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PART TWO
THE SPLENDOR OF HOPE: GEORGE B. N. AYITTEY AND HIS BOOK [AFRICA
UNCHAINED: The Blueprint for Africa�s Future, Palegrave, 2005] Printer
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Book Review and Commentary
By Tecola W. Hagos
I.
Introduction: Tradition v. Modernity
In the
first part of my book review and commentary, I introduced George B. N.
Ayittey as a contrasting author to my critique of Jeffery Sachs�s book, THE
END OF POVERTY. In that part of my article, I wrote, �I
find his thesis of globalization very interesting, but not in accord with
my anti-globalization sentiments. The books I read [1) AFRICA
IN CHAOS. New York: St. Martin
Press, 1998; 2) AFRICA BETRAYED.
St. Martins Press, 1992; and portions of INDIGENOUS
AFRICAN INSTITUTIONS. New York: Transnational Publishers, Inc.,
1991.] show great mastery of research tools and disciplined inferences.
His latest book AFRICA UNCHAINED is an excellent book that should bring us
down to Earth after our arterial flight with Sachs� book. I shall
discuss that book in Part Two. Having said that, I want it to be
absolutely clear to anyone reading this article that my only reason in
writing it is to promote the cause of Ethiopia�s sovereignty,
territorial integrity, and dignity. Thus, by necessity the tone of this
article carries that underlying interest.�
Some African scholars have
criticized Ayittey as someone who had no working experience anywhere in
Africa. It is true that Ayittey after finishing school in Canada did not
go back to his native country, Ghana. He has been teaching in the United
States since finishing school in Canada. His last teaching post, as the
Distinguished Professor of Economics, has been at the American University.
Thus, according to his critics, his critical work on African economic
problems, African leadership, and African governance lacks concrete
benefits of real life experience in Africa. I do not consider the absence
of work experience in an African country a crucial handicap in analyzing
and/or synthesizing Africa�s problems, especially for someone who is an
African by birth and who spent his formative years in an African community
as Ayittey did, and who has kept regular and intense connection with the
�homeland.� Ayittey, with
his proper training in economics and great concern for the welfare of
African people, is certainly well qualified to speak or write about the
numerous problems facing Africa and the people of Africa. However,
this does not mean we have to accept everything he says without question.
We should put his ideas to all kinds of tests and scrutiny in order
to appreciate what is beneficial and discard what is not, just like anyone
else.
Ayittey�s
AFRICA UNCHAINED sharply
contrasts with Sachs�s THE END
OF POVERTY in terms of style and more importantly in its content.
If we start with their book titles, for example, we can see that for the
two authors the associated values underlying their respective main thesis
are quite different: in the case of Sachs, it is �security�; in the
case of Ayittey, �freedom.�
Both authors are passionate about their subject matter, the result
being that we are blessed in having two books that are highly readable,
greatly complementary, informative, and very educational. However, if
these books are read separately, without the benefit of the contrasting
evaluation of the reader, their impact as separate items may well be
drastically diminished. �Sachs�s
book is global and panoramic in its scope, short on details, but long on
vision. By contrast, Ayittey�s book is focused and limited to one
Continent, and combative in its approach and indignant in its disposition.
The authors are from different backgrounds too: Sachs is an American, and
Ayittey is a Ghanaian. Both are distinguished economists and educators.
Even though the two books are profoundly different in content,
nevertheless, they are both a testament of great hope for a suffering
humanity. Between the two books, I believe, we are served immensely, and
our money is well spent.� [See First Part, �Splendor of Hope�]
There is also the fact of
the upcoming May 15, 2005 Ethiopian election that makes my review of
Ayittey�s book particularly timely. Sachs has defended his thesis of
economic development from a trajectory he called the �poverty trap.�
His argument in support of his idea of the �poverty trap� had
largely undermined the significance of most African leaders� corrupt and
violent leadership as the cause of poverty and suffering in Africa. As far
as I am concerned, the most important role of a government, any government
at that, is to be a government of the people where there is
accountability, transparency, frequent elections, independent judiciary,
and strong defense. This is not to suggest that economic matters are not
significant. The relationship of Politics to economics should not be seen
as some kind of perpetual competing interests, but as an enabling and
necessary structure. In the African nation-state, a responsive and
democratically elected government has far greater role than a government
in the developed world as a catalyst, vanguard, or �head of a family�
to bring about any degree of economic development. We hear often
politicians challenging the preeminence of issues of political and human
rights over economic development by giving the example that a hungry
man�s first desire is to satisfy his hunger than fight for freedom of
speech or elections. Such argument is reductionist, dishonest, even
racist. There is no doubt in my mind that poverty with human dignity
intact is far more bearable than poverty with political suppression, as is
to be found in all developing countries.
II. Ayittey�s Thesis
An admiring critic recently has called Ayittey �the
Jeremiah of Africa� at the same time stating, �Ayittey is often
criticized, mostly by his fellow intellectuals, for his brutal assessments
of conditions in Africa. They describe him variously as an �Uncle
Tom,� a �Sell-Out,� or an Afro-pessimist.� [E. Ablorh-Odjidja, �The Coming of African Cheetah,� 25
March 2005, in This Week Ghana, www.thisweekghana.com/ThisWeek/
Review.ablorh.africaunchained.htm]
The
question of putting negative labels on the personality of Ayittey,
especially labels superficially gleamed from the
records of where Ayittey had worked or who were his sponsors, is not that
difficult. One can easily lump him with some of the most conservative
American groups and institutions, such as the Heritage Foundation, the
Cato Institute et cetera. I believe such generalization overlooks an
important fact that the conservative institutions [Ayittey is identified
with] are using a certain truism, brought out by Ayittey on African
political and economic reality, in order to promote their own agenda.
Unlike Ayittey, such institutions and the people who are in control of
those institutions do not at all have benign disposition toward African
People. On the other hand, I give Ayittey the benefit of the doubt in that
his criticism of current and past African leadership is motivated in the
best interest of the people of Africa and not a �sell out� to the
West. In fact, Ayittey is a passionate defender of the common person of
Africa. May be, as we shall see further in this article, at times his
faith in the native people of Africa may have over-simplified the
complexity of the problems of underdevelopment and issues of modernity in
Africa.
Ayittey�s thesis
is very direct and simple, at times surprisingly naive for a sophisticated
man with the benefit of great education and exposure to the ways of the
world. He believes that the problem of Africa�s economic
underdevelopment (of perpetual famine and civil strife) has to do with the
deficient African leadership from the time of independence to date and the
solution is to be found in the �Artingas�
(peasants) whose vanguard spirit is embodied in those whom he identified
as the �Cheetahs.� He
states the thesis of his book to be the following: �This is the basic
trust of Africa
Unchained: unleashing the entrepreneurial talents and creative
energies of the real African people�the peasants, affectionately called
the Artingas in Ghana because of their loyalty, dependability and
trustworthiness.� This
approach overlooks the obvious fact that Africa was not in great shape
either before colonialism. In fact, its economic weakness was one of the
main reasons that attracted all kinds of colonialists including private
adventurers who wanted to curve out their own private empires.
Ayittey�s
staunchest critic is a fellow Ghanaian Kissi Edward, Ph.D,
especially on the question of Ayittey�s emphasis on reverting to
tradition in order to solve Africa�s economic and political problems.
Edward�s interest and expertise in Africa�s problems is as genuine as
that of Ayittey. His dissertation was titled �Famine and
the Politics of Food Relief in United States Relations with Ethiopia,
1950-1990,� which he defended in 1997. Since then (after graduation), he has
been involved in conferences and seminars dealing with the diverse
problems of Africa especially on issues involving human rights. By
considering the educational background of the two scholars, we may have a
better understanding why Edward�s underlying discontent with Ayitte�s
thesis is focused on the allegation that Ayittey does not fully understand
the traditions of even Ghana let alone that of the many communities within
the Continent. What seems to have bothered Edward in Ayittey, under all
that protestation, is the way statements by Ayittey or scholars or experts
in general creeps into the policy making processes of national governments
of powerful rich nations, such as that of the United States Government,
wherein such policy ultimately affects in a real life-death situation the
lives of ordinary people in Africa or else where. Nevertheless, we need be
careful here, as they say, in trying to throw out the baby�s used bath
water that we did not end up throwing the baby too.
Edward wrote, �I study Africa within the context of
international relations, especially Africa's relations with the United
States. I have, therefore, seen in the US archives what faulty
analysis, (or should I say faulty intelligence) can do to nations and
nationalities. My disagreements with Ayittey are based on what I see as
the obligations that I have to challenge misplaced assumptions and
assertions about nations and nationalities in Africa (and have mine
challenged too) from colleagues whose unrestricted access to the Western
media and American policymakers make them producers of ideas or
knowledge about Africa that would ultimately creep into international
policies that would affect ordinary people in my village. Today, the
assertions of journalists like Robert Kaplan about Africa find themselves
in US policymaking towards Africa. His famous, but later debunked article
about West Africa, some years ago ("The Coming Anarchy"), was
sent to many US diplomatic missions in Africa. I have also read articles
of scholars that are attached to policy files in Record Groups 59 and 84
in the US National Archives. So someone somewhere is listening.�
To begin with, the picture drawn by Edward on the role of scholars and
experts in policy making processes of governments, if limited to just
himself and Ayittey, does not seem to illustrate that much of an asymmetry
in the influence those two scholars exert on the government of the United
States. The difference between Edward and Ayittey is not in the
identification of the problems Africa is faced with, but in their
suggested solutions, which is anyways open to multiple solutions. If
Edward is asked a �yes or no� type question whether many African
leaders are corrupt and violent, he has to answer in the affirmative. On
the other hand, if Ayittey is asked whether millions of African
�peasants� have been negatively affected by some of the traditions of
Africa�s diverse cultures or traditions, he may have to answer in the
positive.
Even though of less
importance, it is to our benefit to know about the same theme of criticism
against Ayittey repeated in �chat� groups such that the emphasis seems
to be that Ayittey is not well connected with the reality of African
communities to make the type of judgments he had made in his books and
articles. For example, from one chat group, an individual stated,
�Furthermore, if Ayittey is that serious about African economic
development why has he spent all his career in a Western university not
even bothering to sometimes [sic] instruct students in Africa--as he can
easily arrange?� The problem
with the critics� blanket generalization is the fact that it is more of ad
hominem form of argument, attacking the person rather than addressing
the issues of disagreement. Sadly, Ayittey is not above such strife, for
he too had some choice phrases, such as �hippo
generation� to describe his critics. Very often, I have read
articles unnecessarily focusing on �the person� of an author in trying
to discredit the ideas promoted by such an author. This is a disservice to
us all since the ideas of such an author are left still unchallenged, and
we are still left poorer by the experience of going through such writings
of supposed critics.
Moreover, the
critics of Ayittey are missing the point; Ayittey never once claimed that
there is a single tradition for all of the communities in Africa. The way
Ayittey perceived of �tradition� is a general conception of the lives
of communities in pre-colonial Africa. However, this is not to say that
Ayittey is clear of errors. For example, on a far more important level, he
has oversimplified the problem of underdevelopment and corruption in
Africa by introducing psychological concepts, such as �loyalty,
dependability and trustworthiness.� The same nature he admired in the
�Artingas� (peasants)
is a statistical certainty to be found in varying percentages in all human
groups. Therefore, it is not enough to identify or ascribe a �nature�
to a group without really looking up-close what the group is doing under
what social circumstances. In other words, the problem of Africa�s
underdevelopment is more of a system failure more than the mere changing
of personalities. There is no foolproof way of knowing whether, for
example, an �Artinga� once acquiring political power will not turn into
a corrupt leader. There are numerous examples of individuals, who
otherwise would have remained agreeable little peasants, who turned into
monsters in power. One good example is the case of Mengistu Hailemariam.
Mengistu was born to a low working peasant family (domestics); he grew up
in utter poverty, and lived most of his life in the margins of power as a
low-level military functionary, until he unleashed the worst brutality and
corruption ever in all of Ethiopia�s history once he acquired power
through military takeover after 1974. As most dictators, he turned out to
be a despicable coward too, who sneaked out of Ethiopia looting government
property and over two hundred million dollars in cash and gold.
There is an
indescribable dynamics at work between social (cultural, economic, and
political) conditions and the individual in/at any level of social
(class) structure, that it would be very unwise to categorically
identify a certain group as the only source of great leaders. At best what
we can do is to put in place a structure to insure that the �exit� and
�entrance� to political power are well lit and clearly observed by
everyone, and then guess wisely the possibility of installing (dare I say,
electing) the right person for the right political job. Moreover,
the disagreement between experts as to the solutions to problems facing
African nations could be simply instances of different experts speaking
different languages in their specific fields (discipline).
For example, Edwards is a distinguish scholar in political
science/international relations as opposed to Ayittey who is an economist.
Maybe a holistic approach would find the contribution of both individuals
equally important and complementary in understanding the diverse and
complex problems faced by all African nations.
III.
Mirror Images
Are governments the mirror images
of the people they govern? Thomas Carlyle wrote in a Chapter he titled
�Captains of Industry,� in his exquisite small book of a collection of
his essays, PAST AND PRESENT,
(London: Chapman and Hall, 231, 1896), �In the long-run every Government
is the exact symbol of its People, with their wisdom and unwisdom; we have
to say, Like People like Government.� Other than being an admirer of
Carlyle�s great writing skill, whose prose sublimates into poetry, I
trust his wisdom as ageless too. After all, he stated in another Chapter,
�The English are a dumb people.�
[Carlyle, 135] Nevertheless, there were others who expressed
similar sentiments, such as Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821),
the Papist, "Toute
nation a le gouvernement qu'elle m�rite." [LETTRES ET
OPUSCULES IN�DITS," (1851) vol. I, letter 53 of 15 August
1811.] In
addition, our own contemporary Lester Lave, professor of economics,
rhetorically expressed the same idea, �People deserve the
government they get and get the government they deserve.� In fact,
numerous people had expressed in similar forms or slightly modified
version of the same idea countless times.
There is a real temptation to
accept the idea that people deserve the government they have because
governments embody the will of the people no matter how that will of the
people may have been expressed, for example, through election,
acclamation, concession, acquiescence et cetera. I concede there is very
limited truth in such idea, however, only to a very specific extent, in
the sense that no government can exist without some form of a support
structure made up of several thousand citizens no matter how few in number
compared to the total population. Hitler would never have succeeded in his
diabolical schemes without the support of tens of thousands of Germans.
Stalin would never have succeeded in leading a murderous regime without
the help of millions of Russians. Mengistu Hailemariam would not have been
able to unleash his �Red Terror� liquidating thousands of innocent
Ethiopians without the help and enthusiastic participation of tens of
thousands of Ethiopians from all walks of life. We can go on and on
listing every brutal dictator that ever existed in the World, and the fact
would remain that society in someway is responsible to varying degrees on
the success of any such government of a brutal dictator at any given time.
In other words, there maybe a very thin line between the representational
aspect of a government and the national �ethos� of a people. We all are afraid to make any such conclusion because it is
very easy to jump from such assumption to a far more divisive and
devastating action of circumventing groups of individuals with distinct
�nature� that would easily lead to other holocausts.
To put all the blame of a
nation�s underdevelopment on a leader may be as faulty an assumption as
putting all the virtues in the tradition of a society. In as much as I
criticized Jeffery Sachs for applauding proven corrupt and violent
dictatorial leaders of some African nations, I may need to substantiate
such criticism with contrasting views of ideal leaders supportive of the
democratic process. Such a task of structuring an ideal prototype is not
that difficult to do; however, the real problem is how to sustain such a
system to great length as to render it a way of life or a �routine.�
Ayittey has indicated, �[t]rue freedom never came to much of Africa
after independence. In many African countries, independence was in name
only; all that occurred was a change in the color of the master�from
white colonialists to black neocolonialists�and the oppression and
exploitation of the African people continued relentlessly.� [Ayittey,
33] He did not allow for the
fact that soon after independence many of the new African leaders showed
hopeful leadership. The real puzzling question is why did such leadership
that was powered with new idealistic visions of modernity and prosperity
collapse so quickly and so badly? Could it be the pressure of the local
population�s inertia that overwhelmed those new leaders rather than the
leaders corrupting the system or the people?
If there is such overwhelming
evidence of the participation of a large segment of the population in any
violently oppressive government, is our aspiration of a responsive and
representative government and leadership utopian? The search for a perfect
political structure by the elite members of society seems to either be
triggered or in the alternative symptomatic of profound social changes
taking place at much accelerated pace at a particular time in the life of
a community. Socrates almost two thousand five hundred years ago under
similar pressure of profound social change advocated his version of an
ideal political structure. When Thomas Moore wrote his extremely important
book, Utopia, at such an early stage of secularist development of
political structures, Europe was in the throes of economic and social
profound changes. Four centuries later, the period of �Enlightenment�
directly affected and brought about capitalism and contractarian ideas of
governments. Socialism and communism are just extensions of that same
thesis of the relationships of the individual as member of a community and
the role of political leadership to bring about a utopian society.
Thus, we have to accept the idea
that all contemporary efforts of political scientists, philosophers,
economists et cetera as part of the same continuous narrative started by
the early Greeks and others. [The ancient Greeks were not Europeans; there
was no Europe at the time of the height of Greek political philosophy. The
Greeks belong to the ancient world occupying the northern part of that
ancient world that comprised of African and Asian people of the Nile and
the Tigris and Euphrates in equal parts. Thus, we Africans need not be shy
in claiming and reveling in the glory of ancient Greeks as one of our own
spiritual and philosophical dimensions. We certainly have better claims
than present day Europeans and Americans for such proximity or affinity to
the ancient Greeks.] Ayittey�s
magnum work dealing with the political and economic life of Africa and its
population need be considered as part of such narrative and not outside of
it or in opposition to it. Moreover, I find works by African elites on
African concerns far more rewarding and much closer to the point than
works by individuals who did not grow up in the culture of an African
community be it urban or rural. For example, if we just look at the
dedication pages of Sachs and Ayittey, we see very different approaches by
the two authors. Sachs dedicated his book to family members, whereas
Ayittey dedicated his book to hundreds of named and unnamed victims of
abuse, violence, murder et cetera from all over Africa. In
as much as Sachs first thought is of his family secure in their middle
class lives of opportunity and wealth, so did Ayittey think of his family
members who happen to be victims of economic and political oppression.
Neither author could have related to the world any differently than they
did, if both are honest people with genuine concerns. I happen to believe
they are.
Ayittey identified the problems of
leadership in Africa covering the period since independence in detail in
two very important chapters (Chapter 6: The First Generation Problems,
173-236; Chapter 7: The Second Generation Problems, 237-306). Although
Ayittey gave few specific named examples of failed leadership and failed
national governments, the character flaws of leaders and the systemic
corruptions of national governments analyzed in Chapters 6 and 7 would
mostly describe every African leadership and national government that
existed in Africa since independence. Ayittey is far more courageous than
a number of authors I have read where there seem to be some form of a
consensus among African authors (historians, political scientists, and
economists) not to ruffle people with power in African nations. Except for
very courageous African academicians, almost all protest writings comes
from foreigners, mostly Westerners.
IV.
Ayittey�s Solutions
I would have been satisfied just
learning from Ayittey�s identification of the complex and numerous
problems facing African nations even if he did not provide solutions. His
discussion on possible solutions on such African problems comes as an
added bonus. Ayittey discuses his vision of the future for Africa in
several chapters starting with Chapter 8: How to Develop Africa, 307-335;
Chapter 9: The Indigenous Economic System, 337-364; Chapter 10: The
Antinga Development Model, 365-399. Ayittey may be accused of many things
but not of restraint in his boundless optimism.
It is fashionable these days to
beat upon �socialism� as a failed experiment in Africa by few national
leaders after independence in the 1960s. Ayittey did not seem to see any
distinction between statist models of the Fascistic kind from the ones
attempted in Tanzania, Ghana, Guinea and recently Zimbabwe. I cannot
equate �socialism� with brutality in the African setting or in
general. The collapse of the Soviet Union or many national governments of
the Eastern Block nations does not at all represent the failure of
�socialism� because such nations did not practice �socialism� nor
put in place a socialist government structure to begin with. They were
more of a dictatorship of the few who used effective propaganda to arm and
mobilize a segment of the population to carry out their lust for power.
For example, Mengistu�s regime and political ideology has nothing to do
with socialism although superficially it claims to be a government of the
�workers� of Ethiopia. Mengistu shares the many savage and brutal
characteristics of numerous African leaders, but not their government
structures that led to such genocidal violence unleashed on their own
people. In other words, it is a gross mistake to ascribe brutality, failed
economy et cetera to socialist model, ideology, or practice in Africa or
in general.
Ayittey seems to believe that
positive change of economic prosperity is bound to happen through the
dynamic efforts of people whom he identified as the �Cheetahs.� He
seems to have been convinced of such thesis absolutely. He stated,
�Africa�s hope lies with the cheetah generation�the new and angry
generation of Africans discussed in the prologue. They tend to be Young
African graduates, who are dynamic, intellectually agile, and
pragmatic.� [Ayittey, 391] Ethiopian sages have far profound insight on
such issues. They tell us that it takes more to feed a hungry beast than
the one that has already his fill. The moral of the story is that the
�Cheetah� new leaders are as hungry as when the old leaders were when
they started out their career before they became bloated with wealth and
sated. Let us not forget, except for Emperor Haile Selassie, who was
already in the line of succession of a dynastic rule thousands of years
old, and the traditional ruler of Morocco, every other African leader who
participated in the formation of the OAU could be described at that time
in the manner Ayittey described his heroes�members of the Cheetah
generation. In other words, having new sets of leaders with different
perspective on economic theories or new social behavior, or even new
political ideology, in no way can be perceived as entailing good
governance.
Concerning his use of the
�Cheetah� as a symbol of Africa�s future great leaders and
entrepreneurs, who would transform Africa�s dismal economic and
political situation, I disagree. He used the wrong animal as a symbol. I
wish he had used a different symbol than the Cheetah. The Cheetah is a
solitary animal that hardly co-exist in groups of its kind. It is also
tittering on its last legs on the brink of extinction. Moreover, the
Cheetah has the weakest bite of all the �big cats� that makes it a
poor choice as symbol for leaders who need to form great communities
around them and use far more decisiveness (bite) in their actions than the
mere bite of a child. I would have preferred the �hyena� or the
�wild dogs� of the African plains as great symbols for the new
vanguards of our effort for economic prosperity. Both animals are great
hunters with far better success at bringing down prey than the Cheetah,
and they are the most community-oriented animals that take care of groups
and their young as a community. The hyena in particular is the great
sanitation expert that keeps the Serengeti and other numerous national
reserves (parks) clean. The slums of African sprawling urban centers need
most an efficient leaders to clean up the mess of �modernity.� Nothing
can symbolize such duty better than the hyena. Although hierarchical in
their social structure, even the weak, the crippled, and the old have a
better chance of survival in those animal groups than in any other animal
groups or types including the Cheetah.
Simply put, Sachs�s solution is
to throw more money at a problem, and Ayittey�s solution is to throw in
more leaders, but from a different group. Neither solution on its own
would bring about the change that both authors want for Africa�s poor.
It seems that there may be a crucial fact that has eluded us all thus far,
about Africa and its diverse population, which fact may have retarded not
just European type political and economic development but any meaningful
accumulation of knowledge and the building of highly interconnected and
interactive social or political systems and institutions. Without
discovering that subtle reason that is hindering us from solving our
social, economic, political et cetera problems, any suggestion by anyone,
whether distinguished or charlatan, would simply be like shooting in the
dark blank bullets to hit a target that may not even be there.
One problem I see that may fly
against universally appreciated situation is my negative appreciation of
the so-called African �extended family� structure. As far as I can
see, families are extended in Africa not because of closeness, but rather
because of loose relationships. Starting from the relationships of parents
to each other and all the way to children to uncles and aunts, to nephews
and nieces, cousins etcetera, in a kind of pecking order each member
derive some benefit out of the relationship down the line. From my own
experience, with great risk of overgeneralization, I find African adult
males to be the most selfish and self-centered human beings, and adult
women only to a lesser extent, compared to the many different people I
encountered in my life from other cultures. Even in the relatively
affluent African American community, the same loose relationship prevailed
among the black community despite the fact such community had encountered
the worst forms of hostilities. By contrast, Western families may look
superficially like a system of disconnected individuals, but that is a
misreading of the great bond that exists between families and members of
the community to the exclusion of other groups. I do not believe specific
economic setbacks would explain away such dramatic difference of social
behavior. This has nothing to do with race, but learned behavior
reinforced by a community at large over a long period of time.
Standing at street crossings and
observing the flow of traffic of both pedestrians and vehicles is my
favorite pastime in order to learn about the behavior of people without
intruding into anybody�s privacy. It is amazing to see how quickly and
clearly one could develop samples of behavior and predict to great
exactitude how different members of a diverse community, such as
Washington DC where the diverse people of the world seems to be
represented in miniature, would behave in their driving and response to
people who are crossing a street at marked crossings, or non-marked
crossings, with signal lights, or against signal lights et cetera. The
degree of care or respect shown by drivers of vehicles to defenseless
pedestrians in a crosswalk tells a lot about the higher relationships
(social, cultural, political, and economic) between an individual and the
community.
V.
International Banking
In order to stop embezzlement and
misappropriation of the wealth of a nation by its leaders, the
participatory international banks must be held accountable and equally
criminal. In all legal systems, any person receiving stolen goods is
investigated as a criminal. Once the identity of the goods is established
as stolen property, the burden of proof shifts to the person who has
received such stolen goods to show that he has no knowledge whether such
property is stolen. Over 140 billion dollar was embezzled in the period
after independence by African leaders as was claimed by Olusegun Obasanjo,
the new Nigerian President [Ayittey, 406], who seems bent on restoring
some degree of accountability in his country as well as elsewhere in
Africa. It is to be recalled that most of the looting was done in the last
two decades by a handful of leaders from Nigeria, Zaire, Ivory Coast et
cetera. It is also obvious
that Military dictators have done most of the looting as well as the
damage to the structure of civil society in Africa. Military career is a
disgraceful or disgraced occupation in Africa. It is the one black stain
that African nations would have difficulties in removing.
One other significant problem
facing African nations is the flight of capital, which must be addressed
carefully by all nations around the world. Very often, the flight of
capital is linked to the instability of the political and economic system
of a nation. In this, we can include the desire to maximize profit and to
retire the initial capital outlay as quickly as possible, as an effort
that can be tied to the same problems of instability. The problem is very
complex and vexing. The economic solutions suggested by Ayittey do not
really address such problems since his focus was at generating
wealth-producing enterprises. The maintenance of such wealth once created
seems not to have been of much concern to Ayittey. I suppose the �free
market,� much counted upon by Ayittey, might be the force that would
inhibit capital flight out of Africa
It will be very hypocritical to
condemn only the thieves and embezzlers of African national wealth and not
prosecute the receivers of such �stolen goods.� International banks,
their top officers, and other facilitators who either knowingly or
negligently accept cash deposits, and deposits of other valuable
commodities, such as gold, diamond etcetera who should have known due to
their specialized duties as bankers, accountants, auditors of the
legitimacy of the goods received by such banks and other institutions,
should all be held accountable. Laws and legal procedures must be
instituted and put in place in order to counter such further depletion of
Africa�s national wealth by leaders and their cooperative international
banks and corporations and their officers.
VI. Where Ayittey Failed and Conclusion
As I have stated at the
beginning of this commentary, Ayittey has written a great book; however,
there are few instances where he has failed miserably because of
overstating his ideas or from unsubstantiated assertions. It is only
proper to point out such problems to do him justice. At times Ayittey
makes oversimplified or exaggerated statements. One can see, for example,
his knowledge of Ethiopian history is quite shallow when one reads his
egregious remarks such as stating that �In Ethiopia, Muslims have long
been persecuted, under both Emperor Haile Selassie and Comrade Mengistu
Hailemariam.� [Ayittey, 115] The fact of the matter is Ethiopian rulers
have mostly been the model of tolerant-leadership when it comes to
Christian-Moslem relationships. Taking into consideration how Gragn
Mohammed, who was fully armed and financed by Ottoman Turks, devastated
Christian Ethiopia in the Sixteenth Century, the steps taken by Ethiopian
Emperors to insure that such attack does not occur again is very mild and
fully justified and appropriate. At any rate, Ethiopia is the only nation
in that part of the World where Moslems flourished as members of a
community with a majority of Orthodox Christians. Whether it is in Egypt,
the Sudan, Nigeria, Algeria, Tunisia et cetera where you find Moslem
majorities, the persecution and violence against Christians to this day is
relentless and abhorrent. He did not mention the suffering of Coptic
Christians in Egypt and the Sudan, of Jews in North Africa, etcetera.
Ayittey has completely
ignored the border disputes of African nations. He seems to have the least
concern about such factors being deterministic to the economic and
political policies of nations. Africa is divided up on the basis of
colonial treaties entered between European colonialists and with few local
leaders. There is no �rhyme or rhythm� to the current borders of
African nations. We can find tribes or clans split into three or more
nations, even family members can be identified with different national
identities imposed on them. It is a mistake to overlook such basic problem
of destabilization due to border conflict or uncertainty in any discussion
dealing with economic or political development in the African Continent.
There is also the creeping problem of religion closely connected with
issue of national identity and nationalism. Ayittey did not take religion
into consideration either, which is a major oversight in a book of that
nature.
Another area that Ayittey
barely touched was the pernicious interference of the American Government
in covert operations such as the ones carried out by the CIA, in the
internal affairs of African nations. Even in connection with the
well-known cases of the Congo, Ghana, and South Africa, there is no
discussion of the depth of interferences of the United States Government
in the internal affairs of those nations and people. Closer to home, he
did not mention how the CIA undermined the interest of Ethiopia as a
nation by financing rebel secessionist groups, such as the EPLF and TPLF.
Those two groups are now in power in the new nation of �Eritrea� and
Ethiopia respectively even though Ayittey was more than ready to criticize
President Clinton for praising the leaders of the two governments in 1998.
The bloody invisible hand of the United States Government is not so
invisible to the victims of its callous foreign policy. Ayittey seems not
to appreciate how destabilizing and disruptive foreign triggered
subversive activities can be to local economic growth. In fact, at a
closer look at how Ayittey systematically avoided to criticize the
government of the United States belays the suspicion expressed by some of
his critics that he is not an objective scholar writing about the economic
and political problems facing African nations, but an agent of
conservative United States political and economic forces. There by using
his skill and academic position, he is attempting to whit-wash the bloody
hands of the Government of the United States, a Government that caused
most of the failure of African Governments.
I cannot emphasize enough
the importance of having systems of political and economic structure, laws
and regulations in African nations. Leadership and individual initiatives
are all indispensable, however, without a system of law and regulations,
those leaders and entrepreneurs will all deteriorate into to tyrants and
corrupt and oppressive officials and criminals. The relationships between
people and their leaders require great skill to maintain. Its laws and
regulations as much as its culture preserve the structure of society to
great extent.
We Africans are faced with
very many serious problems and least of which is the intrusion of
�fly-by-night� foreign experts. For example, even
though I have far better understanding of Western political life than
Western scholars have of African political life, I still see areas in
Western political life that defies my understanding even after having
lived for almost thirty years in such communities. Such
form of restraint is absent in Westerners. It is commonplace to find the
Kaplans of the world having paid a fortnight visit to an African nation
making outrageous over-generalized remarks about the state of decay of
African communities and people with no hope whatsoever of recovery and
growth in the future. The fact of the matter is that in the long run the
people who would suffer steep decline are not the people of Africa, but
that of the Western World with their excessive greed, moral decay, rapidly
declining physical constitution, health et cetera, I see no reason for the
West to rejoice or thumb its nose at Africans. In this sense, I applaud
the optimistic vision of Ayittey even if his reasoning is at times riddled
with highly suspect positions. At any rate, Ayittey�s book is an
effective antidote to Sachs�s poisonous exaggeration and hyperbole on
the virtue of African leaders. Φ
�
Tecola W. Hagos
4
May 2005
- George B. N. Ayittey, AFRICA
UNCHAINED: The Blueprint for Africa�s Future, Palegrave
(Macmillan), 2005;
- Jeffrey D. Sachs, THE
END OF POVERTY: Economic Possibilities for Our Time, Penguin
Press, 2005.
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HYPOCRACY IN THE ETHIOPIAN ETHOS
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