People and Politics Worldwide
sub-Saharan Africa

I. Context
A. Cradle of human civilization
homo sapiens – 1st in sub-saharan Africa, 5-8 mln years ago

B. 53 independent states; ¼ of the UN Gen Assembly; many involved in the non-aligned movement

C. Colonialism/Triple heritage: 
African (animist), European (Christian), N. African (Muslim)

1. Animism – indigenous religions in the majority in 14 countries;

2. Islam – majority in 14 countries; not in Nigeria yet, each year, more pilgrims to Mecca are from Nigeria than from Egypt or Iran. Sharia law the law in N Nigeria, Sudan

Source:  Islam for Today

3. Christian majority in 18 countries

D. Geography: varied;
1. Regions: N Plateau/Sahara; C and S plateau; E Highlands
2. Rivers: Nile, Congo, Niger, Zambesi, Orange; these facilitated trade, exploration, conquest

E. Natural resources: gold, diamonds, uranium, petroleum, rain forest products, good climates for cash crops (coffee, tea, cotton, peanuts, cocoa, palm oil)

F. Population today:
1. exploding; 3% increase per year = doubling rate 23 yrs.

2. yet also plagued by famines, floods, epidemics (malaria, typhus, tb, HIV/AIDs)

3. Perception in West – why don’t they stop having so many kids? many countries are not self-sufficient in food (e.g.Japan, Switzerland, Netherlands) yet we don’t charge them with overpopulation;

moreover Africa is much less densely populated than China, India – only 16 people per km2

4. Because of their experiences with colonization, Africans view family planning programs of international NGOs with suspicion (anecdote about parents telling kids not to drink the milk at school because they feared it was laced with contraceptives)

II. History of Contact with the West
A. Romans, 2nd Century CE, n. coast of Mediterranean, then minimal ‘til

B. 15th Century – Europe’s “Age of Exploration”
1450s – Euros sailing along W coast
1488 – Bartolomieu Dias (Port) 1st to sail around the horn
1497 – Vasco da Gama (Port) 1st to sail to India by rounding the horn

C. 1795-1930 influx of Euro colonizers, geographers, missionaries

D. 1884-5 Conference of Berlin – Euros divide up continent for themselves

III. Legacies of Colonialism
A. ethnic conflict, civil wars, militarism (more below IV on ethnic conflict)

B. economies based on cash crops/natural resource exports

C. economic dependence upon the West (dependency theory)

D. perhaps most debilitating – psychological dependency (567)  Missionary “altruism” and charity bread culture of dependency. Customs like anecdote of Ethiopian Ortho Church encouraging people to go door to door asking for offerings in name of saints encourages “beggary;” this and all religious observances take time away from work, survival

IV.  African responses to post-colonial challenges
A. African socialism (568)
1. stresses indigenous values of collectivity, mutual responsibility which grow out extended family networks;

2. “self”-reliance – with “self” referring now to country, continent

3. consciously NOT choosing Soviet model, or capitalist model – something else; something African

4. develop *people not just industry, things, increased output (569); pyramids, industrialism can be accomplished by force; human development can’t

5. espoused by theorists/politicians like Kwame Nkumrah (Ghana), Leopold Senghor (Senegal), Julius Nyere (Tanzania), Tom Moya, Oginga Odinga (Kenya), Kenneth Kaunda (Zambia)

Senghor - negritude – cultural values of blacks everywhere; idea of an african personality; to enhance cultural development of people deprived of identity by colonialism and slavery

Nyerere – like Ghandi and Mao, stressed necessity of national work ethic and moral character; true development stems from indigenous resources – the land and the people – not from capital and technology

**this argument reverberates in S Afr President Mbeki’s controversial stance on HIV/AIDs and antiretrovirals, drug companies, etc.

B. pan-Africanism/African Unity
1. black power via black consciousness, self-definition, unity– espoused by many thinkers in US (Marcus Garvey, WEB DuBois), Europe, West Indies and Africa

2. role for black intellectuals in defining, promoting black consciousness

3. quasi-Marxist view – Africans as proletarians
Org of African Unity founded in Addis Ababa in 1963 by Nkumrah, Nyere and others;

4. principles of noninterference in internal affairs of member, respect for territorial integrity of members; (not upheld in Chad, Tanzania/Uganda)

5. However, Nyere says today we are more “Tanzanian, more Kenyan than African.”

6. is African unity a pipe dream in light of ethnic divisiveness within particular countries? is there reason to believe that continental unity is easier to achieve that “national” unity??

V.  Ethnic conflict
A. concept of “nation-state” – foreign, problematic;
1. problem for us in the West, especially, because these societies seem to us to be dysfunctional by our nation-state yardstick

 B. (578) connections among seemingly unrelated variables – colonialism, climate, culture
e.g. Nigeria – climates stratified N-S in layers; North, arid, then savanna, then rainforest, then swamp, coastal plains

each of these climates created different cultures, economic systems – ways of life

British colony spanned all of these; created “modern Nigeria” with disparate peoples ? ethnic complexity, conflict, need for “nation-building”

C. Existing ethnic differences, layered with European influences (languages: Eng, Fr, Port, Spanish, Dutch (Afrikaans); religions: Christianity, Islam)
these often reinforced, reified differences among groups

D. legacy: “mosaics” of ethnic groups and languages; some countries have as many as 200 ethnic groups (e.g. Chad, Cameroon; 130 in Tanzania, 80 in Dem. Rep. of Congo; Nigeria-various estimates)

VI. Development legacies
single commodity economies
producing cash crops but having to import food
foreign debt
Jeffrey Sachs/neo-liberalism – “the West knows best”
jubilee movement (missionary altruism continues?)