The return of the kings

Seek ye first the political kingdom" was Kwame Nkrumah's rallying call to Africa as he led the charge against imperialism in the 1950s. It was an answer to those who said Africa wasn't yet ready for self rule-people who urged Africans to seek education, development and wealth, before trying to run their own countries. Nkrumah won the argument and the war. But did he-or any of his fellow founding fathers-find that political kingdom that they sought?

In those triumphant, aid-drenched years of the early 1960s, it did appear that Africa, with its resources, youth and enthusiasm, had a golden future. Forty years on we are bored by Africa's inexplicable wars and stubborn poverty. The dreams became disasters. There is not a single success story to compete with Asia, once in thrall to imperial powers as much as, if not more than, Africa.

Some blame the rest of the world, projecting Africa as the victim of a global conspiracy entrapping it in debt. But Africa is no different from Asia in this respect. Both regions were level-pegging on poverty 15 years ago. Asia's economies have taken off. But Africa, despite (or is it because of?) $10 billion a year in aid, four times more aid per capita over 20 years than Asia, is static or going backwards.



The causes of Africa's failure lie in Africa. Bad political leadership? Undoubtedly. Nkrumah himself led the way with a dictatorship which bankrupted his country. He was overthrown, as were his successors. From Idi Amin to General Aideed, the continent seems cursed with more than its share of nutters and nasties. But they do not spring fully suited from nowhere. Africa's political failures are thrown up by African society. Why?

There is a new and persuasive explanation which blames Africa's instability on Africa's borders. The second wind of change which blew through Africa at the end of the cold war brought only half-hearted multi-party democracy to many countries. But it also brought to the surface-for good and ill-an Africa which had been suppressed by imperialism and by the centralised nation states it bequeathed. One of the things which resurfaced was a new distinction between nation states and ethnicity. An African thinker as distinguished as Wole Soyinka, the Nobel prize winning playwright from Nigeria, has even raised the possibility of reconstituting Africa's nation states along ethnic lines. He said recently: "We should sit down with a square rule and compass and redesign the boundaries of African nations. If we thought we could do away with redefining boundaries back when the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was formed, Rwanda tells us that we cannot evade this challenge any longer."

Likewise, Professor Ali Mazrui of New York University asks: "Ethnic self-determination... will create smaller states, as in the separation of Eritrea from Ethiopia... Should the legitimacy of tribalism be reviewed?"

Redrawing imperial borders?

The borders do indeed look like the problem. Drawn more than 100 years ago in Berlin by Europeans who had never been on the continent, they reflected the balance of power between European nations at the time. Lines were simply drawn on a map which was largely blank. They sliced through peoples and their lands, crossed rivers, blocked trading routes, cut through mountain ranges and deserts. These lines are the boundaries of today's nation states.

Now, the argument goes, ancient tribes are overturning states they had no part in founding. Seeking to link with their fellow peoples across a border in a different state, these tribes will redraw the imperial boundaries to fit African realities. The African nation state- created by a European pen-has failed.

Attractive as these ideas sound, they are wrong. Almost no protagonists in Africa's current wars are calling for changes to boundaries and none of these wars would be solved by redrawing them. In these wars the rebels are fighting for power-or a slice of power-at the centre; that is, in the capital, where the trappings of a unified state are.

When most countries became independent between 70 and 80 years after the lines were drawn, their newly formed continental forum, the OAU, committed itself to respecting them. The few attempts at secession-for example Biafra-failed. So did attempts to grab territory from a neighbour-Somalia failed to seize the Somali region of Ethiopia, the Ogaden, in 1977.

Some people now talk of dividing up Rwanda and Burundi to create a Hutu state and a Tutsi state. It would not work. The two countries broadly fit pre-imperial kingdoms which included both Hutus and Tutsis. Both peoples were bound up in the same society, inhabiting the same villages on the same hills. That, partly, is why they fight.

Sudan is a country often quoted as a candidate for division; after more than 30 years of war, it is hard to see how it can ever continue as one country. Its black Africans in the south and Muslims (Arabic-speaking) in the north are miles apart in politics, religion and wealth. An Islamist government in Khartoum deepens the gulf. Yet the main southern rebel movement is unwilling to declare secession as an outright goal and few in the north are willing to let the south go its own way.

Liberia disintegrated in six years of civil war as competing factions, whose leaders played on ethnic rivalry, seized territory and ravaged neighbouring areas. When they found there was nothing left to loot, the warlords sought peace. They agreed a deal which committed them to relinquishing territory and guns in return for a slice of power in a national government based in the capital, Monrovia. But they were not willing to give up their territory on such a gamble, nor their guns. When one group saw a rival moving into its diamond mining area under the cover of the ceasefire in January, the war restarted. The only peace agreement that will stick is one which recognises the local power of faction leaders and leaves them secure in their own areas, but still part of Liberia.

Angola is an example of where this is happening on the ground. Jonas Savimbi and his Unita movement, mainly Ovimbundu in support, has fought for 20 years against the government in Luanda. He has fought for total victory, refusing to accept the verdict of the 1993 election which he lost by a few votes. Although his supporters dominate the centre and south east of Angola, Savimbi does not want Angola to be broken up. He still wants a share of national power with access to the oil money which goes with it. He does not want to be chief in a semi-autonomous, faraway region. But he may now settle for that; for the sake of peace, the government may now strike a deal which gives him a semi-independent region in eastern and southern Angola with a diamond mine or two thrown in to finance it.

Zulu independence in South Africa? Unthinkable-and not what anyone is calling for. But could such a solution, a semi-self determination, accommodate Inkatha, the vehicle of Zulu nationalism? It could-but the particular problem of the KwaZulu region is that it is evenly divided between pro- and anti-Inkatha. If it became independent, the war between Inkatha and African National Congress (ANC) leaders would simply continue within a semi-independent Zulu state.

There is talk, too, of Nigeria breaking up, but there is little evidence of a serious secessionist movement. The only part which might conceivably break away is the oil-rich east. It tried in the late 1960s, with catastrophic results. The horrors which followed Biafran independence set back the cause of secession for a generation. And no other part of the country would consider seceding because it would forego its stake in the oil wealth. What would the north be without oil revenue? Burkina Faso without aid.

The only two African states which have broken up are Somalia and Ethiopia. In Somalia there was one ethnic group with the same language, religion and culture. It disintegrated in bloody clan warfare and the north, formerly ruled by Britain, split off. Somalia actually fractured along colonial lines. So did Ethiopia. The part which has broken away, Eritrea, was carved out of Ethiopia by Italian colonialism and re-absorbed by Ethiopia after the second world war.

Old borders, new ethnicity

Africa is not about to return to a primordial state of ethnic or tribal groupings. Redrawing borders, by agreement or by force, will not solve conflicts. Nevertheless ethnicity, suppressed by the post-colonial nation states, has become a powerful magnet. In some places, such as Rwanda or Liberia, it has helped pitch nations into the abyss. Botswana's success has been attributed to being a single ethnic nation. But what about Somalia, whose citizens were also a single ethnic group?

The difference between success and catastrophe is minute. South Africa's own survival still seems like a miracle. Luck indeed played a part-and the personal qualities of Nelson Mandela. South Africa's survival can also be attributed to peculiar and probably unsustainable compromises-for example, on federalism and the guarantee that (white) civil servants should keep their jobs. Ethnic tensions are just under the surface. Everyone is aware of Zulu nationalism in the rural regions of Natal, but even in an urbanised South Africa, which has a small black African professional class, ethnic-as opposed to racial-identity is strong. According to Professor David Welsh of Stellenbosch University: "There is a very high degree of ethnic consciousness. People see themselves as Venda, Pedi or Xhosa. This has not yet translated into any kind of overt political movement but it operates in micro situations where there is a feeling that a headmastership must go to someone from this or that group."

In Uganda, President Yoweri Museveni has tried to find a solution which prevents parties becoming vehicles for ethnicity or religion. He has produced a plausible theory that, in western democracy, political parties split society horizontally, on a class basis. But classes are permeable. In Africa parties split vertically, on a regional or ethnic basis-divisions which are not permeable. This is the most honest analysis for the failure of political parties in Africa. But his solution, the "no party democracy," removes a fundamental human right: the right to organise politically. Is a system which only allows candidates to stand for election as individuals, compatible with real democratic freedom? And does it work? If it does, it might be taken up elsewhere in Africa.

The only other experiment in a distinctly African democracy took place in Nigeria under the previous military regime, where political parties had to secure a proportion of signatures in a majority of states, thereby guaranteeing nationwide support. A good idea was discredited by the military who thought it up and then thwarted it. Africa's history has few other models for a more successful "African way." In the mid-19th century, just before the arrival of European imperialism, Africa consisted of between 6,000 and 10,000 entities, some huge states, some only a few families. They were mostly ruled by kings, but kingdoms grew and melted away. Only a handful survived the death of their ruler. The Asante kingdom in Ghana was one. Another was Buganda.

Most kingships were constrained by checks and balances; bad kings and tyrants could be deposed and replaced. Kings may have had to come from one clan or family but, within that, the elders could chose a successor from several princes.

There have been few constraints on the modern monarch, the president. Democracy has rarely been one of them. Even in those countries which have held reasonably free elections, these are seen as a means to an end; democracy is not valued for its own sake.

The defenders of democracy in Africa, as elsewhere, are the professional middle classes. Independent of state institutions and with a commitment to stability and economic progress, they exercise and protect democratic rights between elections. But this class is being impoverished by macroeconomic reforms. Teachers, lawyers, doctors and others entitled to a state salary, now earn $10-20 a month in many countries. Most have been forced to become petty traders or taxi drivers, doing their professional jobs in their spare time. Others flee to properly paid work in the west. Only in a few striking cases do Africa's middle classes have the time, independence or courage for civic activities.

Federalism or tribalism

What happens if the professional class, the glue which holds a modern democratic state together, is destroyed? There is an inevitable return to ethnic or tribal links. The continent's first generation of national leaders tried, in theory, to outlaw tribalism in their attempt to build nationalism. The vehicle for nation building was the one-party state. When the one-party states failed to deliver, opposition leaders used ethnicity to build constituencies and exploited the hunger for traditional bonds of identity and security.

This has led to the most significant development in Africa since independence. More and more people have begun to describe themselves by their ethnic origin before their national citizenship. They call themselves Yoruba, Baganda or Bemba before they describe themselves as Nigerian, Ugandan or Zambian. It is a trend which is, incidentally, encouraged by economic policies demanded by the west. The old one-party state had just one source of power and patronage. But the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, as donors, forced governments to scale down the scope of the state, thereby reducing the main sources of centralised, state patronage. Free market economies and multi-party democracies helped transfer power from the urban elites to the more traditional rural areas. With the decline of an urban detribalised professional class, the new centres of power are often based on ethnicity.

Yet African states are not about to dissolve into tribes run by village chiefs. The vacuum created by the retreat of the centralised state will attract many different forms of politics. And if borders lose their old meaning, it will be because of economics rather than politics.

Commercial patterns and trading routes, hidden or dormant for years, are beginning to re-emerge, creating new economic and political centres. Huge amounts of trade and economic activity go on in Africa unrecorded in any statistics or World Bank report: goods are carried on small lorries, carts, bicycles or just by people travelling on tracks which are not on any maps. Central governments have little control of these trading routes, which cross borders as if they don't exist (by taking bush routes or bribing the impoverished customs officials at the border).

Borders will be further eroded by the growth of towns, particularly in west Africa. A recent study by the French Ministry of Co-operation predicts that by 2020 there will be 6,000 towns in west Africa, of which 300 will have more than 100,000 inhabitants. (In 1960 there were 600 towns: only 17 had more than 100,000 inhabitants.) The study paints a picture of booming unplanned peri-urban areas spilling across national borders. It concludes that governments will find it impossible to control and plan these burgeoning cities. Existing borders will become meaningless. Will the citizens of these towns build a new affiliation on ethnicity? That is unclear. The pattern appears to be that richer urban dwellers lose their ethnic identity, while poorer migrants to towns maintain family and ethnic links.

The power vacuum is also filled by local "tax" gatherers. Outsiders doing business in Africa, or just passing through, are often confronted with taxes and rents not mentioned in the guide books. At first sight it looks like corrupt local officialdom, but it is often a parallel taxation system which is outside the established bureaucracy. A foreign company which gets an agreement from central government to mine, for example, finds itself having also to get permission from or pay off other authorities such as local chiefs before digging can start. In eastern Zaire, where local officials and policemen are no longer paid by central government, they exact their pay day by day from visitors and locals alike. The rents are not excessive, but if the traveller or shopkeeper does not pay, their goods are taken or their shops are sacked.

In some areas old patterns of rule are indeed re-emerging as central government weakens. The Oba, in southern Nigeria, have always wielded immense but oblique power in local societies. In Ghana, on the other hand, the Ashantehene, the traditional king of the Ashantis, has continued to hold his weekly open court, hearing cases on land or marriage disputes. In South Africa there was always a Zulu king who remained a rallying point for Zulu nationalism. Now his power and that of a dozen small chieftainships is being revived. The association of traditional rulers in South Africa, Contralesa, was once in alliance with the ruling ANC. Now they have fallen out over how much power the traditional rulers should have locally. In Uganda, grass roots pressure has forced President Museveni to allow three old kingdoms to be resurrected; coronations have been held with much ritual and splendour. If Museveni thought he could divert ethnic nationalism into traditional customs like dancing and basket weaving, he was wrong; he now has a growing political problem on his hands.

A looser politics

Continent-wide, there is a revival of language, culture or ethnicity as a basis for political action. Ken Saro-Wiwa, the Nigerian writer executed last November, was demanding autonomy for his Ogoni people and rent for their land, used by Shell. The Ogonis live on top of oil; if Saro-Wiwa had been allowed only half his demands, all the Ogonis' neighbours would have copied them. That's why he was a threat. In Ethiopia the government has decided to go with the flow and accept ethnicity as a basis for politics. It has established autonomous regions based on ethnic identities; Ethiopians now carry identity cards stating their ethnic group.

Some new rulers are religious leaders or bandit chiefs; the Catholic church is often the only surviving institution capable of delivering anything from justice to a postal service. Eastern Kasai, the Zairean province which has become virtually autonomous from Kinshasa, is ruled by a combination of the local bishop and Miba, the local diamond company. Between them they have set up a university.

Foreign commercial powers are also setting up their own mini states, as they did 300 years ago. Then the charter companies had treaties with the local kings which allowed them to occupy land. Now they have agreements, spoken or unspoken, with the governments, to run schools and clinics as well as their business. In Mozambique, Lonrho had its own defence force and currency. This arrangement grew out of Mozambique's collapse in the civil war of the 1980s, but the pattern is not uncommon. Several foreign companies make exclusive, tailor-made pacts with governments and local authorities to give them access to mine or farm in a certain area. They become the authority in that area, accumulating responsibility for everything from roads to schoolbooks. They run hospitals, bus services and schools, becoming a virtual state within a state.

How will this change Africa? Many of these new centres of power cross national boundaries, so their borders will begin to blur. The bureaucrats are being replaced by the barons, the state by the region. State governments may try to use force against these new realities but they will not be able to restore the old centralised state. Wiser governments will accept the new realities, demarcate areas and negotiate rents. They might call it federalism or decentralisation, but these new centres of power are the contemporary reality of African politics.