Africa too divided to unite

Just a little reminder that Malamulele in Limpopo and Matatiele in the Eastern Cape, among other villages, went on fire just to be incorporated into other municipalities. Just for the mere formality of changing municipal boundaries.

Now imagine if you wanted to change the borders of a country. The idea of Africa becoming one country with a single government sounds enterprising but wholly unreal.

It is hardly possible to swallow Lesotho and make it one country with South Africa, or have eSwatini, Lesotho and Botswana become one country with ours. Sierra Leone, Guinea Bissau, Liberia and Guinea are to each other what South Africa and its immediate neighbours, eSwatini and Lesotho, are. The same can be said of Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.

If there was any opportunity to have consolidated countries, these would be the easier ones to merge. But political power will not accept any such proposition.

From a political rhetoric point of view, the whole thing may make perfect sense.

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In South Africa, it is hardly possible to do away with provinces and other regional or ethnic-based areas, never mind address issues of race which continue to present complexity.

Added to this is our inability to define what we want to do with the system of traditional leadership and how we locate it within the context of our constitutional democracy.

Our political parties are firmly structured with various divisive characteristics and none of them is able to muster the basics of a united and cohesive formation.

None of our political parties is not one way or the other confronted with major diversity issues.

That diversity is not just about power, but goes to the heart of certain critical issues which define the character of each party.

Before we can even imagine one country called Africa, we will first have to imagine a village that is united and cohesive.

The concept of unity has over centuries derived different meanings and interpretations from different sets of circumstances.

Unity starts with an appreciation of diversity and diverse issues.

In the context of Africa, like other continents, there is a history which determines how the peoples define themselves.

The fact of their colonisation is not the only factor that impacts on their unity and defines the nature of the relationships that exist.

The fact of the commonality of problems created by colonisation does not on its own define the ability to become one nation with one government.

A WEALTH OF HISTORY

There is already a wealth of history of numerous attempts to unite Africa and define it as one people. There is also a wealth of history of great men and women who did their best to achieve unity of the peoples of the continent. Colonialism, and its effects, is but one factor which impeded their efforts.

There is also the reality of incessant wars in Africa sponsored by former colonial masters at the insistence of the many despots Africa has had over years.

Cultural, religious and other differences have been extensively used by those who have a penchant for power to maintain their positions of power.

The number of instances where legitimate governments were overthrown with impunity may easily exceed the instances where nations had the true freedom to elect their own governments.

Europe is probably the best example of the impossibility of achieving real unity.

Despite European countries being master colonisers of Africa based on their unity in sharing the continent, it is hardly possible to achieve real unity in Europe itself.

Brexit remains the best example of the extent to which European people have defined themselves. The nearest they could come is a loose federal arrangement.

This is the model every other part of the world has adopted. The US is another classic example of the complexity of forming a single state.

The federal system of the US is by no means an accident. It was, and remains, a do-or-die situation in which it was about having either one country with many states or nothing.

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The fact that it is hardly possible to agree on who should be defined as an African on the continent must itself be the most pronounced indicator of the impossibility of a united Africa.

Not long ago, we witnessed the extensive abuse and brutality of Africans by Africans in Egypt, when there was enslavement by supposed comrades, and subjection to forms of brutality even the former colonial masters did not visit upon slaves of yore.

The obvious silence of Africa on that unfolding human tragedy as it happened told a story.

That the people of Western Sahara continue to be colonised by their own supposed Africans tells another story.

The Congo is permanently trapped in a civil war. Rwanda saw an unprecedented genocide, as was the case with Sierra Leone with horrific war crimes.

Our immediate neighbours have become wholly unstable politically. Even Botswana teeters on the brink of real instability.

I can imagine trying to persuade people to trust those they regard as not their own.

There must not be any doubt that the idea of one Africa is a noble one and no effort must be spared to achieve that objective if it is at all possible.

What is clear, though, is that under present circumstances such an objective cannot be achieved through peaceful means.

History and experience is there to support the proposition that Africa is way too divided to unite in any meaningful way, never mind as one country.

It is dangerous to undermine the effort already taken to unite Africa and assume that the continental divisions can be addressed through a simple political, ideological posture.

Like race and gender issues, African unity is as elusive as its peace because of historical and other factors that have contributed significantly to the current divisions.

POVERTY

Poverty in Africa, part of which is self-inflicted by self-serving leaders who pay lip service to the people, remains one of the biggest obstacles to peace and unity.

Tyrants and former colonial masters have found a captive market of those they can always use to advance their nefarious agendas.

In the same context, religion has become such a major divisive factor in Africa that there cannot be any hope of any form of unity.

Like dictators who use wars to assume and retain power, certain religious factions have found a niche market in which to use religion as a tool to advance political interests.

We must remember that the Congo and Sudan have recently each split into two countries.

Their recent borders have nothing to do with colonialism per se, but with the lack of unity and peace of the peoples of those nations.

We must also remember that the two countries have become permanent war zones.

On the face of it, Libya had a good leader until, as we are told, the West engineered his demise. We heard the same about Egypt.

And the same is to be said about many other countries that neither experienced a sponsored colonial war nor had their borders changed, but the peoples do not agree on anything.

It may indeed be a noble idea. The founding fathers of the Organisation of African Unity thought hard about it and initiated a process.

Many liberation movements on the continent must have thought very hard about it.

Interestingly, at no stage did they imagine Africa as one country. The struggle remained for the liberation of various countries.

If we could not persuade the people of Malamulele and Matatiele, would we be able to persuade the people of Nigeria, Chad, Libya and Ghana that they did not need their borders?

On a continent where a basic thing such as a bill of rights is a swear word, one wonders what kind of country Africa would be as a single entity. Ambition must always be made of tougher stuff.

Modidima Mannya is an advocate, a writer and the executive director of legal services at Unisa

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