There are many explanations for the failure of African countries to complement their political independence with a sustained level of economic development and self-reliance. These explanations can broadly be divided into two – exogenous and endogenous.
Of the exogenous explanations, some attribute the failure of African development to the legacy of colonialism. Decolonised countries inherited laws and institutions that were neither suited nor adapted to the realities, needs, traditions and aspirations of the local circumstances. Even the state was to be seen as a ‘soft state’ being weak or lacking strong expression of national interest by the elites steering it. Others ascribe it to the persistence of neo-colonialism.
Endogenous explanations attribute the problems to the persistence of fragmentation, conflict, tribal competitions and above elite manipulation of differences in ethnicity, language, religion and region to advance selfish interests. A number of analysts ascribe undermining the emergence of robust institutions and crippling the processes necessary to inscribe rudimentary structures for sustainable governance, to elite manipulation of interests.
A number of commentators claim that Africa has not carried out the nation building project well. Political development has been stunted. Cultural integration amongst the various communities has been disrupted by elite and foreign manipulation.
Citizen participation in public life has remained limited, sporadic, unsystematic or uninstitutionalised. The ability of the state to combine social and economic policies to create redistributive policies, and welfare and well-being development schemes, is still far from the agenda of the ‘accidentally’ exchanging and transmuting elites.
I think both the internal and external conditions for current elite behavior play an equally big role. Very simply, it is possible to have created a prohibitive external environment to prevent the elites from stashing away public money in foreign banks. But the external corruptive actors encourage the elites and even advise them regarding how to continue to evade controls to keep public money for their own use.
I would argue that the concept of the post-colonial state in Africa needs to be revisited, to understand why elite behavior has focused on scrambling to seize the state rather than serving the people – by making the state a producer of public services rather than an instrument of elite corruption. The state was bequeathed as a colonial hangover that ended up intoxicating the elite, whilst being a big burden on the people of Africa.
The state is not a nation builder, it is an elite builder. It is not empowering people; it is, instead, repressing people.
It is not an economic developer; it is a promoter of underdevelopment. It is not a developmental state, it is a failed state. It is not a site for public service; instead it is an attractor of public vice.
The appellations to describe the African state are indeed legion: the criminal state, the renter’s state, the failed state, the patrimonial state, the predation state, and so on. The main problem is that the state has been more a rent-seeking agent than a developmental agent.
All the way, the focus has been, if the state is not an effective development agent, who can take its role or how can its ineffectiveness as a development agent can be rectified. Such issues have dominated public discourse for a long time. Rather than accept the fact that the state is there (whether one likes it or not), and try to find ways of inculcating habits, norms, rules and regulations to make it an effective dispenser of public service, the policy has veered to undermine the state by creating many mini-states, such as civil society and non-profits organisations, whose accountability is often as suspect as the state’s, even though not as flagrant as that witnessed by rent-seekers that use the state.
Regarding our country, I think the questions are how did Ethiopia emerge as a modern nation-state? What forms of economic, political and cultural injustices prevailed in this state formation process? What can possibly be done to redress past grievances both in the state architecture of the country and in its socio-cultural affairs as a nation?
For me a democratic system of government is the only solution for those questions. Despite the occasional outcries for democracy or its being tagged in the acronyms of the incumbent and opposition parties, democracy does not have a central place in Ethiopia’s political discourse. From the early 1970s on, the Ethiopian student movement introduced two major political questions around which the entire political discourse of the country revolved; the land question and the national question.
The ‘national question’ is a meta-problem with auxiliary questions like: how did Ethiopia emerge as a modern nation-state? What forms of economic, political and cultural injustices prevailed in this state formation process? What can possibly be done to redress past grievances both in the state architecture of the country and its socio-cultural affairs as a nation?
Here again, democracy was not a central agenda of Ethiopia’s political discourse up until the 1990s. Consider the names of all the liberation ‘fronts’ bred, including the Tigray Peoples’ Liberation Front (TPLF), in the 1980s and 1990s. The raison d’être of these organisations was ‘liberation’ that entails self-determination, up to and including secession.
Democratisation has never been the mainstay of these organisations. It is ironic that TPLF still retains its title of ‘liberation’ after more than two decades being in power!
I guess the task of ‘liberating’ others is so arduous that one just cannot finish it. Hence, one may need all the time in the world.
Reciting all versions of ‘liberation theology’, the ‘national question’ has now succeeded to single handedly determine Ethiopia’s political spectrum. Thus, the spectrum entails the Ethiopian nationalists, on the one hand, and ethno-nationalists, on the other.
But Ethiopians have reached the verdict after having witnessed those live and engaging debates between political parties; attending gatherings and rallies; and hoping for some peaceful and democratic transition in the country. Gone are the days where politicians want to rule by the muzzle of the gun and impose their will on people.
The election made one simple, powerful, but understated point: democracy is the only way through which the right of people to self-determination is actualised.
Why should the quest for democracy take the front seat in Ethiopia’s political discourse?
I believe, only democracy guarantees an everyday form of self-determination for the people and by the people.
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