Africa: From Berlin to Lisbon

AS AFRICA prepares to attend the forthcoming EU/Africa summit in Portugal, it is important to locate the summit in a historical context and examine the progress made, if any, in the last 123 years since the Berlin Conference in redefining the relationship between the beneficiaries of the scramble for Africa and their victims.
The Berlin Conference of 1884-85 sought to regulate European colonisation of and trade in Africa during the New Imperialism period and coincided with Germany’s sudden emergence as an imperial power.
Like the forthcoming Lisbon summit, the Berlin conference was called by Portugal and organised by Bismarck, the first Chancellor of Germany. Little did Bismarck know that 123 years later, his successor, Chancellor Merkel would be carrying the imperial torch and prosecuting an imperial agenda with the unanimous support of black African heads of state and government!
While the outcome of the Berlin Conference, the General Act of the Berlin Conference, is regarded in history as the formalisation of the Scramble for Africa, I am confident that the outcome of the Lisbon summit would lead to an increase of European interests in the continent at a time when Africa has not yet defined what kind of value system and interests should inform its own agenda.
What has changed between 1884 and 2007 is that in 1884, Europe’s hegemony over Africa was not contested by non-Europeans as it is today. Only last year, China hosted about 48 African heads of state and government (less than the number expected in Lisbon) in Beijing with no different objectives than the sponsors of the Berlin and Lisbon summits i.e. to access Africa’s resources in an organised manner with Africa playing a marginal if not supportive role in the resource transfer project.
The outcome of the Sino-China summit of November 2006 was the emergence of Sino Imperialism in Africa underpinned by an ideological subservience of Africa and condemnation of the Eurocentric imperialist model. The role of China and its apparent acceptance as an acceptable face of the new imperialism is a natural threat to Europe’s historically determined control of Africa’s rich mineral resources.
Against the background of the rising Asian economic storm in the form of Chindia, Europe’s leverage over Africa has been dented leading to the lack of cohesion about what values ought to inform Europe’s engagement with Africa. The new imperialist era was supported by an evangelical Anglo Saxon protestant ethic in which European values and interests were paramount with no African participation. China’s model is less informed by concerns about Africa’s alleged corruption, bad governance, and failure to respect human rights, failure to observe the rule of law and failure to stick to democratic principles than by purely resource access issues.
China’s state-led capitalist model appears to be the preferred African model. The set of core values and principles that Europe stands for, are not necessarily of importance to Africa and its new imperial Chinese partners. It would be unthinkable for China to condemn any human and property rights violations in any host African country when it is common cause that Chinese people have no title to their own residential houses.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown is proud to say that he is a conviction politician and there is no better case to expose the ideological confusion that has visited Europe than the case of Zimbabwe’s participation in the Lisbon Summit. While the United Kingdom government and the rest of the EU may share the same heritage and value system, it appears that the German-led new scramble for Africa is less concerned about human and property rights issues than staking a claim on Africa’s rich and untapped resources.
Colonialism was less informed by moral considerations about civil rights but was an economic project to advance defined interests. Some argue that if Europe in 1884 was not occupied with the interests of native Africans, it is hypocritical that one of the architects and beneficiaries of imperialism, the United Kingdom, should now claim a higher moral ground raising concern about democracy, respect for the rule of law, human and property rights as a condition for President Mugabe’s participation at the summit.
It is clear that nothing much has changed from 1884 when the scramble for Africa was driven by commercial and not human rights issues to 2007 when there appears to be no champion from Africa espousing what the continent stands for in terms of defining human rights and governance questions.
If Africa is united that Zimbabwe is not an issue in as much as the continent as not enthusiastically embraced Nepad’s guiding governance principles, it would not be fair for Zimbabwean and African human rights activists to expect resource challenged Europe to come to the rescue.
It would be naïve to expect Europe to be a friend of Africa on questions of democracy not only because civil rights of non-Europeans have never been a policy objective of European imperialism but an informed and financially literate Africa threatens European interests in the continent in as much as the Asian brand of imperialism is a real threat to entrenched European interests. Africans should not expect Europe or China to invest in the change they want to see.
What is ironic is that even the most outspoken critics of European imperialism do not want to be left out of the Lisbon guest list. Why would any confident African head of state or government be concerned about being invited to a house of people he despises unless such a leader is cynically hypocritical?
It is instructive that while African leaders have no problem with participating in the beauty pageant in Lisbon, there is consensus that no African leader or contestant must be left behind. Rarely have we seen Africans speaking with one voice than on the issue of the invitation list to Lisbon. This leads us to ask what is in it for Africa in Lisbon? Whose interests are being advanced by the new engagement between Europe and Africa?
What kind of Africa do Africans want? An Africa that is a football ground for competing imperial interests or an Africa deeply rooted in African values and principles? The last fifth of the 19th century starting in 1880 saw the transition from the so called “informal” imperialism of control through military influence and economic dominance to that of direct rule. Attempts to mediate imperial competition such as the Berlin Conference between Britain, France and Germany failed to establish definitely the competing powers’ claims.In 2007, the competition between Britain (embedded in American policy) and a France/Germany-led European Union is obvious and Gordon Brown’s threat not to attend the Lisbon summit may have little to do with Zimbabwe than the strategic political and economic challenges facing a divided EU.
Gordon Brown may have more to gain by not attending the Lisbon summit and in so doing put on a humanitarian façade that Europeans took in 1884 when they discussed what they perceived to be the African problem by condemning the slave trade, prohibiting the sale of alcoholic beverages and firearms in certain regions and by expressing concerns for missionary activities. The diplomats who attended the Berlin conference laid down the rules of competition by which the great powers were to be guided in seeking colonies.
No colonial power has ever compensated its victims. The law of conquest has always operated and yet in the case of Zimbabwe, Britain’s former allies at the Berlin Conference appear to want to distance themselves from the craftily presented argument that victims of colonialism must not compensate colonisers and that black Africans must own their own resources.
If Mugabe’s argument is relevant and appropriate, is it not the case that South Africa, Namibia, Kenya and other African countries may be persuaded to raise the same argument in advancing the interests of their democratic revolutions. What would Germany and France’s response be to such a question?
As the countdown to the Lisbon summit gathers steam, Mugabe has raised an issue that has defined the post-apartheid economic construction i.e. that of black economic empowerment. South Africa, like Zimbabwe, inherited a skewed and dualistic economic system itself a consequence of the outcome of the Berlin conference.
In the face of a democratic dispensation, the response by South Africa’s business leaders has been to embrace the previously disadvantaged groups through economic empowerment in a manner that has not been seen before in the rest of the continent. It is argued that if European companies have accepted that it is okay for South Africa to pass legislation that seeks to transfer economic power to natives, then surely Mugabe’s land and indigenisation policies should be acceptable to the world.
The colonial project was not only informed by national interests but by commercial interests of entrepreneurs who eventually sought protection from their governments through the Berlin conference. If it is accepted that European governments had a role in creating an enabling environment for the penetration of European capitalism, it is now also being argued that African governments have a role in creating an enabling environment for the participation of indigenous Africans.
The arguments advanced by Mugabe on resource ownership and power distribution in a post colonial state appear to be supported unanimously by African leaders. He is now the undisputed African spokesman for Black Economic Empowerment and yet he finds himself with an economy badly damaged by a combination of bad policies and colonial legacy to the extent that there may not be any benefit for his people from the rhetoric.
Countries that are on a growth path in Africa would benefit a lot by having Mugabe in their company in Lisbon because they can use the case study of Zimbabwe to negotiate a new and better deal for their countries on the question of land and resource ownership.
The recent acquisition by Lonrho of two companies in Zimbabwe and its increasing profile as a new instrument for post-colonial control of African resources exposes the lack of seriousness in Africa about repositioning the African brand from its colonially conditioned one. Post Lisbon, Africa will have a new framework with Europe whereby African governments will continue to pontificate about economic democracy while in reality become passive and supportive enablers for post-colonial imperialism. Europe will continue to be a friend of Africa’s resources and not necessarily its people.
In as much as China has been described as too closed a society but disciplined and totalitarian with the worst human rights record whose mission in Africa is to access African resources at a least cost while supporting, funding, and protecting African dictators, Europe’s mission may not be any different. If America and Britain can support their own dictators and corrupt elites, why should Europe not also pick and choose its own accomplices, so the argument goes?
As African leaders plan to land in Lisbon, they should be acutely aware of the landmines that await them. Yes Europe may be divided on the Zimbabwean question but fundamentally Europe recognises that a preoccupation on human and property rights and governance issues will compromise its colonial legacy by creating a window for new ideologically acceptable colonial powers like China and India. Europe’s imperial frontiers are receding and Lisbon is more to do with reasserting the fact that Europeans interests can be best advanced through dialogue and acceptance that values and principles take a secondary role.