Big powers jostling for influence in security-starved Africa 

July 29, 2015, 12:00 pm

Even if some sections of the world are currently seeing the African continent through the eyes of US President Barrack Obama, who is on an historic African tour, the more knowledgeable among them would need to concede that the continent has not changed much over the decades since decolonization.

If these perceptive sections are familiar with the work of that famous Algerian psychoanalyst and political activist of the fifties and sixties, Frantz Fanon, they would be struck by the fact that the common people of Africa are being compelled by many of their rulers to remain bogged down in the situation of ‘The Wretched of the Earth’, the title given by Fanon for his remarkable socio-political tract on Africa’s development dilemmas.

Political observers and students of Africa would do well to read ‘The Wretched of the Earth’, if they have not already done so, to better understand the exploitative mindset of some of the continent’s rulers and to gain a deeper insight into the political, economic and social ‘dynamics’ of the continent, which have conspired to keep the majority of Africa’s people in abject poverty and deprivation. The socio-political and economic conditions in most of Africa are remaining unchanged, the readers of Fanon would realize.

To be sure, most of us in Asia are in no position to speak patronizingly about Africa. For the majority of the people of Asia, and even for those of Latin America, nothing has changed markedly over the decades from the development point of view. Some of the political classes of the Asian continent, for instance, are thriving, mostly on the basis of ‘Black Money’ and we in Sri Lanka are more than familiar with this species of parasitism.

We realize that President Obama could very well have been speaking about the political and social elites of the majority of the developing countries when he was quoted as saying by the media, during his tour of Kenya, that one ‘does not have to be a forensic accountant to know what is going on.’ Obama gave the examples of ‘officials driving expensive cars or building houses far above what their salaries would allow.’

In ‘The Wretched of the Earth’, Fanon, elucidating on what went wrong with post-independence Africa, pinpoints in particular the parasitic role of the ruling classes in the continent’s economic, political and social backwardness. If national unity, for example, is continuing to evade some countries of Africa, it is mainly because the continent’s ruling classes have failed to work towards it over the years. However, they have not forgotten to work assiduously towards their class and self interests. This is, of course, applicable to the majority of the countries of South Asia too, with Sri Lanka’s political elite ‘outshining’ its counterparts in the region from the viewpoint of acquisitiveness.

What the US President had to say of gay rights and ‘difference’ in Kenya is, in fact, profoundly relevant to the problem of ethnicity which affects the majority of developing countries. Obama said: ’When you start treating people differently, because they’re different, that’s the path whereby freedoms begin to erode. And bad things happen.’ The US President has gone to the heart of the problem of ethnicity here. When minority communities, for example, are treated ‘differently’ by governments, things begin to ‘go wrong’ for countries. But it is the bounden duty of democratic governments to build national unity within their boundaries. Fanon has proved prophetic in this regard because most developing countries have failed to address the issue of ethnicity earnestly and knowledgeably.

A connected question which should have the developing countries concerned is whether the presence of the major global powers in Africa is contributing in a substantial way towards the development and material uplift of the continent. Sections in China are reportedly pooh-poohing the US President's visit to the African continent by saying that the US is merely trying to upstage China, which is already enjoying a substantial presence in the continent by way of its involvement in the latter's infrastructure development. These quarters have gone on to suggest that the US suffers from policy inconsistency in Africa.

While it should not come as a surprise that the world's biggest powers are jostling for influence in the African continent, for this is the veritable natural tendency of powers of this kind, the issue that needs to be broached is whether the African people are enjoying a notable degree of security as a result of such involvement of the major powers in the affairs of the region.

What is pinpointed as 'security' here is not the mere enforcement of law and order by states. The US President too had occasion to emphasize the need for 'security' during his visits to Kenya and Ethiopia in the course of his talks with the relevant authorities, but what he apparently implied was mainly law enforcement.

But the law-enforcement dimension of security has gone very little distance in satisfying the fundamental emotional and material needs of the people of Africa, as the current conditions of instability in the continent amply demonstrate. As could be seen, internal conflicts and wars have only multiplied over the years in Africa, leaving people in their tens of thousands homeless and destitute. At present there are more than 30 million destitute and displaced persons in sub-Saharan Africa alone and neither law enforcement nor infrastructure development has helped their cause.

The US President has done right to focus on the rights of the 'different' sections of African society but it is also mandatory that the right to food and other aspects of the African people's material needs are met. It is also essential to increasingly democratize these societies so that the people will be saved from the clutches of the repressive sections of the political class.

Accordingly, a broad interpretation needs to be placed on 'security'. A purely law and order approach to security would lead to the repression of civilian publics everywhere in the developing world. However, if 'security' is understood to mean increasing democratization of polities, the liberation of the peoples of the developing world could be achieved to a degree.