Post-Colonial Politics
GRUNDY, KENNETH W.
Post-Colonial Politics POLITICS IN THE CONGO: DECOLONIZATION AND INDEPENDENCE By Crawford Young Princeton University Press. 659 pp. $12.50. AFRICA: FROM INDEPENDENCE TO TOMORROW By David...
...It also suffers the misfortunes of good scholarly writing: qualifications, reservations, hedging, wordiness...
...But there is also a good deal to heed and weigh seriously...
...Where Young seeks to explain the Congo and thereby to show where and why the Congo is different from the rest of Africa, Hapgood tries to identify the common problems facing that continent's new states...
...Only when authoritative decisions are made and carried out can Africa's peoples be led into the 20th century...
...It is more than Patrice Lumumba...
...Young's study is not intended for the casual reader, however, although there is much to commend it to the interested layman who wishes to learn about Congo politics...
...Along with Rene Lemarchand, whose recent Political Awakening in the Belgium Congo: The Politics of Fragmentation concentrates on pre-independence developments, Young has brought order and understanding to a subject that once had been darkness and confusion...
...His conclusions frequently run counter to conventional thinking, and this is meant to be a controversial book which calls into question the accepted...
...A 27-page Epilogue traces the events from 1963 until the end of 1964...
...It is the most systematic and comprehensive coverage of post-colonial politics in the Congo...
...Another explanation advanced for the negative impact of Africa's bureaucracies is the fact that the elites have been trying to emulate the European life-styles of the colonial administrators...
...It is even more ironic that this republic which came so near fragmenting so many times (and nearly emasculated the United Nations in the process) should be held together today by Moise Tshombe, whose divisive policies sent the infant state reeling in its first three years...
...Curiously for the Congo, disintegration has been so pervasive that the very bastions of Belgian colonial stability—the Army, the Church, the companies, and even the bureaucracy—are again, in a new and strange setting, the foundation for order...
...It is testimony to Africa's astounding diversity that both men may be perfectly right...
...Hapgood, a free-lance writer formerly with the New York Times, has written a book that is different from the garden-variety journalistic tour...
...Units of the Armee Nationale Congolaise paraded down Leopoldville's broad boulevard, bands played, and school children gaily waved blue, red and yellow Congolese flags...
...221 pp...
...But basically, the bureaucracies are as afraid of radical innovation as were their colonial predecessors, especially innovation likely to slip from their control...
...Reviewed by KENNETH W. GRUNDY Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science, Pennsylvania State University The republic of the Congo recently celebrated its fifth anniversary of independence...
...That is precisely where Africa's leadership has failed...
...Thus to both authors the bureaucracy is a status quo force...
...In Africa the Thermidorian Reaction has set in...
...All in all, this is an outstanding study which will be well received by students of Africa and comparative government...
...To be sure exceptions abound...
...This is the thrust of Hapgood's argument...
...5.00...
...But the Congo is more than Moise Tshombe...
...All the more pity, then, that facets of the "white man's burden" and mission civilisatrice mentality have been unwittingly taken up by the emerging elites, including the same characteristic lack of dedication and lack of willingness to effect widespread programs which could ultimately jeopardize their privileged positions...
...This weighty volume is academically solid: containing accurate description, thorough analysis, careful generalization...
...More important, though, the author is not simply trying to entertain or to sell...
...Actually, he continues, the economic and social damage was not as great as might have been expected...
...It is more than Cyrille Adoula, Joseph Mobutu, Joseph Kasavubu, and even the sum of all these familiar and many more unfamiliar personalities...
...Until the bureaucracies become either self-sacrificing or see their futures bound up with agricultural development in their countries, Africa's socio-economic revolution cannot be brought about...
...No solution to its problems can be reached without first bringing about a revolution in agrarian life and production...
...It can be heartily recommended to Americans (particularly those who think they know Africa), and to young Africans, for whom the book is really intended...
...It serves to put into proper perspective the Kwilu and North Katanga insurrections, the "People's Liberation Army" and the "People's Republic'' of Soumialot, Christopher Gbenye, and Nicola Olenga, Tshombe's use of white mercenaries in the Eastern provinces, and the joint Western rescue operation in Stanleyville...
...Hapgood is well aware of these cold facts...
...As such, it contains much that is arguable...
...It is packed with the usual humorous and revealing vignettes and observations which make it a pleasure to read...
...Again, there were exceptions, but in general Europe put its worst foot forward in Africa...
...AFRICA: FROM INDEPENDENCE TO TOMORROW By David Hapgood Atheneum...
...There is no "quick fix," no massive project that can substitute for hard and often dirty labor...
...It is not surprising that the event passed virtually unnoticed in this country (far more newsworthy events fail to arouse interest...
...Many politicians are less forthright...
...For example, his analysis of why most economic plans fail and his candid critique of elite rule plunge to the heart of the problems of underdevelopment...
...Yet he also realizes that this is essentially a political problem for the Africans...
...This is regrettable, Hapgood insists, for "the face of Europe-in-Africa was not the face of Europe itself...
...The absence of detailed treatments of the Katanga secession and the role of the UN is understandable in light of their coverage in other works...
...the economic, social and bureaucratic infrastructures are still intact...
...Professor Young agrees that the bureaucracy has reemerged as a significant force in Congolese affairs, but does not regard it as the evil which Hapgood does...
...He subjects education, foreign aid and technical assistance, economic planning, "bourgeois Marxists," and the "European presence" in Africa to biting analysis...
...Trotsky's "leaden rump of the bureaucracy" has become a parasite siphoning off the meager products of Africa's labor...
...Crawford Young attempts to set these variables into comprehensible form, and he succeeds...
...The virtues of hard work and toleration for others were never directly exhibited by the European in Africa, especially by the civil servant...
...The highest political echelons are, in some cases, willing to make the hard decisions necessary for change...
...For Hapgood this is unfortunate, since Africa cries out for constructive change...
...The Congo is a melange of peoples and phenomena, staggering in their complexity...
...Africa is essentially a continent of rural peasants...
...Africa's educated elites are not the only "panaceas" Hapgood takes to task...
...In his Epilogue, however, the author modifies this previous position somewhat to admit that the insurrections of 1964 make recovery far less certain than he had originally supposed...
...Moreover, all heads of government labor against imposing odds, even within their own camps...
...Rural Africa needs most of all leadership, encouragement and assistance from those who, by virtue of superior training and experience, should be in a position to bring about change...
...But there is no easy solution to changing deep-seated patterns...
...For Young this is fortunate, because more than anything the Congo must catch its breath...
...Professor Young develops a minor thesis, the opposite of which has been taken for granted in the United States...
...The heaviest crosses they have to bear are the very segments of society best equipped, or so it would seem, to bring about change—the bureaucratic elites...
...Nkrumah, Nyerere, Toure, Keita and others, for all their weaknesses, are revolutionaries who genuinely believe that juridical independence was merely the initial step in the long path toward profound change...
...In this and in many other ways "the end of colonial rule did not end foreign influence in Africa, it only changed some of its forms...
...Post-Colonial Politics POLITICS IN THE CONGO: DECOLONIZATION AND INDEPENDENCE By Crawford Young Princeton University Press...
...He maintains that words like "chaos" and "anarchy" which we heard constantly in our press were far too sweeping to describe the Congo collapse after 1960...
...Especially well done are chapters outlining the colonial order ("Behemoth"), and the first three years of independence ("A Profile of Independence: 1950-1963...
...His book is filled with good, sometimes uncomfortable, common sense, giving it an overall tenor that is not optimistic...
...David Hapgood's Africa: From Independence to Tomorrow encompasses all of independent black Africa...
...but it is amazing that the Congo had not long since disintegrated as a political entity...
Vol. 48 • August 1965 • No. 17
