The answer can be summed up as " African Elites/Leaders at various levels are greedy, want to have all, lack of vision for the coming generation, and very ignorant of how to create a competitive environment. Is it possible to have an African leader like Kwame Nkrumah who commanded one of Ministers to return a $3000.00 bed to England.
What we have today are shameless Leaders like Hale Sellase of Ethiopia,Mobutu of Congo, Sanni Abacha of Nigeria, the Iboris of Nigeria.sadly, the Law makers in Nigeria are not helping this situation either. What Next?. There must be a Revolution of Mind.
Ghana has started to pump oil today, December 15, 2010,hopefully, the country will learn from the decline of Cocoa and use the Oil proceeds to build a nation.
Thank you,
Oladimeji Aborisade
University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2010 23:21:55 -0500
From: harrow@msu.edu
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Why is Africa in such a mess?
moses
let me respond briefly (it is late, i'm pretty tired) just to one crucial point:
i am not saying that african states/leaders lack agency--any more than other states. yes, the global order is marked by uneven distributions of power, but it isn't so much states that now control that order. there are larger, more encompassing economic instruments that dictate, that frame the context within which states, and leaders, can act.
that framing is not limited to africa: i am not addressing this as though african states generated inequalities of wealth in ways that differ from other states, like the u.s. and all the others i deliberately listed from other continents.
the dominant global economic order, it counts for something here. within its strictures there are those states and leaders who manage better their national affairs and economies--i totally agree with you on that. but they can manage it only within the confines of an order over which they, including obama and putin and sarkhozy, have little room to maneuver.
i do want to repeat mamdani's main point that it isn't some inherent feature of the people in one place or another that determines whether their actions will be good or bad. after all, if we were to measure the relatively benign actions of the german state today, well, you see where i am going.
we need an appropriate set of concepts to account for the framing of our societies that permit vast inequalities, and even brutalities, to be accepted by a population that doesn't seem to have adequate agency to frame a system that works in their general interest. our ways of explaining this in the past have not been satisfactory: a reform is not what we need; a better neoliberal capitalist order is not what we we need; a group of nice guys or gals running the show is not the answer. what are the fundamental sets of relations that we need to address?
for some a return to some notion of precolonial values is the answer.
not for me. nor do i believe in reformed nation-state entities. maybe the best for the moment is an attempt to forge a balance of disparate interests, just the opposite of the consensus that would seem to demand a foregoing of interest. mouffe and laclau addressed this already, reasonably well.
it seems to me that the move toward totality--in the control over citizens, in the attempts to impose order and uniformity--represent the dominant tendency of our times, and its twin features of fear and repression control those disparate elements within society. bush may have manipulated 9/11 in overt ways that impose this totality. but the nanny state in england did not need 9/11 to put cctvs on all the buses, at all the intersections of the cities, indeed of people's lives.
the connection between the powerful states and the weaker ones is grounded in policies that ultimately result in distributions of wealth and power that disadvantage some and benefit others.
can african leaders vary in their response? only relatively.
we on the list keep addressing those relative responses, and limit ourselves in our perception of what accounts for the broader picture. but if you take it off the table we will be playing with the chips of a game that's already been biased in favor of a wealthy and powerful minority at the expense of the rest.
lastly, i agree with your desire to hold african leaders and elites accountable; why not? i want to hold victor bout accountable; nkunda accountable; bush accountable. the first is in jail; the second in a comfortable holding tank; the latter on his farm. the enormous number of people who died because of their acts doesn't mean that they will all be held accountable. but in the end, much as i want justice, i also want a politics that will move us forward so that tomorrow we aren't just plugging in new names. we need a new way to rethink the structures of our societies. mamdani had some nice metaphors for that. maybe we can twist his arm to provide a few of them for us to chew over.
ken
On 12/14/10 10:33 PM, Moses Ebe Ochonu wrote:
Ken, unlike you, I have little sympathy for the notion that the the crevices of the machine of inequality called the global economy are too narrow for competent and selfless African leaders to maneuver in. Or that, given all that we know about the despicable ways of Africa's ruling elites, we can heap all the blame of Africa's political and economic stagnation on the seen and unseen hand of global capital. That tale is stale, tired, and of little comfort under today's circumstances. I would not want to put all my explanatory eggs in that one basket, valid as the global structural restrictions on African political initiatives may be. How does the tired tale of dependency theory and its mechanics alone explain the rampant, mindless corruption of the African political class, or their serial erosion of the democratic will and rights of citizens? Yes, several decades ago, that explanation cast a spell on African(ist) scholars because these were they heydays of foreign interference and the forgiven follies of postcolonial infancy. Now, it's explanatory value has diminished. The notion that African states and peoples are entrapped in some sinister, monstrous, global capitalist hegemony from which they cannot escape and which inevitably and consistently determines their economic and political fates is a little passe. That's too much determinism than I can stomach. It fails to account for the fact that, skewed as the global capitalist structure may be and as asymmetrical as the resulting relationships and structural connections may be, African states hold a few cards that they can play selflessly and cleverly to benefit their citizens and the fact that even within the constraints of the foundational economic structure in which they operate African leaders can and should privilege their quotidian governmental obligations to their own citizens. To be sure, I always make sure to remind my students who tend to gloss over these overarching realities of the global political economy and their constraints on the people and institutions of the South that these structural impediments are real and limit the political and economic wiggle room available to countries of the South. But I don't subscribe to the idea of a global neoliberal economic system in which African leaders or citizens cannot negotiate, maneuver, or act in their self-interest, or in which localized political action and selfless political conduct is impossible. Where is African political agency in this picture? Where is accountability for Africa's vast army of rulers? I am sorry, but your position, once again, strikes me as the familiar alibis and easy excuses for African leadership failure. We're not talking about the ability of African leaders to wrought transformative change in their domain or to overturn their countries' fundamental relationship with the North's economic and political system. Obviously that would require giving much weight to what you're describing. We are talking about the need for leaders to keep faith with the mundane, basic obligations of leadership. Don't African citizens deserve these from their leaders? Are these very basic obligations of leadership unrealistic in the context of the global forces you describe?
You wrote:
"Why do the poor continue to vote for those who strip them of the means of living?"
Good question. However, I do not believe that it can be answered from a structural, ideological perspective alone. One of the abiding imperfections of Western liberal democracy is that it is an elite business in which flawed elite choices are presented to poor, voting citizens who then have to choose the person that they perceive to be the less bad of the two or more choices. I agree that the system, by its nature is rigged, ab initio, to throw up elite choices--people who for the most part possess no pro-poor experiential or ideological pedigree. But I disagree that this is necessarily a function of an omnipotent global capitalist hegemony. It is the nature of Western liberal democracy and its emphasis on representation, one-man-one vote, etc. The problem encapsulated in your question inheres in the nature of democracy itself. Choices are determined by elite consensuses and trade-offs. The system and its ritualistic elections require that poor people take a chance on one elite candidate over another, not knowing whether the candidate of their choice would not "strip them of the means of living" and sometimes knowing that they would. They have little choice in the matter. The poor can't control the processes by which the choices emerge. One of the reasons for this is their financial handicap vis-a-vis the rich, but it is not the only reason. It is sometimes a function of inherited status, education, ethnicity, etc. Besides, in these local political dynamics, the reach of global is only a partial, limited factor. In my opinion, it is not the be-all-and-end-all that explains all. The poor are presented with a highly constrained choice in the name of democracy and they have to choose someone. Democracy, not neoliberal economic hegemony, is the operative construct here. The alternative is to reject Western liberal democracy altogether, which is not feasible.
Anyway, my two cents so far.
On Tue, Dec 14, 2010 at 8:55 AM, kenneth harrow <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:
i would appreciate an astute political scientist making an evaluation of the united states taking the sentence below: "we, the elite of africa [the u.s.], are the primary enemies of ordinary africans [americans]" and "the tragic role African [congressional] leaders have and continue to play.... etc"
in a recent conference mamdani made the astute, if obvious, statement that it isn't individuals in africa who are different from those elsewhere. it isn't bad luck, bad elites, bad leaders, but rather the conditions that frame the creation of elites, leaders, politicians.
why not face it: there are systems of exchange and production that produce not just goods and wealth but conditions that account for social structures. those conditions today generate the possibility of enormous wealth for a small group, who try their best to hold on to and accumulate as much as possible, while the larger numbers go to hell.
which country am i talking about??? the US? Nigeria? Congo? Rwanda? Senegal? south africa? china? Guatemala? Morocco? ireland? russia?
name a continent that is not relatively described by the "mess" created by the international economic order?
do you think the conditions created by neoliberal global capitalism are not fundamentally responsible for the abominable social and economic imbalances??
it is time to STOP flagellating africa for the ills that follow the dynamics of an unjust economic order. stop talking about how rich the congo would be, only if...
so here is my fundamental disagreement with many on this list who call for better leaders. it isn't the people, it is the system within which they take power that needs to be rethought. if we do that, we might then rewrite the headline to be, "Why does the IMF put africa into such a mess," or "why do we have a global economic order that results in misery for the majority?" or "Why do the poor continue to vote for those who strip them of the means of living?"
a tea party question indeed
ken
On 12/14/10 9:00 AM, Toyin Falola wrote:Why is Africa in such a mess?http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/Commentary/-/689364/1071802/-/view/printVersion/-/156btsfz/-/index.html
By Harold AcemahPosted Tuesday, December 14 2010 at 00:00In October 1993, I bought a little book titled, Tiny Roland: the ugly face of Neo-colonialism in Africa by an EIR Investigative Team. EIR stands for Executive Intelligence Review, based in Washington DC, USA.The thesis of the book, which at that time I found outrageous, but which I am now more sympathetic to, was that Africa is on its deathbed, its people relentlessly mowed down by starvation and disease. Among the perpetrators of this holocaust are the International Monetary Fund, the former colonial powers, the transnational corporations and commodity cartels such as the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries.On this list, one should add African leaders and the elite. Increasingly, I believe we, the elite of Africa, are the primary enemies of ordinary Africans. We, and especially our leaders, have let Africa down, very badly. Current events in Ivory Coast confirm the tragic role African leaders have and continue to play in the destruction of Africa. I fear Uganda is next.According to EIR, one man above all the rest, bears special personal responsibility for turning the 1960s dreams of independence into a nightmare. His name is Roland Walter "Tiny" Roland, boss of a British Transnational Corporation, LONRHO. LONRHO is acronym for the London Rhodesia Company. For decades this shrewd fellow was the most powerful Western businessman in Africa. He had access to all African Heads of State and government as well as African freedom fighters, guerrillas and even bandits.He would do business with African leaders, while funding guerrillas fighting the very leaders he was wining and dining with. He was a practitioner of the dictum: Never put all your eggs in one basket.The introduction to the EIR book on Tiny Roland is prophetic. It begins with a short three-word sentence: "Africa is dying". It denounces Tiny Roland and asserts that "the list of African leaders and guerrilla leaders with whom Tiny Roland has had intimate financial dealings reads so much like a Who is Who of modern African history. It includes past and present leaders of Uganda and Kenya. Like all devious types, Tiny Roland had a tragic end and is no more.Aside from the treacherous behaviour of African leaders, Sub-Saharan Africa is simply poorly led, by mediocres, conmen, frauds and drop-outs. Since the advent of independence in the 1960s, Africa has had far too many tyrants and gangsters as leaders, far too few statesmen, let alone merely competent office holders at political and bureaucratic level. Too often African leaders reject sound policy advice and refuse to take the long or broad view of their job.For example, how can anybody justify and rationalise the sale of Uganda Commercial Bank (UCB), Apollo Hotel, Uganda Hotels and Uganda Electricity Board, to mention but a few, under the guise of liberalisation and privatisation. All these parastatals were making profit, but more important, they were owned by the people of Uganda. UCB was fondly and rightly called "The People's Bank". UEB was sold to ESKOM, a company owned by the government of South Africa. It defies logic and one does not need a PhD in Economics to see through the absurdity of the actions of African leaders.The few African leaders who seem to be progressive at the beginning of their tenure of office soon revert to the familiar form of autocratic one-man rule. Some are literally insane and remind me of the Roman Emperor Caligula. Take the example, Master Sgt. Samuel Doe and Sgt Jean Bedel Bokassa. The former became a General and Life President of Liberia while Bokassa crowned himself Emperor of the Central African Republic. He was following the footsteps of his hero, Napoleon Bonaparte of France.Today, another crazy young man called Yahya Jammeh who has terrorised tiny Gambia for years, now wants to be crowned "King of Gambia" and establish a dynastic rule in that ruined and impoverished strip of land which is too small as a runway for the airbus 380 Jumbo Jet. And the international community is just watching. For the enemies of Africa it confirms their worst fears and prejudices about Africans. During the 1960s many of these types used to patronisingly argue that Africans are barbarians and not yet ready for self-government, let alone independence.When one looks at the map of Africa from Zimbabwe to Somalia to Eritrea and Gambia and in between, it is painful for me as pan-Africanist to nod my head and in silence admit that these enemies of Africa were perhaps partly right. We Africans are our own worst enemies. Let us stop blaming colonialism, the slave trade, imperialism, etc for our own self-made tragedy.Our education has failed to remove the village mentality in most of our leaders. All we think and talk about is "eating" or "manger" in French. Some allege they have killed an animal and must be given eternity to feast on the carcass. With such mind-sets Africa may indeed sooner, rather than later, die. Yes, Africa is dying. Our primary challenge is to save Africa from imminent death and keep the hopes of our people alive.Mr Achema is a political scientist, consultant and a retired ambassador based in Arua
hacemah@gmail.com--Toyin Falola--
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