Keywords:
Africa, history,
development, politics
Title: The State Of Africa
Author: Martin Meredith
Publisher: Free Press/Public
Affairs Books
ISBN: 0743232224
Related
review;
The fate of Africa revisited
The State Of Africa
It is possible to believe
that the many problems that
Africa faces - war,
genocide, poverty, famine -
are the faults either of
Western governments and
financial institutions
and/or the result of natural
disasters. How is that an
entire continent, pretty
much, can be in such dire
straights? Why is it that it
is afflicted with so many
deep-rooted and intractable
problems? Martin Meredith's
'The State of Africa' seeks
to explore the recent
history of the continent,
throwing much light on the
answers to these difficult
questions.
Meredith's work has an
enormous scope, covering as
it does the entire
continent, from Egypt and
North Africa right on down
to South Africa, via the
Congo, Nigeria, Uganda,
Sudan and the rest. Add to
this wide geographic scope
the fact that it looks at
the period from independence
onwards, starting with the
story of Kwame Nkrumah and
Ghana in the late 1950s and
closing with relatively
recent events in Darfur and
Zimbabwe. While the book
certainly lacks the depth of
a dedicated study
of the history of any one
country, Meredithh
makes a good job of
providing convincing
over-views of the principal
events and key protagonists
in recent African history.
Unfortunately for Africa the
first generation of
post-independence leaders
set the a pattern that
continues to the present
day. Without exception
leaders like Nkrumah,
Kenyatta, Nyerere and so on
took power with excellent
motives only to build
regimes that were
dysfunctional, corrupt,
nepotistic and unfailingly
authoritarian. With
inexorable logic the systems
they built lapsed into
gangsterism that obeyed a
single directive and that
was to retain power at all
costs. In many cases this
meant exploiting tribal and
racial differences, building
huge networks of patronage
and nepotism, enriching
supporters and exploiting
the rest of the population.
The following generations of
leaders have been, if
anything, worse. Seizing and
keeping power by force,
these leaders have plundered
their countries to an
unimaginable extent.
Meredith paints detailed
portraits of people like
Mobutu, Amin, Bokassa and so
on, men who bled their
countries dry and whose
policies led to poverty and
war that continues into the
present.
This is not to say that
Meredith ignores those
factors that contributed to
these dismal outcomes.
Artificial borders imposed
by colonial powers,
under-development, lack of
educational opportunities
for Africans, Cold War power
politics and more were all
factors that contributed to
the problems that newly
independent states faced in
Africa. However, the
narrative that Meredith
effectively outlines makes
plain that these factors
were exacerbated many-fold
by incompetence, egotism,
greed and plain old
fashioned lust for power.
Without established
institutions in place to
check their power the new
leaders of Africa turned
their countries into
money-making machines for
themselves, families and
supporters.
The dismal and depressing
picture that emerges is not
without hope. Botswana, for
example, managed to steer a
course towards a viable
economy, multi-party
democracy and stable
society. Nelson Mandela
turned his back on 'Big Man'
politics, in stark contrast
to Robert Mugabe in
neighbouring Zimbabwe.
However, the over-whelming
picture that emerges is of
tyranny, violence and
venality on a scale that
beggars belief. It is not
the Western banks that
emerge as the principal
villains, but those African
leaders who swallowed up
loans and bribes by the
billion. It is the
population of Africa who are
the real victims of this
story - they have suffered
poverty, violence,
ill-health and oppression.
It needn't have been so. It
doesn't have to be that way
even now.
|