Imperialism and the Democratization Process in Africa

Conclusions: Beyond the Western Agenda in Africa

The West certainly has a role to play in resolving the numerous problems and predicaments of Africa. But scholarship and discourses must have the courage to explode the myth of Western interest in solving these problems as well as the misplaced belief that current policies are designed to assist Africa out of its predicaments. As well, scholarship must not support the misinformed media in creating the impression that US aid goes to Africa to help “these poor Africans” just because US intervention in Somalia was given such publicity. It is interesting that no one in the media, and very few in the academic world took the pains to argue that the United States, the World Bank, and the IMF were very much responsible for the disaster in Somalia (Ihonvbere 1994b). As Jeffrey Herbst (1992: 15, 16) has categorically noted, the “United States has never been a significant aid contributor to Africa… Indeed, U.S. aid to Africa is only 9 percent of total aid given to the continent by all bilateral donors.” Michael Clough (1992: 14, 15, and 20) has also argued that the “United States has few tangible interests” in Africa; “(e)xports to Africa have never accounted for a substantial proportion of total U.S. exports;” and that “American perceptions of the African continent are shallow and highly skewed.” Yet, the image one gets from reading works on Africa even by reputable scholars is one of huge support for African initiatives, massive inflows of foreign aid, and support for development in the region. At the best, we get the impression that America and the West have good intentions, it is the neo-patrimonial, corrupt, unstable, and inefficient systems and structures in Africa that prevents the West from “Asianizing” Africa. Yet, one can ask: do these conditions not exist in the Middle East, Israel, Eastern Europe and other regions which receive massive foreign assistance? Why did it take so long for the African National Congress (ANC) to be seen as a liberation and not a terrorist movement even after the UN declared apartheid as a “crime against humanity?” Why did it take almost two decades for the government of Angola to be recognized by the United States even when the “Communist” government and its troops were protecting American investments which the US government was sponsoring Savimbi to destroy? Why can countries in Africa not receive the sort of support for their economies and currencies like Russia and recently Mexico? I will like to suggest three areas for attention.
First, there is need to build and strengthen an African constituency in the United States and in other western capitals. This is an inevitable step in generating the recognition and respect which Africa needs and in creating a sort of international watch-dog that will identify, extend, and protect the image and interest of Africa. This international constituency will engage in the re-education of the West to redefine its impression, biases, policies, and responses to the African problem. The numbers of Africans in diaspora are sufficiently large, diverse, skilled, and articulate to push this net-work of pro-Africa constituencies to lead to a monumental international movement which will extend the frontiers of pan-Africanism in the 1990s and beyond (Ihonvbere 1994b). This movement will coordinate investment, foreign aid, tourism, educational programs, and government policies towards Africa with a view to eliminating the current “safari mentality” and post-hoc responses to mostly western generated disasters in the continent. As Mutua (1994: 14) has noted, “American policy-makers cannot, nor should they, export democracy to Africa or retail notions of democracy to the continent. But they can play a role supportive of the nascent democratic movement.” While it is true that African issues might not win votes in African-American constituencies in the United States for example, there is an urgent need for a summit of the various black or African-American organizations and movements cutting across religion and ideology along with pan-African and popular organizations in Africa to map out a solid agenda for building this constituency for Africa abroad. It is the absence of this constituency that has led to the abuse, marginalization, and denigration of Africa and to lack lustre responses to emergencies and political turmoil in the region.
A second issue is that Africans in the continent must begin to take themselves seriously. Governments must begin to respect themselves and their peoples. Irresponsible behavior like in the Sudan, Somalia, Liberia and Togo should be challenged and serious foreign governments and international agencies should have the courage to support in every way the challenges from popular constituencies. One can ask how many Americans or Germans steal money and come to hide it in New Nigeria Bank. Why is it that when African capitalists loot the treasury the first place they go to is the coded bank accounts of Europe and America? The loss of Africa is the gain of the West. It was reported not long ago that Nigerians had $33 billion stolen money in foreign banks, and this was just a tip of the ice-berg. When Rawlings shot three former Ghanaian Presidents and Haile Selaissie of Ethiopia died, their loot all disappeared into the “productive” economies of the West. When Said Bare died recently in Nigeria, his loot in coded secret accounts in Switzerland went to improving the standards of living of the Swiss people while Somalis wallow in misery and disease. As the ECA noted in the African Charter for Popular Participation (1990: 19) “there must be an opening up of the political process to accommodate freedom of opinions, tolerate differences, accept consensus on issues as well as ensure the effective participation of the people and their organizations and associations. This requires action on the part of all, first and foremost of the people themselves.” Governments which resist such opening should be confined to the dust bin of Africa’s political history “by all means necessary.” The courage to set such an agenda for political challenge and renewal must not be set from abroad. Once it is set by the West, it will be reduced in all terms to procedural, pacifistic, and compartmentalized processes which will be easy for the elites to encapsulate and manipulate. Where political confrontation is necessary as was the case against General Babangida in Nigeria and against General Moussa Traore in Mali, the people and their organizations should not shy away from it just because human rights organizations, donors and lenders preach against violence after resolving most of their own contradictions in violent terms in their respective histories. Only an Africa generated and Africa-centered agenda for political change can incorporate far-reaching policies for dismantling and reconstructing the neo-colonial state, and challenging the subservient and corrupt ways of the African elite. There is increasing agreement that it is the “primary responsibility of Africans to free themselves from the bonds of despotism and poverty,” (Mutua 1994: 17). History does not afford us examples where despots and persons who have privatized the state and its resources willingly give up power without some form of struggle. It is the sort of alliances, institutions, programs and modes of struggle that Africa presents to the world that will be supported. If Africa allows foreign interests to set its agenda and treat it as a hopeless and lost case then this current cycle of manipulation will continue. As Salim A. Salim (1994: 4) has concluded, while Africa’s friends around the world “who are supportive of democratic process in Africa should concentrate more on strengthening democratic institutions, on strengthening the culture of democracy, the culture of human rights, the culture of tolerance in the continent…,” “the primary responsibility for the development of Africa, the primary responsibility for resolutions of conflict, the primary responsibility for democratization in Africa must be that of the Africans. It can’t be different.”