| BOOK
REVIEW
Africa in the Post-Cold War International System
Edited by: Sola Akinade and Amadu Sesey
Publisher: Printer, P.O. Box 605, Herdon, Virginia 20172, USA. 1998
Pages: 232 price: £50 sterling (hardcover)
Reviewer: Kofi Akosah-Sarpong
in Montreal, Canada
How is Africa doing the Cold War? This book attempts to answer the
question by exploring how Africa is attempting to adjust to the
emerging international order. For this reason the contributors, said
to be some of the leading and most perspective scholars working on
African politics, economics, environment, history and international
relations look at topical issues like security and strategic issues,
human rights, conflict management, relations with great powers,
international organizations and multilateral financial institutions. The book is divided into two broad parts and has nine contributors
drawn from universities inside and outside Africa. Part 1 is entitled "Looking Inward" and looks at such issues like old concepts
and new challenges: African nationalism in the post-Cold War era;
Regional and sub-regional conflict management efforts; The
re-democratization process in Africa; Changing perspectives on human
tights in Africa and Southern Africa; and the end of apartheid:
opportunities and challenges. Part 11 is entitled "Africa and the Post-Cold War
International Environment." It has under its wings Africa and
global society: marginality, conditionality and conjuncture; Africa,
non-alignment and the end of the Cold War; Africa and the United
Nations; Global economic factors in Africa's environmental crisis; and
the triumph of realism: Africa and the Middle East. As a starter Africa, like other Third World regions, were caught in
the dance of the Cold War and the Sino-Soviet rivalry. Western
modernization theory tried to contain Soviet communist cancer for
development and help "backward, or traditional, societies develop
into 'modern' nation states, characterized by market economies,
democratic politics and the secularization of society, and in foreign
policy a commitment to the Western alliance." Whether looked from security, in terms of arms race or spheres of
influence, or development, in terms of what model of development would
speed up development fast, the whole Cold War rivalry were a showcase
of what development model was better. Each side of the East-West
divide thought their models of development were better. Africa,
powerless, became the pawn as an experiment guinea pig in testing
either of the developmental models. All these undermined Africa's
development struggles since either of the models were either
capitalist or Marxist, which were all Eurocentric. It is in the climate of failure of this rush of non-African
developments upon Africans, and taken fully by Africa's weak elites,
no matter their ideological standing, that led to the opening up of
the flood-gate of coups d'etat, grand corruption, development
confusion, civil wars, hatred, destruction of native culture and
knowledge, and cultural disarray, especially in the 1960s. In the climate of 'Faustian bargain' issues such as democracy, even
the West sacrificed human rights, accountability, and free market
enterprise. The editors describe this period of 'erosion of democratic
ideal', in the case of the Western world. And in the Soviet Union,
this led to the 'erosion of socialist ideal', as "pragmatism
replaced ideology as the main criterion for the choice of African
allies." In such an atmosphere the game was finding a strong African ally,
like Somalia's Said Barry, and supplying him with arms. Thus, to
contain capitalist spread "Soviet Union began to exert influence
in Africa by supplying arms to embattled governments and supporting
national liberation movements opposed to Western interests." Coupled with confused elites these created development problems. More
painfully, these East-West rivalry for sphere of influence blinded
African elites from seeing the problems colonialism has created. The Cold War, in effect, 'frozen' these political problems that
were the legacy of colonialism. And these increasingly made the
African states weaker and weaker and weaker up until today. One of the
central problems was the artificiality of the African borders. Issues
of irredentism, the recovery of former territory that was part of an
African empire, or larger unit prior to colonialism. According to the
book "the weakness of African states has also led to persistent
problems of foreign intervention and regional security." All these weaknesses made Africa marginalized after the Cold War,
of which the book says this is "because of the way Great Powers
have always seen the continent as an extension of their strategic and
economic interests." And with the end of the Cold War other
superpower concerns and the coming to the fore of the former Soviet
satellite block further made Africa dark spot in the world. But aside
from all these, Africa still matters in terms of regional conflicts
and instability, which can hook the world only superpower into. The
concern of Islamic fundamentalism in Africa makes Africa matter, as
Sudan exemplifies. It is in this concerns that the promotion of democracy and human
rights has been given support in the post-Cold War world despite the
suspicion of differences in history and economics of Western world and
Africa. The view is that democracy will diminish regional conflicts
and make regimes, especially civilian, spend more on social issues
than military. And with the fragmentation of Soviet Union the existing
mental and political maps of the world were thrown into disarray,
prompting talks and agitations of succession here and there. In the
face of all these the pressure keeping the African map "remain
great." Coming from its earlier oversight in pushing for democracy and
human rights because of the Cold War, the West is now pushing for such
wrapped around the new political conditionalities. The central theme
of this is democratic governance and with economic/financial aid tied
to it. But the conundrum now is democracy and development and they are
to fit the African environment. Should democracy be rooted in African
experience and history or the Western one is so universal that there
is no need for such? The coming reality has sparked off the call for
African-centred democracy and development by both capitalists and
socialists in the face of ethnic conflicts. |