Beyond Pan-Africanism as a Racial Concept - Towards Continental Unity

[Chambi Chachage]

It is logically impossible to conceptualize pan-africanism 'globally' withouth resorting to 'race' - the 'black race' as claiming Africa as its 'cradle'. The way 'black' has been conceptualized, even by Ali Mazrui in this paper, is not a black that is independent of Africa as its continent of 'origin'. That is why pan-africanism only become a race-less concept when it is conceptualized geographically (i.e. continentaly) by embracing whoever is a 'citizen of Africa'  irrespective of race or origin i.e. with respect to all historical phenomena such as slavery, colonialism, capitalism and imperialism that have shaped Africa as we know it today. As soon as you want to include others outside the continent the main marker become 'blackness' i.e. race as applied to Africa because that is the 'only' way 'citizens of the African Diaspora' can claim Africa simply because historically the only, nay, main, thing that really marks people out there of being of - or from - Africa is the colour of their skin. Thus not everyone outside Africa who is regarded as 'black' politically can identify with or claim Africa that way. It is in this regard the oppressed non-whites outside Africa who are not 'black' in the 'African' sense cannot claim Africa through a global pan-africanism which is inherently racial as it seeks to unite people of African (read black) origin in the world.  If pan-africanism could simply be pan-anti-imperialism then many 'continental outsiders' would claim Africa in terms of class - the global class of the 'oppressed' united against the 'oppressor(s)'.Yes, they can identify with those who have been oppressed in the continent and historically many have joined their struggles but not on the basis of race - they joined on the basis of a common stance against human oppression. The following excerpt from Thabo Mbeki's famous poem  I am an African captures well how a raceless continental  and anti-oppression pan-africanism that is inclusive of all who, historically, have somehow ended up being in and of Africa - i.e. 'Africans of Africa origin, Africans of N & S America origin, Africans of Asia origin, and Africans of Europe origin' - and who wish to be united against 'common enemies' of the continent, can be conceptualized:

 

...

 

I owe my being to the Khoi and the San whose desolate souls haunt the great expanses of the beautiful Cape - they who fell victim to the most merciless genocide our native land has ever seen, they who were the first to lose their lives in the struggle to defend our freedom and dependence and they who, as a people, perished in the result.

 

...

 

I am formed of the migrants who left Europe to find a new home on our native land. Whatever their own actions, they remain still, part of me.

 

In my veins courses the blood of the Malay slaves who came from the East. Their proud dignity informs my bearing, their culture a part of my essence. The stripes they bore on their bodies from the lash of the slave master are a reminder embossed on my consciousness of what should not be done.

 

I am the grandchild of the warrior men and women that Hintsa and Sekhukhune led, the patriots that Cetshwayo and Mphephu took to battle, the soldiers Moshoeshoe and Ngungunyane taught never to dishonour the cause of freedom.

 

My mind and my knowledge of myself is formed by the victories that are the jewels in our African crown, the victories we earned from Isandhlwana to Khartoum, as Ethiopians and as the Ashanti of Ghana, as the Berbers of the desert.

 

I am the grandchild who lays fresh flowers on the Boer graves at St Helena and the Bahamas, who sees in the mind's eye and suffers the suffering of a simple peasant folk, death, concentration camps, destroyed homesteads, a dream in ruins.

 

I am the child of Nongqause. I am he who made it possible to trade in the world markets in diamonds, in gold, in the same food for which my stomach yearns.

 

I come of those who were transported from India and China, whose being resided in the fact, solely, that they were able to provide physical labour, who taught me that we could both be at home and be foreign, who taught me that human existence itself demanded that freedom was a necessary condition for that human existence.

 

Being part of all these people, and in the knowledge that none dare contest that assertion, I shall claim that - I am an African.

 

...

 

I am born of the peoples of the continent of Africa.

 

The pain of the violent conflict that the peoples of Liberia, Somalia, the Sudan, Burundi and Algeria is a pain I also bear.

 

The dismal shame of poverty, suffering and human degradation of my continent is a blight that we share.

 

The blight on our happiness that derives from this and from our drift to the periphery of the ordering of human affairs leaves us in a persistent shadow

 

This is a savage road to which nobody should be condemned.

 

This thing that we have done today, in this small corner of a great continent that has contributed so decisively to the evolution of humanity says that Africa reaffirms that she is continuing her rise from the ashes.

 

Whatever the setbacks of the moment, nothing can stop us now!
Whatever the difficulties, Africa shall be at peace!
However improbable it may sound to the sceptics, Africa will prosper!

 

Whoever we may be, whatever our immediate interest, however much we carry baggage from our past, however much we have been caught by the fashion of cynicism and loss of faith in the capacity of the people, let us err today and say - nothing can stop us now!

 

Such an inclusive Pan-Africanism is the telos of Africa's Unity. In fact it is Humanism. Ultimately, Pan Africanism is nothing more than Pan-Humanism.

 

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My mission is to acquire, produce and disseminate knowledge on and about humanity as well as divinity, especially as it relates to Africa, in a constructive and liberating manner to people wherever they may be.
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Address: P. O. Box 4460 Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania

Cell : + 255 754771763

Blog: http://udadisi.blogspot.com/
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[Cornelius Hamelberg]

http://www.thelocal.se/blogs/corneliushamelberg/2010/03/09/yes-we-are-all-human-beings-2-to-chambi-chachage/

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

“Lying and stealing is the whiteman's game;
For rights of God nor man he has no shame
(A practice of his throughout the whole world)
At all, great thunderbolts he has hurled;
He has stolen everywhere-land and sea;
A buccaneer and pirate he must be,
Killing all, as he roams from place to place,
Leaving disease, mongrels-moral disgrace”
(From the poetry of Marcus Garvey)
http://www.africawithin.com/garvey/garvey_poetry.htm
Well, true: we all came from Africa and it’s Marcus Garvey who was
provisionally elected the first president of Africa and Diaspora in
New York City in 1920 and not Muammar al- Qadhafi (Shmile) who is an
early proponent of Black Zionism - and nota bene: in the concept of
Jewish Zionism, the idea of race or a Jewish race (of any colour
whatsoever,)is wholly absent and there are many Berbers and indeed
many others who were not there at the foot of Mt. Sinai , who
converted to the Jewish faith many centuries ago ….
Here’s an interesting publication in which Lewis Gordon has a
chapter:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-GB%3Aofficial&q=The+Colors+of+Jews
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&safe=off&q=Lewis+Gordon+%28philosophy
Lewis Gordon himself should find your thesis an interesting one with
several points of intersection with his own Africana concerns – as
should Richard Hull, the author of “Jews and Judaism in African
History” not to mention our own Professor Toyin Falola who is still
lovingly stoking our consciousness of a distinctly Yoruba Diaspora
with complete retentions and inevitable eclectic/ syncretic elements
to our cultures.
There are also ancient African propriety claims about dark skinned
Dravidians in both in India, Australia and other parts of Asia, some
of whom Runoko Rashidi has been encountering in his travels
O Chambi Chachage writing from Dar-es-Salaam the city of Peace one
question please and there’s no tongue in cheek about it : it’s the
question that is at the tip of the tongue of every chauvinist, Afro-
centric , black African of conscience: Can a White man be an
African? Is it possible for this consciousness to bloom into a fully
grown, powerful international political movement, more powerful than
just so much hot Africana tribal air?

On Mar 9, 11:19 am, Chambi Chachage <chamb...@yahoo.com> wrote:

[Chambi Chachage]

The ongoing debate on re-conceptualizing/imagining/thinking Pan-Africanism has reached an interesting and, hopefully, fruitful juncture. It is my wish to elaborate on the racial nature of a universal (read global) Pan-Africanism vis-a-vis the non-racial nature of a local (read continental) Pan-Africanism. I will go very slowly by addressing some very basic/elementary questions as I respond to the comments further below so bear with me.

 

What is Pan-Africanism? At a basic global level it is a movement of people of 'African descent', whatever that means, toward a certain form of unity that is based on that point of origin i.e. the continent of Africa. What is the aim of this global Pan-Africanism? To unite the people who identify with Africa against all the bad things that have happened and continue to happen, in one way or another, to them at a global scale - slavery, racism, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, neoliberalism etc. This common suffering and struggle is the tie that binds together people of African descent from Haiti to Harlem and beyond. However, by default, it is racial. It is a racial discourse in the sense that it mobilizes what was characterised as a 'race' to fight what characterised people of African descent as a 'race'. Of course it is a counter-discourse of/to racism. But it is still operating within the confines of race as it attempts to unite people whose common marker is not only the common suffering or struggle but a common descent: Africa.

 

The following highlighted extract from my essay on The Color(s) and Time(s) of the African Being illustrates this racial pitfall of a global/universal Pan-Africanism that use Africa as its referent point for everyone outside it who claims his/her origin to it as the basis of being a part of its movement:

 

So even if it is true that Africa is a ‘invention/idea’ as Mudimbe (1994) has forcefully argued or even if by chance it is just an ‘enchanting abstraction’ as Appiah (1997) would want us to believe, the fact is, and here I am referring to the material fact, that the Africa we now have is a real material place with real people inhabiting it not only physically but also spiritually/psychologically and these people, who are so diverse with respect to colors and cultures, have a more or less shared collective history and experience inscribed in the depths of their bodies and souls. What I am trying to say here is that when a discourse or someone imagine something and invent or create it, then that something becomes something. This implies that it should be obvious that Africa in our contemporary Transnational world is:

 

a place, a material and imagined place, or rather a configuration of places, an embodiment of spaces that are socially produced and producer of the social. Its material and symbolic boundaries are shifting, for Africa’s spatiality, like all spaces, encompasses the vast intricacies, the incredible complexities, and interlocking and dispersive networks of relations at every scale from the local to the global… Africa, in short, is a geography, a history, a reality and an imaginary of places, peoples, and positions, both an invented intellectual construct and an object of intellectual inquiry (Zeleza, 2003, p. 3).

 

This definition of Africa, which should also hold for Tanzania and South Africa as well as the African World/Diaspora, resonates with Achebe’s (as interviewed by Appiah, 1992) assertion that African identity is still in the making and that there is no final identity that is African. In other words, African/Africa’s identity is ‘a journey, not a destination.’ This journey started long ago in ‘our past, known and unknown.’ It has passed through the valleys of shadow of death as embodied in slavery, racism/Apartheid and colonialism. And since the quintessence of African identity is anti-imperialism and not a certain Black essence or gene, this journey will go on as long as the last stage of imperialism (i.e. Neo-Colonialism ala Nkrumah) is still in dominion. A clear understanding of this important anti-imperial assertion is very important and I hope the following three authors, who may not agree with my conclusion/argument, will excuse me for appropriating their explanations of concepts which I consider to be inextricably linked to African identity:

 

Being African is thus rarely a term of local value but is rather best understood as a global term exists [sic] in juxtaposition to Europe… an African is above all else a colonial subject. The Panafricanist [sic] idea is an anti-colonial ideal… It is a good thing that can only be created out of the shameful episode of colonialism (Sichone, 2004, p.1 & 4).

 

The quintessence of nationalism was, and is, anti-imperialism. It was a demand and struggle against, rather than for, something. It was an expression of a struggle against denial, denial of humanity, denial of respect and dignity, denial of the Africaness of the African (Shivji, 2003, p.2).

 

In its polemical stance, then, African discourse presents itself as a thorough-going deconstruction of the Western image of the Native, the Black, the African ( Irele , 2001).

 

The above quotations imply that the formulation of this African identity as embodied in African nationalistic discourse of Pan-Africanism and other African liberation discourses was a response (a counter-discourse) to the Western discursive project of Othering the people who came to be known as Africans for indeed the origins of Africa and “its peoples lie within the invention of the West and of Africa as distinct, monolithic entities” (Hanchard, 1991, p. 89). In fact this counter-discourse succumbed to what has been referred to as the first liability of a counter-discourse i.e. “the fact that it must begin with a premise from the primary discourse” (Echeruo, 1999, p. 7):

 

Primary Discourse:  You are an African/Black…

Counter-Discourse: Okay I am an African/Black but….

 

In other words, the global/universal and thus diasporic Pan-Africanism was a counter-discourse that had to start by accepting 'OK we are 'Negroes' of the World BUT we are humans too so let the Negroes of the World Unite'. In fact, with a simple play of  words from the 'preamble' of the Communist Manifesto used  playfully by Ali A. Mazrui in the paper refered to further below in my rejoinder, here I am simply rephrasing what the 'Father of Pan-Africanism', William E.B Dubois, said when he was presenting the history of the origin of Pan-Africanism (see the quote in the rejoinder further below). Of course I won't go as far as appropriating Jean Paul Sartre by claiming that this global Pan-Africanism is an anti-racist racism. Nor would I go as far as claiming that Pan-Africanism is racism or racist. But I think in a way this critique of an International/Transnational Pan-Africanism as a universalist/globalist racial project that leaves other 'races' out of the picture is an attempt to deal with the following difficulty:

 

It is difficult, therefore, to establish some of the distinctions we need when we ask ourselves what is bound to seem an important question: namely, whether, and in what sense, the Pan-Africanist movement, and [Alexander] Crumell as its epitome, should be called “racist” (Appiah 1992: 10)

 

If by racist in quotes we mean operating under a racial discourse, whether it is a counter discourse against racism (with its first liability) or not, then the Diasporic/Global/Universal/'International' Pan-Africanism movement, and William E.B Du Bois as its epitome, is "racist." Today it can only serve to marginalize other people who do not see themselves as African in the Negro/Black sense. It is in this regard that we can only move toward a local, albeit 'Africa's International', Pan-Africanism that is continental and non-racial. It is such a Pan-Africanism, based on citizenship, that can be inclusive of all who are in Africa and those outside it who wish to be citizens of Africa. That is what Mwalimu Julius K. Nyerere saw when he penned the following words in his article on The Future of Africa that was written on 1961 for a magazine of a then 'Whites Only' school in Natal, South Africa:

 

A United Africa does not mean a uniform Africa…whether or not Africa ever becomes united, whether or not we manage to overcome the present poverty in our continent – both which I believe will happen –  there is one thing which is quite certain. Africa will belong to Africans. I believe that this word 'Africans' can include all those who have made their home in the continent, black, brown, or white. I think this is what the majority of the people now want. Yet it can only happen if people stand as individual citizens, asking only for rights which can be accorded to all other individuals. This means forgetting colour, or race, and remembering humanity. On this basis of equality I believe Africa has a good future for all her people (Nyerere 1966: 117).

 

Certainely that Africa is a very human thing. It asserts the humanity of those of its descent. But it doesn't deny that of others. Pan-Africa embraces all!

 

---

From: Firoze Manji <fir...@fahamu.org>
To: Chambi Chachage <cham...@yahoo.com>
Sent: Wed, March 10, 2010 12:41:52 PM
Subject: Re: Rejonder: Beyond Pan-Africanism as a Racial Concept - Towards Continental Unity

Dear Chambi

You have thrown in a lot of questions in the space of a couple of paragraphs! Let me deal with some of the issues as I see it.

I am not proposing that we 'wish away' our history of Pan-Africanism - nor indeed of racism. That history is replete with frequently attempts at biologically defining what is meant by African. But understanding the different constructs that were proposed in our history and imprisoning ourselves and our thinking by biological determinism is quite different things. Just because some of our greatest thinkers of Pan-Africanism sought to define what is meant by 'African' does not mean we too have to accept that uncritically.

My point is that Pan-Africanism was and is a political movement, and therefore to answer some of your subsequent questions requires us to examine our history and identify the laws of motion in that history that led to the formation of a 'continental' identity in relation to Africa in a way that has not happened elsewhere in the world. I would suggest that the experience and relationship that the people of this continent have faced over the last 500 years - slavery, genocide, occupation, colonisation, imperial control etc etc - have been of a kind that no other part of the world has faced. If the original populations of the Americas had not been so brutally massacred, I would guess that we would have seen a similar movement arise there.

But this is also linked to the fact that probably on no other continent are there so many straight lines that mark the borders of countries. The countries that exist were largely constructed by imperial design 125 years ago at the Berlin conference. There were few places where the emergence of a national ruling class enabled a national project to be articulated and the borders to be defined by conquest, negotiation, defence that were organic. On the contrary, most of us live in countries whose borders hardly reflect the existence of a nation, only the nation state bequeathed by empire. The commonalities that we have with each other across the continent in terms of our oppression and aspirations are greater than the strength of the borders that try to define the nation state. No other continent has the same experience of being forced disorganically into nation states in quite the same way. 

I dispute your characterisation of Dubois description of the origin and rise of Pan-Africanism as a 'racial story of anti-imperialism.' Rather it is an anti-racist story of anti-imperialism (racism is, after all, only the internal manifestation of imperialism, and racialism is its ideological glue). The key here is that it forged itself on the consciousness of oppression and exploitation that was at core fundamentally racist and therefore any opposition to it was not 'tied to racism' but emerged to define the power of anti-racism. I would go further. I would argue that the emergence of Pan-Africanism is a reflection of the endeavour of the victims of racism and of imperialism to assert their humanity in a given context. Pan-Africanism is of course tied to the struggle against racism (it is not 'tied to racism', which is quite a different matter), just as it is at heart anti-imperialist (which also does not mean it is 'tied' to imperialism!)

Firoze

 

---

From: Nestor Bazunini <kin...@hotmail.com>
To: chambi chachage <cham...@yahoo.com>
Sent: Tue, March 9, 2010 10:12:32 PM
Subject: RE: Rejonder: Beyond Pan-Africanism as a Racial Concept - Towards Continental Unity

Atlantic slavery was forced migration of Africans. Why not call the civilization they developed there an African contribution to world history? When the Kongolese Macandal, Toussaint L'Ouverture and others make the first successful slave revolution that issued for the first time the revolutionary politics of humanity right, it is a world contribution now becoming the main inspiration after the breakdown of bureacratic socialism. It is an idea to think about. There was no racism advocated in the 1804 Haitian revolution.
Ernest
 

On 9 Mar 2010, at 13:30, Chambi Chachage wrote:

Yes race is socially constructed and Pan-Africanism, at least in the way it started in the African Diaspora, was also a response to that social construction. We cannot simply wish away this history of Pan-Africanism in as much as we cannot wish away the history of racism. Moreover, we cannot ignore the racial legacy of the history of Pan-Africanism which keeps popping up the moment you ask what really unite 'certain people' who reside outside of Africa to Africa: Is it a geographical space called Africa? Is it a common oppression that is linked to Africa? If its a geographical space is it physical, intellectual and/or spiritual? If it is a common oppression what is so African about it? In this regard why don't we have a Pan-Asianism or Pan-Latin Americanism in the same historical sense we have had Pan-Africanism? In a similar vein why not just a 'pan-anti imperialism'?

A history of 'Africa's people', at least in the last 400 years or so, has been a response to the Western/Euro-American construct of the geography of Africa.  Even when you look at Pan-Africanism as an aspiration toward continental unity you will see it is an aspiration against imperialism which, historically, has had racism as its bedfellow. That is why we cannot wish away the history that ties Pan-africanism to racism with the former being a response to the latter. What we can do is reconceptualize it beyond race, that is, to develop it further from some of these earlier conceptualizations:

 

"The idea of one Africa uniting the thought and ideals of all native peoples of the dark continent belongs to the twentieth century, and stems naturally from the West Indies and the United States. Here various groups of Africans, quite separate in origin, became so united in experience, and so exposed to the impact of a new culture, that they began to think of Africa as one idea and one land. Thus, late in the eighteenth century, when a separate Negro church was formed in Philadelphia, it called itself 'African'; and there were various 'African' societies in many parts of the United States. It was not, however, until 1900 that a black West Indian barrister, H. Sylvester-Williams, of Trinidad, practicing in London, called together a 'Pan-African' Conference. This meeting attracted attention, put the word 'Pan-African' in the dictionaries for the first time, and had some thirty delegates, mainly from England and the West Indies, with few colored Americans...This meeting had no deep roots in Africa itself, and the movement and the idea died for a generation. Then at its close there was determined agitation for the rights of Negroes throughout the world, particularly in Africa" - William E. Burghardt Du Bois , fromColonial and Coloured Unity in George Padmore, ed, Manchester, n.d.

 

Thats the history of its origin according to someone who is regarded as the father of Pan-Africanism. Lets face it. Its a racial story of anti-imperialism.

 

---

From: Natasha I. Shivji <nish...@yahoo.co.uk>
To: Chambi Chachage <cham...@yahoo.com>
Sent: Tue, March 9, 2010 3:36:57 PM
Subject: Re: Firoze's response on Beyond Pan-Africanism as a Racial Concept - Towards Continental Unity

Very well put! But I think you agree that race is socially constructed, right?

---

From: Chambi Chachage <cham...@yahoo.com>
To: Natasha Shivji <nish...@yahoo.co.uk>
Sent: Tue, 9 March, 2010 15:26:54
Subject: Firoze's response on Beyond Pan-Africanism as a Racial Concept - Towards Continental Unity

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Firoze Manji <fir...@fahamu.org>
To: Chambi Chachage <cham...@yahoo.com>
Sent: Tue, March 9, 2010 2:06:05 PM
Subject: Re: Beyond Pan-Africanism as a Racial Concept - Towards Continental Unity

Dear Chambi

There are two ways of defining Africa. Empirically defined by the Western construct of its geography. Or as the history of its people. The first inevitably capitulates to definitions of race (and you would need to be very clear about what you believe to be 'race' - certainly biologically in humans that construct is fallible. 'Race' is and always has been socially defined. The alternative is to look at our history - a history that involves movements of people in and out of the physical bounds of the continent, a history that has - despite western attempts to suppress it - had gigantic influence on culture, science, knowledge, music, philospophy, language etc. Some of those migrations of humans in and out of the continent have been forced, others not so. But the crucial issue is not the definition of pan Africanism in a static mechanical way, but as a definition of a political aspiration - essentially since it was first conceptualised it has always been at heart and anti-imperialist aspiration.

So, the choice is to go for a geographical and racial definition accepting that inevitably you will end up with a socially defined construct of 'race' or you go for a political and historical definition. Each has political consequences. It is not merely an academic category.

Firoze

 

---

From: Charles Makakala Jr <makak...@yahoo.com>
To: wana...@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tue, March 9, 2010 6:00:13 PM
Subject: Re: [wanazuoni] Beyond Pan-Africanism as a Racial Concept - Towards Continental Unity
 

The ideals of African Continental Unity are too lofty for Africa. These dreams were sweet when they lasted, but surely Africa has enough pressing matters to warrant the chasing of wild-geese.. . Continental Unity is not a necessary condition for growth and development of African nations (or any nation for that matter).

Probably what the modern proponents of these ideals mean is that African nations should have solidarity with each other. This is okay considering the shared sense of history and consciousness springing from years of colonisation and discrimination. And it should be said that this must be a 'black thing'. No one is black or white per se, but this 'black' consciousness was imprinted on the African people through segregation by other races. Now that some of us have proudly accepted this identity, is there a new attempt to de-colour our skins (read: consciousness) ?

Thank God for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, or ANC's Freedom Charter, or the Arusha Declaration and their ideals of 'all people are born equal and free'- but Black people everywhere know that reality is far detached from those ideals. While this reality may be shared between people of many different skin colours, it is a very 'black thing'. We walk with it, we live with it, we breathe it. If this reality will not lead to solidarity among black people, we are hopeless.

Pan-Africanism minus Black Consciousness is a very hollow concept.

Charles.

 

---

From: Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com>
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tue, March 9, 2010 9:28:49 PM
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Beyond Pan-Africanism as a Racial Concept - Towards Continental Unity

[awori]

"Can a White man be an
African? Is it possible for this consciousness to bloom into a fully
grown, powerful international political movement, more powerful than
just so much hot Africana tribal air? "

My humble response. A Pan-Africanist does NOT question or doubt his/
her Africanity--BUT will strongly counter any attempt to question or
doubt it on racist terms. How many white persons in Africa are ready
to do that?

Awori

[Chambi Chachage]

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Prof. Issa Shivji <issas...@cats-net.com>
To: Chambi Chachage <cham...@yahoo.com>

Sent: Thu, March 11, 2010 10:01:28 AM
Subject: Re: Against Pan-Africanism as an 'Anti-Racism' Racial Discourse: A Response to Charles, Firoze, Wamba, Natasha & Cornelius


At this "fruitful juncture" (to appropriate Chambi's phrase) of the debate, I thought it may be useful to refresh our memories with other writings - I attach two pieces by Archie Mafeje whom I have always admired for his great clarity and forthrightness.

[Samuel Amadi]

Dear,

 

I will be glad for your comments.

Africa’s Development: Hopes and Challenges

Paper presented by Dr. Sam Amadi at African Citizens Consultations by the African Network and the MDG Office in Nigeria in Abuja on Monday, March 8, 2009

Introduction:

Has Africa missed the development train? Will Africa miss out of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in spite of the hooplas and busses about the African century? Early in the 21^st Century, experts argue that African countries will clearly miss out on the MDG deadline. Today, it is no longer a matter of prognostication. With five years to the magical year- 2015- African countries are far away from the achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Why did we fall short of expectation? Are we able to get back on our feet and finish the race?

It is important to note that the failure of African countries, especially Sub-Saharan Africa, to meet the MDG-wagon tells a story about the MDGs themselves. The assumption behind the number-crunching and technical mapping of development articulated by the MDGs is that all the countries are starting the race on the same spot. The defect in the MDG project is the denudation of contexts to development. Commitments to meeting the deadline were not contextualized to the peculiarities of the regions. Without harping on the nauseating claim of African exceptionality, it makes little sense to place African countries on the same developmental pedestal and expect them to run as fast as the rest to the finishing line. The other problem with the MDGs is that they are defined too technical. This may be an advantage in terms of measurability. But it suggests a wrong notion that the crisis of development is essentially a technical challenge. As I will argue later, it is actually mainly an adaptive challenge.

I am making this presentation on a day Nigerians newspapers carry headlines of the cold-blooded murder of women and children of Berom ethnic group by Fulani pastoralists. The report is that the Fulani cattle-herders who have been contesting with the ‘native’ Beroms over access to rights and power camped in the mountains and attacked a Berom Village at the dead of night, burnt houses and slaughtered children and women in their sleep. After the orgy of violence, 500 Beroms were killed. Now, this is a chilling story. But it is also illuminating. It reveals the urgency of settling fundamental issue of statehood and nationhood in African country before dreaming big about democracy or development. How can a country that has not established a robust sense of citizenship be talking about human development and democracy governance. If it does without finding solutions to the first-order problems of founding a proper state and civic public, then it witnesses the revenge of the ‘gods’ in forms of genocidal attack like the one that happened in Jos. In such situation the talk of meeting the Millennium Development Goals becomes totally inappropriate. Let this form the backdrop of this discourse of development in Africa.

Hope and Excitement about African development:

Discourse about Africa and African development has moved from pessimism to hope and now back to pessimism. Africa is said to be the last frontier of economic development. It is the last to record any significant economic and political transformation. It used to be that in the dark ages of slavery and colonialism, the humanity of the African and the civilization of its societies were cast in serious doubt. Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness was not an isolated incident of afro-pessimism. That literary put-down rode on the coattail of established social scientific annulment of the humanity of the African and his social institutions. Then after colonialism, the world looked more favorably towards Africa. The commodities boom raised hope of an African success story. But with the boom and bust of the 80s and 90s and the pervasive poverty and misery that now define the African order, hope is being replaced with pessimism. Afro-pessimism is real. We behold it in titles like ‘The Coming Anarchy’, ‘Things Fall Apart’ and ‘This House Has Fallen’. Africa is now the land of despair and destitution.

Hope on the Horizon:

But Africa holds a lot of promise. As the last economic frontier (this phrase could be used positively or negatively), Africa offers tremendous hope of revival and rejuvenation. It is being suggested in some quarters that the next century might be Africa’s century of outstanding economic development. With growth exhausted in Europe and the high-performing Asian economies slowing down, analysts look to Africa for the next surge of economic growth.

This hope is not baseless. It is supported by some cheery statistics. In the last 6 years many African economies like Nigeria, Rwanda, Angola and South Africa, recorded more GDP growth than most in the rest of the word. This year, while European and US economies shrunk to negative growth, Africa recorded about 2% GDP growth bettered by only Asian continent. Return on investment is also high in Africa. The economist, Paul collier, states that African publicly quoted companies recorded on the average annual returns on capital 65% more than their Asian counterparts. It is an indication of Africa’s emerging profile as a ‘growth spot’ that while foreign direct investment declined 20% worldwide in 2008, capital inflow to Africa increased by 16%. Africa has not yet arrived. But its economic engine is warming up.

One of Africa’s greatest assets looking forward to the future is its resilience. Africa has suffered so much including slavery and colonialism. But everywhere across Africa we behold the unbowed heads still dreaming of the African golden age. There is nowhere we see this resilience better than in Rwanda, a country coming of genocide and bursting with peace and prosperity. The resilient spirit of Africans and their leaders have also fostered some degree of fatalism. Somehow Africans believe they could always get back to the race even if they detour mindlessly from the tract. The combination of sanguine economic weathers (even in the face of global financial meltdown) and the can-do spirit raises hope that in spite of the harrowing current realities, Africa countries may still get back on track on the MDG commitment.

We can also remain hopeful about renaissance in Africa because of its increasing pool of skilled human capital. We now know the importance of human capital in economic development. It is not just a happenstance that the countries that have recorded sustainable high economic growth have been those countries that made the greatest investment in public education. Many African countries boast of large class of highly educated population, especially of working age. This gives it comparative advantage to be a major player in the service economy. It is partly because of Africa’s increasing human capital pool that its services sector is growing. In Africa’s 10 largest economies, the service sector contributes about 40% to the GDP.

But Africa’s greatest potential for breakthrough might ironically come from one its worst setbacks: the brain-drain. Many people lament that African doctors, engineers, educationists and writers have been forced to migrate outside the continent in search of better life. Africa’s loss has become the gains of the other continents. African brains are healing the sick in Europe and America while their brothers and sisters are dying of curable diseases. In 2000 about 25% of skilled Africans resided in the OECD countries. It is estimated that about 25 and 50 percent of West African nationals living abroad are university graduates. European and US migratory policies feed into the political and economic crisis in Africa by drawing away African best and brightest.

The brain drain is mitigated by remittances which potentially could boast economic development in Africa by helping to bridge the finance gap in Africa. The World Bank estimates remittance into Africa from the Diaspora to about $40billion. This is a huge capital inflow that can help to finance critical infrastructure. Some African countries have taken initiatives to streamline Diaspora remittances so that they could play more strategic role in economic growth. Remittances may be helping out but they do not compensate for the absence effect of migration of Africa’s best and brightest.

But there is a silver lining in the African horizon. Just like it happened in India and China Africa’s Diaspora is beginning to play leading roles in transforming Africa. Significant number of highly skilled professionals from the Diaspora is taking advantage of economic growth and infrastructural upgrade to start businesses in some of the high-growth African economies. They are many start-ups in Lagos, Accra and Nairobi owed by the returnees. These entrepreneurs are promoting a new culture of entrepreneurship and private sector innovation that are reinvigorating African economies and entrenching positive social capital conducive to democracy and civility. The Diaspora is boosting the middle class with the positive consequences of constituting a real constituency demanding good governance and human development. This is the most important result of Diaspora return to home countries. The absence effect of brain-drain is being reversed as Diaspora returnees raise their voice to demand accountable governance and work hard to build institutions that support economic development.

So, things are looking up for Africa. Although we are still far behind in the race to Millennium Development Goals, there is hope that Africa may wake up and spurt to the finishing in good time, though definitely not in 2015. But is it that easy? What stands between Africa and hope realized?

The challenges of Development:

What’s stopping Africa from marching forward consistently over a long period? The 1980s and 90s raised hope of African resurgence through democratization as one party states and military dictatorship crumbled one after the other under the tectonic pressure of liberalism. But the 2000s are looking like the era of democratic rollback as formal democracies shed their glow and wear the toga of personalized rules, whether in Uganda, Nigeria, Niger or Ivory Coast. Since 2008 more than three ‘elected’ African presidents have attempted to rewrite the constitution illegitimately to allow extension of tenure. Niger’s military coup recently is a result of President Tanhja’s success in truncating the constitutional order to gain the right to unlimited rule. In Nigeria, in 2007, President Obasanjo, the much celebrated African democrat and reform, tried to change the constitution to earn ‘Third Term’ in power. The failure of the aides of the critically ill President Yaradua to allow for transfer of power to Vice President Goodluck Jonathan as required by the Nigerian constitution has plunged the country into a severe constitutional crisis. This is a more recent instance of the tinseling of democracy into aristocratic autocracy.

Let’s review some of huddles and constraints to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals MDGs) and other human development agendas in Africa.

Divergence between ‘Technical Solutions and Adaptive Challenges:

Why is African democracy, especially in the sub-region fragmenting? Is there a relationship between failure to meet the development targets and de-democratization? Sure there are. The problems with development interventions in Africa, especially from compassionate westerners, include the tendency to see the failure of development as merely technical. Africa will do well if it developed the technical framework of efficiency, liberal institutionalists urge us. This includes drafting market-friendly laws, establishing market-supporting institutions and infusing Africa with expertise from the World Bank and other expert institutions. Under this orthodoxy, reformers overlooked the ‘political’ environment of their intervention. Now, the political is on a revenge. The conception of development as technical ‘rather than ‘adaptive’ challenge is at the root of the problem. The Nobel Laureate, Joseph Stiglitz, while Chief Economist at the World Bank, argued that economic development necessarily involves social and political transformation. But his colleagues in international development have carried on as if the state of underdevelopment in Africa has no relationship with the quality of social and political institutions in the continent. Even when they touch on institutions they merely mean laws and agencies. This is technical approach at its worst. An adaptive approach will conceive development as interplay between the technical and the political forces and factors and will be more diagnostic and nuanced in promoting intervention.

So, the first critical challenge of development in Africa is how to bridge the widening chasm between technical solutions and political environment. The search for effective technical solutions must be embedded in the transformation of political and social environment. The challenge of development and democratization is adaptive and not merely technical. Even the pursuit of democracy and democratization in Africa suffers from this divergence. Democracy is conceived in formalistic sense as the adoption of dominant regime types in liberal western countries. This adaptation fails to distinguish between democracy as institutions and regime types and democracy as values and ideas. This failure to distinguish also afflicts the pursuit of institution building. Believing that institutions matter for democratization and development African countries has speedily copied the institutions of liberal democracy, be they those of fiscal responsibility or anticorruption.

Institution Fetishism and Tokenism:

The tragedy is that in pursuing institution building, African reformers and their foreign collaborators overlook the history of such institutions in western societies. Those institutions are products of social struggles that developed social consciousness supporting such institutions. The institutions we admire in western societies are not essentially legal transplants as institutions in Africa. They are specially crafted bargains that align with dominant social consciousness and norms. Therefore they have real constituencies defending them. There are sufficient social values to underwrite their obligations and justify their presupposition. This is not the same with most African societies. For example, in Nigeria, we have imported the fiscal responsibility law and in compliance with the requirements of that institution the government publishes monthly allocations to local government councils. The assumption is that such publicity will engender accountability control initiatives. But no one bothered to ask where is the civically engaged public with the incentive and capacity to task public officials with the information uploaded in internet sites and pages of newspaper? Is there a public that is self-conscious and sufficiently self-interested as to pose the counter-force implicit in the idea of such publication? The fatal assumption is that once we pass fiscal responsibility bill and establish a fiscal responsibility agency, then bingo, we have the ‘institution’ of fiscal responsibility. But if we understand that institutions are not just the rules and mechanisms but also the values and norms of social behavior then we will realize that we have not yet built the institution of fiscal responsibility. We can multiply more examples.

The problem is not just methodological but substantive and communicative as well. African reformers have believed the falsehood that because democracies in western liberal society have exhausted their populist energies and have settled on delegated democracy, similar institutions of liberal democracy can be replicated in African societies without first unleashing the populist energies and civic consciousness that created the institutions in the west. The conception of democracy as merely the correlates of the market economy and the dominance of the technocratic components rather than the political is the reason these institutions remain mere flotsams in turbulent waters of African politics. So, a serious challenge of development in Africa is the prevalence of institutional fetishism and tokenism. Fetishism is the dogma that reduces responses to every crisis of development to institution planting. And tokenism is the diffidence that stops short at the gate of legal transplantation. Institutions of democratic governance are largely symbolic and shambolic because they are abstracted from the social consciousness and normative orientation that birthed them in the west.

Low institutionalization and Formalization:

A major constraint to development in Africa is low institutionalization in African societies of those norms that regulate social transactions, especially power transactions in the liberal West and the informality of political leadership. The republic of the law has not yet arrived in the most of Africa. Our arrangements for governance and other political transactions may have been formalized in sets of rules and norms but this formality is incomplete as these rules and norms have not achieved their own independence from authoritarian personalities. The crisis of low institutionalization of principles, rules and norms of governance results everything being up for negotiation. There are few settled certainties about political power and each time there is a conflict actors have no legitimized framework to resort. This encourages open warfare and gamesmanship. Low institutionalization works together with low formalization to undermine stability that is necessary for sustainable development. One way to interpret the prevalence of rigged elections in Africa is that it is a result of failure of electoral management bodies to consider themselves as independent and impartial even when they are so called. There are little differentiation between office occupants and their offices. So, the office of the President becomes in popular imagination indistinguishable from the person of President so and so.

The policy implication of low institutionalization and formalization is that state institutions lack the integrity to play the officially assigned roles. The Auditor General is backed by laws to investigate and sanction the President or the Governor. But she never does because she considers herself a beneficiary of the President benevolence by virtue of appointment. Parliaments ought to make laws and oversee executive actions. But in reality, legislators do not conceive their roles as deliberators and protectors of public good. These institutions are not yet formalized even as they are strengthened by law because the social differentiation between public roles and role-occupants is lacking.

Institutional Path-Dependency and Low-Energy Politics:

Development through transformation is difficult in Africa because of institutional conservatism. Institutions move in a settled direction until a major event causes a deviation. African political institutions were conceived under colonial rules and nurtured by military rule and one-party governments. The principle of path-dependence is that institutions travel on the beaten path except they are pushed off the tract. The authoritarian logic that underlined African institutions during colonial and military/one-party periods has not been superseded. The constriction of the public space and its redefinition as religious or ethnic during the postcolonial rivalry for power is yet to be overcome. In fact, autocracy and authoritarianism have been rarefied and entrenched in the guise of decentralization and federalization. We can now talk about the decentralization of disempowerment as the more institutions come closer to the people the less democratic and empowering they become.    

For liberal democracy to work in a manner that will support transformation of social and economic conditions in Africa it is important they be driven by strong currents of popular participation. The social structures that repress political expression should be reconstituted; hierarchies should be reconfigured and reformatted such that people will have the opportunity to hold leaders accountability. Low-energy politics that focuses on institutional adaptation and transplantation of best practices through technocratic control of the political process will not lead to transformation.

Between Transformation and Conservatism:

Africa is also caught in the cusp of an impotent momentum of change. The democratization campaigns in the late 80s and early 1990s were evidence of strong ferment in Africa. As one country after the other witnessed revolutionary pressure for change, many believed that sooner than later some of the resistances to transformation in Africa would have been overcome. It did not happen as planned. Institutional conservatism proved a match for revolutionary pressure. Soon the momentum wound down and politics relapsed back into the familiar mode, whether of ethnicity or aristocracy. Transformative moments abound everywhere in Africa but still unable to overcome conservative resistance. There are intimations of a new dawn, but yet the darkness of the old ways is unyielding. In terms of development projects, the result of this stalemate is regression of democratization and reform. Sooner than later transformative pressure runs out and the status quo returns back. It is in this sense we understand why many of the new democracies in Africa are quickly turning into one-man rule, even while retaining the vestiges of democracy.

4 Anti-Development Traps:

There are 4 traps holding back the wheels of development in Africa. By this I mean development as transformation. The first trap and the most theorized is the Conflict trap. Many African countries are trapped in violent conflicts. The sad thing about conflicts is that it distorts development priorities. Countries that design development agenda in line with the Millennium Development Goals and plan to allocate financial resources to achieving them will fail to do if they are pushed into inter or intra-state violent conflict. Violent conflicts prioritize resources in favor conflict prosecution or prevention. It used to be said that African countries budget more for firearms and ammunitions rather than for education and healthcare. This is because the most pressing and urgent project in most of these countries is prosecuting high and low intensity conflicts. Conflict is also an exceptional situation that negates the logic of democracy and democratization. It is for this reason that democracies rarely go to war against each other and warring nations tend to suspend democratic values and processes while the war lasts.

The conflict trap is fueled by and feeds into the poverty trap. Many Africans are trapped in poverty. This entrapment denies them the life of imagination from which the ‘luxury’ of democracy begins to look more and more a luxury. It is development, especially development anchored in the Millennium Development Goals that will defeat poverty. Ironically, circle of extreme poverty like the sort in most African countries engenders the necessitousness which prevents the transcendence in leadership and fellowship. It encourages reckless acquisition and corruption. Extreme poverty in Africa is both a consequence and cause of endless violent conflicts in the continent. You need great wealth to break the backbone of these conflicts. And with these conflicts you cannot sustainably create such wealth. That is the paradox.

Both the conflict and poverty traps create a pessimism trap. Afro-pessimism is not the intellectual pastime of western scholars alone. It is the dominant attitude of African leaders and their followers. Most Africans are pessimistic of the future of the continents. The failure of institutions has ingrained a belief that the continent may not turn the corner. Those who can afford it are voting with their feet. The rest who have the opportunity to appropriate the few resources are preparing for the coming anarchy. The chair of the Nigerian anti-graft commission has wondered at the rapacity of Nigerian leaders who steal every public fund in sight. She recommended them for psychiatric test to determine if they are mentally stable. Why would these leaders steal recklessly and needlessly? These leaders, having lost hope about the future of their country, are motivated to loot the country so they can secure their own future. If the state is invariably going to fail, the only smart option for the ruling elite is to send their families abroad and steal as much as possible to survive everywhere and anywhere. The professionals who could build the state are also forlorn. They join the stealing elite or turn their back on the country. The state of underdevelopment becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. The imminent failure of the state becomes the reason not to work hard to build the foundations of sustainable peace and prosperity; in fact the reason to loot the state.

You would think that when a country is blessed with abundant natural resources then it could easily exit these traps. But this is not the case. Abundant natural resources in a politically fragile and conflict-riddled state will most likely reinforce the maladministration and civic diffidence that created the instability. Abundant resources in such a country create more incentive for conflict entrepreneurs to push the country to the cliff-hanger. The stakes are high. The payout of predation is also high and the alternative to predation is not so attractive. The reason why resources-rich countries outside the ‘well-ordered’ liberal society of the west are deeply in conflict is because in those countries anyone who predates on the society likely wins big and the cost of predation is low and bearable. So, there is little systemic restraint to predation. Also, because of poverty and the threat of annihilation implicit in violent conflict, actors in those countries develop the psychology of siege and the disinclination to cooperation.

The point of the analysis of the four traps as it relates to the crisis of development is to underline the difficult political economy of underdevelopment and to show how the problem of incentive incompatibility affects the quality of development interventions. Why would Presidents and Governors in such countries make the kind of investment required to achieve any of the MDGs if the future is so bleak that the state cannot guarantee their well-being tomorrow? Why would bigger budget be devoted to education and health when the leader needs to defend the resource-base from contenders? Why would the ruling elite deliver on its commitment on MDGs if there is no capacity in the polity to discipline failure to fulfill commitment? The incentives for the kind of actions required to begin to realizes the MDGs are largely absent in many African political economies because of the effects of these traps.

The Way of the Future: What Can Democracy Do?

I have implied that it looks like democracy is in retreat in Africa. There are two ways to look at the statement. We can take it to mean that institution of democratic governance is gradually weakening. We can also take it to means that whilst the institutions of democracy remain the values and ideas of democracy are being eroded by the quality of governance in Africa. Any how it is considered, it can be argued that what Africa needs to overcome the resurgence of authoritarianism and autocracy is more democracy.

The problem of development in Africa is that development is not democratic enough in the light of the context of authoritarianism and autocracy in Africa. The problem of democracy in Africa is that it is has remained formalistically structural rather than socially psychological. The other side of this problem is that development has not involved transformation of the social contexts of economic and political transactions in such a manner that the sort of incentives and sanctions implicit in western societies are developed. The answer to this malady is greater democracy; a democracy that reignites the social imagination, mobilizes the outsiders into the inner sanctuaries of power, and supersedes the restricted negotiations amongst the elite. This democracy may start with free and fair elections but should go further to public participation, increased use of referenda and community-based civic deliberations.

The civil society should be the arrowhead of this high-energy democratic politics. But which civil society? Is it civil society of technocratic elite, professional bureaucrats and social technicians? We need a new civil society that can fragment the structuring of democracy as correlates to the market economy and transform the political economy of the African polity. Such civil society will be rooted in the living community, not the visual community, and should understand the various hierarchies that repress the voice and votes of the people. It is such civil society that can help entrench the political culture that can cure the various social pathologies that stultifies development. But, how will such civil society emerge? Who will grandfather it, the funders who are obsessed with institutional fetishism and tokenism or the people who are caught in the traps? Or will it be the ‘illegitimate’ African government battling for survival in power? That is the tough question.

Democracy still remains the answer to Africa’s development deficit. But it is a different kind of democracy from what is awash in the continent.             

 

 

Dr. Sam Amadi
Abuja, Nigeria
234-803-329-9879

 

[Chambi Chachage]

Comments/Questions:

 

1. What do you mean when you say "democracies rarely go to war with each others" - any 'empirical' evidence? If by democracies you mean 'liberal' democracies then where do you place World War I and World War II? Or were they wars between fascists and democracies? Or are you talking about the 'post-Cold War' era? If that is the case why do these so-called democracies go to war all the time with the 'un-democracies' like Iraq ?

 

2. Where do you get your analytical inspiration for 'traps' - from Paul Collier's The Bottom Billion? What is the 'empirical' evidence that the "conflict trap is fueled by and feeds into the poverty trap"? When people struggle over the power to control resources does that mean its because they are in a poverty trap? Is poverty an explanatory variable for conflicts in Jos & Darfur? Does it explain the Rwanda Genocide & Kenya's election violence?

 

3. What this affirmation would do is make the author of Ne-colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism 'turn in his grave': "Then after colonialism, the world loked more favorably towards Africa." I wonder what it really means though, does it mean the global racial discourse on Africa changed for the good even if subtly? Or does it mean the 'world' started engaging with Africa in a developmental way? Is that what the World Bank & IMF did?

 

4. When we celebrate that "capital inflow to Africa increased by 16%" do we also care to compare it to the capital (or is it profit) flight that resulted from this inflow? Or maybe we don't have the statistics. That inflow was happening at a time when countries such as Tanzania had these kind of incentives for foreign investments: "Zero import duty on capital goods, the ability to repatriate 100 per cent profit and the ability to carry forward company losses to set these off against future tax liability." You can imagine what happened. I am told in 2005 alone Tanzania got $66 million from tax revenue from mining while the value of mineral exports was $2,726 million. It would be interesting to juxtapose capital inflow and profit outflow.

5. Why is this apt conclusion of yours "Democracy still remains the answer to Africa's development deficit. But it is a different kind of democracy from what is awash in the continent" out of sync with your analysis that tend to learn toward liberal democracy that we have already been 'adapting', nay, mimicking, in Africa? Perhaps the main 'trap' in Africa, as one colleagues asserts, is the one that "traps one into the Occidental constructed narrative discourse that democracy as an idea has emerged in Africa only since 1989 as a result of exogenous events and occidental policy initiatives."

   

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[Gemini]

Well, as far as WWII goes, I hope that nobody is going to pretend that Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy or even Stalin's USSR were democracies!  Were the Kaiser's Germany, the Ottoman Empire, Tzarist Russia and so on democracies?  Answer 'no'.

 

Of course, 'democracy' is a relatively recent form of government and the definition can be subjective, but no, they do not go to war with each other.  I've been trying to think of an example, but so far, without sucess.  I believe that whenever India has fought Pakistan, Pakistan has been under dictatorship.

 

Democracies do go to war (often with some high-falutin excuse about bringing freedom etc.) with other countries, for example Britain going to war over the Falklands during the time of Margaret Thatcher - the result was the fall of the Argentinian dictatorship.  It will be interesting, now that Argentina is undoubtedly a democracy, to see how the present dispute over the Falklands is resolved.  It will also be interesting to see how things go with Iran although of course, the definition as I said, can be subjective and Israel sef ...

 

Anyway, back to the grindstone for me!

Ayo

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Chambi Chachage