By Nick Mangwana
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| ZANU PF UK Chairman: Cde Nick Mangwana |
Yesterday was Africa day and there
were so many celebrations across the globe. Africa Day is one of those days
which is now considered as a Pan-Africanist moment to shine. Plaudits are to black heroes all the way from
Marcus Garvey through Kwame Nkrumah all the way to living ones like Robert
Mugabe are sung. In this week's piece we
examine our inner thoughts and feelings in African solidarity. Introspection
and reflection when done honestly often generates uncomfortable questions and
equally embarrassing answers. As an uncomfortable exercise, a lot avoid it
because of the uneasiness provoked by political
candour and lack of self-awareness. Self-awareness is not indulging in
narcissistic chest pumping ego inflations. Neither is it engaging in an
exercise of self-loathing or pretence self-deprecation. It is acknowledging own frailties and citing
areas of improvement and those in which a complete change of direction is
needed.
It is 52 years since the foundation
of the Organisation of African Union in
1963 the forerunner to the African Union (AU). One of the greatest resolutions
to come out of that meeting was to respect the borders as delineated by the
colonialists. This was a great resolution
because going by the evidence of a
penchant for conflicts and petty
squabbling, if Africa had chosen to redraw its borders according to ethnical
and anthropological history there probably would have been wars between Zimbabwe and Mozambique with the
latter claiming that a big part of Zimbabwe up to Marondera is its territory.
May be Zimbabwe would have been counter-arguing that the whole Manica Province
in Mozambique is also part of Manicaland. Another conflict would be between
Zimbabwe and South Africa, after all the Vendas in Beit Bridge were divided
from their cousins in Musina and the Kalangas in Plumtree and the Ramokgwebana
Border area were divided from their cousins in Botswana all the way to Francistown
and Masunga or even further. This division of ethnically linked people and
nationalising them into different countries has seen some people in Chapoto and
Kanyemba villages in the Dande Valley
paying deference to traditional leadership across the border between Zimbabwe
and Mozambique. This state of affairs has obtained across most post-colonial
border and ethnography. So the founding fathers
were probably right to maintain this relic of the 1884-1885 Berlin
Conference.
Other than that they fought
colonialism and by 1994 they had won that battle. By 2002 the Organisation was
changed to the African Union with a new thrust on integration as well as peace
and prosperity. It is in these areas
where there is evidence that there is a lot more to do.
How can a continent integrate when
there are those who countenance xenophobia as was witnessed in the earlier part
of this year? What was witnessed and the
toxic sentiment that followed just turned the notion of full continental integration into a fantasist's pipe dream. For
if people who are ethnically linked and can understand each linguistically like
the Zulus of South Africa and the Ndebele of Zimbabwe turn on each other just
because of artificial colonial borders how are the Tswana of Botswana and Luo of Kenya
likely to integrate? How about the Yoruba of Nigeria and the Chewa of Malawi?
The Xenophobia witnessed might have been a result of socio-economic disparities
but there are snobbery explanations to it.
or how can people discount those
when one President made a speech in which he said, " We can't think like
Africans in Africa generally. We are in Johannesburg. This is Johannesburg.
This is not some national road in Malawi". And God! Did the audience not
go wildly into feats of laughter! And a
few months later that attitude cascaded to the deprived job seeking
people and sensing tacit approval from high office they attacked "Africans", for
they themselves had listened to that speech which was later to be wittily
dubbed, " I am not an African". What a way to bastardise Thabo Mbeki's "I
am an African" 1996 speech. Total political and economic integration of the African people and the
African Diaspora can only be achieved when those nations that are smarting from
superiority complexes and hang-ups manage
to overcome their prejudices.
Whilst the West has a lot to atone
for when it comes to Africa, hatred of other races and failure to embrace other
ideas except when it comes to luxuries is like intellectual inbreeding. The
African leadership has shown a lot of double standards. Their houses and every
facet of their lives is full of Western indulgencies which their people are so
deprived of. But if one wants to see how much they fight like raging bulls, one
should make a suggestion that since they have chosen to embrace the Western standards of lifestyle in
their personal lives, can they do the same in their governance style.
African renaissance can only have meaning to
the African people when the political independence from political bondage
translate into economic independence. Of course this has now turned into a
cliché. But it still has to be said. So many African lives are perishing in the
Sahara Desert when African young people trudge in that trying terrain leaving
countries pregnant with resources whilst they try to get to Europe seeking
better lives. Those that survive the desert are very unlikely to survive the Mediterranean.
How does the African leadership feel when the eccentric London mayor Boris Johnson distastefully
suggests sending the British Special
forces the SAS (Special Air Services) to stop African migrants from attempting
to cross the Mediterranean to Europe. If
this is not an indictment on African leadership then what is it? 400 years ago African lives were perishing in
the seas after being abducted to go and work in plantations. Today they
voluntarily get on the treacherous sea and perish in their thousands and the
leaders of those countries where these nationalities would have come from bats
no eye-lid, and Africa celebrates Africa
Day?
Celebrate yes, Africa should. But a
lot of soul-searching is still called for. When Africa frowns upon exploitative
relationships in the name of sovereignty and liberty, one relationship that
needs to be redefined is Africa's relationship with China. Trade between Africa
and China is over $200 billion a year.
Mostly that relationship is extractive.
China gets an African country money for infrastractural project funding
at usurious rates, China charges 5 times what it would charge a Western country
for doing the same job. The African country is burdened with the debt overhang owed to the Chinese Financial Institutions that by the time they finish paying, the
infrastructure they are paying for is disintegrating.
The Chinese have been
good political friends to Africa. In 2008 they together with Russia vetoed the
sanctions against Zimbabwe in the United Nations Security Council. For such actions Africa should always be
grateful. In the Chinese it has an all weather friend. There is no questioning
of their politics with Africa. But it is
the economic transactions for which this generation will be condemned by the
next if no scrutiny is applied. The way they construct HS2 project in Britain shouldn't be different from the way
they do any other project in Africa. But sadly it is.
In order not have this dependence
on the Chinese when it comes to the United Nations Security Council curtailed,
it is germane to have an African Country
as a permanent member of the Security Council. But to have a country that sees
other African countries as inferior would result in the outcome of March 2011
when Gabon, Nigeria and South Africa allowed the bombing of Libya by NATO and
the subsequent murder of President Gaddafi . Maybe in the whole reform of the
UN, the AU as an institution should have a permanent seat carrying out
collective resolutions of the whole continent.
This still sounds like a pie in the
sky proposition if consideration is taken of the fact that the AU is mainly
funded by the West therefore it is easy to arm twist so it ends serving
parochial interests of its funders. If this state of affairs continues then
unfortunately some will continue to view the celebration of Africa Day as the
celebration of pseudo-independence. The fund gap needs to be closed so that
there is less reliance on the West.
Africa has very fertile
agricultural land, an increasingly educated population but not much funding in
research and development. This has led
to Africa being made into a consumer market for Western goods. The West is where
it is today because it supported its scientists to spend time in their
laboratories inventing things. Until African countries take a similar pathway
there will be continued use of archaic technology or handed down inappropriate
technology. The failure by the AU to fight hunger and disease on its own has turned all anti-west rhetoric into vain bubbling.
For how could it not, when Africa blames
the West for its developmental retardation and yet turn to the West to help
with every Crisis on its own shores?
The instability in Burundi, and the failure by
the Eastern African regional grouping to take decisive action like Sadc did in Madagascar
shows what some would call collusion and connivance when they perform their governance peer review. Year after year the AU
cannot continue to be accused of institutional ineffectiveness. It would be poignant if the relevance of this
piece ends this year. If in 5 years time the contents of this op-ed is as
relevant as it is today, it would be fair to conclude that there is a failure
of leadership in Africa.
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