Externalists Versus Internalists
HY AFRICA'S CRISES HAVE PERSISTED
Africa's crises have remained intractable not so much because of a dearth of solutions but rather because of the flawed approaches its leaders took to solve them. Scientifically, effective resolution of a problem requires taking five basic steps. The first is to expose the problem, which normally is done through the media (newspapers, magazines, radio, TV) and public fora (conferences, seminars, workshops, and speeches). That is the business of intellectuals, journalists, editors and writers. The second is to diagnose the causes of the problem. The third is to prescribe a solution. The fourth is to implement the solution, and the fifth is to monitor it to see if it is working. If not, the dosage may be increased or an entirely new remedy tried.
The diagnosis may be considered the crucial step. A faulty analysis of the causes may lead to a wrong prescription, which may treat only the symptoms and not the fundamental causes, or worse, may aggravate the ailment. To avert such possible malpractice, a diagnosis must be subject to critical public review and debate to determine its validity and to ensure that important causative factors have not been overlooked. Regrettably in most African countries, the process of crisis resolution rarely went beyond step two (the diagnostic stage). If step two was reached, a faulty diagnosis was invariably performed, leading to the prescription of a wrong solution. Worse, that solution was itself implemented poorly or not at all in many cases. Corruption scandals fall into this category. In 1993, for example, Ghana's auditor general released a report that detailed a catalogue of corruption and embezzlement by high government officials, costing a staggering 401 billion cedis (about $400 million) over a ten-year period (1983-1992). But not one single bandit was indicted.
For six years, 1988 to 1994, Nigeria's military rulers squandered $12.4 billion in oil revenue, estimated by the September 1994 Pius Okigbo Commission to be a third of the nation's foreign debt. A Petroleum Trust Fund set up by former head of state, General Ibrahim Babangida "lost" $600 million. No one was prosecuted. Most Nigerians collapsed into hysterical laughter when they heard their late head of state, General Sani Abacha, had launched "a war on corruption," because they knew "several of his cronies, active or retired, are millionaires and no military men involved in the banking scandal [that cost the country $180 million] have been touched. `When the soldiers have eaten enough, he retires them,' said a civil-rights lawyer." (The Economist, June 8, 1996, 48).
"He who conceals his disease cannot expect to be cured," says an Ethiopian proverb. Yet, for much of the postcolonial period, exposing a problem in Africa has almost always been impossible because of censorship, brutal suppression of dissent, and state ownership or control of the media. “Journalists in the Angolan state media are subject to severe censorship and are unable to report on the civil war, corruption, abuse of power, human rights and maladministration” (Index on Censorship, Nov/Dec 1999; p.231). Corrupt and incompetent governments denied or concealed their embarassing failings (abuse of power, looting and atrocities) until the problems blew up in their faces. But by then it was too late to solve them. As Adam Feinstein, editor of the monthly publication of the International Press Institute, put it: "The press is always a first scapegoat of governments. They can't blame themselves, so they have to blame somebody else" (The Washington Post, April 6, 1995, A15).
In Ivory Coast, police seized copies of the fifth issue of the monthly, Africa Golf Eco, on July 27, 1999. Copies of the paper, which specializes on economic issues, were taken from kiosks in Abidjan by security forces without a warrant. The issue contained a feature entitled “Disinformation, Manipulation, Corruption, Embezzlement. Is the Bedie System at death door”? (Index on Censorship, Sept/Oct 1999; p.128). Indeed, on Dec 24, 1999, President Bedie was overthrown in a coup d’etat.
Coup Made Ivory Coast Elite Face the Music
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, January 10, 2000; Page A14
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast—When the soldiers shot the lock off the door of Room 419 of the Golf Hotel on Dec. 24, Laurent Fologo was standing in front of the television, barefoot. The general secretary of the Democratic Party, which had ruled Ivory Coast for 40 years, was caught without shoes but not without warning: Five years earlier, a journalist had suggested that Fologo--who like other Ivorian politicians watched a lot of foreign TV--might do well to bend an ear to the music favored by the soldiers who were now dragging him outside.
"I told him in 1994 that what the young people are saying in music reflects the popular discontent," said Joachim Beugre, political editor of the independent Le Jour newspaper. "But he didn't take it seriously."
The result was a military coup backed by a reggae beat. As mutinying soldiers arrested Fologo--whom they later released--and sent President Henri Konan Bedie scurrying overseas, other troops seized the state radio station and put back on the air the recordings of Ivorian musicians whose banned music had inspired them.
"They're the people who tell the truth," Sgt. Olivier Zadi declared of the musicians. "They say exactly what happens. It's because of them that we became conscious of what's going on and said, 'Enough is enough.' "
Sgt. Alaid Kouame nodded toward the station he was helping to guard. "We take their songs, we go to the radio station, and we play them," he said.
They played "Dictatorship," by Alpha Blondy and the Solar System, and "The Thieves of the Country (Kleptocracy)." They played Tiken Jah Fakoly singing "fight the powers that divide" and Serge Kassy's "Pay Your Taxes," aimed at members of the political elite who don't.
Kouame's favorite is "Tattletale," about courtiers currying favor with a ruler. After hearing it, a retired general named Robert Guei telephoned Kassy, who wrote it. Guei said he recognized his fate in that song, having been dismissed as army chief of staff after refusing the president's order to send troops to an election boycott demonstration in 1995. Kassy was so impressed, he wrote "My General."
Today, Guei is Ivory Coast's new leader, heading a transitional government he said will hold power only until free elections can be scheduled . . .
"In weak democracies, musicians are like journalists," said Blondy, 46. "They talk about things that some journalists wouldn't dare to because all the papers are owned by political parties. We are the voice of the voiceless."
The freedom that is most critical to the existence of all other human freedoms is that of expression--the freedom to express one's thoughts, wishes, and criticisms by words and actions without fear of reprisal. For Africa to find solutions to its problems, Africans must have this freedom. They cannot solve their problems in a "culture of silence," characterized by intimidation, censorship, and intolerance of alternative viewpoints. To expose corruption, human rights violations, economic mismanagement, and abuse of political power, freedom of expression is crucial.
Only in an atmosphere supporting the free exchange of ideas can the people find internal, self-reliant, native, and efficient solutions. The absence of intellectual freedom prevents the search for and development of internal solutions. This, in turn, has two pernicious ramifications. First, it perpetuates the offensive notion that Africans are incapable of devising their own solutions to their problems. Second, it forces the adoption of externally generated solutions, which do not always work.
In Africa's own supposedly primitive and backward indigenous system, freedom of expression was recognized and respected. At council meetings and village assemblies, ordinary tribesmen participated in the decision-making process by voicing their opinions freely. Further, they took part in debating the various positions until a consensus was reached. Former Prime Minister of Ghana, Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia (1967) observed, "The traditions of free speech and interchange of views do not support any claim that the denial of free speech or the suppression of opposition is rooted in traditional African political systems" (29).
Traditional African rulers did not arrest, detain, or "liquidate" those who disagreed with them. In fact, one of them, Chief Osagyefo Kuntukununku, stressed the need for freedom of expression to reach consensus: "Future governments would do well to encourage a dialogue between themselves and the populace, confront contrary views with well reasoned arguments rather than intimidation and detention. Suppression of dissent and the denial of the right to express contrary views can only encourage sycophancy and opportunism. There must be a free press to enhance dialogue, efficiency and accountability and to champion the cause of victims of governmental vindictiveness and arbitrariness (West Africa, 27 August - 2 September 1990, 2372).
in modern Africa, private newspapers that were courageous enough to expose the problems were shut down and their editors either jailed or murdered. For example,
Although Zimbabwe is on paper a multi-party democracy, open debate -- let alone outright political dissent -- has been increasingly discouraged. At the University of Zimbabwe, students and staff have been swatted by riot police with tear gas and clubs for complaining about corruption, a growing scourge. [And] three senior journalists at the weekly Financial Gazette, the country's leading free voice, have been charged with "criminal defamation." [And] a new law enables Mugabe to sack outspoken board members of any independent charitable organization and replace them with government-blessed appointees" (The Economist, 19 August 1995, 38).
The supreme irony of the vilification and repression campaign is that quite often it is counterproductive. It is a truism that persecution of a person by a brutally repressive regime never achieves its intended objective. Rather, it transforms the victim into a hero, because what is bad in the eyes of the devil must be good. Countless examples can be given: Lech Walesa, Nelson Mandela, Kwame Nkrumah, and Kenneth Kaunda were all persecuted by repressive governments but they subsequently became presidents of their respective countries. Wole Soyinka, hounded and jailed by Nigeria’s military government, subsequently became a Nobel laureate. The military government of Ghana never learned from this. One K. Danso-Boafo wrote: "By preventing the Movement for Freedom and Justice (MFJ) from using the premises of the Teachers' Hall for a symposium, and holding and questioning its deputy national secretary Mr. Kwesi Pratt, [Ghana's] PNDC functionaries are making `political martyrs' out of the MFJ and its leadership -- something any astute politician would want to avoid. The political history of Africa is replete with such political miscalculations" (West Africa, 3-9 June 1991, 892).
On 12 May 1994, persons believed to be agents of the PNDC sneaked into the premises of Free Press and littered it with human excrement. The result? The circulation the crusading Free Press soared and it became Ghana's most popular paper.
Intolerance of alternative viewpoints is a disease that afflicts the the ruling elites of Africa. Until "educated" Africans learn to accept intellectual diversity among themselves, they are doomed as a race.
The Diagnosis: Externalists Versus Internalists
Even when a problem was finally exposed in Africa, the second and crucial step of diagnosis was usually mishandled. On the causes of Africa's crisis, there have been two schools of thought: the externalists and the internalists. The externalists believe that Africa's woes are due to external factors. Disciples of the externalist school include most African leaders, scholars, and intellectual radicals. For decades the externalist position held sway, attributing the causes of almost every African problem to such external factors as Western colonialism and imperialism, the pernicious effects of the slave trade, racist conspiracy plots, exploitation by avaricious multinational corporations, an unjust international economic system, inadequate flows of foreign aid, and deteriorating terms of trade. “President Danial arap Moi accused the IMF and other development partners of denying Kenya development funds, thus triggering mass poverty” (The Washington Times, June 3, 1999; p.A12). "Marginalization" and “globalization” have now become the new complaints of African leaders. The West's abandonment of Africa for Eastern Europe, they warn, will vastly impede their efforts to alleviate crushing poverty and squalor.
When the African crisis first emerged in the late 1970s, the causes and diagnoses most frequently offered by African intellectuals and government officials were external. Debates and public scrutiny were not permitted. In his book, The Africans, African scholar and historian Professor Ali Mazrui examined the African crisis, claiming that almost everything that went wrong in Africa was the fault of Western colonialism and imperialism. "The West harmed Africa's indigenous technological development in a number of ways" (164). He attributed Africa's collapsing infrastructure (roads, railways, and utilities) to the "shallowness of Western institutions," "the lopsided nature of colonial acculturation" and "the moral contradictions of Western political tutelage" (202). In fact, "the political decay is partly a consequence of colonial institutions without cultural roots in Africa" (199). Therefore, self‑congratulatory western assertions of contributing to Africa's modernization are shallow: "The West has contributed far less to Africa than Africa has contributed to the industrial civilization of the West" (164). Decay in law enforcement and mismanagement of funds were all the fault of Western colonialism too. "The pervasive atmosphere in much of the land is one of rust and dust, stagnation and decay, especially within those institutions which were originally bequeathed by the West" (210). They signal "the slow death of an alien civilization" (204) and Africa's rebellion "against westernization masquerading as modernity" (211). Western institutions are doomed "to grind to a standstill in Africa" or decay. "Where Islam is already established, the decay of western civilization is good for Islam since it helps to neutralize a major threat" (19).[1]
Many African leaders also subscribed to and espoused similar views ‑‑ that the causes of Africa's crises were externally generated. In fact, since independence in the sixties, almost every African malaise was ascribed to the operation or conspiracy of extrinsic agents. The leadership was above reproach and could never be faulted.
A problem with the educational system was, of course, the fault of colonialism. An electricity failure was unquestionably due to an imperialist plot. Commodity shortages were easily explained: the nefarious activities of neo‑colonial saboteurs. Even bribery and corruption, according to Mazrui (1986), was the fault of colonialism and the "coming of new institutions such as Western‑style banks, with their new rules and new values" (241). President Mobutu offered a more dramatic elucidation. Asked who introduced corruption into Zaire, he retorted: "European businessmen were the ones who said, 'I sell you this thing for $1,000, but $200 will be for your (Swiss bank) account'" (New African, July, 1988, 25).
In his address to the third Congress of the Democratic Union of Malian People recently, President Moussa Traore observed that,
The world economy is passing through a period characterised by monetary disorder and slow trade exchanges. The worsening crisis is affecting all countries, particularly developing countries.
Due to the difficult situation, which is compounded by the serious drought, socio‑economic life has been affected by serious imbalances that have jeopardised our country's development growth. Debt servicing, characterised mainly by state‑to‑state debts are a heavy burden on the state budget. The drop in the price of cotton which accounts for much of the country's foreign earnings, has led to a great reduction in export earnings" (West Africa, 16 May 1988, 876).
According to Zimbabwe Independent (April 27, 1999),
Given the government’s spendthrift ways, its steady refusal to slim down the bloated patronage state administration and the elite’s determination to steal everything that is not nailed down and quite a bit that is, the result has been to deliver Zimbabwe into the hands of the IMF/World Bank. Meanwhile, ministers bilk on whatever bills they can, the infrastructure falls to bits before one’s eyes and the state searches ever more desperately for revenue. School fees have been pushed up to the point where many parents are having to take their children out of school and illiteracy is increasing for the first time in a century.
Mugabe angrily rejects the criticism of those who blame the government for the economic crisis. It is, he says, the fault of greedy Western powers, the IMF, the Asian financial crisis and the drought. The latter explanation causes a quizzical raising of eyebrows as the daily torrent continues to bucket down” (p. 25)
High‑ranking African government officials, needless to say, toe their leaders' lines. According to C. M. Nyirabu, governor of the Bank of Tanzania in 1985, "Africa's ills are the result of severe exogenous shocks, such as steep oil‑price escalations in the last decade, persistent drought, prolonged recession in the industrial countries and their resort to increased protectionism, continued policies of strict monetarism, and reduction in real terms of external assistance" (Lancaster and Williamson, 1986). David Phri, the governor of the Bank of Zambia in 1986, was quite explicit: "The hostile world economic environment has been the dominant factor in the problems now confronting developing African countries" (Helleiner, 1986, 93).
According to the Chairman of Ghana’s ruling NDC, Issifu Ali, whatever economic crisis the nation is going through has been caused by external factors. “He said the NDC has since 1982 adopted pragmatic policies for the progress of Ghana, adding that the macro-economic environment of 1999 has been undermined by global economic developments" (The Independent, Nov 18, 1999; p.3)
The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) echoed the same "external" dirge. In July 1989 it launched its document, "The African Alternative Framework to Structural Adjustment Programmes for Socio‑Economic Recovery and Transformation." In a review, West Africa magazine (17-23 July 1989) noted:
The framework is not just another plan. By starting with a structural analysis of Africa's economy, it is able to identify the real impediments to development. In the process, it formulates a critique of the legacy of colonialism, the borders which render 14 countries landlocked, bequeathed 13 with a land area of less than 50,000 hectares each, and have left 23 with a current population of less than 5 million each. It addresses engendered dependence on commodity exports, infrastructural inadequacy, and the dominance of commerce over production. (1160)
The ECA has not changed its tune, still maintaining that “The prospects for African economies continue to be shaped by the outcome of its most important determinants, the weather and the external economic environment. `African economies remain vulnerable to exogenous economic and non-economic shocks, such as movements in international commodity prices and erratic weather conditions,’ notes K.Y. Amoako, executive secretary of the ECA” (The African Observer, June 7 – 20, 1999; page 23).
The constant wailing over colonial legacies was at best disingenous and attributing much of Africa's crisis to external factors alone was intellectually deficient. In fact, they became standard excuses that many African leaders conveniently employed to conceal their own failures and incompetence. Finally in March 1986, at the Special United Nations Conference on Africa, the African delegates themselves, in a refreshing breath of candor, admitted that "past policy mistakes", especially the neglect of agriculture, had contributed to the African crisis. An earlier report by the Organization of African Unity (OAU), which served as the core of the African sermon at the United Nations, urged African nations "to take measures to strengthen incentive schemes, review public investment policies, and improve economic management, including greater discipline and efficiency in the use of resources." Most notably, the OAU Report pledged that "the positive role of the private sector is to be encouraged."
Even a year before that, the African Development Bank and the Economic Commission for Africa produced reports that were adopted at the OAU meeting in July 1985. A review of these reports by West Africa was quite revealing:
The African region is described as suffering from a long‑standing crisis rooted in low productivity, limited capacity for adjustment, government policies which have long over‑emphasized intervention and control and overlooked incentives, and an international economy characterised by weak demand for Africa's exports, high interest rates, and stagnating resource flows.
But while external factors have played a determining role in present difficulties, the report says that African policymakers are accepting that internal policy failures are also to blame and that there must be change. The overall direction of change is seen to be towards more market freedom, more emphasis on producer incentives, as well as reform of the public sector to ensure greater profitability (West Africa, 21 April 1986, 817). (Emphasis added).
That was back in 1985. Since then, the OAU or African governments have made little effort to draw up internal solutions. As it turned out, the "admission" of the role of internal factors lacked sincerity and a committment to address them. It was more of a ruse to extract greater foreign assistance. But such tricks are not helpful in solving a crisis. If internal factors played a role, they ought to be tackled.
Of all the external factors used to explain Africa's crisis, perhaps the most frequently used has been that of the legacy of European colonialism. The same litany of baneful colonial legacies has been trotted out again and again since independence in the 1960s. African intellectuals have not realized that African government officials often use these legacies as excuses to conceal their own mismanagement and incompetence. It is true that colonialism did not bequeath much to Africa. When Tanzania gained its independence in 1961, it only had 16 university graduates to run the country. Said Julius Nyerere, former head of state in a speech at the University of Edinburgh on 9 October, 1997:
Tanzania or Tanganyika then had approximately 200 miles of tarmac road, and its "industrial sector" consisted of 6 factories ‑ including one which employed 50 persons. And despite the Education and Health services provided by some Christian Missionaries and later begun by colonial governments, at independence less than 50% of Tanzanians children went to school ‑ and then for only four years or less; 85% of its adults were illiterate in any language. The country had only 2 African Engineers, 12 Doctors, and perhaps 30 Arts graduates, I was one of them.
Zambia was a little luckier: It had 100 university graduates, l,500 school‑leavers with full secondary education and 6,000 with two years at secondary schools in a country of 4 million.[2] What the Portuguese in Guinea‑Bissau left after 300 years of colonial rule was pitiful: "14 university graduates, an illiteracy rate of 97 percent and 267 miles of paved roads in an area twice the size of New Jersey. There was only one modern plant in Guinea‑Bissau in 1974 ‑‑ it produced beer for the Portuguese troops ‑‑ and as a final gesture before leaving, the Portuguese destroyed the national archieves" (Lamb, 1983, 5).
But in many African countries, the leadership could not maintain, let alone augment, the little that was inherited from colonialism. In fact, they destroyed it. The inherited infrastructure -- roads, bridges, schools, universities, hospitals, telephones, and even the civil service machinery -- are now in shambles. For example, when Zaire obtained its independence in 1960, it had 31,000 miles of macadamized roads. Today less than 3,500 miles remain usable. In Ghana, where the "colonial" roads are strewn with yawning potholes, officials insist that it is rather the vehicle owners who must obtain "road-worthiness certificates" for their vehicles and not the roads that must be made "vehicle worthy."
In the 1950s Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, used to be proudly called "the Harvard of Africa." Today it is in a state of dilapidation. Universities in Ghana, Nigeria and other African countries are in similar states of decrepitude. The University of Ghana, for instance, has not seen a new coat of paint since the colonialists departed in the 1950s. Bridges built by the colonialists are now falling apart for want of repairs. Railways and other infrastructural facilities are in various stages of decay. Who is to blame for all this? The colonialists or incompetent African leaders?
It is true that the past must be studied to provide guidance for the future. But a mind deeply obsessed with the past is captured by it. Such a captive mind is incapable of cogent analysis of present day and future issues. Nor can it take advantage of auspicious opportunities that are currently available. World conditions are certainly not what they were 50 or 100 years ago. There are new technologies, new commodities, new tastes, new attitudes, and new opportunities. But all these remain invisible to the mind that is deeply engrossed in colonialism. When a new market opportunity arises, many African presidents captured by the past analyzed it with woefully outmoded mental constructs.
There has been a constant whimpering over Africa's artificial colonial borders as the source of many of the crises plaguing the continent. Says Denis Sassou-Nguesso, former president of the Republic of Congo and former chairman of the OAU:
Africans were placed within colonial boundaries. Today, the agitation, the periodic outbursts of rage, the procession of displaced populations, and the trail of refugees, reminds us how arbitrary these national borders really are. World powers pressure African nations to work toward democracy and economic reform, but they seem unconcerned about helping us to solve the crisis of displaced people: a crisis which stems from artificial colonial boundaries (The Washington Times, 5 December 1996, A17).
This, however, could not be further from the truth. While it is true that several ethnic groups, such as the Somali and Ewe of Ghana, found themselves sliced up and allotted to different countries, the people of Africa traditionally have paid little attention to borders. They move when the need arises, border or no border, as attested to by movement of refugees. The best realization of this traditional reality would be one black African nation south of the Sahara, in which people of various tribes could move freely without harassment from the border police -- at least the political equivalent of a free trade zone, in which people and goods could move freely.
Somalia proves that the artificial borders are not the real cause of the crises. It is ethnically homogenous, yet it collapsed. And when the Republic of Somaliland seceded, it broke away along colonial lines. During the colonial era, the Italians occupied the northern part of Somalia and the British the southern part. As Richard Dowden, Africa correspondent for The Economist, noted: "Almost no protagonists in Africa's current wars are calling for changes to boundaries and none of these wars would be solved by them. In these wars, rebels are fighting for power -- or a slice of power -- at the center; that is, in the capital, where the trappings of a unified state are" (Prospect, July 1996, 61). And, "By creating artificial countries, the argument goes, yesterday's map-makers are responsible for today's Africa's wars. It sounds plausible, but it is not true. There is not a significant movement in Africa today that wants secession or a change in borders. no ethnic group divided by a frontier is demanding reunification; on the contrary, most such groups have learnt to exploit their situation commercially and politically" (The Economist, 25 January 1997, 17).
Furthermore, the practicality of redrawing boundaries to conform to ethnicity is questionable. There are more than 2,000 ethnic groups in Africa; nationalism given full vent, might result in more than a thousand little "Djiboutis," each with its own currency, flag, national airline with a one-plane fleet, and Swiss bank account for the president. In 1993, Eritrea broke off from Ethiopia to become an independent country. Five years later, they were at war in a dispute over their boundaries. Moreover, why the lament over artificial colonial borders when the OAU recognizes the "territorial integrity of each member nation" in its charter? Only African governments -- the same members of the OAU -- pay much attention to borders for the collection of import "duties" by official and unofficial personnel.
Travel today in independent Africa has been rendered far more difficult than even during the colonial days. Travelers have to contend with not only numerous border checkpoints but also roadblocks within a country itself. It is no secret that these roadblocks serve only as points where uniformed vagabonds extort money from innocent passengers. In an irate letter to West Africa (17-23 July 1989, 1184), Mr. R.A. Dawson, headmaster of St. Bartholomew's Boarding School, Zaria, Nigeria, wrote:
In June 1989, I arrived at the Murtala International Airport, Ikeja, on a Ghana Airways flight No. GH502. After clearing customs and immigration, I boarded an airport taxi for Iddo motor park where I hoped to find another vehicle to the north where I reside and work.
At Illupeju roadblock, our taxi was stopped by three policemen who checked my luggage and papers, an act outside their jurisdiction. Then to the astonishment of the driver and myself, police corporal No. 64539 took all the money I had on me. When I protested, he threatened to shoot me dead, and later defended his action by claiming that I was an armed robber caught in the act because as a Ghanaian I had no right to decent employment in Nigeria. (1184)
This occurred in a sub-region the leaders of which pompously affirm the ECOWAS protocol of free movement.
The New And Angry Generation of African Internalists
Internalists are those who believe Africa's woes are due more to internal than external factors. This school of thought maintains that while it is true that colonialism and Western imperialism did not leave Africa in good shape, Africa's condition has been made immeasurably worse by internal factors: misguided leadership, systemic corruption, capital flight, economic mismanagement, senseless civil wars, political tyranny, flagrant violations of human rights, and military vandalism.
Internalists argue that the attribution of Africa's crises solely to external forces is intellectually deficient for several reasons. First, pragmatism and scientific scholarship demand, at the very least, an unerring scrutiny of all causative factors, both external and internal. Common sense dictates looking both ways before crossing a street, or risk being hit by a truck. Africa is in bandages because its leaders looked only one way -- at the external.
Second, external factors are beyond the control or manipulation of most African countries on an individual basis. Even if possible, any effort to alter the external environment is likely to be protracted, taking decades. For example, the basic structure of the international economic system has not changed much in the past 50 years, although there have been improvements in payment mechanisms, transportation of goods, and information delivery systems. This international economic system is likely to remain so for a long time to come.
Third, internal factors are mostly man‑made or artificial and are therefore more amenable to change or correction by African governments than the external factors. No matter how much colonialism is abhorred, that artifact of history cannot be undone or rewritten; it must be seen as a given.
In the internalist school of thought may be found Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, Kwesi Armah, the author of The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born, Gilchrist Olympio, an opposition leader in Togo, South Africa’s president, Thabo Mbeki, the present author, and the silent peasant majority.
At the 35th OAU Summit in Algiers (July 15, 1999), Thabo Mbeki shocked the delegates by stating that African leaders who took power by force would be banned from future OAU Summits. And, rather than waste time bemoaning the effects of globalization, “African leaders should take steps to integrate the continent’s economies,” he told them.
“Mere moral appeals from the have-nots to the haves are not likely to take us very far,” he said, encouraging his OAU colleagues “to gain a profound understanding of economics, so that we can intervene in an informed manner.” He expressed impatience with those leaders who simply complain that globalization is passing Africa by. He reminded them that little has been done to implement the 1991 Treaty of Abuja that established an African Economic Community (The Washington Times, July 15, 1999; p.A14).
When soldiers seized power in Africa, they almost always cited corruption, economic mismanagement and high cost of living as justification. And the average person on the streets does not blame colonialism and American imperialism for his hardships.
Because of censorship, repression, intolerance of diversity of opinion, and persecution -- even in the broader African intellectual community -- the number of internalists in the public arena is small. Incompetent African leaders naturally reject the internalist position and place blame on external factors. The state-controlled media carries their position. They are aided, directly and indirectly, by vocal leftist radicals who denounce internalists as "Uncle Toms," accusing them of "letting the white man off the hook" and "providing ammunition to the racists." This is a reflection of the insidious intolerance of intellectual diversity among black elites that we noted earlier. But internalists are fighting back against this invective. A growing number of African intellectuals are now deemphasizing historical and external factors and looking inside Africa itself for the true causes of the crises and solutions.
In a paper presented to the Committee on African Studies at Harvard University on 28 April 1981, Gilchrist S. Olympio, a Togolese opposition leader and the son of Togo's first president who was killed in the 1967 coup that brought Gnassingbe Eyadema to power, wrote:
Economic thought and action over the last few years in Black Africa have tended to emphasize factors external to the continent (exogenous factors) as opposed to internal institution and structure, as the main explanation for stagnation or regression in the economic standards of the continent. Deteriorating terms of trade between rich and poor countries, widening parities between agricultural and industrial prices, volatile commodity prices, oil prices movements since 1973 and natural calamaties such as drought and desertification of the continent are considered the key to [an explanation of] the poverty. The fascination for this kind of reasoning in Black Africa is not difficult to fathom, as the non-performance of our economies can be attributed, not to internal structures and policies, but to external considerations.
This paper contends that such factors, if true, are marginal to the central problem of underdevelopment in Black Africa, compared with the absence or malfunctioning of indigenous institutions, factors which for many reasons are relegated to backstage of the debate.
That economic thought should tend to concentrate on external factors is not difficult to explain. Blame is easier to apportion without any serious domestic implications. Since independence in 1960, carefully tailored constitutions by erstwhile colonial powers such as France and Britain, have collapsed under the onslaught of energies unleashed by our newly-found freedom. Representative government, including Bill of Rights, protection of minorities, built-in mechanisms to ensure orderly change, have given way to autocracies of various types, civilian or military. In many cases, these new regimes have been buttressed by one-party systems which, far from unifying fairly heterogenous countries, as intended by their creators, have now as their sole raison d'etre, the keeping in power of a particular regime . . . What the new constitutional changes have done, however, is to move our countries further on the road to becoming closed societies. In a West African country, for instance, wiht the notable exception of Nigeria and Senegal, only one daily newspaper appears and that is produced by the Ministry of Information. Radio, television and other media of communication are tightly controlled by the government. It is therefore not surprising that, as our societies become politically less open, public discussion of internal institutions and structures shold be given scanty treatment. In some cases, it may even be dangerous to debate subjects that have become a taboo. On the other hand, public airing of external variables, especially if it can include a swipe of the old whipping-boy, necolonialism, is all the more welcome . . .
Rational fiscal and monetary policies, combined with the creation of healthy institutions in Black African countries, happen to be a pre-condition for economic development. International effort, if it is to be meaningful, must first help our countries to achieve sound domestic management.
Said Akobeng Eric, a Ghanaian, in a letter to the Free Press (29 March - 11 April 1996): "A big obstacle to economic growth in Africa is the tendency to put all blame, failures and shortcomings on outside forces. Progress might have been achieved if we had always tried first to remove the mote in our own eyes" (2).
Angry at deteriorating economic conditions in Ghana, thousands of Ghanaians marched through the streets of the capital city, Accra, to denounce the ruling regime of President Rawlings. “If Jerry Rawlings says the current economic crisis is due to external forces and therefore, beyond his control, then he should step aside and allow a competent person who can manage the crisis to take over," Atta Frimpong demanded (The Ghanaian Chronicle, Nov 29, 1999; p.1). Appiah Dankwah, another protestor blamed the NDC government for mismanaging the resources of the nation.
A strange thing happened at an international conference on Africa's Imperative Agenda, held in Nairobi in January 1995. The conference document, prepared by Philip Ndegwa, former chairman of Kenya's Central Bank, and Reginald Green, of the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, stated in stark terms: "Africa is now a continent which cannot feed itself, meet its external financial obligations or the bill for its essential imports, protect its increasing population, prevent environmental degradation, or exert any meaningful influence in the international decsion-making process. A substantial number of African countries are now in danger of national disintegration, including some which, as recently as the late 1980s, were held up as success stories" (Africa Recovery, June 1995, 8).
It is striking that the document devoted only three of its 18 sections to the external dimension of Africa's multiple crises and focused more on Africa's own responsibility and initiatives.
Internalist influence was also evident at "Africa 2000" Conference organized by the Hofstra Cultural Center of Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York on 12 October 1995. In its "Call for Papers" flyer, part of the instructions read: "All papers should focus on, or at least prominently discuss, the immediate future faced by Africa. Thus papers dealing with historical events, for example, would not be appropriate, unless the thrust of the discussion related the historical context to an understanding of the present or immediate future." Traditionally, conferences on Africa have featured speaker upon speaker who perorated passionately about the iniquities of colonialism, the slave trade and Western imperialism. The Hofstra conference sounded a call for a paradigm shift, making it clear that papers dealing with such historical factors would not be welcome.
On 12 August 1995, various Nigerian groups and organizations held the Nigerian National Leadership Forum in Nashville, Tennessee, to find out exactly what the "problem" was with Nigeria. As African News Weekly (26 August 1995) reported:
Professor David Murauko, the chairman of the forum, was sure he knew what Nigeria's biggest problem is. Tribalism. After all, this is what motivated him to organize the conference. So he opened his presentation by asking the audience what they felt was Nigeria's greatest problem.
One participant got up and said Nigeria's greatest problem was corruption. Another person said Nigeria's biggest problem was poor economic conditions, explaining that if everyone had something to eat, no one would be complaining. Another person said lack of democracy; another said lack of rule of law; and yet another said personalized politics (2).
No one at the forum blamed colonialism, imperialism, slavery, exploitation by an unjust international economic system, or other external factors. The report continued: "One participant summed it up this way: Asking people to define Nigeria's problem is like sending twelve blind men to feel an elephant and then describe it. They would all have different but accurate descriptions of the animal depending on what part they touched." (2)
Metaphorically speaking, the "elephant" is the alien, all-powerful, gargantuan, predatory state that was established by African leaders and elites after independence.[3] This "elephant" has been the source of most of Africa's "environmental problems." Invested with tremendous powers to which there have been no countervailing checks and balances, the marauding state pillages, rapes, and loots, trampling upon human rights, and leaving human debris and carcasses in its wake. This abominable political monstrosity was created by African leaders themselves and, therefore, cannot be blamed on colonialism.
Bad and Corrupt Leadership
The leadership in much of Africa has not only been a hopeless failure but also a disgrace to black people. At a press conference in London in April, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, “lambasted African leaders who he says have subverted democracy and lined their pockets with public funds, although he stopped short of naming names” (The African-American Observer, April 25 – May 1, 2000; p.10). President Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire was a prime example. Zaire should be a properous country; it is blessed with vast mineral deposits and rich agricultural lands in the fertile Congo basin. But arrant misrule and plunder have reduced it to tatters.
More and more Africans now blame their leaders for the mess they find themselves in. Said Chinua Achebe (1985):
The fear that should nightly haunt our leaders (but does not) is that they may already have betrayed irretrievably Nigeria's high destiny. The countless billions that a generous Providence poured into our national coffers in the last ten years (1972-1982) would have been enough to launch this nation into the middle-rank of developed nations and transformed the lives of our poor and needy. But what have we done with it? Stolen and salted away by people in power and their accomplices. Squandered in uncontrollable importation of all kinds of useless consumer merchandise from every corner of the globe. Embezzled through inflated contracts to an increasing army of party loyalists who have neither the desire nor the competence to execute their contracts. (3)
Said John Hayford in New African (April, 1994): "Africa's biggest problem today lies with the leadership. They are so removed from the people that they are looked upon as foreigners. They are driven by self-interest, so excessive that their peoples' interests are forgotten -- hardly different from the colonial masters" (7). A Ghanaian university student, Kwesi Obeng, added this view:
In all hue and cry, what is both infuriating and irritating is the speed with which African countries together with their leaders are quick to blame all that go wrong on the continent on our supposed "Enemy" - the West. This sad culture is what has propelled me to protest with all the venom that I can muster . . . Why can't we accept our responsibilities as a race (black race), face the music for our deeds and always tend to pass the buck? (The Ghanaian Chronicle, 21 January 1996, 4).
More tragic has been the failure of Africa's intellectuals. One Nigerian scholar, Linus U. J. Thomas-Ogboji, excoriated members of his own profession:
We Nigerian [intellectuals] bear the mark of Cain. Ours is the incredible stigma of the man who whimpers and averts his gaze while thugs rape his wife and daughters. We have acquiesced in the unmitigated horror that smothers Nigeria. Many of us bite our tongues because we nurse secret hopes of a chance at the feeding trough. A few, with expectations of reward, even go so far as to defend the Nigerian army. But most of us are just plain scared, paralyzed by fear and chagrin. Is it fear of death that holds us emasculated? There comes a time to die and in death gain redemption. When a people give up the desire for freedom, they are better off dead (African News Weekly, 26 May 1995, 6).
By attributing Africa's ills to external factors, many of Africa's intellectuals, wittingly in expectation of reward or unwittingly, absolved the leadership of responsibility. Additionally, the stress on external factors presupposed that the solutions had to come from external sources; hence the repeated appeals to the international community. Unfortunately, this approach has proven disastrous. Foreign solutions have not worked well in Africa because they do not fit into its unique sociocultural milieu. The continent is a graveyard littered with a multitude of failed imported schemes and systems. Name a foreign system and a collapsed replica can be found -- from basilicas to congresses and even combine harvesters.
[1] Mazrui, of course, was guilty of the same ethnocentric charges he leveled against Westerners. Islam was not indigenous to Africa. Mazrui devoted several pages to the iniquities of the Western slave trade. "A substantial part of Africa's population was dragged off, kicking and screaming and shipped to the new
plantations of the Americas" (100). Curiously, Mazrui never mentioned the atrocities of the East African slave trade that brought suffering or death to at least 2 million black Africans in the nineteenth century. The East African slave trade was largely controlled by Arabs. Mazrui, a Muslim, devoted only one sentence in his entire book to this Arab slave trade (160).
[2] Rather foolishly, both Tanzania and Zambia after independence opted for state planning and development ‑‑ an economic system that made heavy demands on skilled bureaucrats, the very inputs they lacked.
[3] The word "alien" is chosen deliberately because of the basic antinomy of the modern systems with indigenous African institutions. This is important in order to avoid sterile ideological debates that inevitably result from the assessment of systems. The standard being used to evaluate them is African, not foreign.
