Fifty Years of African Independence
Personal Reflections
By Thandika Mkandawire
Published by Mkuki Na Nyota (2013)
ISBN: 978-9987-08-248-3

IN 1963, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was formed with the objective of working towards the greater unity of the African continent while at the same time ensuring that the remaining colonies on the African continent are assisted to achieve their freedom and independence.
It is important to recall the Founding Fathers of the OAU, among them Kwame Nkrumah, Emperor Haile Selassie, Julius Nyerere and Jomo Kenyatta had their own vision for Africa and this vision was inspired by the pan-African Movement.
Thus, the pan-African dream gave birth to African liberation with the last country to attain independence in Africa being South Africa in 1994.
Fifty Years of African Independence: Personal Reflections centred on a lecture given by Thandika Mkandawire at the fifth anniversary of the OAU (AU) in 2013 at the Mwalimu Nyerere Professorial Chair in pan-African studies at the University of Dar Es Salaam, notes that the obvious challenge to every African leader after independence is keeping the new nation together.
“Even prior to independence, nationalist movements had to find a new voice and new identity for the disparate ethnic and cultural groups that share the colonially defined country.
“There were many attempts at self-definition that included recovering a usable historical past, cultural relocation of the African people, etc,” writes Mkandawire.
Mkandawire posits that the challenge faced by African leaders in exercising their sovereignty was as a result of the continued influences of their erstwhile colonisers on the affairs of new nations.
This, he defined as neo-colonialism where political power is in the hands of the formerly colonised and economic power remains under control of international finance capital.
“The colonial powers were bent on turning independence into a ‘Flag Independence’ in which everything but the flag remained the same’.”
The book speaks to the need for real independence like in the case of Zimbabwe, which reclaimed ownership of the means of production.
Previously, in the country, only 4 000 whites owned all the prime land and ran the industries.
The writer lambasts donor organisations for interferring in the affairs of African states.
Another challenge highlighted by the author is the reversal of economic gains by African countries through the introduction of structural adjustment programmes and privatisation which destroyed flourishing economies, paving way for donor institutions in Africa.
“Over the years the donor establishment has admitted to a number of errors.
“They admitted it was wrong to assume the ‘driver’s seat’ in policy making, they admit that in many cases there was wrong sequencing in liberalisation and thus privatisation should not have taken place before the regulatory mechanism was in place.
“They admitted to excessive retrenchment of the state, they admit they overestimated the responsiveness to the withdrawal of the state from agricultural markets and overburdening national bureaucracies with unwieldly agenda.
“They now admit that the model they imposed increased inequality.”
Mkandawire concludes: “So far the pan-African dream has not fared well.”
Mkandawire calls upon people to return to the pan-African dream of a united Africa through democratic politics and collective self-reliance to counter the problems wrought by dependence and neo-colonialism.
He highlights how the talk about ‘land grabbing’ or the ‘New Scramble for Africa’ indicates that Africa is still up for grabs and points to the continued or renewed imperial onslaught on Africa’s vast resources.
The writer emphasises the need for the continent to watch out for this new threat to sovereignty through viewing its resources as important in a national project of economic development and structural change and not merely as a source of foreign exchange to be used to finance the insatiable appetite for consumer goods.
“The depressing thing is that many African countries have traded their natural wealth for a pittance.
“African countries should manage their resource revenues and emphasis should be (on) ‘sovereign funds’ as a way of holding something in trust for a rainy day for future generations.”
He adds that Africa must unite and take the project of regional co-operation seriously since it has been threatened by globalisation which introduced the element of regionalism, therefore dividing the African continent.
“The dream of a united Africa can be realised by transforming pan-Africanism back into its original status of a political movement, and by adopting democratic principles and collective self-reliance as its core principles.”
Above all, Mkandawire emphasises the need for Africans to remind themselves and the younger generation that African independence came about because nationalists sacrificed for a people enslaved, pillaged and dehumanised by European powers.
“Too often we hear our young people, particularly those educated in the North, retorting that we should stop blaming the colonialists and playing ‘victimhood’.
“Yet, how can we understand our present state without asking how we came to be in this situation of abysmal poverty on the richest continent in the world.
“Not only does our past account for our present but the continued imperialist pillage of our natural resources continues to reinforce the state of our underdevelopment.”
He urges every generation to strongly devote time to understanding how things got to where they are.