This article was written for The Guardian
How regurgitating stereotypes and prejudice about Africa
easily gets you audience in Western media
So I chanced upon an article by a one Patience Akumu (`Why
Obama doesn’t understand the lust for power of our African leaders’, The
Guardian UK, Aug.2). To Akumu, Africa needs President Barack Obama’s lectures
because “his powerful words are the kind of inspirational tool we Africans –
both young and old – need to lift our downtrodden and intimidated souls…?” The
author also says that Africa was better under colonial rule than after
independence.
Africans have been involved in struggles for the improvement
of their political systems without Obama. Through street protests, civil wars,
military coups, court battles, and mass media debates, Africans have always fought
for what is good for them. True, progress has not been a constantly improving
curve. There are always gains and losses, progress and reversals. But this is
normal because political change is difficult to organise and results often come
at a creep, not a gallop. The political history of Western European and North
America over the last 200 years attests to this. In fact African nations are
outperforming Western nations in the speed of our progress. None of the Western
nations enjoyed as much democracy as African countries enjoy today when they
had Africa’s current very low levels of urbanisation, industrialisation, per
capita income, government revenues, education attainment, and small size of the
middle class.
It took America 88 years from the declaration of
independence, which said all men are born equal, to the abolition of slavery.
It took another 100 years from the Emancipation Proclamation to the major civil
rights legislation that gave most African Americans a franchise. Today,
millions of African Americans are still denied the right to vote because they
are in jail, under probation or on parole. But when it comes to Africa, our
political progress is not expected to be a result of political struggle that
involves negotiation and compromise, give and take, feats and starts. It is
expected to happen overnight by copying and pasting from Western nations or by
borrowing from a textbook. In short, Africa should not have politics.
In the 1960s, 70s and 80s, our continent was plagued with
military coups. Not anymore! Today African leaders are working in concert
against coup makers and are succeeding. In those years, the countries which
were not under military rule were governed by one party states. Now all are
multi party states. In 1975, the whole of Africa had only two nations where a
president had come to power in an election where he contested against a rival
backed by an opposition political party. There is only one country governed by
a non-elected party and president; Eritrea. In the 1990s and early 2000s, our
continent was plagued by many civil wars, which have increasingly ended.
Now I admit that everything is not rosy. In some of our
countries, elections are not free and fair. But even in these, the electoral
process is improving every year. And Rome was not built in a day. Africa is not
the liberal democratic ideal we aspire to, and no nation in the world is. But
across our continent our people continue to struggle daily to improve
governance. Many countries in Africa have seen a candidate from an opposition
party defeat a sitting president or ruling party at elections – in Nigeria,
Benin, Zambia, Malawi, Mandgascar, Congo Brazaville, Kenya, Ghana, Ivory Coast,
Sierra Leone, Senegal, Somalia, etc. This political progress is a product of
struggle and sacrifice by Africans, for Africans without any inspirational
lectures from anyone.
Term limits were established in 44 out of 54 countries in
Africa long before Africans had heard of Obama. Since then eight countries have
since removed them, two (Rwanda and DRC) are likely to follow suit. But they
exist in 34 countries. However, Akumu says the eight are the general rule, 34
are exceptions. These “downtrodden and intimidated souls” stopped Frederick
Chiluba in Zambia, Bakili Muluzi in Malawi and Olusegun Obasanjo in Nigeria
from removing term limits. Only last year, youths in Burkina Faso chased their
president out of power for trying the same. In 2012, court in Senegal approved
President Abdoulaye Wade to run for a third term. The electorate refused and
voted his opponent. In Burundi, people are contesting their president’s desire
to stay in power.
These achievements of our people through their heroic
struggles against all odds are what will inspire us to forge forward, not
Obama’s empty and contemptuous rhetoric. Obama and sections of our elite focus
on our failures, creating a doomsday picture of “downtrodden and intimidated
souls” waiting for the paternalistic hand of a foreign statesman to save us.
Yet most western interventions in Africa have caused grievous harm to our
people.
The claim (or belief) that the salvation of Africa will come
from outsiders is strong in sections of the West and dominant among a section
of the African elite. It is expressed in campaigns for many aspects of Western
aid to our continent: money, relief food, eloquent speeches, human rights
campaigns, peacekeeping troops, technical assistance, economic policies, laws,
etc. In this world-view, Africans are not supposed to be active participants in
the struggle to shape their destiny but passive recipients of international
charity. But many of us in Africa reject this negative presentation of our
continent and insist on fighting our battles ourselves. We accept international
solidarity but not international leadership in our struggle.
Thus, if term limits are the best thing for Africa, the
countries removing them are making a mistake from which they will learn and
change. Africa’s capacity to learn from her mistakes has been proven. In the
19760s and 70s, governments in Africa nationalised local and foreign business
in socialist experiments. Our economies collapsed. We have since learnt the
value of markets and private enterprise and our continent is now growing.
There is nothing new or novel Obama was saying. His speech
did not reflect his so called “tough love” for Africa but contempt for us. It
is our duty and responsibility as Africans to fight for what we believe is good
for us. If freedom, democracy etc. are good for us, we do not need anyone to
tell us that. The political systems that emerge out of this political struggle
cannot be predetermined based on some universal international standard. The
outcome, even though influenced by external ideas, will be a product of our
struggles.
amwenda@independent.co.ug
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