Foreign Policy Blogs

Guinea, Ghana, and the Quest for Africa's Future

Regional leaders continue to cast a wary eye toward Guinea, where a military junta has taken control after last month's coup. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has condemned the coup and has suspended Guinea's membership in the regional body until constitutional order is restored in that country. ECOWAS follows the lead of the African Union (AU), which ousted Guinea pending reform in the wake of the military takeover.

Contrast the trepidation over Guinea with the responses to the elections in Ghana, which has evoked triumphal language across the continent. In the comparison, Guinea represents a past from which most Africans want to break, while Ghana represents the future they want to attain.

 

Author

Derek Catsam

Derek Catsam is a Professor of history and Kathlyn Cosper Dunagan Professor in the Humanities at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin. He is also Senior Research Associate at Rhodes University. Derek writes about race and politics in the United States and Africa, sports, and terrorism. He is currently working on books on bus boycotts in the United States and South Africa in the 1940s and 1950s and on the 1981 South African Springbok rugby team's tour to the US. He is the author of three books, dozens of scholarly articles and reviews, and has published widely on current affairs in African, American, and European publications. He has lived, worked, and travelled extensively throughout southern Africa. He writes about politics, sports, travel, pop culture, and just about anything else that comes to mind.

Areas of Focus:
Africa; Zimbabwe; South Africa; Apartheid

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