Lost Dream - Analysis:
Africa’s Ailments: Focus -South Africa, Zimbabwe
and Kenya Are the walls come tumbling down?
May 30, 2008
Preview: The promise and hope
of the 1960s independence seems gone with the
wind. The prevailing hopeful winds of
independence once blowing through the length and
the breadth of the continent, has given way to
prevailing winds of violence, busted dreams,
misrule, dictatorship, social injustice,
economical and political meltdown. The emerging
post colonial states once shooting for heights
and idealism, freedom and liberty, have given
way to basket case, regressive and despotic
states.
The hope of a self-sufficient and politically
independent states has changed into weak,
parasitic mini states that are just prototypes
of their colonial powers. The indigenous public
that have made so much sacrifice for the
struggle for independence became strangers in
their own countries.The dreams of Dr. Kwama
Nkrumah and Patrice Lumumba have changed into
nightmare.
Africa is crying for radical economical,
political and structural, economical, and social
reconfiguration including economical Marshall
plans, accelerated educational revolution,
construction of social justice institutions,
border realignments and territorial adjustments.
Africa needs huge input from its Diaspora that
have long ago shelved anything that is related
to the continent.This may sound extreme but
extreme situations need drastic remedies and
reactions. leaving the status quo as it is, will
not resolve anything. Africa needs peaceful
revolutionaries. The time for transformational
leadership to step into the plate is now. With
the absence of radical actions in the 21st
century, the future of this continent will be in
the balance.The continent will face a bleak
future. If the last 40 years is a witness,
things will even go further down hill. If the
destructive forces that have been at play for
the good part of the past 40 years are not
reversed.You are talking about a continent in a
very serious crisis ranging from massive human
migrations, chronic and intractable conflicts,
endless civil wars, devastating famines, water
shortage with the scale never seen before,
environment devastation, seismic political
upheavals and chaos. Some of the above-mentioned
are already happening.
This article will revolve around the answers to
three questions which are as follows:
"Neither the questions nor their answers are
scientific" but just a personal attempt to
answer a long lingering riddle.
1. What happened to the illustrators history of
the diverse people of this vast continent?
2. What had happened to the heroes of this
potentially rich continent?
3. What had happened to the promise of
independence?
Before I try to answer the three questions I
would like to start with a moving song (Huhoy
Afrikay Hurday" (translation, OH! sleeping
Africa) by the legendary "Zaynab Haji Ali Bahsan"
"Huhay Afrikay Horiday, Duli Lama Hilaabtii Away
Hanada daadii" (Translation OH! sleeping Africa,
shake off the indignity, where are your heroes"
Brief answers to the questions
1. In this piece I will attempt to address the
answers to the three above-named provocative
questions. It is a historical fact that Africa
has a celebrated ancient history. There were
several ancient civilizations around the
continent. Among many other civilizations, the
Great Zimbabwe Civilization in Southern Africa,
the Adel Empire (Somaliland) in the Horn of
Africa, the Songhay, and Dahomey civilizations
in the West Africa were high lighted. There was
also great civilizations in North Africa or "Almaghreb)
such as Carthage (AlQardajana)-modern Tunisia,
the Berber and the Muslim civilizations,
following the lighting conquest of the area by
the Muslim armies led by the legendary Muslim
warrior, Amir Ibna Al-As (Omar Ibna-Al-As). The
ruins of some of those history can be seen in
Libya, Tunisia, Algeria (Al Jasayir) and
Morocco.These ancient civilizations left behind
a huge body of knowledge, impressive ruins and
scholarship.
These treasure trophies were largely neglected
by Africans.Those ancient African histories can
be well-matched if not better than the much
publicized and extensively written about
European civilizations such as, the Roman,
Byzantine, and the Hapsburg Empires, the
Phoenicians, Napoleon and others.The difference
between the later and the former, is simple, the
later were well researched, documented and
written about, while the former still lays as
ruins all over the continent.The European
colonial powers portrayed Africa as a place
which has no written history, and populated by
sub human savages. But the bulk of the blame of
what had happened to such an illustrious history
will go to people of the continent. The
heritage, history and past glories of nations
must be documented by its people.That
responsibility has eluded both the indigenous
inhabitants of the continent and their diaspora.
2. This thought provoking question regarding as
to what has happened to Africa’s heroes, is a
persistent question, all those concerned about
the ills and aliments of Africa often ask. What
they are trying to say is, how come? some body,
some where such as a traditional elder, local
leader, religious personality or what have you
can not come forward, and intervene to stop the
endless conflicts and dysfunction going on
around the continent. It crystal clear the post
colonial regional and international
organizations such as the AU and United Nations
and their agencies have miserably failed.
Tootless organizations that have outlived their
usefulness can not and will not solve their
problems. These organizations failed miserably
to resolve any major problem in the continent.
In some cases they exacerbate problems. Look
closely when ever a challenge faces an African
nation, they call for a meeting. In these
gatherings they formulate empty press releases
and immediately pass the problem to the United
Nations which is another failed bureaucracy. The
point here is Africans need to resolve their own
problems, because there is nobody else out there
who can revolve their conflicts.
3. The third question is by far the most painful
and difficult question many Africans want to
digest, dissect, analyze and are eager to
understand, what had happened to the
independence promise? It is a concrete fact the
African people gallantly and courageously
ejected the recalcitrant colonial powers from
their land. Those masses who gave their blood
and treasure for the independence, freedom and
liberty of the continent never enjoyed the
fruits of that huge sacrifice. During the hasty
departure from the continent, the colonial
powers have tricked the African masses, by
placing their friends in the highest positions
of power at the expense of the general public.
These dark skinned selected leaders look dark
but Europeans in their thinking and mind set.
For the last 40 years, the continent was
misruled by an unholy alliance of European
appointed African despots and their former
colonial masters. Those African dictators were,
what the famed African revolutionary Francis
Fannon called" Black Skins, White Minds" in his
famous novel, "The wretched of the Earth". That
is the process that brought horrible leaders
such as Mugabe, Milton Obete, Siyaka Stevens,
Omar Bongo, Nimandi Ajeki and others.
The shaky post colonial artificial constructs
are in trouble. The world is at the dawn of the
21st century. Some developing countries who more
or less achieved their Independence the same
time as Africa are doing very well. Countries
like India, Singapore, Malaysia, and others have
achieved huge development in many departments
ranging from education, business, manufacturing
capacity, technology, health care and the like.
They have already achieved several developmental
index markers. But in Africa the situation is
different. Many Africans, Why there is no single
viable country in the continent? This may be a
very provocative question but it is the reality.
The post colonial artificial states in Africa
started with huge structural problems. The
colonial powers who hastily exited from the
continent never prepared these structural
deficient states to become normal
countries.There was no gradual transfer of
power.They never prepared them for elections.
The colonial powers never allowed well-grounded
political parties based on political philosophy
to flourish. The colonial times was basically an
era of autocracy and dictatorship. Some of the
European powers may have democracy in their
native countries. But in their colonies and
foreign possessions there was a completely
different story.
Soon after the so-called independence of 1960,
many indigenous Africans felt their government
are not representative governments.That was one
of the reasons military coups happen in Nigeria,
Ghana and some other countries. Again the
military governments were never successful in
Africa.The military governments happen to became
more repressive, autocratic, cracked down on the
media, banned political parties and can not
tolerate any kind of dissent. As a matter of
fact, these early coups which later on became an
epidemic stifled the infant defective states to
grow. The rudimentary democratic forces emerging
in post independence years, have been smothered
by the autocratic military government. Typically
the democratic forces have been uprooted soon
after birth. That is why Africa went through a
very long winter of military government
coups.The illegitimate and unpopular African
regimes spent so much money to maintain their
survival.
They earmarked a huge chunk of the meager
resources on the police and the military.
Another very dangerous thing they did was they
polarized their nations. They divided their
people into different sectors based on
ethnicity, tribalism and clannism. They
compounded the existing difference between the
people.This policy of divide and rule directly
copied from the colonial play book was
excessively used. This is a policy that
prolonged the life spans of horrible regimes.
another important components that prolonged
despotic regimes was the cold war. The two
bitterly competing superpowers at the the time,
the united States and the Soviet Union cut huge
checks for the illegal dictators in Africa.
Terrible depots like Mobutu, Haile Selassie,
Bokassa, Eddi Amin and others have been allowed
to destroy their countries and nations.
The cumulative effect of the sustained
polarization perpetrated by heartless and short
sighted dictators, the difficulty to remove them
from power because they completely shut down all
the peaceful political process, that have let
bad leaders to cling to power for a long time.
They have banned political parties, stifled the
media. There was a time every African country
has only one TV/Radio Station and one news paper
and all of those were pedaling the government
line. Dissent was tolerated. The accumulated
grievance and the difficulty to rectify it have
moved many African communities in to a state of
despair and apathy. Some of that apathy has
manifested itself in the form of rebel groups
led by bad actors, and other types of violence.
Charles Taylor of Liberia, Sanku of Sierra
Leone, Zinewi of Ethiopia, Afwargus of Eritrea,
Lorraine Kabila of Congo and others will come to
mind. At the present African communities are in
state of resignation and hopelessness.
Africa’s artificial states are falling apart one
by one
Like many other African countries, Kenya is an
artificial creation. The British basically
jumbled together about 40 tribes, who have their
own subcultures, languages, territory and way of
living. These colonial-created countries called
nation states never addressed the concerns and
special needs of these disparate communities.
New countries have created and no nation
building to bridge the natural gulf between
these tribes was never done. The British was
forced to leave and when they were leaving, they
never prepared these new countries how to deal
with the existing inherent problems. The
despicable images from Kenya, you have recently
seen around the world is a volcanic eruption
relating to the huge structural problems the
British left behind. These problems were largely
left unaddressed by the new African leaders.
Those African leaders never cared to address
those inherent problems, related to the
structural configuration of the new countries.
That is why you have huge problems and
underdevelopment in most of Africa. The post
independence African leaders were prototypes of
their colonial masters. The colonial masters
left Africa with their hand picked men in
charge. These men called Africa’s big men or
presidents for life failed to address to
monumental problems they inherited from the
British. These men became very busy to secure
their positions. They have created government
and machinery geared for their life long misrule
of these artificial states. Therefore, what one
can see in Kenya today is not that
unpredictable. Some are wondering how come? it
did n’t happen sooner than this. The carnage in
Kenya is neither strange nor the last problem to
be seen in the sorrow African scene. The
regional African organizations such as the AU
are also a carbon copy of the despicable African
rulers.
This process’s of disintegration,
deconstruction, devolution will continue for a
long time to come. Countries taking the Somalia
route will be on the rise. All the indications
are pointing to that bitter reality. if you look
about the kinds of leaders that still dominate
the African landscape plus economic
difficulties, impending environment problems,
pandemic disease, collapsing infra structure,
non existent public survive, meager health care
and health care facilities, the African
Continent is heading to cataclysmic disaster in
the 20 century. A massive well-organized
movement that may make radical structural
configuration can save this sorrow continent.
Rwanda and Darfur genocide happened in their
watch. They did nothing about the carnage, chaos
and wanton loss of life in Liberia, Sierra
Leone, Liberia, Somalia, Congo, Ivory Coast,
Chad and many other places. The above named are
the most difficult conflict that are not
completely resolved. There are so many other
brewing conflicts all over Africa which may
flare up at any time. For the last month we have
witnessed the carnage, burning people alive and
impending ethnic cleansing, which may degenerate
into a full-fledged into civil war which
eventually lead into a genocide.
Zimbabwe
The disputed election is Zimbabwe also indicate
the emerging pattern in Africa. Like Kenya, in
Zimbabwe another president for life dictator is
tenuously clinging to power, after loosing
election. What is happening in Zimbabwe is a
carbon copy of what had recently happened in
Kenya. The 84 years old Robert Mugabe party
already lost the parliamentary elections. They
have conceded about their lost of the
parliament. But he is still hanging on the power
to the presidency, which he had already lost.
Dictators do are not visionary. His days of iron
rule has expired in Zimbabwe. There is a silent
revolution going in Africa and the world at
large. There is a genuine movement of change
sweeping through out the globe. The upheaval in
Tibet is also part of this movement of change
and hope. Baraka Obama is may the leader of this
international movement of change, which may as
large if not larger than the anti-colonial
movement that started, following World War II.
What is happening in Zimbabwe is disgraceful. It
is a despicable thing a vicious dictator is
doing in that country. That dictator is Robert
Mugabe, a so-called war hero, a revolutionary
who chased the repressive, minority racist
regime of the former Rhodesia. Ironically these
days, the Zimbabwe of 2008, led by Robert Mugabe
is worse off than than Ian Smith’s Rhodesia in
every developmental indicator. A potentially
rich country, the economy is in ruins. There is
a severe shortage of food, in a country which
has the potential to base the basket of all
Southern Africa. It is now close to a month
since the presidential elections have taken
place last month.
Every body failed here. The regional leaders
fall short of interfering Robert Mugabe mess in
Zimbabwe. The so-called African Union miserably
failed.This is a useless club of post colonial
gangs. They have a long tract record of not
properly resolving a single crisis around the
continent. The AU is not more than a den of
dictators. This is a for live presidents club
where is done. The United Nations is another
good for nothing organization which outlived
their usefulness. This another secretive club
organized by the victors of World War 11. Most
of those victors are were colonial powers who
were at the time on the verge of loosing all
their colonies.
Kenya
What you have recently seen in Kenya, the
darling of the west is a case in point. At the
time that country appeared to be drifting to an
uncontrollable violence. Just about ago this was
a country regarded and widely known in the west
as a bastion of peace, democracy, rule of law
and what have you in a sea of chaos, mayhem,
dysfunction and dictatorship. This is a country
which is the regional hub for numerous
international organizations. Nairobi is the
financial center for East and Central Africa.
Kenya also is the recipient of huge western aid.
But to some observers Kenya may superficially
fit the above picture. The real picture is far
different than the picture the west has been
painting about Kenya. Kenya is a country run by
a high corrupt government. Kenya is a country
where the majority people live in abject
poverty. There are only few people who became
extremely rich on the backs of the ordinary
Kenya. meanwhile, Kenya is a country primarily
dominated by one major tribe-the Kikuyu, which
is the tribe of the current president who was
accused of rigging the elections Mr. kibaki.
The Kikuyu dominated the finance, education, the
military. The most violent gangs in Kenya the
Mungigi is also predominately belong to the
Kikuyu tribe.The irony here is Kenya, which
seemed to be the beloved child of the west
itself has monumental structural problems just
like its contemporary African countries. These
problems are across the board problems which are
not unique to a particular country. Lately they
popped up in Zimbabwe, Ivory Coast, South Africa
and other places. Earlier these are the
pathologies that have devastated Sierra Leone,
Liberia, Congo, Somalia, Rwanda, Burundi and
many other states.
South Africa
Shame on South Africa, the on going mass murder
of defenseless immigrants will leave an inedible
stain on the name of their beleaguered nation.
Shame on the government of South Africa.The
carnage in South Africa will stain the name of
that country for generations to come.The
callousness, malignancy and ferocity of the
unprovoked attacks against the helpless is
unprecedented. These attacks are even more
ferocious than brutal fascist attacks against
the supporters of Chile’s elected president Dr.
Salvador Allende in 1973. At the time, thousands
of Allende sympathizers were herded in an open
soccer stadium and butchered in mass. The
magnitude and the scale of mass murder have
crossed all the boundaries of humanity. These
types of acts amount to war crimes and crimes
against humanity. The government of South Africa
has flagrantly violated the "1949" Geneva
Convention for refugees. Of all governments in
the world, this government has been built from
the ashes of the former apartheid minority
regime of South Africa. It is mind bugling how
such government miserably failed to protect the
poor, down trodden and the dispossessed who fled
the ravages of Africa’s most notorious
dictators, the likes of Robert Mugabe, Zinewi,
Siyad Barre, Charles Taylor, Eddi Amin and many
other myopic despots around the continent. The
government of South Africa has virtually
disappeared from the streets where brutal mobs
committed heinous crimes against immigrants.
They are missing in action. Where is the
president of that country? S. African police
watched passively when innocent people have been
hacked to death, burned alive and cold bloodedly
killed with impunity. South Africans have been
welcomed around the world for many years. S.
Africans have been helped during their hour of
need. But what is happening now through S.
Africa is a shameful behavior.This is
unprecedented and such barbaric actions had
never been committed any where around the world,
since the days of the Rwanda genocide. What is
happening in South Africa just sounds and smells
like another genocide along the long lines of
the Rwanda genocide in the making.These
uncontrollable killers seems to be on a roll.
They appear to be on to a new round of another
carnage, with a magnitude never witnessed in
Africa. Mobocracy seem to be taking grip of
South Africa. The current rampage appears to be
calculated and premeditated violence which may
not be only confined to the poor immigrants
only. This may be a prelude of very long and
nasty summer for South Africa.The intensity of
this large scale attack against immigrants, may
the beginning of a devastating civil war and the
collapse of law and order in South Africa. The
country appears to be drifting into lawlessness
and chaos. The last hope of Africa may be edging
towards chronic violence and chaos.
Analysis
What you are seeing through the continent is
chickens coming back to roast. There is no
single stable, cohesive, democratic country
around the whole vast continent. The problems
are diverse, multifaceted, and some are more
acute in certain countries than others. But
there is a one sad under laying theme, the
underdevelopment, the political and economical
mess and across the board failing states is all
the same. Even South Africa which was once seen
as the savior of the continent, in the late
nineties is lately spiraling out of control. As
of now, full fledged violence is going on in
many South Africa major cities. few days ago,
the military of that country was mobilized to
stem the violence against foreigners.
Before the eruption of the recent spate of
vitriolic xenophobia and violence against
immigrants, South Africa’s murder rate was the
highest in the world. The AIDS pandemic is
devastating in South Africa, nearly five million
South Africans have the virus that causes
AIDS.This is a sad and gloomy picture in a
potentially rich country. Apparently the African
continent has been left behind in the 20th
century, while the rest of the world has
transitioned into the 21st century. Africa needs
visionary leadership that may extracts her from
the 20th century mess of desperation,
underdevelopment, shaky, autocratic, failed,
failed and failing regimes.
You can see those former colonial constructs
were not economically viable countries.Those
were artificial constructs which were
arbitrarily curved regardless of ethnicity,
culture, and religion. The former OAU aggravated
the situation in 1963 when they unanimously
legalized the colonial borders. The problems,
political stalemates, violence, under
development, huge refugees problems, armed
resistances and rebel groups, is in part due to
the defective artificial states they inherited
from the former oppressive colonial powers.
Suleiman Egeh is a freelance Writer
MS: Molecular Biology
MA: Science education
Email: soleimoneg@yahoo.com
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