Dreams, reality compete at AU
Jul 08, 2004
ADDIS ABABA— If wishes were countries, Africans would have got one in the last three days-complete with a government, flag etc.
ADDIS ABABA— If wishes were countries, Africans would have got one in the last three days-complete with a government, flag etc.
African leaders, meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for the Third Ordinary Summit of the African Union (AU), as usual, spared no words in exalting continental unity.
The baptism of the former Organization of African Unity (OAU) into AU has clearly added impetus to the dream of Africa becoming one country continent.
The appearances
at the AU summit too did not betray anything other than one of a government in making. Proceedings were largely closed-door; cabinet style.
Save for the opening ceremony, the hundreds of journalists were kept at bay.
Gone were days of the OAU when each leader mounted the podium as they seemed to compete for the honours of making the longest speech. Instead, now the summit debated issues in corporate style-power-point video presentations et al.
What else? At the head of the table, the UA Commission chairman, the ebullient, flowing gown-dressed, forceful-speaking Alfa Konare, looked and sounded every inch presidential.
As if forgetting that he is the retired President of Mali, he addressed the summit, the way he must have been talking to Malians while still in power. One got the feeling he was enjoying the continued feel of presidency and yearned for the new country of Africa.
After Konare had made an animated presentation of the strategic vision leading to one African government by 2015, it was hard to tell whether the silently listening leaders were agreeing or simply lost. Some of them are good shelf items and may have never touched a computer mouse.
The idea of one African government, previously associated with Libya’s eccentric Muamar Qadaffi, appears to be more nursed by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) bloc. Konare is seen as their creature, having been a peer.
The problem is that the dream is as old as the OAU/AU. It was the clarion call of the founding chairman of the organization, Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, way back in 1963. Nobody, however, appeared keen to remind Konare and Co. that we have been there before.
Enter Yoweri Museveni. I mean our very own. Never one to swallow conventional wisdom blindly, he threw
a spanner in the works after Konare’s presentation of the strategic vision.
Without mincing words, President Museveni told the summit, as he has argued at countless fora, that the question of African integration
in not debatable.
But he was quick to add that it must be qualified at three levels: political integration, economic integration and shared defence.
He said on economic
integration of the continent into one bloc, he was fully with the AU vision. It is the only way a continent that is so marginalised that it accounts for 1% of world GDP, 2% of world trade and with 40% of its population in abject poverty, can get out of the woods.
Similarly, Museveni argued, Africa is courting voluntary extinction if it does not achieve a common defence mechanism. This is the only way it can, for example, rein in the arrogance of the rich world that is recklessly warming the globe, an action that could turn the whole of Africa into a desert.
This was as far as President Museveni’s scope of realistic integration possibilities for Africa went. As to Africa having one government, an idea that has failed for nearly half a century, he slammed a big question mark.
“We should debate whether the whole Africa can have one government and whether it is even desirable seriously and not emotionally,†he said. And clearly reminding the summit of the failed experiment, he added: “We must avoid utopian prescriptions.â€
The President gave his general reason for doubting the political integration of Africa — from Cairo to the Cape. It is not that he wants to be a big fish in a small pond.
“You need some degree of cultural homogeneity or at least compatibility,†he said.
Make no mistake. The Ugandan leader believes political integration is the highest form and should be the ultimate goal. So how do we get there, Mzee Museveni?
Let’s start with politically integrating regional blocs that enjoy homogeneity or compatibility. This is why the political integration of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda-and possibly Rwanda and Burundi — into the East African Community, as stated in the document of formulation, is achievable, he argued.
The point is very clear from the Ugandan corner. Let the debate continue for the sake of mother Africa.
Ends
African leaders, meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for the Third Ordinary Summit of the African Union (AU), as usual, spared no words in exalting continental unity.
The baptism of the former Organization of African Unity (OAU) into AU has clearly added impetus to the dream of Africa becoming one country continent.
The appearances
at the AU summit too did not betray anything other than one of a government in making. Proceedings were largely closed-door; cabinet style.
Save for the opening ceremony, the hundreds of journalists were kept at bay.
Gone were days of the OAU when each leader mounted the podium as they seemed to compete for the honours of making the longest speech. Instead, now the summit debated issues in corporate style-power-point video presentations et al.
What else? At the head of the table, the UA Commission chairman, the ebullient, flowing gown-dressed, forceful-speaking Alfa Konare, looked and sounded every inch presidential.
As if forgetting that he is the retired President of Mali, he addressed the summit, the way he must have been talking to Malians while still in power. One got the feeling he was enjoying the continued feel of presidency and yearned for the new country of Africa.
After Konare had made an animated presentation of the strategic vision leading to one African government by 2015, it was hard to tell whether the silently listening leaders were agreeing or simply lost. Some of them are good shelf items and may have never touched a computer mouse.
The idea of one African government, previously associated with Libya’s eccentric Muamar Qadaffi, appears to be more nursed by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) bloc. Konare is seen as their creature, having been a peer.
The problem is that the dream is as old as the OAU/AU. It was the clarion call of the founding chairman of the organization, Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, way back in 1963. Nobody, however, appeared keen to remind Konare and Co. that we have been there before.
Enter Yoweri Museveni. I mean our very own. Never one to swallow conventional wisdom blindly, he threw
a spanner in the works after Konare’s presentation of the strategic vision.
Without mincing words, President Museveni told the summit, as he has argued at countless fora, that the question of African integration
in not debatable.
But he was quick to add that it must be qualified at three levels: political integration, economic integration and shared defence.
He said on economic
integration of the continent into one bloc, he was fully with the AU vision. It is the only way a continent that is so marginalised that it accounts for 1% of world GDP, 2% of world trade and with 40% of its population in abject poverty, can get out of the woods.
Similarly, Museveni argued, Africa is courting voluntary extinction if it does not achieve a common defence mechanism. This is the only way it can, for example, rein in the arrogance of the rich world that is recklessly warming the globe, an action that could turn the whole of Africa into a desert.
This was as far as President Museveni’s scope of realistic integration possibilities for Africa went. As to Africa having one government, an idea that has failed for nearly half a century, he slammed a big question mark.
“We should debate whether the whole Africa can have one government and whether it is even desirable seriously and not emotionally,†he said. And clearly reminding the summit of the failed experiment, he added: “We must avoid utopian prescriptions.â€
The President gave his general reason for doubting the political integration of Africa — from Cairo to the Cape. It is not that he wants to be a big fish in a small pond.
“You need some degree of cultural homogeneity or at least compatibility,†he said.
Make no mistake. The Ugandan leader believes political integration is the highest form and should be the ultimate goal. So how do we get there, Mzee Museveni?
Let’s start with politically integrating regional blocs that enjoy homogeneity or compatibility. This is why the political integration of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda-and possibly Rwanda and Burundi — into the East African Community, as stated in the document of formulation, is achievable, he argued.
The point is very clear from the Ugandan corner. Let the debate continue for the sake of mother Africa.
Ends