Politics

The invisible new “Cold War” is imbedded in development policies, plans and implementation. African scholars and opinion makers spend a great deal of time and energy debating, comparing, contrasting, and critiquing the Asia and Pacific development model led by China and the Western model led by the USA. The debate is healthy. But what ultimately matters are the value-added policies, programs, investment portfolios and infrastructure. A disconnected Africa cannot develop fast.

Colonialism by a different name is still the same. Having been forced to cede their colonial territories, colonialists and emerging imperialists designed new, sophisticated, and seemingly pro-African development, pro-free market, pro-human rights protocols, and pro-modernization instruments that bolstered the continued extraction and rent-seeking of financial and natural resources from Africa.

France and the national elites which it encouraged and created, still dominate Francophone Africa. Anglophone Africa is dominated by the United Kingdom and the domestic elites it trained, educated, and deployed. 

I commend the provocative proposal by Jonathan Powers and others for that a massive aid will be the solution to Africa’s problems. However, I am afraid to dispute that idea that a massive Western aid program will transform structural and institutional poverty and technological backwardness in this otherwise promising continent populated by the youngest population on the planet.

Surely, wouldn’t a massive infusion of aid into Africa be pouring money down a rat hole? Isn't this the mistake that was made in the past–enormous generosity by the rich countries only to see it wasted on misconceived projects, bad economic management, or siphoned away into war and corruption, as is evident in Zimbabwe, Congo, and Somalia right now?

Years ago, if you wanted to put a smile on a Ugandan’s face, mention the Pearl of Africa. That was because in 1908, Winston Churchill published a book titled, “My African Journey” in which he called Uganda the Pearl of Africa based on his tour of the country in 1907. Though Churchill was looking at the country through the eyes of a colonialist and a wildlife tourist, Ugandans were happy and proud of the description. They embraced the name knowing that pearls are beautiful and assumed that the description applied to all aspects of life in Uganda. If so, is Uganda still the Pearl of Africa as Churchill called it 114 years ago?

Ethiopians are eager and hopeful that the New Year will usher in durable peace for all. I too am eager to see this happen. Ethiopia’ s young people, Fano, Afar and Amhara Special Forces, Ethiopia’s National Defense Forces are shedding their blood in defense of their country. Girls and women are mobilized in support of their gallant heroes. Their resolve and determination to root out the cancerous Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) is admirable. It is only when they succeed that Ethiopia will enjoy a semblance of human security and peace.

“People ‘killed like chickens’ as ethnic tensions continue in Africa’s second most populous country”, the Guardian, June 19, 2022.

I had hoped that Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed will have the courage, wisdom, moral aptitude, and competence to transition Ethiopia from ethnic maladministration to that of representative governance underpinned by the rule of law and buffeted by strong national institutions. 

The last head of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev, the idealistic leader who accepted the end of communism, arrived in Berlin in November 1999 on a private visit to mark the 10^th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. In one of the speeches he gave at the occasion, Gorbachev’s voice was full of sadness.