Successful Coups in Africa

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Toyin Falola

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Jan 31, 2022, 7:40:39 AM1/31/22
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Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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Feb 1, 2022, 10:57:55 AM2/1/22
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Useful map. Someone should do a
taxonomy of coups. Here is my
preliminary list:

Opportunistic coups (Babangida, 
Abacha, el- Sisi) Nigeria, Egypt.

Patriotic coups to save collapse
 (Doumbouya, Damiba
 Goita) Guinea,Burkina Faso, Mali

Fundamentalist, theologically 
inspired coups(Bashir) Sudan

Developmental, growth motivated 
coups (EPRDF, Murtala Mohammed 
Obasanjo) Ethiopia, Nigeria 

Revolutionary coups (Sankara; Rawlings 1)
Burkina Faso, Ghana

Neo-colonial / externally
 motivated (Kaka Deby, Taylor) Chad, Liberia


All subject to modifications and debate.



Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association

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Sent: Monday, January 31, 2022 7:38 AM
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Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Successful Coups in Africa
 

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Harrow, Kenneth

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Feb 1, 2022, 11:30:21 AM2/1/22
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gloria, in a sense when someone hijacks an electoral process, and uses force to suppress opposition, isn't that a sort of coup? nkurunzima did that in burundi in 2015, occasioning enormous violence, many dead, 300,000 fled the country.

kagame didn't do that. he simply shut down the opposition, and museveni same deal in last election.
are those "democratic coups"? maybe.
ken

kenneth harrow

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From: 'Emeagwali, Gloria (History)' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 1, 2022 9:58 AM
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Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Successful Coups in Africa
 

Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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Feb 1, 2022, 11:55:01 AM2/1/22
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Point noted, Ken. We can put that
under opportunistic, as well, and
subdivide that category.


Note, too, Egypt’s Morsi, who was 
democratically  elected and removed by
el-Sisi.




Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association
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Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Successful Coups in Africa
 

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Harrow, Kenneth

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Feb 1, 2022, 12:26:19 PM2/1/22
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moses threw down the gauntlet, and i would love to hear people's response.
if western style democracies with elections are not the answer, what is?
how would people suggest to change things into better, more responsive systems?
for me it is easy to think of what is bad, or worse.
my question is not a challenge based on the idea that there is only one good answer, as churchill boringly put it.
what are some real alternatives that seem to have worked better or could work better than what is proposed under current dominant thinking?
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

From: 'Emeagwali, Gloria (History)' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 1, 2022 11:45 AM

Moses Ebe Ochonu

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Feb 1, 2022, 4:21:45 PM2/1/22
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Like me, the brilliant Saun Jacob at "Africa is a Country," rejects the false, dichotomous choice between strongmen dictators and liberal democracy. I may not fully agree with his prescription, but at least his premise is correct, which is that both liberal democracy and strongman dictatorship have failed in Africa. We need to imagine a new type of democracy for each African country, one that builds from scratch and starts with what Uchenna Okeja calls the "deliberative agency" of each African country's people. Let them decide first what type of structure they want for their country. Then let them do the hard, rigorous work of beginning afresh to construct a unique governing system for their country, one that reflects their peculiar histories, experiences, demographic makeup, and aspirations. They can call it whatever they like and do not have to align it with any existing isms or ideological political formation. If folks in the West do not like it, who cares?




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Harrow, Kenneth

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Feb 1, 2022, 5:30:22 PM2/1/22
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think how hard this actual work would be. the "deliberative agency" could only be real if people could express themselves openly and freely.
an example of where this failed was the gacaca courts in rwanda, intended precisely to have people in the local communities, where the genocide took place, to judge those charged with being genocidaires.
when these courts began, and people came and testified before the whole community, i think a positive healing process was underway.
not too long after the central government intervened and basically barred accusations against any tutsis. it became a set of one-sided forced trials where the government overrule eventually dictated results.

the hard part of your plan, moses, lies in finding a way to intervene, to get the people's participation, when a system of rule is already in place. weren't there vaguely similar notions under qaddafi w his people's courts and ethiopia under the derg? i don't remember all these instances very well, but come on, how would such an ideal beginning be able to occur, say, in biya's cameroon, or even in today's nigeria. how could you begin, especially if democratic procedures were not instituted at the outset?

i feel we are back to the early days of marxist revolutionary thinking or even french revolutionary thinking, when an avant-garde determines whether the people's consciousness is directing the revolution. here we'd have to clear the decks for a new start. how could that be implemented?
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Moses Ebe Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 1, 2022 3:15 PM
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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Successful Coups in Africa
 

Kwabena Akurang-Parry

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Feb 2, 2022, 5:05:19 PM2/2/22
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Gloria, 
Rawlings' bloody coup was not revolutionary. It was pathetically neo-evolutionary setting back the progress attained by Ghana. The worst regime to date. What his junta accused people doing, leading to 6PM-6 AM curfew, abuse of market women, abduction and killing of perceived opponents, reckless use of state funds, Abacha's gift of $5 million (just before his death, Rawlings said it was $2 million), Rawlings and his family ended up morally bankrupt. Today, they are one of the richest families in Ghana. His populism, narcissism, and  demagoguery blindfolded the masses as he gained power and amassed wealth that distanced him from the existential struggles of the very masses he hypocritically foamed about. 
Kwabena
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Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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Feb 2, 2022, 8:40:16 PM2/2/22
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Ok. We move him to the “Opportunist” category.
Thanks for the perspective. 

Note also that the initial aspiration and 
hope of the coup leader(s) may change.
Power may go to his head, and corruption,
and kleptomania set in. This happens with
democratically elected leaders also.

Gloria 



Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association

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Sent: Wednesday, February 2, 2022 4:33 PM

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Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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Feb 3, 2022, 8:16:29 AM2/3/22
to 'Emeagwali, Gloria (History)' via USA Africa Dialogue Series, Kwabena Akurang-Parry
Rawlings revisited

Rawlings took over power in two coups: 
1979 for a few months, and then again 
1981 to 1992. (Period A)

He then served two terms as a democratically 
elected President 1993 - 2001. (Period B)

Which tenure was more fruitful?
Did he start off with revolutionary objectives
in 1979 and 1981? Was he an opportunist
from the start?

When did he enrich himself most,
during period A or  period B?





Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association

From: 'Emeagwali, Gloria (History)' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, February 2, 2022 8:14 PM
To: Kwabena Akurang-Parry <kap...@hotmail.com>; usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Cornelius Hamelberg

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Feb 3, 2022, 12:10:50 PM2/3/22
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 Sir,

The jury is still out and I humbly beg to differ from you harsh judgement of Jerry John Rawlings, (J.J.), popularly known as “Junior Jesus”, since by Divine Intervention he came twice - there were actually two coups, in time, followed by democratically held elections which the charismatic Rawlings won, easily.

History will not and cannot judge President Rawlings as harshly or as tersely as you have done here. Hopefully, history will continue to be kinder to him than you have been and to date he is unarguably Ghana’s second most important leader after Kwame Nkrumah.

I know that on the whole the Ashanti never liked Jerry Rawlings, but not necessarily because his mother was Ewe, an ethnic factor with enough potential to cloud some people’s judgement/ perception, and I know that unlike Du Bois I don’t carry a Ghanaian passport, a passport which in some people’s eyes should have qualified Cornelius Ignoramus to tell non- Ghanaians, even fellow Pan-Africans to STFU, but I too followed JJ’s career closely first from Nigeria in the company of diverse Ghanaian friends.Your emphasis is of course based on your narrow definition on the word “revolutionary” and in the case of the first coup, what you deem “bloody” - like “bloody hell” and true, some of the executions conducted by him were horrendous, unmerciful and unnecessary (since I personally do not believe in the death penalty.)

Making final judgements and assessments of the past is more easily done than prophesying or predicting the future. We don’t know what the future holds for Ghana’s current leadership. Who would have predicted the ANC’s trajectory back on New Year’s Eve 1986 when under the influence of some Johnny Walker I inadvertently broke up an all white Swedish- South African party in response to my Jewish friend telling me that he thought the ANC was “counter-revolutionary”

I’ll call my Pan- African Ghanaian brother this evening (he’s Fanti) to ask his opinion about the things that Kwabena has been saying here, about J.J. and report back to base. ( Since he tends to be so outspoken, at least with me, I hope that he’s not going to be worse than Kwabena.

How I miss Bedu Annan.

Cornelius Hamelberg

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Feb 3, 2022, 3:21:43 PM2/3/22
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How is Jerry Rawlings to be judged posthumously?

Was he Jerry John Rawlings the revolutionary in 1979 ?

New Year’s Eve 1981 to 1992? (All the excitement about his Peoples Defence Committees

As democratically elected President of Ghana, 1993 – 2001

At least there was no civil war in Ghana them...

What says the historians, the journalists and revisionists among us?

Also sadly gone: Nana Kwame Ampadu

President Hilla Limann’s favourite Ghanaian song: Agatha

Cornelius Hamelberg

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Feb 3, 2022, 3:22:16 PM2/3/22
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BTW, I'm no coward, but I'm, a little scared of phoning my GHanaian Pan-African Brother ( Fanti Man)  to enquire what he thinks about Jerry. I'm slightly emboldened by this very lastest from him :

[10:23, 03/02/2022] : Good morning!
I have problem:
If the "boys" in Ghana "misbehave" - and this may well happen If we look over our shoulders into Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso and for the moment ignore Guinea Bissau and others - who is going to chair the meeting that will suspend Ghana's membership of ECOWAS?
[18:56, 03/02/2022] Pan Africanist : The director of the George Washington University School of Medicine argues that the brain of an older person is much more practical than is commonly believed. At this age, the interaction of the right and left hemispheres of the brain becomes harmonious, which expands our creative possibilities. That is why among people over 60 years of age you can find many personalities who have just started their creative activities.

Of course, the brain is no longer as fast as it was in youth. However, it gains in flexibility.  Therefore, with age, we are more likely to make the right decisions and are less exposed to negative emotions. The peak of human intellectual activity occurs around the age of 70, when the brain begins to function at full strength.

  Over time, the amount of myelin in the brain increases, a substance that facilitates the rapid passage of signals between neurons. Due to this, intellectual abilities increase by 300% compared to the average.

 Also interesting is the fact that after 60 years, a person can use 2 hemispheres at the same time. This allows you to solve much more complex problems.

 Professor Monchi Uri, from the University of Montreal, believes that the old man's brain chooses the path that consumes less energy, eliminates the unnecessary and leaves only the right options to solve the problem. A study was conducted involving different age groups. Young people were very confused when passing the tests, while those over 60 years of age made the right decisions.

 Now, let's look at the characteristics of the brain between the ages of 60 and 80. They are really pink.

 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE BRAIN OF AN ELDERLY PERSON.

 1. Neurons in the brain do not die, as everyone around you says. The connections between them simply disappear if one does not engage in mental work.

 2. Distraction and forgetfulness arise due to an overabundance of information. Therefore, it is not necessary for you to concentrate your whole life on unnecessary trifles.

 3. From the age of 60, a person, when making decisions, does not use one hemisphere at the same time, like young people, but both.

 4. Conclusion: if a person leads a healthy lifestyle, moves, has viable physical activity and is fully mentally active, intellectual abilities do NOT decrease with age, they simply GROW, reaching a peak at the age of 80-90 years .

 So do not be afraid of old age. Strive to develop intellectually. Learn new crafts, make music, learn to play musical instruments, paint pictures! Dance! Take an interest in life, meet and communicate with friends, plan for the future, travel as best you can. Do not forget to go to shops, cafes, shows.  Don't shut up alone, it's destructive to anyone.  Live with the thought: all good things are still ahead of me!
   
 SOURCE: New England Journal of Medicine.

*Enjoy life, you are still a “Youngman in your sixties.*

This article also appeared in https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110825102253.htm

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