What does Gaddafi's fall mean for Africa?
The
end of Gadaffi is the beginning of new level of external
interventions in Africa unless the continent’s leaders
concentrate on internal reforms. By Professor MAHMOOD MAMDANI
"Kampala 'mute' as Gaddafi falls," is how the opposition paper
summed up the mood of this capital the morning after. Whether
they mourn or celebrate, an unmistakable sense of trauma marks
the African response to the fall of Gaddafi.
Both in the longevity of his rule and in his style of
governance, Gaddafi may have been extreme. But he was not
exceptional. The longer they stay in power, the more African
presidents seek to personalise power. Their success erodes the
institutional basis of the state. The Carribean thinker C L R
James once remarked on the contrast between Nyerere and Nkrumah,
analysing why the former survived until he resigned but the
latter did not: "Dr Julius Nyerere in theory and practice laid
the basis of an African state, which Nkrumah failed to do."
The African strongmen are going the way of Nkrumah, and in
extreme cases Gaddafi, not Nyerere. The societies they lead are
marked by growing internal divisions. In this, too, they are
reminiscent of Libya under Gaddafi more than Egypt under Mubarak
or Tunisia under Ben Ali.
Whereas the fall of Mubarak and Ben Ali directed our attention
to internal social forces, the fall of Gaddafi has brought a new
equation to the forefront: the connection between internal
opposition and external governments. Even if those who cheer
focus on the former and those who mourn are preoccupied with the
latter, none can deny that the change in Tripoli would have been
unlikely without a confluence of external intervention and
internal revolt.
More interventions to come
The conditions making for external intervention in Africa are
growing, not diminishing. The continent is today the site of a
growing contention between dominant global powers and new
challengers. The Chinese role on the continent has grown
dramatically. Whether in Sudan and Zimbawe, or in Ethiopia,
Kenya and Nigeria, that role is primarily economic, focused on
two main activities: building infrastructure and extracting raw
materials. For its part, the Indian state is content to support
Indian mega-corporations; it has yet to develop a coherent state
strategy. But the Indian focus too is mainly economic.
The contrast with Western powers, particularly the US and
France, could not be sharper. The cutting edge of Western
intervention is military. France's search for opportunities for
military intervention, at first in Tunisia, then Cote d'Ivoire,
and then Libya, has been above board and the subject of much
discussion. Of greater significance is the growth of Africom,
the institutional arm of US military intervention on the African
continent.
This is the backdrop against which African strongmen and their
respective oppositions today make their choices. Unlike in the
Cold War, Africa's strongmen are weary of choosing sides in the
new contention for Africa. Exemplified by President Museveni of
Uganda, they seek to gain from multiple partnerships, welcoming
the Chinese and the Indians on the economic plane, while at the
same time seeking a strategic military presence with the US as
it wages its War on Terror on the African continent.
In contrast, African oppositions tend to look mainly to the West
for support, both financial and military. It is no secret that
in just about every African country, the opposition is drooling
at the prospect of Western intervention in the aftermath of the
fall of Gaddafi.
Those with a historical bent may want to think of a time over a
century ago, in the decade that followed the Berlin conference,
when outside powers sliced up the continent. Our predicament
today may give us a more realistic appreciation of the real
choices faced and made by the generations that went before us.
Could it have been that those who then welcomed external
intervention did so because they saw it as the only way of
getting rid of domestic oppression?
In the past decade, Western powers have created a political and
legal infrastructure for intervention in otherwise independent
countries. Key to that infrastructure are two institutions, the
United Nations Security Council and the International Criminal
Court. Both work politically, that is, selectively. To that
extent, neither works in the interest of creating a rule of law.
The Security Council identifies states guilty of committing
"crimes against humanity" and sanctions intervention as part of
a "responsibility to protect" civilians. Third parties, other
states armed to the teeth, are then free to carry out the
intervention without accountability to anyone, including the
Security Council. The ICC, in toe with the Security Council,
targets the leaders of the state in question for criminal
investigation and prosecution.
Africans have been complicit in this, even if unintentionally.
Sometimes, it is as if we have been a few steps behind in a game
of chess. An African Secretary General tabled the proposal that
has come to be called R2P, Responsibility to Protect. Without
the vote of Nigeria and South Africa, the resolution authorising
intervention in Libya would not have passed in the Security
Council.
Dark days are ahead. More and more African societies are deeply
divided internally. Africans need to reflect on the fall of
Gaddafi and, before him, that of Gbagbo in Cote d'Ivoire. Will
these events usher in an era of external interventions, each
welcomed internally as a mechanism to ensure a change of
political leadership in one country after another?
One thing should be clear: those interested in keeping external
intervention at bay need to concentrate their attention and
energies on internal reform.
Mahmood Mamdani is professor and director of Makerere Institute
of Social Research at Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, and
Herbert Lehman Professor of Government at Columbia University,
New York. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1974
and specializes in the study of African and international
politics, colonialism and post-colonialism, and the politics of
knowledge production. http://www.africaportal.org/articles/2011/09/06/life-crossroads-how-climate-change-threatens-existence-maasai
‘Those interested in keeping external intervention at bay need
to concentrate their attention and energies on internal reform.’
‘The continent is today the site of a growing contention between
dominant global powers [the west] and new challengers. The
Chinese … focused on … building infrastructure and extracting
raw materials [and] the Indian state [contented] to support
Indian mega-corporations.’
Peace may be war in post-war Libya
The scars Gaddafi has left Libya, coupled with the West's role,
will complicate a 'post-war' period. By TARAK BARKAWI.
Apparently, Colonel Gaddafi was no guerrilla leader. Nor was he
a very cunning fugitive for long when stripped of the
prerogatives of state. He retreated to his hometown and allowed
himself to get caught up in a siege that could only be lost.
In the weeks before Gaddafi's death, there were justified fears
that Libya was becoming a kind of post-invasion Iraq, "Mission
Accomplished: The Sequel". A rapier-like Western campaign has
helped topple an autocrat, but in the absence of an effective
plan or means to replace him.
The NTC has been unable to secure the country. Armed militias
have clashed. Many have suffered from the capricious rule of
undisciplined men with guns. Gaddafi was threatening insurgency.
Now the pendulum is swinging the other way. The hated dictator
is dead. Victory and peace are declared. Celebration will be the
order of the day. The 'political process' can begin. The
combatants in the air and on the ground will feel justly proud
they got their man. But they will be wrong to think it's over.
The fact that Saddam Hussein evaded capture for so long was not
of great significance to the many sided conflict that developed
in post-invasion Iraq. The hunt for the 'Ace of Spades' (as
Hussein was in the decks of cards issued to US soldiers) was a
sideshow.
That the King of Kings (one of Gaddafi's favoured titles) is
dead does not change the fact that the NTC has been unable to
secure a country awash with armed men. Libya is also a country
shot through with rivalries, jealousies and blood debts, among
individuals and groups. Some of these divisions are of historic
vintage, many arise from Gaddafi's rule, and the war will have
added a new crop. Like Iraq, Libya was assembled through
histories of empire and its aftermath. It has been torn apart by
war. Now it has lost the one thing that united much of the
country: hatred of Colonel Gaddafi and his regime. Libyans are
left to face the legacy of his mastery of the art of divide and
rule.
The manner in which the war was fought will be decisive in
shaping what happens. The involvement of Western air forces
meant that the rebels never had to form a unified force. Only to
a limited extent did they learn the habits of cooperation under
fire. That is why they now lack an army with which to bring the
country under control.
The 'political process' will be left dependent upon the willing
cooperation of communities. Victorious rebel bands will make
experienced cadres for their home militias. There are many
scores to settle; competing visions of the future; and the
possibility of resort to arms if the 'process' does not pan out
for local interests.
Against these forces of disorder will be little but the desire
of ordinary Libyans to build a just, democratic and flourishing
country. Western assistance, as ever, will be fickle and come
with many strings attached.
The premature celebrations of victory in Libya and the West
reflect a widely shared habit of thought, that of making a sharp
distinction between war and peace. Chiefly we do this by putting
dates after wars. Diplomats and the UN make tidy distinctions
between 'conflict' and 'post-conflict', upon which their
policies are based. Yet fighting, out in the open or in the
shadows, has often preceded and post-dated the official period
of hostilities. More fundamentally, there is a continuum between
peace and war.
Libya's clans and interest groups will continue to pursue their
ends, with all available means. Negotiations are just another
medium for strategic contest. Battles over electoral
arrangements for the constitutional council will be crucial
engagements. Such negotiations and the gaming of the elections
that follow litter the landscape of contemporary conflicts in
the global South, as do violent and bitter losers.
In such contexts, the spark of local clashes - sure to continue
- can all too easily set off larger wildfires. Other groups and
interests are drawn into the fighting, which becomes many sided.
These are the kinds of conflicts that have so often devastated
postcolonial states, and they can last for many years.
Western policy will continue to be drawn into the vortex of
Libyan politics for some time to come. Nimble intervention from
the air - symbolised by the well-placed missile file that might
have halted Gaddafi's convoy - may not appear so rapier-like in
retrospect.
Tarak Barkawi is Senior Lecturer in the Centre of International
Studies, University of Cambridge.
‘Like Iraq, Libya … has lost the one thing that united much of
the country: hatred of Colonel Gaddafi. [Now] Libyans are left
to face the legacy of his mastery of the art of divide and
rule.’.
.
.
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