West Africa in Transition

...The English-speaking states, on the other hand, are in a much healthier position...

...Apart from Sierra Leone, which has so far been remarkably insulated from the outside world, the English-speaking states feel a closer affinity to the rest of Afro-Asia than to the West...

...Meanwhile, as in Asia and the Middle East—and Western Europe for that matter—the pursuit of regional union in Africa is still blocked by conflicts of interest, judgment and ambition...

...To avoid crossing a few miles of British territory from North to South Senegal, the French built a 500-mile road around Gambia...

...With the French and British colonies independent, their separation into English and French speaking states is most frustrating...

...Indeed, for the moment French policy in West Africa must be recorded as an astonishing success...

...The danger is that an Army revolt in Algeria, or still worse a revolt in France itself, could suddenly make the present system at once politically intolerable to the Africans and economically intolerable to the French...

...In several cases, more than half of these governments' expenditures are covered by France, and in addition France buys the bulk of their exports well above the world price...

...If French aid to West Africa tapers off slowly, the existing African elites may be able to adjust themselves to the change...

...Existing economic, political and social patterns in most of the new African states are certain to be profoundly modified before the decade is out, and in some cases this modification may involve violence inside as well as across national frontiers...

...Yet the crisis could come this year...

...In return for controlling the foreign and economic policy of its ex-colonies, France is giving them economic and technical aid on an enormous scale...

...Votes at the United Nations or Pan-African Conferences are scarcely worth what France is now paying for them...

...None of the Commonwealth countries in Africa wants to be associated with the Common Market in the way the ex-French territories are because they see such an association as part of the French system of maintaining political control in Africa...

...From the human point of view, these countries are among the most exciting and attractive in the world...

...So far little thought has been given to this problem, either in the neighboring African countries which could be infected by such a collapse, or by the Western powers whose central interest is in African stability...

...And in all cases the sandwiching of British, French and Portuguese colonies along the coast has produced lunatic consequences for communications...

...As Laos and Vietnam have taught us, the greatest danger to world peace today is not so much the power of great nations as the instability of small ones...

...There is no more deserving or rewarding candidate for Western aid...

...In some cases, particularly in the division of the Ewe tribe between Ghana and Togo, this could lead to war...

...Relations with Britain in the main are good, but they are based more on mutual confidence than mutual interest...

...Although in some countries —above all in Nigeria—the political parties are essentially based on tribal divisions, in others political leaders are consciously using their parties as a means of breaking down the tribal structure and replacing it with new forms of social tissue on which a modem state can grow...

...And tribalism is likely to remain the major obstacle to national development as long as the African economies are overwhelmingly rural, yielding only slowly to higher education, industrialization and urban growth...

...This seems to me the main function of the corporative party structure now developing in Ghana...

...Britain's attempt to join the Common Market raises the gravest problems...

...There is developing instead a serious division between the Moslem states of the North bordering on all sides of the Sahara, and tropical Africa—a division which may emerge more clearly when Algeria is independent and, inevitably, takes over the leadership of the North...

...The sudden cessation of French aid could face half a dozen African countries with bankruptcy and revolution...

...But however wise it may be for men like Félix Houphouet-Boigny in the Ivory Coast or Leopold Senghor in Senegal to sell the shadow of diplomatic independence for the substance of economic aid, it is difficult to see this system lasting...

...In all this welter of conflicting trends, one imperative stands out for Western policy: The success of the Nigerian federation is the key to the stability of Africa...

...In terms of population, economic potential and political experience, Nigeria is the giant of Africa as India is the giant of free Asia...

...Where the French built beautiful cities, the British produced an extensive cadre of African administrators and technicians...

...In West Africa the tribe is still the basic social reality, dividing peoples by language, eating habits, clothing, history and tradition as deeply as nationalism divides Europe...

...But at present both France and its African partners are likely to oppose this...

...The full dangers of the situation remain hidden, however, because most of the French-speaking states are still closer politically to Paris than to their African neighbors...

...Denis Healey, a regular contributor, is Labor party Spokesman for Commonwealth and Colonial Affairs...

...If you want to telephone from Lagos to Lome, 150 miles away, your call must go 6,000 miles through London and Paris...

...once the proudest showpiece of imperial liberalism, this is now seen as a major obstacle to national progress...

...Moreover, as Nigeria has lately shown, any formal military commitment to Britain is seen by these nations as incompatible with Afro-Asian neutralism...

...I have just returned from a month's tour of the states along the West African coast from the Congo to Senegal...

...Thus Britain's record on Angola, Katanga and the Central African Federation has imposed considerable strain on the Commonwealth connection in the last 12 months...

...Though they will accept the Queen as Head of the Commonwealth, republicanism is likely to be universal...

...But at present such unity as does exist in Africa is the product of colonialism, which compelled vast areas to adopt a single European language and to accept uniform systems of administration...

...At the same time they do not want to remain dependent on preferential arrangements with Britain...

...The whole Western world has an obvious moral responsibility to help Africa through its travails, since European imperialism first came to Africa in force to supply America with slaves...

...The political responsibility of the West is no less obvious, for a succession of Congos could impose intolerable strains on the structure of the United Nations and lead to armed conflict among the great powers...

...Imperialism also created divisions in West Africa by carving out colonies from South to North, across tribal frontiers which run mainly with the climatic zones parallel to the coast from East to West...

...Ironically enough, the main complaint of African nationalists today against the legacy of British colonialism is the latter's reliance on indirect rule through local chiefs...

...These men have been able to continue developing their countries without undue reliance on any single source of foreign aid, and to experiment with a complete independence in their foreign policy...

...The survival of their present links with Britain through the Commonwealth will therefore depend on Britain's attitude toward Afro-Asia and, in particular, toward the remnants of European colonialism...

...Moreover, only small groups of French traders and businessmen benefit economically from the enormous subsidies the French taxpayer provides...

...The whole continent of Africa has entered a period of revolutionary change, of which the disappearance of European colonialism is only the beginning...

...Even the so-called rival Casablanca and Monrovia blocs are little more than phrases...

...Some of the traditional Commonwealth links are also clearly unacceptable to Africans...

...But they all face problems they cannot hope to solve without far more help and understanding than they are at present receiving from the West...

...What would suit them best would be the American proposal for duty-free entry of tropical products to all the developed countries of the West...