Imperialism and the Democratization Process in Africa

Finally third, there is an urgent need to rescue the pro-democracy movements and struggles from the western agenda. Western, especially American support for democracy in Africa is to serve western, particularly American interests because not only is a global democratic agenda conducive to American security interests which “means preserving market access to natural resources and keeping open the sea lanes of international trade,” since “America’s economic health requires not only a safe and secure climate for trade and investment, but an open one as well, in which tariff and non-tariff barriers to international exchange are lowered as much as possible,” but also that a “more democratic world will be safer, saner, more prosperous, receptive, and friendly world for Americans,” (Diamond 1991 5, 6). In view of these interests therefore, Diamond contends that a “long-term strategy of promoting democracy must therefore be at the heart of our global vision,” (Diamond 1991: 7). There is no way in which Africa can hope to benefit from such an agenda by an imperialist economy unless Africa is able to meet the goals of America with the defined and consolidated autonomous goals of Africa. This is because America’s international campaigns for democracy is not value-free nor is it in the primary interest of the affected countries.
The pro-democracy movements in Africa have become moribund, disorganized, confused, ineffective, even corrupt. Many have no clear vision as to what they want. Many of the “new” leaders have become professional net-workers raising money abroad to advance the narrow interests of their organizations and sponsors all of whom believe they should be presidents of their respective countries. In this way they refuse and fail to reach a consensus, to accommodate each other’s differences and strategies, and they become intolerant and ironically, undemocratic. Where they resort to violent protests, it is not often because it will advance the interest of the struggle but because it will satisfy their foreign sponsors that they are active and it will give them an edge over other pro-democracy groups. Many are led by criminals of yesterday, dismissed ministers, political opportunists, professionals who see the struggle for procedural democracy as just another job, “emergency” or “born again” democrats, and people with limited exposure and experience in political organization and action. This is why in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and other locations, it has been easy for the incumbent dictator to out-fox the opposition and retain power in one repackaged form or the other. Adedeji (1993: 44) has noted that the new politics in Africa “has been largely aborted and subverted, the subversion in some cases master-minded by the very leaders who had proclaimed their commitment to the realization of democracy. Indeed, the past…years have witnessed oscillations between tumult and paralysis, and have shown more clearly than ever before the deep-rooted and systematic weaknesses of current leadership in Africa.” Adotey Bing (1991: 67) has argued that “to date, multiparty elections in Africa have produced no fundamental change…” because “given the socio-economic conditions of Africa and the fact that up to 80 percent of Africa’s working people are peasants, multi-partyism is more likely than not, in the first instance, to lead to conservative victories, and a multi-coloured cloak of legitimacy. Thus the multi-party state is unlikely to be more responsive to either the needs or expressed wishes of the majority of Africa’s population than the one party or military states have been.” This is largely because of the excessively liberal and shallow programs of the majority of the pro-democracy movements: they depend on old and discredited politicians; rely on foreign ideas, funders, and experts; struggle to fit their agenda to satisfy the programs of foreign organizations; have no holistic agenda for reconstruction after multi-party elections; focus excessively on personalities; have imbibed the prescriptions of donors, lenders and international finance organizations; and have not been able to penetrate the rural areas and present the masses of the people with an alternative indigenous grassroots agenda for political renewal. Thus in spite of early victories and the tumultuous challenges to the status quo in all African states, “To date, there are no signs that democratization has recast political constituencies in a new mode. They continue to be formed in terms of clientilism, although the forms of clientilist recruitment can change, whether based, for example, on party allegiance, ethnicity or some other factor. In any event, when combined with corruption, clientilist networks contrive to hamper the effective design and implementation of state policy,” (Ellis 1993: 143). This is why pro-democracy movements, on coming to power appear, sound, and operate so much like the discredited regimes. While external pressure is needed to “maintain the momentum” (Obasanjo 1994: 22) of democratization in Africa, it cannot be at the expense of indigenous initiatives, realignments, and mobilization of the people to take charge of the process of creating history.
In spite of its abundant resources (Lagos Plan of Action 1980: 3), Africa remains the least developed region in the world. Yet there is a lot of change going on and far-reaching struggles for reconstituting the political landscape can no longer be reversed. While it is certainly a continent “teeming with reformers, entrepreneurs, peasants, thinkers, workers, and idealists; in a word, those who resist degradation and dehumanization,” we agree with Guy Martin (1993: 7) that in the final analysis, “economic and political change in Africa will succeed only if it is a home-grown, indigenous process, initiated by the African people themselves, taking into account their own historical, social and cultural values and traditions.” With donors, lenders, the World Bank, IMF, western governments and scholars, Africanists, and African scholars, politicians and pro-democracy movements overlooking this reality, this task will be tough but not impossible to achieve in the very near future.