Imperialism and the Democratization Process in Africa

Imperialism and the Encapsulation of the Democratization Process in Africa
It is rather interesting to note the way in which debates on the current democratization projects in Africa have been domesticated, encapsulated, and redirected by Western scholarship, media, and institutions. It is no wonder that the initial enthusiasm which accompanied the so-called “opening up” processes has ebbed as the pro-democracy movements, the much maligned and beleaguered African state, scholars and activists struggle to meet the interpretations and demands of imperialism, lenders, donors, and western governments. On the one hand, such processes of ideological containment and depolitcization of grassroots movements have generated new conflicts, diversions, and weakened the people, their communities and constituencies.
This has obviously set the democratic projects back substantially and strengthened the hands of the local agents of imperialism and the neo-colonial military establishments. It is no wonder that it was so easy for the military under the reactionary leadership of General Sani Abacha to seize power in Nigeria and has succeeded in actually consolidating his grip on power.
On the other level, the encapsulation of political change in Africa has strengthened the hands of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the US and other Western governments in determining the context and content of political alignment and realignment, debates, and patterns of social mobilization and accumulation. Thus in a certain way, a steady recolonization of Africa is taking place under the guise of a so-called new world order and the push for democratization.
In this brief study, we examine some of the ways in which this process is being presented, rationalized and legitimized. We also look at the implications of this process for the liberation of Africa from the structurally determined constraints imposed during the contact between African pre-capitalist social formations and the forces of western imperialism.