In regards to , I have several problems with this method of thought not the least of which is the author's serious legitimization of the bankrupt ideals of Julius Nyerere. Indeed, one could argue that for the weakness and arrogance of Nyerere at the founding of the OAU, Africa could have acheived a much stronger Union. We tend to forget that the Union of African States was the correct model to follow. But, the Union of African States gave way to the OAU in order to keep the likes of Nyerere in the overall African fold. Nyerere's regionalism was really nothing more than a sabotage of Nkrumah's program of a strong African Union.

It is true that regionalism, even Nyerere's sub-continenlaism was a failure if for no other reason than that it was meant to not succeed towards African Unity. Tanzania was a feable attempt to unite two little East African states. Such a structure did not even rise to the level of regionalism much less sub-continentalism becasue it did not include East Africa: Uganda, Kenya, Somalia, Mozambique or Ethiopia. Recall that Ethiopia was a member of the Casablanca Group and as such, Ethiopia was very friendly towards Nkrumah's project for Continental Unity.

Stop apologizing for Nyerere. He lived a long life. And, he was head of ststae for many years. He had plenty of time to correct his mistakes. But, he never did. I think he failed to do so becasue Pan-Africanism was never a part of his commitment nor internal ideological make up. Indeed, I know of nothing prior to the OAU that indicates any commitment on the part of Nyerere to Pan-Africanism. Of course he sang the Pan-Africanist song just as he sang the socialist song. But, Nyerere's idea of Pan-Africanism was not Pan-Africanism which was defined by Nkrumah as the total liberation and unification of Africa under scientific socialism. And, Nyerere's socialism may have include some socialist policies, but it was NOT scientific socialism. In fact, Nyerere went so far as to emphasize this point by calling his socialism "African socialism".

Unfortunately, the author does not even rise to this occasion. Instead he mentions something that none of us has ever heard of before now; namely some kind of weird liberal democracy. I mean, really! In these times in which even the most right wing free market capitalists, such as George W. Bush and Gordon Brown, have been forced to use scientific socialist methods to try and rescue world capitalism, we in Africa are still too cowardly to acknowledge that anything short of scientific socialism, such as what we see in China, will NOT lead to African Unity and NOT solve African problems.