Your Vantage Point Matters
By: Mr. Macharia Kamau, Head of UNICEF South Africa
Correspondent, Alice Hsieh
Africa is made up of 54 countries with as many sovereign governments and economies. The fact that the continent is 3 times the size of the USA (Google: How Big is Africa) is lost to many people, Africans and non Africans alike. As a consequence when tragic events occur in one of the 54 countries, the perception for most people outside Africa is that the event occurred continent wide. For the most part this perception is driven by reporting on events that usually does not differentiate between countries and is shallow and generalist in its analysis. Little effort is made to report on countries in Africa in a manner that reflects diversity and balance and hardly ever positive stories. For the most part negative sensationalism drives mainstream journalism and authorship on Africa. The consequence of generations of this sort of penmanship has led to a dismal, prejudicial view of the continent and its people.
It is not unusual for events in Kenya, for example, to be interpreted and seen in the same light as events in, say, Sudan. Yet Kenya and Sudan could not be more different. Except for the short period of British colonial rule, these two countries have completely different political, economic, cultural and religious histories. Again except for the brief eight weeks of post-election crisis in early 2008, Kenya has enjoyed half a century of relative peace while, in contrast, Sudan in the same period has endured one of the longest most devastating civil wars in the history of the continent.
Speaking of Kenya and Sudan in the same breath (when you wrote to me about an “all too historical brand of civil unrest and ethic strife” in Africa while sadly correct) does not begin to illustrate the vast difference in the political and social histories of the two countries. African countries are incredibly diverse. This can be illustrated by, for example, the recent events in Kenya. While the post election crisis had its roots in poor governance of Kenya over the past 50 years, the more remarkable fact is that the crisis, which has now resolved, only happened after a half a century of relative peace and stability in what is a young and economically poor democracy.
Eight weeks of political instability is hardly unusual in a democratic state over such a long period. Countries such as Tanzania right next door to Kenya, Mauritius, Botswana, Zambia, Malawi, Senegal, Gabon, and for a lesser period Namibia and South Africa among others, have enjoyed equally long periods of relative peace and democratic evolution. Reading about Africa today in most books, newspapers and magazines and one would normally not draw that conclusion. Even Sudan since the signing of the peace accords of 2000, with the exception of the Darfur region, is currently enjoying a period of peace and progress.
During the same 50 year period (1957 – 2007) so called mature democracies have had their own periods of political upheaval. A case in point for the USA would be the summer of ’68 when over 100 cities in the USA experienced political unrest and riots that truly threatened the social cohesion of the US (Google: Vietnam, Riots, Cities, USA). Western European countries- to say nothing of those in the east- have examples of their own political crises during the same half century, and in the case of countries such as Spain and Portugal, they had to endure military dictatorships as well.
Western Europe has 21 languages and related cultures to meld into the European Union. If Africa where to attempt the same type of political union it would have to amalgamate over 800 ethnic groups and over 1000 languages 40 of which are spoken by more than 1 million people. This simple fact, compounded by the reality of 54 governments and economies that are burdened by large pockets of ignorance, poverty, disease and hunger, makes the growth of democracy and the advent of political and social stability difficult for most African countries.
Most but by no means all countries in Africa are economically poor. In most countries poverty is pervasive and the poor by far outnumber the rich or even the middle class.
For the majority of African people life in the past five decades has been an unrelenting and fruitless drudgery. But that is not to say that life was markedly better before that. It was not. For all Africans life in the colonial pre 1960s was marked by political domination and oppression characterised by economic exploitation, cultural denudation and social disintegration. The colonial era, though finally overcome by all African countries, left a long and dark shadow of mass illiteracy, social disintegration, cultural anomy and devastation. But probably the single most destructive legacy of the colonial era was the horribly dysfunctional and inappropriate political and social structures that dominate African life today.
It is true that independent African countries have also, with a few exceptions, been badly mismanaged. Debilitating colonial legacy aside, the lack of inspired leadership, poor governance and social investment including rueful economic management practices have left most Africans desperately poor with their welfare ravaged by poverty, disease and under nutrition.
While the African continent is rich with huge reserves of natural commodities, most of which are in great demand the world over, the continent’s inability to exploit these commodities in a manner that adds value to their natural worth has left millions of people unable to benefit and improve their lot. Global trade regimes, designed to give an unfair advantage to western trading partners while protecting pampered and powerful segments of western society, have also helped to bleed the continent of its economic value and prowess.
To further compound matters the global financial and business community, whose investments around the world have turned large swaths of Asia, Australia and Latin America into powerful economic engines of growth, has, for reasons of colonial legacy, prejudice and ignorance, generally given the African continent a wide berth.
Having said all that and despite historical and prevailing social and political conditions, the entire African story is not one of gloom and doom. Today, millions of Africans live fulfilling, healthy, optimistic, industrious and purposeful lives. These millions of Africans scattered through out the continent constitute the backbone on which the political and economic renaissance and transformations of the continent will depend.
The onus of achieving political stability, social cohesion and positive economic growth lies with Africans themselves. Aid, financial and emergency food assistance can and does help contain the loss of life while mitigating the worse forms of suffering from disease and hunger. However, structural and sustained long term solutions to the challenges of development in Africa lie with Africans. What the West can do to help is promulgate free and fair global trading practices.
In the 2000s many countries on the continent have begun to turn around their politics and their economies (Google: Richest Countries in Africa). They have begun to pull themselves out of the negative and vicious cycle of under development and social degradation. Steady and positive economic growth coupled with improved poverty, health and nutritional indicators are slowly becoming the norm rather than the exception. Undoubtedly most countries on the continent have a long way to go before they can hope to undo decades of colonial and post colonials neglect, exploitation and mismanagement. Without doubt, however, many African countries have turned the corner. Despite the fits and starts of all political and economic turn around, the future picture of African countries that many of us carry around in our heads, and that international media uses as a backdrop to its presentation of African affairs, is set to change significantly in the coming years.
Mk/08.03.08
Istanbul