South Africa

I found the following chart (From the 2007 Pew Global Attitudes Project via Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, and which accompanied this James Traub story) telling, though frankly I’m uncertain what it tells:

The five countries with the most favorable views of American ideas about democracy are Subsaharan African nations. None of the countries with the least favorable views are African. As someone who believes in the American ideals (and thus ideas) of democracy, broadly framed, but who also has serious qualms about gaps between ideals and practices, I think that what we might have here is a case in which Africans see the ideals and hope that the reality will follow while those with a negative view of the United States and its democratic ideals have had recent confrontations with the United States in which those ideals gave way to pragmatic realities that were not so nice. Most of those encounters, though not all, would be directly connected to current American policies in the Middle East. I cannot help but wonder (or perhaps hope) if the ideals don’t endure beyond the temporal manifestations of American policy.

I’d like to apologize for the paucity of posting. The Foreign Policy Association has been upgrading its blog server and there have been some glitches, but it looks like we’re back up and running. Thanks for your patience.

The Council on Foreign Relations has a feature on  how some think South Africa is underachieving in its role as a regional power. I’ve written that South Africa has to walk a tightrope in its role as a regional superpower. And it seems that much of the western consternation exists at least in part because South Africa taking a stronger role allows the west to abdicate a stronger role in the region. but it is nonetheless true that South Africa appears to have lost the plot with regard to its foreign affairs. Where once Mbeki preached a vibrant and engaging vision of Pan Africanism, now he appears content to traffic in platitudes and to operate out of narrow self interest. Of course there is a certain irony to the west complaining about South Africa placing self interest first in the queue, but that does not in and of itself mean that some of the criticisms going pretoria’s way are not warranted.

For my American readers, have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

It’s always proven remarkably easy for the West to make promises to Africa. It has been in the area of following through on those promises where the outside world has so often fallen short. Thabo Mbeki has identified the crises in Sudan as an area in which promises have been made, and at least to this point, have gone unfulfilled:

A majority of the countries who undertook to assist Sudan financially in implementing the African country’s peace agreement have not fulfilled their pledges, President Thabo Mbeki said on Wednesday.

Briefing the media at Tuynhuys in Cape Town following a meeting with his Sudanese counterpart Omar al-Bashir, Mbeki said that despite the international donor community having pledged to assist with equipment and other resources required to help the Sudanese government resolve its political crisis, many of the countries still had not yet delivered.

“Various countries around the world have not yet responded,” he said.

He said making the resources available to the Sudanese government was a critical element for the resolution of the crisis, and that the South African government would do everything in its power to ensure that countries fulfilled their pledges.

“We need to bring everybody on board,” Mbeki said.

South Africa is often caught in a difficult situation in its role as a continental leader. But Mbeki is right: when the world does not follow through on its promises, especially in a crisis situation such as that in both Darfur, and increasingly in the once-again rumbling south of Sudan, it almost guarantees that chaos will continue to reign.

The Council on Foreign Relations has a fantastic interactive map of Africa’s conflict zones and areas of UN/African Union intervention past and presence, as well as an option to see the contours of former colonial rule and influence. This is a first-rate resource for those who want to understand Africa’s divisions, particularly for students.

At The Boston Globe Michael Gerson has a column on AIDS in the developing world, focuding on Africa. Embracing neither foolish optimism nor outsized pessimism Gerson argues that a cobination of approaches will be required to stanch a disease that is still spreading at a faster rate than it can be prevented:

Treatment and prevention, in the end, cannot be separated. And the goal of universal access to treatment seems morally unavoidable. However expensive this commitment might be, there is also a cost to letting 40 million people or more die - a cost the world should not be willing to pay. But we also need to be realistic about the nature of this commitment. Defeating AIDS will require major new efforts on prevention. And moving toward universal treatment, according to the United Nations, will require between $32 billion and $51 billion by 2010. America has done much - and still we face an ocean of need.

It’s easy to caricature calls for more money for Africa. But AIDS is one of those issues that shows how aid money really can and does make a difference. The continent needs more financial support to help it to attain very reachable goals. The discussion should never be only about giving money, but such aid should continue be in the equation in light of the West’s persistent underdevelopment of Africa.

It looks like British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has failed in his campaign to prevent Robert Mugabe from being invited to December’s summit of European and African leaders in Portugal. Further, Brown is meeting with resistance to his proposal that the European union send an envoy to deal with the Zimbabwe crisis. Those African leaders who continue to stand by Zimbabwe at least can hide behind the (very) thin reed of Pan-Africanism and loyalty to someone they still accord status as a former liberation hero. But what excuse do the Europeans have?

Although Brown effectively put the organizers of the summit in a him-or-me situation that some might see as blackmail, the reality remains that given a choice between having the legitimate Prime Minister of England and the ferocious dictator of Zimbabwe attend the summit, many, including the European leadership, pathetically went with Mugabe. Let us at least hope that this decision proves to be the catalyst for other leaders turning their back on the summit. A Europe-Africa meeting is vital. Mugabe’s presence at such a gathering is anything but.

Two articles in The Mail & Guardian reveal a common trait among nation states and other political entities: A fundamental aversion to outside interference. During the American Civil Rights Movement white Southerners oftentimes claimed that their states were beset with outside agitators, alien forces who were there to cause trouble and then would leave without having to deal with the fallout. This was a nonsense justification, of course, but it did speak to a powerful sense of autonomy and sovereignty.

We see a similar tendency among African states today, though African concerns about outside encroachment are in many ways more valid than those of unreconstructed white southerners. Imperialism, the political machinations that characterized the Cold War,  and neocolonialism are all very real historical and contemporary phenomena. Nonetheless, a zeal not to be told what to do, not to be imposed upon, sometimes leads to overreaction — witness the ways that too many African leaders have rallied to Robert Mugabe’s defense, despite the fact that Mugabe’s victims are overwhelmingly Africans.

 That is why the M&G articles both caught my eye, even though thematically they cover different terrain. The first reveals African concerns about the United States’ new Africa Command (Africom) which, however well-intentioned, still is going to invoke myriad images of American self-interest trumping African interests. America did not serve Africa well during the Cold War, has practically disregarded the continent since except when natural resources have been involved, and has shown little followup on even those African initiatives that might have done good in recent years. This, coupled with the United States recent foreign policy misadventures and general hamhandedness in international relations causes many to view Africom with a jaundiced eye.

The second article reveals the insistence of those on all sides of the political debate in Zimbabwe on downplaying the role that Thabo Mbeki has played in recent reform efforts north of the Limpopo. “This is not just an Mbeki initiative, but a Southern African Development Community initiative,” the Movement for Democratic Change’s Morgan Tsvangirai insists. Again, this makes sense. While South Africa briefly became the world’s darlings, many in the region worry about the country’s disproportionate political, economic, culural and military power. Whether true or not, the claims that Mbeki’s role has been exaggerated allow Zimbabweans to believe that they have had some control over their fate even in the midst of chaos.

Observers and critics of African policy need to be aware of this understandable wariness that many Africans feel about having policies imposed upon them from the outside. Only in doing so will outsiders be able to develop sensitive policies geared toward the true development of primarily African solutions to African policies.

The UN recently called for a rare summit on Africa and predictably, promises were made, agendas were set, ideas proposed. While it is good to see Africa on the global agenda in such a visible way, many Africans are rightly skeptical:

“Africa’s agenda will increasingly be defined by the African Union,” said AU chairman Alpha Oumar Konare. “We hope to move beyond words, to move beyond promises because too many promises have already been made to Africa.”

One does, however, wonder if Konare is not whistling past the graveyard. Naturally Africans should set their agenda. But so far, the AU, for example, has shown little capacity for effectiveness in Sudan. So far, SADC has proved loath to intervene in Zimbabwe. Perhaps it is still right that Africa choose to address and not to address these issues. But it seems that if the world wants to help, Africans ought to welcome that help, as long as African leaders make clear that they set the agenda and they provide the leadership and they create the structures in which Europeans, Americans and others might operate. In other words, African solutions for African problems, but with whatever help the West is willing to provide in a subordinate capacity.

Western involvement does not have to mean neocolonialism, though as Thabo Mbeki argued before the General Assembly yesterday, the very structure of that organization does favor rich nations over poor ones. Mbeki further asserted that even with their augmented status, developed nations are failing the developing world.  Perhaps the west is listening (now look who is whistling past the graveyard!) and can come to the conclusion that western help under African control might pave a new road for African relations with Europe, the United States, and elsewhere.

Yesterday I asserted the following:

As long as there is progress, however tentative and cosmetic, an outside world that has been loath even to think about intervening in Zimbabwe is going to continue to stand pat. This is Thabo Mbeki’s roll of the dice. If these reforms prove effective, he will deserve a large proportion of the credit. But if they fail, and it is easy to succumb to pessimism and argue that they will, it all lands in Mbeki’s lap.

Well, not surprisingly, South Africa appears quite pleased with the progress in Zimbabwe. Even a man whistling past a graveyard sounds happy with himself. But perhaps South Africa really is helping to clear the logjam to its north. As the most powerful nation in the region, South Africa ought to have tremendous influence.

But what is more surprising is that I appear to have been wrong, at least to some extent, about the effect that recent developments might have on the western powers, and especially the US and UK. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has vowed to boycott December’s summit of African and European leaders if Robert Mugabe is invited. Even more significantly, he requested his fellow heads of state to follow suit. Now Brown’s threats and blandishments largely represent commitments of omission — promises not to do things — as opposed to commitments of commission, which would require actual action, but they strike me as at minimum symbolically significant, and might lead to more tangible accomplishment.

And of course we can already anticipate president Mugabe’s apoplectic response: The accusations of neocolonialism! The colorful insults! The stubborn refusal to yield an inch! And did I mention the accusations and the name calling? But hopefully Mugabe’s act will begin wearing thin not only among western leaders, but more crucially among African leaders who are far better able to dismiss Mugabe’s vitriolic fulminations and whose absence from the upcoming meeting would speak volumes. If only a few African heads of state take the lead, a deluge might just follow.

The proposed Constitutional changes to streamline (or consolidate ZANU-PF power, depending on your perspective) the political process in Zimbabwe have come to pass. Under the provisions of the legislation Zimbabwe will change its electoral boundaries, increase the number of MPs and accelerate by two years parliamentary elections.

In a gesture that makes a virtue out of necessity, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) decided not to contest the changes despite widespread opposition, because the party did not have enough votes to stop the vote from carrying in any case. MDC thus can claim that it is facilitating the negotiation process that Thabo Mbeki is overseeing for South Africa on behalf of SADC.  It is easy to detect resignation on the part of the opposition. But without any viable outlet to prevent the changes from taking place, the opposition hopes that the outcome of this Constitutional tinkering will be a more open political process. (The Foreign Policy Association has more links here.)

Acquiescence seems to be the coin of the realm north of the Limpopo these days. Despite the economic crisis (which now includes outbreaks of disease in Bulowayo), unions, for example, have been unable to gain any traction in their call for a general strike this week.

Meanwhile in South Africa retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu has called for more outside pressure on Zim from both the western powers and especially England, but also from South Africa. As long as there is progress, however tentative and cosmetic, an outside world that has been loath even to think about intervening in Zimbabwe is going to continue to stand pat. This is Thabo Mbeki’s roll of the dice. If these reforms prove effective, he will deserve a large proportion of the credit. But if they fail, and it is easy to succumb to pessimism and argue that they will, it all lands in Mbeki’s lap. Let’s hope for Zimbabwe, far more than for Mbeki, that his gamble proves to be a winning one.