A midlife crisis for Africa

Solutions, Dr Adebajo?

Yep, analysis paralysis! Lets start with ourselves by rolling up our sleeves and getting to work to create our own personal prosperity and ensure that our children are educated and equipped to provide for themselves. If we going to wait for politicians to make things better, we'll be waiting forever!

i'm 35years old and my main wish is to live in a united Africa...but sadly, it is becoming clear, with each passing day, that my wish will not matearialise in my lifetime.

I was four years old in 1960. Harold Macmillan made his iconic Wind of Change speech to the SA parliament in Cape Town at the end of an African tour that began in Ghana. Verwoerd listened politely and then rebutted Macmillan's warnings. Sharpeville happened two months later. A watershed year, and Verwoerd put a referendum to white SA and left the Commonwealth in 1961. And four decades of dire stuff followed. Meanwhile Mobutu, Amin, and other monstrous leaders took control of sub-Saharan Africa. And Egypt remains under the grip of one man for thirty years. I love this country and its people but I am heartily sick of the lost opportunities, the stasis, the rigged elections, the failure of education, the victim mentality. God bless Africa and remember, God helps those who help themselves. Nineteenth-century proverb.

It's a bit of a stretch to blame some arbitrary political lines agreed upon by some colonialists near 150 years ago, for todays problems in Africa. In fact, whenever this dough covered ol' chestnut-of-an-argument is thrown against the wall to see what'll stick, it always lacks any coherent reasoning as to why this geographical organising contributed to the nations downfalls. By all accounts, these lines were imaginary for the better part of the first 75 years, and trade continued - nay, flourished - after their drawing anyway.

No. Time Africans stopped looking for the colonialist bogeyman and admit that they have some dire issues with themselves, and more often than not revert to violence to settle their disputes, rather than the round table. They'd also not do any harm by admitting their cultural short-comings, and take a long, very hard look at where they've gone wrong, and how can they fix it.

In all these years of reading drivel that does everything to dilute Africans' responsibility for their own lot in life, I've yet to read of one writer who makes the sensible suggestion that they only have themselves to blame. If they ever did, it would go a long way to turning back the miserable tide, as they would thus have taken the first step (admittance and acceptance) on the road to recovery.

“In some ways Africa can look forward with hope to the next 50 years”. I doubt it! You are right in saying African leaders have pursued three major goals, they are handouts, corruption and hegemony. Nepotism and a little genocide could probably be added to these.

It is easy to blame ALL of Africa’s ills on colonialism. When one looks at what really happened in Africa rather than the modern popular history, this ill conceived model just doesn’t fit.

Take South Africa as a first example. It was never a Dutch colony.

It has been a colony of Batavia (Indonesia) for about a year and various parts, notably the Cape and Natal have been colonies of the British for up to 110 years. The Xhosa (then called Kaffir) and the Nguni (now the Zulus) started invading from the north in about 1760. Europeans, notably Dutch, French (Huguenots), and Germans settled from 1652 and became Africans. Most of these white people of Africa but from Europe were in South Africa for 90 years before either the Xhosa or the Zulus arrived! The Bantu, invading and murdering on their way south met the Boers trekking and farming on their way north, first at the Great Fish River, then elsewhere.

The fight for domination was by the Xhosa, Zulu and Boer – all Africans. These wars were against the Hottentots, the San and against each other. Chaka killed one and a half million people in his quest for domination!

By the time the English attacked the Cape in 1799, South Africa no longer fitted your popular model. (I just wish someone would tell the English that the war is over. They can stop invading Cape Town and go home  ).

It’s time to benchmark African countries against similar countries elsewhere and see why Africa has failed. Don’t look for a simple apologist answer. Why not compare South Africa against Indonesia. The Indonesians could complain that this would be an unfair comparison because South Africa had all the skill, the raw materials and the opportunities but in the last 15 years we have performed pathetically against them. We have failed completely. Viva la ANC viva...

A better example is Ghana against South Korea. Korea had the Japanese, far worse colonists than any colonist in Africa. After the war, the country was split, the industrialised north became North Korea and the impoverished south became South Korea. But their tribulations were far from over. On the other hand, Ghana was groomed for independence. Ghana also had a rich and vibrant economy and plenty of international trade. They had raw materials to boot.
Ghana was 3 times richer than South Korea, on a per capita basis at independence. Britain also gave substantial assistance to the newly fledged country. The Ghana government still managed to snatch total poverty and failure from the jaws of success.

South Korea’s troubles were not over yet. The West and the USSR orchestrated a terrible civil war that destroyed the little that was left of the country. Yet, somehow those wily little yellow men are now major economic players in the world market and 20 times richer than the Ghanaians on a per capita basis.

Ag shame, poor South Koreans, Damn those bloody Japanese colonists. (One is tempted to say “If this is what bad colonists do, pity we didn’t have a couple of them in Africa!”)

It’s time to look to ourselves and stop blaming others for our abysmal failure. How can we succeed until we accept our failures and start doing something about them? Let’s cut the typical apologist crap and start striving for an Africa that works. You can’t fix something until you accept that it is broken!

wow John Bond, well put

John Bond you are definitely not a liberal bleading heart from the Northern Suburbs. Your message is so correct and to the point but will it penetrate? Answer: No. From the great grandson of a British concentration camp detainee. I don't want any sorry's, BEE and stuff like that, and I am definitely not Royal Game.

The Berlin Conference was a joyous six-week bagatelle, interrupted by festive celebrations and family holidaying by all participants, with the partition of Africa almost as a side-line. It was designed only to prevent European nations from going to war over disputes arising from the divisions. It wasn't designed to keep Africans away from each others' throats or to satisfy a even single one of their desires.

But Europe succeeded in her six-weeks of partying as they were carving up Africa from ever creating any African border over which any two Europeans would ever go to war. It was an unqualified success using those terms of reference.

Post-uhuru independent Africa has had 6 decades to re-define her Berlin Conference borders which were struck in only 6 weeks.

But Africa -- acting only in her own interests -- has failed to draw her own borders around the needs of her own people. And the inadequacies of these Berlin borders for African needs have led to a multitude of wars and conflicts over these 60 years.

But, by and large, every one of the old Berlin Borders still remain in place and in force and in dispute.

Africans are recklessly tardy. Glaciers move faster than African decision-making.

And that is NOT Europe's fault. It's Africa's, and it has been for six long miserable decades of decay and decline and death.

@John Bond - well said, and we can add another eye-opening example from our own back garden, which is totally ignored by African socio-appologists (for good reason). The majority of the indentured "Coolies" who were shiped to Natal were uneducated in the western sence (but by no means uncultured)and started their lives here virtually as slaves. They suffered under the same discriminately apartheid laws as the other "non-whites" but within two relatively short generations they are now among the best educated and prosperous among the "previously disadvantaged" groups. How did they do it? Quite simple. They immediatly adopted English as their new "home language" because they were smart enough to realize that it was the only conduit to reservoirs of knowledge in their new "homeland". Indian parents then made the goal of giving their children the best possible(colonial!!!)education they could afford. They made this one of the sole purposes of their lives, making huge sacrifices in the process. Last but not least, they held on to spiritual values that helped them endure the suffering while making those sacrifices. Will "freed" Africans emulate this process? Not immediately but possible in the next 100 years...or so.

AFRICA:"MIDLIFE CRISIS?. I just read that publishes Mail Guardian, ZA about what counts as "midlife crisis" stemming in part from the recent Processes of decolonization and the decisions and rules of the Conference of Berlin (1884-1885). "The Berlin Conference of 1884-1885, overseen by Germany's Iron Chancellor" Otto von Bismarck, effectively set the rules for the division of Africa, as the race "for the riches of the continent is in progress. Divided the European continent in artificial nation-states in the process that creates a proliferation of unviable economies dependent on imported political systems, countries and weak and insecure borders Balkanised.. Traducão. I see the reality mentioned, from another perspective, namely that those who, like me, consider that most of Africa and its peoples and nations, are still directly or indirectly, subject to certain statutes by the West and the policy and neocolonial imperialist. The old European colonial powers, the United States and the so called world super powers, China and Russia, are powers who maintain pretensions Domain and colonization. Africa has historically been the main victim of this arrogant and aggressive policy, still ongoing today. Charges of political and economic power blocks, are common and still in force, not only in Africa and Latin America. After all, we need to lift us to our young peoples energies, and to feel our thinking, our culture and our best traditions of struggle for Sovereignty, Respect and Dignity. Confirming what we represent as a new reality in the Context Internacional.A Africa has, step by step, achieved. Brother, Francisco de Alencar Brazil Anthropologist

And just look at the result - nothing at all to be proud of !

@ John Smith

Your example is vastly better than either of mine!

The African Indians should be an example to all other people of Africa. Let's discount the South African Indian's progress (which has been astounding!) and look at the Indian, elsewhere in Africa, Seychelles, Reunion etc. Their progress has been astounding...

The one notable feature of the African Indian is that no one was prepared to feel sorry for their terrible plight.

Now we hate them for their progress - Ag shame, you can't win in Africa. That is why 40% of South African Indian Doctors emigrate within 10 years of qualifying. Who can blame them but it costs well over R15 million to train 1 doctor (from birth to qualifying) and our continent needs them so badly!

John Smith - its the difference between doing for one's self and sitting back with an outheld hand wanting everything handed to you without having to do anything for it - AKA Entitlement Culture

Africans biggest problem. is sitting on its hands and waiting for someone else to solve its problems, Europe, china, the USA , where ever. While is is constantly and continually raped for its people and resources, don't they get it. It suits the rest of the world to have africa poor. Until Africa does some serious soul searching and come up with modern workable solutions to its problems it will remain under the heal of developed nations.

Ah the perils of being a British colony...

Let's see we have Canada, New Zealand and Australia - hang on, they are not doing too badly... And let's not forget South Africa was more significant economically and politically than any of them at the end of World War II... and Rhodesia was not far behind them...

Ok, bad comparison, so how about India and Hong Kong - hang on, India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world, and Hong Kong is a major driver of the Chinese economy...

And what about the USA? They were a British colony which fought for its independence, just like African states did. Yet they did not degenerate into civil wars augmented with widespread corruption like we did.

British colonialism is hardly a curse - in fact, most colonies were run at a loss. Many other nations were far harsher in their treatment of their colonies, especially in South America. But there we have places like Brazil, which is another example of a rapidly developing former Third-World nation.

Our troubles as Africans are of our own making. The sooner we acknowledge this, the sooner we can change it.

Brigitta, History repeats itself in Africa, while centuries ago tribes captured their rival neighbours and sold them into slavery, today greedy corrupt dictators do the same to the people of their own countries except the resource being sent offshore is no longer people yet still it is the people that suffer

Does this author work for CNN or BBC or any of the other Western media who can never potray anything positive about Africa? Much as the last 50 years or so have been a step back for most African countries, the reality is that things are changing in the continent at a very rapid pace.

Th reality is that Africa is on the road to improved economic recovery and the reason why China invests in Africa aside from raw materials is because of this. When you look at all key metrics for economic and social development, there's been an improvement in this areas in a majority of African countries. And the reasons for this are: urbanisation, an emerging middle class and an expanding labour force. Africa is at the same point where India and China were about 20-30 years ago.

Some key indexes to take note off:
- In 1980, just 28 per cent of Africans lived in cities. Today, 40 per cent of the continent’s one billion people do — a proportion roughly comparable to China’s and larger than India’s. By 2030, that share is projected to rise to 50 per cent, and Africa’s top 18 cities will have a combined spending power of $1.3 trillion.

- Africa’s labour force is expanding, in contrast to what’s happening in much of the rest of the world especially the Western World.The continent has more than 500 million people of working age. By 2040, their number is projected to exceed 1.1 billion — more than in China or India — lifting GDP growth.
- ICT has been critical to the development of the economies in Africa and has become the source of more than $60 billion in private investments between 1998 and 2008.
- Africa accounts for more than one-quarter of the world’s arable land. And the fact that it only currently generates only 10 per cent of global agricultural output implies that there is huge potential for growth in a sector now expanding only moderately, at a rate of 2 to 5 percent a year

Yes the continent still has numerous problems, corruption and tribalism being probably the biggest problems, but major developments are happening all over the continent and much as people can highlight the negatives on the continent they also should highlight the progress being made

@Don Mac:

I'm not sure if you read the entire article with an open mind. Following are quotations that prove that the author apportions blame to both the colonial legacy and to the Africans themselves:

"In 50 years of independence, Africans have largely failed to reverse this blighted legacy amid profligate corruption and autocratic misrule."

"Conflicts, some resulting from the colonial legacy of Berlin, continued in Ethiopia and Eritrea, Nigeria and Cameroon."

"African leaders had also failed to create effective regional integration schemes to liberate their nations from the bondage of the old colonial boundaries."

"Africa's quest for security has been evident in post-Cold War efforts to improve the effectiveness of regional bodies and to establish new governance structures such as the African Peer Review Mechanism. But these institutions have mostly proved to be weak."

Maybe you want to argue that colonialism has had nothing to do with Africa's destiny. Fine, make that argument but don't make false accusations to bolster your argument.

"During the annus mirabilis of 1960 17 independent African states were born, creating great expectations for the rebirth of a continent." Surely the concept "rebirth" can only occur after a death. Looking at the economies of pre and post-independent Africa it makes sense to conclude that the continent has not been reborn since, but is in the process of a slow death.

At whose hand NWA?

Africa will never amount to much until we stop looking to outsiders, be they Oriental or Occidental, to solve our every problem... I wont even go into the corruption, Suisse bank accounts, blood-thirst and propping up of dispotic & unviable regimes.

It seems SA and Africa is afflicted with ever increasing moral flaccidity .The accoutrements of this plague is luxury fever and visible displays of luxury.This malaise has afflicted the Continent.
Rolex es ,Benz es ,BMW's,5 star hotels ,charter flights ,weekend shopping at Harrods,Johnnie Walker Black label ,Armani apparel the list is endless.
The moral fibre of Mandela ,Tambo , Helen Suzman ,Arch Tutu is fast becoming a memory of the past.
They seem to forget that the money they are so lavishly spending and embezzling is not theirs to spend or steal.
The suffer from memory lapse when it comes down to fulfilling the job of serving the very people who have elected them.

After 50 years and we still have Africans queuing to blame colonialism for Africa's problems. Is it any wonder we are have slip back into the dark ages - the colonial days were the golden age! With intellectuals like Dr Adekeye Adebajo it is a wonder we still have some Africans who can still spell their name!

Good stuff Messrs Bond & Smith
I'd also like to think that too many African academics and intellects are still trying to weave the often questionable propaganda of the last 50 years as fact into their analysis. That alone makes it difficult to establish true cause and effect - it could also be politically damaging to call a spade a spade. I also think the Berlin conference was a bit of a no show. How many African colonies did Germany, a major European power at the end of the 19th century, in fact have? And can anyone still recall from recent history how Zimbabwe and others divided up the spoils in the DRC? Now what do you call that?
The so-called curse of Berlin is just a convenient excuse to justify decades of exploitation of both land and people by a select indigenous elite for their own benefit.

... and of course, Mr Adebajo conveniently forgets the legacy of education, science, health care, agriculture (beyond subsistence farming),technology and international exposure the colonists left in their wake. The fact that Africa failed to capitalise on this is almost alone attributable to its Machiavellian elite and their gullible subjects.

The British were, once upon a while ago, a backward and primitive bunch as well. Then they were colonised by the Roman Empire and obtained a super fast-track to real civilisation and prosperity. Without that Roman colonisation, they might still be running about coated in blue woad and living briefly and miserably in conditions grimmer than the jungle dwellers of the Congo.

I'm gonna appeal to teh Italian Government for reparations!!! The bloody Romans desacrated my homeland and I want compensation!!!

Sound familiar anyone? Anyone? Anyone?

Yes, GFA. The sobering fact is, the Romans/Italians will pass the blame to the earlier civilizations (Greeks, The Mesopotamians, the Egyptians) and before we realize, nobody but Africa (the cradle of mankind) will be to blame. I wonder what A4A, True Patriots and the rest have to say?

Jon, the usual, silence when faced with facts!!! Given their strong claims of the beiggining of humanity arising out of Sterkfontein area (Cradle of Humankind), we can blame ALL the worlds ills on those damned Saffers!!!

Urgh. I am getting voices from the Akashic Record, friends. The Ancestors. All over the place, DNA strings all mixed up, blended, here and there.

Great Great Tatamkulu was in Bethelsdorp Mission Station with Rev John Philip. He learnt to love the love, and peace, and grace of Jesus. Great great grandmother was in Mpuma Koloni, British settler, and she tells me the Normans from France came and colonised England again and took her ancestral Saxon land from her. She wants me to go to Britain and ask for it back. Other one came to iKapa, Cape Town, Ntshona Koloni, in 1809 and made a nice career as an attorney. Firm still exists.

Ancestors they say boundaries are good. Didn't want bad military Germans who killed Herero to enter into good Cape Colony. Now they are saying be Sans Frontieres my friends, like me.

I find your article to be full of tired, pseudo-intellectual Africanist drivel. African countries overcame the "legacy of colonialism" when they chucked the European powers out; simple as that. However, it's easier to blame the West for Africa's continued "failure" than to actually realise that African governments haven't failed at all; they have ALWAYS designed and tailored their governments to reap profit and power from the rich world at the expense of their own people. And they have, so far, proved extremely successful in their ventures.

John Bond’s input in this debate is not only disingenuous, but it is also devoid of the truth. For instance, there was nothing called Zulu, not in this or any other South Africa until Shaka fashioned it together from various independent groups after 1800. One has to wonder which Zulu he is referring to who started invading from the north in 1760. And lest we are hoodwinked into believing the same lies that have been peddled ever since, there were black people in what we call South Africa today for more than 2000 years before the arrival of (in his own words) Europeans, notably Dutch, French (Huguenots), and Germans who settled from 1652 and became Africans.

Apart from the San, the Sotho and Venda are among some of the oldest inhabitants in this country and I am sure he is also aware of this but chooses to deliberately ignore it. Perhaps he needs to put all our minds at ease and clarify what part of this great country is the South Africa that he is referring to in his posting.

I think it is also too simplistic and bordering on claiming easy victories to reduce African leadership problems to “handouts, corruption, hegemony, nepotism and a little genocide” All these problems have reared their ugly heads in various forms all over the world. The first and second world wars for a lack of a better word were as a result of some of these ills that he believes are uniquely African. I agree completely with him when he says “It’s time to look to ourselves and stop blaming others for our abysmal failure……” But is this not exactly what Thabo Mbeki’s African Renaissance, Nepad, etc seeks to achieve? It is a pity that in the 21st century, Africans must start to worry about things that other people have grappled with for so many centuries before.

This continent has had its share of the despots, the Mobutos, Bokassas, Bandas, etc (throw in King Leopold as well) who not without a little help from their European masters proceeded to make life hell for their citizens and confirmed the stereotypes that the likes of John are peddling around here.

Granted that things are still messed up a bit in Africa, but there is a realization that the past was not good for anyone and it needs to change and must change. And there is concerted effort to isolate all the leaders who do not seem to realize that things must change and it can’t be business as usual any longer. It may take time, but Africa will come right one day.

Tshinyiwaho - no you are wrong my friend. The two world wars were about one country's desire to dominate all others, in the case opf post-colonial African countries, its about corrupt leaders stealing as much as the can from their own peole and slaughtering any who might oppose them

@GF.A A quick read through the European history will show you that Europe countries have been at war with each other for close to a 1000 years, infact the period since the WW2 has probably been the most 'peaceful' in European history!

It seems most of the people commenting about Africa in this column (including the author) do not have a firm grasp of African politics and also are too eager to find doom and gloom in Africa even when there's so much positivity. Despite a high level of corruption and poor governance, alot of African countries have initiated political and economic reforms that have resulted in increased annual growth rates and renewed investor confidence. A young population, burgeoning middle class and better access to education and health means that its only a matter of time for Africa to emerge into the world

Niall Ferguson in his book, "The War of the World", states the following:

"The hundred years after 1900 were without question the bloodiest century in history, far more violent in relative as well as in absolute terms than any previous era."

After the Second World War, we saw the escalation of the "Third World's War", which is still ongoing.

@ Tshinyiwaho Radali

"..And there is concerted effort to isolate all the leaders who do not seem to realize that things must change and it can’t be business as usual any longer."

If that is so, then why is the AU against the ICC endictment of el Bashir?. Please see:

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=136225§ionid=351020504