Two articles in The Mail & Guardian reveal a common trait among nation states and other political entities: A fundamental aversion to outside interference. During the American Civil Rights Movement white Southerners oftentimes claimed that their states were beset with outside agitators, alien forces who were there to cause trouble and then would leave without having to deal with the fallout. This was a nonsense justification, of course, but it did speak to a powerful sense of autonomy and sovereignty.
We see a similar tendency among African states today, though African concerns about outside encroachment are in many ways more valid than those of unreconstructed white southerners. Imperialism, the political machinations that characterized the Cold War, and neocolonialism are all very real historical and contemporary phenomena. Nonetheless, a zeal not to be told what to do, not to be imposed upon, sometimes leads to overreaction — witness the ways that too many African leaders have rallied to Robert Mugabe's defense, despite the fact that Mugabe's victims are overwhelmingly Africans.
That is why the M&G articles both caught my eye, even though thematically they cover different terrain. The first reveals African concerns about the United States’ new Africa Command (Africom) which, however well-intentioned, still is going to invoke myriad images of American self-interest trumping African interests. America did not serve Africa well during the Cold War, has practically disregarded the continent since except when natural resources have been involved, and has shown little followup on even those African initiatives that might have done good in recent years. This, coupled with the United States recent foreign policy misadventures and general hamhandedness in international relations causes many to view Africom with a jaundiced eye.
The second article reveals the insistence of those on all sides of the political debate in Zimbabwe on downplaying the role that Thabo Mbeki has played in recent reform efforts north of the Limpopo. “This is not just an Mbeki initiative, but a Southern African Development Community initiative,” the Movement for Democratic Change's Morgan Tsvangirai insists. Again, this makes sense. While South Africa briefly became the world's darlings, many in the region worry about the country's disproportionate political, economic, culural and military power. Whether true or not, the claims that Mbeki's role has been exaggerated allow Zimbabweans to believe that they have had some control over their fate even in the midst of chaos.
Observers and critics of African policy need to be aware of this understandable wariness that many Africans feel about having policies imposed upon them from the outside. Only in doing so will outsiders be able to develop sensitive policies geared toward the true development of primarily African solutions to African policies.
