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By: Baba Yunus Mohammed
THE African continent is one but its 'sovereign' States are many. And herein lie the roots of our misery, for, what is good for mankind as a whole is not good enough for the ‘autonomous’ State!
The dominant order of our age, there can be no illusions about it, does not rest on the recognition of any ultimate, moral values. Our world knows of no other authority save its own. Hence, its structuring principle is neither ideological nor cultural. It is, quite simply, political and sustained by the sys¬tem and logic of statism. Indeed, the continent we are heirs to is the most naked embodiment of the Nietzschean ‘Will to Power' - principle as well as proffers its most unashamed apology.
Atop the African power pyramid today sit a new gang of robber-barons who are our nation-¬states. Territorial in nature, totalitarian in praxis and sectarian in ideology, our nation-¬states are the idols of history whose triumph in our age tellingly belies the victory of might over right. Not inconsistently, therefore, is the State's monopoly to use violence and terror regarded as the alpha and omega of our global 'order'. The most inviolable tenet of statism, according to its fundamentalist creed, is quite simply the right of the State to use force both internally and externally. Little wonder, then, that State aggression and repression have be¬come enshrined in the sacred charter of our ‘Law of Nations’. Indeed, the very logic of --contemporary global order - the only legitimacy for the modem system of ‘sovereign’ states - demands that the world be de¬moralised, militarised, hegemonised. With the forfeiting of its right to the organised use of violence, the modem political state totally looses its Will to Survival. Barring violence, terror, suppression and coercion, the nation state has no other mission and our global sys¬tem no other ‘order’.
Lamentably, thus, based as it is on a totalita¬rian and paranoid mentality, the contemporary state is both parochial and fanatical. The State acts today as an instrument of class, as a defen¬der of the inequitable status quo and as the perpetrator of the most unpardonable global injustices. The most heinous crimes against humanity today are committed for ‘reasons of state’ and for¬given for the same rationale. What is more, our human community has no recourse to any re-dress or retribution because the State system, not only it is the cause of our woes, it acts as the prosecutor and judge at the trial of our suffer¬ing humanity as well!
Paradoxically, the post-colonial states in Africa have evolved into the most potent instrument of maintaining the hegemonic status quo of which its citizens are the foremost victims. With the technocratisation of the world, with its unceasing globalisation, integra¬tion and homogenisation, nation¬-states in Africa have no other function left but to provide legitimacy to the system of global injustices and tyranny. Moreover, having sold its soul to the Mephistophles of ‘modernity’, the poor, non-¬industrialized, de-colonised African states even find themselves at the mercy of the West, its high technology and its transnational capitalism, who sap it of every ounce of political will and deprive it of every attribute of ‘sovereignty’! No wonder, the independence of African states has come to be a farce.
For Africans, the new puppet states, integra¬ted and recruited in the service of the global order of terror and global hegemony, lacks all semblances of legitimacy. One by one, it has betrayed all African causes. Our wealth has been squandered to provide bulwarks to transnational capitalism, African soldiers sold to fight foreign wars and African societies left prey to the vultures of immoral consumerism. African states have even acted as the front-line salesmen of western technologies and ideologies. Nothing in the recent conduct of the robber-barons of the African continent, its territorial states, harmonizes with the African ideals. Why must, then, there not be a crisis of legitimacy in Africa, when the political power of the continent is used for the sustenance of an unjust world-hegemony and not for the creation of a just political and economic order, which is the epitome of African Will to Power?
The suffering humanity today sorely needs an alternative to statism. The African continent even moreso. That is why, African leaders at this year’s AU summit due to be held in Accra, Ghana in July should not miss the opportunity to dismantle the artificial barriers imposed on the continent by the colonialist, and put in their place an African Union Government, which millions of Africans are yearning for.
It is undisputable that today, almost every African wants to live in a United Africa, where he or she can travel freely from one country to another, on a single passport, without a visa or security harassments at borders, where all trade barriers are no longer there, where he or she enjoys good governance from elected leaders, pursuing a common political and economic policies, without the interference of Global Capital financial institutions and superpowers. Almost every African accepts that we are one people with a common ancestry and destiny. But what has hindered the unification of Africa, inspite of the good works of the Nkrumahs, Nassers, Lumumbas, Sekou Toures, Murtala Muhammeds, Azikiwes and Gaddafis? The answer is simple.
As stated in the beginning of this piece, Africa is a single continent, and yet hopelessly divided and fragmented: this is the bleak situation that stares us in the face. It makes the belief in a single African continent, without the plethora of nation-states with their artificial borders, national flags and national anthems appear notional and even romantic. Every practical man, who signals the 'scientific' mind, must accept these divisions and borders as permanent and alterable.
At the same time it is also a fact that a large number of Africans - politicians, diplomats, statesmen and intellectuals, as we have now, work for African unity and have very deep and abiding commitments. Their short-term and long-term goals are variously stated, but in the end amount to much the same.
Thank God, the enthusiasm and the level of debate the concept of African Union Government has attracted in recent times is an indication that African consciousness is rising above the limitations of national, ethnic and tribal, geographical and religious reality to project the future on the wide screen of the African continent. The new revolutionary consciousness has also got rid of the schizophrenia of doubt and challenged the validity of the so-called reality. The ghost of internationalism and dominant imperialism has been laid to rest.
For many African intellectuals and politicians the unity of the African continent and the dismantling of the artificial barriers that divide us are the realities that will henceforth dominate our consciousness. This means we are going to rearrange our priorities by applying ourselves at the academic level. Because we now know that a United States of Africa without national frontiers pursuing its own political and economic goals would have to be conceptualised in a 'grand strategy' and 'an overarching theory' capable of sustaining a programme of Grand Continental Union Government. An international conference to redefine our situation and draw strategies may be a good beginning!
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