Martin Meredith's 'The State of Africa' 2005

 

The Free Press first edition - 2005

Where to begin?! If I thought the tale of The Scramble for Africa was filled with horror, then this story of the 50 Years since Independence for the majority of the African countries is far worse. For every abomination created or supported by the ex-colonial countries, then the behaviour of nearly all the indigenous African leaders - the 'Mr Bigs' as Meredith calls them - has been even more dreadful. I have now spent the whole of January reading just these two huge books and it has been intensely depressing. Essentially they are both accounts of Man's inhumanity to Man.

There is so much to digest (so much indigestible) and so many leaders to comment upon, that it is more sensible to pick out a few of them. I have not dealt with Haile Selaissie of Ethiopia, Gaddafi of Libya, Sadat of Egypt, Numeiri of Sudan, Charles Taylor in Liberia, Arap Moi in Kenya, Sekou Toure in Guinea - frankly the reader is bogged down and crushed by the feeling of 'No, not another one'.

• SETETSE KHAMA (Botswana - was Bechuanaland). There are only four references in the book: Botswana provided a rare example of an African state that used its bonanza of mineral riches wisely...corruption hardly existed; Botswana stood out as an example of a liberal democracy, tolerant of opposition activity, where the rule of law was held in respect and where economic development proceeded apace;(sadly) Botswana has the highest infection rate in the world, more than 37% of its population of 1.6 million are HIV-positive; in the age group of 15-49, the infection rate is 40%. By 2010 life expectancy in Botswana is expected to fall to 27 years; half of all children in the country are likely to be Aids orphans; Botswana stands out as a unique example of an enduring multi-party democracy with a record of sound economic management, that has used its diamond riches for national advancement and maintained an administration free of corruption.  I would have liked to have heard more about this from the author; above all, WHY?  In 2023, Botswana is the least corrupt country in Africa and ranks just below Portugal and South Korea (Transparency International)

• NELSON MANDELA Somewhere Over The Rainbow. Mandela stands out as a Beacon of what might have been and what could be. Unique, remarkable, awe-inspiring. A GREAT 'Mr Big'!

STRONG LEADERS?

• GAMAL ABDEL NASSER (Egypt) triumphs during the first years in power were followed by a catalogue of disappointments and disasters...he quarrelled constantly with other Arab governments, retreating more and more into isolation...yet whatever disasters befell Egypt, Nasser never lost his popularity with the masses.
• JOMO KENYATTA (Kenya) enjoyed massive authority. Even critics of his government accorded him due respect...he adhered to capitalist policies, encouraging both indigenous private enterprise and foreign investment...he was ruthless in dealing with any challenge to his authority
• JULIUS NYERE (Tanzania) socialist experiment stood out as a beacon of hope...he became the most influential thinker and writer in Africa of his time...took on the drive for socialism virtually single-handedly...between 1973 and 1977 some 11 million people were placed in new villages, in what amounted to the largest mass movement in Africa's history...there were numerous reports of coercion and brutality...by the end of the 1970s Tanzania was in dire straits...what progress was made was financed largely by foreign aid... He stepped down voluntarily, after 23 in power.
• LEOPOLD SENGHOR ( (Senegal) a centralised system of groundnut management soon became bogged down in incompetence and corruption...Senghor steered through these difficulties with a mixture of compromise, coercion and pork-barrel politics. He was one of the few (6 out of 150) to relinquish power voluntarily, after 20 years in office.
• SAMORA MACHEL (Mozambique). I would have liked much more comment on Machel. The little there is about him in the book suggests he was a skilful pragmatist.
• KENNETH KAUNDA (Zambia) was equally adamant about the merits of one-party rule and his own leadership, despite a catastrophic record of economic mismanagement over 25 years in office. I recall him for his hair quiff, his large white hankie and his predilection for weeping in public!

DICTATORS OR WORSE

• KWAME NKRUMAH (Ghana) No other country demonstrated the decline of Africa so graphically as Ghana. Although a few countries in the continent were independent before 1957 (Liberia, South Africa,  Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco), the British colony of Gold Coast becoming the independent Ghana was seen as a trailblazer, as was its new leader Nkrumah.  Meredith heads his early chapter on Ghana, The Gold Coast  Experiment, and a later one on Nkrumah Feet of Clay. Tragically, it now feels like an experiment in dictatorship, and worse, which was to be replicated throughout the dark continent.
• ABEID KARUME (Zanzibar). His regime was bizarre and vindictive from the outset...the Revolutionary Council ordered arrests, imprisonment without trial, torture and execution as it saw it.
• JEAN-BEDEL BOKASSA (Central African Republic) combined not only greed and personal violence but delusions of grandeur unsurpassed by any other African leader...he also gained a reputation for cannibalism...
• MILTON OBOTE (Uganda) in common with many other African leaders, he set his sights on establishing a one-party state, arguing that tribal and factional groupings tended to threaten the stability of the country...his style of government became increasingly secretive and autocratic.
• HASTINGS BANDA (Malawi) his dictatorship degenerated into tyranny...incarcerating thousands of Malawians in detention centres

TYRANTS

• JOSEPH MOBUTU (Zaire). The Congo/Zaire, with Rwanda, Burundi, truly represent Hearts of Darkness and Mobutu one of the worst of tyrants. Amazingly, he lasted so long. But as with so many other corrupt leaders, he lasted thanks to outsiders' support; in this case, the USA who, with France, Belgium, Britain, Russia and China, could not leave Africa alone. Their dirty fingerprints are all over this tragic 50 years - for plunder, Great Power rivalry, weaponry profits. The UN Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali does not come out of things smelling of roses, either.
• IDI AMIN (Uganda) organised death squads to hunt down and kill scores of army and police officers...within a few months, mass killing of Langi and Acholi began. 'It was impossible to dispose of the bodies in graves'...thousands died at the hands of his special squads. No one was immune.
• FRANCISCO MACIAS NGUEMA (Equatorial Guinea) steadily sank into a morass of murder and mayhem...thousands were incarcerated in prison and murdered there...many were executed on a whim...out of a population of 3000,000, at least 50,000 had been killed and 125,000 had fled into exile. 
• MENGISTU HAILE MARIAM (Ethiopia) thousands died in the red terror, thousands more were imprisoned, many were tortured and beaten
• ROBERT MUGABE (Zimbabwe). The author correctly heads the chapter on Mugabe's seizure of, and maintenance of, power in Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, as A Degree in Violence. Perhaps it was because his regime started later (1980) than most of the others, the fact that it was a British colony, that much of the terror was aimed at whites and the growth of more intrusive media to report everything, leads one to feel his rule was one of the most tyrannical and repulsive of all. He fought the war not to achieve democracy but to gain total control...by the end of the 1990s Zimbabwe was in dire straits. In 2003, he warned he would use even worse violence if necessary. 'If that is Hitler, then let me be a Hitler tenfold. Ten times. That is what we stand for'.

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The cancers of Communism (Russia, China, Cuba) and Radical Islam have only added to the poison.

Having ploughed through this woeful tale of dictators, tyrants, massacres, brutal tribal wars etc., I still believe that only one-party governments are the way forward BUT they should be paternal not tyrannical. All attempts at democracy led to one man/party quickly taking dictatorial power. Some leaders, although brooking no dissent, managed to stay just this side of tyranny and were - on a sliding scale - far less corrupt that others; but, almost inevitably, familial and tribal loyalties came before country's. Here one can certainly blame European governments. So many new countries' borders had been drawn on a map in Berlin or elsewhere. They were no respecters of tribal areas and one can look at almost any African state (Ghana, Nigeria, Sudan, Zaire) and realise just how artificial a creation they were. Is there any hope for the future, when one adds natural disasters (although 'famine' was often caused by warfare) and ruthless arms traders into the mix? 

One can do no better than to quote in its entirety Meredith's last paragraph:

The same lament applies to Africa. Time and time again, its potential for economic development has been disrupted by the predatory policies of ruling elites seeking personal gain, often precipitating violence for their own ends. 'The problem is not so much that development has failed,' observed the Nigerian academic, Claude Ake, in his essay on Democracy and Development in Africa, 'as that it was never really on the agenda in the first place.' After decades of mismanagement and corruption, most African states have become hollowed out. They are no longer instruments capable of serving the public good. Indeed, far from being able to provide aid and protection to their citizens, African government and the vampire-like politicians who run them are regarded by the populations they rule as yet another burden they have to bear in the struggle for survival.

And, so, millions died during those 50 years, through disease, hunger, displacement and genocide. A shocking, shocking tale of repetitive evil. Meredith's book was published eighteen years ago. Has anything changed? I doubt it.