Beyond Lisbon: setting the African agenda

THE EU-Africa summit held in Lisbon last weekend has come and gone but Africa’s challenges will remain.
For the first time, Africa came to Europe as a united block specifically more on the Zimbabwean issue than on the key issues on the agenda of the summit. The Zimbabwean stand-off that has prevented the indaba from taking place for seven years has its own historical significance and provided an opportunity for Africa to take the values debate head on with its former colonial masters.
The boycott by Gordon Brown provided a unique diplomatic coup for Zimbabwe and in a sense exposed the hypocrisy of the United Kingdom government on key governance and human rights issues. Some may argue that President Mugabe may not be the only bad boy of Africa and yet a case seems to have been made by Gordon Brown and not Mugabe that diplomacy must be sacrificed in dealing with the Zimbabwean crisis.
Many pan-Africanists would share the position taken by the African Union about the indivisibility of Africa on the human rights question and the peculiar nature of the Zimbabwean crisis. With respect to the Zimbabwean crisis, there are many who genuinely believe that were it not for the sanctions and the failure by the UK government to honour its commitments made at Lancaster, the Zimbabwean crisis would be non-existent.
In fact, proponents of this thesis argue that it is hypocritical for Gordon Brown, fully cognisant of the colonial experience, to suggest that the crisis in Zimbabwe and the attendant poverty are a direct consequence of post colonial misgovernance.
Brown was right in his assessment that the presence of President Mugabe at the summit would overshadow the summit’s important agenda. However, many Africans believe that it is time that the dialogue between Europe and Africa take a different tone and context. An argument exists that suggests that the relationship between Europe and Africa has never been characterised by equality and justice. To this end, the approach to the economic empowerment question by the Zimbabwean government is no different from what many of the African states would want to pursue in order to tilt the balance in favour of their economically disenfranchised majority.
President Mugabe’s argument about economic justice resonates with many poor people in the developing world in as much as the struggle against colonialism had at its core a civil rights dimension underpinned by an economic rights question that provided its legitimacy. The debate whether the post colonial experience has been equal to the economic justice question ought to be a subject for and among Africans at the first level rather than being a principled position of former colonial masters in their engagement with former colonial subjects.
The unanimity of the African position on President Mugabe’s inclusion at the Lisbon Summit suggests that a position has been accepted that the UK is partly culpable for causing the Zimbabwean crisis. In accepting this position, the futility of the UK foreign policy that is designed to locate the Zimbabwean crisis exclusively in the human rights and governance domain appears to have been exposed. Notwithstanding, it is not clear how the crisis in Zimbabwe will be resolved even if it is reduced to a bilateral problem and the land compensation issue is resolved with financial assistance from the UK government and targeted sanctions are lifted.
The need for a new strategic relationship between Africa and its former colonial masters cannot be overstated. Africa continues to host the resources that Europe needs and had unfettered access to during the colonial era but the continent appears to lack its own post colonial development agenda. Beyond the unity displayed on the inclusion of President Mugabe at the summit, it is not evident that Africa has its own home grown agenda in as much as China, India and other newly industrialised countries seem to have in driving their own economic engines.
In the aftermath of the summit whose agenda was on trade, investment, peace and security issues among others, Africa has to go back to the drawing board. China and Europe as suitors need Africa for the same reasons and yet China and Africa share very little in terms of values and principles. Colonialism was not just about exploitation of resources but it had an evangelical dimension as well, not forgetting the value system that underpinned it.
Many of Africa’s post colonial leaders were molded by colonial experiences and their tastes and appetites are not any different from their former colonial masters. They speak the same language as their former colonial masters to the extent that some of the African heads of state and government speak better English, French, Portuguese, German, Spanish and Italian than their former colonial masters. I have yet to see many of our African youth yearning to speak Mandarin.
If there is more that unites Africa and Europe than trade matters, it is important that Africa draws up its own values charter and determines what kind of civilisation it wants to adopt. Can Africa progress and deliver value to its citizens if its governance follows the opaque Chinese model? What is the future for Africa without a moral and ideological compass firmly grounded on African owned values? Are human rights important for a progressive Africa? If it is, what message can we draw from the position of Africa on this issue at the Lisbon summit?
The implications of Europe taking the lead in defining the morality of a post colonial Africa is evident in the manner in which the standards of living of Zimbabweans have continued to deteriorate with no salvation in sight while undermining indigenous voices for change. To the extent that the regime change agenda appears to be driven by former colonial powers, it becomes difficult for African citizens to negotiate their own protocol on governance and human rights issues.
From Lisbon, President Mugabe will be endorsed unanimously by his party as the candidate for the 2008 elections. Nothing much will change in terms of policy direction and the absence of Brown in Lisbon will play well in domestic politics as a sign that the British agenda has been exposed to the extent that Brown was missing in action.
As Africa looks to the future, there appears to be no-one connecting the dots on key issues that the continent will need to address if it is to radically change its status as the global problem child. The conversations on power, values and succession have not penetrated the African mind to the extent that ownership on the issues that matter to the continent is less located in the continent than in non-state actors who are largely funded by the former colonial masters. For any agenda to succeed, it requires resources to fuel it and I am yet to see Africans invest (rather than leave the task to Bush and Brown) in the change that they want to see.
Even Oprah Winfery has been smart to see that she cannot remain indifferent to the governance question. By aligning herself to Barack Obama, she has raised the bar for many people who are privileged to occupy her profile in the American marketplace that change can only come about if citizens are engaged. It would be naïve for anyone to expect other people to invest in the change they want to see.
The future of Africa will only be secure if Africans take ownership of their destiny than wait for Europe and China to play football on the continent’s future. We have to take responsibility for our own future and there can be no better starting point than start conversations on values.
In the context of the forthcoming African National Congress (ANC) elections, it is instructive that President Thabo Mbeki has begun the values debate in so far as the future of the party will be if he is not elected. It is a good starting point for us to begin our conversations after Lisbon not only because South Africa is the youngest African child but because it’s a strategic platform for projecting a new Africa.
It is my sincere hope that we all will take time to study carefully the arguments for and against a Jacob Zuma presidency, not because it makes a difference to our lives, rather it should inform all of us on what is at stake in the continent. The South African experience is fertile with ethnic, gender, race, and moral issues that are important variables in African politics. The Russian experience also provides with important lessons in as much as the recent Venezuelan referendum.
We have no choice as Africans than to study what is taking place in the global marketplace of ideas in order to make decisions on the future of our beloved continent. After Lisbon, Africa needs to reflect and citizens have no choice but to take the bull by the horns and write their own stories. Our leaders can do so much but their legitimacy can be located no further than what citizens give them.
If Venezuelans can have the courage to say no to excesses, we surely have the residual right to organise ourselves for a better and progressive Africa. All of us have a responsibility and the question is are we up to the challenge in as much as Oprah has shown us that the future of America cannot be taken for granted?