An Approach To Africa

...and before one begins to carp about the silencing of opposition in other one-party states (Ghana, Sierra Leone, Egypt) he should look at the self-interested, regionalistic, destructive character of this opposition and ponder whether its presence would do anything to promote democracy...

...It is to solve this problem, Wallerstein indicates, that the new nations have resorted to one-party systems (thus removing the chance that another party may not "understand the distinction between opposition and secession"), to a large degree of authoritarianism (thus forcing a kind of stability on a state without traditions of stability) and to charismatic heroes (thus giving the masses an easy symbol of their new state to which they can adhere...

...Toure has spread his governmental apparatus over all levels of Guinea's economy, giving it a distinctly Soviet look, but he is continuing to offer guarantees to the purely capitalistic FRIA mining combine...

...ment, with strong links both to tribal governments of the past (which were very seldom anti-democratic) and to the modern realities of nation-building...

...The special virtue of Immanuel Wallerstein's book is that, unlike most of the recent glut of Africana, it appreciates the wisdom of this question and shows a concern for what makes African politics more than just Western politics with a black face...

...Nonetheless, Wallerstein does succeed where most writers fail...

...Nyerere has taken over Belgium's Tanganyikan port facilities and has started a unique scheme to establish government control over retail traders, but at the same time he is encouraging outside investors to set up secondary industries...

...Wallerstein dedicates his book to "the young people of Africa who are forging their future as they deem wise and who thereby merit our respect," and his interest throughout is in their goals, their methods, their philosophies...

...The Dahomean writer, Paul Hazoume, suggests how this culture should be seen: If [the African populace] has no material wealth to offer, it pos sesses, despite its seeming barbarity and intellectual barrenness, treasures of soul and mind that its ancestors have accumulated down through the ages: comprehension, the desire for progress, respect for authority and discipline, keen interest in social welfare, family unity, courage, personal dignity, loyalty in friendship, great honesty, a sense of justice, and deep religious feeling...

...It may seem to us to be an incomprehensible movement with few chances of success, but the fact is that it is an abiding passion of every important African leader and, if it overcomes the factionalism that has recently set in, it will continue to affect the continent strongly...

...It is African in that, strangely enough, it is almost totally without a theoretical base and is responsive simply to practical necessities of the moment—and thus it feels free to borrow from any system, any country, at any time, mixing Israeli kibutzes with American profitmotive farming without any attempt at reconciliation...

...ment by force...

...He knows what is African about Africa, what is special about its nationalism, pan-Africanism and autonomism...

...morrow would not change the position of the party in the slightest, since the party does effectively embody the will of the people, however much we may dislike it...

...There are a few countries in Latin America and Asia that have caught this sense of vigorous "autonomism," but on no other continent does it reach so many sections of the community—politicians, students, trade unionists, military men, intellectuals, farmers—and nowhere does it play such an important part in national policies...

...In every case the power of the state in running the economy is balanced by the sheer necessity for capital, but the underlying premise—to which the name "African socialism" is given—is that ultimately it is the job of the government to establish, control and distribute the means of production and its profits...

...While he does discuss the great desire for cultural decolonization, Wallerstein persists in seeing African culture in terms of Western culture, when in fact it can stand on its own feet without the help of the condescending West...

...Indeed, in most of the one-party, strong-leader states (Tanganyika, Ivory Coast, Tunisia, Mali, Guinea, Upper Volta) a free vote to...

...It is a terribly difficult task, for in most of the new nations the colonial government was always "them" and it takes a considerable amount of rethinking before the populace gets used to the government as "us...

...Chief among the problems in these new African states is the job of molding an illiterate, tribally-centered mass within colonially-defined boundaries into an intelligent electorate with a real sense of nationhood...

...The sum of all this is a peculiarly African system of govern...

...This is a political movement whose nature is peculiar to Africa, with strong memories of Africa's pre-European past and a continuing concern for Africa's conglomerate power in the future...

...It would have paid Wallerstein to have given them more attention...

...And while this system could lead to outright dictatorship, at the moment it may justifiably be called democratic, since it does in fact allow the masses, insofar as they have a political will, to exercise it within defined channels, and it does provide for a govern...

...He is trying—with a good deal of success—to show that the solutions which the new African countries apply to their present problems are peculiarly African, and if they are not always recognizable or commendable in Western eyes that does not make them improper or ineffective for Africa...

...Quoted in The New Leader, October 24, 1960.] These are the values that the new African states are throwing up to the rest of the world and challenging us, with special affrontery, to match...

...I'm not sure such a posture can be maintained very far into the future if the pressures of Communism and overseas financial aid continue to mount, but for the moment, at any rate, the African nations have certainly infused the non-aligned nations of the world with a new and aggressive spirit, and have given "neutralism" a radically different meaning...

...One of the most valuable remarks on Africa that I have ever heard was the angry question of a young Nigerian politician who said to me: "You don't expect our sculpture to look like yours —why should you expect our governments to...

...Above all, his book is infused with that rarest of virtues: a feeling for Africa...

...But it is more than that: it is a system whereby the full resources of the state can be used to make a backward country modern within the shortest period possible, whether this involves a single major project or state-run farming cooperatives or simply the reallocation of land...

...In short, however improper this system of government may seem to the Westerner, it is nonetheless Africa's own effective and essentially democratic system...

...The second essential Wallerstein underplays is the social and cultural legacy of the past—the pre-European past—which has given Africa its individual character...

...ment by discussion, as Julius Nyerere once put it to me, instead of a govern...

...While Wallerstein shows in these three areas—nationalism, pan-Africanism and neutralism—an all-too-rare appreciation of the Africanness of Africa, he fails to deal fully with two other vital aspects...

...In states where there is no tradition of my-countryrightor-wrong not everyone is able to make the distinction between changing the government in power and changing the power of the government...

...Thus, Nkrumah envisions an African socialism in which the state con trols the means of production of everything from education to bananas, but he has no intention of removing the stimulants to his economy that welldirected private capital provides...

...Finally, Wallerstein touches upon the sense of the new African nations that they want to go their own way with as few signs of outward control as possible, a desire that has proven itself much more intense and enduring than Western diplomats (and paternalistic Americans) would ever have thought...

...It is socialistic (in the traditional sense) in that it sees the state as the guiding force for all economics and seeks to establish a single range of income for everyone in the community, applying a kind of Robin Hood theory of taking from the rich and giving to the poor...

...The first is the notion of "African socialism," which he seems to dismiss as just a reliance on "traditional African communal practices...

...In international affairs, for example, when the African nations talk of neutralism they do not mean the backseat passiveness we have become used to in Switzerland or Thailand or Paraguay, but rather a swinging, boi:^ erous denial of both East and West and a vigorous reaffirmation of the freedom to say what they please to any nation at any time...

...Another important—and particularly African—feature that Wallerstein also deals with effectively is the drive for pan-Africanism...