Guy Martin

Africa in the World Economy

In the post-september 11, 2001 world, key U.S. foreign policy decision makers have characterized African oil resources as strategically essential to U.S. national interests. In 2003, sub-Saharan Africa already provided 14.5 percent of U.S. oil requirements; in 2015, that region will supply at least 25 percent of such requirements. Viewed in historical perspective, the process of dispossession is systematic, widespread, and persistent.1 Globalization should be viewed as a mere continuation of the process of dispossession rather than a new development. In addition to being an economic and political project, globalization is also a cultural project. In this chapter, we adopt Gramsci’s definition of hegemony: “a socio-political situation [‘moment’] in which the philosophy and practice of a society fuse or are in equilibrium; an order in which a certain way of life and thought is dominant, in which one concept of reality is diffused throughout society in all its institutional and private manifestations.”2

Readings of the Rwandan Genocide@@@The Limits of Humanitarian Intervention: Genocide in Rwanda@@@Peacemaking in Rwanda: The Dynamics of Failure@@@A People Betrayed: The Role of the West in Rwanda's Genocide@@@Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa, 1993-1999

On April 6, 1994, at about 8:30 P.M., a Falcon 50 executive j e t carrying the president of Rwanda, Juvenal Habyarimana, the president of Burundi , Cyprien Ntaryamira, and several o the r government officials was shot down on its final approach to Kigali airport. Within hours , H u t u extremists started implement ing a carefully p l anned genocide of e thnic Tutsis and H u t u moderates that led to the brutal killing of an estimated 1 million men , women, and children over a three-month per iod. The genocide also produced about 3 million refugees and 4 million internally displaced persons out of a total Rwandan populat ion estimated at 7.7 million, resulting in the greatest humani tar ian crisis of this generat ion.

States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control

time, as sub-Saharan Africa is bogged down with too many crises, further exacerbated by the AIDS epidemic. While Engleberts solution might not solve all of Africas problems, it should serve as a catalyst for further studies on both a local and a continental level, and also on the part of the World Bank, the IMF, and Western development agencies that design programs for African states. It is a must read for all Africans who seek a better continent, for students of African politics, decision-makers, and development specialists of all genres. Osaore Aideyan Claremont Graduate University Claremont, California

Conclusion Toward A Federation Of African States (Fas)

This Book Introduces A New Paradigm, Called Fundi Wa Afrika, in the study of African politics. This paradigm is based on a thorough critique of contemporary theories and approaches of the African state. We used Fundi to analyze the emergence and development of a number of African indigenous political systems and institutions.

Theories of the African State

The basic premise of modernization theory is that african societies are “in the process of becoming modern rational entities in which efficiency and scientific logic replace traditional values and belief systems.”1 Since 1960, development in African countries has followed the modernization path. Peter Schwab uses modernization theory to study state collapse using case studies from Africa.2 He argues that the nation-states of sub-Saharan Africa “exist only nominally [and] have all but ceased to exist as coherent and organized entities.”3 Schwab notes that sub-Saharan Africa has, in the past decade, been visited by the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” namely Conquest, War, Famine, and Death.4 Schwab explains— with case studies from Ghana, South Africa, Kenya, and Mozambique—that globalization has largely passed Africa by.5 According to him, the high rate of the AIDS epidemic in African countries, lack of democracy, and neglect by the United States have limited the chances for these countries of achieving economic development.6 According to Schwab, “The slave trade, colonialism, and the Cold War left Africa with a ruinous heritage that has been exceedingly difficult to subdue.”7 He concludes that it is up to Africans to take the development initiative for the continent.8

The Congo State in Historical Perspective II

In september 1876, in brussels, lEopold II, king of the belgians, Convened a geographical conference of leading explorers of Africa and founded the Association Internationale Africaine (International African Association [AIA]) “for the avowed purpose of promoting the civilization and commerce of Africa.”1 King Leopold declared himself the sovereign of the Congo Free State (CFS) and the territory thus became, in effect, his private domain, until he bequeathed it to the Belgian state in August 1908. Between 1891 and 1912, one of the most devious and ruthless systems of economic exploitation through forced labor ever conceived was put in place by Leopold, with devastating consequences for the Congolese population. Leopold formulated a policy whereby nine-tenths of the Congo territory was declared “vacant” and thus became his personal property in his capacity as “sovereign” of the CFS. The king farmed out a large proportion of the total territory to private Belgian chartered Furthermore, the Congo’s predicament belies the argument of the “failed state” and “criminalization of the state” theorists, who vastly underestimate the responsibility of Western international, governmental, and nongovernmental agencies in this situation: “globalization has sustained the wars in Congo and other African governments played their part.”110

The African Colonial and Postcolonial States

From the sixteenth century onward, in spite of the good diplomatic and commercial relations that Europe and Africa enjoyed, Europeans chose to create a new image of Africa and Africans. Such an image allowed Europeans to exploit African labor and resources. Explorers, geographers, scientists, missionaries, and political, business, and military leaders engaged in the construction of the African as the “other.” Africa was also depicted as a passive object waiting to be reborn through various European forces.1 According to John Barrow, who compared Africa to England, the land was ugly because it lacked control.2 His account informed missionaries’ views before they arrived on the continent. Africa became the “dark continent” where “various white crusaders struck moral pastures.”3

Indigenous African Political Systems and Institutions

African political systems and institutions were traditionally based on kinship and on lineage (that is, on common ancestry), sanctioned by a founding myth. First, they were based on an elaborate system of checks and balances. Second, political succession was carefully institutionalized in such a way that family, clan, and ethnic competition for power was minimized. Third, the basic political unit was the village assembly, where major decisions concerning the society were adopted. While some indigenous African political systems were more elaborate and institutionalized than others—the so-called “state societies”—all of them had some form of centralized power and authority. Thus our approach rejects Fortes and Evans-Pritchard’s anthropological distinction between “state” and “stateless” societies.1