THE STATE OF AFRICA: A HISTORY OF THE CONTINENT SINCE INDEPENDENCE
Martin Meredith
Jonathan Ball
REVIEW: Tyrone August
SOME routinely refer to Africa as a continent eternally trapped in cycles of poverty and war.
Others, again, romanticise Africa and prefer to take refuge in an idealised past. And then there are those who see its many problems, and yet still find strength and beauty in the continent.
The British journalist-turned-historian Martin Meredith, more often than not, falls into the latter group.
His overview of the history and politics of the continent, The State of Africa, shows this part of the world in all its sordid glory.
He first came here in 1964, at the age of 21, and subsequently worked for the Times of Zambia as a reporter.
He also spent 15 years here as a foreign correspondent for the British newspapers, The Observer and The Sunday Times.
His first-hand observation of some of the most historic events on the continent provides his book with a unique authority and insight.
It is an ambitious project, and takes a look in broad strokes at some of the major countries in Africa since Ghana’s independence in 1960.
What started out so full of promise, often ended in grave disappointment.
“By the end of the 1980s,” Meredith notes, “not a single African head of state in three decades had allowed himself to be voted out of office.”
He blames them for most of Africa’s political woes. Nor does he reserve his scorn only for the usual suspects such as Idi Amin (Uganda), Jean-Bedel Bokassa (Central African Republic) and Mobutu Sese Seko (Congo/Zaire).
He also tackles widely revered figures such as Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta and Congo’s Patrice Lumumba, and reminds us of their complicity in the political misfortunes of their countries.
Nkrumah, for instance, is portrayed as autocratic and insecure, and chose to live in a castle – a remnant of colonialism – as his official residence after independence.
“Nkrumah was a lonely figure,” comments Meredith, “distrustful of his close colleagues, rarely confiding in them.”
There are also intriguing anecdotes about the first wave of post-independence leaders. Kenyatta, for example, liked to prance about in London in a red sports jacket, carrying a silver-tipped cane.
And when he returned to Nairobi, he crammed his house with various mementoes from Europe.
Such gossipy titbits make the book eminently readable. At the same time, however, perhaps Meredith makes far too much of their roles as individuals in shaping the destiny of their countries, taking insufficient account of the social and political environments in which they functioned.
At one point, he states: “Africa has suffered grievously at the hands of its Big Men and its ruling elites.”
He forgets his own acknowledgement of the manipulative and often destructive intervention in Africa by many Western countries during the Cold War.
Towards the end of his book, Meredith also touches on the self-serving trade and agricultural policies of many of those countries: “Determined to protect their own producers, industrialised countries operate a system of subsidies and trade barriers that have a crippling effect on African producers.”
Natural disasters played a fairly significant role as well in destabilising and impoverishing parts of the continent. Meredith records, for example, that there was virtually no rain on the Ethiopian highlands for more than six months in 1983/1984.
At one stage, between 10 000 to 16 000 people died in shelters each week.
There are also occasional lapses in his sprawling account of events.
First we are told that Kenyatta marries in England; then, two pages later, he marries in Kenya.
Whatever happened to his first wife and their son?
Towards the end, Meredith also rushes off from one terrain of conflict or disaster to another, sometimes leaving the outcome dangling in the air.
Nevertheless, he generally deals extremely well with a vast range of information, imaginatively integrating it into a coherent and well-told narrative.
He does not allow a mass of facts and figures – essential as they are – to weigh down his account.
The State of Africa is clearly the work of a gifted story-teller.
While historians may quibble about the absence of an overarching theoretical or analytical framework, it is still an invaluable overview of recent events in Africa.
In any event, Meredith’s overall conclusion remains valid in many respects.
“After decades of mismanagement and corruption, most African states have become hollowed out,” he contends. “They are no longer instruments capable of serving the public good.”
Yet, even so, his book is not a cry of despair.
For him, Africa’s people are not entirely helpless victims.
As he points out: “What has always impressed me over the years is the resilience and humour with which ordinary Africans confront their many adversities.”
This book, then, is a disturbing yet ultimately still hopeful outline of Africa’s many challenges – whether self-inflicted or otherwise.
l August is a former editor of the Cape Times. - Cape Times