They are both required and not required. They are present and strong and at places not strong. Look here is a map of Italy and southern Europe before the unification. This is a good representative of the pre-colony areas of Africa which were outside of the major states (Mali/Abyssinia/Ghana/etc). Now while Eruope went through a period of war/unification/separation that lasted until post-WWII, Africa was consolidated into colonies. That is history. It’s not good or bad but just what happened. To understand the present you need FULL knowlegde of the past. This all I’m saying. Lets talk history. Lets talk politics. Lets talk countries. Lets leave generalizations at the door. Please. Just this once. I know it’s hard, but we can do it.
(snip)
Nice straw man. Who is imposing artificial groupings? They seem to be doing a bang up job of that themselves. And yes, it IS time for us to be grownups and let the past die. Colonials did terrible things, and some corporations continue that abuse. So let’s do something about it rather than finger pointing and thumbsucking. Kick out the corporations, let the past die, meet with all the groups and work towards a solution that is acceptable to all.
Or you know, we can just do what we’re doing and keep on with that finger pointing. :rolleyes: The simple fact is when you are starving, diseased, and in terrible war and poverty, maintaining old tribal feuds is just stupid.
I’m not sure what you mean – or if you’re familiar with the term. There have been a couple comments to the effect that “everything would be just peachy if Africans accepted the current boundaries, got over their tribal differences, and stopped pointing fingers at everyone else.”
Is that the straw man you’re referring to?
Or is it:
Because you’re right, I guess – but I’m not sure who here said that the majority of African nation’s problems was due to tribal feuding. Yes, if you study the continent and its history you’ll be able to recognize ethnic effects, but as for straw men, I don’t think anyone who knows a wee bit about the current situation (beyond platitudes and gross generalizations) would suggest that tribal feuds are primarily responsible for current conditions. There are certainly exceptions, of course, but while it’s silly to overplay them.
I also honestly can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic:
Is that a real GQ-like question? Or are you trying to underscore orcenio’s point?
Why? Are you advocating a Pan-African Marxist (or similar) revolution? Do you really think nationalizing industry and foreign investment is going to help a nation in the long term?
Yeah but he is not a saint. Look at what he is supporting in the Eastern (DR) Congo. Also, I want to see him give away power in a multi-party election before I praise him; given his rebel roots and the fact that he came to power defending his group from a bloody genocide, leaves me with doubts. Tutsis still don’t trust Hutus (not that they should, given the history). He is autocratic so it’s safer to stay in power. The other thing good about him is that he is not a blood thirsty jerk bent on reprisals; he believes in good governance.
Can you give a brief description for the video-less among us?
No, but when you are drowning, even a few gulps of air can help you out. When you talk about a nation, the timeline becomes a lot bigger than most people can conceive of. Under a competant administration, nationalized concerns will be more stable, if slower growing. What you need is a good solid base to build upon. A foundation that is beneficial to the people in general rather than a few entrepreneurs. Many of the countries are SO bad that anything that isn’t beneficial or at least neutral, cannot be allowed to continue. I’m advocating a sort of “reset” of some of these states, and that includes squashing foreign corporate interests and other private concerns that prey on the poor conditions there.
Look, in regards to the tribalism thing I was only trying to keep this discussion in the general. Every country needs certain things to succeed regardless of historical precedent. While those solutions will have to be tailored to address the needs of each state individually, it doesn’t change the fact that things like education, medicine, and economic stability are needed. It is a factor, but it has to be made to be a minor one, rather than an excuse for why it can’t get done.
Right. It is a major factor in certain instances (too obvious to name), and there is racial and ethnic prejudices even in the best of countries, but not in the majority of them.
And if I were to kick you in the nuts and chuck you in a ditch (er, that’s assuming you have a ditch) it really doesn’t matter who I am, you’re still curled up in a ball at the bottom of a ditch. Knowing my identity is helpful in recouping some costs (or even asking for a helping hand), and if the doctor asks where it hurts knowing that there was glass in the ditch and a shattered scrotum helps with context.
So most people who work in the development community (er, rather, most people who I know/work with) outside the peacekeeping missions (a fraction of the effort; a majority of the press) acknowledge the past but use it to understand how solutions can work.
Hell, I’d be for trying most of those here in the U.S.
sorry about that here is a good article on “the incident” and here is another on Nkunda’s war in the Eastern Congo.
Acid Lamp-- I think the point Rhythmdvl is trying to make is:
Since we are fixing this failed state, how far do we go? Can/should we go as far as erasing the artificial borders that were originally imposed by colonial powers? To move it out of Africa, look at Iraq: Would Iraq be better off as three separate states, each composed largely of a single ethnic group within its (more or less) traditional boundaries? Or should the Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds just try to get along and subsume their tribal identities to become “Iraqis?”
In deciding to establish long-term structures for developing countries in Africa, is competence something to be assumed?
**Rhythmdvl **is right in questioning the premise of the OP which seems to be asking for a SimCity approach: assuming you are a benign dictator who will retain power for decades, what would you do?
As a though experiment it’s amusing, but it provides little guidance for the real world. Dictators who start off benign often turn decadant or else go bad becasue of the very things they have to do to stay in power. And even if they don’t turn bad, they are liable to be replaced sooner or later with someone who will. Elections are always suspended “temporarily.”
The OP posits a wish-list of things, all of which are much, much harder to do than to say, and many of which are almost mutually contradictory. More essentially, it’s all well and good to say you want " … Massive injection of funding and armaments … Massive infrastructural development. Imported engineers …Massive school-building programmes … Free-at-delivery healthcare" How the hell are you going to pay for all that?
You could let those evil multinationals open up factories and use your comparatively cheap labor, or you could sell off those national resources, but I suspect those are not options the OP and others inclined to put faith in central government planning would embrace.
Nothing ever comes free in life. Naming want you want is the easy part. Anyone can do that. The hard part, the real grown-up challenge, is naming what you’re willing to give up to get it. Otherwise you’re just daydreaming.
The OP does suggest that he’d be willing to give up elections to get the centralized power to reshape the country in light of his master plan. I’ll admit that that trade worked well in Singapore and Malaysia; but I’d also point out it has not worked well most anywhere else it’s been tried. I’d also point out that Hong Kong had similar, arguably better, success facing the same situation, with much more freedom.
Well, before any of these things are a reality, the west (and mostly I mean France) needs to stop installing and supporting corrupt leaders. Our hands are absolutely all over each and every one of the worst governments in Africa. This is the root and cause of untold problems. Try reading just a little bit about how we are still arming, supporting and providing comfy exile for some of the worst people in the world. This is very real and is happening right now. We can say whatever we want, but that doesn’t make it less true.
Let’s look at Cameroon. The first president kind of sucked, and the second one (who has been president for the last 25 years with barely the pretense of elections) is a lot worse. The standard of living has dropped dramatically in the last couple decades. Corruption is endemic. Torture and execution of political opponents is a standard thing. It’s become on many levels a bad place run by a bad guy. And things keep getting worse.
Well, the first major political opposition leader in Cameroon was assassinated by the French Secret service in 1960. This is absolutely true- Jaques Foccart admitted it in his memoirs. In recent times, last time there was an attempt at democratization in 1991, France sent in a huge shipment of weapons. France also sent weapons after the 1985 coup attempt, where maybe 1,000 people from the opposing party were executed, mostly without trial. France continues to provide financial, military and personal support (the current Prez spends most of his time in European luxury hotels and villas) to this guy. Every attempt at democracy or a change of governments has been stopped- by France.
And the history of Central African Republic is even more heartbreaking and obvious. France gave the absolutely insane cannibal murderer Jean-Bedal Bokassa the equivalent of the country’s entire GDP to finance his insane “coronation ceremony.” They absolutely and completely made it possible for this guy to rule, up till he pretty much offended everyone by executing a bunch of school children because he didn’t like their uniforms.
Saying colonialism is over doesn’t make it true. Saying that Europe (and I’m sure the US, but I don’t know much about that) has no role in Africa’s troubles doesn’t make it true. These things are real.
As for some other things that have been brought up…
Tribalism IMHO, Tribalism is a term made up so that people can say “Why can’t those Africans stop killing each other for stupid reasons?” A “tribe” is just a geographic/cultural/economic identity like we find everywhere in the world. We don’t call the Sunnis in Iraq a “tribe.” We don’t call the Tibetans a “tribe.” We don’t say that Northern Ireland has tribal problems. We only use this word in Africa, and in my opinion it allows us to do some lazy thinking by dismissing complicated problems as “just stupid tribalism.” We would be better off looking at these things as economic, cultural and geographic conflicts that each have their own history and solutions.
Birth rates will go down as soon as people become more affluent. In agrarian societies, having more children raises the standard of living because they help with crops and can provide financial support to aging parents. As people urbanize, having more children makes you poorer. People usually figure this out in a generation or two. So this will happen on its own.
Language is a tough one. In Cameroon, people did their schooling in French. This was good for national unity, but did harm education. Most of primary school is just spend learning French, and many people never make it past primary school. So people missed a lot of basic education. Personally I think they would have been better served by primary school in local languages and higher level schools in French. But really there is no easy answer.
National identity would help things, but it is tough. Remember, most of these countries have only been independent for 50 years. They’ve barely had any time as a nation. Imagine if you randomly redrew all the borders in Europe, lumping different languages, cultures and histories together willy-nilly. Then you gave them forty years and expected them to have some kind of cohesive identity and national pride. It just wouldn’t happen. Again, no easy solution. The damage is already done. Only time can fix this one.
This reminds me, CIA agent Lawrence Devlin died recently. He is famous for being ordered to assassinate Patrice Lumumba. DR Congo’s first democratically elected president in the 60’s (cite 1, 2, 3). In the end he was killed by political rivals working with Belgian colonists before Devlin had the chance to use the poisoned toothpaste.
You’re just plain wrong there.
http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-GCA-iraq/idUSTRE4BO0CQ20081228
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/27/world/middleeast/27iraq.html?ref=middleeast
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/world/6184824.html
Although, to be fair, the “tribes” in Iraq are a sub-unit below the overarching Sunni/Shia/Kurd divide. But we talk about “tribes” in Iraq all the time. (Likewise Afghanistan/Pakistan.) For many of these people, their tribe is a real unit, to which they feel allegiance, derive benefits from, and have a history/culture within. Their nation-state … that’s just a construct, imposed from without. Why should they value its interests more than those of their tribe?
In short, what you said.
All good ideas. The question that comes to my mind is, “Who is to bell the cat?”
Maybe we should ask Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf as you seem to be describing her EXACT position following the Nigerian led invasion of Sierra Leone and then Liberia. As a ruler, I really like her; she came to power through the ballot and has since been focusing her time to rebuilding her country. For more info there is a great PBS video called the Iron Ladies of Liberia you can even Youtube and watch it.
Finally, an easy question.
Ron (Maulana) Karenga, of course:
"*Kawaida
Created by Maulana Karenga the philosophy of Kawaida is an ongoing synthesis of African thought and practice in constant exchange with the world. One of its central tenets is that culture is the fundamental source of a people’s identity, purpose and direction. Thus, Kawaida is, in fact, a continuous dialog with African cultures, asking questions and seeking answers to central and enduring concerns of the African and human community. Due to the great variety of African cultures, and the vast genetic diversity of the continent, it could be construed that Kawaida is actually a humanistic form of philosophy, due to evidence that all humans originally arose in Africa. At the heart of this project is the continuing quest to define and become the best of what it means to be both African and human in the fullest sense. This involves an ongoing search for models of excellence and paradigms of possibilities in every area of human life, but especially in the seven core areas of culture: history; spirituality and ethics; social organization; political organization; economic organization; creative production (art, music, literature, dance, etc.) and ethos. It also involves creating a language and logic of liberation, one of opposition and affirmation, and a corresponding liberational practice to create a just and good society and pose an effective paradigm of mutually beneficial human relations and human possibility." *Africana philosophy - Wikipedia
(From what I’ve seen and read, this is the sort of blather you get when you have conferences on What to Do with Africa.)
But Ron certainly seems to be on top of it when it comes to synthesizing the core of African culture, values, thought and vision:
http://www.officialkwanzaawebsite.org/documents/KwanzaaandTheSevenPrinciples.pdf
Based on what landed him in the Big House back in the 70s, I’d guess he has enough willingness to exert discipline to qualify for the job. http://www.nathanielturner.com/karenga2.htm
Here is another blogging heads debate on the subject of Rwanda’s role is the eastern DR Congo violence. It’s excellent I suggest it to anyone. It really highlights some of the frustrations in dealing with trans-border multi-ethnic conflicts.
Look to Tanzania. See if any of the lessons they’ve learned in building their country might apply to your own. I can’t say that Tanzania’s perfect, but it seems to me that it’s gone a long way to building a solid foundation, and has a bright future. There’s a reason it’s the seat of the Rwandan trials, Bill Clinton’s foundation, and the Gates’ relief efforts.
Look to Tanzania, and see if you can apply any of their methods to your failed state.