Africa does not need political unity; it needs to rally round proven ideas.
When South African opposition leader Julius Malema addressed the Annual General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association the apex body of Nigerian lawyers last month, he minced no words about what he believes the continent’s fifty-four-odd countries need to do as a matter of historical urgency: unite. According to the self-styled “President and Commander in Chief” of the Economic Freedom Fighters, African unity “is the only path through which the continent can fully assert its sovereignty and shield itself from external manipulation and exploitation,” and only unity can “unlock economic growth by removing artificial borders and building a shared continental market that benefits all Africans.” To this end, Mr. Malema called for “the establishment of one President (sic), one army, one Parliament, and one currency for the African continent.”
As a political thinker, Mr. Malema may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but the applause that greeted his proposal speaks volumes about the growing popularity of the idea that, as Mr. Malema puts it, “African unity will put an end to xenophobia, as people will no longer see themselves as foreigners but as Africans sharing one destiny.” Or that “it is only through a united Africa that the continent can reclaim its rightful place in global affairs, and no longer be dictated to by Western powers.”
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With the arguable exception of “sovereignty,” no other idea has excited a warmer feeling or found a more receptive audience among a certain tribe of African intellectuals and political leaders. As the intellectual cousin of “Afro-democracy,” which rests on the principle of the inherent exclusivity and inscrutability (to non-Africans, that is) of African culture, Pan-Africanism has been embraced by the region’s latest cohort of military adventurers who tout it as the cornerstone of their “anti-imperialist agenda.” It partly accounts for the extreme popularity of opportunists like Burkinabè strongman Ibrahim Traoré, seen by many young Africans as the Anointed Leader who will raise the standard against the continent’s perceived foreign adversaries.
Outside the continent, particularly in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Caribbean, where Pan-Africanism has historically boasted many distinguished advocates, the feeling that “genuine” independence will continue to elude African countries until they unite under a common political umbrella (until the continent becomes a country so to speak) is held in earnest. As a matter of fact, such is the fervency of this wish to see Africa unite, the idea being that such unity is crucial to the pride and moral upliftment of Africans and people of African ancestry, that many a diasporic African would stubbornly show “solidarity” with an African leader, no matter how morally odious or buffoonish, so long as he continues to posture as a Pan-Africanist and mouth the necessary pieties.
This ideological affect explains one of the all-time tragedies in relations between Africans and diasporic Africans: the latter’s penchant (I’m speaking specifically of a vocal and influential group of intellectuals and members of the political elite) for always siding with profligate and repressive African leaders: Mobutu Sese Seko, Sani Abacha, Hastings Kamuzu Banda, Haile Selassie, etc. The same logic explains the skepticism or, in the worst examples, outright hostility towards African intellectuals who champion Western ideas; not necessarily because the ideas in question are epistemologically untenable (after all, those who purport to reject them do not mind emigrating to and living in societies underwritten by the self-same ideas), but because the African intellectuals who champion them are seen as either “inauthentic,” “Europhilic,” or simply traitors to their “African identity.”
Be that as it may, Pan-Africanism’s claims warrant scrutiny on their own terms, not just because of the idea’s recrudescence, but also because of what appears to be, pace Malema, its nascent articulation as a theory of African development. Do African countries really need to unite in order to “unlock economic growth” and will such unity “put an end to xenophobia” on the continent? Is Africa really doomed unless its estimated 1.5 billion people are somehow brought together under “one President, one army, one Parliament, and one currency”? Does the supposedly timeless African cultural personality upon which the identitarianism animating this Pan-African vision really exist?
As it happens, history is Pan-Africanism’s most stubborn foe. The core contention that African countries should unite rests upon the demonstrably false assumption that they used to be. In any case, it is ironic that those who blame colonialism for imposing artificial boundaries, hence corralling together communities who had next to nothing in common, are the same people who insist that Africa was a single entity prior to the colonial encounter. In their desperation for historical validation, Pan-Africanists invent a past that never existed, while managing to distort the one that actually did. This is not to say that an idea is necessarily invalidated by the implausibility of its historical anchor. The problem with Pan-Africanism is that that its theory of history is philosophically of a piece with its understanding of Africans’ collective identity as history’s longsuffering victims. For this reason, Pan-Africanism needs history more than history needs it.
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Which is why its view of the outside world is so unappeasably adversarial, hence the ridiculous notion of a continent always being “dictated to by Western powers,” the very powers who are presumably barring Africa from taking its rightful place in the comity of nations. Holding this notion in the immediate aftermath of colonialism is one thing; not letting go amid such blossoming of African agency across various walks of life is the very definition of obtuseness.
Pan-Africanism’s muddle is a reminder of the fate that invariably awaits any social project with identity as its raison dêtre, and it is hardly surprising that its contemporary advocates have nothing to ground their argument on other than that.
Unlocking Africa’s economic development should not hinge on an improbable political unity in an unspecified future. We already know from the experience of other societies what works and what does not. Africa must seize the day. There is really no excuse at this point.
