What does Gaddafi’s fall mean for Africa?

Mahmood Mamdani writes:

“Kampala ‘mute’ as Gaddafi falls,” is how the opposition paper summed up the mood of this capital the morning after. Whether they mourn or celebrate, an unmistakable sense of trauma marks the African response to the fall of Gaddafi.

Both in the longevity of his rule and in his style of governance, Gaddafi may have been extreme. But he was not exceptional. The longer they stay in power, the more African presidents seek to personalise power. Their success erodes the institutional basis of the state. The Carribean thinker C L R James once remarked on the contrast between Nyerere and Nkrumah, analysing why the former survived until he resigned but the latter did not: “Dr Julius Nyerere in theory and practice laid the basis of an African state, which Nkrumah failed to do.”

The African strongmen are going the way of Nkrumah, and in extreme cases Gaddafi, not Nyerere. The societies they lead are marked by growing internal divisions. In this, too, they are reminiscent of Libya under Gaddafi more than Egypt under Mubarak or Tunisia under Ben Ali.

Whereas the fall of Mubarak and Ben Ali directed our attention to internal social forces, the fall of Gaddafi has brought a new equation to the forefront: the connection between internal opposition and external governments. Even if those who cheer focus on the former and those who mourn are preoccupied with the latter, none can deny that the change in Tripoli would have been unlikely without a confluence of external intervention and internal revolt.

The conditions making for external intervention in Africa are growing, not diminishing. The continent is today the site of a growing contention between dominant global powers and new challengers. The Chinese role on the continent has grown dramatically. Whether in Sudan and Zimbawe, or in Ethiopia, Kenya and Nigeria, that role is primarily economic, focused on two main activities: building infrastructure and extracting raw materials. For its part, the Indian state is content to support Indian mega-corporations; it has yet to develop a coherent state strategy. But the Indian focus too is mainly economic.

The contrast with Western powers, particularly the US and France, could not be sharper. The cutting edge of Western intervention is military. France’s search for opportunities for military intervention, at first in Tunisia, then Cote d’Ivoire, and then Libya, has been above board and the subject of much discussion. Of greater significance is the growth of Africom, the institutional arm of US military intervention on the African continent.

This is the backdrop against which African strongmen and their respective oppositions today make their choices. Unlike in the Cold War, Africa’s strongmen are weary of choosing sides in the new contention for Africa. Exemplified by President Museveni of Uganda, they seek to gain from multiple partnerships, welcoming the Chinese and the Indians on the economic plane, while at the same time seeking a strategic military presence with the US as it wages its War on Terror on the African continent.

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One thought on “What does Gaddafi’s fall mean for Africa?

  1. Christopher Hoare

    Professor Mamdani suggests the likelihood of further “Responsibility to Protect” interventions has increased with the success of the NATO action against Qaddafi — “The conditions making for external intervention in Africa are growing, not diminishing.” He does not hide the fact that the Security Council go-ahead will be triggered by murderous actions against their own populations by corrupt governments. Implicitly, a growing problem in Africa.

    This cannot be considered a bad thing if it saves lives, improves the societies, and reduces the amount of lies used to hide the perpetrators’ criminal actions (as in Syria, Libya, and Bahrein). The simple way to keep from inviting outside intervention is to behave lawfully and progressively—as long as the Security Council is not controlled by nations with an agenda of changing governments for their own benefit, serve the people, not corporations and ones croneys.

    Perhaps the General Assembly of the UN is the only body that can oversee these actions of the Security Council—if it had the authority of its delegatios being elected by the world’s people instead of hand picked by some of the worst offenders the world needs to depose.

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