Imperialism and the Democratization Process in Africa

Structures of Domestication and Encapsulation
There is a tendency in the literature to attribute the on-going political changes in Africa to developments in Eastern Europe. It is almost as if the monumental political developments in Africa cannot be discussed without reference to the developments in Eastern Europe. The argument is often that with the dismantling of the Soviet Empire and the adoption of the market alternative by the republics in Eastern Europe, Africa was forced to follow suit. In fact, Africa had no choice but to once again copy from the and East and West how to go about its political reconstruction. Nothing could be farther from the truth or more misleading.
The struggle for democracy, accountability, human rights, social justice and popular participation clearly predates the developments in Eastern Europe. These struggles date back to the 1960s when the nationalists engaged largely in struggles of limited objectives against colonial imperialism. Except in countries where independence came through the defeat of western imperialism on the battle fields, political independence was negotiated between imperialist agents and African elites who had been created and nurtured under colonialism. Thus political independence was used to consolidate the powers, privileges, and institutions of colonialism like the marketing boards. In Nigeria, even after political independence, many innocent citizens were still arrested for being in possession of locally produced gin (the so-called illicit gin). This was a policy the colonial state had adopted to destroy local production and consumption of gin to create a market for imported substitutes. The ideology of development was a convenient way to engage in propaganda and diversions. The people had to be depoliticized, to remove from them the momentum and enthusiasm for liberation. In more ways than otherwise, the new African elite were as corrupt, non-accountable, irresponsible, decadent, exploitative, and aloof like the colonial elite. Even where some political changes took place at the superficial levels, no such changes took place at the economic levels. The struggle to challenge, confront, defeat and cheat this elite took off at this time.
African history is full of thousands of instances of such confrontations between the state, its institutions, and agents on the one hand, and the people, their communities and organizations on the other: peasant revolts, students’ demonstrations, strikes by workers, army civilian clashes, the rejection of “political heavyweights,” withdrawal from the formal economy, the expansion of the underground market, refusal to pay taxes, refusal to sell crops to government institutions, attacks on politicians, and countless covert modes of resistance against the state are clear indicators of this struggle for freedom and a better Africa. To now attribute the renewed struggles for democracy and democratization in Africa to developments in Eastern Europe is to do great injustice to the struggles of African peoples against oppression and brutalization since the 1960s. We argue that the recent struggles have come to the fore more because the state has been badly delegitimized, resources have dried up, the long-drawn out struggles of the people are beginning to take effect, and the elites now have no where to turn in their culture of waste, misplaced priorities, decadence, opportunism, and repression. To be sure, a more favorable international climate has made this internally driven agenda more feasible. Or, has it?