Idea of an African super state is superfluous

WHEN I introduced the subject of a ‘United States of Africa’ by 2015 during a dinner conversation, a Cameroonian friend replied by telling me that I should stop thinking and talking about Africa as it might give me cancer.

I might not get cancer as a columnist just by thinking about these issues as my friend suggested, but there was some irony and truth in that statement now that I have come to think seriously about the whole notion of political union by 2015. I thought the whole idea would not get that far and get to enjoy the status it is enjoying today in the form of a summit that was dubbed the ‘grand debate’.And it is at this point in time somehow a misstatement to say that when the President of Libya flouts an opinion, he always has many takers and fewer critics.And those reserved or critical about his opinions would rather mutter them quietly.So that this idea (which I want to simply refer to as an opinion) had takers in the form of Ghana’s president, John Kuffour for whom I had high esteem caught me by surprise.As for the current president of the African Union, Alpha Konare it was expected for he has not provided and led the Union with the necessary zeal and institutional leadership.All these reinforced my jaundiced view of African leaders and the future they want to craft for us ordinary citizens.But out of this muddle, something positive also came out at a domestic level: first a motion to discuss Khaddafi’s opinion was introduced in Parliament by former Prime Minister Hage Geingob.I don’t know if Dr Geingob’s introduction of this motion had anything to do with where he stands on the issue or if it was a question of making a foreign policy issue accessible for broader public debate.His position on this issue – cautious support and reservation on the other hand – did help contextualise the debate.And this motion elicited an interesting response from amongst others our foreign minister Marco Hausiku who expressed reservations about the viability of a unitary African government at present.That reserve is important for it does not mean that as a government we don’t entertain the idea, but that we simply are concerned with the timing proposed in Khadaffi’s grand plan for continental leadership.In that connection Hausiku cited a laundry list of conundrums that would hinder the formation of an African government within the envisaged timeframe.My position on the idea about an African super-state is extreme and it is not informed by any imperialist reasoning or desire to please Europeans, as Tjitjo would placatedly argue.I think that there is something such as the clarity of the battlefield and the fog of war.On this issue, we are not even dealing with either of the two because the arguments that are provided about the necessity of an African super-state are not only superfluous, but they don’t resonate well when we look at Africa’s international relations.Apparently, amongst the many superfluous reasons that would necessitate political union was the desire to end Africa’s wars.But when we study African conflict, we would conclude that many of the conflicts or wars on the continent are not of an interstate nature.They are civil wars and coups d’état, period! To put it another way, they are not between Namibia and Botswana, but they are mostly fought along tribal lines and the prime motivator being access to or the redistribution of resources within national boundaries.Certainly, there are exceptions where the conflict dynamics tend to be of trans-national nature.Our timid and not so courageous position on this issue underlines a foreign policy that is characterised by generalisations on African issues.Any idea that is supposedly pro-African or that lumps the unity in its construction is supported without clearly breaking up positions in terms of the merit and demerits that they emit.When Nkwame Nkrumah spoke about the United States of Africa, he was speaking within the context of the geopolitics of the time and at best we would not be considering what he said then to be the chord or idea that should bind us as Africans.We need to do things that are necessary before we talk about things that are unnecessary.To put it another way, how does a continent as vast as this one entertain the idea of a unified government giving orders from Tripoli? In fact, these kinds of ideas do reinforce the racial notions that all Africans speak the same language, have the same desires.Therefore, I think that the discussions around an African-super-state, in as much as the idea of political union by 2010 was rejected in parts, were a waste of time.Time these African leaders should have spent on discussing serious issues that affect ordinary Africans.Alfredo Tjiurimo Hengari is a PhD fellow in political science at the University of Paris- Pantheon Sorbonne, France.I thought the whole idea would not get that far and get to enjoy the status it is enjoying today in the form of a summit that was dubbed the ‘grand debate’.And it is at this point in time somehow a misstatement to say that when the President of Libya flouts an opinion, he always has many takers and fewer critics.And those reserved or critical about his opinions would rather mutter them quietly.So that this idea (which I want to simply refer to as an opinion) had takers in the form of Ghana’s president, John Kuffour for whom I had high esteem caught me by surprise.As for the current president of the African Union, Alpha Konare it was expected for he has not provided and led the Union with the necessary zeal and institutional leadership.All these reinforced my jaundiced view of African leaders and the future they want to craft for us ordinary citizens.But out of this muddle, something positive also came out at a domestic level: first a motion to discuss Khaddafi’s opinion was introduced in Parliament by former Prime Minister Hage Geingob.I don’t know if Dr Geingob’s introduction of this motion had anything to do with where he stands on the issue or if it was a question of making a foreign policy issue accessible for broader public debate.His position on this issue – cautious support and reservation on the other hand – did help contextualise the debate.And this motion elicited an interesting response from amongst others our foreign minister Marco Hausiku who expressed reservations about the viability of a unitary African government at present.That reserve is important for it does not mean that as a government we don’t entertain the idea, but that we simply are concerned with the timing proposed in Khadaffi’s grand plan for continental leadership.In that connection Hausiku cited a laundry list of conundrums that would hinder the formation of an African government within the envisaged timeframe.My position on the idea about an African super-state is extreme and it is not informed by any imperialist reasoning or desire to please Europeans, as Tjitjo would placatedly argue.I think that there is something such as the clarity of the battlefield and the fog of war.On this issue, we are not even dealing with either of the two because the arguments that are provided about the necessity of an African super-state are not only superfluous, but they don’t resonate well when we look at Africa’s international relations.Apparently, amongst the many superfluous reasons that would necessitate political union was the desire to end Africa’s wars.But when we study African conflict, we would conclude that many of the conflicts or wars on the continent are not of an interstate nature.They are civil wars and coups d’état, period! To put it another way, they are not between Namibia and Botswana, but they are mostly fought along tribal lines and the prime motivator being access to or the redistribution of resources within national boundaries.Certainly, there are exceptions where the conflict dynamics tend to be of trans-national nature.Our timid and not so courageous position on this issue underlines a foreign policy that is characterised by generalisations on African issues.Any idea that is supposedly pro-African or that lumps the unity in its construction is supported
without clearly breaking up positions in terms of the merit and demerits that they emit.When Nkwame Nkrumah spoke about the United States of Africa, he was speaking within the context of the geopolitics of the time and at best we would not be considering what he said then to be the chord or idea that should bind us as Africans.We need to do things that are necessary before we talk about things that are unnecessary.To put it another way, how does a continent as vast as this one entertain the idea of a unified government giving orders from Tripoli? In fact, these kinds of ideas do reinforce the racial notions that all Africans speak the same language, have the same desires.Therefore, I think that the discussions around an African-super-state, in as much as the idea of political union by 2010 was rejected in parts, were a waste of time.Time these African leaders should have spent on discussing serious issues that affect ordinary Africans.Alfredo Tjiurimo Hengari is a PhD fellow in political science at the University of Paris- Pantheon Sorbonne, France.