Africabeat

I’ve been getting my feet wet in non-academic writing again.  Here’s a piece for ISN in Zurich on fifty years of Françafrique and a short interview on RFI English.

This year makes 50 since France granted independence to its African colonies. On the whole, the moment has inspired little fanfare, perhaps because there is precious little to celebrate. If you were born in an African country, and the country you were born in happens to have once been a French colony, you are significantly less likely than your counterparts in anglophone Africa to reach your first birthday. If you do, you are less likely to go to school or learn how to read, and the country you live in is, on average, poorer and less democratic. The Internet revolution, shallow though it still may be, is being absorbed by your anglophone brothers at an exponentially faster rate, who also enjoy both higher initial stocks as well as well as faster expansion rates of telecommunications infrastructure like fixed telephone lines and mobile phones, as well as physical infrastructure like roads, electricity and rail.

Fifty years after independence, in just about every measure of human well-being and progress, there is clear evidence for a ‘francophone effect.’ Less clear is why.

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France, a former empire reduced to merely ordinary and still struggling to make the mental adjustment, plays out its colonial and postcolonial psychosis in the most bizarre and often criminal ways.

Walking through the genocide memorial in Kigali, France’s fingerprints were everywhere, from their unwavering support of the Hutu power government measured in diplomatic love and machine guns, to numerous decisions to abandon Tutsi to be slaughtered by roving militia (apparently the French forces missed the memo that there was a genocide going on), to their role in creating a safe corridor to Congo for genocidaires to fleeing the advancing RPF (We all know how well that turned out), to the painfully slow pace with which they have pursued homicidal priests that sought refuge within their borders. 

Of course the irony is that in its misguided attempts to fight the anglo-saxon invasion–in East Africa–the French have all but assured Rwanda’s anglicization.

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Howard French, The New York Times correspondant in Shanghai, explains France’s waning power in Chad and the increasing influence of the Chinese:

How did things reach this pass? During the long tenure of Jacques Chirac, France underestimated Africans and China alike, while mistaking America as its rival in a part of the world where Washington has never had grand ambitions or even much vision. (Read more)

One summer not too long ago, I was on a plane touching down in Accra.  I was only supposed to be at the airport for a short while before heading on to Sierra Leone, but I was flying on the now-defunct Ghana AIrways (yes, the very same Ghana Airways famous for attempting to traverse the Atlantic with only one engine and with barely enough fuel, the same Ghana Airways that was that summer banned from operating in the US) and a two hour layover turned into four days in a guesthouse somewhere on the outskirts of the city.

I will always be grateful for that time, not only for the friendships I made with the older women I was traveling with who took such great care of me while I was in Freetown (pictured above, decked out for a wedding), but because there’s a decent chance that had I not had an experience in another West African country – one that has known fifty years of peace – to contrast the pain, the mistrust, the psychological scars I encountered daily in Sierra Leone, I might not have ever wanted to go back to Africa.

Indeed, Ghana has a lot to celebrate not only because of what Ghanian independence represents, but because Ghana has been able to avoid the civil war and (largely) the most brutal forms of dictatorship that have destroyed many of its neighbors.

That said, I was dismayed when I read that the $20 million spent on independence celebrations went to buying luxury vehicles to carry around visiting VIPs and putting on a massive celebration from which ordinary Ghanians were barred.

Here is some great blogger-generated content to take you on a walk through 50 years of history from folks who are much more familiar with Ghana than I:

• Accra By Day and Night has photos of the Daily Graphic and the New African covers celebrating the golden jubilee
• Hiplife Complex has a Youtube video of Obrafour’s rap tribute to Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first post-independence president. 
• Ethan Zuckerman, whose heart is still in Accra, has a Youtube slideshow highlighting key moments of Ghana’s path to independence set to The Birth of Ghana” by Trinidadian musician Lord Kitchener (I challenge you to watch it without feeling happy and/or inspired).  Apparently the president of Ghana is quite a fan (of Ethan’s blog, that is).

See also "What is Ghana’s Secret" from the American.com

Happy Anniversary!

China Dialogue, a bilingual, Chinese/English blog on China and the environment, has two recent posts on the environmental impacts of China’s investment in Nigeria and Angola’s oil industries.  And I’ve got commentary.

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While I have the feeling that
Elaine Meinel Supkis is just a little more to the left than I am, her blog,  Diplomacy: Winning Without Killing, is always worth a read.  Most recently, she offers a very funny and unforgiving look at why so much of American and European criticism of China – while valid – is also shamelessly hypocritical.

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Articles on European countries’ views on China’s role in Africa,  especially former colonial powers Britain and France.

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A Mail & Guardian article explores the role of Indian investment in Africa, reporting on Indian investments in African oil, infrastructure and light manufacturing.  Last week, 300 business delegates from 35 African countries visited New Delhi to explore potential opportunities. 

Well it may not be as big of a story (India is democratic and English-speaking.  China is everyone’s favorite whipping boy), India is clearly looking to expand its business presence in Africa.  (See also: Africa as China and India’s "New Economic Frontier")

Can Other Developing Countries Be a Model for Africa?

At the China-Africa Business Council meeting, Chinese participants talked about the ways in which they believed Africa could learn from their experiences.  Before Deng Xiaoping’s gaige kaifang ("reform and opening up"), China was at a similar economic level as many African countries.  China’s success over the more than twenty-five years since can offer important lessons for African economies, they argued.

Similarly, I noticed the following quote in the Mail & Guardian piece:

"We want to learn from India’s experience," said Amadou Dioffo, managing
director of Sonidep Petrol and Gas Company of Niger. "Like us, India also has a
colonial past. We want to know how and why it is doing so much better now."

Which brings up a series of old and familiar questions (or at least I encountered these questions in nearly every college political economy course or course on the politics of X developing country):

1. Can other developing countries’ successes offer lessons or models for Africa? 
2. Why did South Korea become so rich when in the early 1960s, it was at about the same level of economic development (or perhaps even a bit lower) as Ghana? 
3. Why are China and India successfully developing now? 
4. Is Asia fundamentally different than Africa and is Africa just doomed to always be last in line? 
5. What structural or historical reasons account for Asian success and African stagnation?

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