Blaming the wicked West

An unkind thought keeps coming to mind as you read this book: perhaps Henry Ford was right, after all. It is unkind because so much of Guy Arnold’s great opus is admirable. As an account of the main political events that have taken place in Africa since 1960, it is awe-inspiring, some might even say awesome. Arnold’s ability to assemble facts, everywhere from the Cape to Cairo, from Dakar to Djibouti, is as commendable as his clear, jargon-free style. Yet, if his history is not bunk, it is certainly deeply unsatisfying. It contains hardly an original observation and provides no clear answers to the difficult questions about Africa, in particular, ‘What’s wrong with the place and why doesn’t it work?’

It does, to be fair, devote thousands of words to coups, wars, one-party politics, despotism and economic failure, and even subjects like corruption, genocide and the dearth of democracy are tackled. In that sense, it does not shirk the big questions. But the big answers are another matter. Why have there been so many wars? Why have most African countries slithered backwards in terms of economic development when most others have moved forwards? Why has the promise of 1960, the year of independence for so many African colonies, not been fulfilled?

Arnold’s answer, insofar as it can be inferred from the tentative conclusions that punctuate the book, and insofar as a thousand pages can be distilled in a few sentences, goes something like this. Africa was not prepared for independence. Colonialism was intensely pernicious and enduringly corrosive. The West would never allow African nationalism to develop. Many Africans have proved to be corrupt and brutal and almost all those in power have served the elites rather than the masses. African states are small, weak, often landlocked and allowed to export only unprocessed commodities.