The word “Africa” was a solemnly used word in my inventory whilst I lived in my home country of Botswana. I lived most of my life in the Capital city Gaborone and for an entire seventeen years had never crossed the boarders (except for one primary school excursion where we crossed into Zimbabwe and quickly back again at the Kazungula Boarder gate…that one doesn’t count). Thus I grew up in this national bubble of my country’s boarders, my city even…or perhaps the bubble that is my neighbourhood; travelling between home and school. Everything was normal, just right… the goldilocks…not too hot, not too cold…I read lots of books of strange and exotic countries…of fancy cities in the West and rising Asian economies; of warring factions in the middle east and starving children in some countries in Africa somewhere. All was pretty interesting to read about but was never a reality I had to concern myself with. We watched our one state owned television and radios; went to the village for holidays with family and visited shopping malls over the weekend. We watched South African, Nigerian and Hollywood movies. The South African ones we could easily relate to, one of their 11 languages was also our language…we and them are pretty much the same basically. And then we had the Nigerian movies which we watched purely for the drama and comedy, very loud people, but we could still relate, thousands upon thousands of kilometres away but we could still relate, they were Africans and we were Africans, but we still lived in our different spheres. And then there were the Hollywood movies, the ones we watched for Action, great drama and “great quality.” But there was an unspoken truth of why we watched them as well…we watched them for the expression of supreme liberties that their characters seemed to have. Not that we don’t have liberties in Botswana or the continent, don’t get me wrong, but watching these films did prove that the question of how far we are willing to exercise our liberties is constrained by cultural perceptions and conditioning, we have rights in Botswana, but family laws and values more often than not come first.
Anyways, I digress. It seems we all lived in our own little niche...that each African country was an oasis of life separated from the next by miles upon miles of barren desert in a vast seemless continent (well thats partly true in some cases...Botswana and Namibia). This all changed for me when I moved to the UK to do my studies. One of the things that slowly began to dawn on me was the increasing frequency of use of the encompassing word “AFRICA”…slowly but surely, the boarders of all 54 countries seemed to blur into oblivion during my time here.
“Hey Geofrey I’m going to volunteer in Africa over the summer,” said a friend of mine. Volunteer in Africa…I thought he’d get into more details but no…that was as far as he could venture. And around the same time former American president Bill Clinton tweeted “Just touched down in Africa” when he’d landed at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, Kenya; of which several people (my fellow Africans no doubt) replied humorously:
“you just touched down in Africa? You’re on all 54 countries at the same time?!”
And another’s sarcasm “Awesome! I’m in Africa too. I’m sure we’ll just bump into each other on the street, it is such a small country” and concluded it with #Africa2013
And you know, the world really finds it difficult to not put Africa into a box, they really try to be correct but its just too hard for them and maybe its not their fault. You see celebrities telling the world that they are going to “Africa” for a Safari…maybe its obvious they’re going to the Serengati National Park in Tanzania, it certainly couldn’t be South Africa’s Kruger national park, or Botswana’s Chobe national park or…
Even when it comes to global economy, Africa has always been treated as a block by its trading partners. Take the Africa-India summit in New Delhi that happened some months ago; were all 54 african heads of state (or their delegates, as is often the case in my country…His Excellency the president doesn’t subscribe to such extravagant trips *jokes*), all 54 met in India with the Prime Minister of a single country. At first I thought hang on minute this isint right, doesn’t this undermine the sovereignty of African countries. Then I considered that India’s population of 1.2 billion outstrips the population of the entire African continent of 1.1 billion…thus perhaps it made sense for all African states to add up to one another in order for them to “just” make the cut and have a speaking chance with India. Or when President Xi Jingping of China visited South Africa for the “China-Africa cooperation summit.” Again, China, a large country with a massive economy, or America, when African heads of state met with President Barrack Obama in Washington for trade talks. The world cant help but put all African countries in one trade box, and perhaps it cant be helped.
The global political landscape is perhaps the worst at sidelining the entire continent, as the whole world volleys the metaphorical political ball over the continent as though it where a net…and woe to the idea of having the ball land on the continent, that would be an utter loss. One of the major political issues is one of global security of which the United Nations security council oversees. With 5 permanent members (or the BIG 5), China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States; the victorious powers from the second world war that ended in 1945; and also 10 additional side members elected on a regional basis to serve two year terms. But only the permanent 5 have the power of veto and so on and so forth. The question now is whether this ancient representation is reflective of the current political landscape of 2016 i.e have there been any noteworthy changes since 1945? Arent there new key players worthy of consideration in joining the council?. And thus we see a country like India and Prime minister Narendra Modi lobbying African countries to demand for a more inclusive representation of the current world.
Thus it is almost easy to see why it is increasingly difficult and hard for others not to treat African countries as a continental block. Perhaps the peeving thing for average Africans temporarily outside of Africa is to hear their country of birth meshed together with all other 53 countries into a cuisine characterised by poverty, war, child soldiers, starving children, aids and mud huts. I used to take these gross generalizations personally especially when I thought they didn’t show respect for the sacrifice that my ancestors in my country have made for my country to be where it is today. But then it stopped bothering me when I saw how futile to argue was and how unnecessary it was to try to point out facts to people all the time, because what mattered to me was the reality of my homeland. But a great thing came out of being tormented by this sheer ignorance. I started to think of my African “brothers” and “sisters.” There were certainly starving people in some countries and warring faction in civil war torn countries like past DRC where child soldiers where maliciously employed for combat. I realised that I could never find complete pride as a Motswana if I knew an innocent African child was slowly dying a painful death because of no food to eat or that they were dying of diarrhoea from drinking polluted water; not because there are no resource, FAR FROM IT! On the contrary there IS plenty of food to go around in the world a number of times, same goes for clean water, with the only reason being the ridiculous phenomenon of poor distribution…i.e the fact that these amenities are simply just not getting there and reaching these people…a very lousy reason to have such horrific human conditions.
The United States of Africa
Thus one can sort of conclude in exasperation that why not just hold hands as African countries and finally give the world what they want, a United States of Africa….or the much cooler and unique “United Provinces of Africa” (if we’re to adopt the South African style, which I like). I really do not have the time and right references to make a detailed argument about this and none of my views are entirely conclusive but they are views of a seeking and searching African, seeking the best for the African diaspora and brethren.
Discussions about pan-Africa and forming a single confederate African State usually end before they begin as a lot are quick to bash the idea, more especially ourselves as Africans. This is especially the case with African countries that are well off and content, something I can easily say about my own country of Botswana. A quick check of “Most prosperous country in Africa” conducted by the Legatum Institute (looking at economy, education, governance, health, safety, security and others) places the nation first, followed by South Africa, Namibia, Tunisia, Algeria… Looking at GDP we have Nigeria at the very top with a massive GDP of 545 billion, followed by South Africa, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco… These particular well off nations (and others) do not easily cosy up to this idea of African unity as others, and people usually site this economic disparity of African countries as a deterrence for integration. Whilst I agree that there are immediate challenges to actualizing African Unity, I’m more of the kind of person to want to engage the challenges brought about by African unity rather than to stop and dismiss the idea all together. It is actually not a new or entirely strange concept as it has been brought up a number of times by African leaders, the most notable being Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana who spoke much about the united stated of Africa after the formation of the Pan-Africanist movement of 1945 where the fifth congress of the movement was held in Manchester (UK) attended by notable figures like Jomo Kenyatta and Patrice Lumumba. Kwame Nkrumah was to lobby for the idea together with Haile Selassie (the then Emperor of Ethiopia), but perhaps the birther of the movement was Marcus Garvey in his 1924 poem “Hail, the United States of Africa.”
It is very interesting to observe that each time the idea of African Unity was brought up, its advocates where never allowed to go very far. Kwame Nkrumah was soon deposed by his “own” people of Ghana in a coup when he was on a state visit to China. Muammar Gaddafi, who during his reign saw Libya achieving one of the highest life expectancies, free education and medical health for its people…perhaps the greatest lobbyist for African Unity, lent money to African nations in attempt to push the agenda forward. Perhaps what made him particularly unpopular with the rest of the world (apart from alleged poor human rights record) was his idea of the “Gold Dinar,” a single African currency linked to gold, of which African countries have vast reserves of and could use as leverage. This would certainly change the economic landscape in terms of global currency usage, it also meant that African countries could “finally have the power to bring itself out of debt and poverty and only trade in this precious commodity.” He too was soon deposed of by local militants with support from NATO.
Another leader of Pan-Africa was and still is President Robert Mugabe who is unpopular in the west for his land expropriation policies and poor human rights record. However the man is of age and perhaps no longer has the energy to push his reluctant African brothers for unity. The weird thing is that though African leaders are ignoring this issue of Pan-Africa, they have a large and singular statue of none other than Kwame Nkrumah at the African union building headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. This is very dismal symbolism for me because they ignore the very thing that the man spent his entire life trying to achieve.
But turns out that talk about Pan-Africa are still pretty rife and emerging, a sign of an introspective and reflecting growing youth. The biggest lobbyist for African Unity seem to be the Economic Freedom Fighters of South Africa at the moment, a South African opposition party led by President Julius Malema and his vice Mr Floyd Shivambu, whose Oxford Union speech I have currently watched. I really lack the time to expound on the pros and cons of the idea of African unity. I do however have the time to contemplate the great possibilities. With all 54 African states voting and sending 54 representatives, we have a combined local market of over 1.1 billion people. We have a much more strengthened military and petty security nuisances caused by the likes of Boko Haram would become a thing of the past. Civil wars in countries like DRC will be easily diffusible with a strong government and continental representation. Having all 54 delegates running the same government in the same city will dilute culture and political structure such as to break the corruption threads that link people of the same political and cultural structure. It will call for more accountability…the north will keep check of the South, the east will keep check of the west…and vice versa. More importantly distribution of resources can finally occur when all these countries pool their resources, the rich African soil will feed the millions of hungry and great development in infrastructure and transport will get food to innocent African children who do not need to suffer. Starving children will be a thing of the past. Using the weight of our numbers, massive land mass and untold mineral wealth a lot could be accomplished. But the question is…does the world welcome a more competitive Africa…because if you think about it, though people are inherently good and kind, a more competitive Africa will certainly shift the economic landscape…suddenly Africa will be in a position to ask for higher prices for their goods and provide more expensive labour and so on. Perhaps the world is comfortable with how things are now in Africa and perhaps reason why it is difficult to find even a single comprehensive online article addressing or touching on the prospects of a United Africa…which is why I felt the need to put up my article as a modest contribution to the archives of pan-African dreamers, of whom I know are many.
I could decide to finish my studies here in the UK, go back to my relatively well-off country, get a good job, join an exclusive golf club in Phakalane and sip fine coffee everyday on my way to work in my flashy car, passing poverty ridden townships on the highway and retire to an old farm in a remote corner of our vast country towards the end of my life. I could do that…but I think that I'd have failed if I did that…I'd die and be forgotten...selfish of me…I wont and I cant do that, especially as long as something can be done about hungry mothers and children in our beautiful content of plenty. African Unity or at least greater integration of African nations remains my greatest dream and devotion, and I believe there are many young Africans out there who share a similar vision…together we can and will accomplish what our forefathers failed to achieve, and proudly pass on the baton to our progeny when we’ve reached our last…
“This decade is the decade for African Independence. Forward then to independence. To independence now. Tomorrow, the United States of Africa” ~Kwame Nkrumah
(from speech by Prime Minister of Ghana at the opening session of the All-African People’s conference, Monday December 8 1958)
Click here to watch tribute to Libyan Leader and Pan-Africanist
