“It is not yet Uhuru”

Introduction
The author of the above quote is Oginga Odinga. He was influential in the struggle for Kenya’s independence and became the first vice president of an independent Kenya. Uhuru is a Swahili word which means freedom and he therefore implies that Africans are not yet emancipated since Africa’s independence. A postcolonial period is what the name suggests; an era after colonialism which must be free from any form of colonial oppression. However, if we analyze the period after colonialism, we will find that the quality of existence for most ‘black’ Africans did not change much since the independence of Africa. The only obvious change is the emergence of a small affluent ‘black’ elite in Africa, whilst the majority of ‘black’ Africans are poor. This begs the question: Are we really free? This essay will attempt to answer this question by arguing that freedom in Africa is not yet achieved. And will, therefore firstly, discuss freedom in a postcolonial Africa and lastly, it will look at the ‘back to route’ movement which is essentially going to explain where it all went wrong for Africa after independence.

Freedom in postcolonial Africa
What does freedom in a postcolonial Africa entail? How can freedom be obtain and maintained in a postcolonial Africa? These are some the questions we need to ask ourselves as political studies students when we want to found out if we are really free. Freedom in postcolonial Africa is a very contentious issue with many arguments but with no clear answer. And it seems as none of these arguments can help poor ‘black’ Africans to achieve the freedom that they have been waited for since the independence of Africa. Before we can start a discussion on freedom in a postcolonial Africa, we will firstly have to look at the various levels which Africa was colonized and secondly at the meaning of freedom that one of the leading political scholars in Africa provides us with in his book Uhuru Na Maendeleo (Freedom and Development).

According to Ture & Hamilton (1992: 6-23) colonialism had operated in three areas which were politics, economics and culture. During colonialism political decisions which affected Africans were made by colonial powers through a process of British indirect rule and the French assimilation. Further, the colonial project from the beginning was an economic project; colonial powers came to Africa not to ‘civilize’ but to exploit them economically. On, the cultural front colonial powers created an ideology that “relegated the black man to a subordinated, inferior status in society” (Ture & Hamilton: 1992: 23). This therefore meant that for Africans to be completely decolonized they had to be decolonized at all three levels. More simply put, is that they had to operate completely independent from the West at all three levels. The next section will discuss freedom in a post colonial era.

Julius Nyerere argues that there are three forms of freedom: (i) national freedom - which is the freedom of citizens to determine their own future; (ii) freedom from hunger, disease, and poverty; and (iii) individual freedom - which includes the right to live in dignity and equality and the right to freedom of speech, etc. For Africans to be free in a postcolonial Africa they have to experiences all three forms of freedom. But, as people that stay in Africa, we are all aware of the inequalities that are present in our societies. This, therefore, seems as that we as Africans in a postcolonial Africa are partly free. We are free to choose our government and our individual freedoms are protected by our constitutions, but we are not free from poverty, hunger and disease.

Firstly, the reason for this is that during the struggle for Africa’s independence we “decided for practical reasons to accept a fragment of independence” (Fanon; 1987: 120). The “fragment of independence” that Fanon here refer to is that we have exchanged economic power for political power and because we do not have the economic power we are burdened by social inequalities such as poverty, hunger and disease. This also means that we were never economically decolonized. A classic example would be how the ANC, during negotiations for a democratic South Africa, had to choose between economic power and political power. Today 15 years since the first democratic elections in South Africa this is still visible, the ANC has the political power and the ‘whites’ has the economic power. Inequalities, in Africa, are entrenched by Western capitalism through neo-colonialism. Neo-colonialism “addresses itself essentially to the middle class and to the intellectuals of the colonial country” (Fanon; 1987: 122) and therefore it creates unequal relationship between ‘black’ people in Africa. This unequal relationship causes the emergence of a small ‘black’ elite and the poor ‘black’ masses in a postcolonial Africa. And as long as we will have Western capitalism present in a postcolonial Africa we will not be free from Western oppression.

The second challenge that we face Africa is intellectual colonization. Intellectual colonization is a result of cultural colonization. Intellectual colonization makes us accept the unequal relationship that Western capitalism portrays as ‘right’. For example, every time we watch something on television the ideas of Western capitalism are being fed to us ‘as the right way of life.’ This simply means that you as the audience want to live your life like those ones on television. You want to drive their cars, you want to go to their schools and you want to do their jobs. But not knowing you are agreeing to the veiled inequalities that this life presents. To drive that car, to live in that house and to do that job, you are in support of the idea that some people must be rich whilst some must be poor; and some must be the servant whilst others are the boss. This entrench inequalities in Africa and deny Africans from the freedom which many had died for.

Where it all did went wrong for Africa
The ‘back to route’ movement explains where it all went wrong for Africa. There are number of arguments that we can discuss but this section will discuss the work of Issa Shivji. He wrote a document which is titled ‘The silences in the NGO Discourse’ in which he discusses how freedom in Africa was taken. Firstly, he notices that the generation of African nationalist, after Africa’s independence, crafted a form of nationalism which was modelled on that of the colonial powers but the ideological genesis of African nationalism lay in Pan-Africanism (Shivji; 2006: 6). Julius Nyerere and Kwame Nkrumah has realised that in order for African nationalism to work it must happen in Pan-Africanism, if not independent African stated will become pawns on a chess board for European imperialists’ (Shivji; 2006: 6). This was the biggest mistake most African leaders made. They went for self-interest over the interest of the majority. This gave Western imperialist the opportunity to regain their grip on Africa through various ways such as supporting corrupt African governments if they benefit from it and by only supporting “crisis-ridden economies” (Shivji; 2006: 9), if African governments adopted the structural adjustment programmes by the Bretton Woods institutions.

Towards Uhuru in Africa in the 21st century

A number of scholars has came with solutions to fix the Uhuru problem. This section, however, will only discuss the work of Julius Nyerere and Thabo Mbeki. Julius Nyerere suggests the following solution:

Our first step, therefore must be to re-educate ourselves; to regain our former attitude of mind. In our traditional African society we were individuals within a community. We took care of the community, and the community took care of us. We neither needed nor wished to exploit our fellow man (1973: 166).

His solution according to Bogue (2003: 103) brings two aspects to the fore which needs to be considered to enable us to achieve human equality: they are (1) intellectual decolonization and (2) the relationship between the individual and the community. Julius Nyerere wrote Ujamaa as a political framework to stimulate the intellectual decolonization of Africans, after the independence of Tanzania. His thought was based on human equality. If we study his concept of human equality it is apparent that human equality may achieve freedom. The second aspect means that you have individual rights within the community but your rights must not be greater than that of the common good of the community. This, therefore, entails you to generated wealth as an individual for the greater good of the community and not for your selfish needs.

Posted by Jacob Cloete ©

 Posted June 02, 2011