Our Unfriendly African Friends:
WALLERSTEIN, IMMANUEL
OUR UNFRIENDLY AFRICAN FRIENDS By Immanuel Wallerstein Ibadan, Nigeria The Union of African States (UAS), comprised of Ghana, Guinea and Mali, represents a source of major concern in the eyes...
...Each side believes that it has been more anxious than the other to improve relations...
...UAS leaders like to quote the late George Padmore, who was a close advisor of Ghana's Premier Kwame Nkrumah: PanAfricanism, he said, is the only bulwark against Communism in Africa...
...the Portuguese are committing daily what even the Western press calls atrocities...
...The charge of UAS intervention is simply a disguised form of the traditional Western divide-andrule policy, since it assumes that the present divisions among African states are permanent ones—an assumption rejected by Ghana, Guinea and Mali...
...Yet the leaders of Ghana, Guinea and Mali regularly repeat that their programs are not anti-Western...
...An objective inspection would show, the UAS states argue, that even by Western standards their oneparty systems measure up very favorably with those of their neighbors, both in terms of popular participation in government and mass control over leadership...
...This attitude is allegedly reflected in official statements at the United Nations and in the semi-official local party press...
...Wallerstein, who is now traveling through Africa, recently spent several weeks in each of the three UAS states...
...The UAS stands for African unity —which the West actively opposes, believing that it serves the cause of the Communists...
...The West, and above all the United States, has based its policy on an assumption of UAS naivete, and has thus misunderstood the motivations of UAS leaders, particularly in regard to their relations to the Soviet bloc...
...At that time, technicians, economic aid and trade markets were all peremptorily withdrawn...
...After all, Ghana, Guinea and Mali are among the few African nations which have already undergone their revolutions...
...A new understanding of UAS sophistication would involve recognizing the great emotional force of Pan-Africanism...
...There is no doubt that the last few years have been a period of strain...
...African unity seeks not to build Communism, but an indigenous African system...
...Finally, it should remember that its only reliable friends in Africa are those nations that will not be undermined tomorrow from within...
...The omnipresence of the party and its dominance over trade unions, women's and youth organizations are offered as further proof of the UAS' anti-democratic nature...
...yet neither side has been anxious to break relations...
...An associate professor of sociology at Columbia University, he is the author of Africa: the Politics of Independence, to be published by Vintage Books in September...
...In the Republic of South Africa, the Afrikaners refuse to budge from their system of apartheid...
...To THIS series of grievances, political leaders in Ghana, Guinea and Mali answer with a series of complaints of their own...
...Finally, intervention in the rest of Africa brings a strong retort from the UAS leaders...
...First of all, they argue, the UAS' major opponent is still the West...
...that is their job, and theirs alone...
...The choice of a political system is ultimately the concern only of the particular nation involved, but if the West wishes to criticize, it should do so from the perspective of what is happening throughout Africa, not just in the UAS...
...The French are still in Algeria and Tunisia...
...In this first of a series of on-thescene reports from Africa, Immanuel Wallerstein presents his views on the present conflict between the Union of African States (made up of Ghana, Guinea and Mali) and the West...
...The West speaks of offers refused, the UAS of offers never made...
...they are unlikely to turn to extreme solutions in future economic crises...
...Another source of Western displeasure stems from the feeling that the UAS seeks undue assistance from the Communist bloc...
...Elsewhere, it is asserted, the one-party system is just a coalition of local bosses and entrepreneurs, and in no sense a means of popular expression as compared to the parties in Ghana, Guinea and Mali...
...Even in the nominally independent states, such as the Congo, it has been the West —first Belgium, then other Western powers—which has been the primary intervenor...
...But, they add, it is worth recalling that throughout the colonial era such ties were impossible...
...According to them, it is the West which is continually intervening in African affairs, especially in those areas which are still under colonial rule...
...For the UAS, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is, in effect, the last bulwark of colonialism, since in the long run no NATO member will take any really effective action against a colonial power...
...the British in East and Central Africa...
...Of course, UAS officials admit, they are vastly expanding their contacts with Communist countries...
...In any case, the overall balance still lies with the West, and this is true for foreign technicians in the UAS, students studying abroad, trade channels and the use of news agencies...
...Each time another African country seems to adopt a position close to that of the UAS, there are many who consider it a "defeat for the West...
...The West would do well to realize that while Ghana, Guinea and Mali —at present, three of the most stable African states—insist on being African first, they remain close to Western thought and culture...
...Czech, East German, Russian and Chinese technicians are said to be overrunning the three states, and students are being sent in vast numbers to study in Communist countries...
...BEHIND all THIS verbal jostling, what kind of relations really exist between the UAS and the West...
...If, on the other hand, the West were to recognize that the UAS is quite sophisticated in terms of its own national interests, and were to act accordingly, the present friction might give way to greater cooperation...
...If Denmark sends a trade mission to Poland, UAS leaders point out, nobody gets very excited...
...OUR UNFRIENDLY AFRICAN FRIENDS By Immanuel Wallerstein Ibadan, Nigeria The Union of African States (UAS), comprised of Ghana, Guinea and Mali, represents a source of major concern in the eyes of many Westerners...
...Neither the West nor the East is going to run the show in Ghana, Guinea or Mali, UAS leaders assert...
...The Communist bloc, by contrast, provides support—even if it is not disinterested—on those issues which serve the national interests of Ghana, Guinea and Mali...
...Attempts to maintain African dependence on Western currencies and industries constitute neo-colonialism, while Communist aid gives the UAS a lever with which to get better terms from the West...
...The West will just have to be patient with the new African states whether it likes it or not...
...The very strength of internal party structures in the UAS guarantees that political agitation will find outlets within the established parties...
...Primary among Western complaints is the belief that the UAS position on most issues is generally unfriendly to the West...
...This is a mistaken view, say UAS officials, the result of either blindness or perversity...
...And not only is Communist aid sought, but Western aid is declined or discouraged when it is offered...
...Basically, neither side has trusted the other...
...Half the African continent remains under colonial rule...
...In addition, critics of the UAS argue, Ghana, Guinea and Mali are developing semi-totalitarian systems difficult to distinguish from those in Communist states...
...Dispatches from Communist news agencies are reprinted verbatim and unfair assertions left uncorrected...
...To this end, it is said, they are ready to accept financial assistance from the Soviet Union—whose interests are generally served, since UAS activities aim at cutting African economic and political ties with the Western world...
...Finally, Westerners maintain, the three nations are not content to pursue their dubious doctrines at home...
...As for the risks involved in Communist strings, they can surely be no greater than those involved in Western strings, as evidenced by the retribution inflicted upon Guinea following its vote for independence in the de Gaulle referendum of October 1958...
...The resulting cat-andmouse game has frustrated all parties concerned...
...Political opposition is suppressed, children are encouraged to become informers and ordinary people are afraid to speak their minds...
...As for so-called totalitarian systems, these leaders continue, Westerners don't complain very much about the arbitrary arrests, banishments and political intimidation that take place in those neighboring African countries considered pro-Western...
...UAS spokesmen also point out that Western states which have not yet eliminated the evils of racism are in no position to condemn others...
...The West's agitation about African contacts with Communist countries is merely the latest proof of its unending paternalism...
...On the economic front, thé UAS says, one of Africa's major problems is to break out of its traditional role as a primary producer...
...Many Western technicians are recruited from among the far left...
...It would also lead to the conclusion that if the West were to assume a hands-off policy, Africans could establish their own political equilibrium in due course...
...They insist on spreading their ideology throughout Africa, by a mixture of threats, money and subversion...
...All three countries are moving toward socialist economies, but so are most new nations throughout the world...
...Westerners also claim that they are treated with considerable suspicion when they visit the UAS, while they are welcomed in such neighboring countries as Senegal, the Ivory Coast and Nigeria...
Vol. 44 • August 1961 • No. 30
