Reviewed by Tugrul Keskin, Portland State University
In this book, Martin Meredith
gives a brief critical history of Africa over the last fifty years of
independence. According to his analysis, African countries received
independence from its colonizers in the early 1950s; however, the last fifty
years demonstrate that this independence is a meaningless concept for most of
the continent. From the North to the South, Africa has faced more challenges
than prior to the independence period. However, from my perspective, Meredith
still looks at the problems from the colonizer’s mentality, and is still an
alien to the continent. To me, he does very god job of explaining and
critically analyzing economic exploitation after the 1950s; however, he is
still using methods such as blaming dictatorial regimes in Africa for the
problems of colonization. I think he forgets to understand who these
dictatorial and militaristic regimes, like in Nigeria were supported by, and
what conditions they produced.
In order to understand the
colonial mentality in Africa, I think it is important to analyze the role of
Kwameh Nkrumah in Ghana or Patrice Lumumba in the Congo, in the liberation
struggle. Europe or the West in fact never left Africa; instead, African
independence has been a de facto independence, because dependency was created
by the colonial regime or colonizer, such as the case in North Africa to
France, or West Africa to British and the US. Therefore, Meredith seems to
forget the basic facts of social, political and economic conditions of the
continent. Meredith portrays Nkrumah as an ordinary African Leader and Nkrumah
has negative impact on African people. Meredith’s orientalist and colonialist
approach can be clearly seen in this word about Nkrumah. Unlike Meredith’s
perspective, many Africans and scholars believe that Nkrumah was a great leader
for the African people and their struggle.
Nkrumah fought for African
liberation and unity, and was overthrown by a US-supported coup d’Ć©tat. Nkrumah
was Pan Africanist and also tried to liberate the entire continent; however, he
was not successful because he did not eliminate the heritage of the colonial
military in Ghana. On the other, Lumumba’s Congo faced a more destructive
militarized social and political dilemma. Lumumba was killed by the US and
Belgium supported coup d’Ć©tat and he was replaced with a military dictatorship,
which destroyed the soul of Africa. The military dictator who was supported by
Western Imperialism was Mobutu Sese who stayed in e power for 30 years.
When the independence struggle
was taking place in North, West and Middle Africa, social and political
conditions exploded in South Africa. Imperialism showed a different face in the
South under the Apartheid regime and this regime was supported by the British,
the US, and Europe for 30 years. Meredith explains the historical formation of
the Egyptian state, beginning with King Farouk and Gamal Abdel Nassir. Egypt is
a North African state which was under the control of European colonizers on and
off for more than century. Unlike Meredith’s approach in the book, the
political conditions of Egypt prior to independence were a result of this
colonization. Egypt became an authoritarian state after it received its
independence. One military ruler has followed the other one, and the country’s
economy is dependent on the US and Western financial support; therefore,
without economic independence, Egypt should not be considered a free state. In
this context, Egypt’s social, political and economic environment can be
understood as more destructive than that of a colonial state. In the book,
Meredith portrays the struggle for independence, and even after its
independence, its political structure is considered chaotic. Again, Meredith
did not leave his prejudice behind his writings, and he furthermore blames the
colonized peoples for the problems they have faced since the beginning of the
colonization.
In the book, Meredith describes
the North African liberation struggle as an ordinary liberation movement. I
think when we compare his book and Albert Memmi’s book of the Colonized and
Colonizer; we may able to see the difference between the perspective of the
colonized and colonizer very clearly.
Today, Africa is seen as a corrupt place, however, again Meredith
forgets to mention the role of the colonizers in conditions of bribery and corruption that
existed in African during the slavery and colonial period. It seems to be that
Meredith is trying to undermine the role of the 1960’s African Revolution.
Meredith also uses concepts such
as democracy, human rights, red tears, tyrants, blood diamonds, black gold and
violence. However, all of these concepts can be defined within the Western
economic structure, which facilitates for creation of social and political
environment. According to the book, tyrants were on the rise in Africa in the
1950s and 60s, especially after the independence. However, again, he forgot to
tell the readers where these tyrants were coming from, where have they been
getting support from and against whom? Another important subject is the concept
of democracy in Africa. Democracy is a Western term which is used in the
framework of Western capitalism; therefore, I do not think democracy will work
in Africa or any other part of the world. Meredith describes the concept as a
single definition, which he applies to all other countries in the world.
Meredith’s illustration of red tears or socialists in the context of the
African liberation struggle is not different than his description of tyranny.
He wrongly blames African socialist leaders such as Nyerere for the current
social, political and economic chaos in Africa.
In his book, Meredith also
mentions violence in Africa and he especially talks about the killing and
massacres among Africans and portrays them as savage peoples and by implication
the nations as savage nations. Martin Meredith does very well illustrating that
Africans cannot govern themselves but need to be civilized and educated in
order not to run amuck and annihilate each other. Meredith’s book reminds me of
the current Iraqi occupation and conditions of neo-colonization. Africa has
faced conditions of neo-colonization since the continent received its
meaningless independence in the 1950s.
In short, I do not recommend
Martin Meredith’s book, the Fate of Africa to readers who are genuinely
interested in reading and learning about modern African history, because
Meredith’s approach is another version of imperialism and he seems to
facilitate the role of Rudyard Kipling in the modern era of Africa. I would say that he is an orientalist
Africanist. In the end, I wish Meredith would criticize King Leopold as much as
he blames Nkrumah. I believe Martin Meredith, is instead attempting to cover
the role of imperialism in Africa today.
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