Why rush US of Africa whilst colonial pattern persists?

By Madibeng Kgwete: posted on 30 May 2007

In his letter in The Star newspaper, http://www.thestar.co.za/, “We need a United States of Africa” (Letters, May 30, 2007), Mncebisi Mashingoane makes some highly significant observations about the need for more awareness, particularly among young South Africans, regarding Africa Day, celebrated annually across the African continent on 25 May.

Relying heavily on Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s pan-Africanist philosophy, Mashingoane rightly opines that: “Because of South Africa ’s late arrival in the fold of independent African states, we need to double our efforts to raise awareness about the significance of Africa Day among the population”.

Mashingoane then spoils everything else he says by arguing, quite narrowly, that: “A national programme aimed at combating xenophobia would be the best tribute to Africa Day in South Africa , as xenophobia (in our country) has become the primary adversary of the ideal of African unity”.

Narrowing down the whole ideal of African unity to some “national programme aimed at combating xenophobia” is to counter the very pan-Africanist philosophy that the likes of Dr. Nkrumah so selflessly dedicated their lives.

Because the sweeping perception that South Africans are generally xenophobic cannot be proven to be correct, we the African people therefore need to think broadly enough to realise that better political unity and economic cooperation must be our first priorities towards the envisaged United States of Africa.

So far, our leaders have done relatively well in working towards political unity and closer economic cooperation. For example, Nepad, though not functioning at its full potential as yet, has been a great stepping stone towards African economic solutions to African economic challenges.

The African Union, also not functioning at its full potential as yet, has proven to be a useful platform towards common African positions on critical international matters, ranging from as controversial as the situation in Zimbabwe to as celebratory as the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa .

We should not rush to forming a United States of Africa if such a bloc is not going to be viable in the foreseeable future, nor should we be so narrow as to place perceived xenophobia as the key towards continental unity. We must be realistic and truly independent in our thinking.

The biggest obstacle to African unity at the moment is Africa ’s dependence on its former colonial and imperialist masters for so-called aid. We need to ask ourselves whether our former masters “aid” us to be economically independent or to keep us as closely tied to them as we currently are.

The so-called “aid”, I would like to argue, is another form of debt, which we will be expected to pay back in some unspecified non-monetary terms: and this may mean keeping our markets and resources (both material and human) open for exploitation.

For as long as we rely on our former masters for “aid”, the United States of Africa will remain a pie in the sky. We can fix everything else, including the supposed xenophobia cited by Mashingoane, but if we continue to rely on the West for “aid”, we aren’t going anywhere.

Dr. Nkrumah wrote in his book, Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism, that: “In order to make it attractive to those upon whom it is practiced, [neo-colonialism] must be shown as capable of raising their living standards, but the economic object of neo-colonialism is to keep those standards depressed in the interest of developed countries”.