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Pambazuka News 631: Special Issue: AU/OAU at 50, celebration and reflection
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Pambazuka News (English edition): ISSN 1753-6839
CONTENTS: 1. Features, 2. Advocacy & campaigns
Features
Celebrating Tajudeen, the OAU and AU: which way Africa?
Ama Biney
2013-05-23
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/87501
On 25 May 2013 the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and its successor, the African Union (AU), will celebrate its Golden Jubilee. The date, also known as ‘African Liberation Day’ (ALD), is one that marks the fourth anniversary of the sudden departure of Dr. Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem who was at the time of his shocking death the deputy director for Africa of the United Nations’ Millennium Campaign. Tajudeen, or ‘Taju’ as he was more popularly called, was a regular contributor to Pambazuka News with his weekly ‘Pan-African Postcards.’ He died suddenly and tragically in a road accident in Nairobi. Hence, in this special issue we remember him and also reflect on 50 years of the OAU/AU and the direction our continent must take in order to overcome the myriad socio-economic and political problems it confronts.
If Taju were alive today it is likely that he would have contributed many more ‘Pan-African postcards’ on contemporary African and global affairs with his usual profound perspicacity and wit. One can only conjecture what he would have made of the creation of South Sudan in July 2011; the Arab uprisings in North Africa since Mohammed Bouazizi’s fatal action in December 2010 set in motion the toppling of tyrannical dictators which Taju vociferously and consistently attacked in many of his postcards; the prolonged war in the DRC as a consequence of the backing of Rwanda and Uganda for insurgent groups in the country; moves towards peaceful resolution of the conflict in Somalia with a newly installed government; the overthrow of Gaddafi by NATO forces in 2011. Similarly, what would Taju’s perspectives have been on the Tuareg desire for a homeland in Northern Mali that has been hijacked by Islamic fundamentalists and used as an opportunity for French intervention; the Marikana massacre of South Africa in August 2012; the election of Africa’s second female head of state, President Joyce Banda of Malawi in the same year, and in his own home country – Nigeria, the rise of the fundamentalist group Boko Haram that has wreaked deathly havoc in the last four years? What would he have made of the OAU/AU 50-year performance, the Haitian earthquake of January 2010 that led to pledges of aid that have largely failed to reach the vast majority of Haitians; the so-called ‘riots’ of England in the summer of 2011 ignited by the killing of a black man, Mark Duggan, by British police, as well as Obama’s foreign policy around the world, including Africa? These are all socio-political issues that Taju would undoubtedly have had an ideological position on that embraced a commitment to African people around the globe. Therefore, we remember Taju not only for his razor sharp political analysis that is missed, but also his relentless commitment to African unity, African people as well as social, economic and political justice for all human beings.
In this special issue SONNY ONYEBULA recalls the ‘indefatigable’ commitment of Taju to Pan-Africanism in a personal reflection. As Taju once wrote about the African continent: ‘The collective African experience is that we can only be ourselves and we need each other to counter the threat of marginalisation, rapacious globalisation and the consolidation of whatever little gains may have been accomplished in a number of African countries. No one [African] country can be a sustainable miracle if its neighbours are in hell.’ MOTSOKO PHEKO contemplates in his piece ‘how far is the United States of Africa?’ and echoes Taju when he writes: ‘Africa is a house with 54 rooms in it. When one room catches fire, other rooms are endangered.’
As DEDE AMANOR-WILKS points in another personal reflection on Taju, he was a profoundly people-orientated person who engaged in laughter with young and old alike. The depths of his own ubuntuness connected with others that made him a human magnet. He had a way with words, appropriate proverbs and African stories to illustrate his argument and communicate with ordinary people. His high-pitched laughter was infectious and memorable just as his loud voice was distinctive and could be heard at a distance.
Other articles in this issue such as that by the journalist CAMERON DUODU look at the origins of the OAU. MEHARI TADDELE MARU reflects on the positive and negative legacies and lessons of the OAU/AU; its achievements, failures and constraints, whilst TITI A. BANJOKO questions whether the jubilee is really worth celebrating? Similarly YVES NIYIRAGIRA points out the missed opportunities of the organisation but focuses attention on five steps that African leaders must implement immediately rather than wait another fifty years to forge meaningful integration and development. THEODORE MENELIK-MFUNI remembers growing up as a child and how his father’s uncompromising commitment to the OAU positively influenced him. He points out that it took centuries for Europe to build its institutions therefore it will take centuries for Africa to constructively address the myriad of challenges it faces.
The writers TUNDE JEGEDE, DELE MEJI FATUNLA, ADE DARAMY all focus on the imperatives of how culture and communication in its diverse mediums are fundamental to forging greater continental unity and understanding. They also provide stimulating constructive and positive strategies as to how this cultural rebirth can be realised.
Pambazuka News provides a number of audio interviews with Commissioners of the AU who give their views of the accomplishments and missed opportunities of the organisation. Among them is the audio interview with DEPUTY HEAD OF COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION, WYNNE MUSABAYANA who reveals there are plans on the part of the AU to establish a radio and television station that will disseminate news direct from the AU, deliberations from the summits and various gatherings of the AU bodies to inform African people directly as well as extending its use of new social media forms and strategies. This is undoubtedly much needed, for if what is new about the AU from its predecessor is that on paper it has sought to involve ordinary African people in its processes, it must implement ways in which ordinary people can dialogue with the Commissioners and participate in the Pan-African Parliament and Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC) debates. Otherwise it risks being a top-down institution like its predecessor the OAU. Other interviews include an exchange with the DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON, ERASTUS MWENCHA who not only candidly identifies some of the missed opportunities as Africa’s dependency on raw materials for its economic development without adding value but there has until the formation of the AU been a ‘suppression of gender parity for human development.’ COMMISSIONER FOR SOCIAL AFFAIRS, DR. MUSTAPHA S. KALOKO emphasises how the AU will seek to innovatively use culture and particularly sports to advocate social and political issues on the continent; DESIRE ASSOGBAVI who is head of Oxfam International in Addis Ababa discusses how Oxfam works with the AU and also gives an opinion on the achievements of the OAU/AU as well as its challenges and obstacles.
The AU has selected the theme for the year-long jubilee celebrations as ‘Pan-Africanism and the African Renaissance.’ As ANTONY OTIENO ONG’AYO writes, celebrations should also involve candid discussions among and between continental Africans and Africans in the Diaspora in terms of what this ‘Renaissance’ means. He argues that part of that discussion should be around the question of identity for this issue remains a pertinent one currently undermining continental unity. For example in Ivory Coast and in the DRC notions of ‘Ivorite’ and attacks on the Banyamulenge (ethnic Tutsis) in eastern Congo seriously challenge notions of integration in Africa. In addition to this, we must challenge the notion of ‘illegal immigrants’, xenophobia, deportations and targeting of Africans residing in other African countries if we consider Africa and African people to be one. Consequently a Pan-African citizenship must be created on the lines of a free movement of goods and particularly people as in the ECOWAS states. This must also extend to abolishing visas for children of the African Diaspora travelling to Africa.
SAMWIN BANIENUBA rhetorically asks: ‘where is Kwame Nkrumah’s United States of Africa?’ He is of the opinion that the reality is that the vested interests since the formation of the Monrovia and Brazzaville block, who sided with a gradualist approach to African unity, have predominated and that was is lacking on the continent is a ‘will of steel’ to implement Pan-Africanism.
Peace is fundamental to any future African unity and development, argues ONYEKACHI WAMBU. He points to the three principles adopted by the OAU which was intended to lead to peace and justice (guaranteeing the existing colonial boundaries; non-interference in the internal affairs of member states; and support for armed struggle via the Liberation Committee) not only led to peace and justice but produced further conflict. He argues that we must continually seek symbols of peace in our cultural practices as a means to resolve conflict and build permanent peace.
MGONGENI NGULUBE poses: what has happened to the agriculture sector of many African countries in the last 50 years and what will become of it in the next five decades – particularly as many African countries continue to be net importers of food? The writer points to the need for greater attention to be paid to agriculture in Africa if food security and hunger that give rise to instability and disunity are to be addressed. Moreover, the AU needs to address the serious question of ‘land grabs’ in Africa. What is the AU position on this race to grab agriculturally rich lands by Gulf oil sheikhs, Chinese and Indian entrepreneurs, Western speculators, among other investors, that dispossess ordinary Africans in parts of Africa? How can countries that are not able to adequately feed the masses of their own populations be leasing land to foreigners?
OTSIENO NAMWAYA and ELIZABETH EVENSON contend that ‘the broader relationship between the African Union and the International Criminal Court (ICC) has not been an easy one.’ They argue that the AU should fully cooperate with the ICC and honour its own commitment in its organisational Charter to human and people rights by not supporting the shielding of any individual sought by the ICC to answer to the charge of crimes against humanity.
We carry the address given by DR. DLAMINI-ZUMA, Chairperson of the AU to the Third Pan African Parliament on 6 May 2013 in Addis Ababa. In her State of the Union address Dlamini-Zuma identifies some positive achievements including the optimistic rate of economic growth in several African countries; the reduction of conflicts from 15 during the 1990s to 5 countries between 2000-2010 and increases in educational provision. However, there remain other herculean tasks to accomplish which are outlined in the Third Strategic Plan for 2014-2017 in which eight priorities are outlined. She insists that the year-long celebrations must ‘reflect on the lessons from our past and our current state, in order to grapple with our destiny.’
ABAYOMI AZKIKIWE surveys five decades of Africa’s flag independence within an internationalist and Pan-Africanist perspective. He makes a number of important arguments including that: ‘in order for Africa and its people to develop there must be a decisive break with the imperialist system of finance capital’ and secondly that ‘the crisis in Africa and the Diaspora is by no means isolated from the broader struggle of the peoples of the world.’ This latter point is essential for the AU and all African people to remember and act on today. Malcolm X reminded heads of state of this point when he addressed the OAU summit on 17 July 1964 and told the African heads of state: ‘Our problems are your problems.’ Since the AU has formally recognised the African Diaspora as a Sixth region - unlike its predecessor, the OAU, the AU has often failed to take up the plight of Africans in the Diaspora and their issues. These issues are many and include the disproportionate number of people of African descent in the US and UK who are incarcerated in the prison system; killed by racist police; discriminated against; and killed whilst being deported e.g. Jamaican Joy Gardener in 1993, and Angolan deportee Jimmy Mubenga in 2010 – both individuals (among many others) have died at the hands of the racist immigration and security officials respectively. Or what of the case of the many Trayvon Martins and Stephen Lawrences killed by racists in the UK and US respectively? What happens to any African across the globe should be of concern to all Africans both on the continent and in the Diaspora. However, our unity should make us also seek solidarity with other oppressed peoples around the world, particularly in the global south, whether they be garment workers in Bangaladesh or elsewhere struggling to earn a living, and people of African descent in the Caribbean, Latin America, including the poor of the industrialised nations suffering under the weight of an inflicted economic austerity in which the working classes are paying for the rich to continue to live on the backs of the poor in these developed nations.
WHICH WAY AFRICA?
As several of our writers point out there remain many enormous challenges in forging a meaningful African unity. Among those challenges is the opportunity that African people in the diaspora have to advance their organisational level in the Caribbean, North, South and Central America as well as in Europe if they are to fulfil their role and contribution as the Sixth region of the AU and fully participate in the AU structures. They have also more to contribute in various ways to Africa’s economic development in a number of fields such as technology transfer, education, health and in the sciences.
An equally important issue for the AU is the financing of the organisation, which currently depends on substantial outside funds that is a serious impediment to African unity and the meaning of independence in its broadest sense. No continent or union can be genuinely independent if it is tied to the dictates of those who finance it. Moreover, surely with the new found oil wealth of several African countries such as Liberia, Ghana, Cameroon, Uganda, Kenya – and the untapped wealth in gas, minerals and agricultural resources of the continent, the potential of Africa to finance its economic, technological and scientific development in the next 50 years is realisable? Neither does such self-reliance mean Africa becomes an autarkic continent and does not engage in partnerships with other nations. But it is necessary that economic planning and partnership with other nations are co-ordinated and principled.
Fundamentally, in the next 50 years, the AU and African people have to engage with what kind of ‘development’ do we want for Africa. How do we define ‘development’? It seems the kind of development envisaged by the AU is one that continues to be committed to the logic of neoliberal capitalism, eternal privatisation; one that speaks the language of ‘foreign direct investment’ (which is essentially privatisation and capitalism via the AU’s much touted Nepad). I recall in personal discussions with Taju his reference to Nepad as a neoliberal ‘kneepad’ to continue the economic subservience of Africans to the North. Similarly, the existence of trade liberalisation; the reduction of the role of the African state; adoption of the IMF imposed Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) which have replaced the Structural Adjustment Programmes of the 1980s and 1990s are policies that AU members tacitly appear to support. In essence, it seems the kind of development that many supporters of the AU, heads of state and member countries with their commissioners and various officials of the AU are in favour of a kind of development that considers catching up with the West as the ideal; that is, becoming a mirror image of the West is the aspiration, standard and goal. Yet, for this to happen Africa would need a continent to enslave and colonise for the reality is that the West was able to industrialise and ‘develop’ by underdeveloping Africa through enslavement and colonisation. In short, this path is not open to Africa as a possibility. Such a path will only contribute to the continued destruction of the earth through rapacious consumerism and brutal capitalist exploitation of its finite resources and failure to lift the masses of African people from poverty.
Hence, new forms of socio-economic development and particularly the equitable redistribution and creation of wealth that is not harmful to the environment but sustainable, need to be created by Africans in the next 50 years. In addition to this break with exploitative neoliberal capitalism must be a break with neo-colonialism and imperialism in its reconfigured manifestations on the continent, as Kwame Nkrumah called for. Those manifestations remain in aid and the continued implementation of IMF and World Bank programmes that have done nothing to lift Africa out of poverty in the last 50 years; the presence of Africom and the joint military training exercises under the auspices of both Africom and other Western nations; the operations of multinational companies; unfair trade enforced by the World Trade Organisation (WTO); tax avoidance, secret mining deals and financial transfers that deny African people basic provisions such as health, education, electricity and good infrastructure.
Neoliberal capitalism is incompatible with social and economic justice and therefore ordinary and progressive Africans must push to transform the system, ultimately creating a fairer economic system of producing wealth in which the majority and not the minority benefit. It must be one in which people’s basic needs come before profits. Such principles should underlie the meaning of socio-economic ‘development’ in the next 50 years.
Finally in the next 50 years, Africa must unite in a way that its voice is heard and respected on the global stage. The Libyan debacle in which African countries were disunited and France, Britain and the US were able through the UN and NATO to marginalise and disregard the AU’s roadmap for a negotiated political settlement in Libya, indicated the imperialist arrogance of the West as well as the AU’s weakness in its inability to mobilise and command the attention of the international press on its position as divisions among those African countries who supported Gaddafi and those who did not seriously hampered the continental body. Consequently, the Western media pundits rallied to the position of their Western governments in seeking to carry out regime change in Libya and the AU was completely ignored. The maxim ‘African solutions to African problems’ has instead given way to a dangerous imperialist and neo-colonial precedent of ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P) that NATO employed as pretext for regime change. In the next 50 years will the AU allow/prevent another African country to be victim to a NATO-imposed ‘regime change’ under R2P?
On 24 May 1963 Nkrumah gave a long and passionate speech to his 31 contemporaries imploring them to ‘unite now or perish.’ That speech remains astonishingly relevant 50 years later – perhaps more so today. His emphasis was on a political union based on a common defence, foreign affairs and diplomacy, an African currency, an African monetary zone, and an African central bank but also based on a profoundly socialist framework in the ethos and economic organisation of African societies. Such a framework remains valid today and specifically in Africa after 50 years of SAPs and neoliberalism that has instead privatised social provision out of the reach of ordinary people. Some may argue that some of these institutions Nkrumah called for are in embryonic form today and need to be advanced and in ways that are meaningful to ordinary Africans. However, there is still a long way to go to in achieving the kind of Continental Union Government of Africa that Nkrumah envisioned – if this is the image of unity the AU seeks to realise in the next 50 years. If it proves not to be the vision, Africa’s current generation of young people who comprise over half the population of many countries, and the generation to come in the next 50 years, will have to mobilise to ensure the vision of Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, George Padmore and Robert Sobukwe is realised.
* Ama Biney (Dr) is Acting Editor of Pambazuka News.
State of the Union
Dlamini Zuma
2013-05-23
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/87496
Honourable Bethel Nnaemeka Amadi, President of the Pan African Parliament,
Honourable Vice Presidents of the Parliament,
Honourable Members of the Parliament,
Your Excellencies,
Members of the Diplomatic and Consular Corps,
The Clerk and Staff of the Parliament,
Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen
It gives me great pleasure to address this august organ of the African Union, and interact with you as the representatives and the voice of the citizens of Africa. This opportunity provides us with a platform to share reflections and exchange ideas on the state of our Union and Continent.
Our collective reflections are important as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of our continental organization, the OAU/AU. It is a moment of celebration, but it also provides us with opportunities to reflect on the past, to assess the present and to plan the route towards a prosperous and peaceful future.
Honourable Members
The 50th anniversary is celebrated under the theme Pan-Africanism and African renaissance. The theme captures the core principles and shared values of African development: people-driven and centered, unity and solidarity, self-reliance and self-determination; as well as the resolve not only to rid ourselves of poverty, disease and war, but to work for a peaceful and prosperous continent that takes its rightful place in the world.
One of Africa’s Nobel Peace Laureates, iNkosi Albert Luthuli, urged in 1964,
“…let me invite Africa to cast her eyes beyond the past and to some extent the present with their woes and tribulations, trials and failures, and some successes, and see herself as an emerging continent, bursting to freedom…
This is Africa’s age – the dawn of her fulfillment, yes the moment she must grapple with destiny to reach the summits of sublimity…”
During this year, we will all participate in the discussions on the African story since independence, and I know the PAP has scheduled a special debate on Pan Africanism and African Renaissance in the next week.
Today, however, we are focusing on the present state of our Union and continent, so as to enable us to answer the question where to go over the next fifty years.
Honourable Members
Our continent is once again infused with a sense of optimism and unimaginable opportunities, with a number of positive indicators and trends.
Firstly, Africa’s demographic dynamics present a unique opportunity. There are already fifty two (52) cities in Africa with more than 1 million inhabitants. By 2025, a quarter of the population under 25 will be living in Africa, 50% of Africans will be living in cities by 2030, our working age population will reach 1.1 billion by 2040 and our total population will be over 2 billion by 2050. Africa's middle class continues to expand, currently estimated at over 350 million with more people pursuing opportunities in the cities. Young people with their energy, creativity and enthusiasm are seen as representing ‘the most dynamic human resource available [1]’ and with women representing just over half of the continent’s population. Africa’s greatest resource and potential is clearly its people – now and into the future.
On the economic front, the continent’s growth has now averaged 5% per year for more than a decade, higher than at any other period since the early 1970s. Africa was the second-fastest growing region in the world after Asia from 2000 to 2008.
In 2010, ten of the 15 fastest growing economies in the world were African and it is projected that seven out of the 10 fastest growing economies in the world in the next five years will be African. [2] It is projected that the continent’s combined GDP of US $ 1.5 trillion is set to double by 2020 [3].
Domestic consumer markets are growing with the private sector acting as a powerful engine for growth. Exports and markets for African products are becoming more diversified, with the potential to reduce over-reliance on North-South trading relationships, and growing significance of South-South trade for the African continent. The value of trade with the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), for example, is reported to have increased nine-fold from $ 10 Billion in 2000 to $160 Billion in 2012.
Since 2000, investment in Africa has increased from 15.9 percent of the GDP to over 22 percent in 2012. Though low in comparison with Asia, this trend is expected to continue as an increasing number of the region’s economies are able to tap into the international capital markets to help address infrastructural constraints. Africa received its largest ever share of global foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2011 [4]. In 2011 FDI grew by 27%, pushing Africa’s share of the world’s investment to almost a quarter. FDI inflows stand at $80bn and is forecast to reach $150bn by 2015.
Between 2003 and 2011, there is a reported 23% compound growth rate in intra-African investment into new FDI projects [5]. Investments by Africans into Africa as a proportion of total number of FDI projects was reported to have more than doubled, and in 2011, it accounted for 17% of all new FDI projects. Over the period, Kenya and Nigeria investments in Africa have grown by 77.8% and 73.2%, respectively, while that of South Africa has grown by 63.8% [6]. In addition, three of the world’s best performing stock exchanges are in Africa.
With regards to infrastructure, there is no question that there are also pockets of progress. In the areas of telecommunications, whereas African telephone connectivity was just one-tenth of global average in the mid-1990s, by 2011 it was half the global average, growing at a whopping 20% per year between 2006 and 2011. Thus in 2011, Africa became the second largest mobile market in the world after Asia, with about 620 million mobile connections [7].
Africa’s fast absorption of information, communication technologies has resulted in enhanced innovation in many areas such as access to health services, agricultural support, micro-finance access and improving access of rural producers and entrepreneurs to markets. Currently, the mobile phone industry represents 3.5% of Africa's GDP and employs over 5 million people. Using mobile phone technology, Kenya's M-Pesa provides banking services to more than 70% of the country's adult population, becoming a global benchmark in mobile banking.
As things stand, the largest of Africa’s infrastructure funding (65 percent) comes from the continent’s public investment by governments, followed by private investors (25 percent). Funding from non-OECD countries, of which China is the largest, provides an additional 6%, and official development assistance from multi-lateral agencies funds the remaining 4%. Infrastructure development over the last decade has contributed over half of African growth, and more growth can be generated if we address the continent’s infrastructure deficit [8].
The continental infrastructure deficit remains huge. Africa’s total electricity generated equals that of Spain, even though we have twenty times the number of people. Data from 2006-2009 show that only 28% of Africa’s population had access to electricity compared to 70% of other parts of the developing world; whilst 69% of the population had access to improved water facilities compared to 88% of other developing populations, and less than 20% of our roads were tarred in 2009.
Large-scale investment in energy, including in hydro, coal, geo-thermo and solar power over the next decade will therefore be critical to Africa’s transformation – in both economic and social spheres – moving forward with the PIDA priority projects in energy, transport, ICT and other economic and social infrastructure is therefore a non-negotiable.
Honourable Members
The Structural Adjustment Programmes of the 1980’s and 1990s have strongly reduced African manufacturing sectors, and led to de-industrialisation.
Although the current continental growth rate is mainly driven by global demand for Africa’s minerals, oil and agricultural products, there is some progress in a number of countries. Several countries with manufacturing constituting at least 5% of their economies have performed well, such as Mozambique with 9.6% annual growth in manufacturing, followed by Tanzania, Sudan, Rwanda, Lesotho, Burkina Faso, Liberia, Uganda, Malawi and Namibia, which all recorded averaged growth rates of 5% or more. In Mozambique, Tanzania, Sudan and Burkina Faso manufacturing led growth, with the sector in these countries growing faster than the economy as a whole. African countries with high shares of manufacturing in GDP (more than 15%) are Mauritius, South Africa, Cameroon, Swaziland, Lesotho, Namibia and Coite d’Ivoire.
Africa has a large share of the world’s reserves in a number of critical minerals, as well as oil and gas. 60% of the world’s unused arable land is on the continent. Our land area is 12 times larger than India’s, with lesser number of people. Africa is also blessed with abundant water resources, including but not limited to the 63 international river basins.
Africa ’s renewed commitment to industrialization, and the development of diversified industrial capabilities must therefore build on its key natural endowments to spur sustainable and equitable growth: addressing its infrastructure backlogs to improve regional trade and spatial development; revolutionizing agricultural production and agro-processing, and ensuring that the exploitation of African natural resources, especially its mineral resources, results in a fair sharing of the proceeds, are saved and invested in developing productivity capacity, and that mining contribute to industrial development through backward and forward linkages.
Honourable Members
We do know that during the 1960’s, at the time of the establishment of the OAU, there was high optimism that the continent would perform well given that several African countries were on par or had even higher GDP rates than their counterparts in Asian. The GDP per capita of Ghana and South Korea were the same in 1960.
Until 1975, the fastest growing developing country was Gabon. Botswana’s growth rate exceeded that of Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Thailand. Thirty years ago, China was poorer than Malawi. Despite this potential, Africa was unable to complete the transformation journey which Asian has to a large degree now traversed.
We must therefore ask the question, how does our continent compare with economic development in other developing regions of the world today? A few comparative trends are worth mentioning [9]:
• Firstly, whilst African GDP growth matched that of Asia between 2000 and 2011 at 4.4% per annum, African income per capita in the decade since 2000 ($1100) remains far below other developing regions at around one third that of Asia ($3091) and less than a quarter of Latin America ($4964).
• Secondly, manufacturing in Asia over the same period grew at 6%, whilst African manufacturing grew at 3.3%, though faring better than Latin America whose manufacturing during the same period grew at 2.1%. African manufacturing sector’s contribution to GDP at 10.2% in 2010 is also much lower than other developing regions, with Asian manufacturing at 25.9% of GDP and Latin America at 15.3% during the same year.
• Thirdly, African exports as a proportion of GDP, though largely still unprocessed minerals and agricultural products, also caught up with Asia, reaching 29.7% of GDP in 2010, as against 30.0% for Asia and 17.7% for Latin America.
• Latest figures from the ECA indicate that intra-African trade may reach 13% this year, compared to 52% for Asian countries, and 20% for South America [10].
• Finally, Gross Fixed Capital Formation (GFCF) in Africa during the period 2000-2011 has averaged at just above 18% per year as a percentage of GDP, close to Latin America at 19%, but way below Asia, whose investment in productive assets and economic infrastructure as percentage of GDP averaged at 26.9%.
These figures are important indicators as to how the Asian region managed their economic and development turnaround. It indicates to us that it is indeed possible to eradicate poverty and achieve prosperity within less than five decades.
Honourable Members
Despite the progress registered on the economic front, human development remains a challenge for Africa. Across all dimensions, Africa still has the lowest human development indicators of any region. Africa’s regional HDI indicators in 2011 were: Life Expectancy at Birth (54.4 years); mean years of schooling (4.5 years); expected years of schooling (9.2 years); and gross national income per capita ($1,966). UNDP HDI rankings for 2011 shows no African country in the very high category, two countries (Seychelles and Mauritius) in the High category and 11 countries in Medium category (Gabon, Egypt, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Morocco, Cape Verde, Ghana, Equatorial Guinea, Congo and Swaziland). Of the 45 countries worldwide in the Low category, 34 are from Africa, with all the bottom 15 countries being African [11].
However, African countries have also been among the top ten HDI movers between 2000-2010 (Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Mali, Mozambique, Burundi and Niger).The main upward drivers of HDI for Africa are education, while HIV/AIDS is still responsible for slow progress. Africa continues to make good progress in improving access to education and in promoting girls education, with performance closely matching that of India. Overall, in spite of the scourge of HIV/AIDS, human development in Africa is undergoing steady improvements [12].
Honourable Members
We have often said that there can be no development without peace, and no peace without development. The continent is registering increasing levels of peace and security and progress continues to be made. The last two decades have seen substantial reduction in the number of conflicts, with close to 90% of African countries at peace for at least the last decade. And, whereas in the 1990’s there were fifteen countries engulfed in conflicts, this number reduced to five between 2000 and 2010.
The comprehensive Africa peace and security architecture has greatly enhanced our ability to address conflict and crisis situations on the ground, and to find African solutions to our problems. Conflict resolution efforts have yielded encouraging results in many parts of the continent, as shown by the tremendous progress recorded in Somalia, the agreements reached between Sudan and South Sudan in their post secession relations and the ongoing initiatives to promote good neighborliness and cooperation for a shared prosperity in the Great Lakes region. However, as the remaining conflicts and recent crises in Mali and Central African Republic suggest, there is no room for complacency, and we must resolutely tackle the root causes of conflicts and instability, so as to ensure lasting peace.
Thus, as Africa prepares itself to celebrate the OAU/AU Golden Jubilee, we must redouble our efforts. More is required in terms of conflict prevention, notably through the effective implementation of AU instruments relating to participatory democracy, inclusive governance and human rights. Renewed efforts should be made to resolve existing conflicts, some of which, such as the dispute over Western Sahara, have, so far, defied all attempts at peacemaking. We have to consolidate peace where it has been achieved, to avoid relapse into violence. Taking greater ownership of peace efforts on the continent also requires that Member States contribute in a much significant manner to the funding of AU initiatives.
Honourable Members
In the past two decades, the policy organs of our Organization have adopted a number of instruments relating to governance, democracy and human rights, thus providing a solid foundation for peace and security by emphasizing political inclusiveness, people-centred and inclusive governance and respect for the human rights and the dignity of all.
Encouraging efforts are made to deepen democratic governance and public participation in Member States, especially through the regular elections of public representatives. Just this year, thirteen elections are scheduled in Africa's, with three already been held, and ten still remaining. Some of these will take place in countries still on the agenda of the Peach Security Council and Regional bodies, indicating that these countries still face challenges.
It is therefore important that all AU Organs responsible for the monitoring of these elections, especially our Honourable continental representatives in PAP, remain vigilant and plan and work together, so that we can assist these Member states to deliver credible elections that help to consolidating their democracies and build inclusive societies.
Accordingly, we must once again take this opportunity to congratulate the people of Kenya for the exemplary manner in which they conducted and participated in their electoral processes in April this year. They are a shining example of being resilient and single-minded to achieving peace for their country and thus setting Kenya on a path towards enduring peace, justice and socio-economic development. We must accompany them on this path they chosen for themselves.
There are 33 countries which are participating in African Peer Review Mechanism and its rigorous processes, and the APRM continues to aim to achieve participation by all our Member States.
We have said before that our people are our main resource. Investment in and the empowerment of women, who makes up half of our population, therefore remain a priority. Our Solemn Declaration on Gender of 2002 committed all our countries and our Union to gender equality and gender parity. And yet, only ten countries have either reached or are close to reaching the target of 30% of women in their Parliaments and Cabinets. We must and can do better, not only in the public sector, but in all institutions in our societies.
We have often said that peace and security, and sustainable development constitute an interlocking nexus requiring consistent and coherent approaches.
As we seek to achieve peace and stability across the continent, our guiding beacon should be to establish conditions to ensure we end hunger, poverty, underdevelopment, insecurity and exclusion.
Honorable Members,
I strongly believe that the vision of the African Union can only be realized with the full participation of its peoples. It is the people who give legitimacy to governments, to the institutions as well as the vision of the future that Africa aspires to attain; hence, the important role of the Pan-African Parliament. To play its rightful role, PAP must be stronger, offering a greater voice to the people of Africa through universal suffrage, capable of promoting the enactment of relevant policies and laws necessary for growth and development both at the national and continental levels and play an oversight role.
Allow me at this juncture to point to some of the areas where I believe the Pan African Parliament can support the deepening of our commonly shared values on the continent.
• The first is in the area of elections, democratization and inclusive governance: As we all know, every year several elections are held on the continent. While some of these elections meet acceptable standards, others fall short. The effect of the latter is the post-electoral disputes that sometimes end in violence, thus creating political instability and insecurity. Needless to say, these draw the continent back in terms of democratization and unrealized development aspirations. There is, therefore, an immediate task for this august body and its members to help in promoting the integrity of electoral processes in Africa to avoid post-elections violence and instability.
• Second, there are still challenges to governance on the continent through unconstitutional changes of government, manifesting itself in several ways including coups d’état, prolonged stay in power, vote rigging or holding less than credible elections as well as rebellions which often suspend democratic institutions, including parliaments. In effect, this threatens democracy, hence nullifying the voice of the people. We cannot have a strong Pan African Parliament if democracy is truncated and democratically elected governments are removed through unconstitutional means. It is, therefore, incumbent upon members of the Pan African Parliament to ensure that the fundamental causes of unconstitutional changes of government are addressed on the continent by promoting the rule of law, human rights and inclusive governance in our respective countries.
This, as of necessity, means that we should examine ways of empowering this august institution to enable it to discharge the responsibility entrusted to it. Where there are challenges, let us also together find ways of addressing them, and equally sustain and build on our achievements. Let me assure this House that the African Union Commission will support any initiative that is aimed at making this institution an effective organ of the African Union.
Standing shoulder to shoulder, we shall make this institution more functional, effective and potent to help achieve a people-centered African Union capable of addressing its own challenges. This is why, in my opinion, the extent to which the House will be able to play its role in accordance with its mandate ought to be rigorously discussed, so that this organ can take its proper place on the continent.
These discussions are not limited to PAP, but all AU organs and institutions, including the Nepad, Ecosoc, the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights, the African Court on Human and People’s Rights, the APRM, the Regional Economic Communities and the AU Commission itself.
Honourable Members
As we celebrate our Jubilee year, we must boldly repeat that “this is Africa’s age – the dawn of her fulfillment, the moment she must grapple with destiny to reach the summits of sublimity…”
During the yearlong celebrations of our 50th anniversary, we will reflect on the lessons from our past and our current state, in order to grapple with our destiny.
Each generation, according to Fanon, must define its mission, which it must either fulfill or betray. We have a unique opportunity to define the mission of current generations, and the future we want to bequeath our children and grandchildren over the next fifty years.
In this regards, the AU has started a process of consultations with all sectors of society, culminating in the Summit in January 2014, to develop an African-wide Agenda, now called Agenda 2063.
The Pan African Parliament has an important role to, to ensure that as representatives of the people from all countries, we solicit the inputs of the citizenry, and all sectors of society in our respective countries, on this Agenda 2063.
It is an opportunity for the people of the continent to define our African dream, and the role that must be played by governments, non-state actors, youth, children and the elderly, men and women, rural folks and urban dwellers, the private sector and entrepreneurs, intellectuals, artists and our religious communities in realizing this dream.
The deadline for all these submissions and inputs are November this year, and based on your and other inputs, a framework will be presented to the AU Summit in January 2014.
Honourable Members,
The AU Commission has as its core mandate the implementation of the vision of our Union of an integrated, people-centred and prosperous Africa, at peace with itself.
The Commission has therefore recommended its Third Strategic Plan for 2014-2017 to the policy organs, based on the following eight clusters of priorities and our assessment of the state of the continent. These clusters are:
1. Building Africa’s human capacity through the prioritization of Primary Health Care and Prevention; Education, skills development and investment in Science, Research and innovation, access to clean water and sanitation with the inclusive of the vulnerable groups.
2. Expanding Agricultural production, developing the Agro-processing and businesses sectors, increase market access and attain Africa’s collective Food security and nutrition through sound environmental and natural resource management, including climate change.
3. Promoting inclusive economic development and industrialization through the acceleration of infrastructure development projects that will aid economic integration, achieve targets of intra-Africa trade and global market access, intra-Africa tourism, value addition, enhanced public, private sector partnership, effective and sustainable utilization of the continent’s mineral and other natural resources.
4. Promoting peace and stability, inclusive governance, democracy and human right as a foundation for inclusion, security and the development of the continent and its people.
5. Mainstream the participation of women and the youth in all priorities and activities of the Union and the continent
6. Implement strategies of resource mobilization, including alternative source of funding, and/or additional funding to enable Africa finance its programmes and development.
7. Build a people-centered Union through active communication of the programmes of the African Union, the branding of the Union and participation of Member States and other stakeholders in defining and implementing the African agenda.
8. Strengthen the institutional capacity of the AUC, the RECs and other organs, and its relations with strategic and other partners.
The resolute implementation of these priorities by all Member States, RECs and organs of our Union, will help to move us closer towards prosperity and peace we all yearn for. As we received inputs and finalise our Agenda 2063, these priorities will be adapted to reflect the consensus of the continent on its roadmap and milestones for the future.
Honourable Members
As representatives of the people from all over the continent, we want to solicit the support of the Pan African Parliament in ensuring that the year-long celebration of the 50th Anniversary of African Unity is memorable, leaves a lasting legacy and is a continent-wide success.
As we celebrate the 50th Anniversary of our African Unity, it is important for the Pan-African Parliament to position itself on the continent to lead on issues of policy making, democratization, and governance by giving greater voice to the African people, as we work towards an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa.
Je vous merci remercier
I thank you for your kind attention and look forward to your debates
END NOTES
[1] UN Habitat, State of the Urban Youth 2012/2013
[2] World Bank’s 2013 Global Economic Prospects report
[3] Africa in 50 Years: The Road Towards Inclusive Growth, AfDB, September 2011
[4] Ernst and Young, op cit.
[5] Ernest & Young Africa Attractiveness Survey 2012
[6] Ernest & Young Africa Attractiveness Survey 2012
[7] Mills and Herbst. (2012).Africa’s third liberation. Johannesburg: Penguin books
[8] World Bank. African Infrastructure Country Diagnostic
[9] Baloyi, Banda, Mapila, Mfongeh and Roberts (2013). Background paper on African Industrialisation for Economic Development Department. 15 March 2013. Final draft
[10] Boosting Intra-African Trade: Issues Affecting Intra-African Trade, Proposed Action Plan for Boosting Intra-African Trade and Framework for Fast Tracking of a Continental Free Trade Area, AUC/UNECA, January 2012
[11] UNDP Africa Human Development Report 2012
[12] AUC Third Strategic Plan 2014-2017, (revised 3 April 2013)
The African Union speaks about the 50th anniversary
Jeff DeKock
2013-05-23
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/87502
The Organization of African Unity (OAU)/African Union at 50
The Quest for New Foundations of African Solidarity in the 21st Century
Mehari Taddele Maru
2013-05-23
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/87498
cc A U The AU has now entered the new fifth era of delivery and democracy to avoid uprisings and revolutions and to ensure human security by re-inventing Pan-Africanism for 21st century Africa
INTRODUCTION
The Organization of African Unity (OAU) and later on the African Union (AU) will celebrate its fifty year anniversary on 25 May, 2013 in Addis Ababa. The Golden Jubilee celebration of an institution like the OAU and later the African AU is a special event. For Africans and friends of Africa, it has greater public importance. It offers an occasion for celebration. But more crucially, it presents a unique opportunity for critical introspection and collective reflection on the journey of Africa in the past half-century—which seriously affected the lives of millions of Africans both positively and negatively. Even most vital benefit of such opportunity needs to be seized to set a clear vision for Africa, craft commonly and widely shared mission to realize such a vision and mobilize the necessary commitment and resources to implement the mission. It is fitting for the new leadership of the AU Commission, under Dr Dlamini Zuma to present strategic plan of AU for the next 50 years. [1]
While building on the good Pan-African legacies of OAU, the AU needs to shift focus to new foundations of Pan-Africanism. But what are the good and bad legacies of the OAU/AU? What should be the focus of the AU to build on the good legacies of OAU and address the bad ones?
This article divides, and then explains, the last five decades of the OAU/AU into four eras : First, the Era of Pan-African Solidarity that mainly mobilized the anti-colonial and anti-apartheid struggle of Africa; second, the Era of Confusion and Division in which the Cold War brought ideological struggle between supporters of the West and the East that led to conspiratorial and undemocratic political mobilizations, dictatorial governance styles, bloody political changes through military coups, revolutions and civil wars; and third, with the end of the Cold War, the Era of an Interventionist and Integrationist Agenda necessitating the transformation of the OAU into the AU. Since the North African uprisings of 2011, Africa is now in Era of Popular Uprisings and Democratic Progress. [2] Admittedly, the subject matter of the OAU is quit rich and very broad to cover in an article, thus, it unavoidably condenses the history of five decades in an article which lacks some details and peculiar contexts of events.
The author suggests the need to move to a new fifth era of delivery and democracy to avoid uprisings and revolutions and ensure human security by re-inventing Pan-Africanism for 21st century Africa. By emphasizing the re-definition of Pan-African solidarity, the writer explains why poverty eradication and constitutional democratization should constitute the fresh compass for Pan-African and new frontiers for progress. The era of delivery and democracy should be based on strict adherence to the AU Constitutive Act [3] and a shift of mission from norm-setting to effective norm implementation of the various instruments and the overhauling of existing AU institutions and building effective and functional institutions. In this regard, the North African uprisings could be considered as markers of change for this era of delivery and democracy. These events have forced many people, particularly officials of the AU, leaders of African states and scholars to contemplate and debate the normative, legal and institutional questions related to democratic constitutional governance in Africa. [4]
In more than a dozen countries, including Sudan, Uganda, Malawi, Mozambique, Burkina Faso and Lesotho, the protests have surged and fizzled due to many governmental interventions that partially and superficially address the causes of the protests. As a result, today’s Africa exhibits visible democratic progress since 2002 when the African Union (AU) was established. With three dictators toppled by the North African uprisings and sixteen democratically elected new leaders since 2010, the democratic profile of Africa has sharply increased. Each decade, the numbers of democratically elected leaders have surged faster than ever. Despite having some, but fewer, dictators and other leaders with contested mandates and diminished legitimacy due to election-related violence, evidently Africa has experienced what the author calls the “generational progression of democracy”. [5] After five decades, the composition of the leadership of the AU Summit in May 2013 will be certainly significantly more democratic compared with the early years of the AU.
ERA OF PAN-AFRICAN SOLIDARITY: ANTI-COLONIAL AND ANTI-APARTHEID STRUGGLE
Pan Africanis began with African diaspora’s struggle against slavery and search for African roots and identity. [6] Dedicated balck intellectuals, diplomats and activitists established the Pan African Conference (PAC) in 1900. [7] It was the first western based anti-colonial and pro black forum. [8] During World War II, the PAC opposed the invasion of Ethiopia by the Italian Fascist government. [9] In 1945, unlike the previous PAC meetings, the PAC meeting in Manchester, UK, organized by Dr Peter Milliard of Guyana, was attended by many delegates from the African continent who later became leaders of liberation movements and heads of states of newly independent African countries. [10] More than a decade later, in 1957, the idea of organizing a meeting of independent African states (at that time only eight) was discussed for the first time in London when the Prime Minister of the newly independent Republic of Ghana, Mr Kwame Nkrumah visited Ethiopian Ambassador Ammanuel Abraham on the margins of the Commonwealth Ministerial Conference on 1 July 1957. [11] Mr Kwame Nkrumah thought about organizing such a meeting in October the same year to issue a declaration of African and global affairs. [12] Similar ideas were also forwarded to Ethiopia by Morocco at the same time, but separately. [13]
Nevertheless, Ethiopia was of the opinion that the arrangement and the aim of such a meeting should be more than a formality and rather a declaration that could lead to the establishment of a Pan-African organization. As such the Ambassador of Ethiopia underlined the importance of internal consultations between the independent states before any declaration and meeting. [14] In August 1958, Ambassadors of Ethiopia, Ghana, Sudan, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, Libya, and Liberia hosted several consultative meetings in preparation of the agenda and date of the conference. A year later, and after a series of consultations, particularly between the government of Ethiopian and Ghana, Africa held its first Conference of Independent States in Accra on 15 April 1958. Despite being independent, the participating states were, however, divided into colonial-inherited linguistic, geographic and ideological groups. While the Francophone Brazzaville group had 12 states, Casablanca group was composed of eight Anglophone, Francophone as well as North African Arab countries. [15] With 21 countries, the Monrovia group was the largest and progressive group in terms of its Pan-African stance and commitment to the struggle against colonial powers. Ethiopia, with no colonial inheritance, served as a trusted home to all these groups. In this regard, Emperor Haile Sellassie pointed out that these groupings were seeds of division that needed to be undone by establishing the OAU:
“The commentators of 1963 speak, in discussing Africa, of the Monrovia States, the Brazzaville Group, the Casablanca Powers, of these and many more. Let us put an end to these terms. What we require is a single African Organization through which Africa's single voice may be heard, within which Africa's problems may be studied and resolved. We need an organization which will facilitate acceptable solutions to dispute among Africans and promote the study and adoption of measures for common defence and programmes for co-operation in the economic and social fields. Let us, at this Conference, create a single institution to which we will all belong, based on principles to which we all subscribe, confident that in its councils our voices will carry their proper weight, secure in the knowledge that the decisions there will be dictated by Africans and only by Africans and that they will take full account of all vital African consideration.” [16]
Five years later Ethiopia also initiated and hosted the May 1963 Conference of African Heads of State that led to the establishment of the OAU. The OAU was established in Addis Ababa with thirty-two independent African States with the ratification of the OAU Charter. [17] Speaking of the purpose of the Conference, Emperor Haile Sellassie succinctly pointed out that the “task on which we have embarked, the making of Africa will not wait. We must act, to shape and mould the future and leave our imprint on events as they pass into history.” [18] He added: “[w]e are determined to create a union of Africans. In a very real sense, our continent is unmade; it still awaits its creation and its creators.” [19] Due to its inspirational historical legacy, Ethiopia’s was considered as the neutral and natural place to unite the various fragmented groups of African states. [20] The OAU through its various multilateral coordination committees and bilateral decision of its member states become instrumental and eventually successful in achieving independence for all its members. [21]
THE ORIGINAL SIN OF OAU
Hypocritical rhetoric denied the logic of linking the legitimacy of external and internal policies of states. This was the marker of the false start for OAU. A hallmark of the OAU, the same leaders applied the most regressive interpretation of the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of states while cooperating on anti-colonial and anti-apartheid struggle. Later on this became the original sin that paralysed the OAU almost for the next four decades.
Indeed, the OAU was not established on a solid foundation, because independent African states were permeated by flaws of their own making and by those of colonial and external forces. “When a solid foundation is laid, if the mason is able and his materials good, a strong house can be built.” [22] During this era of lifelong leaders, most of the founding fathers of the OAU were externally progressive but domestically regressive in their governance. Pertinent rhetoric denied the logic of linking the legitimacy of external and internal policies of states. Indeed, with the exception of a few leaders of the liberation struggle such as Nelson Mandela, most liberation and post-independence leaders became or remained dictators. Henry Kissinger, former US Secretary of State, noted:
“Leaders of so-called freedom movements are typically not democratic personalities; they sustain themselves through years of exile and prison with visions of the transformation they will bring about once they seize power. Humility is rarely one of their attributes; if it were, they would not be revolutionaries. Installing a government that makes its leader dispensable—the essence of democracy—strikes most of them as a contradiction in terms. Leaders of independence struggle tend to be heroes, and heroes do not generally make comfortable companions. [23]
This mismatch between regressive internal governance and progressive Pan-African solidarity allowed confusion to breed in the generation of independence.
Eras don’t end abruptly; they just wane away through time. Thus, with the emergence of a changed political climate and their failure to democratize internally, the Pan-Africanist Era ended in the killing, removal or death of some of the founding fathers, including Emperor Haile Sellassie, Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah, King Idris, Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, and Prime Minister Ahmed Ben Bella.
ERA OF CONFUSION AND DIVISION: THE COLD WAR AND IDEOLOGY
With leaders like General Said Barre, Colonel Houari Boumedienne, General Mobutu Sese Seko, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, General Moussa Traore, Ibrahim Babangida, General Gafar Numeiry, and Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam, this was the African era of generals and colonels. [24] Africa entered a violent period after a brief hopeful era of independence and Pan-Africanism. The leftist groups of the 1970s and 1980s began to promote socialist ideals based on class as state ideology. In the name of nation-building and socialism they staged coups, engineered rebellions and installed dictatorship. Contaminated by Stalinist ideology, they used state power without restraint. When confronted with opposition groups demanding freedom, they replied ‘bread today, freedom tomorrow’ and built sophisticated structures of extreme violence against those opposed to them. With no tolerance whatsoever for differences of opinion or opposition, one group had to annihilate the other to establish a state and impose its own will on all others. Violence of a kind that was alien to Africans was introduced by the generation of that era, and in turn that generation became incapacitated by terror. During this era, violations of human rights were endemic; protection of minority groups was deliberately and effectively abandoned. The rule of law was routinely disregarded and replaced by the harsh rule of dictators and constitutions made impotent and useless. Attempts at democratization were devastatingly crushed by the new leaders of Africa’s independent states. [25] Leaders of this era unashamedly stole the sincere ideals of progressive members of the generation of the 1960s and 1970s, mainly those from leftist groups, and abused the struggles for their own personal gain. The regimes of this era had two cardinal failings: politics through extreme violence that was alien to Africa, and a self-serving leadership. The result of this era of confusion and division was destruction, blood and tears. Despondent about such outcomes, within two decades the leadership of that era abandoned their ideologies of the Cold War and left Africa in disarray. Most the colonels and generals were toppled by opposition parties, left-leaning rebel groups, coups and uprisings. Devoid of a common cause that united the OAU in its struggle against colonial and apartheid, and besieged by various regional competition and political conspiracy, the OAU lost a new cause to rally around.
ERA OF INTERVENTION AND INTEGRATION: FROM OAU TO AU
In the early 1990s, Africa was no longer a proxy for the superpowers. Africa’s civil wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Liberia, Sierra Leone, Burundi, the Central African Republic and Guinea Bissau; genocide in Rwanda; state failure in Somalia; and secessionist movements in Ethiopia and the Sudan became real challenges for the new and old African leadership, demanding urgent attention and action. African conflicts became more intra-state and less inter-state, with localized manifestations and coverage rather than civil wars that engulf and divide an entire country. As a result, Africa witnessed three times more internal displacements than refugees. The humanitarian crises in Somalia [26] and Darfur [27] were the worst, with more than six million deaths and forced displacements.
The end of the Cold War offered African leaders an opportunity to seek African solutions to a variety of African problems. [28] To meet these challenges, the institutional transformation of the OAU into the AU began with the declaration of the OAU Extraordinary Summit of Heads of State and Governments in September, 1999, in Sirte, Libya. [29] Indicative of the purpose, the title and theme of the Summit, “strengthening OAU Capacity to enable it to meet the Challenges of the New Millennium,” was to amend the OAU Charter in order to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the OAU. [30] This extraordinary summit, and later the AU Constitutive Act, shifted the mission and vision of the OAU, mainly from an organization of anti-colonial and anti-apartheid solidarity, to the more interventionist and integrationist AU.
The era of intervention and integration began with the transformation of the OAU to the AU with an attempt to answer a quest for new causes and redefining Pan-Africanism. With the transformation of the OAU to AU, the AU came up with a new vision and mission for Africa’s renaissance. Based on the AU Constitutive Act, the first AU Commission Strategic Plan declared that the vision of the AU is “to build an integrated, a prosperous and peaceful Africa, driven by its own citizens and representing a dynamic force in the international arena”.
In this regard, the AU Constitutive Act bestowed the AU with robust substantive mandates such as the right of intervention in Member States of the AU, and an institutional makeup such as the Peace and Security Architecture (APSA). [31] Under Article 4 of the, the AU has the right to intervene [32] in a Member State pursuant to a decision of the AU Assembly of Heads of State and Government (the Assembly) to prevent any grave circumstances, namely war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. [33]
The AU has taken important steps in resolving these tensions between sovereignty and responsibility. Thus, the conception of sovereignty as responsibility fundamentally amends the old principle of non-interference in internal affairs of a sovereign state. It asserts the prime responsibility of the states and the subsidiary duty of the international community in ensuring the ‘safety, lives and welfare’ of human beings globally. Indeed, with increasing universal recognition of the principle of the responsibility to protect, state sovereignty progressively becomes a functional tool with the sole purpose of discharging the duties of a state. Subsequently, the AU officially approved the principle of the responsibility to protect. [34] This is a result of the shift of mission that accompanied the transformation of the OAU to the AU. The AU in this regard has been at forefront of adopting a progressive normative frameworks such as the Kampala Convention [35] and the Lomé Declaration of July 2000 on the Framework for an OAU Response to Unconstitutional Changes of Government (the Lomé Declaration) [36] and the African Charter on Democracy, Elections, and Governance (the Addis Ababa Charter). [37] These progressive norms represents an indirect recognition of the re-conceptualization of the principle of sovereignty and non-interference in internal affairs by the emerging principles, namely, the responsibility to protect and subsidiarity/complementarity of international human rights protection to national protection mechanisms. It is within this context that AU has been pushing for “African solutions for African problems”. Increasing interventionism came as a result of the AU mandate and increasing demands internally and externally for Africans to solve their problems by themselves. This is what is called “African Solutions for African Problems”. Without being isolationist and recognizing the transnational nature of today’s peace and security challenges such as terrorism, organized and international crimes, and maritime security, this approach sets a Pan-African commitment and approach for the implementation of the new emerging interventionist power of the AU. This also marks Africa’s attempt to ensure the ownership its destiny.
The shift from collective security of states to human security was articulated in detail in the AU Constitutive Act, the AU Strategic Plans and the various instruments. With the ultimate purpose of eradicating violent conflicts and poverty from Africa, APSA and NEPAD as part of the AU architecture for poverty eradication and development took pride of place in the work of the AU.
With these architectures, the AU and its member states endorsed the Millennium Development Goals, a reinforcement of the need to re-define and establish new Pan-Africanism that serves the Era of Intervention and Integration. The AU Constitutive Act, APSA and NEPAD could be considered as primarily an unofficial attempt to re-define Pan-Africanism as new milestones. In the past ten years, the AU has responded to urgent crises in more than 21 countries. Decisions and interventions by the AU, the IGAD, the ECOWAS, and SADC on Mali, Guinea-Bissau, Somalia, Sudan, Liberia, Guinea, Lesotho, Central African Republic, Sierra Leone, São Tomé and Príncipe, Côte d’ Ivoire, Togo and Mauritania, Madagascar, and the Comoros Islands testify to the interventionist development. [38] IGAD initiated actions by the AU in sending AMISOM peacekeeping forces to support the weak Transitional Federal Government of Somalia, and the actively supported peacekeeping efforts in Abyei, the disputed border area between South Sudan and the Sudan. The same can be said about ECOWAS. The Southern African Development Community has been highly involved in the political processes in Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Burundi. The international community and the AU has outsourced its responsibility on the mediation between South Sudan and Sudan to the Mbeki Panel (the AU High Level Panel). Moreover, the AU has been highly involved in the monitoring elections in Africa and later on in mediation efforts when post-election violence occurred in many African countries. In this regard, the AU has been relatively successful in Kenya (2007), Zimbabwe (2008), and Côte d’Ivoire (2010).
Nonetheless, a salient characteristic of this era of intervention and integration is the democratic profile and generational composition of African leaders. The first AU summit was composed of long serving dictators, some of them from independence-liberation movements, such as Mr Robert Mugabe, new generation rebel leaders such as Mr Yoweri Museveni, who waged decades of protracted civil wars that toppled military dictators, and democratically elected leaders, such as Mr Thabo Mbeki. During this era, we have witnessed political struggles for amendments of constitutions to extend terms of office of Presidents and Prime Ministers or/and unconstitutional changes of government (Niger, Mauritania, Mali, Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Madagascar, Nigeria, Algeria, Uganda are examples), numerous elections marred by vote rigging and post-election disputes and violence , fragmented political parties and mandates, and grand coalitions (Zimbabwe, Kenya, Cote D’ Ivoire, Ethiopia etc ). Since the establishment of the AU, more than 35 countries (example Ghana, Tanzania, Senegal, Nigeria, Benin, Zambia, Mauritius, South Africa, Bostwana, Namiba, Mozambique, Malawi, Ethiopia, etc) have conducted democratic elections, where half of them achieved a peaceful transfer of power to victorious opposition parties or new leaders. [39]
NEW ERA OF PAN-AFRICANISM: DELIVERY AND DEMOCRACY
African States: strong on the wrong functions, weak on the right areas
Most of the problems that Africa faced and continue to face are not unique. Many states elsewhere face similar problems. The problem in Africa emanates from mainly the nature of state and external interferences. What is distinctively disturbing with Africa is the state of affairs of the states and political parties. Currently all protracted and complicated problems in Africa in some form or another relate to lack of legitimacy either due to unpopular governance and intolerance to diversity, lack of capacity and will for performance to deliver public goods. African states are either failed, or perform poorly. Political problems rather remain central in all these protracted and complicated problems in Africa. Undemocratic political system and mobilization are the heart of the existence of failed states, or poorly performing states. African States are strong on the wrong functions, weak on the right areas. Many African states in conflict are strong in the wrong functions of state, effective only on the maintenance of government security, the interest of political parties and individuals or groups. They are vigorous and resourceful in deception, intimidation, and repression. Many African states allocate enormous resources to highly specialized military and para military forces, undertaking high technology surveillance, and lobbying.
Indeed, largely attributable to bad governance in the post-independence African states and incorrect prescriptive policies of dominant powers and global governance institutions, African states have been reduced into ‘police-states’ strong only on securing and maintains power unconstitutionally through brutalizing politics and sheer brute force. Since 1960s, states are depicted as enemies of their own societies. With various external interferences and other internal causes, the roles of African states have been minimized and non-state actors, mainly due to international support, offer many of the services that states are supposed to provide. Several western initiatives including the Washington Consensus came to empower CSOs to deliver most of the soft security and in some cases hard security in the name of private security firms. Done at the expense of states, this resulted in weak and non-viable states most often unable carry out state core functions that could have endowed them with the legitimacy states deserve. African states became fragile displaying weakness and vulnerabilities of their various organs with limited control of the means of violence and their territories leading to ungovernable spaces where most of the massive human rights violations occur.
Investment on non-state actors has accelerated the delegitimization of the state in Africa. This increased legitimacy of non-state actors resulted in a backlash from states that attempted to stifle CSOs as currently witnessed in many African countries. That is the reason why China, through its unconventional development path and soft loans, has provided African governments with the possibility of tipping the balance of legitimacy for states at least in the delivery of some public goods. Indicative of popularity of soft intervention, African governments continue to be attracted to China. Chinese support to Africa without some form of conditionality may deflate progress to democracy unless Chinese pragmatism leads to pressurize governments to exercise legitimate power. [40]
At the same time these states are weak on right functions of states mainly in ensuring human security of their populations. Human Security has two aspects--hard security, which refers to the absence of war, violence and destructive conflicts and soft security would entail the eradication of the root causes of war and violent conflicts. Extreme poverty and injustice of various kinds breed discontent that makes poor and aggrieved people prone for manipulation by violent extremism. According to John Gay, people with no political rights, and physically and socially insecure, even if they ‘assess their nation as not-democratic, express dissatisfaction with democracy, distrust their public institutions, question the authority of the constitution, and look favourably on a military government.’ [41] For this reason, they are unwilling to defend any democratic institutions or partially democratic systems. [42] Moreover, they can be easily aroused to uprisings. On the other hand, better-off persons (who have accumulated wealth legally due to the economic growth or illegally through corruption) desire democracy for they want more. [43] Thus, social stability may become elusive if democracy and delivery are incrementally ensured in many African countries. It is worthy to note that the North African uprisings were born out of desperation due to the absence of opportunities to pursue a decent livelihood and the lack of meaningful political reform. The absence of constitutional means for changing governments peacefully as a safety valve in times of public displeasure led to changes of government by violent means.
Political parties are solely interested in ascending and maintaining power by any mean. As witnessed in the North African countries, participation in politics was considered a private money-making business pursuit in the public sphere. Politics served as a racket to amass wealth. This unhealthy political mobilization led to the undemocratic internal governance of political parties. Thus, extreme poverty will remain the main obstacle to a meaningful life and indirectly to stability in Africa. Ensuring soft security for all people creates sustainable hard security. These characteristics indicate poor performance or total state failure constituting the highest threat to human security. State failure happens when a state fails due to inability or lack of willingness to perform the legitimately expected services. This may be caused by failure to enjoy performance or popular legitimacy. Such a situation could be created as a result of highly diminished or total lack of democracy in the form of participation and contestation, or when the state fails to deliver public and political goods such as law and order, necessary hard infrastructure and basic necessities for its citizens.
In a nutshell, democracy without delivery faces serious challenges of social stability; delivery without democracy devalues the dignity of being a human being and diminishes the capacity for growth. A vital deterrent effect and message particularly to newly elected and emerging political leaders is that power exercised solely on the basis of performance legitimacy through delivery of services would prove difficult to sustain.
CONCLUSION
The North African uprisings revealed the vulnerability of Africa states and weakness of the AU. The slow, but comparatively well formulated response of the AU [44] to the uprisings exposed the dearth and impotence of the AU in challenging leaders like the late Muammar Gaddafi who ruled Libya for decades, without legitimacy of any kind. The uprising initiated a useful introspection about the need for the AU to insist on the democratic reform of governance and peaceful democratic transition. By not demanding democratic reform of governance in countries like Libya, ruled by one person for more than four decades, Africa and the AU by default facilitated the flawed military intervention by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Libya. [45]
By re-inventing Pan-Africanism for the 21st century Africa, the AU at this moment in time needs to move to a new era of delivery and democracy. By emphasizing the re-definition of Pan-African solidarity, poverty eradication and constitutional democratization should constitute the new frontiers of Pan-African progress. The era of delivery and democracy should be based on strict adherence to the AU Constitutive Act and a shift of mission from norm-setting to effective norm implementation of the various instruments and the overhauling of existing AU institutions and building of effective and functional institutions. In this regard, the North African uprisings are what some social scientists call “markers of change” for this era of delivery and democracy. Despite having some, but fewer, dictators and other leaders with contested mandates and diminished legitimacy due to election-related violence, evidently Africa has experienced what the author calls “generational progression of democracy”. Now after fifty years of the OAU and ten years of the AU, the composition of the leadership of the 2013 May AU Summit is significantly more democratic than the early years of the OAU and AU.
Nonetheless, efforts need to focus on transforming the behaviour of leaders, strengthening the institutions of states, democratising political parties and building the capabilities of the RECs and the AU to respond effectively to both soft and hard insecurity. States are the key drivers of change in Africa without which efforts towards peace and development would remain futile. The main challenge ahead for Africa will be to build the capacity and the will to discharge their obligations under the AU and in terms of international law. In a nutshell, they have to deliver and democratize. The various AU policies and treaties are all about deliver and democracy including the APSA and AGA.
ESTABLISH THE RELEVANCE OF AU TO THE PEOPLES OF AFRICA: NATIONAL AND REGIONAL CONSULTATIVE CONFERENCES (NCCS)
The first measure to capacitate the states to conduct AU National and Regional Consultative Conferences (NCCs) in each member state on the implementation of the various norms and institutional frameworks. The AU should go to the member states to facilitate the diffusion and implementation of these norms. The NCCs will be used for diffusion, ratifications, consultations in domestication and designation of a focal point as well as serve as an exercise of an oversight function on implementation.
END NORM-SETTING, FOCUS ON NORM IMPLEMENTATION
The AU's different normative and institutional frameworks are designed to enhance the state capacities to fulfill their responsibilities of delivery and democracy. The AU has more than 200 well-advanced legislative and policy frameworks on several issues covering the four pillars including 43 treaties and conventions. Nine of them have yet to enter into force. These policies cost at least 1 million USD from the first draft by a consultant to adoption by the heads of state. Nonetheless, currently the AU Commission, which is the engine of AU, lacks the political will of member states and faces leadership deficit in the implementation of these policies.
In 2011, the AU approved 263,814,748 USD. [46] While the AU member states contribute 48 percent of the budget, remaining amount constitutes donors’ fund. [47] The total amount of fund collected in 2011 was 144, 200,000 USD, of which 61 percent was from member states and the 39 percent from donors. Indeed, the development partners failed to fulfill more than 60 percent of their pledge in 2011. [48] The AU expressed its concerns of donors “making pledges without honoring them fully. There was, therefore, a need to reverse the ratio of funding between the partners and the Member States so that the Union does not run into serious problems when funds from partners would not be forthcoming.” [49]
In 2013, the AU has allocated 278,226,622 USD for 2013, which shows an increase of 15 ml USD increase. [50] The total contribution of member states shows an increase of 8 million from 2011, however, the increase in percentage remains low compared to donors’ contribution which shows a 16 percent increase. Unlike 2011, AU is dependent on donors for more than 55 percent of its total budget. AU programmes budget continue to be covered by the donors. [51]
In 2013, the majority of funding pledge from donors has been secured. However, China still needs to fulfill its pledge of 20 ml USD for 2013. [52] With the new Chinese built AU complex, a significant reduction of expenditure on rentals allows for reallocation to some programmes. The AU called for its member states “to assume responsibility of funding the Organization instead of leaving it to the partners.” [53]
The AU Commission takes 78 percent of the budget followed by NEPAD (10 percent), PAP (4 percent) and African Court on Human and People’s Rights (3.2 percent) and African Commission on Human and People’s Rights (3.1 percent) and the remaining divide to the remaining organs of the AU including the PSC with 700,000 USD. [54] The Pan African University (PAU) has a special fund with 12.1 million USD for 2013. [55] However, the actual expenditure of the AU stands at 63 percent of the total approved budget, which low absorption capacity. This nonetheless conceals even deeper problem at the AU. The AU Commission budget execution rate remains weak at 60 percent for 2011. Of the AU programmes fund available (77.3 million USD), the execution rate remains very low at 39 percent, while the execution rate of the operational budget is 92 percent including salary and allowances paid. Absorption capacity of all departments of the AU Commission remains a dismal of 50 percent, and some departments such as the Department of Social Affairs “struggling between execution rates of 15% and 25% budget execution.” [56] For almost eight years, the Department of Social Affairs functioned only with less than 30 percent of staff complement that was approved since 2003. [57]
Due to lack of progressive follow-up and investigation as well as sanction on the leadership of the departments, departments with the lowest rate of execution almost always request for an allocation of more funds for Year 2013. [58] This ascertains the lack of accountability of mainly the leadership the AU Commission but also that of the staff members. The very slow recruitment rate, high turnover of new staff members, low execution rate of the programmes, and weak budget utilization stems from various challenges mainly as a result of leadership deficiency, managerial weakness, lack of accountability and responsibility, archaic and to heavy hierarchical structure and stringent procedures of approval plans and recruitment, and lack of meritocracy in the recruitment process. Ambitious plans that proffer minimal consideration to the existing implementation capacity and disregard the above mentioned internal constraints contribute to the gloomy utilization of resources at the AU.
Accordingly the AU needs to swiftly implement these policies in cooperation with member states to increase its impact and relevance on the ground. With strong leadership of the AU Commission focused on vision and legacy, the AU could daily become the driver of change in the AU and Africa. But first the AU Commission itself needs internal good governance. So radical reform of the AU Commission is in order.
OVERHAULING THE ENGINE: REFORM AT THE AU COMMISSION
With ten elected portfolios, 1458 staff members, the AU Commission has six core functions. First, it serves as power house the AU and its various organs. A vital organ of the AU, the AU Commission serves as the secretariat responsible for conducting the day-to-day affairs of the AU. [59] More importantly, it provides substantive expertise for various bodies, such as the Peace and Security Council of the AU and coordinates their activities and meetings. [60] Second, it represents the AU in all intentional and continental relations. It promotes and defends the interests of the Africa. [61] Thirdly, it convenes the summits and other varied meetings of member states to discuss common agenda items and take decisions. It is the single most continual platform for norm-setting. [62] As its fourth core function, it disseminates norms set, and decisions taken by the AU. It also assists in the implementation of norms and decisions by member states and supervises their execution of them. More importantly, it prepares the strategic plan and budget of the AU in consultation with wide-ranging actors.
While member states are the body parts of the AU, the Commission is the engine on which the Union depends, not only for its effective functioning, but also for its ability to achieve its objectives as set out in the Constitutive Act of the AU. The leadership and management of the Commission is therefore a key factor for the success of the AU, both at the continental and global levels. Nonetheless, the current human capacity of the AU Commission is 52 per cent of its approved staff complement. It has 19 directors, 691 staff members, of which 293 are professionals. There are also 324 professional vacant posts, which constitutes 48 percent. Moreover, its programmatic budget execution rate remains at disappointingly low 40 per cent. Thus, the AU is working with half its approved human resource and absorption capacity. This critical failure of the AU is partially attributable to the lack of capacity at the AU Commission which resulted from weak leadership.
THE LEADERSHIP FOR CHANGE IN THE AU
With a leadership that is concerned about its commitment to Africa and legacy, not salary and second term, the AU Commission has all the elements of becoming the "game changer" in Africa. This role can only be achieved if the leadership tackles the following five constraints that bind the AU since its creation: 1) radical internal reforms of the AU Commission to make it a machine of innovative delivery on AU four pillars; 2) recruitment of competent Africans to realise the full complement of the AU Commission based on meritocracy; 3) ending norm-setting and utilizing all resources for norm-implementation; 4) increasing the contribution and seeking alternative sources of funding and living within the means; 5) capacitating states and enabling REC to deal with the issues of integration and human security within the AU normative and institutional frameworks.
* Dr. Mehari Taddele Maru is an independent consultant. Until August 2012, he was the Programme Manager for African Conflict Prevention and Risk Analysis at Institute for Security Studies. A former fellow of very prestigious programmes at Harvard and Oxford Universities, he holds Doctorate of Legal Sciences (Dr. iur.) from JL Giessen University, Germany, MPA from Harvard and MSc from University of Oxford and LLB from Addis Ababa University. Dr Mehari has served as the Programme Coordinator for Migration and Legal Expert at the African Union Commission. He worked as Director of the Addis Ababa University Office for University Reform.
END NOTES
[1] One can question the wisdom of having a strategic plan for five decades, if it will be a living document given rapid on going changes due to globalization and more so rapid development in the economic and political landscape of Africa. The author is currently working on a critique on the AU Strategic plan.
[2] Not all African countries are at the same stage of progress in democratization, for more details see African Union Panel of the Wise (2010) ‘Election-Related Disputes and Political Violence, Strengthening the Role of the African Union in Preventing, Managing, and Resolving Conflict’, The African Union Series, New York, International Peace Institute.
[3] The AU Constitutive Act of the African Union, OAU, ‘Decision on the Establishment of the African Union and the Pan-African Parliament’, AHG/Dec.143 (XXXVI), Protocol on Amendments to the Constitutive Act of the African Union, available online at http://www.africa–union.org/root/au/Documents/Treaties/treaties.htm (accessed on 11 January 2012).
[4] The AU Peace and Security deliberate on the matter several times where this author have been requested and presented a paper on the same topic to the 284th to AU Peace and Security Council and the Permanent Representatives Committee joint plenary session on the strengthening of the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) of the African Union to improve prevention, management and resolution of the crises emanating from popular uprisings in Africa (in partnership with the Institute for Security Studies -ISS) July 11 2011. This contribution of ISS was recognized by the 18th AU Summit in January 2012; see Report of the Peace and Security Council on its Activities and the State of Peace and Security in Africa, Assembly of the African Union, Eighteenth Ordinary Session, 29-30 January 2012, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Assembly/AU/6(XVIII). For detailed analysis of this topic, see also Mehari Taddele Maru (2012) Rethinking the North African Uprisings, African Union Herald, AU Commission, December 2012, http://www.au.int/SP/auherald/contributors/mehari-taddele-maru (accessed 4 February 2012); Mehari Taddele Maru (2012) The North African Uprisings under the African Union ‘s Normative Framework, Conference on the Implications of North African Uprisings for Sub Saharan Africa, Inter-Africa Group, August 2012, Universal Printing Press, Addis Ababa , 0115157064.
[5] Mehari Taddele Maru (2012) Salient Features of the 18th African Union Summit: Generational Progression Democracy in Africa, available from http://studies.aljazeera.net/en/reports/2012/02/20122111410505510.htm(accessed 4 February 2012).
[6] Makinda, Samuel and Okumu, Wafula. (2010) “The African Union: Challenges of globalization, security and governance”, Global Institutions, Routledge, Tylor and Francis Books. Pp.18-19; Drago, Edmund L. (1978) “American Blacks and Italy's Invasion of Ethiopia” Negro History Bulletin 41, Pp. 883-4; Du Bois, William E.B (1976) The World and Africa. Millwood, N.Y.: Kraus-Thomson Organization; Du Bois, William E.B (1963) “The Pan-African Movement.” In History of the Pan-African Congress: Colonial and Coloured Unity, a Programme of Action, George Padmore (ed), London: Hammersmith Bookshop. PP. 13-26.
[7] Sherwood, Marika (1995) Manchester and the 1945 Pan African Congress, available from www.wcml.org.uk/contents/international/pan-african-congress/ (access 10 January 2013).
[8]The OAU Archeives, Speeches and Statements, Addis Ababa, available http://www.oau-creation.com/Part%20three.htm (accessed 21 October 2011); Saheed A. Adejumobi, “The Pan-African Congress,” in Organizing Black America: An Encyclopedia of African American Associations, Nina Mjagkij, ed. (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 2001). Henry Sylvester-Williams was the leading back intellectual who founded and led PAC.
[9] Du Bois, William E.B (1935) “Inter-Racial Implications of the Ethiopian Crisis” Foreign Affairs 14), Pp. 82-92;
[10] Kinfe, Abrahm (1996) “The Meaning and Pan-African and International Significance of the Adowa Victory”, Adowa Victory Centenary Conference, IES, 26 Feburary-2 March 1996, Addis Ababa.
[11] Ammanuel Abraham (2000) ‘YeHiwete Tizita’, Addis Ababa University Press, Addis Ababa, Pp. 122-127.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ammanuel Abraham (2000) ‘YeHiwete Tizita’, Addis Ababa University Press, Addis Ababa, Pp. 122-127.
[15] Makinda, Samuel and Okumu, Wafula. (2010) “The African Union: Challenges of globalization, security and governance”, Global Institutions, Routledge, Tylor and Francis Books. Pp. 21-22.
[16] His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I, Speech to the African Summit, speech May 26, 1963, available from http://www.black-king.net/haile%20selassie%2006e.htm (9 November 2012).
[17] Emperor Haile Sellasie, Africa’s Independence Day, speech April, 1963. OAU, OAU Charter, 25 May 1963, available from http://www.au.int/en/content/oau-charter-addis-ababa-25-may-1963 (accessed 01 May 2013)
[18] Ibid.
[19] Ibid.
[20] Wodajo, Kifle (1964) “Pan-Africanism: the Evolution of an Idea”, Ethiopia Observer, Vol. 8, Issue 2, Pp. 166-172; Kinfe, Abrahm (1996) “The Meaning and Pan-African and International Significance of the Adowa Victory”, Adowa Victory Centenary Conference, IES, 26 Feburary-2 March 1996, Addis Ababa.
[21] Makinda, Samuel and Okumu, Wafula. (2010) “The African Union: Challenges of globalization, security and governance”, Global Institutions, Routledge, Tylor and Francis Books. Pp.23.
[22] His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I, Speech to the African Summit, speech May 26, 1963, available from http://www.black-king.net/haile%20selassie%2006e.htm (9 November 2012).
[23] Henry Kissinger (1994) Diplomacy, Simon and Schuster, New York, Pp. 638-639.
[24] Makinda, Samuel and Okumu, Wafula. (2010) “The African Union: Challenges of globalization, security and governance”, Global Institutions, Routledge, Tylor and Francis Books. Pp.79-83.
[25] Ibid.
[26]Mehari Taddele Maru (2008) The Future of Somalia’s Legal System and Its Contribution to Peace and Development, Journal of Peace Building and Development, Vol. 4, No. 1, Centre for Global Peace, American University, http://pascal.library.american.edu:8083/ojs/index.php/jpd/article/view/109/117(accessed 12 March 2011).
[27] Mehari Taddele Maru (2011), ‘The Kampala Convention and Its Contribution to International Law’, Journal of Internal Displacement, Volume 1, No. 1, also available from http://journalinternaldisplacement.webs.com/announcements.htm(accessed 28 November 2011).
[28]ibid.
[29] African Union Summit, Transition from the OAU to the African Union (noting that the purpose of the Extraordinary Session entitled “Strengthening OAU Capacity to Enable It To Meet the Challenges of the New Millennium” was to amend the OAU Charter to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the OAU), available at http://www.au2002.gov.za/docs/background/oau_to_au.htm (last visited August 11, 2002).
[30] African Union Summit, Transition from the OAU to the African Union, available at http://www.au2002.gov.za/docs/background/oau_to_au.htm (last visited August 11, 2002).
[31] The AU, its mandates and institutions are discussed in detail in the Chapters Three and Four.
[32] Article 4(h) of the Constitutive Act stipulates “the right of the Union to intervene in a Member State pursuant to a decision of the Assembly in respect of grave circumstances, namely war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity” and Article 4 (j) which states the “the right of Member States to request intervention from the Union in order to restore peace and security.” These formulations are put as a ‘right’ not an “obligation”. Nonetheless, they are conceived rather as duty of the AU and member states when grave circumstances prevail in another member state.
[33] The AU Constitutive Act of the African Union, OAU, ‘Decision on the Establishment of the African Union and the Pan-African Parliament’, AHG/Dec.143 (XXXVI).
[34] African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights (ACHPR), ‘Resolution on Strengthening the Responsibility to Protect in Africa’, (ACHPR, Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, 28 November 2007), ACHPR/Res.117 (XXXXII) 07.
[35] See Mehari Taddele Maru (2011), ‘The Kampala Convention and Its Contribution to International Law’, Journal of Internal Displacement, Volume 1, No. 1, also available from http://journalinternaldisplacement.webs.com/announcements.htm(accessed 28 November 2011).
[36] For detailed discussion see Mehari Taddele Maru (2012), “On unconstitutional changes of governments: the case of the National Transitional Council of Libya”; African Security Review, 21:1, 67-73; http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10246029.2011.639189 (accessed 24 February 2012) or http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10246029.2011.639189 (accessed 10 March 2012).
[37] Organisation of African Unity, Assembly of Heads of State and Government, Lomé Declaration of July 2000 on the framework for an OAU response to unconstitutional changes of government (AHG/Decl.5 (XXXVI), 36th ordinary session held in Lomé, Togo,
10–12 July 2000, http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/compilation_democracy/lomedec.htm (accessed 12 December 2011); African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance, Assembly/AU/Dec.147(VIII), Adopted by the eighth ordinary session of the Assembly, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 30 January 2007, http://www.au.int/en/sites/default/files/AFRICAN_CHARTER_ON_DEMOCRACY_ELECTIONS_AND_GOVERNANCE.pdf (accessed 07 January 2012). This charter entered into effect in January 2012.
[37]ibid.
[38]Mehari Taddele Maru (2012) Salient Features of the 18th African Union Summit: Generational Progression
Democracy in Africa, available from http://studies.aljazeera.net/en/reports/2012/02/20122111410505510.htm(accessed 4 February 2012).
[39] Makinda, Samuel and Okumu, Wafula. (2010) “The African Union: Challenges of globalization, security and governance”, Global Institutions, Routledge, Tylor and Francis Books. Pp.79-83.
[40] Gay, John (2003) Development as Freedom: A Virtuous Circle? Afrobarometer Paper No. 29, Pp. 12.
[41] Gay, John (2003) Development as Freedom: A Virtuous Circle? Afrobarometer Paper No. 29, Pp. 5-7.
[42] Gay, John (2003) Development as Freedom: A Virtuous Circle? Afrobarometer Paper No. 29, Pp. 12.
[43] Extraordinary Session of the Assembly of the Union on the State of Peace and Security in Africa, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 25 May 2011, Ext/Assembly/Au/Dec/ (01.2011), Decision of the Peaceful Resolution of The Libyan Crisis, Enhancing Africa’s Leadership, Promoting African Solutions, Ext/Assembly/Au/Dec/(01.2011).; PSC 261st Meeting, Communiqué on Situation in Libya, PSC/PR/COMM(CCLXI), 23 February 2011, and Statement from the Chairperson of the AU Commission, 23 February 2011.
[44] African Union, Communiqué of the Meeting of The AU High‐Level Ad Hoc Committee on Libya, Nouakchott, Islamic Republic of Mauritania, 19 March 2011. Report of the Chairperson of the AU Commission on the Activities of the AU High-Level Ad Hoc Committee on the Situation in Libya, PSC 275th Meeting, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 26 April 2011, PRC/PR/2(CCLXXV).
[45] Weissman, Stephen, “In Syria, Unlearned Lessons from Libya”, April 19, 2013, In These Times, available http://inthesetimes.com/article/14898/in_syria_unlearned_lessons_from_libya/ (accessed 1 May 2013); For details see, Maru, Mehari and Derso, Solomon (2013) “The North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s Intervention in Libya and its Political and Legal Implications for the Peace and Security Architecture of the African Union: A View from Africa”, AU and NATO Relations: Implications and Prospects, NATO Defense College, NDC Forum Papers Series; Opinion adopted and approved in plenary meeting of the African Union Commission on International Law, Addis Ababa, May 12, 2011, 17H45mn; Robert Booth, Libya: Coalition bombing may be in breach of legal limits, The Guardian (28 March 2011), available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/28/libya-bombing-un-resolution-law; S.C. Res. 1973, U.N. Doc. S/RES/1973 (Mar. 17, 2011). It was adopted by a vote of ten in favour, none against, and five abstentions: permanent members China and the Russian Federation, plus non-permanent members Brazil, Germany, and India.
[46] Report of the Joint Meeting of the Advisory Sub-Committee On Administrative and Budgetary Matters and Sub Committee on Programmes and Conferences Report of the Advisory Sub-Committee on Administrative, Budgetary and Financial Matters, Executive Council, Twenty-First Ordinary Session, 9 – 13 July 2012, Addis Ababa, ETHIOPIA EX.CL/720(XXI)i.
[47] ibid
[48] Ibid.
[49] Ibid
[50] Decision on the Budget of the African Union, for the 2013 Financial Year, Doc. EX.CL/721(XXI), the Assembly, Assembly of the Union, Nineteenth Ordinary Session 15 - 16 July 2012, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
[51] Decision on the Budget of the African Union, for the 2013 Financial Year, Doc. EX.CL/721(XXI), the Assembly, Assembly of the Union, Nineteenth Ordinary Session 15 - 16 July 2012, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
[52] Report of the Joint Meeting of the Advisory Sub-Committee On Administrative and Budgetary Matters and Sub Committee on Programmes and Conferences Report of the Advisory Sub-Committee on Administrative, Budgetary and Financial Matters, Executive Council, Twenty-First Ordinary Session, 9 – 13 July 2012, Addis Ababa, ETHIOPIA EX.CL/720(XXI)i.
[53] Report of the Joint Meeting of the Advisory Sub-Committee On Administrative and Budgetary Matters and Sub Committee on Programmes and Conferences Report of the Advisory Sub-Committee on Administrative, Budgetary and Financial Matters, Executive Council, Twenty-First Ordinary Session, 9 – 13 July 2012, Addis Ababa, ETHIOPIA EX.CL/720(XXI)i.
[54] Decision on the Budget of the African Union, for the 2013 Financial Year, Doc. EX.CL/721(XXI), the Assembly, Assembly of the Union, Nineteenth Ordinary Session 15 - 16 July 2012, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
[55] Decision on the Budget of the African Union, for the 2013 Financial Year, Doc. EX.CL/721(XXI), the Assembly, Assembly of the Union, Nineteenth Ordinary Session 15 - 16 July 2012, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
[56] Report of the Joint Meeting of the Advisory Sub-Committee On Administrative and Budgetary Matters and Sub Committee on Programmes and Conferences Report of the Advisory Sub-Committee on Administrative, Budgetary and Financial Matters, Executive Council, Twenty-First Ordinary Session, 9 – 13 July 2012, Addis Ababa, ETHIOPIA EX.CL/720(XXI)i.
[57] Report of The 3rd Ordinary Session of the Executive Council on the Proposed Structure, Human Resource Requirements And Conditions Of Service For The Staff of the Commission of the African Union and their Financial Implications, EXECUTIVE COUNCIL, Third Ordinary Session 4 – 8 July 2003, Maputo, MOZAMBIQUE, EX/CL/Dec.34 (III), Assembly/AU/Dec.22, Doc. EX/CL/39 (III).
[58] Report of the Joint Meeting of the Advisory Sub-Committee On Administrative and Budgetary Matters and Sub Committee on Programmes and Conferences Report of the Advisory Sub-Committee on Administrative, Budgetary and Financial Matters, Executive Council, Twenty-First Ordinary Session, 9 – 13 July 2012, Addis Ababa, ETHIOPIA EX.CL/720(XXI)i.
[59] Art. 2 Statutes of the Commission of the African Union (2002)
[60] Ibid.
[63] Ibid.
[62] Ibid.
The African Union at 50: Missed opportunities and lessons for the future
Yves Niyiragira
2013-05-23
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/87500
On 25 May 2013 Africa will remember 50 years of the establishment of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was replaced by the African Union (AU) in 2002. While there are various opinions as to whether the OAU/AU realised the vision of unity among Africans that founders of the continental organisation sought to achieve, there is no doubt that Africa does not need more five decades to learn from past mistakes.
At the 25 May 1963 founding summit of the OAU in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, it was clear that the driving force behind the then African leaders was to ‘liberate all African people’ and form effective solidarity among them. Leaders such as Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah and Algeria’s Ahmed Ben Bella and their supporters, the so-called Casablanca group, wanted immediate unification of all African people and the elimination of all tariffs and boarders (The Africa Report, May 2013). The golden opportunity to start the unification process was lost when opponents of the Casablanca group, under the so-called Monrovia camp, took the day with their proposal of a much looser organisation that would not prevent them from maintaining stronger ties with their former colonial masters.
Even though Africa failed to take the route of a stronger federation at the OAU founding summit, there have still been numerous opportunities over the last fifty years to come back to the right path. Unfortunately, Africa is not yet unified; it is a continent of fifty-five artificial entities, not nations, some of which ought not to have been called countries in the first place according to some commentators.
This article argues that leaders of post-independent Africa as well as their successors failed to realise the aspirations and hopes of self-determination and unity that African people had at decolonisation. Those dreams died in May 1963. While recognising that the end of colonisation and South Africa’s apartheid were strong steps towards African unity, the lack of political will has since prevented Africans from being united. This article proposes five basic but important steps that AU member states need to take now without waiting another 50 years for Africans to be on the path to full integration.
The Casablanca-Monrovia divisions did not end at the 1963 summit. Barely three years after the establishment of the OAU, a military coup overthrew President Kwame Nkrumah, thus weakening the pro-unification camp. Splits among OAU leaders were further deepened by proxy wars between the United States of America and the former Soviet Union during the years of the Cold War. For instance, in the mid seventies AOU leaders could not agree on which liberation movement to support in Angola out of União Nacional Para a Independência Total de Angola, Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola and Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola. In 1984, when the OAU recognised the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, Morocco, one of the strongest supporters of federalism, left the organisation. Until now, it has not yet rejoined the continental institution.
Furthermore, another attempt to revive talks on the establishment of a Government of Union at the 2007 AU summit in Accra, Ghana, did not achieve any results. Those supporting an immediate federal government of Africa and those favouring a gradual integration process through the strengthening of regional economic communities could not agree on a decisive solution. AU leaders contented themselves with a recommendation to transform the secretariat of the AU, the African Union Commission, into a more powerful secretariat, the African Union Authority, but that proposal has since then been forgotten.
Apart from those divisions at the continental level, this half-century of the OAU’s existence was also marred with regional divisions that made continental integration just a far-sighted dream. For instance, the conflict between North and South Sudan continued, over the decades, without any solutions from African leaders. Even after the independence of South Sudan in July 2011, there are still thorny issues between the two countries that also continue to divide opinions among African leaders. The 1996 conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo is another example of how Africa did not show any signs of walking towards the path of continental integration. In that conflict, more than 11 African countries were involved and fighting in two opposing camps. The war in the Democratic Republic of Congo is far from being resolved.
African leaders have also failed to agree on principles and values that would govern the united Africa that all Africans aspire to see. While there are over 42 charters, conventions and protocols that OAU/AU member states adopted, the implementation of these legal instruments is largely slow or non-existent. Sadly, these instruments outline guidelines, values and principles that ought to characterise a continent for the people and by the people.
It would be very deplorable for African people if this 50th anniversary did not provide an opportunity for the whole continent to learn from our past mistakes and embark on an integration trajectory without waiting for 2063 to realise what many independent movements fought for across the continent five decades ago. There are five steps that African leaders can take now and not in the next 50 years.
First, Africans should be able to finance all activities of the African Union. It is an illusion to say that we are independent countries while the institution that is supposed to foster our integration is still financed by our former colonisers and their allies. The African continent has enough resources to finance our integration process; we only need to know our priorities. It is hard to comprehend how a continent that will soon have a population of one billion people is unable to finance its integration process. The same applies to individual AU member states when it comes to financial independence. Political independence is incomplete without financial independence.
The second step is to resolve issues around land and natural resources. According to Sam Moyo’s The Land Question in Africa: Research Perspectives and Questions, civil wars, inter-country conflicts, migration and involuntary displacements are only symptoms of increasing land disputes involving direct confrontation over access to key natural resources by both domestic and external capitalist forces. It will be impossible for Africa to unite if there are still conflicts over land and other natural resources in many AU members. The AU has developed a number of instruments, such as the African Convention on the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources and the Land Policy in Africa: a Framework to Strengthen Land Rights, Enhance Productivity and Secure Livelihoods, that, if well implemented by member states, could significantly reduce conflicts on the continent. African leaders should be brave enough to tackle these problems, many of which go back to colonial times.
Thirdly, AU member states need to give teeth to the African Court on Human and People’s Rights. The African Court on Human and People’s Rights was established in June 1998 as a continental mechanism to ensure protection of human and people’s rights in Africa. The lack of adequate funding from African countries denies Africans from having a legal framework that understands their contexts and that can promote and protect their rights and those of their communities. Lack of funding and political will from AU member states further prevent the continent from ending the bad culture of impunity. The performance of the African Court on Human and People’s Rights over the last 15 years also demonstrates the challenges that the continent still has in bringing about justice and reconciliation among African people.
A fourth step towards the realisation of the aspirations and hopes of the African people is to stop adopting more charters and conventions and instead recommit to concentrating on genuine implementation processes. The idea of financial independence is critical in this case as well because many AU legal instruments and policies do not only require political will, but also financial means. A relook at our priorities can solve this challenge of slow or lack of implementation.
The fifth step that this article proposes is to allow free movement of people and goods. Millions and millions of Africans wonder why an African cannot freely move from one corner of the continent to another one while some non-Africans have the freedom to do so. Ordinary Africans will not understand the real meaning of a union of African states if there are still these unsubstantiated restrictions to movement of people and goods. Some may argue that some travellers may be a security threat or may bring social burdens to nationals of the host state, but all these are excuses to preventing Africans from achieving unity.
African leaders will not just wake up one day and start implementing the above-proposed steps; African citizens need to consistently remind them to do so. One of the major shifts between the AOU and AU is that the latter calls for people’s participation in the affairs of the union. In the Constitutive Act of the African Union, African leaders acknowledged that a united and strong Africa needs partnerships between governments and all segments of civil society including women, youth, and the private sector, among others (Organisation of African Unity, 2000). Every African citizen has a role to play in making sure that Africa is strong and united. Now the question is, ‘What can you do and what will you do for Africa?’
In conclusion, what Africa needs now is the passion and dedication that leaders such as Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser and Guinea’s Ahmed Sékou Touré, among others, had for Africa’s unity. These leaders need to be visionaries and avoid petty national politics that are based on hatred, negative ethnicity, regionalism, nepotism and greed among other evils that prevent them from seeing the bigger picture. As President Kwame Nkrumah said, ‘Africa must unite’, and this cannot wait until 2063.
*Yves Niyiragira is Programme Manager at Fahamu. The views in this article do not represent those of Fahamu; they are solely those of the author.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Moyo, Sam (2003), ‘The Land Question in Africa: Research Perspectives and Questions, CODESRIA: Dakar
Organisation of African Unity (1998), Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Establishment of an African Court on Human and People’s Rights, June, Burkina Faso
Organisation of African Unity, (2000), Constitutive Act of the African Union, adopted by the thirty-sixth ordinary session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government, 11 July, Lome, Togo
Smith, Patrick and Jobson, Elissa, (2013), ‘African Union at 50: Ending Dependency’, in The Africa Report, Groupe Jeune Afrique, pp. 22-30
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Pan-Africanism and African renaissance
More questions than answers as the African Union celebrates 50 years
Antony Otieno Ong’ayo
2013-05-22
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/87490
INTRODUCTION
The African Union is going to celebrate its 50 years of existence in May 2013 and its Assembly has adopted the theme of the 2013 Summit as ‘Pan-Africanism and African Renaissance’. This celebration is underpinned by the collective African aspirations namely protection of their civilisation, emancipation of the African people to fend off slave conditions, racism and colonialism among other historical injustices that were meted on the continent by global powers. However, the focus of the African Union has shifted from its original goal of 1963, and instead it currently focuses on Africas’ development and integration.
With this shift, the questions that come to mind relate to the AU achievements as a continental body that was expected to uphold the aspirations of the African people through political, economic and social integration. The tenets of Pan-Africanism are its call for African unity both as a continent and a people. It also advocates for political and economic independence and cooperation, as well as cultural integration. In the eyes of many in Africa, the continental body has been expected to promote African identity and facilitate regional integration that would catapult the member states to a relative state of development and prosperity. As captured in its vision, the African Union was envisioned as an institution that would promote an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, driven by its own citizens and representing a dynamic force in global arena.
The idea of Pan-Africanism as a noble and timely call gained root with the founding of the African Association in London in 1897, and the first Pan-African conference in London in 1900. Among significant Pan-Africanists in the diaspora included personalities such as JE Casely Hayford, Henry Sylvester Williams, Martin Robinson Delany, and Marcus Garvey. Also influential in expansion of the idea of Pan-Africanism were scholars such as WEB Du Bois, George Padmore, Frantz Fanon, Isaac Wallace-Johnson, Aimé Césaire, Paul Robeson, Walter Rodney and CLR James. In the continent, eminent persons such as Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Mwalimu Nyerere of Tanzania, Sékou Ahmed Touré, Ahmed Ben Bella, Amilcar Cabral, and Patrice Lumumba represented the ideology and spirit of the movement. Compared to the eminent persons in the early periods of Pan-Africanism, contemporary African leaders have largely paid lip service to the ideology and spirit.
Despite being well placed to articulate the Pan-African agenda through their rotational chairmanship of the continental body, majority of African presidents have been busy with self-preservation and less on initiatives that promote regional and continental integration. Such performance at the continental level has reduced the African Union to a talking shop rather than a serious institution that could facilitate the leveraging of the developmental potentials of the continent through its diversity, resources and strategic position in the global order. In the context of such gaps in visionary and inspiring leadership at the heads of state level, the more pertinent questions are to what extent has the African Union guided the continent towards achieving Pan-Africanism and African Renaissance? What is the continent actually celebrating? Looking at the continent from East to West and South to North, what can be noted as a significant change within the continent over the past 50 years?
TRACING THE STEPS
Although Africa is making significant strides in terms of economic development, with some countries registering economic growth above 6 per cent, situations of instability, poverty, civil war, ethnic violence, electoral theft and violence, impunity, human rights violations, crimes against humanity against own citizens, disaster unpreparedness, and stubbornness of some leaders to discard dictatorial tendencies continue to undermine these milestones. While in many parts of the world, societies are increasingly recognising the importance of political stability and democracy as an underpinning for societal development, the African continent is still bogged down by instability in a number of regions.
From a political perspective, quite a significant number of African countries claim some form of ‘independence’ from their former colonial masters. The experiences in specific African country contexts suggest that the reasons for different struggles for independence have not changed despite the shift in leadership from colonial masters to African leaders. In what has been descried as a form of ‘neo-colonialism’, the contemporary Africa leadership has not had a mental or ethical re-calibration in terms of how the treat their own citizens, the society and public goods. Elite-capture of the state institutions, stomach philosophy, patronage, political corruption, nepotism and tribalism in public service and abuse of state power and resources or what is referred in the Kenyan everyday parlance as ‘our turn to eat’ and impunity remain the hallmarks of many governments in Africa. The government is never a government of the people, but belongs to the tribe of the leader. Long term perspective of governance for the sake of the common good, sustainability, regeneration, and innovation are rare concepts to most contemporary African leaders, hence, they tend to be reactionary to situations (both domestic and global) because most of the planning is informed by acts of political expediency and less by the fundamentals of politics and political ideologies.
Fifty years on, many Africans still dream of basic services such as clean drinking water, schools, medical care, basic infrastructure, decent housing and dignified living. Many communities in Africa continue to live under one dollar a day with the main sources of livelihood threatened by policies of their own governments. Despite the abundance of natural resources, large populations of Africans continue to live in poverty due to mismanagement of national resources and imbalanced allocation of resources and development inputs. Over the past two decades a wave of democratisation has been sweeping different regions of the continent with resultant features such as transitions from one party dictatorship to multiparty democracy. Additionally, the continent has seen efforts and a shift towards new constitutional dispensation. There are nevertheless some cases where octagorians rule and expanded terms of office are features of leadership that have stubbornly refused to die.
In terms of political stability, the continent still experiences bouts of coup d’états, civil wars and revolution-driven transformations taking place in North Africa through the ‘Arab Spring,’ to the latest developments of rebel take-overs in the Central African Republic and Mali. With these unending conflagrations, the African Union has many questions to think about as it celebrates its 50 years of existence.
The latest ailment, which seems to be taking root in the relatively stable countries, is the inability to hold credible elections. Over the past decade, significant trajectories have been noted in the case of Southern Africa countries such as South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, Malawi, and Namibia. Other notable examples of efforts to remove the shackles of bad governance and transition towards democracy and the rue of law in recent years include Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Liberia in West Africa. While in the East and Horn of Africa Uganda and Ethiopia exhibit engrained symptoms of allergy to credible elections with a tendency to uphold the status quo through authoritarian tendencies. Although uniquely making strides towards unprecedented economic growth in their respective regions, Ghana and Kenya represent cases where elite interests are increasingly holding hostage the electoral systems thereby threatening the democratic consolidation and people’s belief in peaceful elections and political transition through the ballot.
Kenya’s case offers a worst scenario in the sense that elite interest and impunity have converged to maintain the status quo regardless of the consequences for national stability. While the country made significant gains through experimentation with various types of government structures, the democratic gains made over the past 20 years are currently much more vulnerable than 30 years ago. These examples point to the challenges that the African Union faces as a continental body that represent an amalgamation of diverse countries with very different socio-economic, cultural, language and political orientation. These internal dynamics and contradictions therefore have implications for any continental level initiative towards integration.
Unless the African Union begins to confront these factors instead of buttressing the leaders that perpetuate such retrogressive tendencies, the notion of African integration will remain an illusion for many years to come. From a political economy perspective, realities in many Africa countries expose the inconvenient truth that political and economic marginalisation, negative ethnicity and unequal distribution of national resources are the most significant obstacles to integration right from within the individual nation states in Africa. The inward looking attitude, which is informed by experiences that were gained from the divide and rule logic during the colonial era continues to hold many African governments hostage. For these reasons, the leadership and governance system is not focused on the well being of the entire nation but sections with which they have primordial affinities.
INTEGRATED, PROSPEROUS AND PEACEFUL AFRICA? DRIVEN BY ITS OWN CITIZENS?
An integrated continent where there is peace and prosperity and is driven by citizens, is a dream that is realisable but looking at the track record of the various regional corporations (RECs) and the African Union in particular, serious questions have to be addressed even if the African leadership is in a party mood. The aspirations of many Africans to see some form of African Renaissance are as old as the African Union itself. In the continent, eminent persons such as Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Mwalimu Nyerere of Tanzania, Sékou Ahmed Touré, Ahmed Ben Bella, Amilcar Cabral, and Patrice Lumumba represented the spirit. These personalities represented an African leadership with unique sense of the collective well being of the continent. It was composed of a calibre of people whose grasp of leadership was on the one hand informed by a world-view that captured both the authentic African perspectives on leading a people through phases of transition and development that is inclusive. One the other hand, they had a good grasp of the reality of the interconnectedness between Africa and other regions in the world and the mutuality of such relations. Unfortunately, these leaders did not live long enough to continue with the inspiration work that was necessary at the time. Moreover, such views as inclusiveness and equity, respect and mutuality in socio-economic relations were contrary to the dominant world powers of the time, hence this breed of leaders could not stay long enough to nature the Pan-African spirit and propagate the ideology and implement its agenda.
The spirit of Pan-Africanism thus helped to galvanise the political will as illustrated by the role of Nkrumah, Nyerere and Abdel Nasser in supporting the liberation struggle many African countries. These were leaders that had passionate commitment and involvement, through material and moral support to countries that were still under colonial yokes and apartheid regimes. Today, Africa requires leaders who will do away with dictatorships and civil wars, but also respect human rights, and speed-up the process of economic renewal through progressive social and economic policies. At the continental level, Africa requires new breed of leaders with a vision for the continent in the 21st century and beyond. It needs leaders that are focused on democratic practices and societal transformation, prosperity, equity, sustainability, posterity and legacy. These conscience-pricking realities are some of the factors that hinder continental integration. With unresolved internal contradictions in many countries where democratic governance and equity still remains a pipe dream any talk of integration at the continental level will remain a lip service as far as the expected role of the AU is concerned.
CELEBRATION AS CATALYST FOR MOBILISATION OF AFRICANS
The celebration of African Unions’ 50 years of existence in 2013 comes at a critical moment in world history. First, it exposes the level of self-awareness in the African psyche with regards to its position in the world from a human development perspective. Different regions of the world have been experiencing human development within trajectories that are diverse. Nevertheless, there are fundamental issues that transcend continents and countries. The human rights as stipulated in the UN charter and the just ending millennium development goals for instance, have been critical indicators of human development and have cited as benchmarks for societal transformation. Taking these as the first lot of reflection points, the forthcoming celebration could be used as a moment to reflect on and take stock of where Africa has come from, where it is in the 21st century and where it is going. The celebrations and activities that are planed in Addis Ababa and other African capitals could provide the much-needed platforms to engage in a continental-wide debate and discourse on what ailments inform the stubborn stagnation in Africa. Honest discussions around this theme and acknowledgement of the self-generated commissions and omissions could lay the path for a critical discourse and inspiration of new generation of leaders to re-direct the continent on the right track that could eventually lead to socio-economic and political integration and development.
Establishing a dynamic force in the global arena cannot be achieved through the Africans in the continent alone, but also the participation of Africans in the diaspora. For this reason, there is the need to revisit the original Pan-Africanism belief ‘that African peoples, both on the continent and in the diaspora, share not merely a common history, but a common destiny’. This fundamental belief recognizes and acknowledges the developmental potentials of Africans in the diaspora. This group of Africans have developed enormous capacities through their diasporic experiences and are better placed to act as bridge builders and interlocutors at the regional and global levels. They not only act out of self interests, but evidence from many African countries suggest that diasporas are engaged in the local development processes in the countries of origin and in some cases, act as the backbone of the economy through financial transfers and social remittances.
SEARCHING FOR CONSTRUCTIVE ENERGY TO ACCELERATE A FORWARD-LOOKING AGENDA
Looking for continental-wide synergies that could propel African renaissance in the 21st century ought to entail a serious decision to look inside and the political will to do so. That is a conscious decision to re-examine the notion of Pan-Africanism from a personality, cultural, social economic and political perspective, and the patterns and processes of African interaction with the rest of the world and how Africans adapt to the external influences. In the foregoing, it is imperative to engage in honest discussions about the socio-economic problems in Africa and how progressive political, economic and social policies, and significant capital investment could be made to address these conditions. These factors play an important role in the self-definition and finding a place in society hence, any move to facilitate integration must address the socio-economic dimensions of the integration as the basis for introducing other dimensions of the envisioned continental integration. A forward-looking agenda also needs to learn from experiences elsewhere.
The European Union is an example of complex institutional, socio-cultural, linguistics, economic, and political institutional configurations that has been a work in progress over the past 50 years. The process of integration in Europe has been incremental, based on fundamental building blocks that address the collective interests of all Europeans. The emphasis on the well being of the Europeans has played a very fundamental role in the acceptability of the EU institutions and their decisions. Consequently, the framework for participation and legitimatization of EU institutions and policies has given the citizens the incentives for contributing to the integration process at member state levels.
Once again, the issue of self-awareness and mindset in Africa has to be at the centre of the debate because the African identity at the nation-state level is highly contested in many countries. Hence seeking an all-inclusive identity at the continental level would require much more than signatures on declarations. The AU must address the questions of identity and belongingness, what are the benefits of belonging, what are the rights and obligations. But most important, how to address such fundamental issues as livelihoods within the envisioned entity? Will members be safe, free, enjoy their fundamental rights and realise their life dreams in an integrated African? These questions require a re-think and vigorous debate about how to balance the African culture in relation to local social conditions and exotic influences from the west. It calls for a re-examination of the ‘African psyche’ in the 21st century in order to recalibrate the psychological orientation that enhances self-worth in an African. It is not possible to realise a state of reawakening in the context of a deprived self-worth, destroyed self-belief and lack of self-appreciation as an individual and collectively as a society. Africa requires more than ever, endeavours towards developing strategies for dealing with the impact of intense globalisation which brings along such characteristics as socio-cultural particularism and Western individualism, and the neo-liberal economic policies that tend to increase both individual and collective vulnerabilities in Africa. Such dynamics thus provide the impetus for a re-examination of conscience among Africans in order to rediscover who they are, independence from their assimilated or blindly copied Western values, as well as in their ways of thinking and behaving.
These realities point to the challenges for integration in Africa since the internal contradictions that are inherent in the contemporary ‘African identity’ and everyday life holds them hostage from freethinking, and development of a conscience that is reflective of the true self. Likewise, the contradictions within the member states also pose challenges to finding convergences and integration due to the likely spill over of the national level undemocratic tendencies to the continental level. Moreover, due to tendency of African leadership to divide and rule their own populations, many countries tend to find divergences rather than convergences. Over the past four decades it is evident that majority of African leaders prosper in disorder hence a more structured way for finding commonalities seem to posse a threat to their very existence which is based on shallow if not non-existent philosophical underpinnings for being in leadership.
These traits eventually spill over from the national contexts to the regional and continental levels, thereby causing more disintegration rather than integration. With such an outcome, the AU will remain a divided house. As the saying goes, ‘a divided house cannot stand’. This is most serious when that house is poor, malnourished, deprived, oppressed, illiterate and in constant conflict with itself. Such a weak house cannot withstand pressures or defend itself from detrimental external intrusions. The Pan-Africanism philosophy calls for the need to return to ‘traditional’ African concepts about culture, society, and values. However, Africans have to acknowledge that Africa does not exist in vacuum. The impact of globalisation is not selective hence, developing capacities to deal with externalities that come along with globalization and its localized versions is one of the issues that has to be incorporated in the Pan-African discourse. Moreover, cultures are not static, hence it is also imperative to re-think what values to retain, which ones to reform, which ones to discard and which ones to adopt in ways that do not undermine the very essence of African identity and self-worth. Approaching other cultures in a stopping position is what will continue to entrench the imbalanced African relationship with the rest of the world from a social, cultural, economic and political perspective.
Although noted at the AU level, that the realization of the Pan-African objective would lead to ‘power consolidation in Africa’ and ‘compel a reallocation of global resources’, Africa cannot have a political or economic clout unless it addresses the fundamental issue that affects its population across member states. The power of a nation derives from the investment it makes on its people, that is, the human capital and subsequent capacities that are developed by individuals in the form of innovation, creativity and ingenuity. Within an environment of freedom and access to basics of life, individuals begin to dream and it is the nation that benefits from the realization of such dreams. At the continental level, the African Union can only realize its objectives if the member states have realized theirs or agree to look for convergences, build on their strengths, and seek to minimize the effects of their weaker sides through collective initiatives and incremental integration process. But most important, the African people will most likely to contribute to the transformation of the continent if they have the necessary capacities, developed within the environments that the leadership in specific country contexts are able to create. The African people have to see tangible outcomes of policies for them to believe in the political institutions, systems and processes. Their full participation is also possible only if there are frameworks and mechanisms for their involvement, which starts at the nation-state level and systematically, linked to the continental processes. Such an approach would rekindle the Pan-Africanism call for ‘collective self-reliance’ that is underpinned by both governmental and grass root initiatives as advocated by Pan-African leaders, such as Kwame Nkrumah, Marcus Garvey and W. E. B. Du Bois.
* Antony Otieno Ong’ayo is a PhD researcher at the International Development Studies, Human Geography Department, and Faculty of Geosciences in Utrecht University
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Where is Nkrumah’s United States of Africa 50 years on?
Samwin Banienuba
2013-05-22
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/87489
To survive and compete with clout in a rather realist and emulous world Africa has little choice but to unite. It is home truth and a verdict very few political and economic analysts disagree with. For the Pan-Africanist, African unity is much more than plain common sense, it is an article of faith informed by acute intellect and driven by home-grown ideological fervour.
It has always been the Pan-African gospel, espoused by those convinced, that African people are one nation and that Africa is better served united than balkanised along same old colonial and arbitrary dividing lines. ‘We all want a united Africa, united not only in our concept of what unity connotes, but united in our common desire to move forward together’ was how Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah of blessed memory summed up this Pan-African gospel of African unity whilst attending that historic summit in Ethiopia where the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was given birth to in May 1963 to breathe oxygen into the unity momentum.
In early 1960s, African unity really provoked quantum passion and flurry of propositions throughout Africa even as the newly independent countries were euphoric of national independence and liked to parade their sovereign pride in national flags, anthems, coats of arms and motorcades. For a continent that was emerging from colonial exploitation replete with deprivation and non-infrastructural and institutional development Nkrumah and his radical Casablanca bloc were the most compelling against the status quo.
The only bright future Nkrumah envisioned in Africa was one in which the entire continent agreed to a common market, a single currency, an African Central bank, a common foreign policy, a common defence system and a common citizenship amongst others. Anything short of the above was a recipe for further exploitation, decadence and a futureless people with hardly any potential for appreciable development.
Unable to stand up to the self-evident vision boldly and eloquently articulated by Nkrumah, sceptical peers known for their cold feet and back paddling ducked into comfort zones and made a structural case for moderation and gradualism. Known collectively as the Monrovia bloc for their conservative approach to unity, they won as the OAU that was established as a result fell far short of the United States of Africa Nkrumah called for, and any potential for unity was seriously eroded by a self-defeatist principle of ‘Non-interference in the internal affairs of Sates.’
And thus, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, one of the organisations’ founding fathers and sterling advocates of the unity cause, would later look back and lament that the OAU was nothing more than a ‘trade union of the African heads-of-state’. Nothing surprising there since the constituent document of the OAU was never a ‘we, the people of Africa’ charter but rather one of ‘we, the Heads of African States and Governments’.
What is probably amazing was Nyereres other admission that Nkrumah had ‘underestimated the degree of suspicion and animosity which his crusading passion had created among a substantial number of his fellow heads of state’ too many of whom had a vested cause in keeping the continent balkanised. This admission came in 1997 when the European Union (EU) was being celebrated as the most successful example of a continental union with such clear benefits the motives of Robert Schuman and other founding fathers have never been suspect, at least not to the extent of deliberately derailing efforts at unity.
Yet, as Africans celebrate Africa Day in 2013 on the 50th anniversary of the OAU, now known as the African Union (AU), the reality of African unity on the ground suggests the gradualist view and those vested interests still hold sway. With the independence of South Sudan in 2011, Africa today is a continent of fifty four sovereign countries, each with profound attachment to individual state nationalism and strict regimes of border controls where Africans are still deemed foreign or even illegal immigrants in African countries other than those of their birth and citizenship.
While an African being labelled an immigrant anywhere in Africa is at odds with a continent that has talked unity for fifty years, the real travesty is the oft report of deportations and/or targeted victimisations of fellow Africans resident in other African countries. Much worse and patently scandalous are ethnocentric complexes of superiority within countries that sometimes degenerate to points of entrenched prejudice or civil conflict. The sum total effect on African unity is one that suggests the AU is some distant project in Addis Ababa far removed from the rights of African people to equal opportunity and dignity and their collective dreams and aspirations to freely move and trade labour, goods, services and capital as in pre-colonial times of old or as in the present coeval EU.
Nonetheless, the continental infrastructure for unity has had its day in the sun too. The sunshine was glorious when in 1994 Africans finally triumphed over apartheid in South Africa. In effect decolonisation remains one of, if not, the greatest achievement of a concerted effort of a continent seeking to free her people from bondage in the land of their forebears. This is no mean record for the OAU. For the AU the admission and eventual acceptance that there is no alternative to development progress and international actorness other than that of the unity blueprint is palpably the most auspicious this far.
The Sirte declaration that enacted the AU adapted a common peacekeeping force, agreed to have an African Central Bank, resolved to work towards achieving a single currency and strive to accelerate economic and political integration. In the area of security alone this new resolve is beginning to yield dividends as the AU is able to synergise resources from amongst member countries to keep the peace in troubled parts of the continent such as Darfur, Somalia and Mali. Finally, albeit still too slowly, the continent is beginning to wake up to the Pan-African aphorism that African problems are best solved by Africans themselves.
But for the AU to be able to cultivate ‘a united Africa, united not only in our concept of what unity connotes, but united in our common desire to move forward together’ it will have to first grow teeth of steel. For that to happen, the constituents of the AU would have to quickly rehearse singing from the same page on international affairs. To achieve this, national governments have to be keenly wary of the divide and rule tactics subjectively employed by external hands such as from former colonial capitals in furtherance of their own national interests. And the poverty gap between countries often cited as a barrier to unity is one of those cause and effect arguments that will not go away until African leaders bite the bullet decisively.
The symbolism of celebrating Africa Day on 25th May every year is certainly laudable but arguably isolated and possibly insufficient in promoting and keeping the Pan-African ideal of unity alive and attractive. The AU has to agree to a curriculum that clarifies and outlines what constitutes Pan-Africanism or African unity, and have it taught in schools and colleges throughout the continent. It should constitute significant criteria in the African Peer Review Mechanism, further to which all African countries that fly their flags at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa should also fly the AU flag everywhere their own national flags are hoisted. This will serve notice of a shared commitment to unity and conjointly give instant visibility to the AU in the eyes of Africans and across the globe through the many African embassies doted all over the world.
Kofi Annan is on record as having said at the AU launch that ‘To build a successful union ... will require great stamina and iron political will.’ It is that great stamina and iron will that will ultimately draw a line between the OAU and the current AU. Hence, governments of the fifty three member countries of the AU will have to concede those reflexes that instinctively inure them to self survival over and above the success of a continental super structure.
And there is no better therapy of eschewing narrow nationalism in favour of progressive African unity than consciously applying will power and selfless leadership to making the resolutions of the Sirte declaration work now. Africa can get there and should get there, not because Nkrumah once said so but because the alternative of failing to unite suggests continued pauperisation of its people and vulnerability of fifty four non-viable countries manifestly expressed in pathetic debility whilst competing among much better positioned international actors in the global arena.
* Samwin Banienuba is the spokesperson for Humanitas Afrika
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How far is the United States of Africa?
Motsoko Pheko
2013-05-22
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/87485
The 50th anniversary of the African Union, the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), is upon the African people this 25th May 2013. Both Organisations were formed with the main objective of ultimately bringing about the United States of Africa.
Why was there to be a United States of Africa? Let me remind by quoting three African leaders on this important subject of deep concern to Pan-Africanists. Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of Ghana wrote, ‘If we [Africa’s people], are to remain free, if we are to enjoy the full benefit of Africa’s resources, we must be united to plan for our total defence and the full exploitation of our material and human means in the full interest of all our people. To go it alone will limit our horizons, curtail our expectations and threaten our liberty.’
In the southern tip of Africa, Prof. Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe, that most feared leader by the apartheid colonialist regime in South Africa who was imprisoned on Robben Island without even a mock trial and under a special law, called ‘Sobukwe Clause’, made to silence him for his Pan-Africanist outlook in politics, until he died, said in April 1959:
‘We regard it as the sacred duty of every African state to strive ceaselessly and energetically for the creation of a United States of Africa from Cape to Cairo and Madagascar to Morocco. The days of small independent countries are gone. Today we have, on one hand, great powerful countries of the world. America and Russia cover huge tracts of land territorially and number millions of people. On the other hand [European] small weak independent countries are beginning to form military and economic federations hence NATO and the European Economic Common Market.’
This Pan Africanist visionary concluded, ‘For the lasting peace of Africa and the solution of economic, social and political problems of the continent, there must be a democratic principle. This means that foreign domination under whatever disguise must be destroyed.’
How justified are the above statements by Nkrumah and Sobukwe today? In July 2OO8, Pope Benedict XVI spoke the truth that has been hidden in Western countries from the world for centuries. The Pope said, ‘Our Western way of life has stripped Africa’s people of their riches and continues to strip them.’
Corroborating this fact, a member of the Scottish Parliament, Mark Ballad, declared, ‘Our relation with Africa is an exploitative one. The West no longer needs standing armies to strip Africa of its resources, because it can do it more effectively with multi-national companies.’
After his initial doubts about the absolute importance of a United States of Africa, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, first President of Tanzania proclaimed, ‘There is no time to waste. We must either unite now or perish. Political independence is only a prelude to a new and more involved struggle for the right to conduct our economic and social affairs, to construct our economic and social affairs, unhampered by crushing humiliating control and interference.’
Informed institutions and learned people outside Africa affirm that the economic power of Africa depends on a United States of Africa. According to the 2006 World Bank Data, if Africa was then a single country, it would have had a total gross income of $978 billion.
In his book, Africa Rising Prof. Vijay Mahajan, former dean of the Indian School of Business at the University of Texas in America has written that the figure of $978 billion for Africa would have placed Africa ahead of India as a total market. He points out that a United States of Africa would show up as the tenth top economy in the world. Only the economies of America, Japan, Germany, Britain, China, France, Italy, Spain and Canada would top Africa. A United States of Africa economy would top that of India which was $906.5 billion in 2006, that of Brazil which was $892.28 billion, Republic of Korea which was $856.6 billion, Russian Federation which was $822.4 billion and Mexico which was $820.3 billion.
This is not surprising to those who are knowledgeable about the enormous riches of Africa which, as Pope Benedict XVI and other justice-loving people have observed, do not benefit Africans at present. Indeed, it was not a joke when Nkrumah told the founders of the OAU that long time ago that, ‘We are today the richest of the continents and yet the poorest of continents. But in unity, our continent could begin to smile in a new era of prosperity and power.’
The West has fed Africa with the myth and poison of ‘Aid.’ African leaders have developed a sickening dependency syndrome on this ‘Aid.’ This ‘Aid’ comes from people who are getting their own riches from Africa. This so-called ‘Aid’ to Africa is in fact a form of the disease called AIDS. It is indeed, the economic Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome inflicted on Africa under the cover of curing its African people of it. This incurable disease is sinking Africa deeper and deeper into foreign debts that compromise African governments and force them to focus on ‘Aid’ from their former colonial masters who underdeveloped Africa through slavery and colonialism in the first instance.
Africans must not present themselves, to the West in particular, as if they are bankrupt debtors with nothing to put on the international table. The West could not have produced its nuclear weapons without Africa’s uranium. Their cars would run dry without oil from Africa. All their industries would grind to a halt without Africa. It is Africa’s exploited raw materials by them, especially minerals, that give these supposed ‘Aid givers’ their riches and their Western ‘first world economy.’
Hear this directly from the horse’s mouth. It is just one example from one of the African countries. Not long ago, an American Senator Jesse Helms reminded his people: ‘South Africa is the source of over 80 percent of American mineral supply and 86 percent of Platinum resources....South Africa has 96 percent of the world’s chrome reserves. As you know, there is no substitute for chrome in our military and industrial manufacturing. Without South African chrome, no engines for modern jet aircraft, cruise missiles or armaments could be built. The United States would be grounded. Our military would be unarmed. Without South African chrome, surgical equipment and utensils could not be produced. Our hospitals and doctors would be helpless.’
Africa has subsidised the economies of Western Europe and America for centuries through its riches and labour at gunpoint. Even in their war against Adolf Hitler, Africa’s riches were simply seized and used in the interest of Europe. The Colonial Secretary of the Belgian government in exile, Godding boasting about this, said ‘During the war, the Congo was able to finance all the expenditure of the Belgian government in exile in London, including the diplomatic service as well as the cost of armed forces in Europe and America...the Belgian gold reserve could be left intact.’
It is this kind of criminal exploitation and looting of African resources by imperialists that Pan-Africanist leaders such as Nkrumah, Lumumba and Sobukwe wanted destroyed. It is dehumanising Africans. No single African country can stop this vile system of economic exploitation of Africa alone. All African countries must stand up together and destroy it. It affects them all. Africa is a house with 54 rooms in it.
When one room catches fire, other rooms are endangered. The problem of Mali, the problem of Somalia, the problem of DRC, the problem of Central African Republic – the problem of any African country is the problem of Africa. It is the problem of brothers and sisters. It is the problem of the African family. You can’t ignore it without being the next to be injured in imperialist agendas such as ‘regime change,’ withdrawal of Western ‘Aid’ or imposition of economic sanctions.
The truth is that when Africans were enslaved or colonised or discriminated against because of their black colour, the perpetrators of these barbaric acts never cared whether you were Congolese, Nigerian, Ghanaian, Azanian, Malawian, Zimbabwean, Motswana, South African or Swazi; they just inflicted their atrocities, whether in Jamaica or America. To not act Pan-Africanly is African suicide.
Why is the African Union failing on the main objective for which it was founded? The United States of Africa cannot be brought about by leaders who are not Pan-Africanists. The propeller of the United States of Africa is Pan-Africanism. The United States of Africa was a Pan-African vision. This vision began many years ago, but was formalised in 1900 in the Diaspora through Pan-Africanists such as Henry Williams Sylvester.
It is Pan-Africanism that from its 5th Pan African Congress in 1945, intensified Africa’s independence movement that destroyed classical colonialism in Africa. It is this Pan-Africanism that must now destroy neo-colonialism, the last stage of imperialism. The essence of neo-colonialism is that the state which is subordinated to a foreign imperialist power has all the outward trappings of international sovereignty. But in reality its economy and foreign policy are controlled by foreign powers. The value of such a state lies in being used to create new economic, social and cultural conditions for its former colonial master. Genuine national independence is more than just flying a country’s flag, having a parliament and a president.
How many such states are members of the African Union? How did some member states of the African Union vote in the Security Council in 2011 for a Resolution that led to the death of Muammar Gaddafi? Libya is today the most bombed African country by NATO and America in their bid to access and control Libyan oil wealth for their own countries.
Of course, leaders who are rulers of South Africa long denounced Africanism and Pan-Africanism as ‘anti-white’ and ‘racist.’ This was in 1955 when white neo-liberals of the pseudo-communist brand imposed on the ANC what they called the ‘Freedom Charter.’ This programme cheated the dispossessed Africans on the return of their land. Today, South Africa is a ‘two nations’ syndrome, one extremely rich and white minority and the other extremely poor and 80 percent African majority.
With regard to the African Union, there are many people who now perceive South Africa as ‘a sub-imperialist’ agent serving the interests of former colonial countries than those of Africa. Statements by its president such as a ‘decisive intervention’ and a ‘standby force,’ on the continent do not allay fears that this is not the American ‘Africom’ under cover to protect the continued Western looting of African raw materials, especially minerals.
This does great harm to the African Union and will hinder its mission to bring about a United States of Africa. The African Union should not have members that hunt with the hunters, but run with the rabbit and making sure that the rabbit is not caught. There has been too much suffering by Africans for their leaders to be untrustworthy in serving African interests truthfully. In South Africa, there are still colonial and apartheid public holidays. But May 25 – Africa Liberation Day, for which the whole Continent sweated blood, there is no room. It is not a statutory public day here. Time does not allow me to continue.
Let me close by reminding all Sons and Daughters of Africa, on this 50th anniversary of the African Union, the words of that shining star of Pan-Africanism, Kwame Nkrumah. A day before the 25th May 1963, he addressed African Heads of State and Government on the formation of the OAU, the predecessor of African Union.
He declared, ‘No sporadic act or pious resolutions can resolve our present problems....As a continent we have emerged into independence in a difficult age with imperialism grown stronger, more ruthless and experienced, and more dangerous in its international associations. Our economic advancement demands the end of colonial and neo-colonial domination of Africa.’
* Dr. Motsoko Pheko is author of The Hidden Side Of South African Politics, Towards Africa’s Authentic Liberation and Land Is Money And Power. He is a former Member of the South African Parliament as well as former Representative of the victims of apartheid and colonialism at the United Nations in New York and at the Un Commission on Human Rights in Geneva.
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Culture and communication as tool of diplomacy
Dele Meiji Fatunla
2013-05-22
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/87487
Amongst the earliest Pan-Africans, the leaders whose dreams and visions ultimately led to the creation of the African Union, there is a conspicuous amount of newspaper founding. Marcus Garvey, leading the Universal Negroes Improvement Association, founded and edited the Negro World; Mohammed Ali Duse founded an international newspaper with an African perspective, the African Times and Orient Review in 1912; in this endeavor Duse was helped by Joseph Casely-Hayford, author of Ethiopia Unbound, and the editor of various African newspapers in the 1800s; equally, leaders like Nnamdi Azikwe, Obafemi Awolowo and the editors of Drum Magazine, publishing defiantly in 1950s South Africa, used newspapers and media more broadly to disseminate their ideas, and represent the possibility of a different world. All of these leaders understood the inextricable link between the goals of the nascent Pan-Africanist movement, and the communication and valorization, both of that goal AND African culture more broadly.
As the African Union marks the 50th year of its existence – this link has never been stronger, and has never needed to be more strongly articulated. Put simply, for Africa and the African Union, culture and communication must become the medium for transforming the African continent in the image and aspirations of its founding documents.
In the early post-independence era, national governments across the continent marshaled and in some cases co-opted traditional and new forms of cultural expression as a shorthand and metaphor for national identity. In many cases, this cultural projection was successful, at least in providing an external perception of the continent as a potential beacon for peoples of African descent elsewhere, and as confident, young new nations; nothing exemplified this more than the World Festival of Black Arts held in Senegal in 1966 and Festac ’77, held in Nigeria in 1977.
The legacy of those post-independence cultural productivity has been long-lasting, and in the eras of structural adjustment, and the general assault from economic forces, as well as political ones that followed, the most enduring and sustaining legacy in many African countries have been the rich ferment of post-independence cultural production. And this activity was often rich in collaboration between artists, writers and other cultural producers across the continent.
Nevertheless, like the Organization of African Unity, many artists and writers across the continent were affected by the woes of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s in Africa; yet increasingly, there is a resurgence in the arts, letters and creative economy of the continent, a resurgence fuelled in part by the digital and telecommunication transformation across the continent, and the newly liberalized environment in many countries; dormant or neglected creative economies are being reconstituted in an age which allows a more level (albeit still unequal) playing field between cultural forces in the Global North and South. This artistic renaissance could be a part of the African Union’s approach in communicating the aspirations of Africa and Africans, engaging Africans in critical discussion and examination of our condition, and representing the potential strength in the diversity of the continent. But first, to paraphrase what Nkrumah said, the African Union ought to ‘Seek first the digital kingdom’; both as a goal for itself as an organization, and as a continental aspiration.
It’s estimated that in the African Union’s next 20-50 years of life, the African continent will be one of the few places in the world to continue experiencing significant growth of its youthful population. Already the continent is the youngest in the world, by population. While we must not fetishize youth in the way we have in the old, festishized old age, it is without a doubt that this generation, unless African leaders fail woefully, will be comfortable in a world where communication happens most fluidly over mobile, and more importantly mobile and internet communication.
This is an important constituency for the African Union to communicate with. This is the digital kingdom – with whom the AU can establish a moral authority, and bond of legitimacy. At present, the digital presence of the African Union very much represents the organization as one for whom digital engagement, the mobile and internet connectivity are an afterthought; it appears that little consideration has been given to appearances. Yes, we might say, the African Union is in the business of power and politics, and not appearances; however, it should be clear to any politician worth their salt that the medium is the message, and appearances in a world of instant communication, 24-hour news cycles, and citizen journalists count for everything. This is not an argument for propaganda, but for real communication, and a pro-active representation of the continent by the one organization tasked with, and equipped with the moral authority and political legitimacy to be a continental voice. In this goal, the AU already has a firm foundation; the symbolism of the Union, reflected in its emblem, appropriate the long tradition of Pan-Africanism both in the diaspora and the continent itself; in its founding documents, the African Union already commits itself to the promotion of African culture, and the full representation and participation of African people.
Garvey’s movement represented as the colors of African pride – Red, green, and black – reformulated into banners of popular consciousness; raised as a flag they signaled the political arrival of a strident new force on the global stage. Pan –Africanism, from that early inception is now a living, breathing reality, even though not fully fledged. For too many Africans, on the continent and in the diaspora, the African Union is too distant an entity to have any direct import on their lives, and for too many elsewhere in the world, the African Union is not yet perceived as a forceful actor and advocate arguing Africa’s corner.
In the next phase of its existence that must change; its clear some of this is already happening; the appointment of first Jean Ping, and then Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, as the first woman AU commissioner, is a sign the AU membership understand the importance of message and symbols in the perception of the organization. The new chair has been visible, engaging and engaged; yet we need greater visibility from the commissioner, and the team around the commissioner. Most professionals working on African issues, let alone ordinary Africans, would be hard pressed to name a single commissioner for the many areas in which the AU has established commissions or committees. Audiences – including many in rural parts of the continent increasingly seek out their own news rather than consume it via top-down media; this asymmetry of power in communication needs to be used to the AU and Africa’s advantage, and talk directly to Africans simply and consistently. The functions of its institutions must be transparently, and demonstrably open to influence through the mediums most Africans now use – its websites, social media channels, and most importantly, mobile phones, as well as radio broadcast.
And the talking needs to work both ways; Africa’s civil society, youth culture and creative industries are already spaces where the discussion of Africa’s future is shaped, the AU needs to be part of those conversations. A lot can be achieved by engaging the many creative people and institutions that have in recent years put Africa on the map as a place of groundbreaking innovation in digital communication, creative storytelling and news gathering.
Neither can the AU ignore the significance of what is, in diplomatic and political parlance, called ‘Soft Power’. ‘Soft Power’ is a necessary element of power projection that Africans cannot neglect in the 21st century. The cultural element of Africa’s power projection needs to be harnessed and proactively communicated; this is not to advocate for a propaganda office, exhorting every artist and cultural institution to valorize the motherland, but instead to say that culture in its diversity and complexity needs to have a greater influence on what the AU says and shows about Africa. Africa’s regional partners, including Europe, China and the United States encourage the existence of in-depth awareness, rather than a pastiche, of their cultures through cultural institutions, notable examples of course are The British Council, Alliance Francaise, Goethe Institut, and the Chinese Confucius Institutes.
These organizations project the values of their countries and regions in African countries. It is time that we did the same, and/or began to find ways to have a stronger impact on their perception and communication of African culture. There are, of course, 54 nation-states in Africa, some of which are regional powerhouses, but many that are small or sparsely populated states, which should demonstrably benefit from the associational power and protection of a regional body. These countries need to have an influential role in raising the profile of Africa’s cultural and intellectual contributions to the world, and in the world, and indeed the African Union as an institution can be instrumental.
But what does all this mean on a pragmatic level, in the day-to-day experience, and brutal administrative reality of an institution constrained by funds? It means the AU has to work smart, and hard, but also openly, and collaboratively with private institutions, and civil organizations. These are a few practical ideas the AU can engage with:
1. Reform its overall communication and digital strategy to engage with an African audience – this should include a mobile friendly version of the AU website, ongoing campaigns to engage African and international audiences; the aim should be to place the African Union’s digital presence at the heart of its communication with the world and its constituents.
2. The AU should aim to be at the forefront of communicating directly with Africans about African culture – through partnerships with existing institutions, in particular universities of good standing on the continent.
3. Establish partnerships with existing cultural festivals in Africa – for example the FESPACO film festival – with the aim of strengthening their capacity and bringing international attention to the best of African creativity.
4. Use events like the African Cup of Nations to highlight and show off the potential of African cities; already a global phenomenon, the African Cup of Nations offers the host location a specific opportunity to show off itself – and this is particularly relevant for small countries and cities. The tournament can and should be twinned with cultural events and programmes that capitalize on the international interest this Africa-focused event generates.
5. Establish a regular occasion for the AU commissioner to engage with African audiences – particular a regular occasion for engagement with the broadcast media of African countries
6. The AU should establish ‘Years of Culture’ – perhaps focused on particular cultures on the continent, or particular genres, or forms; the emphasis in doing this should be on highlight and raise the profile of the genre, form or culture in question to a wider audience inside and outside Africa
7. There should be scope for volunteering by the many talented Africans working in institutions across the continent and outside it; well formed partnerships, particularly in the areas of communication can be forged with the leading technology and communication companies on the continent
8. Establish small centers of African cultural exchange – particularly in states where Africa increasingly seeks and gets investment – for example, Brazil, China, India and Japan. This activity should be undertaken in partnership with existing African universities, with support from private sector organizations.
Culture is ultimately expressive of values; the African Union, an organization that reflects the most politically and socially influential aspiration of Africans will more and more have to communicate the values that an emancipated, democratic, and increasingly economically united Africa stands for. This is of course a field of contention; there are dissenting views of what constitutes African culture; which parts of tradition must be treasured, reformed or jettisoned; but even if many of our values may be argued about, the codification of particular aspirations in the AU’s founding charter, and the African [Banjul] Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights represents a particular choice of values; within a humanistic framework that treats the individual as protected and valued for their difference, as the building block of community with an equal right of expression as all others, whether that difference is gender, age, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity the African Union must communicate clearly to the world and to African people and their leaders that these values are rooted in the laws and commitments African member-states have made voluntarily in their association.
There is no monolithic African culture, but we do have one African institution to set the standard for the sort of values Africa wants to stand for.
* Dele Meiji Fatunla is a writer and digital communications professional
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The African Union: is it time for cultural diplomacy to take centre-stage?
Ade Daramy
2013-05-22
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/87494
If we are honest with ourselves, for many Africans, the African Union is a noble but somewhat nebulous concept; one that has the highest ideals about cooperation, co-existence and unity among African nations.
Equally true is that even though it may be the received wisdom that the AU (and its predecessor, the OAU) was concerned with for want of a better term we shall call ‘conventional diplomacy’, the organisation set out an equally strong vision of ‘cultural diplomacy’.
Looking back over 50 years of the Union, ‘cultural diplomacy’ has a greater chance of creating understanding between peoples than what I will call for the purposes of this article, ‘conventional diplomacy’. As such, over the next 50 years, we should throw down the challenge to the AU to put cultural diplomacy at the top of its agenda.
By this I mean the African Union (AU) members should spend as much, if not more time on establishing and strengthening cultural diplomatic ties and partnerships as is currently spent on the conventional kind. After all, it could be argued that conventional diplomacy has had many years to become established and it has had the field pretty much to itself. I am not saying that the AU is doing nothing in this area; far from it, simply that it could and should do a whole lot more.
STRENGTHENING CROSS-CULTURAL PARTNERSHIPS
Already the Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC) has put forward a vision for ‘African Centres’ situated in strategic world capitals; these would show off Africa to the world. The difference with these and the existing museums and exhibitions that show Africa would be that the content would not be content ‘acquired’ (often without our consent) but provided by us. ‘World capitals’ already have enough of African culture and artefacts and could do with less, not more.
Furthermore, as the African Union commemorates 50 years of Pan-African integration and cooperation, surely there is no better time for this organisation to set about strengthening the already established African, cross-cultural partnerships, particularly those that look to music, arts and culture.
The people of Africa have not waited for our diplomats to put up formal structure in establishing these closer ties, instead, we have already taken the initiative in making this happen: we listen to each other’s music (who has not sung along to ‘Malaika’, ‘Sweet Mother’ and ‘Amio’?), we watch each other’s films and plays and we wear each other’s garments.
To illustrate how seriously the founding fathers (yes, it was an all-male club in those days) took this concept, Section 2 c, Article II of the founding Charter of the Organisation of African Unity, adopted on 25 May 1963, set out the aim of educational and cultural cooperation as a core ambition of the organisation’s business. The Charter even proposed the setting up of an Educational, Cultural and Health Commission as one of the first three commissions to be set up – the others being ‘Economic and Social’ and ‘Defence’. Today, when one visits the African Union website (http://www.au.int/en/) the words ‘education’ and ‘culture’ do not leap off the page. And, yet there is now an ‘Economic, Social and Cultural Council’ (ECOSOCC), tasked with taking forward the dream.
Perhaps we the people of Africa, who have already taken it upon ourselves to make this happen, can give a pointer to the AU and ECOSOCC on the sort of vision it could adopt and allow it to achieve many of the aims at the core of its creation. How then can the AU make the dream of cultural understanding, sharing and partnership a reality?
We all know that since the founding of the OAU, the AU’s predecessor, there has been more than one ‘ship of dreams’ dashed against the shores of harsh reality. Some have been pipe dreams but they have been noble pipe dreams; dreams that lifted our spirits but were destined never to be realised; among these have been dreams of a single language and a single currency. Let us therefore say that we have all learnt lessons from the past and we use that knowledge to harness the present to secure a legacy for future generations.
Let us task the AU with setting forth the vision of a dream that is both noble and achievable. It is a dream that I believe will truly unite the whole of Africa. That dream will be about turning words into action to create an enduring, sustainable, living legacy.
LET US EXPLORE THE DREAM
Among the most commonly stated comments one hears from Africans about Africa is to do with the poor or unbalanced representation of and about Africa in various worldwide media. Africa is home to some of the world’s oldest and richest musical and cultural heritages and yet, this is hardly ever communicated either to the wider world or, even more importantly, to fellow Africans.
We can bemoan the fact that the wider world never seems to see us as we see ourselves. But the truth is, even within the continent, with a few notable exceptions, we never share with each other the thoughts, culture and images of how we see ourselves and each other.
I am often shocked when I speak to fellow Africans and hear how little they know about countries that would consider themselves neighbours. And yet, those same people can tell me countless stories about the culture of Europe, America and the rest of the world. Surely, the time has come for that to change.
Simply put, Africa is ill-served by the status quo and a we should humbly ask the AU, as part of these 50th anniversary commemorations to set up, under the auspices of ECOSOCC, a Museum of African Music, Arts And Culture (‘MOAMAAC’); an entity for both preservation and a celebration of our similarities as well as the richness of our cultural diversity. MOAMAAC will fill the void by providing a ‘space’ to capture this richness of culture produced by Africans, and in a manner that is either currently under-resourced, neglected or unavailable through other sources.
Is it time for the AU to consider building a ‘MOAMAAC’, which will redress the current imbalance with the launching of a project for both a physical and virtual ‘Museum of African Music, Arts and Culture’ on the African Continent and in cyberspace?
It is a sad fact that if one wants to see the greatest examples of ancient African culture, I would need to have a lot of money and be prepared to travel extensively throughout Europe and America.
Most, if not all of the greatest surviving representations of African culture in the form of carvings, jewellery and other artefacts are to be found in museums and private collections outside of the African continent. Currently, in order to find this sort of content and information, all of those with an interest in Africa have to become detectives and experts in scouring the ‘net and a large number of websites. At a stroke, this museum will solve that problem, as all the content will be in one place. Or, more accurately, two places: the physical and the virtual.
The arguments and the frustrations are well-rehearsed on the slim-to-non-existent chances of any of the African treasures that are abroad every returning to the mother continent. As for getting back our artefacts? That ship has flown. However, that should not stop us from preserving that which we still have and putting in place systems for curation and display of the ancient and the modern treasures of Africa.
The proposed museum will highlight and showcase the breadth and diversity of Africa and Africans, showcasing the lands as well as the talents of the people. And, by doing this, we hope to bring greater understanding of this most misunderstood and misrepresented continent as much to each other as to the wider world.
HOW WOULD THE SCHEME WORK?
Currently, each African country sends an Ambassador to the African Union. And, each of those countries will be encouraged to send a representative to the Museum of African Music, Arts and Culture – in effect, a ‘Cultural Ambassador’.
In the 21st century, and deep into the Information Age, if we refuse to accept the opportunities presented by new technologies, future generations may well talk about how it was that the world truly became ‘ A Global Village’ and question why we chose to be ‘The Generation of Global Village Idiots’.
When completed, the museum will go a long way towards demonstrating that there is more to Africa than the common ‘non-African, world-and-news-bulletin’ view. More importantly, once operational, the likelihood is that many Africans will not be able to afford to visit the physical structure, wherever it is. However, just as we ‘visit’ other lands via the internet, at the click of a mouse or the tap of a pad, everyone can visit the virtual museum. And, the surest way to give the truest picture of this diverse continent is to involve Africans in collecting and presenting to the world their perceptions of themselves and their continent as opposed to having it refracted through others’ lenses (metaphorically as well as photographically and visually). Literally, ‘MOAMAAC’ will be about ‘Africa as seen through African Eyes’.
HOW WILL IT BE DONE?
Each country will be expected to have its own national museum – physical, virtual or both. As almost every country has a national museum, each museum will be asked to sign a document affiliating it to an umbrella body, to which all the museums on the African continent will belong.
To ensure each nation’s interest is cared for, each museum will be expected to appoint at least one ‘Cultural Ambassador, who will represent that country’s interests to the umbrella body.
To ensure that a nation’s interest is cared for, each museum will be required to film the exhibits it houses, even those in storage not on display due to space constraints. These would be used for the web-based museum as well; thus ‘putting on display’ items otherwise kept away from public view.
For the physical museum, each country will be asked to donate at least one artefact deemed representative of that country and its culture. The site of the permanent will be decided by the AU. The project could provide the AU with an opportunity to engage with the ordinary citizens of this content. To find the permanent site, the AU could, as part of its 50th anniversary commemorations run a series of competitions covering various aspects of the museum; these could include a competition for naming the museum (should it be named after whoever is voted the Greatest African in a special competition?) There could be another competition for African architects to submit designs for the proposed building, competitions for launching an annual essay competition for various age groups on themes relating to African arts and culture.
In the event that a single site is not agreed upon, a compromise might be that the artefacts should be sent as a ‘travelling exhibition’ from country to country. The most obvious permanent site would be the African Union HQ building opened in Addis Ababa in January 2012. However, perhaps a competition might throw up a better option.
The museum will have an agreed Board of Trustees as well as an agreed structure for determining the frequency of meetings to schedule programmes, exhibitions, forums, symposia etc.
As more areas of the continent get hooked up to super-fast broadband, on-line conferencing could be one way for the board to host conferences of African professionals seeking to address Africa’s challenges in cultural conservation and preservation; they do not need to be in the same room to have meetings.
A ‘research and development wing’ should be established to share best practice in archiving, curation and conservation techniques.
HOW DO WE SOURCE THE ARTEFACTS AND CONTENT?
Just as people don’t stand still, neither does culture. As such, culture, as represented and presented in the museum will reflect the way that African culture has influenced other cultures and how it, in turn has been influenced by other cultures.
If we look to recent times, Africa can point to the fact that as the pop music explosion of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s happened, it too, had its equivalent of The Beatles, Rolling Stones and James Brown in the form of Congo’s Dr Nico, Nigeria’s Victor Uwaifo, Fela Kuti and South Africa’s Miriam Makeba to name a few. These artists and many of their contemporaries deserve to have their contributions acknowledged and celebrated within the museum.
Everything from the sartorial fashion of days gone by to the evolving musical styles will be represented in the museum.
Among the artefacts captured within the (physical and virtual) walls of the museum, will be the some or all of the following:
Music: highlighting the continent’s diverse musical cultures and styles from the traditional to the modern;
Musical instruments peculiar to various countries and regions including the likes of the kalimba and the kora, to name but two;
Sculpture and carvings
Sports including traditional African sports. We all know and play football, Rugby, tennis and other imported sports. What are the traditional sports from different countries across our continent?
Spirituality and religion;
African theatre and the performing arts, both traditional and modern – how different African countries, produce, consume and interact with ancient and modern theatre and the performing arts;
Architecture - ancient and modern – each region or country has its own unique architectural styles. How have these adapted and changed over the years?
Historic Monuments - A Commission will be tasked with the location, cataloguing, conservation and preservation of historic monuments;
Youth Culture and Style through the ages;
Paintings;
Photographs – from the earliest to the most recent showing how Africans see themselves through the camera’s lens.
Regional cuisine
In dealing with the vexed question of African artefacts abroad, the MOAMAAC board will negotiate with museums in Europe and America, where most of these artefacts currently reside, for a series of long or short-term loans of artefacts. The likelihood of securing such loans would be greatly increased if the loans were to a unitary body such as the AU, as opposed to a single country.
The basis of the arrangement will be that these museums will be contracted to provide MOAMAAC with images, video and audio detailing the African Artefacts they hold. We have to accept the reality that most if not all of these will never be permanently returned to their countries of origin. This ‘compromise’ arrangement will be a way for many Africans to see for the first time, artefacts representing their individual country’s cultural history at various stages of development and which they would only otherwise see by travelling out of their country. For the majority, this is unfeasible.
The quality, relevance and regularity of the updating of the content will be a determining factor in the success of the site.
WHAT WILL THE ‘DREAM REALISED’ LOOK LIKE?
Between the, museums should achieve the task of providing the most authentic representation of Africa as seen by Africans through the ages. When completed, this will be the only site anyone would need to visit to get a thorough sense of Africa’s past, present and future. The site will be a source of physical, digital images, audio and video content of the highest quality. It will give an opportunity to provide in-house training in physical and digital curation.
The museum will foster the development of a collaborative network with partners across the African continent and in the Diaspora to provide and share ideas, artefacts and content.
In linking with educational establishments, it will provide for training and career development opportunities and internships to nurture and foster diversity of skills across the Diaspora. Interns and representatives from all participating museums will be encouraged to do exchange visits to each others’ countries in order to see how a particular museum represents its particular country within its own borders.
It will become the premier site on Africa. By visiting the museum, you can ‘visit Africa without leaving your house, simply by clicking a mouse’. Regular podcasts and newsletter will be issued, highlighting a different country, region or theme; for example ‘East Africa’ or ‘music ancient and modern’. In addition, these disciplines will provide fertile ground for apprenticeships and internships.
A series of 10-minute documentaries covering the content of each country/museum will be posted on the website’s home page. Under the heading ‘Africa, the Beautiful’, this will allow each country to upload videos promoting itself as a tourist destination.
There will be links to schools, colleges and universities including on-line lectures of specific, countries, areas, time periods or sectors.
The board should set up Museum TV – a site showing arts and crafts (sculpting, weaving, carving etc.) highlighting a different country each month; also, to encourage and promote short-filmmaking.
As there continues to be a rise in ‘Heritage Tourism’, both the actual and the virtual tourist will be catered for.
In addition to the above, MOAMAAC will produce its own sector-specific content for the website. In summary, it will be about delivering the richest ‘visitor experience’ of this vast and wondrous and yet still misunderstood continent; just as a good museum should.
The recommendation is that the participating museums adopt a single, unified governance structure, based on International National Trust Organisation (INTO) criteria.
MEMBERSHIP CRITERIA
A Full Member would be a corporate body which has as its principal purpose the conservation of the cultural and/or natural heritage, and which is professionally engaged in programs and activities designed to further such a purpose;
They would operate substantially independently and autonomously of government. While a corporate body engaged in heritage conservation may be established under government authority, receive government funding, or have government representation in its governance structure, it must remain substantially independent from governmental influence with respect to its governance, operations, and policies; etc. For examples of how this might work see: www.internationaltrusts.org
WHO WILL BENEFIT FROM A PROJECT SUCH AS THIS?
The most obvious beneficiaries of the project will be the worldwide African Diaspora, which is starved of regular, quality, balanced cultural images and e-content with an African slant from the viewpoint of Africans. It might be easy to say we know little about each other’s history and culture but the bitter truth is many of us know precious little about our own history and culture. Through the partnerships established, Africans will engage with each other and learn valuable lessons from each other. They will share experiences, knowledge and technology.
There will be an increased knowledge of Africa for everyone.
Potential visitors to the continent, businesses and investors seeking to invest in Africa and ultimately, the continent will all benefit from this site. We will form partnerships with African software providers and technical experts to test and launch services via the internet site.
It is hoped to start partnerships with various hardware providers to allow content to be made available on: Mobile phones, Apple’s iPhone and Android phones
These may require separate encoding to allow quality viewing. However, modern technology makes this a distinct possibility. As a continent, Africa has embraced mobile phone technology for a variety of uses. This would be another innovative use of such technology. Applications (‘apps’) can be downloaded and regular text updates will be sent for those who opt to receive them.
SITE NAVIGATION
The site will be accessed by clicking on either a country’s name or (if your knowledge of geography is good!) on the map of that country as shown on a map of the whole continent. On some devices, this will be a touch-screen feature.
The site will feature ‘zones’ and will host content based on the themes listed under ‘services’ above. In order to ensure that all regions are properly represented, the site will highlight regional ‘zones’ as well as country ‘mini-ones’/’micro sites’. These could include:
West Africa Regional Zone (WAR Zone – no pun intended) – plus country-specific zones – SalZone (Sierra Leone), GamZone (Gambia), NaijaZone (Nigeria), SenZone (Senegal), GhaZone (Ghana) etc.;
East Africa Regional Zone (EAR Zone) – Country zones will include EthioZone (Ethiopia), EritZone (Eritrea), TanZone (Tanzania), KenZone
Central Africa Regional Zone (CAR) – DRCZone, Cameroon Zone, etc
South Africa Regional Zone (SAR Zone) - ZimZone (Zimbabwe), SAfZone (South Africa), NamZone (Namibia), etc.;
North African Regional Zone (NAR Zone) - TunZone (Tunisia), LibZone (Libya), AlgZone (Algeria) etc.
In this way, there will be a sense of ownership and self-recognition in the content carried on the site.
The above list is not meant to be exhaustive and is included for illustrative purposes only.
HOW WILL SUCH A SITE BE DEVELOPED AND MAINTAINED?
MOAMAAC will develop and maintain the site and provide the overall management of the site, by ensuring the day-to-day running of the creative, technical, and administrative services linked to the site. MOAMAAC will also provide technical management of the site’s operating systems.
WHO PAYS FOR SUCH A PROJECT?
The short answer is that the site will ‘pay for itself’. It is no secret that African governments already struggling with providing ‘everyday’ services for citizens would baulk at any depletion of revenue, no matter how noble the dream.
Websites set up in recent years (YouTube, Facebook etc.) have shown that if you have a unique and well presented product, you will be able to attract considerable advertising revenues. The on-line site will be of such quality that it will attract not only those who want to know about Africa, it will also draw in those who want to advertise their goods and services to the site’s audience.
On the matter of building the physical site, at present almost every company operating in Africa states that it has a programme of Corporate and Social Responsibility. For many of these, there is an educational element to this. All companies will be asked to make a contribution, based on size, towards building the museum. This will spread the burden as well as increase the sense of ownership.
Sample partner websites: Sierra Leone is already showing the way as to what can be achieved with a very small budget. In January 2012, it launched the ‘Sierra Leone Heritage website:
http://www.sierraleoneheritage.org/
Imagine what could and should be achievable by bigger countries and big organisations (e.g. The AU) with bigger budgets!
CONCLUSION
In truth, what is proposed will build on, not replace efforts already made by ECOSOCC and this should be seen as nothing more than a ‘friendly nudge’ to take that body in a direction it may already be thinking of heading. This can be seen from the current structure of ECOSOCC.
ECOSOCC is provided for in the African Union Constitutive Act, but does not have its own protocol, relying rather on Statutes approved by the AU Assembly. The ECOSOCC Statutes provide for four main bodies:
A 150-member General Assembly, made up of 144 elected representatives (two from each Member State, ten operating at regional level, eight at continental level and 20 from the diaspora) and six representatives of CSOs nominated by the AU Commission, to be the highest decision-making body of the organ.
A 15-member standing committee with representatives from the five regions of Africa to coordinate the work of the organ.
10 sectoral cluster committees for feeding opinion and inputs into the policies and programmes of the AU.
A five-person credentials committee for determining the eligibility of CSO representatives to contest elections or participate in the processes of the organ.
What should happen now is for this body to reach out to its ‘constituency’ and make things happen.
In the movie ‘Field of Dreams’, some townsfolk set about building a baseball diamond, where long-dead, legendary players of the past would come and play. They did it by believing ‘if we build it, they will come.’
I hereby ‘throw down the gauntlet’ to African investors as well as investors in Africa, African IT professionals, IT students, individual countries, museums, galleries, archivists and media content professionals: ‘let us come together to make this big dream a reality.’ This could be Africa’s ‘Field of Dreams’. Let us build it, they will come.
The African Union’s anthem is ‘Let’s Unite and Celebrate Together.’ Why don’t we take them up on that? That could also be the museum’s motto. So let’s make this dream happen! The 50th anniversary gives us the ideal opportunity to do so.
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Development and the double-sided mirror
Tunde Jegede
2013-05-22
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/87491
‘Since time immemorial the apprentice has sat at the foot of the griot
listening to images of a forgotten past and bygone eras lost in the epoch
of human memory. For generations every son has sat at the foot of his
father retracing ancestral legacy and receiving the veil of the word’
How will we pass on legacy, cultural knowledge and wisdom to the next generation when our traditions and values are being lost and eroded all the time? How will we evolve into a global force, culturally, economically and politically when we are no longer able to conceive of the intangible in our own image?
For me, cultural rebirth through an African Renaissance is not just necessary but essential as one of the only strategies to enable this form of transformation, which is badly needed right across the continent. Africa is the continent of potential, but unrealized. It is in need of a renaissance which calls upon us to embrace a new consciousness connecting our past to our present and thereby our future. We cannot, and should not, deny our past but allow ourselves to release our own future.
NECESSARY DEBATES TO BE HAD
One of the most unfortunate stumbling blocks of emerging from beneath the cloud of a colonial past is the lack of original and independent reference points. Geographical independence does not always signify independence of the mind or thought. After 50 years of independence the axis of our reference points for thinking in all areas of life are still essentially European. The debate of what an African consciousness is in the 21st century is still one to be had and aired.
When we think of literature is our first thought Shakespeare or Soyinka? When we think of classical music is our first thought Beethoven or the Griot tradition? I am not suggesting any over the other but simply putting forward some questions for our own personal internal reflection. From the arts we can move to the more controversial arena of religion. How is it that the St. James version of the bible and its Christianity superseded African Coptic Christianity and the legacy of the desert fathers? Why has the modern Islam of Saudi Arabia superseded the African Islam that proceeded it and which gave birth to the mosques of Medieval Mali? If both these religions are already part of our heritage why do we constantly look to outside reference points for total guidance? From literature to music from Christianity to Islam it seems we continually look outside ourselves when perhaps we should be looking within.
WINDOWS OF PERCEPTION
I recently created a new theatre piece entitled, ‘The Griot’s Tale’ which centred around the tale of a boatman carrying a young man across a river and relaying fables to him as they crossed. It came about as part of a residency at the celebrated Nigerian artist, Yinka Shonibare’s studio. Yinka Shonibare has just set up a Guest Projects Africa programme at his studio in recognition of the need to have a space in London for the development of new experimental African work. We showcased two performances at the studio and had a great response from a highly mixed audience but one thing struck me from the subsequent feedback, that even the framing of our compliments are often not our own.
‘Excellent. It subtly brings out classical concepts from African thinking, links them to some European ones and makes them timeless. The Griot and the Greek ferryman.’
This astute audience-member made many valuable observations for the piece and his first sentence hits on much of what we were striving for in the piece. However, for me the second statement begins to undo what has just been said. There is an assumption that the Boatman or Ferryman is a Greek/Western construction but it is not. In the piece itself we had projected Egyptian images of a boatman from antiquity as well as our own contemporary ones but none of these could destabilize the Western construct planted in our minds of the boatman being a European idea with its origins in ancient Greece. It illustrates and points to a wider human predicament that if something is repeated often enough over time it becomes fact in our mind’s eye whether it is true or not.
I have found these windows of perception in all walks of life and especially in the arts where it is of profound importance. As a composer and classically trained musician I studied both Western and African Classical music. I learnt the cello and European classical music at a music conservatoire in UK and the Griot Tradition under the tutelage of Master of the Kora, Amadu Bansang Jobarteh. I never regarded one as higher than the other just simply different traditions reflecting different value systems and ideas. All of these valuable resources adding to the universal tapestry of music, art and culture. It is a natural process for culture to continue to realign itself constantly with the creative moment but only divisive learnt constrictive modes/structures of thinking would try to unnaturally control this process.
WINDOWS OF CHANGE
There are several ways to begin to change our window of perception through which we see the world. After this I believe all else is possible. The first is to elevate the position of the traditional artist within African societies and encourage them to update their practice in a way that is conducive to the principles from which the tradition was born out of in the first place. These traditions urgently need support and infrastructure but not necessarily to become institutionalised. At the moment there is very little infrastructure for their long-term sustenance leaving them susceptible to outside influences and consequently many of Africa’s finest and most successful traditional musicians and artists inevitably end up working and living in the West.
This artistic and intellectual drain of experiential knowledge is having dire repercussions for the younger generation who are no longer steeped in or exposed to the work of these great cultural practitioners. A case in point is The Gambia where most of their finest musicians now live and work outside the country due to economic circumstances and lack of opportunities rather than choice, as there is currently no support infrastructure for the work they do. It is not a coincidence that, by necessity, all of the members of my African Classical Music Ensemble including the international Riti virtuoso, Juldeh Camara are currently all based outside of The Gambia.
One of the last beacons of light for traditional African Music was the Pan African Orchestra in Ghana, which was the first African Orchestra made up solely of traditional African instruments. Yet, despite several classic recordings and international tours they finally had to disband after ten years due to lack of infrastructural support. For young emerging artists working in traditional music today it is almost impossible to find a space, organisation or body willing to support their endeavor. They are therefore at the mercy of the local and international commercial music industry whose aims are often at odds with the development and maintenance of cultural legacy. This has created a very dangerous state of affairs for traditional music in West Africa and one that urgently needs to be addressed.
At the same time we see the rapid onslaught of globalization and popular culture
on society and how this process is affecting the very perception and inherent value system of a generation who are clearly disassociating themselves from their cultural heritage. Ironically, it is this very same sector of society who represent a huge untapped source and potential pool of talent, which is currently not being realized. One of the main hurdles and stumbling blocks to their development is a severe lack of infrastructure and expertise in certain key areas.
Today one of the only bright lights in traditional music I can point to is in Mali where there is still a very high regard for traditional music within society. The legendary Kora player, Toumani Diabaté has used his status as an international musician to create a space where traditional musicians are supported and can come together under the banner of his symmetric orchestra. There is also a connection between the generations with several of his sons emerging with the new generation of artists coming through. Unfortunately, Mali today is quickly becoming a focal point of international military tension, which casts a large shadow over these important cultural developments.
I believe there is a need to create institutes of traditional music in many African countries to address these endemic problems by creating a bridge between the old world and the new. One of the crucial roles of these institutes in the wider fabric of society would be to act as a catalyst between rural traditions and disenfranchised youth who are either unaware or disconnected from their own rich cultural inheritance. These institutes, by necessity, would need to adopt a two-fold approach, which embraces and balances the preservation and dissemination of African music and culture with the development and training of a younger generation in music and the arts. For, it is the new generation that will ultimately hold the key to the future’s long-term sustainability of traditional music and its related art forms.
An example of what is possible is the Jant-Bi dance academy in Senegal led by the extraordinary choreographer/dancer, Germaine Agony. She has been training young dancers from across the continent to the highest international standards in her centre for over ten years. Jant-Bi has become a cradle for dancers from the whole of Africa, where they can feel at home and benefit from professional training, giving them a solid foundation for life as an artist and creating an openness towards international dance.
So can a model such as this be applied to other art-forms in Africa such as music and the visual arts? In Zimbabwe the graphic designer and filmmaker, Safi Mafundikwa returned to his homeland after many years working and living in the states to set up the first institute for visual arts in his country. After 10 years he is still going strong but as always funding and support for these pioneers of the continent is always a struggle. It seems that so far it has taken these extraordinary individuals and their passion to draw from their personal resources to pioneer these initiatives rather than through the accountability of African governments or the AU. Perhaps if respective governments on the continent could lend their real support behind such initiatives in the future it will surely be beneficial to us all.
WINDOWS OF POSSIBILITY
I was recently asked to become involved with a newly formed symphony orchestra in Abuja, Nigeria. Right now, Nigeria is at an interesting crossroads. One could say the nation is on the cusp of a new renaissance, which can be seen in the growth of the independent film and commercial music sector with a new generation of practitioners leading the way. There is a desire for expansion and a birth of new ideas and possibilities, which is only held back by a lack of expertise in certain areas. This can be identified as the biggest challenge facing the huge untapped source and pool of talent that currently resides in Nigeria and indeed the wider continent. What is needed is an institution, or academy, to target this untapped resource and provide necessary training and skills, thereby bridging the gap between potential and its realization.
A useful model to draw from what is possible with limited resources to develop such a complex institution as a symphony orchestra can be seen with the unique success story of El Sistema in Venezuela. The results and figures speak for themselves. El Sistema is a music education program in Venezuela, founded in 1975 by economist and musician José Antonio Abreu under the name of Social Action for Music. Beginning with just a handful of children at inception the foundation now watches over 125 youth orchestras as well as the instrumental training programmes which make them possible. The organization has 31 symphony orchestras and between 310,000 to 370,000 children attend its music schools around the country. Seventy to 90 percent of the students come from poor socio-economic backgrounds. The key to this development programme is that it was internal rather than external and came from within the society itself. It was about cultural development and exchange rather than the usual mindset of charity and external assistance. It is always better to learn from cases which share a similar economic and cultural circumstance and situation. For this reason I feel models and structures developed in the West are not always useful for building institutions in ‘developing countries.’
Even for a model that is tried and tested such as El Sistema, there will always have to be adaptations made to tailor to the particular needs and circumstances of the local region one is working within. Though there are many similarities culturally and historically with Venezuela and South America there are also important differences. Where they were able to use the orchestra as a central tool for their musical cultural policy, to bring together elements of their diasporic experience (from European, indigenous Indian and African influences), the form is a much more complex tool in Africa with its close cultural association with colonization. It is a matter of treading the thin line between modernisation on a world platform and the danger of leaving one’s own ancestral cultural legacy behind inadvertently in the process. A balancing act of reconciling our past with our future is necessary.
We cannot run away from our past, our history so we may as well run towards it, grasp and use it to our advantage. As a result of our ‘education’ both equally in Africa and its diaspora over the last hundred years we are steeped in Western culture and all its inherent reference points. This in itself is not a problem as it is great to be widely versed and be able to draw from a wide pallet of influences. However, when this pre-determines our intrinsic value system, which in turn shapes our understanding and perception, we lose balance in our opinion and judgment of ourselves and our world. We no longer see ourselves in the image of the Creator and the Creator in the image of ourselves. I believe if we can simply change this we can lift many of the clouds that hang over our potentially bright future.
Africa’s richest asset is its human resource. There is already a pool of talent within the continent with the will and ambition waiting to be trained and it is only a matter of supplying facilities and the expertise to realise this potential. Better still the solution to this expertise lies within our own wider community. In some parts of Africa more money is sent back to the continent from its own diaspora than in charity and world aid and yet this contribution has often gone unacknowledged and ignored as a very real tool for development. It only requires connections, dedicated networks and trust. But, which African government will be the first to really pioneer and lead such an initiative, giving it the support and infrastructure from the highest level that it would need? Could the AU provide the leadership over the next 50 years?
For me, I see a vision of African modernity, which draws from our rich cultural inheritance and traditions. It should be a 21st century African consciousness which is no longer about post-colonial or de-colonial discourse but about transcending a colonial mind-set altogether. Our existing mind-set still so often determines our daily reference points but we must move beyond. It is rather about the identification and development of a value system based on our own unique ancient principles, which have been proven to work in our favour for thousands of years. Ultimately we all need to carry our past with us into our own modernity.
*Tunde Jegede is a musician who lives in London
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Our future grown in Africa
Agriculture in the African Union
Mbongeni Ngulube
2013-05-23
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/87499
‘Our future made in Africa’, the theme of the May 2013 issue of New African magazine, was a striking declaration resounding with the current optimism surrounding Africa’s future development. This in the background of a receding Western economy, as was the case during South America’s industrialisation, seems to have given Africa a new lease on life. Growth wise, Africa is currently outperforming the West and one certainly receives a much better return on investment in Africa by comparison. The issue further outlined a special on the OAU/AU golden jubilee, but in all this celebration in over 170 pages I realised that, oddly enough, there was only a single (two-page) contribution [1] on the AU and Agriculture.
This I found odd since, as we recall, one of the founding issues informing most independence movements, especially in those states that went to war, was land and agriculture. Nowhere in the colonial experience was the reality more vivid than in the lack of access to land and jobs. For the ‘peasant masses’, who supported these movements, political independence was synonymous to farming, land ownership – agriculture. It’s well known that for some states, even self determination was a secondary concern, but land ownership and agriculture were a common denominator throughout the African independence movement and no liberating party ignored that fact, even if merely rhetorically. With this I began to wonder what happened to agriculture over the 50 year tenure of the OAU/AU, but perhaps more critically, where will it go in the next 50 years?
At its formation in 1963, the OAU was an alliance of 32 independent states and its basic concern was for sovereignty and African unity under the Pan-African philosophy. Therefore it primarily engaged with reclaiming ‘Africaness’ on the world stage; while instrumental in other liberation movement(s), it was less vocal on agriculture, although, to be fair, equally so on other specific sectors as well. I believe this was partly due to the assumption that ‘with independence, all else will follow’, and also due to its principle of non-interference in sovereign states; this left African agriculture as a state-based practice. There are various agri-policy examples such as Tanzania’s ‘Kilimo Kwanza’ (farming first), and in Zimbabwe, Joshua Nkomo is most famously remembered for saying “if you want money (mali) you should farm (lima)” – all states have experimented internally to some degree. While agriculture was generally acknowledged by the OAU, it appears that not much could be done about it and no more acutely was it felt than at the 20th OAU summit of 1985 when ‘delegates arrived…[in Addis Ababa]… at an airport full of relief planes for the starving’ [2]. The article goes on to outline that ‘Nyerere was so moved by Ethiopia’s suffering that he gave a large cheque for relief work…[although]… Tanzania was a pauper too’.
The above was in the context of Structural Adjustment Programs set in place from the late 1970s and national spending on agriculture plummeted as food aid became a common sight. Interestingly, an FAO policy brief [3] outlined, to shock and surprise, that agriculture performed better in the period after structural adjustments (by 1% in fact). When I calmly considered this, it occurred to me that it might be true due to the external investment in agriculture brought about by privatisation. In comparison, at the same summit in 1985, regime security was one of the biggest concerns for many African states and the spectre of coup d’état was a popular rhetoric. This is ironic because at the time about 28% of Africa’s population died from hunger and malnourishment, which, incidentally, kills more people than military conflict, worse so because it is less ‘glamorous’ and is easily ignored.
In a Food Security conference held in Leeds 2011, an outline was published converting the statistics and showed that the number of people dying from hunger in Africa is comparable to 50 jumbo jets falling out of the sky every day. The same FAO policy brief continued to highlight that perhaps a closer look is required to understand who benefited from this growth (an important point I wish to return to). In Zimbabwe for example, we saw the distribution of yellow maize for the first time. It was aptly named ‘iskundamoya’, a made-up word referring to the extreme poverty that forced people to resort to eating what was thought to be animal feed. To this day it is still considered the sure sign of acute poverty. In fact, at the time some families ate this maize meal in hiding for fear of shame. Even in this time, few public declarations were forthcoming from the OAU about Africa’s agriculture and some have said it was simply unworkable in those days, as many member states were unable to even pay their membership fees late alone joint programs of any kind; and that the ‘failures are not the faults of the organisation; rather, they are the result of asking the OAU to do more than it conceivably could’ [4].
Leading into the 1990s, various ideological disagreements in the OAU and its inability to intervene over the last 30 years in sovereign states such as Idi Amin’s Uganda and the Rwanda Genocide sparked criticism from the international community, part of a combination of events that led to the Sirte Declaration of 1999 that ushered in the formation of the AU in 2002.
It was a year later that agriculture found its way more prominently into the Union’s policies in the form of the Maputo Declaration 7(II) of 2003, on Agriculture and Food Security in Africa. The main outcome was the formation of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP), in which the AU plays a key role in its policy formulation and harmonisation, in partnership with NEPAD as its technical arm. CAADP was set up in response to the first Millennium Development Goal; it was declared that 30 per cent of Africa’s population is malnourished and that Africa is a net food importer. It aimed to develop special policies and strategies targeted at small scale and traditional farmers in rural areas and to allocate at least 10 per cent of national budget(s) to agriculture within five years.
A decade later, reports show that only 20 per cent of African states have managed this budgetary undertaking. As an evaluation mechanism, finance alone is not enough, but direct, causal evidence of CAADP’s effect on the ground is equally difficult to observe. Nonetheless, the joint agriculture program in partnership with the regional economic communities like ECOWAS and COMESA is certainly a step in the right direction.
Coming back to the initial question: where to for Africa’s agriculture? According to the brief evaluation above, it appears that agriculture remains primarily a national practice, despite the recent efforts by the AU. The implementation of the multi-donor-funded CAADP faces many challenges and perhaps a decade is too short to measure a continental effort in comparison to a national policy. This is to be expected because ‘Africa is not a country’ and one has to consider the unique context(s) in every state, which vary greatly even within each state.
While this remains true, in this global age of ‘trading blocks’ it would be difficult and highly inconceivable for Africa to compete on the global market as uncoordinated nation states. Even though Africa has competitive advantages like the largest agricultural green fields and the youngest population in the world, which will peak in the coming 20/30 years, its population of 1.10 billion is far less compared to a single state like China’s 1.35 [5] billion, at almost a tenth of Africa’s territory. So Africa’s low density and dispersed population require a far greater investment upfront on infrastructure in comparison to other territories, with the exception of Russia. Clearly a collective agricultural program is a central concern, yet there is not a very ‘audible’ direction from the AU regarding its implementations. The loudest voice on Africa’s welfare seems to always come from outside and the AU has to start competing audibly with this discourse, and on this matter agriculture is just one example.
Researching the web for the AU’s position on agriculture, I had far more results from NGOs, ‘cooperation’ agencies and other ‘friends of Africa’ than from the AU itself. What concerned me was that, like Facebook, some of these ‘friends’ don’t have noble intentions and are in fact behind the ‘new scramble for Africa’. Here I am referring to what has been called the most severe land acquisition since colonialism. It has manifested in the form of the recent farmland grabs, made popular by cases such as Madagascar’s Daewoo land deal, which was fortunately protested, ending in the removal of President Marc Ravalomanana in 2009. In the media it was cited as but one case of ‘over-developed, over-populated, land- and water-scarce Asian and Middle Eastern nations embarking upon global land grabs eerily reminiscent of past Western colonial practices’ [6]. It is interesting to note that it is mostly Western Europe that has come out defending the ‘rights of the native land’, implying that the East is doing by soft power what the West did by the gun. While not too much is known about these highly secretive deals, the ‘land grabbers’ seem to all act almost in unison under the rubric of Africa’s food security, which effectively masks the acquisition of African farmland. This practice was accelerated when the world was spooked into action by the 2008 financial and food crises, also believed to have led to the Arab Spring as they were vulnerably dependent on food imports. In light of all this, the AU’s proverbial deafening silence regarding these occurrences, less so with regards to a unified agriculture policy or position, leaves Africa very porous. In other words, if Africa does not make a clear and audible plan for itself, there are always others willing to make it ‘for Africa’, and once these land deals become ‘facts on the ground’, I fear that, despite our enthusiasm, this will be the future of Africa’s agriculture. Like FAO’s projected one per cent growth during Structural Adjustment Programmes, Africa might experience yet another kind of ‘adjustment’ if these silent conditions persist.
In stunning contrast to this situation, one of the most audible agrarian events coming out of Africa recently was Zimbabwe’s land redistribution of 2000; in a time when many African states are losing theirs, ‘Zimbabwe takes back its land’ [7]. Though the media painted it as a disorganised, savage and bloodied affair, having visited some of the resettlements myself I am convinced otherwise. Various other independent publications have confirmed the success of the program and over the past decade, small-scale farmers have begun to recapitalise and are proving to be fairly productive. Considering that on average 70 per cent of Africa’s population is rural, could Zimbabwe’s land redistribution be a radical but workable example? In light of such a precedent, and the evolution of Africa’s agriculture, perhaps it is more appropriate instead to ask: where do we start in formulating what works in a truly African agriculture? It was brought to my attention that some departments at the AU, though prominent on paper, are in reality small offices manned by three individuals who were initially hired for a very different job. The question of capacity cannot be overstated; as it is said, ‘development is reports’, and this is why organisations such as NGOs and the FAO ‘speak louder’ on African matters, because they have teams whose job is to produce these perceptions which, unfortunately and invariably, influence who invests where and how.
The reality is that Africa’s small-scale farmer can produce competitively. A starting point could perhaps be equipping these farmers with techniques like Conservation Agriculture (CA), which requires little overheads, less inputs and has high output without damaging the land – its only drawback is its intensive labour. In my own work at The Global Native [8], a small organisation working on agriculture in Zimbabwe, we have encountered hard evidence of the productive capacity of CA. Developed in Zimbabwe, it is currently practised in most of Africa and promoted by international organisations such as the FAO and recently the AU. I believe it is in the encounter of the small-scale farmer as hard evidence and the supportive audibility of an umbrella like the AU that will bring tangible change in Africa’s agriculture. In our experience, small-scale farmers are far more capable than we expect, like anyone else, they behave logically and when a ‘market opportunity’ is made available to them, their response(s) have been impressive. There is time yet for a golden future grown in Africa and in light of this golden jubilee, the AU has certainly taken up the gauntlet, yet its continued silence in the everyday life of the African farmer remains one of its biggest challenges. In fact, I myself, working in agriculture, have had to take great pains to literally ‘dig up’ what the AU thinks and does regarding such a critical aspect of Africa’s development, what more those on the ground and others like you and me?
ENDNOTES
[1] Guest column by Dr. A. Namanga Ngongi in New African, May 2013 No.528
[2] OAU A year of sombre realism, by Richard Hall in New African, May 2013 No.528
[3] FAO, Building a case for more public support, Policy brief 1 http://www.fao.org.tc/tca/workshop2005 eng.asp
[4] OAU, not as bad as people think, by Guy Arnold in New African, May 2013 No.528
[5] http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/world_population.htm
[6] http://farmlandgrab.org/post/view/5661
[7] Zimbabwe Takes Back its Land, a book by Joseph Hanlon, Jeannette Manjengwa and Teresa Smart
[8] www.theglobalnative.org.uk
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Peace in our time
Onyekachi Wambu
2013-05-22
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/87486
1. THE OAU AND 50 YEARS OF PEACE BUILDING
African leaders at independence set out to create new countries where the issues of development and social justice were to replace the marginalisation and core violence of the colonial order. A peaceful internal and external environment was critical to ushering in development.
The leaders came together collectively to guarantee this peaceful environment – their most imaginative tool was the setting up of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 1963. The OAU rejected Nkrumah’s call to unity and collective security – but instead adopted three core principles, each of which was intended to lead to peace and justice but each of which, paradoxically, produced its own share of conflict.
First, the OAU guaranteed the existing colonial borders, the rejection of which was identified by the leaders as the greatest potential source of external instability to their fledging countries and intra-African conflict on the continent.
Second, it accepted the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states, leading to a race to the bottom in terms of human rights and undermining the search for justice, equality and peaceful approaches to conflict resolution amongst aggrieved minorities, ethnic and religious groups.
Third, through its Liberation Committee it endorsed and legitimised the armed struggle as part of the decolonisation process.
These three policy choices have been in turn considered controversial, but necessary and essential. Much debate and indeed bloodshed followed their implementation, resulting in anti- colonial, inter-state, intra-state, inter-group and intra-group conflict and violence. Some have argued that without the three policies things would be worse. Others, like writer Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe, have dubbed the OAU architecture based on ‘Berlin Act States’ which he dubs as inherently anti-African and genocidal (i.e Biafra, Congo, Sudan).
Despite the carnage and maelstrom that has been unleashed over the last 50 years following the adoption of these three policies, extraordinary peace-building and reconciliation models have also emerged on the continent, the most prominent being the peaceful negotiation and truth and reconciliation process that ended Apartheid in South Africa.
Over the next 50 years, Africans have the opportunity for something of a fresh start with the formation of the African Union (AU) in 2002. Two of the three principles that were endorsed 50 years ago are now no longer relevant. Decolonization is at an end and with it the need for armed struggle. The new international norm of ‘responsibility to protect’ now overrides non-interference and is enshrined in the AU’s Constitutive Act. The only core principle that has remained is the rigidity of the borders – though even here increasing regionalism (SADC, ECOWAS, EAC) and other facts on the ground, especially the establishment of South Sudan through war and a referendum, and the slow grab for self-determination in Somaliland, Northern Mali and eastern DRC, are producing both de facto, and de jure change.
Nevertheless there is a need to continue to meditate on the on-going challenges and lessons thrown up by these three principles as we continue to seek to decrease violence and conflict on our continent and create a peaceful developmental environment.
At its most basic, the root cause of conflict is always about injustice or the perception of it – ‘no justice, no peace, goes the slogan. Injustice always demands a response but as Judith Atiri has noted: the choice is ‘not whether to resist injustice but what form the resistance should take’.
Given that the roots of so much intra-state conflict is lack of social justice, inequality and marginalisation suffered by different groups, strategies on removing these obstacles and building intra-group solidarity should be the key peace-building pan-African project of the next 50 years structured, as Horace Campbell would argue, on the basis of African humanism as embodied in the practice of Ubuntu. This is particularly important as new and old forms of injustice are multiplying. Neo-colonialism and globalisation are the source of Africa’s widespread poverty, which in turn trigger new conflicts.
At the continental level, The AU’s Constitutive Act, offers a vision for peaceful, but effective resistance. In its aim to create an environment for peaceful development, it has introduced a new core principle to the architecture of conflict resolution – that of collective security which is operationalised by the Peace and Security Council, and instruments such as the African Standby Force and its regional components such as ECOMOG in West Africa.
Collective security embodies the idea of a collective will, and at the heart of this shift is the attempt to create a body that is able to enforce the will of the African Union – the new ‘Sovereign’ on the continent. The contradictions that beset the Sovereign are as old as hat. Sometimes it is expressed in the old proverb: in order to maintain peace, you need to prepare for war, or at least have the capacity for it.
So if effective, the Sovereign protects against external enemies and most importantly provides internal peace – through putting in place effective conflict resolution mechanisms, or if that fails, then as a last resort through having and deploying a monopoly of violence. Though readily available, the use of violence by the Sovereign should really be symbolic, as its actual deployment represents a gross failure and is a contradiction of peace.
The way around this contradiction is for the sovereign will (in this case the African people) to agree some ground rules – about the use of violence in arbitrating difference. Something like this has happened in Europe. After the years of wars and conflicts which left millions dead and the Germans and Eastern Europeans under occupation and without their sovereignty, the countries of Europe after WW2 set up the EU. And most critically agreed henceforth to resolve their disputes without violence. They also agreed to accept the judgments of their various courts on human rights, commercial matters, standards etc. Since then Europe has been an oasis of peace. Its sovereignty is not threatened. Wars have raged on the edges – former Yugoslavia – where these values had not been accepted.
So, those who enjoy their full sovereignty and internal peace have not abolished or solved the problem of conflict (since there is always conflict); rather they have put in place effective systems of arbitration or final judgment to settle all disputes.
This system that the AU is recreating of settling final disputes through arbitration and final judgment of a sovereign is as old as time in Africa. It is at the heart of the oldest written story about conflict resolution in the world - the story of how peace came to the warring nephew and uncle duo, Horus and Seth in Ancient Egypt. At stake was the usual issue of power and who would rule.
2. EGYPTIAN PRINCIPLES IN MEDIATING CONFLICT – THE GROUND COUNCIL
The ancient Egyptian story unfolds with the formation of the world when the initial nine building blocks of creation – the ‘Grand Ennead’ - were formed. The first building block, Atum, self-created from the void to give birth to male and female twins Shu (light) and Tefnut (moisture). They in turn gave birth to their children, the next twins Geb (earth) and Nut (sky). The union of Geb and Nut produced the first human family. The eldest Osiris, is followed by his sister Isis, then brother Seth and finally sister, Nephthys.
The drama involving these four humans is arguably the first documented love story and tale of reconciliation. One version contained in the Shabaka Text tells of how Osiris, after marrying Isis, his sister, becomes pharaoh of Egypt. Jealousy consumes his younger brother, Seth, married to Nephthys. Seth eventually murders Osiris, cuts his body into 14 pieces, and scatters the pieces over all Egypt. Seth then becomes Pharaoh.
A distraught Isis, with the help of her sister, Nephthys, goes in search of the pieces of her beloved husband. She finds the discarded remains and reassembles Osiris’ body, thus creating the first mummy. Osiris’ mummy is resurrected for one night and Isis sleeps with him, conceiving a son, Horus, who is raised secretly in the marshes of the Nile to hide him from a vengeful Seth, now seeing a threat to his throne.
Seth is right to be worried. When Horus comes of age, he sets out to avenge his father and fight for his throne. Horus and his uncle battle for 80 years, the wars going back and forth, until finally, the ‘Grand Ennead’ are called in council to settle the dispute. The council meet and after long deliberations, involving hearing evidence and appeals, and setting various tests, the Grand Ennead, the sovereign will of ancient Egypt, settle the dispute by imposing a judgement. And the judgement is final, and accepted by the warring parties.
They decide in favour of right (Horus) and not might (Seth). Horus becomes Pharaoh because he did not shed blood for the throne. Legitimacy would in future from his mother, Isis, the female line – whose symbol is the throne or seat of power – which is why in pictures Isis always has the throne on her head.
The judgement is also win/win recognising Seth’s rights and interests. Seth is given an area to rule over - the deserts/wastelands. And in some subsequent traditions in Ancient Egypt legitimacy to rule as Pharaoh derives only if the lands of Horus and Seth are united under one standard. Finally, the dead Osiris is given the Netherlands to rule over, becoming the symbol of the ancestral past and the point of transition between the living and dead.
Over 4000 years later the sophistication of the judgement of the Grand Council/Ennead is still relevant for us as the AU seeks to recreate a new Sovereign will. ‘Right’ is given ultimate power, but unity is preserved by also recognising ‘might’, through sharing some of that power and territory. Finally, conflict is resolved not through fighting but by a council, hearing evidence and sitting in judgement. This council’s authority to impose a decision is recognised by all because the body enjoys enormous spiritual and moral legitimacy.
The AU, with its various instruments, is seeking to be that contemporary body that can impose such a ruling. Many AU organs are formally involved in this process – the Court of Human and People’s Rights to arbitrate the disputes; and the Peace and Security Council, are just two. Informally, the group of ‘Eminent Persons’ or ‘Elders’ entrusted by the AU to mediate in conflicts, as Kofi Annan did in the 2007 disputed Kenyan elections, are also part of the process of creating a ‘Grand Ennead’ – whose process is fair and whose judgements are accepted so that peace can return.
Finally, it is worth noting that the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic symbol for members of the ‘Grand Ennead’ looks like a flag – which remains the modern symbol of independence and sovereignty. I hope that the AU over the next 50 years will be able to genuinely provide collective security, protect our sovereignty, and create the mechanisms for resolving conflicts through being accepted as Africans as an expression of own sovereign will, seated in council, and trusted to decide in favour of ‘right’, while acknowledging ‘might’ – so that peace can return.
3. SOME AFRICAN SYMBOLS OF PEACE
As we build a culture of peace over the next 50 years in Africa, we can draw on enduring and ancient concepts of peace from our continent.
ANCIENT EGYPTIAN PEACE SYMBOLS
Maat
Ancient Egyptian Goddess of truth, justice and order, is the most enduring symbol of peace. Her symbol is the feather (which sits on her head). The feather is weighed on the scales of life against the heart of the person being judged, and is expected to balance if the heart is pure. Without justice and truth there is no peace or order! ‘No justice, no peace’ as Jessie Jackson/Al Sharpton and others would still say. So Maat and the feather of justice are a precondition for peace.
Imoteph – the one who comes in peace, is with peace
Ancient Egyptian polymath and the first recorded individual in history, subsequently defied by the Egyptians.
GHANA AND PEACE-BUILDING CONCEPTS FROM THE ADRINKA SYMBOLS
1) MPATAPO
‘knot of pacification/reconciliation’
Symbol of reconciliation, peacemaking and pacification - Mpatapo represents the bond or knot that binds parties in a dispute to a peaceful, harmonious reconciliation. It is a symbol of peacemaking after strife.
2) BI NKA BI
‘No one should bite the other’
Symbol of peace and harmony. This symbol cautions against provocation and strife. The image is based on two fish biting each others tails.
IGBO PEACE SYMBOLS (NIGERIA)
Ndibisi Symbol of Ani
The Igbo week of peace is a tribute to Ani, the Earth mother. It is not only a time of peace, but a time of thankfulness to the goddess for her bounty. It teaches humans to be humble and grateful, as well as peaceful.
Palm Fronds
Igbo people (and many other Africans) use Palm Fronds when on a demonstration as a sign of peaceful intent, non-violence and justice. In Roman, Christian and other near east cultures it had been a symbol of victory, but the ancient Igbo Kingdom of Nri, founded in the 9th century, used it to sacralize and restrain – so its current use as a symbol of peace in protests is more likely linked to this earlier understanding of it.
OTHER SYMBOLS OF PEACE
It would be good to build up a corpus of peace symbols and concepts from different African cultures around the continent as increase the peace over the next 50 years. Please forward your contributions.
* Onyekachi Wambu, African Foundation for Development
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Tajudeen memorial 2013
Taju’s love for young and old
Dede Amanor-Wilks
2013-05-22
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/87483
My last two discussions with Tajudeen occurred during a party he threw at his home in Nairobi the night before his abortive trip to Rwanda, and on the telephone the following day while he was being driven back from the airport having missed the flight to Kigali.
Tajudeen’s last dinner party at his apartment in Westlands was a truly happy occasion. Good humour was his trademark, and part of what made Tajudeen so very popular. But on this occasion he was exceptionally cheerful.
When Taju phoned to invite me to the gathering, I promised to bring some food. He told me: ‘Don’t bother yourself, just bring yourself’. Usually I didn’t bother myself. Famed for his culinary skills, as much as his very real gender sensitivity, Tajudeen always put on a feast. At the centre of this was always the Tajudeen special hot pepper soup, with which no one could compete. But this time, for some reason I couldn’t explain, I felt the urge to contribute something to Taju’s dinner party. I prepared groundnut stew and went out of my way to add plenty of fiery ojeηma (‘Scotch bonnet’) peppers so that Tajudeen wouldn’t ask for more pepper, as he did whenever he visited us at my mother’s house in London, from where I had moved to Nairobi.
Taju was delighted when I turned up at his dinner party with my two daughters, Qondi and Zandi, and two of their school friends. Qondi and Zandi adored their Uncle Taju and he adored them. In London, Tajudeen and his wife Mounira were practically our neighbours and the girls had known their daughters Aida and Ayesha from a young age. My daughters had known Uncle Taju for a few years longer than Aida and Ayesha because of his visits to Zimbabwe, where they were born and spent their formative years. We were amazed by the coincidence when we arrived in Nairobi and discovered that having shared a T-junction near our homes in London, I was sharing an office car park with Uncle Tajudeen in Nairobi.
During that last evening, as Uncle Tajudeen’s spirit soared, he joked at least three times that he was coming to the girls’ school to make a party for them. Qondi and Zandi warmed up to the joke.
During the course of the evening, we found time to discuss a book project that had been pending for two years. I was editing a series of papers given during a symposium I had convened at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), soon before I left London for Nairobi in 2007. I had organised the two-day symposium, ‘Reflections on 50 Years of Independence’ to mark the 50th anniversary of Ghana’s independence in a Pan-African context. Tajudeen had been one of the speakers and I had decided to name the book after the title I had given him for his presentation: The Political Kingdom Today. Other speakers had been Nkrumah’s biographer June Milne, Gorkeh Gamal Nkrumah, Yao Graham, Wangui wa Goro, Hakim Adi and John Christensen. Ama Biney was also due to speak, on Tajudeen’s recommendation. She was unwell and unable to attend, but sent her contribution later.
Typically, Tajudeen had given his presentation extempore. We agreed that we would meet the following weekend, upon his return from Kigali, and finalise his chapter.
The following day I phoned Taju to thank him for the dinner party and to ask him when I could come for my serving dishes. I had put the groundnut stew in some exquisite Tunisian dishes that Tajudeen had brought to Zimbabwe as a wedding present from him and Mounira when I married Sam Moyo. ‘Don’t worry, they will be there when I get back,’ Tajudeen joked. ‘Don’t worry’ was one of Taju’s favourite sayings, and though I was not ready to send my precious plates back to their givers permanently, I agreed to wait. He noted that I had added enough pepper to my cooking this time.
It was early Sunday afternoon and Tajudeen was on his way home from the airport having missed the flight to Kigali. He said he had been going to meet President Kagame but it was not a big deal since there was another flight that night. But, ever worried about the other man, he said he would drive himself and leave his car at the airport, as he didn’t want to disturb his driver again. There was no way of knowing that that characteristically thoughtful gesture was to cost Tajudeen his life. It was during that fateful last journey to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport that Tajudeen hit some roadworks and was fatally thrown from his car onto the airport road at Enterprise Road junction. The impact of the crash pulled his seatbelt out of its socket.
Hours before, during that last conversation, we talked about some trouble I had got myself into over a policy briefing paper about the DRC conflict that had displeased the Rwandan government. ‘Send Kagame my greetings,’ I joked. ‘I will tell Paul Kagame that your organisation doesn’t hate him,’ Tajudeen joked back.
We reminded ourselves that we would meet the next weekend following his return from Kigali to work on the book project. The title I had settled on was The Political Kingdom Today: Reflections on 50 Years of African Independence. ‘I only need one day to write my paper, but how to find that one day...’, Tajudeen had been telling me. We had agreed that we would sit down for a whole day and get his reflection out of his head and onto my laptop.
It had been interesting to observe at that symposium Tajudeen’s effect on young people. My young-teen daughters were in attendance, but had been dozing through the symposium, having travelled from a school trip to France the day before. But when Tajudeen took the podium to speak, they became alert and I was surprised to see them laughing unrestrainedly at his political jokes.
Tajudeen loved young people and they loved him. I got to see the Hauwa memorial college and the Pan-African Development Education Advocacy Programme (PADAEP) centre at Funtua when I travelled with Qondi and Zandi for Uncle Tajudeen’s funeral. They were the perfect Tajudeen projects, the projection of his character and his love for young people. I believe that Tajudeen loved young people because he could see in them the potential to transform society for the better before it transformed individuals for the worse.
Young people were convinced by his message because it was so genuine and free of artifice, and because he could connect with them at different levels and make them feel relaxed and valued.
It is also fair to say that Tajudeen respected the memory of elders and held the mother figure in high esteem. My octogenarian mother too attended the symposium at SOAS and, being a political animal herself, was thrilled by Tajudeen’s presentation. After I moved to Nairobi, Taju continued to drop in on my mother whenever he passed through London and his visits were like a tonic for her. I could hear their peals of laughter in my head as they shared memories of the Nkrumah years or debated the shortcomings of successive British governments.
It is so fitting that Tajudeen’s fourth anniversary, coinciding as it does with the 50th anniversary of the OAU/AU, should involve young students in a mock AU summit and include a prize giving at Hauwa Memorial College, which Tajudeen conceived to honour his mother.
Brother Tajudeen, your loving spirit is with us still.
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Four years on the spirit of the African soldier the indefatigable Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem lives on
Sonny Onyegbula
2013-05-22
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/87493
At about 11.00am on the fateful day of 25 May 2009, I was travelling with 3 other Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Uganda colleagues from Moroto to Kotido in troubled Karamoja region North East Uganda when my phone rang and it was my wife calling from Nigeria. Her usual hearty laughter was not there as she screamed into the phone that something terrible had happened. As someone who is away from home I was alarmed as I asked her what has happened. She said it was Oga Taju and I further probed what had happened to Oga Taju she told me that she just heard the news that he had died in a car crash in Nairobi. I was dumb founded and very much confused. Oga Taju dying in a car crash. It was unbelievable as well as unimaginable. I put calls through to friends in Nairobi and the answers were in the affirmative. The ‘iroko’ (Yoruba for tree) had fallen. The indefatigable and foremost pan Africanist who spoke truth to power is no more. Now who is going to stand up and look at our power hungry dictator and speak truth to them?
My thought went to early April when he asked me to pass through Nairobi and spend some days with him before proceeding to Nigeria for Easter holidays. Because of his usual tight schedule he had to travel out suddenly so we could not agree on dates before I bought my ticket. We however spoke on phone when I was in transit for a few hours in Nairobi. I so much regret that I missed that opportunity to have said goodbye to my brother and mentor. I also recall that during the same period he went and brought his two lovely daughters from London to spend the Easter holidays with him in Nairobi. Maybe that was his way of saying good bye to them.
A lot has been written about Taju and his contribution to the emancipation of Africa. It will not serve much purpose to repeat things that have been well documented by more erudite writers. However going down memory lane I will like to recall how I met Oga Taju. In 1995 he was living in Uganda and working as the Secretary General of the Global Pan African movement. I was in Nigeria working as a Legal Counsel with Constitutional Rights Project in Lagos. Our parts crossed at the North South Centre of the Council of Europe Consultative Conference in Strasbourg France in 1995. He chaired a particular sensitize session in which I moved a motion regarding the gross human rights violations of the Abacha junta which he handled in a very impressive manner. Personally I thought he was from Uganda since the name tag in from of him read Uganda until he walked up to me during the tea break and said “Old boy how now” I am also a Nigerian? Since that date until the cold and wicked hands of death snatched him away from us he was my close friend and mentor.
As we remember him today. Let us also remember his widow and two lovely daughters who are gradually growing into teenagers without the love and presence of their father. Let us also remember the struggle of this great giant of Africa that was cut short by the cold hands of death. The continuation of that struggle will make Oga Taju smile in his grave in the knowledge that his struggles were not in vain.
Oga Taju my prayer for you is that the great architect of the universe will watch over your loved one. He will smoothen all rough edges for them. He will also continue to grant you eternal rest in transition.
DON'T AGONISE! ORGANISE!
*Sonny Onyegbula is based in Malakal, South Sudan
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A different ‘Jubilee’: Fresh chance at 50 for AU on justice?
Otsieno Namwaya and Elizabeth Evenson
2013-05-22
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/87484
On May 19, African countries kicked off a special summit to celebrate 50 years of the union, first under the Organization of African Unity and, since 2000, under the African Union. This is an opportune time for the AU to set the record straight on its support for accountability, especially the atrocities during Kenya’s 2007-08 election-related violence.
Indeed, some Kenyan government sources indicate that their government may try to use the summit to instigate a mass withdrawal of African states from the International Criminal Court (ICC). This would follow an initiative earlier this month at the UN Security Council where the Kenyan government asked the council to terminate the ICC’s Kenya cases, ignoring that the council has no authority to do so under the court’s statute. Kenya’s newly inaugurated president, Uhuru Kenyatta, and his deputy, William Ruto, are due to face trial at the ICC in two separate cases.
The African Union and its member states should refuse to be led down this path, and for good reason. The African Union had an important role in bringing the ICC to Kenya in the first place.
AU-appointed mediators led by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan helped negotiate an agreement to end the country’s 2007-2008 violence, which claimed at least 1,300 lives and forced as many as 650,000 from their homes. The agreement put in place a commission of inquiry to investigate crimes committed during the violence.
It was the commission, headed by Justice Philip Waki of Kenya, which offered the Kenyan government an ultimatum — either bring justice through national trials or an envelope containing the names of those suspected to be responsible would be handed to the ICC prosecutor. Only after Kenya failed to put in place mechanisms to try the cases locally did the ICC step in as a court of last resort. Even then the ICC prosecutor made an independent decision, approved by the court’s judges, to open investigations.
From the outset, Kenya promised to cooperate with the court, as it is obligated to do as an ICC member, and Uhuru and Ruto have voluntarily attended hearings at The Hague. But Kenya’s cooperation has been patchy according to the ICC prosecutor and, from the look of things, it could be headed for a more challenging period.
This is not the first time Kenya has courted AU support to scupper the ICC. In 2011 the Kenyan government lobbied the AU to support a UN Security Council deferral of the court’s investigations. Never mind that the effort was disavowed by half of the then-coalition government in Kenya, and that the ICC cases presented no threat to international peace and security -- as would have been required. The AU backed Kenya on paper, but a deferral was never fully supported by African states, including South Africa, then sitting on the Security Council. Consultations were convened but the Security Council let the request roll off into the long grass.
This time Kenyan leaders appear to be trying to appeal to African solidarity against outside interests. During the presidential campaign, Kenyatta, Ruto, and their ‘Jubilee’ alliance painted the ICC as a tool of western imperialism.
Without skipping a beat, President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda picked up this theme at Kenyatta’s inauguration on April 9. He praised Kenyan voters for resisting the court’s ‘blackmail’ and charged that the ICC is being used ‘to install leaders of their choice in Africa and eliminate the ones they do not like.’ Museveni, of course, famously invited the ICC prosecutor to Uganda to investigate the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Neither he nor any Ugandan government forces have faced charges.
Even though the AU played an important role in restoring normalcy in Kenya in 2008 and investigating the violence, it has not urged Kenya to cooperate with the ICC. In fact, the AU failed to back Annan when he came under attack during the recent presidential campaigns for his statements supporting the ICC and calling for accountability. By failing to be categorical about the situation in Kenya, the AU risks signalling it is not committed to accountability.
To be sure, the broader relationship between the African Union and the ICC has not been an easy one. The African Union has blocked the ICC from setting up an office in Addis Ababa and, more damaging, has called on African ICC members to disregard their obligations to the court when it comes to the arrest of President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan (and before his death, former Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi).
But the AU’s role in paving the way for justice for crimes committed in Kenya is more consistent with its founding principles, which reject impunity. This commitment is echoed in other actions the AU has taken to support the ICC. These include supporting efforts to take LRA ICC suspects into custody.
Indeed, in its charter, the African Union promised to ‘promote and protect human and peoples' rights, consolidate democratic institutions and culture, and to ensure good governance and the rule of law’. It is difficult to see how the African Union can meet these important objectives without actively encouraging its members to strengthen domestic justice mechanisms and, where they are either weak or blocked politically, to embrace the ICC as a court of last resort in the face of mass atrocity, as is precisely the case in Kenya. The AU should not allow itself to be seen as shielding people responsible for serious crimes or providing a platform for undermining international justice.
Far from giving in to any effort by Kenya to drive a further wedge between the AU and the ICC, the AU should use its upcoming summit to call publicly for the new government’s full cooperation with the ICC, closing the space available to Kenyatta and Ruto to rewrite history when it comes to the real reason for the court’s involvement in Kenya—to bring justice to victims who have been waiting now for more than five years. In so doing, African countries would reaffirm that at 50 years, the fight against impunity remains a cornerstone of their union.
* Otsieno Namwaya is the Kenya researcher at Human Rights Watch. Elizabeth Evenson is senior international justice counsel at Human Rights Watch.
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Africa and US imperialism
Post-colonial crises and the imperatives of the African revolution
Abayomi Azikiwe
2013-05-23
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/87495
NOTE: This lecture was delivered at the Africa & U.S. Imperialism Conference held in Detroit on May 18, 2013. The event was sponsored by the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice (MECAWI) and also featured presentations by Atty. Jeff Edison of the National Conference of Black Lawyers, Dr. Rita Kiki Edozie, Director of African American and African Studies at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Cheick Oumar and Moussa Rimau, two graduate students at MSU from Mali, Tachae J. Davis of Workers World Youth Fraction and a student at Macomb Community College. A special address was delivered by the Venezuelan Consulate in Chicago Jesus Rodriguez Espinoza. To watch the video of the address delivered by the Venezuelan diplomat just click on the website below: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSPXRV5YIHE&feature=youtu.be (Part 1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M97Yu_3aot4&feature=youtu.be (Part 2)
May 25, 2013 represents the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), the forerunner of the present African Union, which was formed in 2002. This conference today is taking place at a critical time within the history of Africa and the Diaspora.
Even though there has been tremendous progress in Africa and throughout the African world since 1963, the imperialists have devised mechanisms to continue and expand the exploitation and consequent oppression of African people on the continent and indeed throughout Europe, North America and Latin America. This conference sends congratulatory messages to the AU in the midst of this anniversary.
We are following the situation surrounding the summit/, which begins on May 19 and extends through May 27. The meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia is being held under the theme of ‘Pan-Africanism and the African Renaissance,’ in an attempt to return the continental organization back to its political origins born in the ferment of the African revolutionary struggle of the 1960s.
According to the description on the African Union website publicizing the 21st Summit of the AU, it says that ‘The year 2013 marks the 50th anniversary celebration of the formation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU). It will also be a little more than a decade since the formation of the African Union, which seeks to promote ‘an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, driven by its own citizens and representing a dynamic force in global arena.’ Consequently, the Heads of State declared 2013 the Year of Pan-Africanism and the African Renaissance.’
This same synopsis goes on to say that ‘The anniversary is expected to facilitate and celebrate African narratives of past, present and future that will enthuse and energize the African population and use their constructive energy to accelerate a forward looking agenda of Pan-Africanism and renaissance in the 21st century. It provides a unique opportunity, and comes at a moment when Africa is on the rise, and must therefore build its confidence in its future. The 50th Anniversary commemorations will be anchored by the Theme Pan Africanism and the African Renaissance.’ (AU website)
The peoples of Africa scattered throughout the globe are intensely awaiting the outcome of the summit in order to gain clearer insight into the character of the thinking and actions being advanced by the heads-of-state and other leading organs of this esteemed institution.
Nonetheless, our purpose here today is to reflect on the significance of the history of Africa and the African liberation struggles that have evolved over the last five decades. Where have we been and where are we going into the successive decades of the 21st century must be the questions that are paramount in our minds.
THE POST WORLD WAR II POLITICAL SITUATION
It has been acknowledged by leading progressive and revolutionary African historians that the advent of the Atlantic Slave Trade and colonialism shaped the character of African societies throughout the world. Beginning in the 15th century, Africa engaged Europe coming out of the so-called ‘Dark Ages’, a society and culture desperately seeking to advance its own internal development at the expense of other peoples around the globe.
Between the 15th and 19th centuries, millions of Africans were subjected to super-exploitation through slavery and colonialism. This period in the history of the continent spawned the conquering by Europe of the Western hemisphere and the building of an industrial empire which intensified the exploitation of both the indigenous people of the West as well as those of the African continent, Asia and the South Pacific.
Africans and other oppressed peoples of course resisted the onslaught of slavery and colonialism with vigour. History today is revealing even more detailed accounts of the heroic role that Africans played in the struggle against imperialism in its infancy and continuing into its maturity and consequent devolution under the present system of neo-colonialism.
All exploitative and oppressive systems meet resistance from within, leading to the organization and mobilization of the forces which are victimized by the ruling interests within society. These internal struggles along with challenges from the outside result in the transformation of the system into something different that could be an advance or a step backward in the development of humanity.
Although imperialism attempted to create a system of exploitation and oppression that was insulated from internal and external attacks, these efforts proved to be futile. By the conclusion of World War I, national liberation movements and communist tendencies were well in evidence in the struggle for the overthrow of capitalism and colonialism.
Rebellions and revolutionary uprisings spread throughout North America, Europe, Africa and Asia beginning in 1917 with the Bolshevik Revolution, the first total overthrow of capitalism and the replacement of this exploitative system with socialism which is based upon empowering the working class and the oppressed.
The 1920s saw additional uprising and attempts to build a worldwide alliance between national liberation movements and socialist parties. By the conclusion of the 1920s, the capitalist world would fall into its worst economic crisis which lasted for over twelve years until the entry of the United States into World War II in 1941.
This collapse of the capitalist system during the 1930s would also lead to the spreading of fascism in Europe and Japan. However, the fight against fascism in the 1930s and 1940s brought to the fore the communist and national liberation organizations which served as the decisive factor in the outcome of the war in 1945.
Beginning in 1945 the communist and national liberation movements accelerated their efforts aimed at the overthrow of capitalism and colonialism leading to decisive victories in Korea, Vietnam, Eastern Europe and eventually China. By 1949, India had gained its independence from British imperialism and the African continent had begun popular uprising aimed at breaking the yolk of colonial rule.
The aftermath of World War II resulted in the dominance of the U.S. ruling class throughout the capitalist world. Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Japan had experienced extensive fighting within its borders during the 1930s and 1940s leaving the U.S. unscathed by the military impact of the war.
The Soviet Union which had experienced some of the most intense fighting during 1942 and 1943 at the ‘Battle of Stalingrad’ emerged from World War II as a major power internationally only second in military might and political strength to U.S. imperialism. Socialism spread throughout Eastern Europe during this period and the people of Yugoslavia had largely liberated themselves through their resistance to fascism where they later would establish a socialist system.
Despite the devastation of World War II and the founding of the United Nations in 1945 whose objective in part was to avoid another international conflagration, war erupted on the Korean Peninsula in 1950 after the establishment of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in 1948. The DPRK and the people of China under Mao Tse-Tung fought to preserve their national sovereignty and socialism in Asia.
By 1954, the people of Vietnam defeated French imperialism forcing the U.S. to take total responsibility for the continued occupation of the south of that Southeast Asian nation. That same year, the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) began its armed struggle against French imperialism in North Africa, where it had occupied the country since 1830.
Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the leader of the Ghana independence struggle through the Convention People’s Party (CPP), founded on June 12, 1949, and the chief strategist and tactician of the African Revolution between the late 1940s and the time of his death in 1972, pointed out that the movements led by Africans against colonialism and imperialism were not isolated but very much connected with the global struggle for freedom, justice and self-determination. Nkrumah placed the rising tide of the African liberation movements and the struggle for socialism on the continent within the context of the worldwide efforts against all forms of exploitation and oppression.
Nkrumah wrote that ‘A number of external factors affect the African situation, and if our liberation struggle is to be placed in correct perspective and we are to KNOW THE ENEMY, the impact of these factors must be fully grasped. First among them is imperialism, for it is mainly against exploitation and poverty that our peoples revolt.’ (Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare, p. 1, 1968)
This Pan-Africanist revolutionary leader continues by pointing out that ‘It is therefore of paramount importance to set out the strategy of imperialism in clear terms: the means used by the enemy to ensure the continued economic exploitation of our territories and the nature of the attempts made to destroy the liberation movement. Once the components of the enemy’s strategy are determined, we will be in a position to outline the correct strategy for our own struggle in terms of our actual situation and in accordance with our objectives.’ (Nkrumah, p. 2)
With specific reference to the period after World War II, Nkrumah observes that ‘after the war, serious economic, social and political tensions arose in both spheres’ being the colonial territories and the industrialized capitalist states in Europe and North America. He notes that ‘Inside the capitalist-imperialist states, workers’ organizations had become comparatively strong and experienced, and the claims of the working class for a more substantial share of the wealth produced by the capitalist economy could no longer be ignored. The necessity to concede had become all the more imperative since the European capitalist system had been seriously shaken up by the near-holocaust which marked the experience of imperialist wars.’
During the same time period, he continues that ‘While the capitalist system of exploitation was coming to grips with its internal crisis, the world’s colonized areas were astir with the upsurge of strong liberation movements. Here again, demands could no longer be cast aside or ignored especially when they were channeled through irresistible mass movements, like the Rassemblement Democratique Africain (RDA), the Parti Democratique de Guinee (PDG) and the Convention Peoples’ Party (CPP) in Ghana. In certain areas, for example in Vietnam, Kenya and Algeria, direct confrontation demonstrated the readiness of the oppressed peoples to implement their claims with blood and fire.’
Nkrumah stresses that ‘Both in the colonial territories and in the metropolitan states, the struggle was being waged against the same enemy: international finance capital under its external and internal forms of exploitation, imperialism and capitalism. Threatened with disintegration by the double-fisted attack of the working class movement and the liberation movement, capitalism had to launch a series of reforms in order to build a protective armor around the inner workings of its system.’
Within the U.S. during the late 1940s through the 1970s, a deliberate division was institutionalized between the white working class and middle classes and the African American people, most of whom were working class with a shrinking number of farmers and agricultural proletarians in the rural areas. The advent of the mass Civil Rights Movement in the mid-1950s served to crack open the cloak of McCarthyism and bring broader sections of the oppressed into the struggle against racism and national discrimination.
By 1960, the student sector of the African American people would take the lead as the most militant force in the struggle against legalized segregation. These efforts by the youth led by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and others awakened a generation of young people within the Latino, Native and Asian communities along with their counterparts inside the white community. A culture of resistance and protracted programmatic struggle was born which was able to challenge U.S. imperialist militarism in Southeast Asia and in other parts of the world.
There developed during this period a movement against the status-quo which had not been experienced since the height of the Great Depression of 1929-1941. The role of the Left in building resistance to capitalist exploitation and racism created the conditions for the general strikes of 1934 and the subsequent formation of the Committee on Industrial Organizations (CIO) and the United Autoworkers Union (UAW).
The period of struggle between the Great Depression--interrupted with the force of the state during the McCarthy era of the late 1940s and early 1950s--and the burgeoning mass movements of the late 1950s leading into the early 1970s, opened up new avenues of struggle which threatened the ruling class and its system of exploitation. In response the system embarked upon a period of major restructuring by the mid-to-late 1970s which was specifically designed to preserve and enhance the world capitalist system.
Of this period, Nkrumah wrote that ‘To avoid an internal breakdown of the system under the pressure of the workers’ protest movement, the governments of capitalist countries granted their workers certain concessions which did not endanger the basic nature of the capitalist system of exploitation. They gave them social security, higher wages, better working conditions, professional training facilities, and other improvements.’ (Nkrumah, p. 4)
Nkrumah points out that ‘These reforms helped to blur fundamental contradictions, and to remove some of the more glaring injustices while at the same time ensuring the continued exploitation of the workers. The myth was established of an affluent capitalist society promising abundance and a better life for all. The basic aim, however, was the establishment of a ‘welfare state’ as the only safeguard against the threat of fascism or communism.’
Nevertheless, the objective was to maintain the system of ever-increasing profits for the banks and other multi-national corporations. Even with the establishment of the so-called ‘Welfare State’ in Western Europe and North America in the aftermath of World War II extending through the early 1970s, the system of exploitation and oppression remained intact.
The world capitalist and imperialist system extended reforms not only inside the industrialized states but also within the oppressed nations outside its borders. The system began to depend to greater degrees on the extraction of strategic resources from Africa, Asia and Latin America as well as the exploitation of labor in these geo-political regions.
In assessing this strategy by imperialism, Nkrumah said that ‘The urgent need for such reforms was made clear by the powerful growth and expansion of the liberation forces in Africa, Asia and Latin America, where revolutionary movements had not only seized power but were actually consolidating their gains. Developments in the USSR, China, Cuba, North Vietnam, North Korea, and in Egypt, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Algeria and other parts of Africa, showed that not only was the world balance of forces shifting, but that the capitalist-imperialist states were confronted with a real danger of encirclement.’ (p. 5)
SOME CONCRETE EXAMPLES IN THE NATIONAL LIBERATION REVOLUTION
The imperialist states utilized its extensive resources and networks of global finance and political intrigue to undermine the independent African states as well as the Civil Rights, Black Power, Anti-War, Women and Left movements inside the U.S. and Western Europe. In this section we want to briefly review some of these developments which occurred between the 1950s and the 1990s in Africa and throughout the Diaspora.
These events can in no way be separated from trends within the world capitalist system. Africa is still very much integrated into the networks of finance capital making the continent dependent upon mineral extraction and the extension of credit from Western financial institutions for survival.
GHANA: THE FOUNTAINHEAD OF PAN-AFRICANISM
Kwame Nkrumah studied in the US during 1935-1945 when he went to Britain to work with George Padmore in the organization of the Fifth Pan-African Congress in October of 1945. The outcome of the Fifth Pan-African Congress which was chaired by Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois, led to the mass mobilization of the workers, farmers and youth of Africa for the national independence movement.
The Gold Coast in 1951 established a transitional government after Nkrumah was released from prison in order to move toward national independence in 1957. Nkrumah placed tremendous emphasis on state spending for education, social services, healthcare, economic plans for industrialization and unconditional support for the national liberation movements in other parts of Africa and the Diaspora along with a stated aim of building socialism in Ghana and throughout the continent.
The First Conference of Independent African States was held in Accra in April 1958 bringing together the peoples of Africa both north and south of the Sahara. In December of that same year, the First All-African People’s Conference was also held in Accra, bringing revolutionary Pan-African deliberations to the continent itself.
By 1960, when Ghana became a republic, Nkrumah and the CPP had committed to building a socialist state where the formation of a United States of Africa was the principle foreign policy objective of the government. These actions were met with tremendous opposition by imperialism led by the US in league with internal reactionaries who succeeded in overthrowing the Ghana state on February 24, 1966 through a military and police coup.
Nkrumah took refuge in Guinea where he had made an alliance with the ruling Democratic Party of Guinea (PDG) in 1958 at the time of independence under President Ahmed Sekou Toure. Nkrumah was made Co-President of the country and continued to write and organize for the realization of Pan-Africanism and Scientific Socialism in Africa.
Guinea followed similar policies as Ghana through state control of the economy and an anti-imperialist foreign policy. Like Ghana under Nkrumah, Guinea under Sekou Toure gave maximum support to the national liberation movements and progressive states on the continent.
Guinea played a key role in the liberation of neighbouring Guinea-Bissau which waged an armed struggle against Portuguese colonialism and NATO during the period of 1961 to 1973. Nkrumah after the coup placed more emphasis on the class struggle taking place throughout Africa as is reflected in his writing published after 1966.
ALGERIA AND THE ARMED PHASE OF THE AFRICAN REVOLUTION
The FLN triumphed in its national campaign to win independence in 1962. What is often overlooked is the support given to Ben Bella and the Algerian revolutionaries by the All-African People’s Conference and in particular the independent government of Mali under President Modibo Keita.
The opening of a southern front in Algeria after 1960 ensured the success of the revolutionaries. Dr. Frantz Fanon, an African born in the Caribbean, Martinique, played a critical role in the foreign policy of the FLN during the late 1950s to 1961 when he died of cancer.
Algeria provided the first military training to the African National Congress military leaders known as Um Khonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation) co-founded by Nelson Mandela. In fact when Mandela was arrested in 1962 he was charged with leaving the country to undergo military training in Algeria.
Algeria is rich in natural gas and oil and is strategically located in North Africa. The split within the FLN in 1965 leading to the coup against Ben Bella, although tragic, did not result in lessening the country’s commitment to the African Revolution.
Algeria played a key role in apprehending and liquidating the CIA-backed neo-colonialist agent Moise Tshombe of Congo. In 1967 Tshombe was captured and later died in an Algerian prison two years later.
In 1969, Algeria hosted the Pan-African Cultural Festival which re-ignited the international struggle of Black people in the aftermath of the coup against Nkrumah three years earlier. That same year, Algeria would grant political asylum to the Black Panther Party, then under vicious attack by the U.S. government through its counter-intelligence program (COINTELPRO).
The Black Panther Party set up an international section in Algiers and remained there until 1972. Algeria continued to support the national liberation movements in the still-colonized regions of the continent.
THE CONGO CRISIS AND THE CONSOLIDATION OF NEO-COLONIALISM IN AFRICA
Patrice Lumumba, the first elected Prime Minister of the former Belgian Congo made his international debut at the All-African People’s Conference in Accra, Ghana held during December 1958. Lumumba would win the support of the majority of people within Congo in his efforts to build revolutionary Pan-Africanism and a United States of Africa.
The imperialists saw developments in Congo in 1959-1960 as a threat to its neo-colonial designs for post-independence Africa. Lumumba was soon deposed, kidnapped, tortured and executed at the aegis of the CIA and other Western states.
For over three decades Congo remained within the orbit of imperialism serving as a vast reservoir for exploitation of its natural resources by the multi-national mining firms and international finance capital. Under Mobutu it also served as a rear base for the imperialists in their efforts to stifle and defeat the genuine liberation movements fighting for the total liberation of Southern Africa which was not realized until 1994 with the coming to power of the African National Congress in South Africa under Nelson Mandela.
Today, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) remains a bastion of Western intrigue and exploitation. Whole sections of the large country are still not under the control of the central government in Kinshasa.
Since 1996, it has been estimated that as many as six million people have been killed in the DRC through civil wars that are largely the result of imperialist intervention. This pattern of mass killings has its origins in Belgian colonialism where under King Leopold II, anywhere between 8-10 million were slaughtered between 1876 and 1908.
THE OAU COMPROMISE OF 1963
With the efforts of the imperialist states to sabotage the African Revolution there developed to major political blocs on the continent after the Congo crisis of 1960-61. The Casablanca Group was composed of the anti-imperialist states committed to Pan-Africanism and the Monrovia Group, which encompassed the moderate and conservative forces still wedded politically to the former colonial powers and the now dominate U.S. government.
Nkrumah described the new situation in Africa as ‘collective imperialism.’ He wrote that ‘The modifications introduced by imperialism in its strategy were expressed through the disappearance of the numerous old-fashioned ‘colonies’ owing exclusive allegiance to a single metropolitan country through the replacement of ‘national’ imperialisms by a ‘collective’ imperialism in which the USA occupies the leading position.’ (Handbook, p. 5)
He later goes on to highlight that ‘The militarization of the US economy, based on the political pretext of the threatening rise of the USSR and later of the People’s Republic of China as socialist powers, enabled the US to postpone its internal crisis, first during the ‘hot’ war (1939-1945) and then the during the ‘cold’ war (since 1945).’ (p. 6)
Nkrumah says that ‘Militarization served two main purposes, it absorbed, and continues to absorb, an excess of unorganized energy into the intense armaments drive which supports imperialist aggression and many blocs and alliances formed by imperialist powers over the last twenty years. It also made possible an expensive policy of paternalistic corruption of the poor and oppressed people of the world.’ (p. 7)
The formation of the OAU brought together both the majority of moderate and conservative states with the smaller number of anti-imperialist governments led by Egypt, Ghana, Mali, Guinea, Tanzania and Algeria. Such a compromise would limit the capacity of the continental organization to take a firm position against imperialism and neo-colonialism, the major enemy of the African Revolution.
Despite these limitations Nkrumah continued to call for the formation of a United States of Africa. In 1963 at the founding summit of the OAU, Nkrumah distributed his newly-completed book entitled ‘Africa Must Unite’ in an effort to wage ideological struggle against imperialism and its agents operating within various states on the continent.
In a chapter entitled ‘Towards African Unity’ it states that ‘There are those who maintain that Africa cannot unite because we lack the three necessary ingredients for unity, a common race, culture and language. It is true that we have for centuries been divided. The territorial boundaries dividing us were fixed long ago, often quite arbitrarily, by the colonial powers.’(Nkrumah, Africa Must Unite, p. 132)
Yet Nkrumah goes on to stress that ‘All this is inevitable due to our historical background. Yet in spite of this I am convinced that the forces making for unity far outweigh those which divide us. In meeting fellow Africans from all parts of the continent I am constantly impressed by how much we have in common. It is not just our colonial past, or the fact that we have aims in common, it is something which goes far deeper. I can best describe it as a sense of one-ness in that we are Africans.’
In this book a strong emphasis is placed on the successes of the Soviet Union and China in regard to economic development. Nkrumah attributes these advances in the socialist states to national unity, state planning and the empowerment of the working class and the peasantry.
He rightfully observes that the development of Western Europe and the United States was based upon centuries of enslavement and colonization of Africa and other regions of the world. The fact that Africa needs to develop rapidly and on an egalitarian basis rooted in collective planning, there is a chapter dedicated to Ghana’s commitment to socialist construction.
Also in 1964 and 1965, Nkrumah called for the formation of a United States of Africa at the OAU summits in Egypt and Accra respectively. This same theme was later taken up by Libya under Muammar Gaddafi through the Sirte Declaration of 1999 and the opening summit of the African Union in 2002 in South Africa.
OAU LIBERATION COMMITTEE: A SUCCESS AMID CHALLENGES
Perhaps the most successful aspect of the OAU’s history between 1963 and the early 1990s was the Liberation Committee which coordinated continental and international assistance to the national liberation movements. The decolonization process would reach a watershed in 1975-76 with the attempted sabotage of the national independence of Angola by imperialism.
The divisions between the three liberation groups provided an opening for the US in alliance with the-then racist apartheid regime based in South Africa and Namibia to intervene in coordination with the CIA to impose a reactionary leadership over the state. The appeal by Dr. Agostinho Neto, leader of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), to the Cuban government under President Fidel Castro resulted in the deployment of 55,000 Cuban internationalist forces.
These forces in cooperation with anti-imperialist states in Africa such as Guinea-Conakry resulted in the first military defeat of the racist South African Defense Forces in early 1976. Cuban internationalists remained in Angola until 1989 when a comprehensive agreement for the withdrawal of South African Defense Forces from the country and the liberation of Namibia along with the release of political prisoners in South Africa and the beginning of negotiations to end the apartheid system was assured.
Earlier in Zimbabwe, the armed revolutionary forces of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriot Front and the Zimbabwe African People’s Union-Patriotic Front led to the national independence of the country formerly known as Rhodesia in April 1980. Zimbabwe, Angola, Mozambique, Zambia, Tanzania and Lesotho all served as rear bases for the ANC military and political forces which fought for the liberation of South Africa.
STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT PROGRAMS (SAP) REVEAL THE ECONOMIC FACE OF NEO-COLONIALISM
After the overthrow of the CPP in Ghana in 1966, the country no longer took a progressive stand in regard to building socialism and Pan-Africanism on the continent. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank virtually took over the management of the state leading to the abandonment of state enterprises and the emphasis on industrialization and a progressive foreign policy.
By the 1980s this method of restructuring post-independence African states began to spread throughout the continent. In Ghana, the so-called Economic Recovery Program (ERP) was instituted in 1983 under military leader Flight-Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings who had come to power for a second time in a military coup on January 31, 1981.
The ERP would later be named the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) and these methods were managed by the IMF and the World Bank in various African states. Uganda, after the coming to power of National Resistance Army leader Yoweri Museveni, the East African state moved in the same direction as Ghana.
Both Ghana and Uganda had been at the forefront of the Pan-African states attempting to advance continental unity and socialism during the 1960s. Ghana under Nkrumah was closely allied with Uganda under President Milton Obote who was overthrown by Gen. Idi Amin in a Western-backed coup in 1971.
Today there are many reports that would suggest that Africa is undergoing and economic revival. Nonetheless, there is still a heavy reliance on foreign exchange earnings from exports and unemployment and poverty remain high although there has been a reduction in poverty in several states.
During the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ of late 2010 and early 2011, the underlying causes of the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco and Algeria were related to the failure of these governments to provide employment to youth and workers in general. The governments of Tunisia and Egypt were forced to resign in January and February 2011 respectively where Algeria was able to weather the demonstrations which seemed to be related to the country’s long term positions that were independent of the West.
In Libya, even though the imperialists and the corporate press attempted to link the western-backed rebellion which erupted in February of 2011 to developments in Tunisia and Egypt, the character of these demonstrations quickly proved to be of a totally different character politically. When the Libyan rebellion took up arms against the Jamahiriya, the revolt was suppressed by the Gaddafi government.
Utilizing the successful military and political defense of the Jamahiriya as a pretext, the imperialist states rapidly went to the United Nations Security Council to pass two resolutions, 1970, placing an arms embargo on the Gaddafi government but not the CIA-trained rebels and defectors and 1973, which imposed a so-called ‘no-fly zone’ over Libya which was a code name for a massive bombing operation that lasted for seven straights months and was carried out by the U.S. and NATO. In addition to an arms embargo and blanket bombing of Libya, the country foreign assets were frozen and the CIA was sent into the country to identify targets for aerial bombardment.
Several attempts were made on the lives of Gaddafi and his family during the course of the war. His family members were killed in airstrikes and eventually on October 20, 2011 Gaddafi’s convoy was struck by bombs in Sirte. He was later captured, brutally beaten, tortured and shot to death by an alleged militia group that was supported by the Pentagon, the CIA and NATO.
Since the overthrow of Gaddafi in Libya, the oil-rich North African state has sunk into chaos. Four US CIA officers were killed in Benghazi last September 11 posing as Washington diplomats. The New York Times reported that the killing of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and the other three Americans was the greatest blow to the CIA in three decades.
AFRICOM-NATO AND THE MILITARIZATION OF AFRICA
The US Africa Command (AFRICOM) was formed officially in early 2008 with its headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany. Attempts to place the AFRICOM headquarters in Africa was met with substantial resistance from individual states and the African Union. However, the U.S. does have a military base in the Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti.
In addition to this base, there are drone stations, CIA stations and other joint operations between the US and various African states in Somalia, Ethiopia, Seychelles, South Sudan, Uganda, Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ghana and other states. Obama announced in December of 2012 that his administration was dispatching 3,500 Special Forces and military trainers to 35 African states in purported efforts to assist in the fight against ‘terrorism.’
Yet the horrendous war crimes carried out by the US under Obama gets relatively no opposition within the US Congress even among the Congressional Black Caucus. In Libya some two million people were displaced and anywhere between 50,000-100,000 people were killed by the US-NATO war of aggression and regime-change.
Thousands of Africans remain in post-Gaddafi Libyan jails that are run by militias who are given free reign by the US-NATO backed General National Congress (GNC). An International Criminal Court (ICC) delegation which visited Libya during 2012 to investigate the conditions surrounding the detention of Seif al-Islam, the oldest son of Gaddafi and his heir apparent, was detained by the Zintan militia holding this political prisoner.
The ICC, commonly referred to as the ‘African Criminal Court’ due to its sole preoccupation with African statesmen and rebel leaders, had indicted Gaddafi and members of his government during the imperialist war against Libya in 2011. These leaders were indicted on false charges related to the efforts to defend the country against the western-led rebels who had terrorized the country for months but have escaped the scrutiny of the ICC based in The Hague.
The United Nations and other international bodies have remained largely silent on the crimes against humanity being committed in counter-revolutionary Libya. This also holds true of developments in Somalia, where the CIA and the Pentagon has carried out drone and airstrikes that have resulted in the murder of thousands of people.
Africans have continued to resist the onslaught of AFRICOM and its surrogates on the continent. It was reported in May 2013 that at least 3,000 AMISOM troops have been killed in Somalia in efforts to attempt to suppress the resistance by Al Shabaab to imperialist-backed interference in this Horn of Africa state.
The wars in Libya and Somalia have spilled over into neighboring Mali, Niger and Kenya respectively. Kenya has 2,000-3,000 troops occupying southern Somalia at the aegis of the US.
The military intervention by the Pentagon, the CIA and NATO countries will escalate in the short term due to the growing strategic role Africa is playing within the world capitalist system. Throughout East and Central Africa there have been large finding of oil, natural gas and other strategic resources. At present at least 25 percent of the oil that is imported into the United States is coming from the African continent, which now exceeds the amount of petroleum that is exported to the US from the entire Arabian Peninsula.
THE WAY FORWARD FOR AFRICA AND THE DIASPORA
In order for Africa and its people to develop there must be decisive a break with the imperialist system of finance capital. With the deepening crisis of the world capitalism, the economic system is providing no real solutions to the problems of Africa, nor for its own peoples in Europe and North America.
Europe remains in deep recession with the countries of the South facing astronomical unemployment rates that exceed 25 percent. Even in France, Britain and Germany, the economic crisis has drained the national reserves compelling the central banks to bailout the financial institutions in order to stave off a total collapse.
In the U.S. the rates of poverty and unemployment in real terms are staggering. Nearly half of the people in the U.S. consider themselves to be living in poverty or near poverty.
This economic crisis has become a political one since the White House, Congress, Downing Street, Brussels and Paris are providing no alternative ideas on how to extricate the capitalist system from the economic malaise impacting hundreds of millions of workers, farmers and youth. The only proposals coming out of the halls of the ruling class and their surrogates in government call for greater austerity measures and mechanism to limit any semblance of democratic debate, discussion and collective action.
Our task relates to political education, mobilization and organization of the masses of people to work towards the solutions of these challenges. The crisis in Africa and the Diaspora is by no means isolated from the broader struggle of the peoples of the world.
In Africa there has been a tremendous degree of movement towards alliances with other states on the continent and throughout the so-called Global South. The Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) has held five summits since 2000 resulting in an escalation of both economic and political cooperation between the two regions. Africa is now the largest trading partner with the People’s Republic of China.
In Zimbabwe the ZANU-PF government in 2000 took decisive action by seizing the land which the people fought long years for during the armed revolutionary struggle. The government of President Robert Mugabe was vilified by the West and its allies where today research has shown that the land seizures have improved both productivity and income for the African agricultural workers and farmers.
This experience in Zimbabwe is being looked at by other African states in the Southern Africa region and other areas. In South Africa and Namibia the masses of workers, youth and farmers long for the full realization of the objectives of the national democratic revolutions.
South Africa has the largest and most organized working class on the continent. The unrest in the mining industry and the agricultural sector is pushing the country towards looking at nationalization and seizure of the land and the means of production.
The African Union must take action to remove the U.S., France, Britain, Germany, Israel and other imperialist states and their partners from the continent. The ongoing problems of Africa can be traced back to the dominance of the imperialist system throughout the continent.
With reference to the African Diaspora in North America and Europe, the struggle against racism and national oppression takes on critical significance. The forces of the African Diaspora, motivated by Pan-African ideals has and can continue to play a decisive role in the overall consolidation of the African independence movement and the move towards Pan-Africanism and the African Renaissance.
Nkrumah in Africa Must Unite wrote that ‘The expression ‘Pan-Africanism’ did not come into use until the beginning of the twentieth century when Henry Sylvester Williams of Trinidad, and William Edward Burghhardt Du Bois of the United States of America, both of African descent, used it at several Pan-African Congresses which were mainly attended by scholars of African descent. A notable contribution to African nationalism and Pan-Africanism was the ‘Back to Africa’ movement of Marcus Garvey.’ (p. 133)
Since 1963, the African American and Caribbean African people have played a pivotal role in the struggle to popularize the concept of African liberation. During the 1980s and early 1990s, the Southern African solidarity struggle influenced by African Americans brought into existence the first legislative and administrative actions against the apartheid regime.
With the advent of the Obama administration the need to emphasize a class character to the Pan-African struggle is essential. Africa is not the backyard of U.S. imperialism and must be given the opportunity to exercise full and genuine independence and sovereignty.
In the U.S. the cities in which African Americans reside are facing monumental economic crisis and the evisceration of political power won through the popular struggles of the post-World War II period. Principled alliances with progressive African states and mass organizations will provide avenues for the struggle to eradicate underdevelopment and neo-colonialism from the continent and among the oppressed nations held captive by the West.
Therefore as Nkrumah stressed in the Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare ‘African unity implies that imperialism and foreign oppression should be eradicated in all their forms. That neo-colonialism should be recognized and eliminated and that the new African nation must develop within a continental framework.’ (p. 27)
Nkrumah goes on to say that ‘At the core of the concept of African unity lies socialism and the socialist definition of the new African society. Socialism and African unity are organically complementary. There is only one true socialism and that is scientific socialism, the principles of which are abiding and universal. “(p. 29)
Short of revolutionary Pan-Africanism based on scientific socialism, Africans and their allies throughout the world must work toward defining and exercising the maximum degree of organization and mobilization aimed at the transformation of capitalist society and the world imperialist system. These are the lessons of the last five decades and they must be assessed in order to move forward with the total liberation of Africa and its people.
*Abayomi Azikiwe is Editor, Pan-African News Wire
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AU coming of age a cause for celebration?
Titi. A. Banjoko
2013-05-22
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/87488
On the 25th May 2013 the African Union (AU), the successor of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), will be 50 years of age. This is a milestone and can be seen as a cause for celebration - the golden jubilee.
I am not against celebrating milestones by having a party as it seems to be the norm in Africa. We do love to party. My unease is that I don’t really understand what we are celebrating. That we have survived a number of challenges, achievements to date, and/or we just need an excuse to celebrate?
The life of OAU to AU can be viewed through the development stages of life from birth to childhood, adolescence, adulthood and maturity.
THE CHILDHOOD – ADOLESCENT YEARS SECURING INDEPENDENCE
The formation of the OAU on 25 May 1963 was when many African states gained independence from colonial rule. Its key focus was on eradicating from the continent all forms of colonialism and preventing its members from being controlled by outside powers. This was the height of the Cold War when nations were used by the West to further their agendas. The OAU focus could be described as political freedom and learning/using its skills to maintain its political freedom and independence. As in life, this was fraught with challenges as Africa experienced the birth of dictators, military rule and civil wars.
Moving to adolescence, Africa continued to be reliant on colonial powers for economic aid, which came with strings attached, loans with high interest and unacceptable tariffs for our goods.
Total unity was difficult to achieve, as the Cold War meant that African nations were either supporting the US or the then USSR, while many others were still dependent on former colonial powers.
However, the OAU played a key role in achieving political freedom and its initiatives paved the way for the birth of AU.
THE ADULT – MATURE YEARS: FINDING ITS PLACE IN THE GLOBAL SOCIETY
The birth of the AU in 1999 marked Africa’s move into adulthood. The AU’s vision is of an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, driven by its own citizens and representing a dynamic force in a global arena. The AU recognized the Diaspora as one of its constituents.
The focus shifted to what we need to do as Africans to develop. With independence came responsibility and accountability for socio-economic development of the continent. This has been an evolving process fraught with so many challenges that will eventually lead to maturity and ultimately success. Recent years have seen African countries grow in understanding and awareness of who we are, and how we fit into the wider global context.
The increasing awareness has led to a greater insight into the issues, potentials and opportunities within Africa and the effect of external stakeholders. This journey of self-discovery has led to numerous changes across Africa, that is, moving from military to civilian rule, increasing calls from within to speed the developmental process, a growing and maturing media, civil society and a vibrant private sector.
Democratic reforms have coincided with declarations of an economic renaissance in Africa, prompted by growth averaging 6 percent in the 2000s. The emerging middle class and the growing economic gaps with the low-no income earners is an area that needs to be addressed.
The maturity of Africa and its coming of age is reflected in various sectors, that is growth and expansion of African owned companies inside and outside Africa. The increasing self-belief that Africans can and must solve the problems in Africa; is evidence of maturity.
MOVING TO MATURITY – THE NEXT 50YEARS
The focus of the next 50 years for the African Union should be to move from being a rigid bureaucracy to an agile organisation, which is able to flex and move at speed in a global society. To do this it must have the capacity and capability to deliver, implement and enforce its objectives and or decisions. Its fingerprint must be evident across Africa at grassroot level. The focus must be on ensuring that it has the right people with the right skills in the right place at all levels of the organisation.
Its focus must be on ensuring that:
• Good governance and transparency is practiced at all levels of society and the natural resources of the continent is used to deliver wealth for all citizens not the privileged few that live on patronage
• The decisions and programmes are based on evidence and facts not perception and move from laudable statements and platitudes to implemented programmes and delivery
• Elections are based on policies, proven track record rather than tribe, ethnicity, religion, power of incumbency and or patronage
• Institutions are robust and move beyond individuals and personalities able to withstand shocks
• Citizens are able to hold governments to account
The next 50 years will see the emergence of African countries on the global platform as key economic players. The African Union is a key enabler that is able to facilitate the process.
One of the key signs of maturity is when you are no longer financially dependent on others (aid) but you not only pay your own way in the world but also give to others in need.
CAUSE FOR CELEBRATION
I believe that we do have cause for celebration for the journey travelled so far and the achievements to date. However, the celebration should be low-keyed as the real celebrants, that is the heroes, are the many Africans who have endured years of poverty and yet remained optimistic about the future.
My personal score card is 6/10 well done for all the efforts but can do better.
* Dr Titi. A. Banjoko, AfricaRecruit & FindaJobinAfrica.com
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50 years after, is the AU, formerly the OAU, a success or failure?
Theodore Menelik-Mfuni
2013-05-22
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/87492
My career in international development has been diverse and deeply enriching. Over the last decades, I have worked in the Democratic Republic of Congo. I have had the privilege of working in more than five countries within the continent. This has only been possible due to the unrivalled capacity of education and the desire of many to do good around the world, but particularly in Africa.
INFLUENCES OF MY FATHER
In fact, ever since I was a child I dreamed of working for the then Organisation of African Unity (OAU), because my dad worked for the Organisation before its creation and after, until his death in 1987 at the young age of 50. I remember following him throughout his national and international trips when possible, as I was still too young then and still going to school, and getting more and more interested in the fate of this wonderful continent. My father was a senior officer of the OAU and at the time of his premature death, in charge of the ESCAS department which stands for Education, Science, Culture and Social Affairs.
I remember having vivid discussions about the OAU and its impact throughout the continent. He wrote several articles and reports about what the OAU should and would do but sadly many of the things he talked about have not happened, but why? He was very keen to see young people like me involved in the faith of the continent, indeed my path to greater involvement was unusual. During my summer holidays, I emptied ashtrays in the interpreters’ booths, cleaned desks, refilled water jugs and sorted paper out in the organisation’s library. The following summer I was promoted to assist and distribute documents to conference participants. That was his way and vision; he always felt that changes for Africa must come from the bottom. His experience with me was a good testimony to that assumption, an assumption that is still alive in me today.
I remember my dad talking about his big project i.e. the work behind the preparation of the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was created in 1963 to eliminate the last vestiges of colonialism in Africa. When discussing the OAU in depth, I remember him telling me that most of the projects that they were working on were geared towards the future but the priority then was only about assisting independence movement across the continent.
‘L’AFRIQUE DE DEMAIN’
He talked about the work he was doing for the coming of the African Union. He was talking about a revolution, the renaissance of Africa, with very ambitious goals such as: the promotion of democracy, human rights and development across the continent, including education and inward foreign investment. It was evident that for him, time had come for the organisation to spearhead a new Africa, ready to reform in depth, to confront its ills without taboo and to provide the means to address them. His thunderous ‘L’Afrique de demain’ (‘Tomorrow’s Africa’) is still in my memory.
Every summer I was there in Addis Ababa. The Heads of State and governments of the various nations in Africa met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to discuss issues affecting the Continent. For many years such meetings had been taking place and as I grew up and started to understand things better, I remember starting asking more pertinent questions to my dad. I particularly remember the day my parents ordered my siblings and myself to never to talk about politics to our friends because it was too dangerous to do so. I also remember when a golf park opposite our house was turned into a military camp, where every night after midnight shots were heard – possibly more political assassinations. I remember thinking that there was very little to show for all the millions of dollars of taxpayers' money that had gone into those meetings. What has the OAU and subsequently the AU achieved or got right in Africa since its creation? How effective has the OAU/AU been in tackling problems and all other issues facing the continent? Does the organisation still offer value for money?
SOME SUCCESSES OF THE OAU
The AU has had some reasonable successes through its direct contribution and collaboration with the international community to settling and minimising conflicts in some of the region’s hotbeds, such as trouble spots in the Sudan, resolving post-election violent conflicts in Cote d’Ivoire and Kenya, and forcing military coup-makers to hand back power to civilian regimes. Unlike the OAU which followed a doctrine of ‘non-interference’ in the internal affairs of member states, the AU has the authority through decisions of its Peace and Security Council to interfere in member states to promote peace and protect democracy, including deploying military force in situations in which genocide and crimes against humanity are being committed.
IS THE AU IMPOTENT?
However, as her older sister the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), the African Union (AU) is struggling to resolve the multiple crises facing the continent and to assume its responsibilities. Its weakness was made all too evident when the European Union (EU) and others, prepared Resolution 1973 and its implementation for the Libyan crisis in 2012, that saw the fall of the Gaddafi regime, but the AU was not consulted. An EU delegation went to Cairo, but not in Addis Ababa where the AU headquarters is located, which again demonstrates its impotence. Why can the success of the AU only be counted on the fingers of one hand?
Without the strength of the United States, the civil war in Liberia would not have ended in 2003. The AU showed the same weakness in Sierra Leone. It took Great Britain, the former colonial power, to take things in hand by sending its elite troops to permanently disarm RUF rebels. In the field of human rights, the AU has not made sparks. Its only success story could perhaps be the Darfur, where it managed to get a partial agreement, which eventually led to independence.
THE AU MUST ADVANCE ITS WEIGHT IN THE WORLD
The AU looks increasingly powerless and helpless while genocides are being committed against the people on the continent by some despotic regimes. Millions of women and young girls have become refugees in their own country while hundreds of thousands have been murdered, raped and tortured to death while the perpetrators and their associates meet year after year at the expense of the tax payer supposedly to represent them at these meetings. These are the very issues that undermined the OAU and will continue to undermine the AU today. The organisation’s successes will always be over shadowed by the lack of integrity of many of its leaders unless it addresses these issues seriously and is prepared to take bold actions. Kofi Annan wrote a brilliant article in the UK’s ‘Financial Times’ (10/05/2013), in which he talks about how some African leaders are underselling African assets for selfish reasons. For example, he talks about the $75m deal in the mineral-rich Katanga region which goes to the heart of his report’s criticism – namely that the Congolese state lost an estimated $1.36bn in potential revenues between 2010 and 2012 as a result of the alleged undervaluation of the assets. The sum is equivalent to twice the annual education budget of the country, which ranks at the bottom of the United Nations Human Development Index. All these are issues that require a swift answer if the AU is to start playing the role we all want it to play.
Africa been plagued with post-colonial and neo-colonial issues that cannot be ignored nor dismissed, including the fact that it has also failed to unify its economic institutions for the benefit of the continent, and having thirteen economic unions has not been helpful. In addition, despite receiving vast sums of aid over the years, African countries have never benefited from a co-ordinated initiative such as the Marshall Plan, which saw Western European states re-emerge after the devastation of the Second World War in the 1940s.
Africa’s failed integration failure is found in the continent’s perpetual coup d’états, conflicts and abuse of power, which stand in sharp contrast to the European Union’s (EU) where war has not only disappeared but has even become almost impossible to imagine. This is partly due to old legacies but 50 years cannot and should not be used as an excuse. We Africans had the opportunity to address borders issues which continue to fuel border conflicts but instead we maintained the status quo.
One of the reasons for the AU’s failure to induce gradual changes comes from its own decision not to prevent countries with weaker institutions to become part of the organisation. Indeed there is no standard or criteria for becoming member of such an organisation and that in my view is a huge weakness.
CHALLENGES OF THE AU
What are the challenges? Well beside all those mentioned above, it could be argued that the process for change is still young because the AU was only established 10 years ago, and a good evaluation of its impact on the continent, will only be possible in the next 10 years. Indeed it is important to allow time for some of its policies to start biting. My argument is that it took Europe approximately eight centuries to build their institutions.
All Africans citizens and some of the leaders are keen to see the continent move forward. But, to be successful, we will have to overcome all the aforementioned hurdles. The Organisation for African Unity was about uniting Africa against colonialism but the African Union is about integration. It is not just a name change, but rather the desire to take the continent to a very different level. The name states its purpose and how it is established. However, with the name come several responsibilities which I hope all African leaders and decision makers will take seriously. They must work together to bring about the changes we have all been longing for. Their efforts must not only be limited to having a common African currency, economic programme, or a common defence policy but it also needs to change the lives of all Africans for the better, including the high level of unemployment across the continent, and especially among the young who are the future of the continent.
*Theodore Menelik-Mfuni (Dr) represents the Ministry of Gender, Family and Children and the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Sports of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the UK; he is also founder of Menelik Education, www.menelikpartnership.org
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The birth of the OAU
Cameron Duodu
2013-05-23
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/87497
To us in Ghana, the conference that was held in Addis Ababa in May 1963 to give birth to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was as exciting as an international football match.
Lined up on one side of the “pitch” was a group of African states known as the ‘Monrovia Group’. Most of it members were drawn from an earlier group called the ‘Brazzaville Group’ formed in 1960 by mainly French-speaking countries. (Initially, the group was known as the “Afro-Malagasy Union”)
The countries in this ‘Brazzaville Group were Cameroon, Congo-Brazzaville, Cote d’lvoire, Dahomey (Benin), Gabon, Upper Volta (Burkina Faso), Madagascar, Mauritania, Niger, the Central African Republic, Senegal and Chad. Later, the Group was expanded to include Ethiopia, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Togo, Tunisia and Congo (Kinshasa).
On the other side of the pitch were the “Casablanca Group” The Casablanca Group emerged in 1961 and comprised seven countries: Algeria, Egypt, Ghana, Guinea, Libya, Mali, and Morocco.
Now, it was not only Dr Kwame Nkrumah who was tremendously disheartened by the existence of the Monrovia and Casablanca Groups in Africa. President Sekou Toure of Guinea (a member of the Casablanca Group) was also unhappy and he linked up with Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia to try and organise a conference of the foreign ministers of the two groups, preparatory to a summit of their heads state.
Nkrumah heard of this and was irritated that his former ally, Sekou Toure, seemed to be tying to steal Nkrumah’s thunder as the unacknowledged ‘father of African unity. So he set his own secret diplomatic moves in motion to get the Monrovia and Casablanca Groups to merge and form a common organisation. He dispatched one of his most trusted aides, Kwesi Armah (better known as Ghana’s High Commissioner in London), to Liberia to see President William Tubman, who was widely respected as one of the ‘old wise men’ of Africa. Tubman had won this respect despite his country’s extremely close ties to America.
Nkrumah’s message spurred Tubman to convince his fellow members of the Monrovia Group that the pressing issues facing the world and Africa – disarmament, the Cold War, non-alignment, economic co-operation with each other and with other nations, and, above all, how to safeguard the independence recently won by African and Asian nations – could best be addressed in unison. After all, there was the Organisation of American States (OAS) which united North and South America; the Middle East had its Arab League; the Western Powers were bound together in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation(NATO); while the Soviet Bloc had its Warsaw Pact. Why should Africa not emulate them by forming an organisation that spoke with one voice?
But even as Nkrumah was trying to sort out the diplomatic challenges he saw in Africa, a new development occurred close to home that was disastrous in the message it conveyed to the rest of Africa. On 13 January 1963, one of Nkrumah’s bêtes noires in Africa, the President of neighbouring Togo, Mr Sylvanus Olympio, was assassinated in a coup and his Government overthrown.
Many political observers Africa and elsewhere believed that Nkrumah was behind this coup. This was because antagonism had existed between Nkrumah and Olympio as far back as the early 1950s, when the Gold Coast was about to achieve its independence and become Ghana. Part of the Gold Coast – Trans/Volta Togoland — had once been part of Togo, which was then a German colony. But after the defeat of Germany in World War One (1914-18), Togo was divided into two by the League of Nations (the World Organisation that was later to be replaced by the United Nations). One part was given to France to administer as a separate colony under a League of Nations “mandate”, while the other part was given to Britain to administer under the same “mandate” conditions. But typically, the British did not accept the simple method of administering Trans/Volta Togoland as a separate territory (as the French had done), but instead, chose the complex method of attaching Trans/Volta to its colony next door, the Gold Coast. The British didn’t, of course, bother to ask the inhabitants of the two territories that were to be brought together in a ‘shotgun’ marriage, what their own views of the British plan were.
Had the British asked, they would no doubt have been told that the plan was a diabolical one. For it would segregate forcibly behind separate borders, ethnic groups that had traditionally lived as single entities before the European colonisers came. The Ewe people in particular, were deeply resentful of this division that was imposed on them, which separated many families from one another and thus placed tremendous social hardships on them.
Fast-forward to the 1950s. The British are busy preparing their “model colony” in West Africa, the Gold Coast, for independence. But the question of Trans/Volta Togoland has reared its head. What is to be done with it? The trusteeship arrangement with the United Nations that had replaced the League of Nations mandate (after Word War Two) made it necessary to ascertain the wishes of the people of any trust territory before a change could be effected in their status. The Gold Coast was to become the independent nation of Ghana. What was to become of the Trans/Volta section of the Gold Coast? Was it to be allowed to achieve independence with the Gold Coast, or to secede and unite, instead, with the territory of which it had once formed part — French Togoland?
The politicians who ruled in the Gold Coast, led by Dr Kwame Nkrumah, wanted Trans/Volta to stay with the Gold Coast and become part of Ghana. But politicians in French Togoland and their allies in the Gold Coast, wanted “Ablode” : that is the unification of Trans/Volta Togoland with French Togoland. That, they said, was the only just thing to do, as it would bring together again, the ethnic groups that had been forcibly separated from their kith and kin.
The United Nations decided to hold a plebiscite in 1956 to allow the people of both parts of Togoland to decide on their own future. In the plebiscite, however, the people of Trans/Volta Togoland decided that they wanted to stay as part of Ghana. Olympio and his allies in Ghana were enraged. They never accepted that decision, and when Togo, in it s turn, became independent in 1960, it became a haven for opposition politicians from Ghana who had fled from Nkrumah’s Ghana. Nkrumah returned the favour and Togolese opponents of Olympio were equally welcomed in Ghana. Indeed, on the day of the coup in Togo, Radio Ghana made the mystifying announcement stating that a man called Antoine Meachi was leaving Accra for Togo! The clear implication was that Meachi would become one of the leaders of the new Togolese Government, or probably, even its leader. In fact, the architects of the coup entrusted the presidency of Togo to Meachi for a brief period, but the French, upon whom the Togolese ex-soldiers led by Emmanuel Bodjollé and Gnassingbe Eyadema, who had overthrown Olympio, were depending for money, got Meachi replaced with their own candidate, Mr Nicholas Grunitzky.
Of course, the Togolese affair played into the hands of all those who suspected Nkrumah of seeking to dominate the African scene by subverting the regimes of other African states, especially, his immediate neighbours. So his overtures to other African states in relation to African unity were received with a pinch of salt. However, Emperor Haile Selassie and President Tubman, among others, deduced that even if he harboured ambitions to replace some African leaders with his own henchmen, Nkrumah would be much easier to control if he was inside the same organisational “tent” with them, than if he was left outside in isolation to piss into the tent.
With the psychological preparation done, a series of meetings were held level to seek views on how to proceed. It was agreed that the foreign ministers of Africa should meet in Addis Ababa in May 1963 to prepare an agenda for an African summit conference at the same venue immediately afterwards. Despite the well-known disagreement over whether a continental government should be formed immediately or step-by-step, agreement was reached on a Charter which set out the articles of a body to be known as the Organisation of African unity (OA). The Charter was signed on 25 May 1963. That date has become known as “African Day” The Charter did not meet everyone’s expectations, but was adopted as a document that would be improved by future generations. And indeed, the organisation keep changing. Several new Articles have been added to the original Charter and the organisation itself has undergone a transformation in name, It is now called the African Union. It is for generations of Africans yet unborn to scrutinise it and reshape it until it comes as close as possible to meeting the aspirations of the African people as a whole.
For Africans deserve to be able, like their European counterparts, to come and go without visas; to work where they like, within their continent; and expect to be treated as if they were “home” – despite being far away, geographically speaking, from the territorial limits into which they were originally born. Africans also want to be able to trade with one another without paying customs duty on the goods they export or import; to be able to buy and sell goods everywhere in Africa without needing to change money.
Those were the dreams of our fathers. And it must be the goal of all of us to ensure that the dreams become a reality. In our lifetime.
* Cameron Duodu is a Ghanaian journalist and writer.
Advocacy & campaigns
African civil society calls for AU action on Eritrea
2013-05-23
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/87503
To: Ministers of Foreign Affairs in Africa
CC: Permanent Representatives to the African Union;
Permanent Representatives of African States to the UN Human Rights Council
21st May 2013
RE: African Civil Society Call for Action on Human Rights Situation in Eritrea
EXCELLENCIES,
We, the undersigned representatives of African civil society, present our compliments and congratulations on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the African Union and the Organisation of African Unity. Reflecting the overall theme of 2013 as the year of Pan-Africanism and African Renaissance, we are writing to call on the African Union to take urgent action to respond to the appalling situation of widespread and systematic human rights violations in Eritrea, especially in light of the commemoration’s sub-theme of promoting peace and security in Africa.
We note with appreciation the adoption by consensus of resolution A/HRC/RES/20/20 on the human rights situation in Eritrea at the 20th session of the UN Human Rights Council in July 2012, on the recommendation of Nigeria, Djibouti and Somalia. It is encouraging to see an important and positive step forward towards the protection and promotion of human rights for the Eritrean people emanating from members of the African Group. The UN Special Rapporteur on Eritrea, whose mandate was established by the July 2012 resolution, will present a report highlighting the human rights situation in Eritrea in June 2013.
As the report of the Special Rapporteur will no doubt demonstrate, the ongoing widespread and systematic nature of human rights violations in Eritrea underlines the need for continued and urgent action by the African Union. The government officials and independent journalists arbitrarily arrested in September 2001 remain either in incommunicado detention or have since died. Thousands of Eritreans have been arrested and imprisoned without charge or trial for years upon end merely for being critical of the government, belonging to what the government defines as a 'wrong' religious group, or refusing to comply with the indefinite national service imposed on all Eritreans over the age of 18 years. Torture, arrests, killings and forced labour are common. No independent civil society organizations have permission to operate inside Eritrea, and since 2001 there has been no independent domestic media.
At the regional level, the case of Eritrea has been raised repeatedly at the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which adopted a resolution in 2005 condemning human rights violations in Eritrea. In two separate decisions in 2003 and 2007, the Commission also found the government to be in violation of fundamental rights contained in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and requested the release of the government officials held incommunicado since September 2001 (250/02 Liesbeth Zegveld and Mussie Ephrem vs. Eritrea) and for at least 18 journalists also held incommunicado to be given access to their lawyers (275/03 Article 19 vs. Eritrea). Although these decisions have been adopted by the African Union, to date Eritrea has not provided any concrete response or acted to implement them.
In this year of golden jubilee commemorations, Eritrean people are not free to celebrate along with the rest of Africa. If the message “One Africa for Prosperity and Peace” is to have real meaning, we believe that now is the time for the African Union and all its member states to kick start sustained engagement on the human rights situation in Eritrea so that its people may benefit from the rights and fundamental freedoms enshrined in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
During the AU Summit to be held in Addis Ababa on 19-27th May 2013, we therefore recommend that the African Union and its member states:
Encourage the Government of Eritrea to ensure the effective implementation of the ACHPR decisions on Eritrea, and to allow access to the country for the special mechanisms of the ACHPR and UN Human Rights Council;
Support the renewal of the mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Eritrea at the Human Rights Council in June 2013;
Ensure the protection of Eritrean refugees in their states in accordance with the 1969 OAU Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa.
Excellencies, we thank you for your attention to these concerns. We remain available to provide further information as may be useful.
Sincerely,
Organisations:
1. Action des Chrétiens pour l'Abolition de la Torture (ACAT-Burundi)
2. African Centre for Democracy and Human Rights Studies
3. African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies (ACJPS)
4. Arry Organisation for Human Rights and Development
5. ARTICLE 19 Eastern Africa
6. Arusha NGOs Network (ANGONET), Tanzania
7. Association des femmes juristes du Burundi (AFJB)
8. Association Nationale pour l’Alphabétisation et la Formation des Adultes (ANAFA), Senegal
9. Base for Education Dissemination (BED), Tanzania
10. Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies
11. Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria, South Africa
12. Centre Guinéen de Promotion et de Protection des Droits de l'Homme (CPDH) 13. Club Union Africaine Cote d'Ivoire
14. Coalition de la Société Civile pour le Monitoring Electoral (COSOME)
15. Coalition Ivoirienne des Défenseurs des Droits Humains (CIDDH)
16. East African Civil Society Organizations Forum (EACSOF)
17. East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project (EHAHRDP)
18. Eritreans for Human and Democratic Rights-UK (EHDR-UK)
19. Forum pour la Conscience et le développement (FOCODE)
20. Forum pour le Renforcement de la Societe Civile (FORSC)
21. Foundation for Human Rights Initiative (FHRI)
22. Freedom and Roam Uganda
23. Human Rights Concern – Eritrea
24. Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum (HRAPF)- Uganda
25. Human Rights Institute of South Africa (HURISA)
26. Independent Medico Legal Unit (IMLU)
27. Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa (IHRDA)
28. Kenyan Section of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ Kenya)
29. Ligue des Droits de la Personne dans la Région des Grands Lacs (LDGL)
30. Malawi Law Society
31. The Multi-Environmental Society (MESO)-Tanzania
32. Mzeituni Foundation-Tanzania 33. Nazra for Feminist Studies 34. Release Eritrea 35. Réseau des Défenseurs des Droits Humains en Afrique Centrale (REDHAC)
36. Réseau de femmes défenseures des droits humains (Togo)
37. Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA Network)
38. Tanzania Human Rights Defenders Coalition (THRDC)
39. West African Human Rights Defenders Network
40. Zimbabwe Exiles Forum
Individuals:
1. Augustin Kounkinè Somé, Burkina Faso
2. Lilian Chenwi, Cameroon
3. Polycarp Ngufor Forkum, Cameroon
4. Adiam Woldeyohannes, Eritrea
5. Marian Atta-Boahene, Ghana
6. Mandala D. Mambulasa, Malawi
7. Joao Nhampossa, Mozambique
8. Hilary Ogbonna, Nigeria
9. Dejo Olowu, Nigeria
10. Mohammed Farah, Somaliland
11. Freda Apio, Uganda
12. Kitui Barbara, Uganda
13. Moses Karatunga, Uganda 1
4. Salima Namusobya, Uganda
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