The International Day of Peace which was established by a U.N. resolution in 1982, and is marked every year on September 21, is a global event whose activities are significant in highlighting the worldwide efforts towards conflict resolution and peace building. This day is however more relevant to the continent of Africa where most conflicts have taken place, with some running into decades, with limited solutions. Therefore seen from the perspective of political instability and as a “drifting continent”, many questions come up, which demand more than just simple answers, or repeated mythical notions about Africa’s problems, as purely inherent in the African way of doing things.
That there are problems in Africa for several decades even after many countries in the continent went through transitions from colonialism to independence, is not a deniable fact. However the African situation is not as bleak as portrayed in the media or by Africanists. In terms of political instability in Africa, it is also undeniable that the continent has had some difficult moments during the last fifty years or so.
What is still unexplained in the many analyses that have been looking at events in Africa is the fact that in almost all the cases of political instability in Africa, it is evident that the major problem is leadership. In this context, Africa has seen its freedom heroes turn into dictators, while plunder of natural resources, politics of exclusion and deprivation to tilt the balance of power continues to dominate the public sphere. Moreover, these problems have been pointed out and fought gallantly by ordinary Africans who have over the years, expressed their discontent with regimes imposed upon them, through the complicity of the international community.
To-date, almost every country in Africa is still haunted by historical injustices and oppressive structures that were bequeathed to the post colonial leadership. This is an aspect which informs the weak institutions of the state, flawed legislative systems and constant struggles for political power to the detriment of the well being of many nations, which could have moved on a path of development as part of modern societies. While the international community, whose geo-security and resource interests seem to benefit from the status quo in Africa, has not been pro- the establishment of functioning systems in Africa, instead, their involvement, continue to undermine Africa’s stability through the militarization of conflicts for accumulative purposes.
Despite the existence of institutional frameworks that are supposed to guide processes and delivery on essential services, the continued weakening of these institutions, through political mechanization and predatory nature of African elites, working in cohorts with external interests also contributes further to the undermining of stability in Africa. These tendencies exacerbate resources wars, ethnic rivalry, and more recently, the emergence of electoral violence as a characteristic of multi-party era elections in African.
Although many events and occurrences might give the impression that African continent is still “drifting”, there are also positive things taking place in the continent and “the drift” needs to be analyzed from several perspectives that capture both the positive and negative developments and what informs the direction of these developments. There are pull and push factors, which keep shaping the internal dynamics in Africa. However, African people have not remained static, even though there are some retrogressive tendencies. The majority, whose perspectives are hardly captured in western media or academia, have made great leaps, in a number of areas, including their level of political awareness and popular participation in the political processes.
