| FAILURE OF AFRICAN LEADERSHIP ON THE CONTINENT |
| "SWISS-BANK SOCIALISM"
An FAF Publication
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Indigenous African governments were gerontocracies (government by elders). But the elders were not infallible. Nor was respect for the elders a form of servility. Young adult members of the community could participate in the decision-making process by either attending the council meetings or the village assembly. They could express their opinions openly and freely. The chief or councillors did not jail dissidents or those with different viewpoints. Nor did the chief loot the tribal treasury and deposit the booty in Swiss and foreign banks. More importantly, the African king or chief was chosen; he did not choose himself. Moreover, he could be destooled (removed) at any time.
While it is true that Africans are imbued with a greater sense of community awareness than most Western cultures, it did not mean the concept of the individual was completely absent. Recall the Fanti proverb: "Life is as you (the individual) make it." Recall also from Chapter 1 the phrase: "I am because we are." Though the "we" connotes community the "I" (the individual or personhood) was not entirely absent.
An analogous situation is supplied by the phrase: "Man is a social animal." The meaning here is that the human being desires the company of others and abhors living alone. Accordingly, each person yearns for some "togetherness" or "a community." But it cannot be inferred from this disposition that "man is a socialist."
Being a "social animal" (sociable or socialistic) is totally different from being a socialist. Socialism, as an ideology, is rooted in political, economic and intellectual control by the state. The ideology of socialism, as understood and practiced, entails government ownership of the means of production; the operation of state enterprises to the exclusion of privately owned businesses; price-fixing by the state and a myriad of state regulations and controls; one-party states and government ownership of the press. In other words, there is an absence of private ownership, free markets, political and intellectual freedom. Indigenous African systems are not characterized by these absences and therefore cannot be classified as "socialism." Economic, political and intellectual repression as well as state controls, as we have seen in the previous chapters, were never part of indigenous African tradition.
"Freedom from restraint [or controls] is the ruling passion" in Africans, it may be recalled. Terms used to describe indigenous Africa were "enormous political diversity," "cultural pluralism," and "over 2,000 ethnic groups." Certainly, this diversity could never have been produced under rigid economic, political and intellectual controls that are envisaged under socialism. Diversity and socialism, as currently practiced, are antithetical. Indigenous African traditions do not lend any support for the socialist ideology.
It is true the people of Africa pooled their resources together (family pot, working bees, extended family systems, etc.) and helped one another ("communal labor"). But being communalistic or socialistic did not necessarily mean the African peasant was communist or socialist and therefore willing to share his wealth equally with all members of the extended family. Julius Nyerere, ex-president of Tanzania, for example, mistook the peasant's emphasis on kinship and community as readiness for socialism - Ujaama (Nyerere, 1962). But even then, the sense of community did not extend beyond one's kinship group. This is important.
There have always been fierce competition among the various ethnic groups in Africa. Nyerere and others focussed on intra-group loyalty and cooperation and ignored inter-group rivalries. Accordingly, cooperation can be preached and practiced within a group but that between groups is illusionary. Even in traditional African societies, the degree of intra-group cooperation was not mandated by the chief. It was determined by each group according to its own demands and circumstances. But modern African leaders delude themselves by believing that they can dictate from above inter-group cooperation in their countries composed of various ethnic groups.
It was this fundamental inability on the part of African nationalist leaders to distinguish between "communalism" and "socialism" as well as between intra- and inter-group cooperation that has caused Africa much ruin. Even if allowances are made for understandable errors and misinterpretations on the part of the nationalists there was a more mundane and grievious transgression.
True socialism was never practiced by African leaders. The socialist state, with its coercive powers, became an instrument of oppression and exploitation. Those who expressed views different from the party line saw lives abruptly disrupted and themselves hauled into jail. Under African "socialism," the bourgeoisie riding about in Mercedes Benzes were now the same socialist party hacks and functionaries. A minister in Robert Mugabe's cabinet gave this definition: "In Zimbabwe, socialism means what is mine is mine but what is yours we share!"
"Swiss-Bank" Socialism
The "socialism" instituted in Africa was a peculiar type ("Swiss bank" socialism) that allowed the head of state and phalanx of kleptocrats to rape and plunder their national treasuries for deposit in foreign banks. Julius Nyerere was perhaps the only true practicing socialist, but his Chama Chamapinduzi (CCM) party was hopelessly riddled with corruption. Even Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, generally regarded as the "father of African socialism," was reputed to have stashed millions away in Swiss and other foreign banks, according to the Azu Crabbe Commission of Enquiry set by the Government of Ghana in 1967 to probe Nkrumah's assets.
Only a few African countries, such as Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Malawi, Kenya, Senegal and Togoland, spurned the "socialist path" and opted to stay with the "Western system." But this system too, like the indigenous African system, was not well understood either. Adopted in these countries were bastardized "Western models" that were characterized by heavy state intervention in the economy, a preponderance of state enterprises, one-party rule, declaration of life-presidents, personal dictatorships -- all of which were un-Western. In fact, beyond the diplomatic posturing and ideological rhetoric, there was little real difference between the "socialist" and "capitalist" (or pro-West and pro-East) African regimes.
Strictly from the African point of view, the ideological paradigm was irrelevant. Africans were not Americans, Chinese, Cubans, or Russians. In fact, it was probably for this reason that African heads of state declared themselves to be "non-aligned." But then, "non-alignment" turned out to be a strange type of movement that congregated in Havana and Harare to bash only the West. Insidiously, Marxism, Leninism, and all sorts of alien "isms," copied from abroad, were imposed on Africa by the same African nationalists preaching "non-alignment."
The portraits of Marx and Lenin graced the Red Square in Moscow. So too must go Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Cotonou (Benin), Luanda (Angola) and Maputo (Mozambique). Cuba had People's Defence Committees; so too must Ghana. The colonialists never accepted Africans for what they were and tried to remould them. In the post-colonial period, it was African leaders who were trying to reshape Africans in the image of foreigners.
Back in 1932, Kobina Sekyi, the Ghanaian lawyer and philosopher, wrote:
When each tribe or nation is enabled to develop along its own line, the respective geniuses of the several distinguishable races will harmonise in the establishment of a settled state of peace and prosperity, where development, scientific and social, including moral and political, advance will be steady (West Africa, Third Week of July, 1932).
But each tribe or nation can develop along its own lines, if and only if, it has the economic, political and intellectual freedom to do so. Incredibly, there are scholars, governments and institutions in the West who still maintain a water-tight separation between economics and politics, adamantly insisting that economic development is feasible under a tyrannical regime. Much Western aid was pumped into African countries laboring under hideous political regimes and wracked by civil wars and political chaos (Ethiopia, Mozambique, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda and Zaire, to name a few).
The route that allows each ethnic group to develop along its own lines is a loose confederate-type of political association which grants extensive local autonomy to the constituent groups. This was precisely the system ("indirect rule") adopted in the various indigenous empires of Africa, as we saw in Chapter 5. But after independence this type of rule was anathema to the elites, who insisted on strong, centralized rule and extreme concentration of powers in the hands of one bandit.
The issue here is not cultural nationalism or irredentism but rather a common-sensical observation. Just because California grows apples does not mean Africa too must raise them in order to develop or gain "acceptance" from the West. Even illiterate peasants know that what grows well in one part of the world may wither in another part because soil conditions, topography, drainage systems, temperatures and rainfall may be different. Of course, it is technologically possible to grow apples anywhere, even on the moon, using the latest advances in technology. But the costs would be astronomical, no pun intended.
Economic efficiency, or common sense, dictates that one plants what is suited to one's own environment. In the field of agriculture, the environment consists of the type of soil, the amount of rainfall, the type of pests and diseases, and so on. If this environment is not suitable, implanted seeds will not germinate. The same idea is conveyed by the statement that, a building which is not well-rooted in the surrounding ground culture, will collapse in no time. An application of this reasoning to field of development requires ensuring that a development project, scheme, seed or idea is well rooted in the host environment if the project is to succeed.
Development deals with people. In Africa, the people are the peasants -- the majority in every African nation. The environment in the field of development is their socio-economic and political set-up. That is, the whole gamut of their social, economic, cultural and political institutions at the grass-root level. Like a seed, if a development project does not fit into this socio-economic milieu or set-up, it will fail.
Africa's current development crisis emanates from the defective approach adopted by African elites and leaders with considerable support from foreign governments and multilateral agencies. Once again, it is the approach which is being criticized, not the objectives of development.1 What occurred in Africa was development by imitation. Grandiose projects and schemes were copied abroad and transplanted into Africa.
American farmers use tractors and chemical fertilizers; so too must we in Africa. New York has skyscrapers; so too must Africa in the middle of nowhere. London has doubledeck buses; so too must Accra and Lagos. The Soviet Union has state farms; so too must Africa. In 1964, Nkrumah demanded a bylaw to require all advertisements in Accra to be lit by neon so that the streets of the capital would resemble Piccadilly Circle in London. France once had an emperor. So Bokassa of the Central African Republic spent $20 million in 1976 to crown himself an emperor. Rome has a basilica; so too must Ivory Coast. The United States has two political parties; so too must Nigeria. Accordingly, the military regime of President Ibrahim Babangida created two political parties: the Social Democratic Party and the National Republican Convention.2 To add more insult, the military regime also wrote their party manifestoes. The list of this type of unimaginative aping ("so-too-must-we" syndrome) in Africa is endless.
It is a shame African elites and leaders lack original ideas and cannot use their imagination to craft authentically African solutions to African problems. If all they can do is to imitate, then they might as well bring back the foreigners to come and rule Africa.3 At the very least, they could copy or improve Africa's own indigenous systems if they were bereft of original ideas.
This issue is important. Before long, most of these foreign imitation projects began collapsing because they had no roots in the indigenous culture. Huge sums of foreign aid were wasted in the process. Africa's enormous $350 billion foreign debt in 1999 was testimony to the numerous "black elephants" littering the continent. Poor African peasants must now pay off a huge foreign debt incurred through elite stupidity.
1)   A consensus has now emerged among development experts and practitioners that the old "hand-me-down" approach has failed. The emphasis is now on a "bottom-up" approach.
2)   In the words of the Babangida, one party was "a little to the left and the other a little to the right." But Nigerians promptly dismissed this "Babangida boogie" as "a little to the north and a little to the south." The two parties were dubbed the Northern Republican Convention and the Southern Democratic Party.
3)   The ramifications of this unimaginative aping are too far-reaching to be discussed thoroughly here. They have been explored at length in my forthcoming book, Africa's Economic Crisis: The Indigenous Solution.
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George Ayittey,
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