Posted on May 16, 2011

The African Union (AU)Flag
As we approach Africa Day, 53 years since its declaration, I found myself wondering about the relevance of this day in the present. Originally called Africa Freedom Day, this day was intended to mark, the progress of the movement for liberation in Africa, and to symbolise freedom from colonial rule, foreign domination and exploitation. African leaders and political activists from newly independent states including Ghana, Ethiopia, Liberia, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Algeria and Cameroon met at the first conference of independent African states in Accra, Ghana on the 15th of April 1958. The aim of this meeting was to intensify the struggle for the liberation of the rest of Africa and to promote its ultimate unification so as to reverse the effects of the so called 'Scramble for Africa'.

In the 19th century, Africa was colonised by Britain, France, Portugal, Germany, Belgium, Italy and Spain. This 'Scrammble for Africa' by European countries resulted in the division of the continent into countries with boundaries that cut through cultural, ethnic and economic relationships. The end of the Second World War, coupled with the influence of the spread of socialism led to increased demands for freedom that saw rapid political decolonialisation of Africa. Newly independent states were faced with the challenge of developing the economy and transforming society, while at the same time addressing their indebtedness to institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Five years after the first meeting in Ghana, on May 25, 1963, leaders of thirty-two independent African States met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to form the Organization of African Unity (OAU). By then more than two thirds of the continent (37 countries) had achieved independence, it was on this noteworthy occasion that the date on which Africa Freedom Day was celebrated changed from April 15th to May 25th. This was symbolic of the quest for the unity of the continent and the struggle for the political and economic emancipation of the whole of Africa and its people. The President of Ghana, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah became the organisation's first president.

Although divisons with the organisation made the OAU's aim of African unity difficult to achieve, the OAU played a pivotal role in ending minority rule in Africa. With political colonisation coming to an end in 1994, at the fall of apartheid rule in South Africa, the challenge for the African Union (AU), the successor to the OAU, was to achieve economic freedom and strengthen democracy. Adoption of a non-interference clause in domestic affairs by the OAU turned out to be ineffective in building a culture of democracy in post-colonial Africa. As a result, the AU adopted a position that prioritised democracy, justice, and human rights as the means of building Africa's political future. The AU has made democracy a key requirement for its membership as it was deemed that there would be a correlation between the AU's political landscape and economic improvement of its member states.

The OAU was officially disbanded on 9 July 2002 by its last chairperson, then South African President Thabo Mbeki, and replaced by the AU. Although all African countries eventually became independent politically, it remained difficult for them to become truly independent of their former colonisers as there was still continued reliance on the former colonial powers for economic aid. The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) which serves as a map for Africa's economic resuscitation is the economic programme of the AU and was established to address these challenges.

According to South Africa's Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe, during his speech at the 2010 Africa Day celebration in Turkey, NEPAD prioritises areas such as infrastructure development; banking and financial standards; agriculture; access to market and creating positive conditions conducive for better investment; as well as reducing business costs and increasing Africa's competitiveness in the world economy. Although NEPAD claims to provide unique opportunities for African countries to take full control of their development agenda and to work more closely together, it acknowledges that there is still a need to cooperate with international partners in ending the centuries of poverty and underdevelopment.

The reliance on partnerships with Africa's former colonisers is problematic when the benchmark and yardstick for political stability and economic freedom are determined by the very former coloniser. Former colonial powers now come in the form of 'international partners' who are armed with 'economic aid'. Africans themselves also privilage the use of the westernised tools such as 'Democracy' and 'Sustainable Development' to achieve local goals. However, this subverts the goal of taking full control of own development agendas. Subaltern and various local ways of thinking and knowing tend to be marginalised or cancelled out from the development discourse as they are deemed to be at best anti-modern and at worst absurd.

Is it then relevant to celebrate the independence of Africa on Africa Day when the continent still has no economic freedom? If the extent and quality of Africa's freedom is to be determined and measured according to its former coloniser's standards, can we truly claim to have experienced Uhuru? Notions such as 'Sustainable Development', although they claim to be 'community - based', are usually coined by international development agencies and not the local African beneficiaries. These tend to be paternalistic in nature as they privilege the use of tools such as maps, management plans and deliverables over symbolic meanings of resources such as land. Non-hierarchical terms of engagement, and an active interrogation of dominant Eurocentric perspectives need to take place before Africa can claim to be rid of foreign domination and exploitation.

African Unity also remains elusive and appears to have been abandoned by the AU, with the exception of largely ignored calls for a United States of Africa from Libya's Muammar Gaddafi. African states tend to differ ideologically, and in terms of local priorities for partnership. For example, countries in the North of Africa such as Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, tend to identify more with the struggles of the Arab states in the Middle East. This is evident in the continued reference to a 'Sub-Saharan Africa' with the desert somewhat representing a border that creates a divide between Africa, north and south of the Sahara.

There is also yet another intangible and lesser known boundary down South, with South Africa burdened with what Mahmood Mamdani called the South African exceptionalism. This refers to the notion that although South Africa is part of Africa geographically, it remains separated from the continent both culturally and economically. With South Africa recently joining Brazil; Russia; India; and China (BRIC), countries that are deemed to be at a similar stage of newly advanced economic development, does this mean that partnerships with other African countries will be taking a back seat in favour of global economics ?

As we celebrate the formation of the Organisation of the African Unity on Africa Day, I cannot help but doubt its significance as a day on which Africans of different shades, religions and 'cultures' reaffirm their commitment to the continued liberation of Africa.

Sources:

Motlanthe Kgalema (2010), Deputy President's public lecture, Turkey
Mamdani, Mahmood, (1998), Remarks during a seminar on African Studies, University of Cape Town

Xolelwa Kashe-Katiya is the Deputy Director of the Archival Platform and a Fellow of the Archives and Public Culture Research Initiative