process can only be meaningful if it starts with inward looking consciousness.
♦ Starting from a holistic view of the state and bearing in mind its role as
1) actor in the international arena – the sovereignty dimension,
2) determinant of power relation in society – the accountability dimension and
3) executor of policy – the delivery dimension,
We have deduced from the information given above, the problematic condition affecting the African State with regard to these dimensions. In thinking about the future, we have organized our analysis so as to be able to identify:
(a) a new perspective,
(b) constraints to its realization, and
(c) means to change the existing order.
In this concluding action, will return to the African State as besieged in the international arena, set apart in its relation to society and overloaded as executor of policy.
THE BESIEGED STATE
AUTONOMOUS AND INTERGRATED DEVELOPMENT
NEW PERSPECTIVE
Although there has been much talk about self reliance and integrated development since African countries became independent, little has been done to foster a process that builds on local resources and serves to integrate sectoral efforts. Africa has remained standing with its back to its hinterland. We would certainly like to stress that the economic crisis in the past few years provides an unusual opportunity for rethinking and reorganizing the continent's economies. To be sure, the economic performance of African countries has varied and some are better off than others are. The truth of the matter is that every African country shares a debt burden and unfavorable terms of trade that gives them little choice but to reconsider past policies. African government leaders must, therefore, discover the potential of the domestic economy and society. Donors and other international organizations must adjust their approach to Africa in such a way that local initiatives are encouraged, local know-how tapped, and local institutions developed as counter-measures to the overwhelming legacy of externally induced and controlled interventions, whether by public or private institutions.
Constraints:
They analysis recognizes that putting the new perspective into practice will be constrained by three principal factors;
1) existing production structures;
2) lack of differentialization in the African economies; and
3) Foreign debt.
The existing production structures reflect the colonial priorities: production of raw materials and other commodities in demand in Europe and other industrialized countries. The result is that African countries tend to produce similar products, compete for the same market and often end up experiencing depressing terms of trade to their own disadvantage. Again, because African economies are essentially non-complementary, there is only limited scope for intra African trade, in spite of the political rhetoric to the contrary. African countries continue to produce what they do not consume and consume what they do not produce. The end result of that is that they are extremely exposed to changes in the international market prices and other external variables. In the 1990s in particular, commodity prices have been generally low while prices on imports, especially for the manufacturing sector, have gone up. The inevitable outcome has been escalating debts. While these debts in absolute terms may at first glance appear modest, they constitute heavy burdens. Foreign debt service makes up several percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) and, an average in sub-Saharan Africa, over a quarter of export earnings.
Means To Change:
In the means to change this situation, this analysis would suggest that although policy options for African countries are limited, governments must not be discouraged by the predicament of their countries. There are three measures can identify and that ought more prominently on African policy agendas in the future:
(1) accelerated domestic capital formation;
(2) development of intra-African trade.
♦ A precondition for autonomous and integrated development is that people rely on their own diligent labor, behave frugally and invest in the creation of new productive resources rather than consuming and dissipating capital produced. Productive activities must also be better linked to each other, whether forward or backward. For instance, enhanced food production, production of clothing material and clothes, as well as the provision of better housing will strengthen the domestic market. This process is likely to take time to realize but it should be given priority as a means of reducing export dependency and vulnerability to changes in the global economy. By building a strategy of industrialization on the agricultural sector, greater complimentarily between rural and urban-based production can be achieved. This principle can also be applied in regional African contexts. Investment has to be rationalized and made to serve more than one country. Food banks and other strategic institutions for inter-state transfers should be seriously considered.
GREATER AFRICAN ASSERTIVENESS
NEW PERSPECTIVE
Although African countries are weak by comparison with most other countries, there is great need for taking the necessary action to assert their position more forcefully in international fora. It is a matter of:
(1) developing common positions on key issues;
(2) enhancing analytical skills; and
(3) strengthening negotiating abilities.
For instance, what would happen if the African governments jointly developed a carefully prepared position on what to do with the continents' debilitating external debt?
Constraints:
There are several constraints to effective action on this issue but most of them lie within the realm of what can be overcome. This analysis identify the following:
(1) Poor selection of delegates to important conferences;
(2) Inadequate negotiating skills and
(3) Lack of training and experience in substantial fields.
Selection of delegates, particularly to international conferences, are often made as a reward for political work or as a means of providing an occasion for vacationing. Lack of individuals with negotiating skills is another constraint. African negotiators did very well in the constitutional conferences preceding independence. Why is the continent so short of skilled negotiators today? One explanation is that there is a shortage of competent individuals with adequate experience in a given field. The political emphasis in the past three decades has been to produce generalists rather than specialists. It is therefore not surprising that African countries have often failed to put up the necessary competence and know-how to serve official negotiators in various international fora.
Means To Change
The principal means to change that this analysis identifies intra-African cooperation. Speaking with one voice on key issues of common concern needs to be further encouraged and so do greater cooperation aimed at fostering a sense of commonness. For instance, in the early sixties, Kenyans, Ugandans and Tanzanians were foremost East Africans.
Today the East African is an endangered species’ and it requires a reserved commitment and a new perspective to restore such an orientation.
REDUCING AID ADDICTION NEW PERSPECTIVE
Observation is that most African countries have become addicted to foreign aid, have lost a sensible perspective on what it can, and should do, and that, as a result, foreign aid must be treated as much as part of the problem as part of the solution to Africa's current development crisis. The besieged nature of the African State has recurrently been reinforced by the international donor community through interventions that have often been ill conceived, poorly designed, and inadequately executed. Africa, therefore, needs a greater independence from the donor community. It needs to put its foot down and accept that the answers to Africa's problems lie with the Africans themselves, including those many individuals and groups that are not part of government structures, and not with the donors, however much expertise they might be able to mobilize in their support.
Constraints:
Africans have been brought up worshipping all things foreign. This colonial - or neocolonial mentality is deeply engrained in the African mind. The lack of public debate about who the Africans are, or ‘who we are’ and ‘how to get there’ further foster this dependency mentality. The absence of an intellectual atmosphere for discussion of issues of national concern tends to reduce the African to a subservient being, always anxious to take the easy road.
Means To Change
Awareness of the need to develop an independent mind and a new social consciousness that stresses self-reliance will only be achieved through greater respect for intellectual work. Culture has vanished as a significant variable in Africa because of the emphasis by foreign donors on achieving `development' (measured in tangible material terms). Political slogans and foolish ideas must be allowed to give way to more serious research and more critical debate of issues that affect Africa's present and future.
SANCITY OF BOARDERS
NEW PERSPECTIVE
We recognized that the besieged nature of the African State also stems from its inherited colonial boundaries. The latter has become taboo to touch. Much effort and much money been devoted to defending them, although they are too many African boundaries artificially and arbitrary. Nobody was ready to suggest that the official OAU position on the sanctity of the present territorial boundaries should be changed. Whatever is the case, still emphasize the need to form greater respect for cultural and social diversity within these boundaries. Uniformity is not necessarily the same as strength. However, it should also be mentioned that African nations are facing certain dangers in changing to the idea of single nation sovereignty in a world where the increasing power of the European Union and other regional organizations tend to make this idea old fashioned.
Constraints:
The multiplicity of ethnic, racial and religious groups in African countries poses a special challenge. In colonial days, it was tackled by using the principle of ‘divide and rule’. Although African leaders usually do it in the name of ‘national unity’ they very much follow the same principle of divide and rule. The artificiality of the boarders is often used to clamp down on groups that wish to assert their cultural identity.
Means To Change
Greater respect for sub-nationalists and other minorities within each African State should be scrupulously developed so that national unity ceases to be a pretext for prosecution of those who want to protect their rights. Border issues can be settled more amicably and at a less cost to Africa if special efforts are made to develop a political climate in which inter-state action can be promoted. African countries do not have the military resources to resolve or monitor inter-state conflicts, but they can take the necessary political and diplomatic steps to ensure that risk for such conflicts is minimized. Prevention is usually better than cure.
THE STATE SET APART - LIMITATION OF POWER
NEW PERSPECTIVE
It is observed that at the time of independence and in the years immediately thereafter, the emphasis on national consensus was understandable. Building the new state encouraged such an outlook. Experience has, however, shown that ambition to achieve maximum consensus often backfires. People are alienated underground opposition is encouraged and, political instability, often violence becomes the end result. The political formula adopted at independence, therefore, has become an albatross around Africa’s neck. Instead of serving as an engine for propelling growth, the state has become one of the greatest obstacle to progress in Africa. The notion of limitation of power, however, is not new to Africans. It was practiced in pre-colonial societies as indicated earlier in this analysis. Many of these values have survived at the level of local governance. The new perspective called for in this analysis involves these customary African values and principles and emphasizes the need for establishing a state that reflects local standards of fairness and dignity in a dynamic context. Sometimes these standards may coincide with universal values, at other times they may not. The point is that there must be an opportunity for ventilating the question of what is right and wrong, fair and to whom.
Constraints
On both colonial and post-colonial years, African countries have got used to the practice of ‘unlimited government,’ i.e. the use of power without any forms of restraint whatsoever. The result has been that most individual people in African countries are intimidated. The emphasis on the state as the principal actor in development has further reinforced an attitude of apathy. People simply sit back and do not engage in civic affairs. Africa has indeed become a continent without participation, although nowhere has the concept been more widely embraced by political leaders. Instead of using ‘voice’ option and register their opinion, people prefer to use their ‘exit’ option, i.e. to withdraw from public affairs.
Means To Change
Having registered considerable disillusion with the way African countries have been governed since independence, we have identified the following means to change the existing order as being of highest priority:
(1) free and fair elections;
(2) right to recall political representatives; and
(3) strengthening non-governmental organizations.
♦ I am confirmed in my opinion that the sovereignty of people (society) over the state must be established. This can only happen through the introduction of more democratic practices. Periodic election to a national assembly of contestants picked by committees of the ruling party must give way to multiparty democracy permitting all patriotic parties to freely organize and participate in free an fair elections at all levels of representation. The most crucial level, because it is close to the people, is the village community. If the representative to the district level assembly are elected from the village councils, which in turn are elected directly by the people from among trustworthy honest and respected individuals, political representation will begin to take on a different character. Patronage politics will give way to open democratic practices. Another important measure to limit power and give meaning to democracy among the people is the right to recall representatives when they are deemed to have abused their mandate. If politicians who seek office only for their own enrichment and aggrandizement can get away with it, people will have no trust in the political system. If on the other hand, these politicians who seek office are under pressure by those people who elected them, greater accountability will develop. Finally I must emphasize the need and the right to form and operate associations whether religious, cultural or professional, with a view to participating in public affairs openly. The rights of assembly, press, speech, etc. have not been respected in Africa. Non-governmental organizations should be strengthened, as development is too important a matter to be left in the hands of a few politicians and government officials only. `The Spirit is too great for one head' if we may cite an African proverb.
SHARING OF POWER
NEW PERSPECTIVE
A collateral to the need for limiting power of government leaders is the importance of making arrangements for greater sharing of it. The African State has remained set apart from society after independence because of excessive concentration of power in the hands of a small group of people drawn from a ruling political party the civil or military service.
Constraints
The principle constraints are related to the legacies inherited from years of overcentralized and over-politicized rule. These legacies encourage the notion that politics is just another lucrative profession - in some countries perhaps the most lucrative and make individuals regard it merely from the vantagepoint of their own interests. The interests of either the state or the society at large are ignored. Sycophancy, corruption, nepotism and other ills in the African State systems are bred in this climate.
Means To Change
Decentralization and debureaucratization are essential means to change the present situation. By decentralization is not meant the transfer of power to levels of a culturally controlled government. Such an exercise, as experienced in many African countries only multiplicates bureaucratic structures. It enhances state capacity for oppression. Decentralization, therefore, must in the future entail strengthening various forms of local government as well as non-governmental organizations. Only by reducing the stake at each level and in every public institution, will there be a way of bringing about greater democracy.
RULE OF LAW
NEW PERSPECTIVE
Fed up by the abuse of power in so many African States, I would like to register the need for greater emphasis on the rule of law. Desirable leadership behavior will not come about voluntarily. Thus, those institutions that enforce the laws of the land must be strengthened. No individual, including the head of state, should be above the law. While I recognize that strengthening the rule of law is a complicated and sensitive process, I would like to emphasize that there is a limit to what individuals living in societies where that principle is ignored, can take. Thus every African must work hard to ensure that political and civil liberties are not arbitrarily ignored by politicians, bureaucrats or others power and influence.
Constraints
The tragedy of Africa is that the way political systems have been run since independence has led to the institutionalization of a pattern of behavior among leaders that goes contrary to the notion of the rule of law. Politicians almost invariably see themselves as being above the law and are ready to violate laws in order to protect their own interests or persecute somebody challenging their position. The result is that the secret police, sometimes also the army, has become a major instrument of central and defense of the state against real or imaginary enemies. Trials, particularly of political challengers, have usually made a mockery of law.
Means To Change
Three important measures should be taken to change the present situation:
1) limiting the term of office;
2) promoting people’s self confidence; and
3} enhancing respect for life and property.
Limiting the term of office of state and party leaders is a first and important measure to take; particularly in one party states. Respect for rule of law will not be achieved unless the top leader is himself subject to rules about the use of power.
Limiting the time in office is one way of creating greater opportunity for holding politicians accountable. Promoting peoples' self-confidence through civic education and involvement in public affairs will enhance their ability to resist the tendency towards the rule of individuals rather than the rule of law. A special challenge in many African countries will be the demystification of the gun, i. e. the development of the conditions under which the gun, and other means of state coercion, will be employed responsibly and in the name of protecting the law only. Finally, as part of this process, authorities must be made to show much greater respect for the sanctity of human life and property than has been the case to date. This will come about only if there are constitutional means to hold people in power accountable. The opportunity to express a vote of no confidence in an individual leader in circumstances when that person has violated the law is one possibility.
THE OVERLOADED STATE
BALANCING PRIVATE AND PUBLIC OWNERSHIP
THE NEW PERSPECTIVE
Respect for private property may be a prerequisite for greater respect for public property. Based on Africa’s disappointing experience of nationalization and management of the public sector, we would like to suggest that at the present stage of development in Africa, a better balance between private and public ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange is needed. Problems to date have been caused not only by lack of skilled manpower, but above all, by lack of responsibility towards public property among stage managers. The result has been a catastrophe for Africa: loss of the potential for accumulation and reinvestment; destruction of already acquired capital – e.g. machinery, vehicles and equipment – underproduction of consumer goods and therefore hardships for the people and loss of the trust in public institutions, the most important precondition for social progress is the steady accumulation of invisible surplus and development of production forces. Bearing in mind the low levels of capital formation and the high demands for consumption, to prevent private ownership of the means of production, and thereby limiting the extent of that sector's contribution to the creation of wealth and income cannot be defended by
involving the principles of socialist direction of society. In the initial stages of creating an independent national economy for countries which do not have a strong and developed capitalism and where the supervision of enterprises therefore is limited by the lack of advanced technical and conscious cadres, the private sector can play a catalytic role so long as the parameters of its operation are clearly spelt out and incentives and reasonable profits are guaranteed by the state. This situation is aggravated by the lack of good traditions of conducting the international affairs of the state, maintaining a proper balance between the state and society and for executing state policy.
Constraints
The principal constraint is obviously the legacy created by an almost unlimited growth of the public sector in the past. People continue to respect the state to be the sole agency responsible for improvement in their welfare. The result is that they will overload the state with demands and give priority to consumption over production. Thus in Africa; people consume more and more and produce less and less resulting in Africans in becoming nations of petty traders. Although there is pressure to retrench the state sector, little has been done and many political consequences are potentially hazardous.
Means To Change
In order to change the existing order and to make planning a more broadly based activity representatives of different tendencies, ideologies professions in society should constitute politically independent Planning Commissions, along the lines of an independent judiciary. These commissions would work with government but would above all be charged with ensuring that the people retain control of their economic activities and safeguarding their interests against periodic changes of government and the possibility of retrogressive policies. The setting up of these commissions presupposes a new political thrust by the state, which should promote and safeguard democracy and popular emancipation. A planning Commission, properly constituted, would also play a key role in the development of productive forces, in deciding levels of investment and consumption, location of industries and order of priorities in the different sectors of the economy.
GREATER INVOLVEMENT BY NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANISATIONS
NEW PERSPECTIVE
The state cannot serve as the sole entrepreneur in Africa and it has to share the burden of development with other institutions in society. Of special interest are the non-governmental organizations, which have proven effective in mobilizing people and resources on a self-reliance basis. As one type of organization that empowers people, non-governmental organizations, which have proven effective, play a vital role similar to that of pressure groups by establishing lines of communication between state agencies and the people. Being less bureaucratic than government institutions, NGOs normally respond more quickly to appeals and demands from the people and do not have the same internal obstacles as large bureaucracies. NGOs as suggested above, are an important aspect of civil society and one means by which power can be diffused and shared. As service agencies, they often achieve better results than other organizations because they rely on voluntary participation and thus enjoy usually higher levels of motivation.
Constraints
The greatest constraint is the unwillingness of government leaders to recognize the contribution made by NGOs. Although it is clear that the state cannot deliver all educational, health and many other social services, government leaders feel uncomfortable about NGOs because they cannot directly control them, or if they become too prominent and influential, to put difficulties in their way. In some extreme cases, the state may even destroy them.
Means To Change
We are convinced that NGOs will achieve recognition in Africa as they continue to out-perform state agencies in various sectors. By demonstrating their capacity, they create an opportunity for offloading the state in a manner that would be helpful to society. NGOs do not have to be a problem to state. Their presents outside the state sector usually provide government departments with opportunities to link up with local activities that benefit all the government as well as the people.
GREATER FLEXIBILITY IN POLICY –
THE NEW PERSPECTIVE
African governments often prompted by donor agencies have been much inclined to adopt single-track solutions to all problems. Instead of recognizing the value of diversity, they have often pursued uniform policy solutions although they are clumsy and inappropriate. It is my candid opinion that greater flexibility is needed both in policy outlook in organizing delivery of state action. Public officials must be encouraged to seek solutions that are creative and appropriate for each time and location rather than developing a `blue print' and attempt to implement it across the country.
Constraints
The principal constraints and obstacles to greater flexibility are existing bureaucratic interests and the mentality of many officials that one policy solution is more efficient and easier to monitor. Force of habit, notions of self-worthy and loss of face often obstructs, or slows down judgment and decision making. Another important obstacle is the lack of articulation of views by others than political leaders. Greater flexibility may become a reality if NGOs and other organizations are allowed to raise their voice and articulate views of policy.
Means To Change
Providing the viability of alternative solutions to state policy is an important means to change the existing outlook. State officials must be made to realize that they do not automatically have the only solutions to society's problems, for instance, in the education and health sectors, new combinations of private and public resources to serve the people should be developed and tried out. Instead of paying for everything, usually the common practice of patronage politics, government should provide matching support and reward communities or institutions that have mobilized local resources and an initial installment.
GREATER PARTICIPATION
NEW PERSPECTIVE
Although there has been much talk of participation in Africa in the past three decades, little has been done. If anything, popular involvement in public affairs has declined. There is, therefore, the need to ensure that in future, policy processes really start from the people, then go to parliament, and finally back to people again. Policy-making must not be the prerogative of officials only.
Constraints
Greater participation in policy making is usually obstructed by the reluctance of state leaders and institutions to share power and delegate authority. Starting with the head of state, who rarely seeks or follows the advice of individual cabinet ministers, the state works in a military way with orders being transmitted from top downwards except when secrecy makes even this impossible. Seniority is almost always an excuse for thwarting original ideas from juniors.
Means To Change
Participatory modes of policy making can be evolved by strengthening institutions willing to encourage more democratic practices within state institutions as part of broader democratic practices within society at large. We realize that this is a difficult and far reaching measure that would only become reality in conjunction with the other measures analyzed. It entails reforms in both the economic and political sphere, including breaking the spell of the present neo-colonial order. It is generally believed that neo-colonialism, more than anything else, holds back Africa's creativity and potential to develop on its own. However, it should also be taken into consideration that Africa's long period of colonialism and colonial domination makes it difficult to crush neo-colonialism as a viper: it will always exist. We shall also practice it against others when Africa becomes strong. The only way to defeat neo-colonialism is to compete with the so-called advanced nations in productivity and we can only do so if we apply to an increasing extent, home-brewed results, science and technology, to agriculture and industry. African Unity can only help if it leads to the attainment of this end.
To sum it up, Africa needs capital but she does not need to borrow it. The Soviet Union built up her own capital without any significant borrowing. She made severe sacrifices in order to achieve a better future. Borrowing at every turn cannot solve the African problem. Certainly judicious borrowing has its place, but indiscriminate soliciting for funds, foreign investment etc. is the beginning of slavery. Colonial regimes built up reserves without borrowing and African countries can also do it.
The other evil contributing to our woes in Africa is our inability to put first things first. The second evil is our almost total lack of appreciation for science education as the bulwark of agriculture and industry.
What are the first things? If we take the example of a tree as an organic unit, the tree is a highly organized industrial unit. Certainly no human organization can surpass it in efficiency. It works to sustain itself. It does this systematically and orderly. It does not grow flowers first. It does not concern itself with prestige and grandeur until it has secured for itself the life sustaining conditions – water, carbon dioxide and energy.
From the tree then we learn the next phase of activity that after attaining independence it is not an elaborate foreign service and embassies, not huge armies and novices, not mighty statues and national monuments, not parks and gardens but agriculture, agriculture and industries, industries and industries.
Africa indeed needs industries to convert our minerals into finished products, cocoa into chocolate, tobacco into cigarettes, air into fertilizer, oils into soap, clay into pots and cups. This should be the major activity in Africa. It should utilize the total available energy to create new things out of natural resources to provide the common needs such as food, shelter, clothing and where the raw materials are not available, to exchange some of these finished products for these raw materials and to turn these in turn into more valuable products.
This is the secret of the greatness of the developed nations. They never stand in one place in industry. They are always looking out for opportunity to introduce some useful and imaginative innovations. The more they do this the richer they become and the poorer African, Asian and Latin American nations become. They want transistors, television sets, cameras and even furniture, plates and multitude of other goods, which they cannot make but desire passionately. The irony of it all is that “the made in Britain” etc goods have their raw materials originating from Africa. When these countries grow richer we go to the United Nations to complain that we are becoming poorer and poorer. These nations see it, but there is nothing they can do about it. They just cannot toil for Africa. And just as the rich man throws a cent to the beggar at the street corner, so do our former colonial masters give to us some pittance or loans with unbreakable strings.
Africa would fail were it not for its virtually inexhaustible resources. The sun alone is a source of incalculable wealth. Then when we are well-fed, adequately clothed and comfortably housed we can turn to litany and cultural activities; we can turn to literature and philosophy, to drumming and dancing, to radio and television, we can turn to large armies and navies, to the air force and new missiles.
We can turn to statues and monuments to white elephants and red lions as America, indeed, has done because at that time we can afford.
The order of priorities then is first agriculture and fishing, secondly mining and industry and lastly literary and cultural activities. In this way Africa would have put first things first and succeeded in laying a solid foundation for sustained growth.
If Africa would conceive this and above all our leaders grasp this phenomenon, Africa's poverty, disease and unending internal strife would vanish. A new era would have been ushered in and the black man would have taken his rightful place in the community of nations. Indeed what is it that keeps our leaders in a state of humiliating reliance on Western aid? Why do the educated classes of Africa spend so much time demanding the crumbs of materialistic prestige to be snatched from Europe and America, and so little developing local resources such as agriculture? The answer as suggested by Frantz Fanon is that the governing class of our countries has so far so long left the responsibility of its decisions to others that it is now deprived of the capacity to take any constructive initiative since it implies a minimum of risk. The failure is one of imagination. The people lost the capacity to improvise since they no longer possess the necessary confidence in the creative potential of their own culture. We must indeed rise to a pitch of equality with the rest of the world. .THE CRISIS IN AFRICA: TOWARDS A TRUE LIBERATION.
By Musafare TAKAENDESA. Mupanduki –BA.MA. DIPLOMA IN International Relations: PH.D. CANDIDATE
INTRODUCTION
♦ After decades of domination, the dominated in Africa have developed massive inferiority feelings. These feelings manifest themselves in an acute dependency on their colonial masters, a state, which can only be redeemed by a decisive act of a program of massive continuation education awareness campaign reaching all progressive forces -in the African continent.
♦ One of the greatest paradoxes of all time is that, the richest and the most generously endowed continent in the universe has the poorest people. There are great opportunities everywhere, but Africa is too blind to see that we literally walk on gold and yet we are too lazy to stoop and collect the treasure. Africans sit and wait for the colonial master (under the guise of foreign investment) to come to their aid, forgetting that the immutable law of the universe is survival of the fittest.
♦ In spite of the vast stretches of the Sahara and Kalahari deserts, Africa has more arable and pastureland than the U.S.A., the Soviet Union or China and India, all put together. African lands are futile and require, at the initial stage of use, little fertilization. Such great rivers as the Nile, the Congo, the Zambezi, and the Volta richly water these lands.
♦ Africa has 53 of the world’s most important and basic minerals and metals but Africans do not know what to do with them besides shipping and airlifting these treasures of Africa to foreign lands in exchange for a pittance. Africans again import these same materials in one form or the other at a hundred times the original value. To sell tobacco is pardonable, but to sell minerals discriminately is to be like a man who sells his muscle because he is hungry.
♦ Africa’s estimated coal reserves can last for another 300 years. Petroleum fields are being discovered every year to increase Africa's power potential; solar energy is merchantable and Africa has uranium for nuclear energy. But in spite of the fact that the continent possesses industrial raw materials and abundant power and energy, Africa is the least industrialized continent. This is the truth of Africa: It has everything, and yet possesses nothing.
♦ Yes at independence, Africa was given the national anthem, the flag, the twenty-one gun salute and the governors’ residence. Nothing changed. A model of Westminster and Whitehall remained in operation; yet that was a solemn moment, a moment of thought and not jubilation, a moment to consider the meaning and problems of statecraft, a moment to discover the philosophic and eternal meaning of the state as a concept. Africa had, at that moment, an opportunity to eclipse the colonial experience and drag the African countries through the usual course of history - injustice, class-war revolution and destruction. Africa chose the latter. African leaders squandered the reserves left by the colonialists' governments, like prodigal sons and took the begging-bowl around, to the same colonial masters, forgetting that even in those seemingly adverse conditions, we were part of the most richly endowed continent on the face of the planet.
♦ It is often said that the enemy of African development is neo-colonialism. This is false. Neocolonialism is the advantage, which the strong nations have over the weak ones: it is a law of life. “… to him that hath, shall more be given and from him that hath not, shall be taken away even that which he hath”.
♦ Europe is in danger of American domination; Asia is in danger of Chinese and Japanese domination; South America is in danger of North American domination and Africa, the weakest of all continents is in danger of domination by all of them.
♦ The truth is that no one can teach his competitors against himself Colonial countries cannot teach us how to compete successfully with them; they cannot teach us how to exploit our natural resources to our advantage. They must rather take advantage of our ignorance in order to survive.
♦ It is generally observed that nations emerging from long foreign domination generally lack an independent administrative traditional social structure within which it is easy to build a class of national administrators. It is true that in some of the countries concerned, the former administering authority has bequeathed a valuable legacy in the form of an efficient administrative apparatus and sizeable cadres of experienced local officials at many levels. But this by no means is generally so. Even where it is, it does not meet the needs of people whose awakening has stirred much deeper feelings of hope and endeavor than were felt under the most enlightened colonial regime.
♦ Having been into the world characterized by an almost unshakable belief in economic growth and progress, Africa's first steps towards `Uhuru' were inevitably influenced by the spirit of development that had seized the rest of the world. Compared to Asia and Latin America, Africa was viewed as having a special opportunity of making rapid and steady progress because it lacked the oppressive social structures and cultural impediments believed to exist on the other two continents. This was an erroneous belief and a false start in Africa.
♦ In this climate, the temptation for African leaders to ignore the past and treat their societies as clean slates' was understandably great. Often trained in Universities in the metropolitan of the colonial countries, they wanted their countries to catch up with the rest of the world as quickly as possible and without the pains and strains that had accompanied the march to progress elsewhere. Against this background, it is therefore not surprising that the first decades of independence have been a period of endless imitation and experimentation. Applying pet notions from both east and West with the view to bringing Africa into the mainstream of economic development, the continent was treated much like an empty box.
♦ The time span of a generation later, it is now clear that it was an imaginary expectation that the transfer of power from imperialist countries to sovereign African States would usher in a new era and lead to an up liftment in the living standards of the masses of the people and a combination of effective and democratic governments. Progress in the sense outlined above, has been much harder to achieve than was held more than forty years ago and today, Africa is faced with a steady increasing ma-development i.e. with costly legacies of the efforts to find shortcuts to progress! Rather than being closer to the industrialized countries Africa is farther away, rather than being more self-reliant, it is more dependant and rather than being more stable the continent is more volatile and conflict-ridden. In fact the situation has deteriorated even much farther, famine disease and civil wars resulting in an alarming loss of human life and total abuse of human rights with a complete disregard for the sanctity of human life, replacing other historically entrenched stereotypes. Indeed the prevailing image of Africa is that of a continent in permanent need of assistance and salvation from outside; the African having been reduced to a level of consumer apprentices incapable of analyzing their own problems or becoming the protagonists of their own development.
♦ The shortcomings in economic and social performance in Africa over the past decades are the results not only of the misconception of development indicated earlier in this analysis but also symptomatic of an institutional crisis which has not been given the attention in deserves. Public sector institutions created in the optimistic years after independence have found difficulty in adapting to a situation requiring restrain and belt tightening. This problem is particularly pertinent in Africa because of the dominant position taken by the state in development and the weakness of the other institution in society.
♦ The state-centered approach is at least in part a colonial legacy. Created quite arbitrarily by the colonial powers to respond to their own interests the modern state in Africa was set up with little or no regard for the ethnic linguistic, economic or geographical features of the continent. Nor was it created with a view to encouraging peoples’ participation in the economic and political business of their countries. A class of colonial civil servants controlled development in the colonial set up. For reasons of political control, the colonial authorities were reluctant to promote the establishment of associations outside the immediate tutelage of the colonial state.
♦ Ironically, independent Africa inherited this legacy. Initially, as long as government involvement in public affairs and development was relatively limited, the problem was manageable. But, as the demand for social change accelerated, and foreign donors increased their contributions, state participation in development grew rapidly and in some cases indiscriminately. The weaknesses of the private and voluntary sectors were used as an excuse for the rapid growth of state involvement in both social and economic development. There was a strong and erroneous belief that through manpower development programs, institutional shortcomings could be overcome. However, today, it is increasingly clear that Africa's problem is not primarily lack of talent and know-how but the institutional imbalance created in decades past, both prior to and after independence. In fact, the excessive reliance on the state as the principal mechanism of change and development has left most African countries in a corner from which they have great difficulties extricating themselves.
♦ The combination of artificiality and predominance has placed great strains on governance. Although an African state was a judicial reality in international law, it was not necessarily at the time of independence an empirical reality in national fact. Independence therefore, opened a gap between the international legitimacy and the internal marginality of many emergent African states. The gap often presented a real political dilemma to the new African leaders. They usually could retain European officials only by compromising their national independence and could dispose with them only at the risk of undermining government performance. Because of the fragile empirical reality of African states, power also tended to become highly personalized. Against this background, it is not surprising that the greatest threats to political stability in Africa have come from internal rather than external forces, which is not to deny that external forces have played and continue to play a sinister role in the power politics of many African countries. Illustrations of this whole problem is the fact that there have been over 150 attempts to overthrow incumbent governments by force in Africa since 1960 and a good number of them have been successful. An important reason for this is that personalization and monopolization of power, stemming from the empirical predicament of African statehood, has limited the scope of power sharing and this drives opponents of incumbent rulers to use force.
♦ It is with a view to throwing light on these issues that this analysis, wish to differ from other analyses on the crisis in Africa. This analysis gives an exclusive priority to the articulation of an African as opposed to a Western or foreign perspective on trends and events in Africa emphasizing the often-neglected historical dimension. The objectives of this analysis is therefore to:
♠ Critically and self-critically analyze past development experience in Africa.
♠ Examine the role of internal forces in the present crisis in Africa.
♠ Encourage the emergency of a new alternative Africa perspective on future developments in the continent.
♠ Identify ways and means of more effectively tapping Africa's largely underutilized or poorly utilized potential, both human and material.
♠ Redefine the role of the state in African development and its relations to groups and institutions in society.
♠ Critically analyze the dangers of armaments against a background of human of human rights, dignity and the sanctity of human life and international law
♦ The struggle of the African people for independence was accompanied by many a protestation of anti-imperialism. Even now, many African leaders articulate anti-imperialist slogans while collaborating with the same imperialists against the real interests of the people. This is because nothing in substance has changed. It is high time that anti-imperialism was given a concrete content in the examination of the crisis in Africa. What is the role of imperialism in the era of an African independent state? How does imperialism operate in the conditions of political organizations like the OAU and regional economic grouping like ECOWAS, COMESA, SADCC etc? How do international finance agencies such as the IMF, World Bank etc, serve the interests of imperialism and how can this be countered?
THE CRISIS IN AFRICA
CRISIS OF THE INHERITED STATE
The crisis in Africa is largely an institutional crisis. In particular, it is a crisis of the state. The dilemma facing the African State is that because it was inherited, in many instances, just like an empty shell, from the colonial powers, the African leaders, in filling this lacuna, have devoted prime attention to defining and redefining power relations within their societies. They are at the same time being asked to implement, often ill conceived and usually donor funded development programs and projects with unrealistic time horizons. It is therefore not surprising that in this situation short-term considerations have taken precedence over long-term ones; power over welfare; personal over institutional considerations and security over development. But in a situation where not only human welfare, but also human life is increasingly at stake in the continent, how much longer can Africa afford to be caught in these contradictions. The continent is certainly witnessing an alarming waste of human life and a total abuse of human rights in conflict situations like in the Great Lakes Region, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Angola and Sierra-Leone. Indeed millions of precious lives have been callously wasted in Burundi, Rwanda, The Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola. What are the options of getting out of this present predicament? How can African statehood be enhanced and development accelerated in a parallel fashion?
♦ These are the questions that are increasingly pre-occupying the minds of progressive - thinking policy makers in and outside Africa. In fact, one should not lose sight of the machinations of the western world in the crisis in Africa. Africa's attempt at economic and political groupings has been very disquietining to the U.S.A and Europe. The extent of the West's economic interests in Africa is not a secret. A scientific analysis of the African continent should look beyond empirical data to discover the forces that sustain and nurture political instability and economic stagnation in Africa. Why does the U.S.A find itself so much involved in the affairs not only of some African countries but also of South East Asia, the Middle East and other areas where European countries prior to World War H were predominant? An analysis of the structure of world economy will reveal the relative position of states and their role today in the global world economy that has led to the crisis in Africa.
♦ There is no doubt, whatsoever, that between Britain, the United States, France, West Germany, Canada and Japan, there exists a complete network of horizontal and vertical network and ties expressing the fact that individual national economies ultimately become links in the western economies. In these economies, each economic unit plays an assigned role in the international division of labor. Historically the position occupied by a particular country in the imperialist chain changed as a result of:
a) world war
b) changes in financial resources,
c) the correlation of classes and class struggle within each country.
When Britain was the leading imperialist country, she was also the main beneficiary of the world economy.
♦ After World War 11 when the fortunes of British imperialism began to decline, the United States saw itself (especially in relation to British dominions) as the heir apparent and political centre of the English speaking world. After World War II the U. S. carried its imperialist aims both against and in cooperation with Europe colonial powers and especially in collaboration with Britain and through the latter’s agency. But for Britain and Europe, this collaboration was merely expressive of their own decline as world powers and in which their dependence on the U.S.A was revealed. Under imperialism economic annexation of one country by another was fully achievable without political annexation. This fact must be born in mind in analyzing the changes in the role of particular countries in the present historical epoch. It makes it possible to understand the ascendancy of U.S. imperialism in the course of the break up of the old colonial systems - a fact African leaders failed to understand in their post independent relations with the western world. The penetration of U.S capital in the various regions of the world is one of the prime economic foundations of the U. S ascendancy. The strategic aim of the US capital investments after the break up of formal colonialism was/is to keep countries within the bounds of the capitalist world economy strongly controlled by the US. It is therefore not surprising that the US and the European countries, particularly Britain under the Conservative government led by Margaret Thatcher tirelessly worked towards the total eclipse of the communist world. In fact the emergence of African Continental and regional groupings which are striving to link both political with economic independence has greatly aggravated the U.S and its allies problems of economic control in Africa. But what are the options for getting out of this present predicament? This is the question that needs answers from an African Point of View. The Lagos Plan of Action and subsequent statements adopted by African Heads of State (including the African Priority Program for Economic Recovery) are indicative of this concern at governmental levels in Africa. They also feature on the agenda of the growing community of non-governmental organizations, African or international, involved in African development matters. Even certain genuine donor agencies are taking a serious look at what they have been doing for Africa.
♦ While all these efforts seem encouraging, it is not clear whether the full dimensions of the African crisis are realized. There is still a widely held belief that with more money and better technology, Africa's problems will be solved. Surely, such a `business as usual' recipe is the surest road to disaster at a time when old relations between ends and means do not hold; action frustrates its own intentions; and new purposes flounder for want of understanding and knowledge. At the same time, it is clear that it is easy to describe the problems in Africa and preach large changes of heart, yet neither description nor exhortation suffices at the time. More respect for the African Voice, independent analysis, more frequent dialogue and interaction and an extension of the number of actors involved in thinking and deciding about public matters, are some of the means that need to be considered in the present situation. In short, there must and ought to be greater participation by the broader base of the African people in the political and economic business of their countries.
♦ In a historic perspective, the crisis in Africa facing the African State, today, centers on its role as (1) actor in the international arena - the sovereignty dimension (2) determinant of power relations in society - the accountability dimension and (3) executor of policy - the delivery dimension. The problematic condition affecting the African state, inherited from the colonial masters, with regard to these three dimensions, is that, as actor in the international arena, it is set apart and as executor of policy, it is overloaded.
♦ In analyzing constraints and opportunities in order to resolve the present contradictions in Africa, we have to consider the pre-colonial, colonial and post colonial legacies assuming that each contained elements of significance to the present challenge. We believe that out of this rationale, we can come out with the rationale for a new perspective.
THE PRE-COLONIAL LEGACY
One of the pernicious effects of colonialism was to implant, notably among the educated Africans, the racist idea that Africa had neither history nor culture, or at best, that if there was one it was of no relevance today. The idea of colonialism as a civilizing mission and the policies of colonial powers pursued were calculated to destroy African resistance and to justify the brutality that would not normally be meted out on human beings.
♦ While the need to study Africa’s history should naturally be motivated by idealism designed to counter colonialist myths by other myths. Such as glorifying everything in Africa’s past, it should, however, as in all other countries, be studied and made to serve objectively and subjectively the present and the future of the African continent. On this premise, I hope that my analysis of Africa’s pre-colonial institutions will enable us to arrive at a number of useful conclusions.
♦ Before colonization, African societies were not organized in ‘States’ in the modern Sense. Centralization of power and bureaucratization - two important attributes of the state - had not developed in Africa or they were only at the most embryonic stages. Some of the reasons for this were:
a) the rarity of writing
b) the non-existence of wheeled vehicles, which by limiting long distance travel, limited centralization
c) the late arrival of firearms which prevented state absolution until recent times d) the absence, in large parts of Africa, of religions with ambitions of Universality and
e) the rarity of unifying language.
♦ This broad generalization of the pre-colonial situation in Africa should not by any means imply that family and kinship systems were the only social and political structures of importance in this period. The development of productive forces and social formations five centuries ago, in key areas such as iron and copper smelting, cloth manufacturing, leather tanning and dying as well as in trade in these items were unevenly distributed across the African continent. In Egypt, Nubia, the Maghreb, Ethiopia, the Western Sudan (comprising Ghana, Mali and Songhai) the inter-lacustrine kingdoms of East Africa and Zimbabwe were elaborate political-military and economic systems, which bore similarities with feudal societies, especially in Asia. These states had developed as early as a thousand years before Africa's permanent contact with Europe. However, quite significantly, the African societies were not given the chance to undergo social revolutions such as those that gave rise to the capitalist revolution in Europe in the 19th century. This was one way Europe underdeveloped Africa.
♦ The fundamental traits that existed in the political life of pre-colonial African societies, which could be emulated, were as follows:
– The basic principle in African political life, which was ignored by subsequent colonial systems, was the socialization of political and economic power. Inspite of differences between the village community and more centralized kingdoms in West and Central Africa dating back to the 10th Century, this principle prevailed. While social differentials existed within these classless societies, there were no contradictions, which could not be resolved without Se overthrow of one social stratum by another.
– Although there were tyrannies and abuses of power in both state-societies and stateless societies during the pre-colonial period, there were also ideal principles, which governed them. Community interests invariably eclipsed individual rights, but there also existed principles and practices for their protection. The situation was more expressive for the women although at the same time, in some parts of Africa, women played important political and military roles. In Egypt, Namibia, Benin, Angola, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe, in different periods, women ruled and produced some of the legendary names in the military history of Africa. Women, religious leaders as well as leaders of secret societies enjoyed privileged positions which also had political and economic power and led in the feudal period, for example in Ethiopia to the widely held idea of the divineness of the role of the solomonic line. Nonetheless, the most important postulate of the African exercise of power was the search for an equilibrium between political actors, in essence the application of three great principles;
a a) limitation of power
b b) sharing of power
c) rule of law.
♦ In order to realize the first principle, power was limited by tradition and custom which also assigned roles, responsibilities and power according to age, place occupied in the production process and social hierarchy. It was also guaranteed by extensive freedom of expression in the context of well-established and scrupulously respected codes. Indeed it was not only the liberty to speak that was given, it was an obligation to speak on behalf of those ones represented (family, caste or clan). This right of expression was not without its limitations for the ordinary people, but councilors, historians, minstrels and other dignitaries retained full rights to express themselves and their opinions even if these were unpopular and critical of the rulers.
♦ Yet, another factor limiting power in African society was the disassociation of political power from economic power. In some societies, the Barbara for instance, the political head of a village (teng naba) was different from the soil (economic) chief (teng soba). In Buganda, the ‘bataka’ clan leaders were the custodians of land for their clansmen, while the kabaka and his chiefs were the political leaders.
♦ The second great principle throughout Africa was power-sharing. It was always believed that the best way to keep power was to share it with as many groups as possible so that each had interest in its preservation. In the Mossi Empire in Mali, for example, the king was elected by an electoral college made up of non-nobles so that they could observe the principle of neutrality between competing members of the nobility. In some countries (Rwanda and Burundi Kingdoms) elaborated legal procedures existed in which ordinary people were chosen to serve as judges, notary public and ‘ombudsmen’ on the basis of their knowledge of customs and traditions and because of their personal integrity. Armed forces in Africa were only mobilized for action against external enemies, or against rebellions by feudal lords against their kings. Before the 13th century, the professional armies in other countries were first and foremost used for conquest of domestic power rather than for defense from external enemies.
♦ Finally, the African State was governed by the rule of law. Law was prescribed by custom and not even the king was above it. In many African Kingdoms, the king was sub-ordinated to the interest of the people that when he became so old and weak as to be considered harmful to their well-being, he was killed in ritual - a measure which would also be taken in case of gross violations of custom and tradition or in case of treachery. In some societies, the king was merely the representative of the ancestors in whom power resided or the `Stool' descended from heaven which was the real symbol of authority.
♦ It is recognized that the most fundamental reality, from which the present features of the crisis in Africa originate, is the inherited colonial state, its methods of conquests, legitimization and perpetuation in the different phases of colonization. It is further recognized that far from negating the effects of the slave trade, which had existed in Africa from the tenth century onwards, colonization reinforced, in many ways, the important effects of the slave trade, particularly in the formation of primary institutions and their chance of enduring.
♦ From the tenth century to the sixteenth century, Muslim trans-Saharan and Trans-Indian Ocean slave trade had the impact of dislocating the autonomous development of African societies and institutions. Political systems and social traditions which elsewhere in Europe and Asia provided the setting for the development of `high cultures' and which were evident in many societies in Africa were destabilized although they were still evident and could have survived that slave trade. The appearance of European slave traders in the 16th century with more efficient weapons accelerated the pace and enlarged the extent of the slave trade. Even the most conservative estimates of the number of slaves taken from Africa, to which must be added those who died from diseases, wars and famines which accompanied the accursed trade, would still provide sufficient evidence of the devastation by and of the lingering effect of slavery and the slave trade. That most sought after slaves were those in the prime of their lives, able-bodied men and women, is an often ignored significant fact in considering the demographic and economic consequences of the slave trade. It was indeed a sin that no saint can ever cleanse.
♦ The destruction by the slave trade of the political and social formations which hitherto had provided protection of the individual led to the reinforcement of dependency on kinship systems and kin groups - the most basic units of social organizations. At the advent of colonization, the kinship system had remained and retained the function of being, in the absence of the state, the most valued social defense of the African individual.
♦ Furthermore, with few exceptions, slavery deprived Africa of the possibility of developing the feudal mode of production which in Europe an 4 a encouraged political structures and social moves that gave the state power in the defense of individuals against external danger and in reconciling their conflicting interests. Under feudalism submission to legitimate political authorities, and to demands as were made by those authorities, was reinforced by defense and protection of the individual and his property. Rights and duties were established and scrupulously followed and the notion of citizen took root. Systems of demarcation between public and private interests were evolved in the long history of conquests, regrouping and domination; from small territorial units and different ethnic groups to larger and politically and culturally more integrated societies in which traditions of leadership and accountability were perfected and firmly rooted. In Africa, by contrast, colonialism did not integrate different societies into larger and more viable systems. It set out to dominate all of them using as its most effective weapon, the strategy of “divide and rule”
♦ The colonial state distinguished itself by an excessive use of force. Unlike development in Europe, where the state evolved over centuries of colonialism achieved its objective in a very short time because it had monopoly over arms. Acting without any moral restraint in its use of force, the colonial state first made war on society and thereafter used the same instruments of war to keep society under its domination.
♦ The response by Africans, which also suited the colonial order, was the withdrawal even more deeply into pre-colonial kinship systems in which the individual was protected and fulfilled, and which he/she gave total allegiance. At the same time, being so weakened, these systems could not individually and separately pose any threat to the colonial order. These factors of the colonial state gave rise to the following phenomena:
■ State and society were set apart as were their interests.
■ The state did not exist in the context of the morality of the African society at was therefore not responsible to it.
■ The state was essentially in a permanent situation of war with society, which in turn was in a situation of permanent resistance.
■ Being amoral, the colonial state would only be dealt with amorally by the society. Thus individual and collective behavior internalized these features and relations between the colonial state and society.
STATE AND SOCIETY SET APART
The state -society relations which developed out of the slave trade and colonialism engendered two realms in constant conflict: an amoral and ill-conceived civic realm on one hand and a circumscribed community-based on moral realm on the other. Attitudes towards organization, management and control of public affairs and resources reflected, and continue to reflect, this basic divergence of interests of state and society. Embezzlement of public funds and disregard for public property including nepotism and other forms of corruption must be understood in part as the defense of self and immediate family/clan against the state. By the same token family, clan or ethnic group will tax itself severely and willingly because the taxes go into a common pot for the benefit of all. In contrast, the colonial state did not take into consideration the interests of the society. In its exploitation of labor, for example, it paid such low wages that the laborers had to fall back on their families for their livelihood on returning from mines and plantations where they were employed. In the final analysis, the labor demanded of the head of the family was to enable him to pay the head tax in return for the individual's freedom and that of the family. Failure to pay tax made him a real prisoner or permanent fugitive in hiding from the agents of the state. Taxes were therefore considered a punishment rather, than a duty conferring on the tax payer entitlement to social benefits, human and political rights in a free society. Payment of tax did not give the payer the right to question the reason and manner in which the taxes would be dispensed, reinforcing even further the non-accountability of the state to the individual.
One important question, as we examine the first crisis in Africa, in the Congo, Lumumba’s dilemma in 1960, is; can real liberation be carried out within the framework of the colonial state? The question is predicted on the fact that the post colonial state carries most of, if not, all of the features of the colonial state and is perceived by the citizenry to be performing the same role with more or less perfected instruments and structures.
THE POST-COLONIAL LEGACY
Africa’s struggle for independence was the outcome of contradictions inherent in the colonial system itself. Having secured territorial boundaries and control of the population, the administration of the state and the organization of production imposed the need to train a small fraction of indigenous people to perform supporting roles. Education was the vehicle through which the state indoctrinated the African colonial servants into accepting as unquestionable the imperatives of the colonial state, essentially autonomy and hegemony, inviolability and security of territory, in spite of the arbitrariness of the colonial boundaries and diversity of the population.
♦ Where the pre-colonial African society had already advanced towards clearly defined social class formations and, in particular, where the model of production and social relations had created ruling families/clans, the colonial state instituted `indirect rule', in order to use them as intermediary class between the state and the people. The sons and daughters of the chiefs, and chiefly clans, religious converts and traders were consequently educated into accepting the basic ideology of the colonial state.
THE POST COLONIAL LEADERSHIP
In order to understand the nature of the post-colonial state, it is important to look into the condition of the class that led the nationalist independence movement and see, whether, given the circumstances that had nurtured it, it could bring about the results which the people expected once it took over power from the colonialist.
♦ In the chapter on the pitfalls of National consciousness Frantz Fanon in ‘THE WRETCHED OF THE EARTH’ made the sharpest critique of the African Middle Classes which led the independence movements and were the architects of the postcolonial state. The educated t mi die classes as already observed, were drawn from traditional ruling families, land owners, merchants and traders and those who accepted conversion to the religion of the colonizing power. These latter were sent to mission schools where they were taught not only to give God his due, but Caesar as well in proportions set by the missions and the colonial state respectively. Through the education they received and the place they occupied in the colonial state administration the mostly non-productive role in the economy and its appetite for European goods and culture, the African middle classes lost all but the most superficial links with the people. In the name of the people the middle classes agitated for independence without any concrete notion of what that independence meant for the people.
♦ The middle classes - the petit bourgeoisie - were only certain of their immediate interests, which were not different from those of the colonial state agents. Abolition of the most naked abuses of the colonial state - inequality of remuneration between equally trained African and European technicians, forced labor, disenfranchisement and racial discrimination in social intercourse, constituted for the petit bourgeoisie the most urgent task of the independence movement. For example the ANC of Southern Rhodesia declared its aims and objectives is as primarily dedicated to a political program, economic and educational advancement, social service and personal standards. Its aim is the national unity of all inhabitants of the country in true partnership regardless of race, color and creed congress affirms complete loyalty to the crown as the symbol of national unity. It is not a racial movement. It is equally opposed to racialism and tribalism … congress believes that individual initiative and free enterprise are necessary to the life of a young country and must be fully encouraged, but that a considerable measure of government control is necessary in a modern state …”
This country greatly needs capital from overseas … (and) government must therefore establish conditions under which capital may be invested and industry established with sufficient security to encourage investors.’ Being numerically small and struggling against western colonial systems which originated from countries practicing bourgeoisie democracy, it was necessary for the middle class to seek the following of the masses of the people so as to swell their numbers, and to make it impossible for the colonial state to govern.
Such mass following was also important in mobilizing international public opinion and especially the opinion of the progressive people in the metropolitan countries, where their pressure would play an important role in the decolonization process. Therefore, unity among the people and submerging all class and ethnic differences was of the utmost strategic significance.
♦ The petit bourgeoisie isolated, for maximum concentration, only the contradiction between imperialism and the African people irrespective of classes (the national struggle) and suppressed, those other forces which wished to make this struggle an all-out war against the local and international forces of exploitation (class struggle). The nationalist leaders, in their naivity and lack of proper understanding of the essence of imperialism, could formulate such slogans as, “seek ye the political kingdom first and all others shall be added unto ye”, as if, all others – economic, social and cultural liberation could be separated and relegated to second place.
♦ In summary, the class that took over the state on being granted independence by the metropolitan country saw as its mission the replacement of foreign rule by African rule. Approaching the question of exploitation from a racial perspective, the nationalist government leaders legitimized local exploitation carried out by its supporters as ‘fruits of independence,’ and explained away the increasing misery of its people resulting from, among other things, iniquitous laws of the international economic order about which they could do nothing.
♦ The African post-colonial state was exposed to two international political models - the Westminster parliamentary democracy and the Stalinist one-party absolutism. Neither of these was particularly relevant to Africa and increasingly criticized in their respective countries of origin. Trying to make sense of these models, African leaders turned democracy into personality cults, factors that invariably contributed to the phenomenon of the coup d’état.
COUPS AND REPRESSION
Not surprising the coup makers always promised to honor international agreements entered into by the overthrown governments. These promises were made basically in order to assure the transnational corporations and other foreign capitalists that their interest would not be touched. The promises made to the people on the other hand were seldom kept. The people who always rose in support of the coup-any coup-soon found out the true colors of the coup makers. The state was hardly ever affected by the coup. When coup attempt failed, mass arrests, imprisonment and firing squads became the lot of those caught and those suspected of complicity. Successful coups usually led to even worse orders. Not having any roots among the people, the only way the new regimes could survive was through suppression of the people and physical liquidation of real and imaginary enemies.
♦ Even where scientific methods and modes were claimed, the exhortations and left wing slogans were only designed to conceal the wishes of the state for unquestionable compliance from the people. Even when the state came about as a result of armed struggle like in Angola, Algeria, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, in which tremendous sacrifices were made by the fighters and the entire population, the situation was no better than in those countries where it came about through some peace. It was more disappointing as expectations were high, that in those states greater identification of the state and people would be painstakingly nurtured and that out of experiences of the savage wars of liberation, the state would not betray the people’s confidence. The unity that was the liberation movement's strongest weapon against the colonial power, however, did not take long to erode once independence was achieved. What were claimed as ideological differences among the leadership were often smoke screens for struggles for power and resulted from lack of democracy in the workings of the state. As internal conflicts within the leadership developed, less and less attention was paid to real issues. Contact with the people was gradually lost.
♦ The post colonial legacy is replete with examples of states’ perspectives on problems being too often dictated by one leader of groups of state supported intellectuals who behave and act as if their ideas are valid.
Because these perspectives are not debated by the people, or at best only superficially explained, they lack practicability and are almost invariably the cause of great waste of resources, suffering and despair. Stubborn refusal to learn from experiences world wide (and even of one's own) and preferring instead to invent and propagate new (isms) which only exist in their minds, has made most present day policy makers in Africa forget their people and often side with foreign interests. It is increasingly evident that policies are being determined solely by concern with the means rather than conditions of development. The former has given rise to preoccupation with structures leading to centralization and expansion of the state beneficiaries and has strongly encouraged a top-bottom approach to management of public affairs. This has resulted in preventing the majority of the peoples of Africa from active participation in the political, economic, social and cultural business of their various countries.
RATIONAL FOR NEW PERSPECTIVE
The leaders of the mass movements, which brought about legal independence in Africa, inherited the totality of the colonial state they had been fighting against. Lowering the ‘Union Jack’ or the ‘Tricolor’, African Heads of State moving to former governors’ residences (thereafter renamed ‘Peoples’ Palace or State House), the twenty-one gun salute or the national anthem, did not signify any basic change. Rather than question its relevance, the colonial state was adopted and legitimized. As a matter of fact, far from bringing the promised salvation to the people of Africa, the African leaders sunk deep into the love for flashy scenes and high faulting words. More important is the historical fact that in a very radical sense the nationalist leaders of Africa have found themselves sucked into the role of hypocrites and actors involved in a make-belief situation.
♦ Whereas bureaucracy had run the colonial state, the emergent African State lacked the administrative structures, personnel and the culture necessary for the efficient management and organization of state and society with different objectives from those of the colonial state. ‘STATIZATION’ of all aspects of the economic social and cultural life of the people which necessitated the expansion of the bureaucracy was the response of the post-colonial African states. It however did not increase efficiency. On the contrary, it became a burden to society as more and more resources were required to maintain it. The African state not only became the principal industry, it also sought and succeeded in interfering in the most personal and private lives of its citizens. The African state developed fastest in setting up capacities for repression and in systematically attempting to control and to organize society and individuals so as to gain their unquestioning allegiance.
Indeed revolutionary fervor gutted into political betrayal. Personal liberties were severely eroded.
It is because of these policies of African States in the last forty years that the masses of African people have witnessed political and economic stagnation, mass starvation, wars, torture and other forms of repression. Most of these are traceable to the state by the internal and external policies it pursued or by its inaction where intervention was required.
♦ Africa has learnt through great pains that the content of independence lay not in the seizing of power from the colonialist, but in how and for what that power was exercised. At the time of independence, African household by and large cold feed themselves. The African continent was not the major recipient of food aid than it has become, and its prospects for development were as less evident than in countries of Asia, which had been under the same colonial empires.
♦ The political crisis beginning with the Congo in 1960 multiplied in the sixties and seventies. These crises were to result in Africa’s inability to organize internal political and economic policies, which would make them economically self-sufficient and independent actors in the community of nations.
♦ As the crisis deepened, so did theories to explain its origin, nature and magnitude and to propose ‘appropriate’ paths to development. Various schools of thought sprang up and many theories were advanced to explain Africa's underdevelopment. Too often African policy-makers accepted lock, stock and barrel, these theories without questioning their reliability even when their own empirical experiences were enough to expose the inadequacy of these theories most of which are mainly western and form part of aid packages which have become the intellectual mentors of these African policy-makers.
♦ One of the theories propounded is the one termed ‘development studies’. Development studies is itself in a crisis because from its inception, after the Second World War, as a branch of economics, not a single country can be shown to have developed on any of the numerous models it has produced. On the contrary, development studies has itself become another opium for the people, designed, (as they often were), to stop the peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America from objectively investigating the real causes of their underdevelopment. At the same time, the establishment of multilateral institutions like the IBRD, the IMF, the OECD and the EEC pursued a strategy, which opened up the African economies to further penetration through erroneously much sought after foreign investments, which in reality meant further exploitation.
In fact, we believe that the crisis in Africa is not only about balance of payment problems and inadequate or misdirected external aid. The political and social upheavals, intensive wars, the enormous Africa refugee problem, extensive migration of African laborers within and outside Africa, authoritarian one partyism (whether by proponents of capitalism or various brands of socialism) encompass broader moral and political issues.
Understanding of the root causes of Africa’s underdevelopment, namely European Capitalism, through its slave, colonial and neo-colonial phases, while being necessary in raising the consciousness of the people, is too often used by the state intellectual apologists, to exculpate themselves from the responsibility of conceptualizing new paradigms within which the people could be mobilized to make their own history. For much too long, Africa's intellectuals in their typically middle class superficiality, have harped on everything negative in the political, social and cultural life of Africa as being the result of external pressures or constraints. By so proselytizing, the implication is that the correction of these wrongs will also have to come from outside.
♦ More than thirty five years of independence have given us rich experiences, even if, for the most part, they were of a negative character. They, however, provide a platform for an in-depth process of thought and action, geared towards the creation of a new domestic order that is culturally relevant, morally justifiable, economically vibrant and politically geared towards real liberation. That process can only be meaningful if it starts with inward looking consciousness.
♦ Starting from a holistic view of the state and bearing in mind its role as
1) actor in the international arena – the sovereignty dimension,
2) determinant of power relation in society – the accountability dimension and
3) executor of policy – the delivery dimension,
We have deduced from the information given above, the problematic condition affecting the African State with regard to these dimensions. In thinking about the future, we have organized our analysis so as to be able to identify:
(a) a new perspective,
(b) constraints to its realization, and
(c) means to change the existing order.
In this concluding action, will return to the African State as besieged in the international arena, set apart in its relation to society and overloaded as executor of policy.
THE BESIEGED STATE
AUTONOMOUS AND INTERGRATED DEVELOPMENT
NEW PERSPECTIVE
Although there has been much talk about self reliance and integrated development since African countries became independent, little has been done to foster a process that builds on local resources and serves to integrate sectoral efforts. Africa has remained standing with its back to its hinterland. We would certainly like to stress that the economic crisis in the past few years provides an unusual opportunity for rethinking and reorganizing the continent's economies. To be sure, the economic performance of African countries has varied and some are better off than others are. The truth of the matter is that every African country shares a debt burden and unfavorable terms of trade that gives them little choice but to reconsider past policies. African government leaders must, therefore, discover the potential of the domestic economy and society. Donors and other international organizations must adjust their approach to Africa in such a way that local initiatives are encouraged, local know-how tapped, and local institutions developed as counter-measures to the overwhelming legacy of externally induced and controlled interventions, whether by public or private institutions.
Constraints:
They analysis recognizes that putting the new perspective into practice will be constrained by three principal factors;
1) existing production structures;
2) lack of differentialization in the African economies; and
3) Foreign debt.
The existing production structures reflect the colonial priorities: production of raw materials and other commodities in demand in Europe and other industrialized countries. The result is that African countries tend to produce similar products, compete for the same market and often end up experiencing depressing terms of trade to their own disadvantage. Again, because African economies are essentially non-complementary, there is only limited scope for intra African trade, in spite of the political rhetoric to the contrary. African countries continue to produce what they do not consume and consume what they do not produce. The end result of that is that they are extremely exposed to changes in the international market prices and other external variables. In the 1990s in particular, commodity prices have been generally low while prices on imports, especially for the manufacturing sector, have gone up. The inevitable outcome has been escalating debts. While these debts in absolute terms may at first glance appear modest, they constitute heavy burdens. Foreign debt service makes up several percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) and, an average in sub-Saharan Africa, over a quarter of export earnings.
Means To Change:
In the means to change this situation, this analysis would suggest that although policy options for African countries are limited, governments must not be discouraged by the predicament of their countries. There are three measures can identify and that ought more prominently on African policy agendas in the future:
(1) accelerated domestic capital formation;
(2) development of intra-African trade.
♦ A precondition for autonomous and integrated development is that people rely on their own diligent labor, behave frugally and invest in the creation of new productive resources rather than consuming and dissipating capital produced. Productive activities must also be better linked to each other, whether forward or backward. For instance, enhanced food production, production of clothing material and clothes, as well as the provision of better housing will strengthen the domestic market. This process is likely to take time to realize but it should be given priority as a means of reducing export dependency and vulnerability to changes in the global economy. By building a strategy of industrialization on the agricultural sector, greater complimentarily between rural and urban-based production can be achieved. This principle can also be applied in regional African contexts. Investment has to be rationalized and made to serve more than one country. Food banks and other strategic institutions for inter-state transfers should be seriously considered.
GREATER AFRICAN ASSERTIVENESS
NEW PERSPECTIVE
Although African countries are weak by comparison with most other countries, there is great need for taking the necessary action to assert their position more forcefully in international fora. It is a matter of:
(1) developing common positions on key issues;
(2) enhancing analytical skills; and
(3) strengthening negotiating abilities.
For instance, what would happen if the African governments jointly developed a carefully prepared position on what to do with the continents' debilitating external debt?
Constraints:
There are several constraints to effective action on this issue but most of them lie within the realm of what can be overcome. This analysis identify the following:
(1) Poor selection of delegates to important conferences;
(2) Inadequate negotiating skills and
(3) Lack of training and experience in substantial fields.
Selection of delegates, particularly to international conferences, are often made as a reward for political work or as a means of providing an occasion for vacationing. Lack of individuals with negotiating skills is another constraint. African negotiators did very well in the constitutional conferences preceding independence. Why is the continent so short of skilled negotiators today? One explanation is that there is a shortage of competent individuals with adequate experience in a given field. The political emphasis in the past three decades has been to produce generalists rather than specialists. It is therefore not surprising that African countries have often failed to put up the necessary competence and know-how to serve official negotiators in various international fora.
Means To Change
The principal means to change that this analysis identifies intra-African cooperation. Speaking with one voice on key issues of common concern needs to be further encouraged and so do greater cooperation aimed at fostering a sense of commonness. For instance, in the early sixties, Kenyans, Ugandans and Tanzanians were foremost East Africans.
Today the East African is an endangered species’ and it requires a reserved commitment and a new perspective to restore such an orientation.
REDUCING AID ADDICTION NEW PERSPECTIVE
Observation is that most African countries have become addicted to foreign aid, have lost a sensible perspective on what it can, and should do, and that, as a result, foreign aid must be treated as much as part of the problem as part of the solution to Africa's current development crisis. The besieged nature of the African State has recurrently been reinforced by the international donor community through interventions that have often been ill conceived, poorly designed, and inadequately executed. Africa, therefore, needs a greater independence from the donor community. It needs to put its foot down and accept that the answers to Africa's problems lie with the Africans themselves, including those many individuals and groups that are not part of government structures, and not with the donors, however much expertise they might be able to mobilize in their support.
Constraints:
Africans have been brought up worshipping all things foreign. This colonial - or neocolonial mentality is deeply engrained in the African mind. The lack of public debate about who the Africans are, or ‘who we are’ and ‘how to get there’ further foster this dependency mentality. The absence of an intellectual atmosphere for discussion of issues of national concern tends to reduce the African to a subservient being, always anxious to take the easy road.
Means To Change
Awareness of the need to develop an independent mind and a new social consciousness that stresses self-reliance will only be achieved through greater respect for intellectual work. Culture has vanished as a significant variable in Africa because of the emphasis by foreign donors on achieving `development' (measured in tangible material terms). Political slogans and foolish ideas must be allowed to give way to more serious research and more critical debate of issues that affect Africa's present and future.
SANCITY OF BOARDERS
NEW PERSPECTIVE
We recognized that the besieged nature of the African State also stems from its inherited colonial boundaries. The latter has become taboo to touch. Much effort and much money been devoted to defending them, although they are too many African boundaries artificially and arbitrary. Nobody was ready to suggest that the official OAU position on the sanctity of the present territorial boundaries should be changed. Whatever is the case, still emphasize the need to form greater respect for cultural and social diversity within these boundaries. Uniformity is not necessarily the same as strength. However, it should also be mentioned that African nations are facing certain dangers in changing to the idea of single nation sovereignty in a world where the increasing power of the European Union and other regional organizations tend to make this idea old fashioned.
Constraints:
The multiplicity of ethnic, racial and religious groups in African countries poses a special challenge. In colonial days, it was tackled by using the principle of ‘divide and rule’. Although African leaders usually do it in the name of ‘national unity’ they very much follow the same principle of divide and rule. The artificiality of the boarders is often used to clamp down on groups that wish to assert their cultural identity.
Means To Change
Greater respect for sub-nationalists and other minorities within each African State should be scrupulously developed so that national unity ceases to be a pretext for prosecution of those who want to protect their rights. Border issues can be settled more amicably and at a less cost to Africa if special efforts are made to develop a political climate in which inter-state action can be promoted. African countries do not have the military resources to resolve or monitor inter-state conflicts, but they can take the necessary political and diplomatic steps to ensure that risk for such conflicts is minimized. Prevention is usually better than cure.
THE STATE SET APART - LIMITATION OF POWER
NEW PERSPECTIVE
It is observed that at the time of independence and in the years immediately thereafter, the emphasis on national consensus was understandable. Building the new state encouraged such an outlook. Experience has, however, shown that ambition to achieve maximum consensus often backfires. People are alienated underground opposition is encouraged and, political instability, often violence becomes the end result. The political formula adopted at independence, therefore, has become an albatross around Africa’s neck. Instead of serving as an engine for propelling growth, the state has become one of the greatest obstacle to progress in Africa. The notion of limitation of power, however, is not new to Africans. It was practiced in pre-colonial societies as indicated earlier in this analysis. Many of these values have survived at the level of local governance. The new perspective called for in this analysis involves these customary African values and principles and emphasizes the need for establishing a state that reflects local standards of fairness and dignity in a dynamic context. Sometimes these standards may coincide with universal values, at other times they may not. The point is that there must be an opportunity for ventilating the question of what is right and wrong, fair and to whom.
Constraints
On both colonial and post-colonial years, African countries have got used to the practice of ‘unlimited government,’ i.e. the use of power without any forms of restraint whatsoever. The result has been that most individual people in African countries are intimidated. The emphasis on the state as the principal actor in development has further reinforced an attitude of apathy. People simply sit back and do not engage in civic affairs. Africa has indeed become a continent without participation, although nowhere has the concept been more widely embraced by political leaders. Instead of using ‘voice’ option and register their opinion, people prefer to use their ‘exit’ option, i.e. to withdraw from public affairs.
Means To Change
Having registered considerable disillusion with the way African countries have been governed since independence, we have identified the following means to change the existing order as being of highest priority:
(1) free and fair elections;
(2) right to recall political representatives; and
(3) strengthening non-governmental organizations.
♦ I am confirmed in my opinion that the sovereignty of people (society) over the state must be established. This can only happen through the introduction of more democratic practices. Periodic election to a national assembly of contestants picked by committees of the ruling party must give way to multiparty democracy permitting all patriotic parties to freely organize and participate in free an fair elections at all levels of representation. The most crucial level, because it is close to the people, is the village community. If the representative to the district level assembly are elected from the village councils, which in turn are elected directly by the people from among trustworthy honest and respected individuals, political representation will begin to take on a different character. Patronage politics will give way to open democratic practices. Another important measure to limit power and give meaning to democracy among the people is the right to recall representatives when they are deemed to have abused their mandate. If politicians who seek office only for their own enrichment and aggrandizement can get away with it, people will have no trust in the political system. If on the other hand, these politicians who seek office are under pressure by those people who elected them, greater accountability will develop. Finally I must emphasize the need and the right to form and operate associations whether religious, cultural or professional, with a view to participating in public affairs openly. The rights of assembly, press, speech, etc. have not been respected in Africa. Non-governmental organizations should be strengthened, as development is too important a matter to be left in the hands of a few politicians and government officials only. `The Spirit is too great for one head' if we may cite an African proverb.
SHARING OF POWER
NEW PERSPECTIVE
A collateral to the need for limiting power of government leaders is the importance of making arrangements for greater sharing of it. The African State has remained set apart from society after independence because of excessive concentration of power in the hands of a small group of people drawn from a ruling political party the civil or military service.
Constraints
The principle constraints are related to the legacies inherited from years of overcentralized and over-politicized rule. These legacies encourage the notion that politics is just another lucrative profession - in some countries perhaps the most lucrative and make individuals regard it merely from the vantagepoint of their own interests. The interests of either the state or the society at large are ignored. Sycophancy, corruption, nepotism and other ills in the African State systems are bred in this climate.
Means To Change
Decentralization and debureaucratization are essential means to change the present situation. By decentralization is not meant the transfer of power to levels of a culturally controlled government. Such an exercise, as experienced in many African countries only multiplicates bureaucratic structures. It enhances state capacity for oppression. Decentralization, therefore, must in the future entail strengthening various forms of local government as well as non-governmental organizations. Only by reducing the stake at each level and in every public institution, will there be a way of bringing about greater democracy.
RULE OF LAW
NEW PERSPECTIVE
Fed up by the abuse of power in so many African States, I would like to register the need for greater emphasis on the rule of law. Desirable leadership behavior will not come about voluntarily. Thus, those institutions that enforce the laws of the land must be strengthened. No individual, including the head of state, should be above the law. While I recognize that strengthening the rule of law is a complicated and sensitive process, I would like to emphasize that there is a limit to what individuals living in societies where that principle is ignored, can take. Thus every African must work hard to ensure that political and civil liberties are not arbitrarily ignored by politicians, bureaucrats or others power and influence.
Constraints
The tragedy of Africa is that the way political systems have been run since independence has led to the institutionalization of a pattern of behavior among leaders that goes contrary to the notion of the rule of law. Politicians almost invariably see themselves as being above the law and are ready to violate laws in order to protect their own interests or persecute somebody challenging their position. The result is that the secret police, sometimes also the army, has become a major instrument of central and defense of the state against real or imaginary enemies. Trials, particularly of political challengers, have usually made a mockery of law.
Means To Change
Three important measures should be taken to change the present situation:
1) limiting the term of office;
2) promoting people’s self confidence; and
3} enhancing respect for life and property.
Limiting the term of office of state and party leaders is a first and important measure to take; particularly in one party states. Respect for rule of law will not be achieved unless the top leader is himself subject to rules about the use of power.
Limiting the time in office is one way of creating greater opportunity for holding politicians accountable. Promoting peoples' self-confidence through civic education and involvement in public affairs will enhance their ability to resist the tendency towards the rule of individuals rather than the rule of law. A special challenge in many African countries will be the demystification of the gun, i. e. the development of the conditions under which the gun, and other means of state coercion, will be employed responsibly and in the name of protecting the law only. Finally, as part of this process, authorities must be made to show much greater respect for the sanctity of human life and property than has been the case to date. This will come about only if there are constitutional means to hold people in power accountable. The opportunity to express a vote of no confidence in an individual leader in circumstances when that person has violated the law is one possibility.
THE OVERLOADED STATE
BALANCING PRIVATE AND PUBLIC OWNERSHIP
THE NEW PERSPECTIVE
Respect for private property may be a prerequisite for greater respect for public property. Based on Africa’s disappointing experience of nationalization and management of the public sector, we would like to suggest that at the present stage of development in Africa, a better balance between private and public ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange is needed. Problems to date have been caused not only by lack of skilled manpower, but above all, by lack of responsibility towards public property among stage managers. The result has been a catastrophe for Africa: loss of the potential for accumulation and reinvestment; destruction of already acquired capital – e.g. machinery, vehicles and equipment – underproduction of consumer goods and therefore hardships for the people and loss of the trust in public institutions, the most important precondition for social progress is the steady accumulation of invisible surplus and development of production forces. Bearing in mind the low levels of capital formation and the high demands for consumption, to prevent private ownership of the means of production, and thereby limiting the extent of that sector's contribution to the creation of wealth and income cannot be defended by
involving the principles of socialist direction of society. In the initial stages of creating an independent national economy for countries which do not have a strong and developed capitalism and where the supervision of enterprises therefore is limited by the lack of advanced technical and conscious cadres, the private sector can play a catalytic role so long as the parameters of its operation are clearly spelt out and incentives and reasonable profits are guaranteed by the state. This situation is aggravated by the lack of good traditions of conducting the international affairs of the state, maintaining a proper balance between the state and society and for executing state policy.
Constraints
The principal constraint is obviously the legacy created by an almost unlimited growth of the public sector in the past. People continue to respect the state to be the sole agency responsible for improvement in their welfare. The result is that they will overload the state with demands and give priority to consumption over production. Thus in Africa; people consume more and more and produce less and less resulting in Africans in becoming nations of petty traders. Although there is pressure to retrench the state sector, little has been done and many political consequences are potentially hazardous.
Means To Change
In order to change the existing order and to make planning a more broadly based activity representatives of different tendencies, ideologies professions in society should constitute politically independent Planning Commissions, along the lines of an independent judiciary. These commissions would work with government but would above all be charged with ensuring that the people retain control of their economic activities and safeguarding their interests against periodic changes of government and the possibility of retrogressive policies. The setting up of these commissions presupposes a new political thrust by the state, which should promote and safeguard democracy and popular emancipation. A planning Commission, properly constituted, would also play a key role in the development of productive forces, in deciding levels of investment and consumption, location of industries and order of priorities in the different sectors of the economy.
GREATER INVOLVEMENT BY NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANISATIONS
NEW PERSPECTIVE
The state cannot serve as the sole entrepreneur in Africa and it has to share the burden of development with other institutions in society. Of special interest are the non-governmental organizations, which have proven effective in mobilizing people and resources on a self-reliance basis. As one type of organization that empowers people, non-governmental organizations, which have proven effective, play a vital role similar to that of pressure groups by establishing lines of communication between state agencies and the people. Being less bureaucratic than government institutions, NGOs normally respond more quickly to appeals and demands from the people and do not have the same internal obstacles as large bureaucracies. NGOs as suggested above, are an important aspect of civil society and one means by which power can be diffused and shared. As service agencies, they often achieve better results than other organizations because they rely on voluntary participation and thus enjoy usually higher levels of motivation.
Constraints
The greatest constraint is the unwillingness of government leaders to recognize the contribution made by NGOs. Although it is clear that the state cannot deliver all educational, health and many other social services, government leaders feel uncomfortable about NGOs because they cannot directly control them, or if they become too prominent and influential, to put difficulties in their way. In some extreme cases, the state may even destroy them.
Means To Change
We are convinced that NGOs will achieve recognition in Africa as they continue to out-perform state agencies in various sectors. By demonstrating their capacity, they create an opportunity for offloading the state in a manner that would be helpful to society. NGOs do not have to be a problem to state. Their presents outside the state sector usually provide government departments with opportunities to link up with local activities that benefit all the government as well as the people.
GREATER FLEXIBILITY IN POLICY –
THE NEW PERSPECTIVE
African governments often prompted by donor agencies have been much inclined to adopt single-track solutions to all problems. Instead of recognizing the value of diversity, they have often pursued uniform policy solutions although they are clumsy and inappropriate. It is my candid opinion that greater flexibility is needed both in policy outlook in organizing delivery of state action. Public officials must be encouraged to seek solutions that are creative and appropriate for each time and location rather than developing a `blue print' and attempt to implement it across the country.
Constraints
The principal constraints and obstacles to greater flexibility are existing bureaucratic interests and the mentality of many officials that one policy solution is more efficient and easier to monitor. Force of habit, notions of self-worthy and loss of face often obstructs, or slows down judgment and decision making. Another important obstacle is the lack of articulation of views by others than political leaders. Greater flexibility may become a reality if NGOs and other organizations are allowed to raise their voice and articulate views of policy.
Means To Change
Providing the viability of alternative solutions to state policy is an important means to change the existing outlook. State officials must be made to realize that they do not automatically have the only solutions to society's problems, for instance, in the education and health sectors, new combinations of private and public resources to serve the people should be developed and tried out. Instead of paying for everything, usually the common practice of patronage politics, government should provide matching support and reward communities or institutions that have mobilized local resources and an initial installment.
GREATER PARTICIPATION
NEW PERSPECTIVE
Although there has been much talk of participation in Africa in the past three decades, little has been done. If anything, popular involvement in public affairs has declined. There is, therefore, the need to ensure that in future, policy processes really start from the people, then go to parliament, and finally back to people again. Policy-making must not be the prerogative of officials only.
Constraints
Greater participation in policy making is usually obstructed by the reluctance of state leaders and institutions to share power and delegate authority. Starting with the head of state, who rarely seeks or follows the advice of individual cabinet ministers, the state works in a military way with orders being transmitted from top downwards except when secrecy makes even this impossible. Seniority is almost always an excuse for thwarting original ideas from juniors.
Means To Change
Participatory modes of policy making can be evolved by strengthening institutions willing to encourage more democratic practices within state institutions as part of broader democratic practices within society at large. We realize that this is a difficult and far reaching measure that would only become reality in conjunction with the other measures analyzed. It entails reforms in both the economic and political sphere, including breaking the spell of the present neo-colonial order. It is generally believed that neo-colonialism, more than anything else, holds back Africa's creativity and potential to develop on its own. However, it should also be taken into consideration that Africa's long period of colonialism and colonial domination makes it difficult to crush neo-colonialism as a viper: it will always exist. We shall also practice it against others when Africa becomes strong. The only way to defeat neo-colonialism is to compete with the so-called advanced nations in productivity and we can only do so if we apply to an increasing extent, home-brewed results, science and technology, to agriculture and industry. African Unity can only help if it leads to the attainment of this end.
To sum it up, Africa needs capital but she does not need to borrow it. The Soviet Union built up her own capital without any significant borrowing. She made severe sacrifices in order to achieve a better future. Borrowing at every turn cannot solve the African problem. Certainly judicious borrowing has its place, but indiscriminate soliciting for funds, foreign investment etc. is the beginning of slavery. Colonial regimes built up reserves without borrowing and African countries can also do it.
The other evil contributing to our woes in Africa is our inability to put first things first. The second evil is our almost total lack of appreciation for science education as the bulwark of agriculture and industry.
What are the first things? If we take the example of a tree as an organic unit, the tree is a highly organized industrial unit. Certainly no human organization can surpass it in efficiency. It works to sustain itself. It does this systematically and orderly. It does not grow flowers first. It does not concern itself with prestige and grandeur until it has secured for itself the life sustaining conditions – water, carbon dioxide and energy.
From the tree then we learn the next phase of activity that after attaining independence it is not an elaborate foreign service and embassies, not huge armies and novices, not mighty statues and national monuments, not parks and gardens but agriculture, agriculture and industries, industries and industries.
Africa indeed needs industries to convert our minerals into finished products, cocoa into chocolate, tobacco into cigarettes, air into fertilizer, oils into soap, clay into pots and cups. This should be the major activity in Africa. It should utilize the total available energy to create new things out of natural resources to provide the common needs such as food, shelter, clothing and where the raw materials are not available, to exchange some of these finished products for these raw materials and to turn these in turn into more valuable products.
This is the secret of the greatness of the developed nations. They never stand in one place in industry. They are always looking out for opportunity to introduce some useful and imaginative innovations. The more they do this the richer they become and the poorer African, Asian and Latin American nations become. They want transistors, television sets, cameras and even furniture, plates and multitude of other goods, which they cannot make but desire passionately. The irony of it all is that “the made in Britain” etc goods have their raw materials originating from Africa. When these countries grow richer we go to the United Nations to complain that we are becoming poorer and poorer. These nations see it, but there is nothing they can do about it. They just cannot toil for Africa. And just as the rich man throws a cent to the beggar at the street corner, so do our former colonial masters give to us some pittance or loans with unbreakable strings.
Africa would fail were it not for its virtually inexhaustible resources. The sun alone is a source of incalculable wealth. Then when we are well-fed, adequately clothed and comfortably housed we can turn to litany and cultural activities; we can turn to literature and philosophy, to drumming and dancing, to radio and television, we can turn to large armies and navies, to the air force and new missiles.
We can turn to statues and monuments to white elephants and red lions as America, indeed, has done because at that time we can afford.
The order of priorities then is first agriculture and fishing, secondly mining and industry and lastly literary and cultural activities. In this way Africa would have put first things first and succeeded in laying a solid foundation for sustained growth.
If Africa would conceive this and above all our leaders grasp this phenomenon, Africa's poverty, disease and unending internal strife would vanish. A new era would have been ushered in and the black man would have taken his rightful place in the community of nations. Indeed what is it that keeps our leaders in a state of humiliating reliance on Western aid? Why do the educated classes of Africa spend so much time demanding the crumbs of materialistic prestige to be snatched from Europe and America, and so little developing local resources such as agriculture? The answer as suggested by Frantz Fanon is that the governing class of our countries has so far so long left the responsibility of its decisions to others that it is now deprived of the capacity to take any constructive initiative since it implies a minimum of risk. The failure is one of imagination. The people lost the capacity to improvise since they no longer possess the necessary confidence in the creative potential of their own culture. We must indeed rise to a pitch of equality with the rest of the world. .
By Musafare TAKAENDESA. Mupanduki –BA.MA. DIPLOMA IN International Relations: PH.D. CANDIDATE
INTRODUCTION
♦ After decades of domination, the dominated in Africa have developed massive inferiority feelings. These feelings manifest themselves in an acute dependency on their colonial masters, a state, which can only be redeemed by a decisive act of a program of massive continuation education awareness campaign reaching all progressive forces -in the African continent.
♦ One of the greatest paradoxes of all time is that, the richest and the most generously endowed continent in the universe has the poorest people. There are great opportunities everywhere, but Africa is too blind to see that we literally walk on gold and yet we are too lazy to stoop and collect the treasure. Africans sit and wait for the colonial master (under the guise of foreign investment) to come to their aid, forgetting that the immutable law of the universe is survival of the fittest.
♦ In spite of the vast stretches of the Sahara and Kalahari deserts, Africa has more arable and pastureland than the U.S.A., the Soviet Union or China and India, all put together. African lands are futile and require, at the initial stage of use, little fertilization. Such great rivers as the Nile, the Congo, the Zambezi, and the Volta richly water these lands.
♦ Africa has 53 of the world’s most important and basic minerals and metals but Africans do not know what to do with them besides shipping and airlifting these treasures of Africa to foreign lands in exchange for a pittance. Africans again import these same materials in one form or the other at a hundred times the original value. To sell tobacco is pardonable, but to sell minerals discriminately is to be like a man who sells his muscle because he is hungry.
♦ Africa’s estimated coal reserves can last for another 300 years. Petroleum fields are being discovered every year to increase Africa's power potential; solar energy is merchantable and Africa has uranium for nuclear energy. But in spite of the fact that the continent possesses industrial raw materials and abundant power and energy, Africa is the least industrialized continent. This is the truth of Africa: It has everything, and yet possesses nothing.
♦ Yes at independence, Africa was given the national anthem, the flag, the twenty-one gun salute and the governors’ residence. Nothing changed. A model of Westminster and Whitehall remained in operation; yet that was a solemn moment, a moment of thought and not jubilation, a moment to consider the meaning and problems of statecraft, a moment to discover the philosophic and eternal meaning of the state as a concept. Africa had, at that moment, an opportunity to eclipse the colonial experience and drag the African countries through the usual course of history - injustice, class-war revolution and destruction. Africa chose the latter. African leaders squandered the reserves left by the colonialists' governments, like prodigal sons and took the begging-bowl around, to the same colonial masters, forgetting that even in those seemingly adverse conditions, we were part of the most richly endowed continent on the face of the planet.
♦ It is often said that the enemy of African development is neo-colonialism. This is false. Neocolonialism is the advantage, which the strong nations have over the weak ones: it is a law of life. “… to him that hath, shall more be given and from him that hath not, shall be taken away even that which he hath”.
♦ Europe is in danger of American domination; Asia is in danger of Chinese and Japanese domination; South America is in danger of North American domination and Africa, the weakest of all continents is in danger of domination by all of them.
♦ The truth is that no one can teach his competitors against himself Colonial countries cannot teach us how to compete successfully with them; they cannot teach us how to exploit our natural resources to our advantage. They must rather take advantage of our ignorance in order to survive.
♦ It is generally observed that nations emerging from long foreign domination generally lack an independent administrative traditional social structure within which it is easy to build a class of national administrators. It is true that in some of the countries concerned, the former administering authority has bequeathed a valuable legacy in the form of an efficient administrative apparatus and sizeable cadres of experienced local officials at many levels. But this by no means is generally so. Even where it is, it does not meet the needs of people whose awakening has stirred much deeper feelings of hope and endeavor than were felt under the most enlightened colonial regime.
♦ Having been into the world characterized by an almost unshakable belief in economic growth and progress, Africa's first steps towards `Uhuru' were inevitably influenced by the spirit of development that had seized the rest of the world. Compared to Asia and Latin America, Africa was viewed as having a special opportunity of making rapid and steady progress because it lacked the oppressive social structures and cultural impediments believed to exist on the other two continents. This was an erroneous belief and a false start in Africa.
♦ In this climate, the temptation for African leaders to ignore the past and treat their societies as clean slates' was understandably great. Often trained in Universities in the metropolitan of the colonial countries, they wanted their countries to catch up with the rest of the world as quickly as possible and without the pains and strains that had accompanied the march to progress elsewhere. Against this background, it is therefore not surprising that the first decades of independence have been a period of endless imitation and experimentation. Applying pet notions from both east and West with the view to bringing Africa into the mainstream of economic development, the continent was treated much like an empty box.
♦ The time span of a generation later, it is now clear that it was an imaginary expectation that the transfer of power from imperialist countries to sovereign African States would usher in a new era and lead to an up liftment in the living standards of the masses of the people and a combination of effective and democratic governments. Progress in the sense outlined above, has been much harder to achieve than was held more than forty years ago and today, Africa is faced with a steady increasing ma-development i.e. with costly legacies of the efforts to find shortcuts to progress! Rather than being closer to the industrialized countries Africa is farther away, rather than being more self-reliant, it is more dependant and rather than being more stable the continent is more volatile and conflict-ridden. In fact the situation has deteriorated even much farther, famine disease and civil wars resulting in an alarming loss of human life and total abuse of human rights with a complete disregard for the sanctity of human life, replacing other historically entrenched stereotypes. Indeed the prevailing image of Africa is that of a continent in permanent need of assistance and salvation from outside; the African having been reduced to a level of consumer apprentices incapable of analyzing their own problems or becoming the protagonists of their own development.
♦ The shortcomings in economic and social performance in Africa over the past decades are the results not only of the misconception of development indicated earlier in this analysis but also symptomatic of an institutional crisis which has not been given the attention in deserves. Public sector institutions created in the optimistic years after independence have found difficulty in adapting to a situation requiring restrain and belt tightening. This problem is particularly pertinent in Africa because of the dominant position taken by the state in development and the weakness of the other institution in society.
♦ The state-centered approach is at least in part a colonial legacy. Created quite arbitrarily by the colonial powers to respond to their own interests the modern state in Africa was set up with little or no regard for the ethnic linguistic, economic or geographical features of the continent. Nor was it created with a view to encouraging peoples’ participation in the economic and political business of their countries. A class of colonial civil servants controlled development in the colonial set up. For reasons of political control, the colonial authorities were reluctant to promote the establishment of associations outside the immediate tutelage of the colonial state.
♦ Ironically, independent Africa inherited this legacy. Initially, as long as government involvement in public affairs and development was relatively limited, the problem was manageable. But, as the demand for social change accelerated, and foreign donors increased their contributions, state participation in development grew rapidly and in some cases indiscriminately. The weaknesses of the private and voluntary sectors were used as an excuse for the rapid growth of state involvement in both social and economic development. There was a strong and erroneous belief that through manpower development programs, institutional shortcomings could be overcome. However, today, it is increasingly clear that Africa's problem is not primarily lack of talent and know-how but the institutional imbalance created in decades past, both prior to and after independence. In fact, the excessive reliance on the state as the principal mechanism of change and development has left most African countries in a corner from which they have great difficulties extricating themselves.
♦ The combination of artificiality and predominance has placed great strains on governance. Although an African state was a judicial reality in international law, it was not necessarily at the time of independence an empirical reality in national fact. Independence therefore, opened a gap between the international legitimacy and the internal marginality of many emergent African states. The gap often presented a real political dilemma to the new African leaders. They usually could retain European officials only by compromising their national independence and could dispose with them only at the risk of undermining government performance. Because of the fragile empirical reality of African states, power also tended to become highly personalized. Against this background, it is not surprising that the greatest threats to political stability in Africa have come from internal rather than external forces, which is not to deny that external forces have played and continue to play a sinister role in the power politics of many African countries. Illustrations of this whole problem is the fact that there have been over 150 attempts to overthrow incumbent governments by force in Africa since 1960 and a good number of them have been successful. An important reason for this is that personalization and monopolization of power, stemming from the empirical predicament of African statehood, has limited the scope of power sharing and this drives opponents of incumbent rulers to use force.
♦ It is with a view to throwing light on these issues that this analysis, wish to differ from other analyses on the crisis in Africa. This analysis gives an exclusive priority to the articulation of an African as opposed to a Western or foreign perspective on trends and events in Africa emphasizing the often-neglected historical dimension. The objectives of this analysis is therefore to:
♠ Critically and self-critically analyze past development experience in Africa.
♠ Examine the role of internal forces in the present crisis in Africa.
♠ Encourage the emergency of a new alternative Africa perspective on future developments in the continent.
♠ Identify ways and means of more effectively tapping Africa's largely underutilized or poorly utilized potential, both human and material.
♠ Redefine the role of the state in African development and its relations to groups and institutions in society.
♠ Critically analyze the dangers of armaments against a background of human of human rights, dignity and the sanctity of human life and international law
♦ The struggle of the African people for independence was accompanied by many a protestation of anti-imperialism. Even now, many African leaders articulate anti-imperialist slogans while collaborating with the same imperialists against the real interests of the people. This is because nothing in substance has changed. It is high time that anti-imperialism was given a concrete content in the examination of the crisis in Africa. What is the role of imperialism in the era of an African independent state? How does imperialism operate in the conditions of political organizations like the OAU and regional economic grouping like ECOWAS, COMESA, SADCC etc? How do international finance agencies such as the IMF, World Bank etc, serve the interests of imperialism and how can this be countered?
THE CRISIS IN AFRICA
CRISIS OF THE INHERITED STATE
The crisis in Africa is largely an institutional crisis. In particular, it is a crisis of the state. The dilemma facing the African State is that because it was inherited, in many instances, just like an empty shell, from the colonial powers, the African leaders, in filling this lacuna, have devoted prime attention to defining and redefining power relations within their societies. They are at the same time being asked to implement, often ill conceived and usually donor funded development programs and projects with unrealistic time horizons. It is therefore not surprising that in this situation short-term considerations have taken precedence over long-term ones; power over welfare; personal over institutional considerations and security over development. But in a situation where not only human welfare, but also human life is increasingly at stake in the continent, how much longer can Africa afford to be caught in these contradictions. The continent is certainly witnessing an alarming waste of human life and a total abuse of human rights in conflict situations like in the Great Lakes Region, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Angola and Sierra-Leone. Indeed millions of precious lives have been callously wasted in Burundi, Rwanda, The Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola. What are the options of getting out of this present predicament? How can African statehood be enhanced and development accelerated in a parallel fashion?
♦ These are the questions that are increasingly pre-occupying the minds of progressive - thinking policy makers in and outside Africa. In fact, one should not lose sight of the machinations of the western world in the crisis in Africa. Africa's attempt at economic and political groupings has been very disquietining to the U.S.A and Europe. The extent of the West's economic interests in Africa is not a secret. A scientific analysis of the African continent should look beyond empirical data to discover the forces that sustain and nurture political instability and economic stagnation in Africa. Why does the U.S.A find itself so much involved in the affairs not only of some African countries but also of South East Asia, the Middle East and other areas where European countries prior to World War H were predominant? An analysis of the structure of world economy will reveal the relative position of states and their role today in the global world economy that has led to the crisis in Africa.
♦ There is no doubt, whatsoever, that between Britain, the United States, France, West Germany, Canada and Japan, there exists a complete network of horizontal and vertical network and ties expressing the fact that individual national economies ultimately become links in the western economies. In these economies, each economic unit plays an assigned role in the international division of labor. Historically the position occupied by a particular country in the imperialist chain changed as a result of:
a) world war
b) changes in financial resources,
c) the correlation of classes and class struggle within each country.
When Britain was the leading imperialist country, she was also the main beneficiary of the world economy.
♦ After World War 11 when the fortunes of British imperialism began to decline, the United States saw itself (especially in relation to British dominions) as the heir apparent and political centre of the English speaking world. After World War II the U. S. carried its imperialist aims both against and in cooperation with Europe colonial powers and especially in collaboration with Britain and through the latter’s agency. But for Britain and Europe, this collaboration was merely expressive of their own decline as world powers and in which their dependence on the U.S.A was revealed. Under imperialism economic annexation of one country by another was fully achievable without political annexation. This fact must be born in mind in analyzing the changes in the role of particular countries in the present historical epoch. It makes it possible to understand the ascendancy of U.S. imperialism in the course of the break up of the old colonial systems - a fact African leaders failed to understand in their post independent relations with the western world. The penetration of U.S capital in the various regions of the world is one of the prime economic foundations of the U. S ascendancy. The strategic aim of the US capital investments after the break up of formal colonialism was/is to keep countries within the bounds of the capitalist world economy strongly controlled by the US. It is therefore not surprising that the US and the European countries, particularly Britain under the Conservative government led by Margaret Thatcher tirelessly worked towards the total eclipse of the communist world. In fact the emergence of African Continental and regional groupings which are striving to link both political with economic independence has greatly aggravated the U.S and its allies problems of economic control in Africa. But what are the options for getting out of this present predicament? This is the question that needs answers from an African Point of View. The Lagos Plan of Action and subsequent statements adopted by African Heads of State (including the African Priority Program for Economic Recovery) are indicative of this concern at governmental levels in Africa. They also feature on the agenda of the growing community of non-governmental organizations, African or international, involved in African development matters. Even certain genuine donor agencies are taking a serious look at what they have been doing for Africa.
♦ While all these efforts seem encouraging, it is not clear whether the full dimensions of the African crisis are realized. There is still a widely held belief that with more money and better technology, Africa's problems will be solved. Surely, such a `business as usual' recipe is the surest road to disaster at a time when old relations between ends and means do not hold; action frustrates its own intentions; and new purposes flounder for want of understanding and knowledge. At the same time, it is clear that it is easy to describe the problems in Africa and preach large changes of heart, yet neither description nor exhortation suffices at the time. More respect for the African Voice, independent analysis, more frequent dialogue and interaction and an extension of the number of actors involved in thinking and deciding about public matters, are some of the means that need to be considered in the present situation. In short, there must and ought to be greater participation by the broader base of the African people in the political and economic business of their countries.
♦ In a historic perspective, the crisis in Africa facing the African State, today, centers on its role as (1) actor in the international arena - the sovereignty dimension (2) determinant of power relations in society - the accountability dimension and (3) executor of policy - the delivery dimension. The problematic condition affecting the African state, inherited from the colonial masters, with regard to these three dimensions, is that, as actor in the international arena, it is set apart and as executor of policy, it is overloaded.
♦ In analyzing constraints and opportunities in order to resolve the present contradictions in Africa, we have to consider the pre-colonial, colonial and post colonial legacies assuming that each contained elements of significance to the present challenge. We believe that out of this rationale, we can come out with the rationale for a new perspective.
THE PRE-COLONIAL LEGACY
One of the pernicious effects of colonialism was to implant, notably among the educated Africans, the racist idea that Africa had neither history nor culture, or at best, that if there was one it was of no relevance today. The idea of colonialism as a civilizing mission and the policies of colonial powers pursued were calculated to destroy African resistance and to justify the brutality that would not normally be meted out on human beings.
♦ While the need to study Africa’s history should naturally be motivated by idealism designed to counter colonialist myths by other myths. Such as glorifying everything in Africa’s past, it should, however, as in all other countries, be studied and made to serve objectively and subjectively the present and the future of the African continent. On this premise, I hope that my analysis of Africa’s pre-colonial institutions will enable us to arrive at a number of useful conclusions.
♦ Before colonization, African societies were not organized in ‘States’ in the modern Sense. Centralization of power and bureaucratization - two important attributes of the state - had not developed in Africa or they were only at the most embryonic stages. Some of the reasons for this were:
a) the rarity of writing
b) the non-existence of wheeled vehicles, which by limiting long distance travel, limited centralization
c) the late arrival of firearms which prevented state absolution until recent times d) the absence, in large parts of Africa, of religions with ambitions of Universality and
e) the rarity of unifying language.
♦ This broad generalization of the pre-colonial situation in Africa should not by any means imply that family and kinship systems were the only social and political structures of importance in this period. The development of productive forces and social formations five centuries ago, in key areas such as iron and copper smelting, cloth manufacturing, leather tanning and dying as well as in trade in these items were unevenly distributed across the African continent. In Egypt, Nubia, the Maghreb, Ethiopia, the Western Sudan (comprising Ghana, Mali and Songhai) the inter-lacustrine kingdoms of East Africa and Zimbabwe were elaborate political-military and economic systems, which bore similarities with feudal societies, especially in Asia. These states had developed as early as a thousand years before Africa's permanent contact with Europe. However, quite significantly, the African societies were not given the chance to undergo social revolutions such as those that gave rise to the capitalist revolution in Europe in the 19th century. This was one way Europe underdeveloped Africa.
♦ The fundamental traits that existed in the political life of pre-colonial African societies, which could be emulated, were as follows:
– The basic principle in African political life, which was ignored by subsequent colonial systems, was the socialization of political and economic power. Inspite of differences between the village community and more centralized kingdoms in West and Central Africa dating back to the 10th Century, this principle prevailed. While social differentials existed within these classless societies, there were no contradictions, which could not be resolved without Se overthrow of one social stratum by another.
– Although there were tyrannies and abuses of power in both state-societies and stateless societies during the pre-colonial period, there were also ideal principles, which governed them. Community interests invariably eclipsed individual rights, but there also existed principles and practices for their protection. The situation was more expressive for the women although at the same time, in some parts of Africa, women played important political and military roles. In Egypt, Namibia, Benin, Angola, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe, in different periods, women ruled and produced some of the legendary names in the military history of Africa. Women, religious leaders as well as leaders of secret societies enjoyed privileged positions which also had political and economic power and led in the feudal period, for example in Ethiopia to the widely held idea of the divineness of the role of the solomonic line. Nonetheless, the most important postulate of the African exercise of power was the search for an equilibrium between political actors, in essence the application of three great principles;
a a) limitation of power
b b) sharing of power
c) rule of law.
♦ In order to realize the first principle, power was limited by tradition and custom which also assigned roles, responsibilities and power according to age, place occupied in the production process and social hierarchy. It was also guaranteed by extensive freedom of expression in the context of well-established and scrupulously respected codes. Indeed it was not only the liberty to speak that was given, it was an obligation to speak on behalf of those ones represented (family, caste or clan). This right of expression was not without its limitations for the ordinary people, but councilors, historians, minstrels and other dignitaries retained full rights to express themselves and their opinions even if these were unpopular and critical of the rulers.
♦ Yet, another factor limiting power in African society was the disassociation of political power from economic power. In some societies, the Barbara for instance, the political head of a village (teng naba) was different from the soil (economic) chief (teng soba). In Buganda, the ‘bataka’ clan leaders were the custodians of land for their clansmen, while the kabaka and his chiefs were the political leaders.
♦ The second great principle throughout Africa was power-sharing. It was always believed that the best way to keep power was to share it with as many groups as possible so that each had interest in its preservation. In the Mossi Empire in Mali, for example, the king was elected by an electoral college made up of non-nobles so that they could observe the principle of neutrality between competing members of the nobility. In some countries (Rwanda and Burundi Kingdoms) elaborated legal procedures existed in which ordinary people were chosen to serve as judges, notary public and ‘ombudsmen’ on the basis of their knowledge of customs and traditions and because of their personal integrity. Armed forces in Africa were only mobilized for action against external enemies, or against rebellions by feudal lords against their kings. Before the 13th century, the professional armies in other countries were first and foremost used for conquest of domestic power rather than for defense from external enemies.
♦ Finally, the African State was governed by the rule of law. Law was prescribed by custom and not even the king was above it. In many African Kingdoms, the king was sub-ordinated to the interest of the people that when he became so old and weak as to be considered harmful to their well-being, he was killed in ritual - a measure which would also be taken in case of gross violations of custom and tradition or in case of treachery. In some societies, the king was merely the representative of the ancestors in whom power resided or the `Stool' descended from heaven which was the real symbol of authority.
♦ It is recognized that the most fundamental reality, from which the present features of the crisis in Africa originate, is the inherited colonial state, its methods of conquests, legitimization and perpetuation in the different phases of colonization. It is further recognized that far from negating the effects of the slave trade, which had existed in Africa from the tenth century onwards, colonization reinforced, in many ways, the important effects of the slave trade, particularly in the formation of primary institutions and their chance of enduring.
♦ From the tenth century to the sixteenth century, Muslim trans-Saharan and Trans-Indian Ocean slave trade had the impact of dislocating the autonomous development of African societies and institutions. Political systems and social traditions which elsewhere in Europe and Asia provided the setting for the development of `high cultures' and which were evident in many societies in Africa were destabilized although they were still evident and could have survived that slave trade. The appearance of European slave traders in the 16th century with more efficient weapons accelerated the pace and enlarged the extent of the slave trade. Even the most conservative estimates of the number of slaves taken from Africa, to which must be added those who died from diseases, wars and famines which accompanied the accursed trade, would still provide sufficient evidence of the devastation by and of the lingering effect of slavery and the slave trade. That most sought after slaves were those in the prime of their lives, able-bodied men and women, is an often ignored significant fact in considering the demographic and economic consequences of the slave trade. It was indeed a sin that no saint can ever cleanse.
♦ The destruction by the slave trade of the political and social formations which hitherto had provided protection of the individual led to the reinforcement of dependency on kinship systems and kin groups - the most basic units of social organizations. At the advent of colonization, the kinship system had remained and retained the function of being, in the absence of the state, the most valued social defense of the African individual.
♦ Furthermore, with few exceptions, slavery deprived Africa of the possibility of developing the feudal mode of production which in Europe an 4 a encouraged political structures and social moves that gave the state power in the defense of individuals against external danger and in reconciling their conflicting interests. Under feudalism submission to legitimate political authorities, and to demands as were made by those authorities, was reinforced by defense and protection of the individual and his property. Rights and duties were established and scrupulously followed and the notion of citizen took root. Systems of demarcation between public and private interests were evolved in the long history of conquests, regrouping and domination; from small territorial units and different ethnic groups to larger and politically and culturally more integrated societies in which traditions of leadership and accountability were perfected and firmly rooted. In Africa, by contrast, colonialism did not integrate different societies into larger and more viable systems. It set out to dominate all of them using as its most effective weapon, the strategy of “divide and rule”
♦ The colonial state distinguished itself by an excessive use of force. Unlike development in Europe, where the state evolved over centuries of colonialism achieved its objective in a very short time because it had monopoly over arms. Acting without any moral restraint in its use of force, the colonial state first made war on society and thereafter used the same instruments of war to keep society under its domination.
♦ The response by Africans, which also suited the colonial order, was the withdrawal even more deeply into pre-colonial kinship systems in which the individual was protected and fulfilled, and which he/she gave total allegiance. At the same time, being so weakened, these systems could not individually and separately pose any threat to the colonial order. These factors of the colonial state gave rise to the following phenomena:
■ State and society were set apart as were their interests.
■ The state did not exist in the context of the morality of the African society at was therefore not responsible to it.
■ The state was essentially in a permanent situation of war with society, which in turn was in a situation of permanent resistance.
■ Being amoral, the colonial state would only be dealt with amorally by the society. Thus individual and collective behavior internalized these features and relations between the colonial state and society.
STATE AND SOCIETY SET APART
The state -society relations which developed out of the slave trade and colonialism engendered two realms in constant conflict: an amoral and ill-conceived civic realm on one hand and a circumscribed community-based on moral realm on the other. Attitudes towards organization, management and control of public affairs and resources reflected, and continue to reflect, this basic divergence of interests of state and society. Embezzlement of public funds and disregard for public property including nepotism and other forms of corruption must be understood in part as the defense of self and immediate family/clan against the state. By the same token family, clan or ethnic group will tax itself severely and willingly because the taxes go into a common pot for the benefit of all. In contrast, the colonial state did not take into consideration the interests of the society. In its exploitation of labor, for example, it paid such low wages that the laborers had to fall back on their families for their livelihood on returning from mines and plantations where they were employed. In the final analysis, the labor demanded of the head of the family was to enable him to pay the head tax in return for the individual's freedom and that of the family. Failure to pay tax made him a real prisoner or permanent fugitive in hiding from the agents of the state. Taxes were therefore considered a punishment rather, than a duty conferring on the tax payer entitlement to social benefits, human and political rights in a free society. Payment of tax did not give the payer the right to question the reason and manner in which the taxes would be dispensed, reinforcing even further the non-accountability of the state to the individual.
One important question, as we examine the first crisis in Africa, in the Congo, Lumumba’s dilemma in 1960, is; can real liberation be carried out within the framework of the colonial state? The question is predicted on the fact that the post colonial state carries most of, if not, all of the features of the colonial state and is perceived by the citizenry to be performing the same role with more or less perfected instruments and structures.
THE POST-COLONIAL LEGACY
Africa’s struggle for independence was the outcome of contradictions inherent in the colonial system itself. Having secured territorial boundaries and control of the population, the administration of the state and the organization of production imposed the need to train a small fraction of indigenous people to perform supporting roles. Education was the vehicle through which the state indoctrinated the African colonial servants into accepting as unquestionable the imperatives of the colonial state, essentially autonomy and hegemony, inviolability and security of territory, in spite of the arbitrariness of the colonial boundaries and diversity of the population.
♦ Where the pre-colonial African society had already advanced towards clearly defined social class formations and, in particular, where the model of production and social relations had created ruling families/clans, the colonial state instituted `indirect rule', in order to use them as intermediary class between the state and the people. The sons and daughters of the chiefs, and chiefly clans, religious converts and traders were consequently educated into accepting the basic ideology of the colonial state.
THE POST COLONIAL LEADERSHIP
In order to understand the nature of the post-colonial state, it is important to look into the condition of the class that led the nationalist independence movement and see, whether, given the circumstances that had nurtured it, it could bring about the results which the people expected once it took over power from the colonialist.
♦ In the chapter on the pitfalls of National consciousness Frantz Fanon in ‘THE WRETCHED OF THE EARTH’ made the sharpest critique of the African Middle Classes which led the independence movements and were the architects of the postcolonial state. The educated t mi die classes as already observed, were drawn from traditional ruling families, land owners, merchants and traders and those who accepted conversion to the religion of the colonizing power. These latter were sent to mission schools where they were taught not only to give God his due, but Caesar as well in proportions set by the missions and the colonial state respectively. Through the education they received and the place they occupied in the colonial state administration the mostly non-productive role in the economy and its appetite for European goods and culture, the African middle classes lost all but the most superficial links with the people. In the name of the people the middle classes agitated for independence without any concrete notion of what that independence meant for the people.
♦ The middle classes - the petit bourgeoisie - were only certain of their immediate interests, which were not different from those of the colonial state agents. Abolition of the most naked abuses of the colonial state - inequality of remuneration between equally trained African and European technicians, forced labor, disenfranchisement and racial discrimination in social intercourse, constituted for the petit bourgeoisie the most urgent task of the independence movement. For example the ANC of Southern Rhodesia declared its aims and objectives is as primarily dedicated to a political program, economic and educational advancement, social service and personal standards. Its aim is the national unity of all inhabitants of the country in true partnership regardless of race, color and creed congress affirms complete loyalty to the crown as the symbol of national unity. It is not a racial movement. It is equally opposed to racialism and tribalism … congress believes that individual initiative and free enterprise are necessary to the life of a young country and must be fully encouraged, but that a considerable measure of government control is necessary in a modern state …”
This country greatly needs capital from overseas … (and) government must therefore establish conditions under which capital may be invested and industry established with sufficient security to encourage investors.’ Being numerically small and struggling against western colonial systems which originated from countries practicing bourgeoisie democracy, it was necessary for the middle class to seek the following of the masses of the people so as to swell their numbers, and to make it impossible for the colonial state to govern.
Such mass following was also important in mobilizing international public opinion and especially the opinion of the progressive people in the metropolitan countries, where their pressure would play an important role in the decolonization process. Therefore, unity among the people and submerging all class and ethnic differences was of the utmost strategic significance.
♦ The petit bourgeoisie isolated, for maximum concentration, only the contradiction between imperialism and the African people irrespective of classes (the national struggle) and suppressed, those other forces which wished to make this struggle an all-out war against the local and international forces of exploitation (class struggle). The nationalist leaders, in their naivity and lack of proper understanding of the essence of imperialism, could formulate such slogans as, “seek ye the political kingdom first and all others shall be added unto ye”, as if, all others – economic, social and cultural liberation could be separated and relegated to second place.
♦ In summary, the class that took over the state on being granted independence by the metropolitan country saw as its mission the replacement of foreign rule by African rule. Approaching the question of exploitation from a racial perspective, the nationalist government leaders legitimized local exploitation carried out by its supporters as ‘fruits of independence,’ and explained away the increasing misery of its people resulting from, among other things, iniquitous laws of the international economic order about which they could do nothing.
♦ The African post-colonial state was exposed to two international political models - the Westminster parliamentary democracy and the Stalinist one-party absolutism. Neither of these was particularly relevant to Africa and increasingly criticized in their respective countries of origin. Trying to make sense of these models, African leaders turned democracy into personality cults, factors that invariably contributed to the phenomenon of the coup d’état.
COUPS AND REPRESSION
Not surprising the coup makers always promised to honor international agreements entered into by the overthrown governments. These promises were made basically in order to assure the transnational corporations and other foreign capitalists that their interest would not be touched. The promises made to the people on the other hand were seldom kept. The people who always rose in support of the coup-any coup-soon found out the true colors of the coup makers. The state was hardly ever affected by the coup. When coup attempt failed, mass arrests, imprisonment and firing squads became the lot of those caught and those suspected of complicity. Successful coups usually led to even worse orders. Not having any roots among the people, the only way the new regimes could survive was through suppression of the people and physical liquidation of real and imaginary enemies.
♦ Even where scientific methods and modes were claimed, the exhortations and left wing slogans were only designed to conceal the wishes of the state for unquestionable compliance from the people. Even when the state came about as a result of armed struggle like in Angola, Algeria, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, in which tremendous sacrifices were made by the fighters and the entire population, the situation was no better than in those countries where it came about through some peace. It was more disappointing as expectations were high, that in those states greater identification of the state and people would be painstakingly nurtured and that out of experiences of the savage wars of liberation, the state would not betray the people’s confidence. The unity that was the liberation movement's strongest weapon against the colonial power, however, did not take long to erode once independence was achieved. What were claimed as ideological differences among the leadership were often smoke screens for struggles for power and resulted from lack of democracy in the workings of the state. As internal conflicts within the leadership developed, less and less attention was paid to real issues. Contact with the people was gradually lost.
♦ The post colonial legacy is replete with examples of states’ perspectives on problems being too often dictated by one leader of groups of state supported intellectuals who behave and act as if their ideas are valid.
Because these perspectives are not debated by the people, or at best only superficially explained, they lack practicability and are almost invariably the cause of great waste of resources, suffering and despair. Stubborn refusal to learn from experiences world wide (and even of one's own) and preferring instead to invent and propagate new (isms) which only exist in their minds, has made most present day policy makers in Africa forget their people and often side with foreign interests. It is increasingly evident that policies are being determined solely by concern with the means rather than conditions of development. The former has given rise to preoccupation with structures leading to centralization and expansion of the state beneficiaries and has strongly encouraged a top-bottom approach to management of public affairs. This has resulted in preventing the majority of the peoples of Africa from active participation in the political, economic, social and cultural business of their various countries.
RATIONAL FOR NEW PERSPECTIVE
The leaders of the mass movements, which brought about legal independence in Africa, inherited the totality of the colonial state they had been fighting against. Lowering the ‘Union Jack’ or the ‘Tricolor’, African Heads of State moving to former governors’ residences (thereafter renamed ‘Peoples’ Palace or State House), the twenty-one gun salute or the national anthem, did not signify any basic change. Rather than question its relevance, the colonial state was adopted and legitimized. As a matter of fact, far from bringing the promised salvation to the people of Africa, the African leaders sunk deep into the love for flashy scenes and high faulting words. More important is the historical fact that in a very radical sense the nationalist leaders of Africa have found themselves sucked into the role of hypocrites and actors involved in a make-belief situation.
♦ Whereas bureaucracy had run the colonial state, the emergent African State lacked the administrative structures, personnel and the culture necessary for the efficient management and organization of state and society with different objectives from those of the colonial state. ‘STATIZATION’ of all aspects of the economic social and cultural life of the people which necessitated the expansion of the bureaucracy was the response of the post-colonial African states. It however did not increase efficiency. On the contrary, it became a burden to society as more and more resources were required to maintain it. The African state not only became the principal industry, it also sought and succeeded in interfering in the most personal and private lives of its citizens. The African state developed fastest in setting up capacities for repression and in systematically attempting to control and to organize society and individuals so as to gain their unquestioning allegiance.
Indeed revolutionary fervor gutted into political betrayal. Personal liberties were severely eroded.
It is because of these policies of African States in the last forty years that the masses of African people have witnessed political and economic stagnation, mass starvation, wars, torture and other forms of repression. Most of these are traceable to the state by the internal and external policies it pursued or by its inaction where intervention was required.
♦ Africa has learnt through great pains that the content of independence lay not in the seizing of power from the colonialist, but in how and for what that power was exercised. At the time of independence, African household by and large cold feed themselves. The African continent was not the major recipient of food aid than it has become, and its prospects for development were as less evident than in countries of Asia, which had been under the same colonial empires.
♦ The political crisis beginning with the Congo in 1960 multiplied in the sixties and seventies. These crises were to result in Africa’s inability to organize internal political and economic policies, which would make them economically self-sufficient and independent actors in the community of nations.
♦ As the crisis deepened, so did theories to explain its origin, nature and magnitude and to propose ‘appropriate’ paths to development. Various schools of thought sprang up and many theories were advanced to explain Africa's underdevelopment. Too often African policy-makers accepted lock, stock and barrel, these theories without questioning their reliability even when their own empirical experiences were enough to expose the inadequacy of these theories most of which are mainly western and form part of aid packages which have become the intellectual mentors of these African policy-makers.
♦ One of the theories propounded is the one termed ‘development studies’. Development studies is itself in a crisis because from its inception, after the Second World War, as a branch of economics, not a single country can be shown to have developed on any of the numerous models it has produced. On the contrary, development studies has itself become another opium for the people, designed, (as they often were), to stop the peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America from objectively investigating the real causes of their underdevelopment. At the same time, the establishment of multilateral institutions like the IBRD, the IMF, the OECD and the EEC pursued a strategy, which opened up the African economies to further penetration through erroneously much sought after foreign investments, which in reality meant further exploitation.
In fact, we believe that the crisis in Africa is not only about balance of payment problems and inadequate or misdirected external aid. The political and social upheavals, intensive wars, the enormous Africa refugee problem, extensive migration of African laborers within and outside Africa, authoritarian one partyism (whether by proponents of capitalism or various brands of socialism) encompass broader moral and political issues.
Understanding of the root causes of Africa’s underdevelopment, namely European Capitalism, through its slave, colonial and neo-colonial phases, while being necessary in raising the consciousness of the people, is too often used by the state intellectual apologists, to exculpate themselves from the responsibility of conceptualizing new paradigms within which the people could be mobilized to make their own history. For much too long, Africa's intellectuals in their typically middle class superficiality, have harped on everything negative in the political, social and cultural life of Africa as being the result of external pressures or constraints. By so proselytizing, the implication is that the correction of these wrongs will also have to come from outside.
♦ More than thirty five years of independence have given us rich experiences, even if, for the most part, they were of a negative character. They, however, provide a platform for an in-depth process of thought and action, geared towards the creation of a new domestic order that is culturally relevant, morally justifiable, economically vibrant and politically geared towards real liberation. That process can only be meaningful if it starts with inward looking consciousness.
♦ Starting from a holistic view of the state and bearing in mind its role as
1) actor in the international arena – the sovereignty dimension,
2) determinant of power relation in society – the accountability dimension and
3) executor of policy – the delivery dimension,
We have deduced from the information given above, the problematic condition affecting the African State with regard to these dimensions. In thinking about the future, we have organized our analysis so as to be able to identify:
(a) a new perspective,
(b) constraints to its realization, and
(c) means to change the existing order.
In this concluding action, will return to the African State as besieged in the international arena, set apart in its relation to society and overloaded as executor of policy.
THE BESIEGED STATE
AUTONOMOUS AND INTERGRATED DEVELOPMENT
NEW PERSPECTIVE
Although there has been much talk about self reliance and integrated development since African countries became independent, little has been done to foster a process that builds on local resources and serves to integrate sectoral efforts. Africa has remained standing with its back to its hinterland. We would certainly like to stress that the economic crisis in the past few years provides an unusual opportunity for rethinking and reorganizing the continent's economies. To be sure, the economic performance of African countries has varied and some are better off than others are. The truth of the matter is that every African country shares a debt burden and unfavorable terms of trade that gives them little choice but to reconsider past policies. African government leaders must, therefore, discover the potential of the domestic economy and society. Donors and other international organizations must adjust their approach to Africa in such a way that local initiatives are encouraged, local know-how tapped, and local institutions developed as counter-measures to the overwhelming legacy of externally induced and controlled interventions, whether by public or private institutions.
Constraints:
They analysis recognizes that putting the new perspective into practice will be constrained by three principal factors;
1) existing production structures;
2) lack of differentialization in the African economies; and
3) Foreign debt.
The existing production structures reflect the colonial priorities: production of raw materials and other commodities in demand in Europe and other industrialized countries. The result is that African countries tend to produce similar products, compete for the same market and often end up experiencing depressing terms of trade to their own disadvantage. Again, because African economies are essentially non-complementary, there is only limited scope for intra African trade, in spite of the political rhetoric to the contrary. African countries continue to produce what they do not consume and consume what they do not produce. The end result of that is that they are extremely exposed to changes in the international market prices and other external variables. In the 1990s in particular, commodity prices have been generally low while prices on imports, especially for the manufacturing sector, have gone up. The inevitable outcome has been escalating debts. While these debts in absolute terms may at first glance appear modest, they constitute heavy burdens. Foreign debt service makes up several percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) and, an average in sub-Saharan Africa, over a quarter of export earnings.
Means To Change:
In the means to change this situation, this analysis would suggest that although policy options for African countries are limited, governments must not be discouraged by the predicament of their countries. There are three measures can identify and that ought more prominently on African policy agendas in the future:
(1) accelerated domestic capital formation;
(2) development of intra-African trade.
♦ A precondition for autonomous and integrated development is that people rely on their own diligent labor, behave frugally and invest in the creation of new productive resources rather than consuming and dissipating capital produced. Productive activities must also be better linked to each other, whether forward or backward. For instance, enhanced food production, production of clothing material and clothes, as well as the provision of better housing will strengthen the domestic market. This process is likely to take time to realize but it should be given priority as a means of reducing export dependency and vulnerability to changes in the global economy. By building a strategy of industrialization on the agricultural sector, greater complimentarily between rural and urban-based production can be achieved. This principle can also be applied in regional African contexts. Investment has to be rationalized and made to serve more than one country. Food banks and other strategic institutions for inter-state transfers should be seriously considered.
GREATER AFRICAN ASSERTIVENESS
NEW PERSPECTIVE
Although African countries are weak by comparison with most other countries, there is great need for taking the necessary action to assert their position more forcefully in international fora. It is a matter of:
(1) developing common positions on key issues;
(2) enhancing analytical skills; and
(3) strengthening negotiating abilities.
For instance, what would happen if the African governments jointly developed a carefully prepared position on what to do with the continents' debilitating external debt?
Constraints:
There are several constraints to effective action on this issue but most of them lie within the realm of what can be overcome. This analysis identify the following:
(1) Poor selection of delegates to important conferences;
(2) Inadequate negotiating skills and
(3) Lack of training and experience in substantial fields.
Selection of delegates, particularly to international conferences, are often made as a reward for political work or as a means of providing an occasion for vacationing. Lack of individuals with negotiating skills is another constraint. African negotiators did very well in the constitutional conferences preceding independence. Why is the continent so short of skilled negotiators today? One explanation is that there is a shortage of competent individuals with adequate experience in a given field. The political emphasis in the past three decades has been to produce generalists rather than specialists. It is therefore not surprising that African countries have often failed to put up the necessary competence and know-how to serve official negotiators in various international fora.
Means To Change
The principal means to change that this analysis identifies intra-African cooperation. Speaking with one voice on key issues of common concern needs to be further encouraged and so do greater cooperation aimed at fostering a sense of commonness. For instance, in the early sixties, Kenyans, Ugandans and Tanzanians were foremost East Africans.
Today the East African is an endangered species’ and it requires a reserved commitment and a new perspective to restore such an orientation.
REDUCING AID ADDICTION NEW PERSPECTIVE
Observation is that most African countries have become addicted to foreign aid, have lost a sensible perspective on what it can, and should do, and that, as a result, foreign aid must be treated as much as part of the problem as part of the solution to Africa's current development crisis. The besieged nature of the African State has recurrently been reinforced by the international donor community through interventions that have often been ill conceived, poorly designed, and inadequately executed. Africa, therefore, needs a greater independence from the donor community. It needs to put its foot down and accept that the answers to Africa's problems lie with the Africans themselves, including those many individuals and groups that are not part of government structures, and not with the donors, however much expertise they might be able to mobilize in their support.
Constraints:
Africans have been brought up worshipping all things foreign. This colonial - or neocolonial mentality is deeply engrained in the African mind. The lack of public debate about who the Africans are, or ‘who we are’ and ‘how to get there’ further foster this dependency mentality. The absence of an intellectual atmosphere for discussion of issues of national concern tends to reduce the African to a subservient being, always anxious to take the easy road.
Means To Change
Awareness of the need to develop an independent mind and a new social consciousness that stresses self-reliance will only be achieved through greater respect for intellectual work. Culture has vanished as a significant variable in Africa because of the emphasis by foreign donors on achieving `development' (measured in tangible material terms). Political slogans and foolish ideas must be allowed to give way to more serious research and more critical debate of issues that affect Africa's present and future.
SANCITY OF BOARDERS
NEW PERSPECTIVE
We recognized that the besieged nature of the African State also stems from its inherited colonial boundaries. The latter has become taboo to touch. Much effort and much money been devoted to defending them, although they are too many African boundaries artificially and arbitrary. Nobody was ready to suggest that the official OAU position on the sanctity of the present territorial boundaries should be changed. Whatever is the case, still emphasize the need to form greater respect for cultural and social diversity within these boundaries. Uniformity is not necessarily the same as strength. However, it should also be mentioned that African nations are facing certain dangers in changing to the idea of single nation sovereignty in a world where the increasing power of the European Union and other regional organizations tend to make this idea old fashioned.
Constraints:
The multiplicity of ethnic, racial and religious groups in African countries poses a special challenge. In colonial days, it was tackled by using the principle of ‘divide and rule’. Although African leaders usually do it in the name of ‘national unity’ they very much follow the same principle of divide and rule. The artificiality of the boarders is often used to clamp down on groups that wish to assert their cultural identity.
Means To Change
Greater respect for sub-nationalists and other minorities within each African State should be scrupulously developed so that national unity ceases to be a pretext for prosecution of those who want to protect their rights. Border issues can be settled more amicably and at a less cost to Africa if special efforts are made to develop a political climate in which inter-state action can be promoted. African countries do not have the military resources to resolve or monitor inter-state conflicts, but they can take the necessary political and diplomatic steps to ensure that risk for such conflicts is minimized. Prevention is usually better than cure.
THE STATE SET APART - LIMITATION OF POWER
NEW PERSPECTIVE
It is observed that at the time of independence and in the years immediately thereafter, the emphasis on national consensus was understandable. Building the new state encouraged such an outlook. Experience has, however, shown that ambition to achieve maximum consensus often backfires. People are alienated underground opposition is encouraged and, political instability, often violence becomes the end result. The political formula adopted at independence, therefore, has become an albatross around Africa’s neck. Instead of serving as an engine for propelling growth, the state has become one of the greatest obstacle to progress in Africa. The notion of limitation of power, however, is not new to Africans. It was practiced in pre-colonial societies as indicated earlier in this analysis. Many of these values have survived at the level of local governance. The new perspective called for in this analysis involves these customary African values and principles and emphasizes the need for establishing a state that reflects local standards of fairness and dignity in a dynamic context. Sometimes these standards may coincide with universal values, at other times they may not. The point is that there must be an opportunity for ventilating the question of what is right and wrong, fair and to whom.
Constraints
On both colonial and post-colonial years, African countries have got used to the practice of ‘unlimited government,’ i.e. the use of power without any forms of restraint whatsoever. The result has been that most individual people in African countries are intimidated. The emphasis on the state as the principal actor in development has further reinforced an attitude of apathy. People simply sit back and do not engage in civic affairs. Africa has indeed become a continent without participation, although nowhere has the concept been more widely embraced by political leaders. Instead of using ‘voice’ option and register their opinion, people prefer to use their ‘exit’ option, i.e. to withdraw from public affairs.
Means To Change
Having registered considerable disillusion with the way African countries have been governed since independence, we have identified the following means to change the existing order as being of highest priority:
(1) free and fair elections;
(2) right to recall political representatives; and
(3) strengthening non-governmental organizations.
♦ I am confirmed in my opinion that the sovereignty of people (society) over the state must be established. This can only happen through the introduction of more democratic practices. Periodic election to a national assembly of contestants picked by committees of the ruling party must give way to multiparty democracy permitting all patriotic parties to freely organize and participate in free an fair elections at all levels of representation. The most crucial level, because it is close to the people, is the village community. If the representative to the district level assembly are elected from the village councils, which in turn are elected directly by the people from among trustworthy honest and respected individuals, political representation will begin to take on a different character. Patronage politics will give way to open democratic practices. Another important measure to limit power and give meaning to democracy among the people is the right to recall representatives when they are deemed to have abused their mandate. If politicians who seek office only for their own enrichment and aggrandizement can get away with it, people will have no trust in the political system. If on the other hand, these politicians who seek office are under pressure by those people who elected them, greater accountability will develop. Finally I must emphasize the need and the right to form and operate associations whether religious, cultural or professional, with a view to participating in public affairs openly. The rights of assembly, press, speech, etc. have not been respected in Africa. Non-governmental organizations should be strengthened, as development is too important a matter to be left in the hands of a few politicians and government officials only. `The Spirit is too great for one head' if we may cite an African proverb.
SHARING OF POWER
NEW PERSPECTIVE
A collateral to the need for limiting power of government leaders is the importance of making arrangements for greater sharing of it. The African State has remained set apart from society after independence because of excessive concentration of power in the hands of a small group of people drawn from a ruling political party the civil or military service.
Constraints
The principle constraints are related to the legacies inherited from years of overcentralized and over-politicized rule. These legacies encourage the notion that politics is just another lucrative profession - in some countries perhaps the most lucrative and make individuals regard it merely from the vantagepoint of their own interests. The interests of either the state or the society at large are ignored. Sycophancy, corruption, nepotism and other ills in the African State systems are bred in this climate.
Means To Change
Decentralization and debureaucratization are essential means to change the present situation. By decentralization is not meant the transfer of power to levels of a culturally controlled government. Such an exercise, as experienced in many African countries only multiplicates bureaucratic structures. It enhances state capacity for oppression. Decentralization, therefore, must in the future entail strengthening various forms of local government as well as non-governmental organizations. Only by reducing the stake at each level and in every public institution, will there be a way of bringing about greater democracy.
RULE OF LAW
NEW PERSPECTIVE
Fed up by the abuse of power in so many African States, I would like to register the need for greater emphasis on the rule of law. Desirable leadership behavior will not come about voluntarily. Thus, those institutions that enforce the laws of the land must be strengthened. No individual, including the head of state, should be above the law. While I recognize that strengthening the rule of law is a complicated and sensitive process, I would like to emphasize that there is a limit to what individuals living in societies where that principle is ignored, can take. Thus every African must work hard to ensure that political and civil liberties are not arbitrarily ignored by politicians, bureaucrats or others power and influence.
Constraints
The tragedy of Africa is that the way political systems have been run since independence has led to the institutionalization of a pattern of behavior among leaders that goes contrary to the notion of the rule of law. Politicians almost invariably see themselves as being above the law and are ready to violate laws in order to protect their own interests or persecute somebody challenging their position. The result is that the secret police, sometimes also the army, has become a major instrument of central and defense of the state against real or imaginary enemies. Trials, particularly of political challengers, have usually made a mockery of law.
Means To Change
Three important measures should be taken to change the present situation:
1) limiting the term of office;
2) promoting people’s self confidence; and
3} enhancing respect for life and property.
Limiting the term of office of state and party leaders is a first and important measure to take; particularly in one party states. Respect for rule of law will not be achieved unless the top leader is himself subject to rules about the use of power.
Limiting the time in office is one way of creating greater opportunity for holding politicians accountable. Promoting peoples' self-confidence through civic education and involvement in public affairs will enhance their ability to resist the tendency towards the rule of individuals rather than the rule of law. A special challenge in many African countries will be the demystification of the gun, i. e. the development of the conditions under which the gun, and other means of state coercion, will be employed responsibly and in the name of protecting the law only. Finally, as part of this process, authorities must be made to show much greater respect for the sanctity of human life and property than has been the case to date. This will come about only if there are constitutional means to hold people in power accountable. The opportunity to express a vote of no confidence in an individual leader in circumstances when that person has violated the law is one possibility.
THE OVERLOADED STATE
BALANCING PRIVATE AND PUBLIC OWNERSHIP
THE NEW PERSPECTIVE
Respect for private property may be a prerequisite for greater respect for public property. Based on Africa’s disappointing experience of nationalization and management of the public sector, we would like to suggest that at the present stage of development in Africa, a better balance between private and public ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange is needed. Problems to date have been caused not only by lack of skilled manpower, but above all, by lack of responsibility towards public property among stage managers. The result has been a catastrophe for Africa: loss of the potential for accumulation and reinvestment; destruction of already acquired capital – e.g. machinery, vehicles and equipment – underproduction of consumer goods and therefore hardships for the people and loss of the trust in public institutions, the most important precondition for social progress is the steady accumulation of invisible surplus and development of production forces. Bearing in mind the low levels of capital formation and the high demands for consumption, to prevent private ownership of the means of production, and thereby limiting the extent of that sector's contribution to the creation of wealth and income cannot be defended by
involving the principles of socialist direction of society. In the initial stages of creating an independent national economy for countries which do not have a strong and developed capitalism and where the supervision of enterprises therefore is limited by the lack of advanced technical and conscious cadres, the private sector can play a catalytic role so long as the parameters of its operation are clearly spelt out and incentives and reasonable profits are guaranteed by the state. This situation is aggravated by the lack of good traditions of conducting the international affairs of the state, maintaining a proper balance between the state and society and for executing state policy.
Constraints
The principal constraint is obviously the legacy created by an almost unlimited growth of the public sector in the past. People continue to respect the state to be the sole agency responsible for improvement in their welfare. The result is that they will overload the state with demands and give priority to consumption over production. Thus in Africa; people consume more and more and produce less and less resulting in Africans in becoming nations of petty traders. Although there is pressure to retrench the state sector, little has been done and many political consequences are potentially hazardous.
Means To Change
In order to change the existing order and to make planning a more broadly based activity representatives of different tendencies, ideologies professions in society should constitute politically independent Planning Commissions, along the lines of an independent judiciary. These commissions would work with government but would above all be charged with ensuring that the people retain control of their economic activities and safeguarding their interests against periodic changes of government and the possibility of retrogressive policies. The setting up of these commissions presupposes a new political thrust by the state, which should promote and safeguard democracy and popular emancipation. A planning Commission, properly constituted, would also play a key role in the development of productive forces, in deciding levels of investment and consumption, location of industries and order of priorities in the different sectors of the economy.
GREATER INVOLVEMENT BY NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANISATIONS
NEW PERSPECTIVE
The state cannot serve as the sole entrepreneur in Africa and it has to share the burden of development with other institutions in society. Of special interest are the non-governmental organizations, which have proven effective in mobilizing people and resources on a self-reliance basis. As one type of organization that empowers people, non-governmental organizations, which have proven effective, play a vital role similar to that of pressure groups by establishing lines of communication between state agencies and the people. Being less bureaucratic than government institutions, NGOs normally respond more quickly to appeals and demands from the people and do not have the same internal obstacles as large bureaucracies. NGOs as suggested above, are an important aspect of civil society and one means by which power can be diffused and shared. As service agencies, they often achieve better results than other organizations because they rely on voluntary participation and thus enjoy usually higher levels of motivation.
Constraints
The greatest constraint is the unwillingness of government leaders to recognize the contribution made by NGOs. Although it is clear that the state cannot deliver all educational, health and many other social services, government leaders feel uncomfortable about NGOs because they cannot directly control them, or if they become too prominent and influential, to put difficulties in their way. In some extreme cases, the state may even destroy them.
Means To Change
We are convinced that NGOs will achieve recognition in Africa as they continue to out-perform state agencies in various sectors. By demonstrating their capacity, they create an opportunity for offloading the state in a manner that would be helpful to society. NGOs do not have to be a problem to state. Their presents outside the state sector usually provide government departments with opportunities to link up with local activities that benefit all the government as well as the people.
GREATER FLEXIBILITY IN POLICY –
THE NEW PERSPECTIVE
African governments often prompted by donor agencies have been much inclined to adopt single-track solutions to all problems. Instead of recognizing the value of diversity, they have often pursued uniform policy solutions although they are clumsy and inappropriate. It is my candid opinion that greater flexibility is needed both in policy outlook in organizing delivery of state action. Public officials must be encouraged to seek solutions that are creative and appropriate for each time and location rather than developing a `blue print' and attempt to implement it across the country.
Constraints
The principal constraints and obstacles to greater flexibility are existing bureaucratic interests and the mentality of many officials that one policy solution is more efficient and easier to monitor. Force of habit, notions of self-worthy and loss of face often obstructs, or slows down judgment and decision making. Another important obstacle is the lack of articulation of views by others than political leaders. Greater flexibility may become a reality if NGOs and other organizations are allowed to raise their voice and articulate views of policy.
Means To Change
Providing the viability of alternative solutions to state policy is an important means to change the existing outlook. State officials must be made to realize that they do not automatically have the only solutions to society's problems, for instance, in the education and health sectors, new combinations of private and public resources to serve the people should be developed and tried out. Instead of paying for everything, usually the common practice of patronage politics, government should provide matching support and reward communities or institutions that have mobilized local resources and an initial installment.
GREATER PARTICIPATION
NEW PERSPECTIVE
Although there has been much talk of participation in Africa in the past three decades, little has been done. If anything, popular involvement in public affairs has declined. There is, therefore, the need to ensure that in future, policy processes really start from the people, then go to parliament, and finally back to people again. Policy-making must not be the prerogative of officials only.
Constraints
Greater participation in policy making is usually obstructed by the reluctance of state leaders and institutions to share power and delegate authority. Starting with the head of state, who rarely seeks or follows the advice of individual cabinet ministers, the state works in a military way with orders being transmitted from top downwards except when secrecy makes even this impossible. Seniority is almost always an excuse for thwarting original ideas from juniors.
Means To Change
Participatory modes of policy making can be evolved by strengthening institutions willing to encourage more democratic practices within state institutions as part of broader democratic practices within society at large. We realize that this is a difficult and far reaching measure that would only become reality in conjunction with the other measures analyzed. It entails reforms in both the economic and political sphere, including breaking the spell of the present neo-colonial order. It is generally believed that neo-colonialism, more than anything else, holds back Africa's creativity and potential to develop on its own. However, it should also be taken into consideration that Africa's long period of colonialism and colonial domination makes it difficult to crush neo-colonialism as a viper: it will always exist. We shall also practice it against others when Africa becomes strong. The only way to defeat neo-colonialism is to compete with the so-called advanced nations in productivity and we can only do so if we apply to an increasing extent, home-brewed results, science and technology, to agriculture and industry. African Unity can only help if it leads to the attainment of this end.
To sum it up, Africa needs capital but she does not need to borrow it. The Soviet Union built up her own capital without any significant borrowing. She made severe sacrifices in order to achieve a better future. Borrowing at every turn cannot solve the African problem. Certainly judicious borrowing has its place, but indiscriminate soliciting for funds, foreign investment etc. is the beginning of slavery. Colonial regimes built up reserves without borrowing and African countries can also do it.
The other evil contributing to our woes in Africa is our inability to put first things first. The second evil is our almost total lack of appreciation for science education as the bulwark of agriculture and industry.
What are the first things? If we take the example of a tree as an organic unit, the tree is a highly organized industrial unit. Certainly no human organization can surpass it in efficiency. It works to sustain itself. It does this systematically and orderly. It does not grow flowers first. It does not concern itself with prestige and grandeur until it has secured for itself the life sustaining conditions – water, carbon dioxide and energy.
From the tree then we learn the next phase of activity that after attaining independence it is not an elaborate foreign service and embassies, not huge armies and novices, not mighty statues and national monuments, not parks and gardens but agriculture, agriculture and industries, industries and industries.
Africa indeed needs industries to convert our minerals into finished products, cocoa into chocolate, tobacco into cigarettes, air into fertilizer, oils into soap, clay into pots and cups. This should be the major activity in Africa. It should utilize the total available energy to create new things out of natural resources to provide the common needs such as food, shelter, clothing and where the raw materials are not available, to exchange some of these finished products for these raw materials and to turn these in turn into more valuable products.
This is the secret of the greatness of the developed nations. They never stand in one place in industry. They are always looking out for opportunity to introduce some useful and imaginative innovations. The more they do this the richer they become and the poorer African, Asian and Latin American nations become. They want transistors, television sets, cameras and even furniture, plates and multitude of other goods, which they cannot make but desire passionately. The irony of it all is that “the made in Britain” etc goods have their raw materials originating from Africa. When these countries grow richer we go to the United Nations to complain that we are becoming poorer and poorer. These nations see it, but there is nothing they can do about it. They just cannot toil for Africa. And just as the rich man throws a cent to the beggar at the street corner, so do our former colonial masters give to us some pittance or loans with unbreakable strings.
Africa would fail were it not for its virtually inexhaustible resources. The sun alone is a source of incalculable wealth. Then when we are well-fed, adequately clothed and comfortably housed we can turn to litany and cultural activities; we can turn to literature and philosophy, to drumming and dancing, to radio and television, we can turn to large armies and navies, to the air force and new missiles.
We can turn to statues and monuments to white elephants and red lions as America, indeed, has done because at that time we can afford.
The order of priorities then is first agriculture and fishing, secondly mining and industry and lastly literary and cultural activities. In this way Africa would have put first things first and succeeded in laying a solid foundation for sustained growth.
If Africa would conceive this and above all our leaders grasp this phenomenon, Africa's poverty, disease and unending internal strife would vanish. A new era would have been ushered in and the black man would have taken his rightful place in the community of nations. Indeed what is it that keeps our leaders in a state of humiliating reliance on Western aid? Why do the educated classes of Africa spend so much time demanding the crumbs of materialistic prestige to be snatched from Europe and America, and so little developing local resources such as agriculture? The answer as suggested by Frantz Fanon is that the governing class of our countries has so far so long left the responsibility of its decisions to others that it is now deprived of the capacity to take any constructive initiative since it implies a minimum of risk. The failure is one of imagination. The people lost the capacity to improvise since they no longer possess the necessary confidence in the creative potential of their own culture. We must indeed rise to a pitch of equality with the rest of the world. .THE CRISIS IN AFRICA: TOWARDS A TRUE LIBERATION.
By Musafare TAKAENDESA. Mupanduki –BA.MA. DIPLOMA IN International Relations: PH.D. CANDIDATE
INTRODUCTION
♦ After decades of domination, the dominated in Africa have developed massive inferiority feelings. These feelings manifest themselves in an acute dependency on their colonial masters, a state, which can only be redeemed by a decisive act of a program of massive continuation education awareness campaign reaching all progressive forces -in the African continent.
♦ One of the greatest paradoxes of all time is that, the richest and the most generously endowed continent in the universe has the poorest people. There are great opportunities everywhere, but Africa is too blind to see that we literally walk on gold and yet we are too lazy to stoop and collect the treasure. Africans sit and wait for the colonial master (under the guise of foreign investment) to come to their aid, forgetting that the immutable law of the universe is survival of the fittest.
♦ In spite of the vast stretches of the Sahara and Kalahari deserts, Africa has more arable and pastureland than the U.S.A., the Soviet Union or China and India, all put together. African lands are futile and require, at the initial stage of use, little fertilization. Such great rivers as the Nile, the Congo, the Zambezi, and the Volta richly water these lands.
♦ Africa has 53 of the world’s most important and basic minerals and metals but Africans do not know what to do with them besides shipping and airlifting these treasures of Africa to foreign lands in exchange for a pittance. Africans again import these same materials in one form or the other at a hundred times the original value. To sell tobacco is pardonable, but to sell minerals discriminately is to be like a man who sells his muscle because he is hungry.
♦ Africa’s estimated coal reserves can last for another 300 years. Petroleum fields are being discovered every year to increase Africa's power potential; solar energy is merchantable and Africa has uranium for nuclear energy. But in spite of the fact that the continent possesses industrial raw materials and abundant power and energy, Africa is the least industrialized continent. This is the truth of Africa: It has everything, and yet possesses nothing.
♦ Yes at independence, Africa was given the national anthem, the flag, the twenty-one gun salute and the governors’ residence. Nothing changed. A model of Westminster and Whitehall remained in operation; yet that was a solemn moment, a moment of thought and not jubilation, a moment to consider the meaning and problems of statecraft, a moment to discover the philosophic and eternal meaning of the state as a concept. Africa had, at that moment, an opportunity to eclipse the colonial experience and drag the African countries through the usual course of history - injustice, class-war revolution and destruction. Africa chose the latter. African leaders squandered the reserves left by the colonialists' governments, like prodigal sons and took the begging-bowl around, to the same colonial masters, forgetting that even in those seemingly adverse conditions, we were part of the most richly endowed continent on the face of the planet.
♦ It is often said that the enemy of African development is neo-colonialism. This is false. Neocolonialism is the advantage, which the strong nations have over the weak ones: it is a law of life. “… to him that hath, shall more be given and from him that hath not, shall be taken away even that which he hath”.
♦ Europe is in danger of American domination; Asia is in danger of Chinese and Japanese domination; South America is in danger of North American domination and Africa, the weakest of all continents is in danger of domination by all of them.
♦ The truth is that no one can teach his competitors against himself Colonial countries cannot teach us how to compete successfully with them; they cannot teach us how to exploit our natural resources to our advantage. They must rather take advantage of our ignorance in order to survive.
♦ It is generally observed that nations emerging from long foreign domination generally lack an independent administrative traditional social structure within which it is easy to build a class of national administrators. It is true that in some of the countries concerned, the former administering authority has bequeathed a valuable legacy in the form of an efficient administrative apparatus and sizeable cadres of experienced local officials at many levels. But this by no means is generally so. Even where it is, it does not meet the needs of people whose awakening has stirred much deeper feelings of hope and endeavor than were felt under the most enlightened colonial regime.
♦ Having been into the world characterized by an almost unshakable belief in economic growth and progress, Africa's first steps towards `Uhuru' were inevitably influenced by the spirit of development that had seized the rest of the world. Compared to Asia and Latin America, Africa was viewed as having a special opportunity of making rapid and steady progress because it lacked the oppressive social structures and cultural impediments believed to exist on the other two continents. This was an erroneous belief and a false start in Africa.
♦ In this climate, the temptation for African leaders to ignore the past and treat their societies as clean slates' was understandably great. Often trained in Universities in the metropolitan of the colonial countries, they wanted their countries to catch up with the rest of the world as quickly as possible and without the pains and strains that had accompanied the march to progress elsewhere. Against this background, it is therefore not surprising that the first decades of independence have been a period of endless imitation and experimentation. Applying pet notions from both east and West with the view to bringing Africa into the mainstream of economic development, the continent was treated much like an empty box.
♦ The time span of a generation later, it is now clear that it was an imaginary expectation that the transfer of power from imperialist countries to sovereign African States would usher in a new era and lead to an up liftment in the living standards of the masses of the people and a combination of effective and democratic governments. Progress in the sense outlined above, has been much harder to achieve than was held more than forty years ago and today, Africa is faced with a steady increasing ma-development i.e. with costly legacies of the efforts to find shortcuts to progress! Rather than being closer to the industrialized countries Africa is farther away, rather than being more self-reliant, it is more dependant and rather than being more stable the continent is more volatile and conflict-ridden. In fact the situation has deteriorated even much farther, famine disease and civil wars resulting in an alarming loss of human life and total abuse of human rights with a complete disregard for the sanctity of human life, replacing other historically entrenched stereotypes. Indeed the prevailing image of Africa is that of a continent in permanent need of assistance and salvation from outside; the African having been reduced to a level of consumer apprentices incapable of analyzing their own problems or becoming the protagonists of their own development.
♦ The shortcomings in economic and social performance in Africa over the past decades are the results not only of the misconception of development indicated earlier in this analysis but also symptomatic of an institutional crisis which has not been given the attention in deserves. Public sector institutions created in the optimistic years after independence have found difficulty in adapting to a situation requiring restrain and belt tightening. This problem is particularly pertinent in Africa because of the dominant position taken by the state in development and the weakness of the other institution in society.
♦ The state-centered approach is at least in part a colonial legacy. Created quite arbitrarily by the colonial powers to respond to their own interests the modern state in Africa was set up with little or no regard for the ethnic linguistic, economic or geographical features of the continent. Nor was it created with a view to encouraging peoples’ participation in the economic and political business of their countries. A class of colonial civil servants controlled development in the colonial set up. For reasons of political control, the colonial authorities were reluctant to promote the establishment of associations outside the immediate tutelage of the colonial state.
♦ Ironically, independent Africa inherited this legacy. Initially, as long as government involvement in public affairs and development was relatively limited, the problem was manageable. But, as the demand for social change accelerated, and foreign donors increased their contributions, state participation in development grew rapidly and in some cases indiscriminately. The weaknesses of the private and voluntary sectors were used as an excuse for the rapid growth of state involvement in both social and economic development. There was a strong and erroneous belief that through manpower development programs, institutional shortcomings could be overcome. However, today, it is increasingly clear that Africa's problem is not primarily lack of talent and know-how but the institutional imbalance created in decades past, both prior to and after independence. In fact, the excessive reliance on the state as the principal mechanism of change and development has left most African countries in a corner from which they have great difficulties extricating themselves.
♦ The combination of artificiality and predominance has placed great strains on governance. Although an African state was a judicial reality in international law, it was not necessarily at the time of independence an empirical reality in national fact. Independence therefore, opened a gap between the international legitimacy and the internal marginality of many emergent African states. The gap often presented a real political dilemma to the new African leaders. They usually could retain European officials only by compromising their national independence and could dispose with them only at the risk of undermining government performance. Because of the fragile empirical reality of African states, power also tended to become highly personalized. Against this background, it is not surprising that the greatest threats to political stability in Africa have come from internal rather than external forces, which is not to deny that external forces have played and continue to play a sinister role in the power politics of many African countries. Illustrations of this whole problem is the fact that there have been over 150 attempts to overthrow incumbent governments by force in Africa since 1960 and a good number of them have been successful. An important reason for this is that personalization and monopolization of power, stemming from the empirical predicament of African statehood, has limited the scope of power sharing and this drives opponents of incumbent rulers to use force.
♦ It is with a view to throwing light on these issues that this analysis, wish to differ from other analyses on the crisis in Africa. This analysis gives an exclusive priority to the articulation of an African as opposed to a Western or foreign perspective on trends and events in Africa emphasizing the often-neglected historical dimension. The objectives of this analysis is therefore to:
♠ Critically and self-critically analyze past development experience in Africa.
♠ Examine the role of internal forces in the present crisis in Africa.
♠ Encourage the emergency of a new alternative Africa perspective on future developments in the continent.
♠ Identify ways and means of more effectively tapping Africa's largely underutilized or poorly utilized potential, both human and material.
♠ Redefine the role of the state in African development and its relations to groups and institutions in society.
♠ Critically analyze the dangers of armaments against a background of human of human rights, dignity and the sanctity of human life and international law
♦ The struggle of the African people for independence was accompanied by many a protestation of anti-imperialism. Even now, many African leaders articulate anti-imperialist slogans while collaborating with the same imperialists against the real interests of the people. This is because nothing in substance has changed. It is high time that anti-imperialism was given a concrete content in the examination of the crisis in Africa. What is the role of imperialism in the era of an African independent state? How does imperialism operate in the conditions of political organizations like the OAU and regional economic grouping like ECOWAS, COMESA, SADCC etc? How do international finance agencies such as the IMF, World Bank etc, serve the interests of imperialism and how can this be countered?
THE CRISIS IN AFRICA
CRISIS OF THE INHERITED STATE
The crisis in Africa is largely an institutional crisis. In particular, it is a crisis of the state. The dilemma facing the African State is that because it was inherited, in many instances, just like an empty shell, from the colonial powers, the African leaders, in filling this lacuna, have devoted prime attention to defining and redefining power relations within their societies. They are at the same time being asked to implement, often ill conceived and usually donor funded development programs and projects with unrealistic time horizons. It is therefore not surprising that in this situation short-term considerations have taken precedence over long-term ones; power over welfare; personal over institutional considerations and security over development. But in a situation where not only human welfare, but also human life is increasingly at stake in the continent, how much longer can Africa afford to be caught in these contradictions. The continent is certainly witnessing an alarming waste of human life and a total abuse of human rights in conflict situations like in the Great Lakes Region, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Angola and Sierra-Leone. Indeed millions of precious lives have been callously wasted in Burundi, Rwanda, The Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola. What are the options of getting out of this present predicament? How can African statehood be enhanced and development accelerated in a parallel fashion?
♦ These are the questions that are increasingly pre-occupying the minds of progressive - thinking policy makers in and outside Africa. In fact, one should not lose sight of the machinations of the western world in the crisis in Africa. Africa's attempt at economic and political groupings has been very disquietining to the U.S.A and Europe. The extent of the West's economic interests in Africa is not a secret. A scientific analysis of the African continent should look beyond empirical data to discover the forces that sustain and nurture political instability and economic stagnation in Africa. Why does the U.S.A find itself so much involved in the affairs not only of some African countries but also of South East Asia, the Middle East and other areas where European countries prior to World War H were predominant? An analysis of the structure of world economy will reveal the relative position of states and their role today in the global world economy that has led to the crisis in Africa.
♦ There is no doubt, whatsoever, that between Britain, the United States, France, West Germany, Canada and Japan, there exists a complete network of horizontal and vertical network and ties expressing the fact that individual national economies ultimately become links in the western economies. In these economies, each economic unit plays an assigned role in the international division of labor. Historically the position occupied by a particular country in the imperialist chain changed as a result of:
a) world war
b) changes in financial resources,
c) the correlation of classes and class struggle within each country.
When Britain was the leading imperialist country, she was also the main beneficiary of the world economy.
♦ After World War 11 when the fortunes of British imperialism began to decline, the United States saw itself (especially in relation to British dominions) as the heir apparent and political centre of the English speaking world. After World War II the U. S. carried its imperialist aims both against and in cooperation with Europe colonial powers and especially in collaboration with Britain and through the latter’s agency. But for Britain and Europe, this collaboration was merely expressive of their own decline as world powers and in which their dependence on the U.S.A was revealed. Under imperialism economic annexation of one country by another was fully achievable without political annexation. This fact must be born in mind in analyzing the changes in the role of particular countries in the present historical epoch. It makes it possible to understand the ascendancy of U.S. imperialism in the course of the break up of the old colonial systems - a fact African leaders failed to understand in their post independent relations with the western world. The penetration of U.S capital in the various regions of the world is one of the prime economic foundations of the U. S ascendancy. The strategic aim of the US capital investments after the break up of formal colonialism was/is to keep countries within the bounds of the capitalist world economy strongly controlled by the US. It is therefore not surprising that the US and the European countries, particularly Britain under the Conservative government led by Margaret Thatcher tirelessly worked towards the total eclipse of the communist world. In fact the emergence of African Continental and regional groupings which are striving to link both political with economic independence has greatly aggravated the U.S and its allies problems of economic control in Africa. But what are the options for getting out of this present predicament? This is the question that needs answers from an African Point of View. The Lagos Plan of Action and subsequent statements adopted by African Heads of State (including the African Priority Program for Economic Recovery) are indicative of this concern at governmental levels in Africa. They also feature on the agenda of the growing community of non-governmental organizations, African or international, involved in African development matters. Even certain genuine donor agencies are taking a serious look at what they have been doing for Africa.
♦ While all these efforts seem encouraging, it is not clear whether the full dimensions of the African crisis are realized. There is still a widely held belief that with more money and better technology, Africa's problems will be solved. Surely, such a `business as usual' recipe is the surest road to disaster at a time when old relations between ends and means do not hold; action frustrates its own intentions; and new purposes flounder for want of understanding and knowledge. At the same time, it is clear that it is easy to describe the problems in Africa and preach large changes of heart, yet neither description nor exhortation suffices at the time. More respect for the African Voice, independent analysis, more frequent dialogue and interaction and an extension of the number of actors involved in thinking and deciding about public matters, are some of the means that need to be considered in the present situation. In short, there must and ought to be greater participation by the broader base of the African people in the political and economic business of their countries.
♦ In a historic perspective, the crisis in Africa facing the African State, today, centers on its role as (1) actor in the international arena - the sovereignty dimension (2) determinant of power relations in society - the accountability dimension and (3) executor of policy - the delivery dimension. The problematic condition affecting the African state, inherited from the colonial masters, with regard to these three dimensions, is that, as actor in the international arena, it is set apart and as executor of policy, it is overloaded.
♦ In analyzing constraints and opportunities in order to resolve the present contradictions in Africa, we have to consider the pre-colonial, colonial and post colonial legacies assuming that each contained elements of significance to the present challenge. We believe that out of this rationale, we can come out with the rationale for a new perspective.
THE PRE-COLONIAL LEGACY
One of the pernicious effects of colonialism was to implant, notably among the educated Africans, the racist idea that Africa had neither history nor culture, or at best, that if there was one it was of no relevance today. The idea of colonialism as a civilizing mission and the policies of colonial powers pursued were calculated to destroy African resistance and to justify the brutality that would not normally be meted out on human beings.
♦ While the need to study Africa’s history should naturally be motivated by idealism designed to counter colonialist myths by other myths. Such as glorifying everything in Africa’s past, it should, however, as in all other countries, be studied and made to serve objectively and subjectively the present and the future of the African continent. On this premise, I hope that my analysis of Africa’s pre-colonial institutions will enable us to arrive at a number of useful conclusions.
♦ Before colonization, African societies were not organized in ‘States’ in the modern Sense. Centralization of power and bureaucratization - two important attributes of the state - had not developed in Africa or they were only at the most embryonic stages. Some of the reasons for this were:
a) the rarity of writing
b) the non-existence of wheeled vehicles, which by limiting long distance travel, limited centralization
c) the late arrival of firearms which prevented state absolution until recent times d) the absence, in large parts of Africa, of religions with ambitions of Universality and
e) the rarity of unifying language.
♦ This broad generalization of the pre-colonial situation in Africa should not by any means imply that family and kinship systems were the only social and political structures of importance in this period. The development of productive forces and social formations five centuries ago, in key areas such as iron and copper smelting, cloth manufacturing, leather tanning and dying as well as in trade in these items were unevenly distributed across the African continent. In Egypt, Nubia, the Maghreb, Ethiopia, the Western Sudan (comprising Ghana, Mali and Songhai) the inter-lacustrine kingdoms of East Africa and Zimbabwe were elaborate political-military and economic systems, which bore similarities with feudal societies, especially in Asia. These states had developed as early as a thousand years before Africa's permanent contact with Europe. However, quite significantly, the African societies were not given the chance to undergo social revolutions such as those that gave rise to the capitalist revolution in Europe in the 19th century. This was one way Europe underdeveloped Africa.
♦ The fundamental traits that existed in the political life of pre-colonial African societies, which could be emulated, were as follows:
– The basic principle in African political life, which was ignored by subsequent colonial systems, was the socialization of political and economic power. Inspite of differences between the village community and more centralized kingdoms in West and Central Africa dating back to the 10th Century, this principle prevailed. While social differentials existed within these classless societies, there were no contradictions, which could not be resolved without Se overthrow of one social stratum by another.
– Although there were tyrannies and abuses of power in both state-societies and stateless societies during the pre-colonial period, there were also ideal principles, which governed them. Community interests invariably eclipsed individual rights, but there also existed principles and practices for their protection. The situation was more expressive for the women although at the same time, in some parts of Africa, women played important political and military roles. In Egypt, Namibia, Benin, Angola, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe, in different periods, women ruled and produced some of the legendary names in the military history of Africa. Women, religious leaders as well as leaders of secret societies enjoyed privileged positions which also had political and economic power and led in the feudal period, for example in Ethiopia to the widely held idea of the divineness of the role of the solomonic line. Nonetheless, the most important postulate of the African exercise of power was the search for an equilibrium between political actors, in essence the application of three great principles;
a a) limitation of power
b b) sharing of power
c) rule of law.
♦ In order to realize the first principle, power was limited by tradition and custom which also assigned roles, responsibilities and power according to age, place occupied in the production process and social hierarchy. It was also guaranteed by extensive freedom of expression in the context of well-established and scrupulously respected codes. Indeed it was not only the liberty to speak that was given, it was an obligation to speak on behalf of those ones represented (family, caste or clan). This right of expression was not without its limitations for the ordinary people, but councilors, historians, minstrels and other dignitaries retained full rights to express themselves and their opinions even if these were unpopular and critical of the rulers.
♦ Yet, another factor limiting power in African society was the disassociation of political power from economic power. In some societies, the Barbara for instance, the political head of a village (teng naba) was different from the soil (economic) chief (teng soba). In Buganda, the ‘bataka’ clan leaders were the custodians of land for their clansmen, while the kabaka and his chiefs were the political leaders.
♦ The second great principle throughout Africa was power-sharing. It was always believed that the best way to keep power was to share it with as many groups as possible so that each had interest in its preservation. In the Mossi Empire in Mali, for example, the king was elected by an electoral college made up of non-nobles so that they could observe the principle of neutrality between competing members of the nobility. In some countries (Rwanda and Burundi Kingdoms) elaborated legal procedures existed in which ordinary people were chosen to serve as judges, notary public and ‘ombudsmen’ on the basis of their knowledge of customs and traditions and because of their personal integrity. Armed forces in Africa were only mobilized for action against external enemies, or against rebellions by feudal lords against their kings. Before the 13th century, the professional armies in other countries were first and foremost used for conquest of domestic power rather than for defense from external enemies.
♦ Finally, the African State was governed by the rule of law. Law was prescribed by custom and not even the king was above it. In many African Kingdoms, the king was sub-ordinated to the interest of the people that when he became so old and weak as to be considered harmful to their well-being, he was killed in ritual - a measure which would also be taken in case of gross violations of custom and tradition or in case of treachery. In some societies, the king was merely the representative of the ancestors in whom power resided or the `Stool' descended from heaven which was the real symbol of authority.
♦ It is recognized that the most fundamental reality, from which the present features of the crisis in Africa originate, is the inherited colonial state, its methods of conquests, legitimization and perpetuation in the different phases of colonization. It is further recognized that far from negating the effects of the slave trade, which had existed in Africa from the tenth century onwards, colonization reinforced, in many ways, the important effects of the slave trade, particularly in the formation of primary institutions and their chance of enduring.
♦ From the tenth century to the sixteenth century, Muslim trans-Saharan and Trans-Indian Ocean slave trade had the impact of dislocating the autonomous development of African societies and institutions. Political systems and social traditions which elsewhere in Europe and Asia provided the setting for the development of `high cultures' and which were evident in many societies in Africa were destabilized although they were still evident and could have survived that slave trade. The appearance of European slave traders in the 16th century with more efficient weapons accelerated the pace and enlarged the extent of the slave trade. Even the most conservative estimates of the number of slaves taken from Africa, to which must be added those who died from diseases, wars and famines which accompanied the accursed trade, would still provide sufficient evidence of the devastation by and of the lingering effect of slavery and the slave trade. That most sought after slaves were those in the prime of their lives, able-bodied men and women, is an often ignored significant fact in considering the demographic and economic consequences of the slave trade. It was indeed a sin that no saint can ever cleanse.
♦ The destruction by the slave trade of the political and social formations which hitherto had provided protection of the individual led to the reinforcement of dependency on kinship systems and kin groups - the most basic units of social organizations. At the advent of colonization, the kinship system had remained and retained the function of being, in the absence of the state, the most valued social defense of the African individual.
♦ Furthermore, with few exceptions, slavery deprived Africa of the possibility of developing the feudal mode of production which in Europe an 4 a encouraged political structures and social moves that gave the state power in the defense of individuals against external danger and in reconciling their conflicting interests. Under feudalism submission to legitimate political authorities, and to demands as were made by those authorities, was reinforced by defense and protection of the individual and his property. Rights and duties were established and scrupulously followed and the notion of citizen took root. Systems of demarcation between public and private interests were evolved in the long history of conquests, regrouping and domination; from small territorial units and different ethnic groups to larger and politically and culturally more integrated societies in which traditions of leadership and accountability were perfected and firmly rooted. In Africa, by contrast, colonialism did not integrate different societies into larger and more viable systems. It set out to dominate all of them using as its most effective weapon, the strategy of “divide and rule”
♦ The colonial state distinguished itself by an excessive use of force. Unlike development in Europe, where the state evolved over centuries of colonialism achieved its objective in a very short time because it had monopoly over arms. Acting without any moral restraint in its use of force, the colonial state first made war on society and thereafter used the same instruments of war to keep society under its domination.
♦ The response by Africans, which also suited the colonial order, was the withdrawal even more deeply into pre-colonial kinship systems in which the individual was protected and fulfilled, and which he/she gave total allegiance. At the same time, being so weakened, these systems could not individually and separately pose any threat to the colonial order. These factors of the colonial state gave rise to the following phenomena:
■ State and society were set apart as were their interests.
■ The state did not exist in the context of the morality of the African society at was therefore not responsible to it.
■ The state was essentially in a permanent situation of war with society, which in turn was in a situation of permanent resistance.
■ Being amoral, the colonial state would only be dealt with amorally by the society. Thus individual and collective behavior internalized these features and relations between the colonial state and society.
STATE AND SOCIETY SET APART
The state -society relations which developed out of the slave trade and colonialism engendered two realms in constant conflict: an amoral and ill-conceived civic realm on one hand and a circumscribed community-based on moral realm on the other. Attitudes towards organization, management and control of public affairs and resources reflected, and continue to reflect, this basic divergence of interests of state and society. Embezzlement of public funds and disregard for public property including nepotism and other forms of corruption must be understood in part as the defense of self and immediate family/clan against the state. By the same token family, clan or ethnic group will tax itself severely and willingly because the taxes go into a common pot for the benefit of all. In contrast, the colonial state did not take into consideration the interests of the society. In its exploitation of labor, for example, it paid such low wages that the laborers had to fall back on their families for their livelihood on returning from mines and plantations where they were employed. In the final analysis, the labor demanded of the head of the family was to enable him to pay the head tax in return for the individual's freedom and that of the family. Failure to pay tax made him a real prisoner or permanent fugitive in hiding from the agents of the state. Taxes were therefore considered a punishment rather, than a duty conferring on the tax payer entitlement to social benefits, human and political rights in a free society. Payment of tax did not give the payer the right to question the reason and manner in which the taxes would be dispensed, reinforcing even further the non-accountability of the state to the individual.
One important question, as we examine the first crisis in Africa, in the Congo, Lumumba’s dilemma in 1960, is; can real liberation be carried out within the framework of the colonial state? The question is predicted on the fact that the post colonial state carries most of, if not, all of the features of the colonial state and is perceived by the citizenry to be performing the same role with more or less perfected instruments and structures.
THE POST-COLONIAL LEGACY
Africa’s struggle for independence was the outcome of contradictions inherent in the colonial system itself. Having secured territorial boundaries and control of the population, the administration of the state and the organization of production imposed the need to train a small fraction of indigenous people to perform supporting roles. Education was the vehicle through which the state indoctrinated the African colonial servants into accepting as unquestionable the imperatives of the colonial state, essentially autonomy and hegemony, inviolability and security of territory, in spite of the arbitrariness of the colonial boundaries and diversity of the population.
♦ Where the pre-colonial African society had already advanced towards clearly defined social class formations and, in particular, where the model of production and social relations had created ruling families/clans, the colonial state instituted `indirect rule', in order to use them as intermediary class between the state and the people. The sons and daughters of the chiefs, and chiefly clans, religious converts and traders were consequently educated into accepting the basic ideology of the colonial state.
THE POST COLONIAL LEADERSHIP
In order to understand the nature of the post-colonial state, it is important to look into the condition of the class that led the nationalist independence movement and see, whether, given the circumstances that had nurtured it, it could bring about the results which the people expected once it took over power from the colonialist.
♦ In the chapter on the pitfalls of National consciousness Frantz Fanon in ‘THE WRETCHED OF THE EARTH’ made the sharpest critique of the African Middle Classes which led the independence movements and were the architects of the postcolonial state. The educated t mi die classes as already observed, were drawn from traditional ruling families, land owners, merchants and traders and those who accepted conversion to the religion of the colonizing power. These latter were sent to mission schools where they were taught not only to give God his due, but Caesar as well in proportions set by the missions and the colonial state respectively. Through the education they received and the place they occupied in the colonial state administration the mostly non-productive role in the economy and its appetite for European goods and culture, the African middle classes lost all but the most superficial links with the people. In the name of the people the middle classes agitated for independence without any concrete notion of what that independence meant for the people.
♦ The middle classes - the petit bourgeoisie - were only certain of their immediate interests, which were not different from those of the colonial state agents. Abolition of the most naked abuses of the colonial state - inequality of remuneration between equally trained African and European technicians, forced labor, disenfranchisement and racial discrimination in social intercourse, constituted for the petit bourgeoisie the most urgent task of the independence movement. For example the ANC of Southern Rhodesia declared its aims and objectives is as primarily dedicated to a political program, economic and educational advancement, social service and personal standards. Its aim is the national unity of all inhabitants of the country in true partnership regardless of race, color and creed congress affirms complete loyalty to the crown as the symbol of national unity. It is not a racial movement. It is equally opposed to racialism and tribalism … congress believes that individual initiative and free enterprise are necessary to the life of a young country and must be fully encouraged, but that a considerable measure of government control is necessary in a modern state …”
This country greatly needs capital from overseas … (and) government must therefore establish conditions under which capital may be invested and industry established with sufficient security to encourage investors.’ Being numerically small and struggling against western colonial systems which originated from countries practicing bourgeoisie democracy, it was necessary for the middle class to seek the following of the masses of the people so as to swell their numbers, and to make it impossible for the colonial state to govern.
Such mass following was also important in mobilizing international public opinion and especially the opinion of the progressive people in the metropolitan countries, where their pressure would play an important role in the decolonization process. Therefore, unity among the people and submerging all class and ethnic differences was of the utmost strategic significance.
♦ The petit bourgeoisie isolated, for maximum concentration, only the contradiction between imperialism and the African people irrespective of classes (the national struggle) and suppressed, those other forces which wished to make this struggle an all-out war against the local and international forces of exploitation (class struggle). The nationalist leaders, in their naivity and lack of proper understanding of the essence of imperialism, could formulate such slogans as, “seek ye the political kingdom first and all others shall be added unto ye”, as if, all others – economic, social and cultural liberation could be separated and relegated to second place.
♦ In summary, the class that took over the state on being granted independence by the metropolitan country saw as its mission the replacement of foreign rule by African rule. Approaching the question of exploitation from a racial perspective, the nationalist government leaders legitimized local exploitation carried out by its supporters as ‘fruits of independence,’ and explained away the increasing misery of its people resulting from, among other things, iniquitous laws of the international economic order about which they could do nothing.
♦ The African post-colonial state was exposed to two international political models - the Westminster parliamentary democracy and the Stalinist one-party absolutism. Neither of these was particularly relevant to Africa and increasingly criticized in their respective countries of origin. Trying to make sense of these models, African leaders turned democracy into personality cults, factors that invariably contributed to the phenomenon of the coup d’état.
COUPS AND REPRESSION
Not surprising the coup makers always promised to honor international agreements entered into by the overthrown governments. These promises were made basically in order to assure the transnational corporations and other foreign capitalists that their interest would not be touched. The promises made to the people on the other hand were seldom kept. The people who always rose in support of the coup-any coup-soon found out the true colors of the coup makers. The state was hardly ever affected by the coup. When coup attempt failed, mass arrests, imprisonment and firing squads became the lot of those caught and those suspected of complicity. Successful coups usually led to even worse orders. Not having any roots among the people, the only way the new regimes could survive was through suppression of the people and physical liquidation of real and imaginary enemies.
♦ Even where scientific methods and modes were claimed, the exhortations and left wing slogans were only designed to conceal the wishes of the state for unquestionable compliance from the people. Even when the state came about as a result of armed struggle like in Angola, Algeria, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, in which tremendous sacrifices were made by the fighters and the entire population, the situation was no better than in those countries where it came about through some peace. It was more disappointing as expectations were high, that in those states greater identification of the state and people would be painstakingly nurtured and that out of experiences of the savage wars of liberation, the state would not betray the people’s confidence. The unity that was the liberation movement's strongest weapon against the colonial power, however, did not take long to erode once independence was achieved. What were claimed as ideological differences among the leadership were often smoke screens for struggles for power and resulted from lack of democracy in the workings of the state. As internal conflicts within the leadership developed, less and less attention was paid to real issues. Contact with the people was gradually lost.
♦ The post colonial legacy is replete with examples of states’ perspectives on problems being too often dictated by one leader of groups of state supported intellectuals who behave and act as if their ideas are valid.
Because these perspectives are not debated by the people, or at best only superficially explained, they lack practicability and are almost invariably the cause of great waste of resources, suffering and despair. Stubborn refusal to learn from experiences world wide (and even of one's own) and preferring instead to invent and propagate new (isms) which only exist in their minds, has made most present day policy makers in Africa forget their people and often side with foreign interests. It is increasingly evident that policies are being determined solely by concern with the means rather than conditions of development. The former has given rise to preoccupation with structures leading to centralization and expansion of the state beneficiaries and has strongly encouraged a top-bottom approach to management of public affairs. This has resulted in preventing the majority of the peoples of Africa from active participation in the political, economic, social and cultural business of their various countries.
RATIONAL FOR NEW PERSPECTIVE
The leaders of the mass movements, which brought about legal independence in Africa, inherited the totality of the colonial state they had been fighting against. Lowering the ‘Union Jack’ or the ‘Tricolor’, African Heads of State moving to former governors’ residences (thereafter renamed ‘Peoples’ Palace or State House), the twenty-one gun salute or the national anthem, did not signify any basic change. Rather than question its relevance, the colonial state was adopted and legitimized. As a matter of fact, far from bringing the promised salvation to the people of Africa, the African leaders sunk deep into the love for flashy scenes and high faulting words. More important is the historical fact that in a very radical sense the nationalist leaders of Africa have found themselves sucked into the role of hypocrites and actors involved in a make-belief situation.
♦ Whereas bureaucracy had run the colonial state, the emergent African State lacked the administrative structures, personnel and the culture necessary for the efficient management and organization of state and society with different objectives from those of the colonial state. ‘STATIZATION’ of all aspects of the economic social and cultural life of the people which necessitated the expansion of the bureaucracy was the response of the post-colonial African states. It however did not increase efficiency. On the contrary, it became a burden to society as more and more resources were required to maintain it. The African state not only became the principal industry, it also sought and succeeded in interfering in the most personal and private lives of its citizens. The African state developed fastest in setting up capacities for repression and in systematically attempting to control and to organize society and individuals so as to gain their unquestioning allegiance.
Indeed revolutionary fervor gutted into political betrayal. Personal liberties were severely eroded.
It is because of these policies of African States in the last forty years that the masses of African people have witnessed political and economic stagnation, mass starvation, wars, torture and other forms of repression. Most of these are traceable to the state by the internal and external policies it pursued or by its inaction where intervention was required.
♦ Africa has learnt through great pains that the content of independence lay not in the seizing of power from the colonialist, but in how and for what that power was exercised. At the time of independence, African household by and large cold feed themselves. The African continent was not the major recipient of food aid than it has become, and its prospects for development were as less evident than in countries of Asia, which had been under the same colonial empires.
♦ The political crisis beginning with the Congo in 1960 multiplied in the sixties and seventies. These crises were to result in Africa’s inability to organize internal political and economic policies, which would make them economically self-sufficient and independent actors in the community of nations.
♦ As the crisis deepened, so did theories to explain its origin, nature and magnitude and to propose ‘appropriate’ paths to development. Various schools of thought sprang up and many theories were advanced to explain Africa's underdevelopment. Too often African policy-makers accepted lock, stock and barrel, these theories without questioning their reliability even when their own empirical experiences were enough to expose the inadequacy of these theories most of which are mainly western and form part of aid packages which have become the intellectual mentors of these African policy-makers.
♦ One of the theories propounded is the one termed ‘development studies’. Development studies is itself in a crisis because from its inception, after the Second World War, as a branch of economics, not a single country can be shown to have developed on any of the numerous models it has produced. On the contrary, development studies has itself become another opium for the people, designed, (as they often were), to stop the peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America from objectively investigating the real causes of their underdevelopment. At the same time, the establishment of multilateral institutions like the IBRD, the IMF, the OECD and the EEC pursued a strategy, which opened up the African economies to further penetration through erroneously much sought after foreign investments, which in reality meant further exploitation.
In fact, we believe that the crisis in Africa is not only about balance of payment problems and inadequate or misdirected external aid. The political and social upheavals, intensive wars, the enormous Africa refugee problem, extensive migration of African laborers within and outside Africa, authoritarian one partyism (whether by proponents of capitalism or various brands of socialism) encompass broader moral and political issues.
Understanding of the root causes of Africa’s underdevelopment, namely European Capitalism, through its slave, colonial and neo-colonial phases, while being necessary in raising the consciousness of the people, is too often used by the state intellectual apologists, to exculpate themselves from the responsibility of conceptualizing new paradigms within which the people could be mobilized to make their own history. For much too long, Africa's intellectuals in their typically middle class superficiality, have harped on everything negative in the political, social and cultural life of Africa as being the result of external pressures or constraints. By so proselytizing, the implication is that the correction of these wrongs will also have to come from outside.
♦ More than thirty five years of independence have given us rich experiences, even if, for the most part, they were of a negative character. They, however, provide a platform for an in-depth process of thought and action, geared towards the creation of a new domestic order that is culturally relevant, morally justifiable, economically vibrant and politically geared towards real liberation. That process can only be meaningful if it starts with inward looking consciousness.
♦ Starting from a holistic view of the state and bearing in mind its role as
1) actor in the international arena – the sovereignty dimension,
2) determinant of power relation in society – the accountability dimension and
3) executor of policy – the delivery dimension,
We have deduced from the information given above, the problematic condition affecting the African State with regard to these dimensions. In thinking about the future, we have organized our analysis so as to be able to identify:
(a) a new perspective,
(b) constraints to its realization, and
(c) means to change the existing order.
In this concluding action, will return to the African State as besieged in the international arena, set apart in its relation to society and overloaded as executor of policy.
THE BESIEGED STATE
AUTONOMOUS AND INTERGRATED DEVELOPMENT
NEW PERSPECTIVE
Although there has been much talk about self reliance and integrated development since African countries became independent, little has been done to foster a process that builds on local resources and serves to integrate sectoral efforts. Africa has remained standing with its back to its hinterland. We would certainly like to stress that the economic crisis in the past few years provides an unusual opportunity for rethinking and reorganizing the continent's economies. To be sure, the economic performance of African countries has varied and some are better off than others are. The truth of the matter is that every African country shares a debt burden and unfavorable terms of trade that gives them little choice but to reconsider past policies. African government leaders must, therefore, discover the potential of the domestic economy and society. Donors and other international organizations must adjust their approach to Africa in such a way that local initiatives are encouraged, local know-how tapped, and local institutions developed as counter-measures to the overwhelming legacy of externally induced and controlled interventions, whether by public or private institutions.
Constraints:
They analysis recognizes that putting the new perspective into practice will be constrained by three principal factors;
1) existing production structures;
2) lack of differentialization in the African economies; and
3) Foreign debt.
The existing production structures reflect the colonial priorities: production of raw materials and other commodities in demand in Europe and other industrialized countries. The result is that African countries tend to produce similar products, compete for the same market and often end up experiencing depressing terms of trade to their own disadvantage. Again, because African economies are essentially non-complementary, there is only limited scope for intra African trade, in spite of the political rhetoric to the contrary. African countries continue to produce what they do not consume and consume what they do not produce. The end result of that is that they are extremely exposed to changes in the international market prices and other external variables. In the 1990s in particular, commodity prices have been generally low while prices on imports, especially for the manufacturing sector, have gone up. The inevitable outcome has been escalating debts. While these debts in absolute terms may at first glance appear modest, they constitute heavy burdens. Foreign debt service makes up several percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) and, an average in sub-Saharan Africa, over a quarter of export earnings.
Means To Change:
In the means to change this situation, this analysis would suggest that although policy options for African countries are limited, governments must not be discouraged by the predicament of their countries. There are three measures can identify and that ought more prominently on African policy agendas in the future:
(1) accelerated domestic capital formation;
(2) development of intra-African trade.
♦ A precondition for autonomous and integrated development is that people rely on their own diligent labor, behave frugally and invest in the creation of new productive resources rather than consuming and dissipating capital produced. Productive activities must also be better linked to each other, whether forward or backward. For instance, enhanced food production, production of clothing material and clothes, as well as the provision of better housing will strengthen the domestic market. This process is likely to take time to realize but it should be given priority as a means of reducing export dependency and vulnerability to changes in the global economy. By building a strategy of industrialization on the agricultural sector, greater complimentarily between rural and urban-based production can be achieved. This principle can also be applied in regional African contexts. Investment has to be rationalized and made to serve more than one country. Food banks and other strategic institutions for inter-state transfers should be seriously considered.
GREATER AFRICAN ASSERTIVENESS
NEW PERSPECTIVE
Although African countries are weak by comparison with most other countries, there is great need for taking the necessary action to assert their position more forcefully in international fora. It is a matter of:
(1) developing common positions on key issues;
(2) enhancing analytical skills; and
(3) strengthening negotiating abilities.
For instance, what would happen if the African governments jointly developed a carefully prepared position on what to do with the continents' debilitating external debt?
Constraints:
There are several constraints to effective action on this issue but most of them lie within the realm of what can be overcome. This analysis identify the following:
(1) Poor selection of delegates to important conferences;
(2) Inadequate negotiating skills and
(3) Lack of training and experience in substantial fields.
Selection of delegates, particularly to international conferences, are often made as a reward for political work or as a means of providing an occasion for vacationing. Lack of individuals with negotiating skills is another constraint. African negotiators did very well in the constitutional conferences preceding independence. Why is the continent so short of skilled negotiators today? One explanation is that there is a shortage of competent individuals with adequate experience in a given field. The political emphasis in the past three decades has been to produce generalists rather than specialists. It is therefore not surprising that African countries have often failed to put up the necessary competence and know-how to serve official negotiators in various international fora.
Means To Change
The principal means to change that this analysis identifies intra-African cooperation. Speaking with one voice on key issues of common concern needs to be further encouraged and so do greater cooperation aimed at fostering a sense of commonness. For instance, in the early sixties, Kenyans, Ugandans and Tanzanians were foremost East Africans.
Today the East African is an endangered species’ and it requires a reserved commitment and a new perspective to restore such an orientation.
REDUCING AID ADDICTION NEW PERSPECTIVE
Observation is that most African countries have become addicted to foreign aid, have lost a sensible perspective on what it can, and should do, and that, as a result, foreign aid must be treated as much as part of the problem as part of the solution to Africa's current development crisis. The besieged nature of the African State has recurrently been reinforced by the international donor community through interventions that have often been ill conceived, poorly designed, and inadequately executed. Africa, therefore, needs a greater independence from the donor community. It needs to put its foot down and accept that the answers to Africa's problems lie with the Africans themselves, including those many individuals and groups that are not part of government structures, and not with the donors, however much expertise they might be able to mobilize in their support.
Constraints:
Africans have been brought up worshipping all things foreign. This colonial - or neocolonial mentality is deeply engrained in the African mind. The lack of public debate about who the Africans are, or ‘who we are’ and ‘how to get there’ further foster this dependency mentality. The absence of an intellectual atmosphere for discussion of issues of national concern tends to reduce the African to a subservient being, always anxious to take the easy road.
Means To Change
Awareness of the need to develop an independent mind and a new social consciousness that stresses self-reliance will only be achieved through greater respect for intellectual work. Culture has vanished as a significant variable in Africa because of the emphasis by foreign donors on achieving `development' (measured in tangible material terms). Political slogans and foolish ideas must be allowed to give way to more serious research and more critical debate of issues that affect Africa's present and future.
SANCITY OF BOARDERS
NEW PERSPECTIVE
We recognized that the besieged nature of the African State also stems from its inherited colonial boundaries. The latter has become taboo to touch. Much effort and much money been devoted to defending them, although they are too many African boundaries artificially and arbitrary. Nobody was ready to suggest that the official OAU position on the sanctity of the present territorial boundaries should be changed. Whatever is the case, still emphasize the need to form greater respect for cultural and social diversity within these boundaries. Uniformity is not necessarily the same as strength. However, it should also be mentioned that African nations are facing certain dangers in changing to the idea of single nation sovereignty in a world where the increasing power of the European Union and other regional organizations tend to make this idea old fashioned.
Constraints:
The multiplicity of ethnic, racial and religious groups in African countries poses a special challenge. In colonial days, it was tackled by using the principle of ‘divide and rule’. Although African leaders usually do it in the name of ‘national unity’ they very much follow the same principle of divide and rule. The artificiality of the boarders is often used to clamp down on groups that wish to assert their cultural identity.
Means To Change
Greater respect for sub-nationalists and other minorities within each African State should be scrupulously developed so that national unity ceases to be a pretext for prosecution of those who want to protect their rights. Border issues can be settled more amicably and at a less cost to Africa if special efforts are made to develop a political climate in which inter-state action can be promoted. African countries do not have the military resources to resolve or monitor inter-state conflicts, but they can take the necessary political and diplomatic steps to ensure that risk for such conflicts is minimized. Prevention is usually better than cure.
THE STATE SET APART - LIMITATION OF POWER
NEW PERSPECTIVE
It is observed that at the time of independence and in the years immediately thereafter, the emphasis on national consensus was understandable. Building the new state encouraged such an outlook. Experience has, however, shown that ambition to achieve maximum consensus often backfires. People are alienated underground opposition is encouraged and, political instability, often violence becomes the end result. The political formula adopted at independence, therefore, has become an albatross around Africa’s neck. Instead of serving as an engine for propelling growth, the state has become one of the greatest obstacle to progress in Africa. The notion of limitation of power, however, is not new to Africans. It was practiced in pre-colonial societies as indicated earlier in this analysis. Many of these values have survived at the level of local governance. The new perspective called for in this analysis involves these customary African values and principles and emphasizes the need for establishing a state that reflects local standards of fairness and dignity in a dynamic context. Sometimes these standards may coincide with universal values, at other times they may not. The point is that there must be an opportunity for ventilating the question of what is right and wrong, fair and to whom.
Constraints
On both colonial and post-colonial years, African countries have got used to the practice of ‘unlimited government,’ i.e. the use of power without any forms of restraint whatsoever. The result has been that most individual people in African countries are intimidated. The emphasis on the state as the principal actor in development has further reinforced an attitude of apathy. People simply sit back and do not engage in civic affairs. Africa has indeed become a continent without participation, although nowhere has the concept been more widely embraced by political leaders. Instead of using ‘voice’ option and register their opinion, people prefer to use their ‘exit’ option, i.e. to withdraw from public affairs.
Means To Change
Having registered considerable disillusion with the way African countries have been governed since independence, we have identified the following means to change the existing order as being of highest priority:
(1) free and fair elections;
(2) right to recall political representatives; and
(3) strengthening non-governmental organizations.
♦ I am confirmed in my opinion that the sovereignty of people (society) over the state must be established. This can only happen through the introduction of more democratic practices. Periodic election to a national assembly of contestants picked by committees of the ruling party must give way to multiparty democracy permitting all patriotic parties to freely organize and participate in free an fair elections at all levels of representation. The most crucial level, because it is close to the people, is the village community. If the representative to the district level assembly are elected from the village councils, which in turn are elected directly by the people from among trustworthy honest and respected individuals, political representation will begin to take on a different character. Patronage politics will give way to open democratic practices. Another important measure to limit power and give meaning to democracy among the people is the right to recall representatives when they are deemed to have abused their mandate. If politicians who seek office only for their own enrichment and aggrandizement can get away with it, people will have no trust in the political system. If on the other hand, these politicians who seek office are under pressure by those people who elected them, greater accountability will develop. Finally I must emphasize the need and the right to form and operate associations whether religious, cultural or professional, with a view to participating in public affairs openly. The rights of assembly, press, speech, etc. have not been respected in Africa. Non-governmental organizations should be strengthened, as development is too important a matter to be left in the hands of a few politicians and government officials only. `The Spirit is too great for one head' if we may cite an African proverb.
SHARING OF POWER
NEW PERSPECTIVE
A collateral to the need for limiting power of government leaders is the importance of making arrangements for greater sharing of it. The African State has remained set apart from society after independence because of excessive concentration of power in the hands of a small group of people drawn from a ruling political party the civil or military service.
Constraints
The principle constraints are related to the legacies inherited from years of overcentralized and over-politicized rule. These legacies encourage the notion that politics is just another lucrative profession - in some countries perhaps the most lucrative and make individuals regard it merely from the vantagepoint of their own interests. The interests of either the state or the society at large are ignored. Sycophancy, corruption, nepotism and other ills in the African State systems are bred in this climate.
Means To Change
Decentralization and debureaucratization are essential means to change the present situation. By decentralization is not meant the transfer of power to levels of a culturally controlled government. Such an exercise, as experienced in many African countries only multiplicates bureaucratic structures. It enhances state capacity for oppression. Decentralization, therefore, must in the future entail strengthening various forms of local government as well as non-governmental organizations. Only by reducing the stake at each level and in every public institution, will there be a way of bringing about greater democracy.
RULE OF LAW
NEW PERSPECTIVE
Fed up by the abuse of power in so many African States, I would like to register the need for greater emphasis on the rule of law. Desirable leadership behavior will not come about voluntarily. Thus, those institutions that enforce the laws of the land must be strengthened. No individual, including the head of state, should be above the law. While I recognize that strengthening the rule of law is a complicated and sensitive process, I would like to emphasize that there is a limit to what individuals living in societies where that principle is ignored, can take. Thus every African must work hard to ensure that political and civil liberties are not arbitrarily ignored by politicians, bureaucrats or others power and influence.
Constraints
The tragedy of Africa is that the way political systems have been run since independence has led to the institutionalization of a pattern of behavior among leaders that goes contrary to the notion of the rule of law. Politicians almost invariably see themselves as being above the law and are ready to violate laws in order to protect their own interests or persecute somebody challenging their position. The result is that the secret police, sometimes also the army, has become a major instrument of central and defense of the state against real or imaginary enemies. Trials, particularly of political challengers, have usually made a mockery of law.
Means To Change
Three important measures should be taken to change the present situation:
1) limiting the term of office;
2) promoting people’s self confidence; and
3} enhancing respect for life and property.
Limiting the term of office of state and party leaders is a first and important measure to take; particularly in one party states. Respect for rule of law will not be achieved unless the top leader is himself subject to rules about the use of power.
Limiting the time in office is one way of creating greater opportunity for holding politicians accountable. Promoting peoples' self-confidence through civic education and involvement in public affairs will enhance their ability to resist the tendency towards the rule of individuals rather than the rule of law. A special challenge in many African countries will be the demystification of the gun, i. e. the development of the conditions under which the gun, and other means of state coercion, will be employed responsibly and in the name of protecting the law only. Finally, as part of this process, authorities must be made to show much greater respect for the sanctity of human life and property than has been the case to date. This will come about only if there are constitutional means to hold people in power accountable. The opportunity to express a vote of no confidence in an individual leader in circumstances when that person has violated the law is one possibility.
THE OVERLOADED STATE
BALANCING PRIVATE AND PUBLIC OWNERSHIP
THE NEW PERSPECTIVE
Respect for private property may be a prerequisite for greater respect for public property. Based on Africa’s disappointing experience of nationalization and management of the public sector, we would like to suggest that at the present stage of development in Africa, a better balance between private and public ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange is needed. Problems to date have been caused not only by lack of skilled manpower, but above all, by lack of responsibility towards public property among stage managers. The result has been a catastrophe for Africa: loss of the potential for accumulation and reinvestment; destruction of already acquired capital – e.g. machinery, vehicles and equipment – underproduction of consumer goods and therefore hardships for the people and loss of the trust in public institutions, the most important precondition for social progress is the steady accumulation of invisible surplus and development of production forces. Bearing in mind the low levels of capital formation and the high demands for consumption, to prevent private ownership of the means of production, and thereby limiting the extent of that sector's contribution to the creation of wealth and income cannot be defended by
involving the principles of socialist direction of society. In the initial stages of creating an independent national economy for countries which do not have a strong and developed capitalism and where the supervision of enterprises therefore is limited by the lack of advanced technical and conscious cadres, the private sector can play a catalytic role so long as the parameters of its operation are clearly spelt out and incentives and reasonable profits are guaranteed by the state. This situation is aggravated by the lack of good traditions of conducting the international affairs of the state, maintaining a proper balance between the state and society and for executing state policy.
Constraints
The principal constraint is obviously the legacy created by an almost unlimited growth of the public sector in the past. People continue to respect the state to be the sole agency responsible for improvement in their welfare. The result is that they will overload the state with demands and give priority to consumption over production. Thus in Africa; people consume more and more and produce less and less resulting in Africans in becoming nations of petty traders. Although there is pressure to retrench the state sector, little has been done and many political consequences are potentially hazardous.
Means To Change
In order to change the existing order and to make planning a more broadly based activity representatives of different tendencies, ideologies professions in society should constitute politically independent Planning Commissions, along the lines of an independent judiciary. These commissions would work with government but would above all be charged with ensuring that the people retain control of their economic activities and safeguarding their interests against periodic changes of government and the possibility of retrogressive policies. The setting up of these commissions presupposes a new political thrust by the state, which should promote and safeguard democracy and popular emancipation. A planning Commission, properly constituted, would also play a key role in the development of productive forces, in deciding levels of investment and consumption, location of industries and order of priorities in the different sectors of the economy.
GREATER INVOLVEMENT BY NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANISATIONS
NEW PERSPECTIVE
The state cannot serve as the sole entrepreneur in Africa and it has to share the burden of development with other institutions in society. Of special interest are the non-governmental organizations, which have proven effective in mobilizing people and resources on a self-reliance basis. As one type of organization that empowers people, non-governmental organizations, which have proven effective, play a vital role similar to that of pressure groups by establishing lines of communication between state agencies and the people. Being less bureaucratic than government institutions, NGOs normally respond more quickly to appeals and demands from the people and do not have the same internal obstacles as large bureaucracies. NGOs as suggested above, are an important aspect of civil society and one means by which power can be diffused and shared. As service agencies, they often achieve better results than other organizations because they rely on voluntary participation and thus enjoy usually higher levels of motivation.
Constraints
The greatest constraint is the unwillingness of government leaders to recognize the contribution made by NGOs. Although it is clear that the state cannot deliver all educational, health and many other social services, government leaders feel uncomfortable about NGOs because they cannot directly control them, or if they become too prominent and influential, to put difficulties in their way. In some extreme cases, the state may even destroy them.
Means To Change
We are convinced that NGOs will achieve recognition in Africa as they continue to out-perform state agencies in various sectors. By demonstrating their capacity, they create an opportunity for offloading the state in a manner that would be helpful to society. NGOs do not have to be a problem to state. Their presents outside the state sector usually provide government departments with opportunities to link up with local activities that benefit all the government as well as the people.
GREATER FLEXIBILITY IN POLICY –
THE NEW PERSPECTIVE
African governments often prompted by donor agencies have been much inclined to adopt single-track solutions to all problems. Instead of recognizing the value of diversity, they have often pursued uniform policy solutions although they are clumsy and inappropriate. It is my candid opinion that greater flexibility is needed both in policy outlook in organizing delivery of state action. Public officials must be encouraged to seek solutions that are creative and appropriate for each time and location rather than developing a `blue print' and attempt to implement it across the country.
Constraints
The principal constraints and obstacles to greater flexibility are existing bureaucratic interests and the mentality of many officials that one policy solution is more efficient and easier to monitor. Force of habit, notions of self-worthy and loss of face often obstructs, or slows down judgment and decision making. Another important obstacle is the lack of articulation of views by others than political leaders. Greater flexibility may become a reality if NGOs and other organizations are allowed to raise their voice and articulate views of policy.
Means To Change
Providing the viability of alternative solutions to state policy is an important means to change the existing outlook. State officials must be made to realize that they do not automatically have the only solutions to society's problems, for instance, in the education and health sectors, new combinations of private and public resources to serve the people should be developed and tried out. Instead of paying for everything, usually the common practice of patronage politics, government should provide matching support and reward communities or institutions that have mobilized local resources and an initial installment.
GREATER PARTICIPATION
NEW PERSPECTIVE
Although there has been much talk of participation in Africa in the past three decades, little has been done. If anything, popular involvement in public affairs has declined. There is, therefore, the need to ensure that in future, policy processes really start from the people, then go to parliament, and finally back to people again. Policy-making must not be the prerogative of officials only.
Constraints
Greater participation in policy making is usually obstructed by the reluctance of state leaders and institutions to share power and delegate authority. Starting with the head of state, who rarely seeks or follows the advice of individual cabinet ministers, the state works in a military way with orders being transmitted from top downwards except when secrecy makes even this impossible. Seniority is almost always an excuse for thwarting original ideas from juniors.
Means To Change
Participatory modes of policy making can be evolved by strengthening institutions willing to encourage more democratic practices within state institutions as part of broader democratic practices within society at large. We realize that this is a difficult and far reaching measure that would only become reality in conjunction with the other measures analyzed. It entails reforms in both the economic and political sphere, including breaking the spell of the present neo-colonial order. It is generally believed that neo-colonialism, more than anything else, holds back Africa's creativity and potential to develop on its own. However, it should also be taken into consideration that Africa's long period of colonialism and colonial domination makes it difficult to crush neo-colonialism as a viper: it will always exist. We shall also practice it against others when Africa becomes strong. The only way to defeat neo-colonialism is to compete with the so-called advanced nations in productivity and we can only do so if we apply to an increasing extent, home-brewed results, science and technology, to agriculture and industry. African Unity can only help if it leads to the attainment of this end.
To sum it up, Africa needs capital but she does not need to borrow it. The Soviet Union built up her own capital without any significant borrowing. She made severe sacrifices in order to achieve a better future. Borrowing at every turn cannot solve the African problem. Certainly judicious borrowing has its place, but indiscriminate soliciting for funds, foreign investment etc. is the beginning of slavery. Colonial regimes built up reserves without borrowing and African countries can also do it.
The other evil contributing to our woes in Africa is our inability to put first things first. The second evil is our almost total lack of appreciation for science education as the bulwark of agriculture and industry.
What are the first things? If we take the example of a tree as an organic unit, the tree is a highly organized industrial unit. Certainly no human organization can surpass it in efficiency. It works to sustain itself. It does this systematically and orderly. It does not grow flowers first. It does not concern itself with prestige and grandeur until it has secured for itself the life sustaining conditions – water, carbon dioxide and energy.
From the tree then we learn the next phase of activity that after attaining independence it is not an elaborate foreign service and embassies, not huge armies and novices, not mighty statues and national monuments, not parks and gardens but agriculture, agriculture and industries, industries and industries.
Africa indeed needs industries to convert our minerals into finished products, cocoa into chocolate, tobacco into cigarettes, air into fertilizer, oils into soap, clay into pots and cups. This should be the major activity in Africa. It should utilize the total available energy to create new things out of natural resources to provide the common needs such as food, shelter, clothing and where the raw materials are not available, to exchange some of these finished products for these raw materials and to turn these in turn into more valuable products.
This is the secret of the greatness of the developed nations. They never stand in one place in industry. They are always looking out for opportunity to introduce some useful and imaginative innovations. The more they do this the richer they become and the poorer African, Asian and Latin American nations become. They want transistors, television sets, cameras and even furniture, plates and multitude of other goods, which they cannot make but desire passionately. The irony of it all is that “the made in Britain” etc goods have their raw materials originating from Africa. When these countries grow richer we go to the United Nations to complain that we are becoming poorer and poorer. These nations see it, but there is nothing they can do about it. They just cannot toil for Africa. And just as the rich man throws a cent to the beggar at the street corner, so do our former colonial masters give to us some pittance or loans with unbreakable strings.
Africa would fail were it not for its virtually inexhaustible resources. The sun alone is a source of incalculable wealth. Then when we are well-fed, adequately clothed and comfortably housed we can turn to litany and cultural activities; we can turn to literature and philosophy, to drumming and dancing, to radio and television, we can turn to large armies and navies, to the air force and new missiles.
We can turn to statues and monuments to white elephants and red lions as America, indeed, has done because at that time we can afford.
The order of priorities then is first agriculture and fishing, secondly mining and industry and lastly literary and cultural activities. In this way Africa would have put first things first and succeeded in laying a solid foundation for sustained growth.
If Africa would conceive this and above all our leaders grasp this phenomenon, Africa's poverty, disease and unending internal strife would vanish. A new era would have been ushered in and the black man would have taken his rightful place in the community of nations. Indeed what is it that keeps our leaders in a state of humiliating reliance on Western aid? Why do the educated classes of Africa spend so much time demanding the crumbs of materialistic prestige to be snatched from Europe and America, and so little developing local resources such as agriculture? The answer as suggested by Frantz Fanon is that the governing class of our countries has so far so long left the responsibility of its decisions to others that it is now deprived of the capacity to take any constructive initiative since it implies a minimum of risk. The failure is one of imagination. The people lost the capacity to improvise since they no longer possess the necessary confidence in the creative potential of their own culture. We must indeed rise to a pitch of equality with the rest of the world. .
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