Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Why is Africa in such a mess?

Dear Ken,

This is vintage Pius! always brings a good punch (for lack of a better
word or idea). Brief remarks! Many of us have followed these
conversations from the sideline. Without being reductionist, here is
what I have picked up. Some participants in the conversation see African
issues from a historical perspective and emphasize the injustices
perpetrated on Africans. One cannot deny that. Others emphasize systems
that have been harnessed to keep Africa in crisis, hence the criticism
of neo liberalism (which I must say as an aside without developing it
fully that I am often amazed at what academics who thrive in
universities that depend or are funded by money and an economy "grown"
in a neo liberal economic system. but that is a different concern which
I cannot address here).

The other perspective see resemblances to what is happening in Africa to
what goes on in the West and in the United States of America. I think
this perspective reminds us that capitalism thrives on greed and "taking
care of one's business" because no one will do it for you. It also
reminds us that political corruption is an equal opportunity employer,
hence the many corrupt politicians we have in the US that are sometimes
tried and convicted. Many of them are often caught through an FBI sting
operation-an interesting concept in jurisprudence. However, the
comparison in these conversations seem to ignore a strong caveat here.
"Taking care of business" in the American context many times involves
lengthy legislative debates about and on appropriations; a process which
draws inspiration from what Tip O'neal once said: "all politics is
local." When that dictum is writ large on the global state, it goes by
the doctrine of "our national security interest." My point is that the
comparisons of current America practices with what goes on in some
African countries does not hold.

Finally there are those who argue in these exchanges that African
leaders, or Africans should accept responsibility for our problems. I
share that position. Without defending myself, the only thing I should
add here is that such a position is a footnote to Fanon's Wretched of
the Earth, Soyinka's Dance of the Forests, the work of Achebe, Ngugi,
Thabo Mbeki, and many of the luminaries of CORDESRIA, who articulated
Africa's problems very clearly, but ironically also fought viciously
about who was a better representative or messenger of the African crisis
and who was a sell out to the West.

Africa needs leaders with a political will that would focus on Africa
and mobilize the members of the political community to do same.

Thank you
Elias K. Bongmba

kenneth harrow said the following on 12/19/2010 10:07 PM:
> dear pius
> a shocking image indeed.
> on the other hand...
> i live in a district in which our representative uses things like
> roads extending from the highway to campus as "cash" for the voters.
> and there is plenty of that everywhere.
> what have our congresspersons, senators, brought to our states? who
> doesn't know some of this?
> what tax break has my president just given me? oh, 2% of my income
> from social security. hmmm; i should vote for him.
>
> and at the same time, why should i, or any of us, listen to those
> foreigners who cluck their tongues at us?
>
> who is the "us" anyway? i see the picture of the lamidi right in front
> of my eyes. i respond to an unknown, but large number of readers on
> this list, each of whom has an opinion, a "vote" in the global elections.
> and the local event has now taken hold of thousands of us, literally.
> influences peddled locally get moved onto international networks
> instaneously, and, lo and behold a wikileak shakes up the lamidi and
> his followers. or don't you think they see us looking at them? are we
> the only ones to own computers?
> i don't know how things get changed, but i am pretty certain that our
> little narration of this story has leaked out, that it cannot be
> contained to your and my screen.
> so, who is the "us" here?
> ken
>
>
>
> On 12/19/10 10:31 PM, Pius Adesanmi wrote:
>> Ken, Moses, Bode, Femi, Ehiedu:
>>
>> Look at this picture of Lamidi Adedibu distributing cash to
>> followers, 'citizens', and party faithfuls just before an election in
>> 2007:
>>
>> Adedibu
>>
>> Why should the people waiting for that cash listen to us and our
>> high-wire disourses and not the gestural "discourse" of Adedibu? How
>> do we reconcile the Africa of our discourses with the Africa known
>> and lived on entirely different wavelengths by Lamidi Adedibu's
>> audience? I am just trying to water down the rarefied trajectory of
>> this thread...
>>
>> Will Africa's "mess" or problems be half solved the day the folks in
>> this photo can relate to how we narrate them?
>>
>> Pius
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --- On *Sun, 19/12/10, Olabode Ibironke /<ibironke@msu.edu>/* wrote:
>>
>>
>> From: Olabode Ibironke <ibironke@msu.edu>
>> Subject: RE: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Why is Africa in
>> such a mess?
>> To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
>> Date: Sunday, 19 December, 2010, 21:09
>>
>> I agree with Kwame and Jaye totally. I differ with Ehiedu only in
>> a few
>> places:
>>
>> 1. "much of what we say and debate will be side-tracked by the
>> outcome of
>> 'actual African history in the making'" This presupposes that the
>> reality of
>> which he speaks has a logic of its own separate from the
>> "familiar lazy
>> constructions of Africa in terms of 'corruption', 'poverty' and
>> 'incapacity'". I prefer to think about this in terms of how
>> historical
>> reality and discourses reproduce one another in a mobile
>> exchange. Certain
>> discursive constructions create and perpetuate certain realities.
>>
>> 2. systems are not essentially negative and restrictive, they enable,
>> empower and sustain. So, when we talk about global, I prefer the term
>> "general", systemic determinations, we are not simply talking about
>> constraints.
>>
>> 3. it is indeed true that the global system is a prison house for
>> many. We
>> must see ourselves jail breaking when we seek fundamental
>> transformations of
>> the system.
>>
>> The overall point is that AFRICA IS NOT AN EXCEPTION. I believe
>> that Ken
>> Harrow was preempting the question that usually follows "why is
>> Africa in
>> such a mess?" It very often leads to a criticism of leadership,
>> which is a
>> mask for questioning the inherent humanity of Africans based on a
>> characteristic existential situation. He is asking us via Mamdani
>> to look
>> beyond Africa to see similar mechanisms re/produce the exact same
>> situation
>> time and again. Once we understand those general mechanisms or
>> apparatuses,
>> we can set at a purposeful and meaningful program of reconstruction.
>>
>> Bode
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
>> </mc/compose?to=usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
>> [mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
>> </mc/compose?to=usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>] On Behalf Of
>> eiwerieb@hunter.cuny.edu </mc/compose?to=eiwerieb@hunter.cuny.edu>
>> Sent: Sunday, December 19, 2010 9:15 AM
>> To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
>> </mc/compose?to=usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
>> Subject: Re: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Why is Africa in
>> such a mess?
>>
>> Is Africa in a mess?
>>
>> This discussion has gone on for quite sometime and like so much
>> of such
>> discussions about Africa it threatens to reduce to the listing of
>> Africa as
>> incapacitated and bounded by nothing but constraints. But this
>> discussion
>> also provokes several questions.
>> In what sense is Africa in a mess? Which Africa? All 54
>> countries? Some
>> Countries? Are African countries actually where they where 40-50
>> years ago?
>> What is actually on the ground that was not there 50 years? What
>> is actually
>> missing in terms of Africa's capacity for self-propulsion?
>>
>> 2. It is true that in one way or another there has always being a
>> world
>> system much as there is national, regional, state, provincial, town,
>> village, neighborhood and family systems. People and societies
>> operate
>> within and without the bounds of these systems.
>>
>> 3.Historically development has always been about consciousness,
>> vision,
>> goals, organization, opportunities, constraints and choice.
>>
>> 4. There is no question that any power that emerges, past and
>> present will
>> try to organize the world to its advantage just as China and
>> India are
>> trying to do today. The same will apply to any serious African
>> country that
>> emerges as a global power. In short, it has always been the
>> practice and
>> business of old and emergent powers to organize the world to
>> their benefit.
>> There is nothing new about this. What is perhaps new is that the
>> present
>> world system due to the advances in transport and telecommunication
>> technologies is much tighter.
>>
>> 5. But this does not make the world or global system a prison-house.
>>
>> 6. Leaders and peoples even in Africa are quite capable of achieving
>> breakthroughs as effective economic and social actors and makers
>> of the
>> system to the extent that they are driven by a a fairly clear
>> understanding
>> of the global system, a consciouness of its potential and actual
>> constraints
>> on them, and are willing to mobilize and deploy national
>> psychological
>> resources to the project of self-transformation.
>>
>> 7. It is true that Africa has experienced the loss of its
>> autochtonous
>> spiritual, religious, linguistic anchors as the animating motive
>> force of
>> its self-direction; but his loss is not total and at that this
>> stage the
>> lamentation of this loss is neither here nor there.
>>
>> 8. The point is, what will Africa as a unit and its countries do to
>> participate in this world system as effective self-directed
>> societies that
>> relentelessly pursue national and continental objectives with
>> little regard
>> to the the constraints of the present global system. Or how can the
>> continent or more correctly its key and potential vanguard countries
>> organize to become makers of the global system.
>>
>> 9. Finally, however much we debate "Africa" from the distant or
>> even from
>> within, if the terms of our perception and description are
>> derived from the
>> defective conceptual simplifications of the world system; and not
>> from the
>> ideological and political and practical complexity of "actually
>> existing
>> Africa" much of what we say and debate will be side-tracked by
>> the outcome
>> of "actual African history in the making" that is not reducible
>> to the
>> familiar lazy constructions of Africa in terms of "corruption",
>> "poverty"
>> and "incapacity".
>>
>> Ehiedu Iweriebor
>>
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>
> --
> kenneth w. harrow
> distinguished professor of english
> michigan state university
> department of english
> east lansing, mi 48824-1036
> ph. 517 803 8839
> harrow@msu.edu
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