Africa's enduring economic apartheid

APARTHEID is a social and political system of racial segregation and discrimination that was popularised and institutionalised by white minority governments in South Africa for a 46 year period from 1948 through 1994.
The term apartheid (from the Afrikaans word for “apartness”) was introduced in the human vocabulary in the 1930s and used as a political slogan of the National Party in the early 1940s, but the philosophy underpinning it was an integral part of the colonial South African experience that dated from 1652. In 1948, apartheid was institutionalised and supported by a complex legal and economic system that stratified citizens along racial lines.
At the core of the apartheid system was an economic model that condemned the majority of Africans to an inferior standard of living. The late Ian Smith, President Mugabe’s last colonial predecessor, who died last week believed strongly in responsible government justified on the assumption that natives could never be trusted with the democratic project not only because of their illiteracy, but because their culture and values militated against their assimilation into a Eurocentric system and constitutional order.
Through apartheid architecture, the colonial state managed to build a sophisticated industrial, mining and agricultural system to serve the interests of the settler community. In the main, apartheid in the context of South Africa did manage to accomplish the objectives it was created for and successfully positioned whites to be the ultimate victors in the post colonial state. The irony is that the real harvesters of the anti-apartheid struggle have not been the victims of the system; rather the apartheid system remains intact in many if not all post-colonial African states.
The change of political systems in the post colonial state has done little to change the economic relations that underpinned the colonial state. The majority continues to be marginalised and yet independence was meant to confer real and tangible benefits to them.
To what extent has post-colonial Africa delivered on its promise to the majority remains an issue that has to inform any conversation among people who are passionate about Africa. In a few weeks, African heads of state and government will gather in Lisbon to engage Europe on key strategic issues that will hopefully shape the future of the continent.
What stake do the majority of Africans have in post colonial Africa? What investment has been made by Africans to make Africa what they want to see? Who controls Africa’s resources for whose benefit? If it is the case that the majority of Africans have no stake in Africa’s future, can we say that apartheid is over?
Africa is well endowed with rich mineral and human resources and yet its citizens are alienated from the means to exploit such resources in a manner that advances the African cause. Knowledge, capital and execution gaps exist in post colonial Africa and the tragedy is that collectively, we have failed to invest in bridging these gaps to the advantage of Africa.
If we take sector by sector in post colonial Africa without taking into account the individual nation states, we see an Africa that is heavily dependent on donor funds to finance national budgets and a continent that is incapable of mobilising its own resources to exploit what God has deposited in its belly. As a result, the champions of Africa’s renaissance are not Africans themselves who through state and non-state actions have resigned themselves by willingly accepting that they are inherently incapable of leveraging their resources to eliminate the apartheid system that was crafted and executed by an organised mafia.
The small steps that post colonial Africa has made over the last 50 years in the march towards the objective of a better and prosperous continent have lacked the momentum required to give direction about where Africa is heading under self government. Yes, we may be in control of our arms of government, but are we really in control of the business and economic model that feeds and sustains post colonial Africa?
What is the hope for an African child who finds himself/herself embedded in an apartheid system underpinned by a political architecture that is seemingly under the control of blacks but in reality is designed to serve the same interests that a colonial state was meant to serve? The psychological impact of apartheid on its victims is telling and it is not unusual to find the majority of Africans constructively accepting that they have no role to play in Africa’s future.
Apartheid was underpinned by a well thought out legal system that conferred property rights on the system’s intended beneficiaries. The post colonial system has exposed itself as an ideologically infantile construction in which the driving force has tended to be a bureaucratic political system that is often obsessed with political power and less concerned about human progress. The institutional issues that should form the basis of any successful nation building project are often missing in post colonial conversations in Africa.
The contestation for power in post colonial Africa is less informed by vested and defined interests of organised citizens. We have not been good at creating our own institutions to support the democratic direction that we purport to subscribe to. Many post colonial political parties particularly those in control of the state are sustained more by state resources than by member dues. The life of political institutions in Africa is less determined by members but by the state or external forces. If you want to dislodge the ruling party, it is not unexpected for you to seek financial and material resources from without.
The role of Africans in the diaspora is also an issue of concern in entrenching the apartheid system that is omnipresent in Africa. How many of the Africans in the diaspora are organised in the same manner the settlers were organised in colonial Africa? The number of Africans in Europe may exceed the number of European settlers in Sub-Saharan Africa (excluding South Africa) and yet in terms of organisation, we have to agree that the settlers were good at establishing institutions to support their civilization. We have a number of Italian, Greek, Portuguese, German, English clubs still existing in colonial Africa and yet you will find no such thriving institutions set up by the diaspora African community in Europe.
When one considers the role of London as a financial hub in creating and sustaining the apartheid system, it is noticeable that Africans in London today are less concerned about their contribution to Africa than their colonial counterparts were in mobilising the required capital to exploit African resources. Indeed, the name Anglo American Corporation is derived from the recognition of American and English finance in developing Africa’s rich resources.
The only power we ultimately have is the power to organize. As we continue the conversations on Africa’s future, we cannot avoid looking at ourselves in a frank and honest manner. There is no-one who will invest in the change that we want to see. Apartheid was a consequence of human conversations informed by objective circumstances and the end of apartheid can never be a consequence of no conversations and human action. We all have a part to play in this conversation, for Africa belongs to all who have invested in its future. It is not enough to carry a black skin and call yourself an African.