Towards a new African identity

Towards a new African identity

• Where is Zimbabwe's Obama?

• Power sharing versus power transfer

• Business has role as change agent in Africa

• Interrogating Ownership in Africa

• Actors might change, but Zimbabwe plot stays same

• The world according to Mandela and Mugabe

• Mugabe needs incentives to reform, not sanctions

• The agenda for change post-Sharm El-Sheikh

• What is the meaning of independence?

• Has Mugabe's war bluster won it?

• Imperialism no threat to organised people

• Mugabe using language of xenophobes

• SA's BEE project intersects with xenophobia

• A Rainbow Nation without black

• A post-election conversation with Mugabe

• Doubts aside, Tsvangirai now best bet for a New Zimbabwe

• African mines remain theatres for foreign operators

• Mugabe's self-help constitutional order

• The New Zimbabwe is almost upon us

• Zimbabweans have spoken, and the message is in the detail

• Mugabe's re-election would be disaster for private enterprise

• Zimbabweans at the polls: the great debates

• Change cannot wait for Madhuku's post-election ambitions

• Voting for change in Zimbabwe

• Can an independent win in Zimbabwe? Yes he can!

• Makoni: puppet, Zanu PF agent or national hero?

• Who is behind Makoni? Please count me in!

• Obama v Billary Clinton: lessons for Africa

• If Zuma is corrupt, who isn't?

• Charamba gives civil service a very bad name

• Be the change that you want to see

• The paradox of African liberation and change

• Zimbabwe and the Jacob Zuma factor

• The EU-Africa relationship post-colonialism

• Beyond Lisbon: setting the African agenda

• Implications of Zuma winning ANC presidency

• Africa's enduring economic apartheid

• Does indigenisation threaten law of succession?

• Defining the role of the State in post-colonial Africa

• Mushore's ordeal and the Zimbabwe we want

• Does rule of law pose a threat to Africa?

• Capitalism may challenge the poor, but it gives them hope

By Mutumwa D. Mawere
(www.mmawere.com)

DID you know that Africa with 53 independent and sovereign states is the world's second-largest, at about 30.2 million sq km covering about 6% of the Earth’s total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area, and second most-populous with a population of about 922 million (as of 2005) accounting for about 14.2% of the world’s human population, after Asia?

The continent is widely regarded as the origin of humans but its borders today originate from European colonial construction and no serious attempt has been made over the last 52 years to seriously address the identity challenges that confront the continent in the post-colonial and post-Cold War eras.

It must be accepted that post-colonial Africa’s ability to live up to its promise has been frequently hampered by political and economic stability, corruption, conflict, violence, tyranny notwithstanding the fact that the vast majority of the nations have adopted republican constitutions.

However, post-colonial Africa’s relationship with democracy has regrettably been an unhealthy one with many of the states that were founded with great hope and promise routinely end up degenerating into military dictatorships.

Even the states that are run be well educated African leaders have not fared well suggesting that literacy on matters of governance may not have any causal link to formal education.

The colonial state invested heavily in ethnic divisions and conflicts to the extent that the post colonial state has not been able to craft a new civilization based on mutuality and common purpose.

The inheritors of many of the African post colonial states who were themselves the primary victims of colonial injustice have tended to perceive themselves as being the only dependable group that could maintain order and in so doing protect sovereignty.

In Africa , coups remain a recurring aspect of public life. During 1956 through 2001, 30 African nations experienced 80 successful coups yet the coups the transfer of power did not address the development challenges facing the relevant countries.

Military adventurism has been most prone in West Africa reflecting the general attitude to the rule of law in post colonial Africa.

Post colonial Africa’s revolutionary routine confirms the generally held view that to get the continent into the right track will require a change of thinking not only among Africa’s leaders but the general citizenry as well about what it means to be an African and the obligations that should be associated with such an identity.

Those who love Africa as many of us purport to do are compelled to do more to change it including an investment in a new kind of literacy about the role of citizens in the national democratic revolutions.

The continent is well endowed with rich mineral and other resources and yet the connection between its citizens and the resources is at best remote and such connection has not been able to spur development.

It was not accidental that the first address for Africa’s post colonial revolutionary leaders was statehouse but the economic address has been elusive.

As we celebrate the heritage month in South Africa, we are all reminded about the challenges of building a sustainable and durable post colonial Africa. There is a lot that divides post colonial Africa than unites it. There remains a serious leadership deficit in inspiring Africans to indentify with the continent’s challenges rather many Africans look at developed countries as a source of inspiration and a moral compass.

For Africa to change direction, it is important that citizens of the continent seize this unique opportunity to reclaim their future.

Many Africans have come to believe that the state can solve African problems without critically examining the causal link between governments’ role in nation building and the active participation of citizens in shaping the future.

The choices for Africans remain limited not because of any conspiracy from without but rather the inability of us to properly locate the role of the state as an agent of change with that of citizens as owners of the change agenda.

The governments of most post colonial Africans states have been constructed on the logic that the state can be relied upon to bring about the kind of changes that are needed for Africa to rebrand itself.

However, this has tended to crowd out individual initiative to the extent that the few enlightened Africans with the passion to make a difference have been externalized from the continent.

The avenues of opportunities in Africa continue to diminish as investment in natural resources is being led by foreign capital.

To the extent that Africans in their majority remain poor, their voice in informing public policy is at best marginal or non-existent.

South Africa, the youngest African state is facing its growing pains to provide the kind of leadership required for the continent.

Barely after turning 14, the country’s leadership is divided to the extent that the confidence in the state by the very people the state is supposed to serve, it at its lowest ebb.

It is significant that the people who are alleging that the state is being manipulated to settle personal disputes are predominantly members of the ruling party.

What does the South African; Zimbabwean and Kenyan examples of democracy tell us about Africa ’s prospects for lifting itself from its status as the residue of human progress? How can a new African identity be forged? Whose responsibility should this be? Can a model structured on donor dependency be sustainable?

The role of race in post colonial Africa has to be openly debated. Even in the context of Africa with its rich heritage, the language being used by people in power suggests that to build consensus about what is required to lift the continent up is a big challenge not only because there is a belief that blacks can only be strengthened by weakening whites.

The language of empowerment is deeply rooted in the belief that whites are rich because black are poor and, therefore, the only way to level the playing field is to use the state as an instrument for transferring ownership of assets from whites to blacks.

The solution to Africa’s challenges lies more in a change of attitudes about wealth creation than in asset or power transfer.

It cannot be denied that the African consumer market is dominated by black Africans who by consuming goods and services supplied by people the purport to be against i.e. white are actually perpetuating the disadvantages that the pretend to be against.

It would be wrong if a new African identity is framed on the basis that property rights in post colonial Africa must be allocated on colour line not on the ability to convert such rights into tangible products and services.

In the market place, it should not matter who the producer of goods or services but if such goods and services can be openly traded.

Africa’s future will only be as bright as we collectively want it to be.

Mutumwa Mawere's weekly column is published on New Zimbabwe.com every Monday. You can contact him at: mmawere@global.co.za
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