Abstract
Fonkoué uses Cameroon as a point of reference to explore the arduous path of nation-building in postcolonial Africa. Placing colonial heritage at the center of his investigation, he contends that insofar as the nascent state is heir to the colonial state, it has been, from its inception, ill equipped and fundamentally unable to forge a national sentiment, foster a national community and be the catalyst for development that it set out to be. Analyzing the impasse of nation-building in the aftermath of colonization, Fonkoué argues that despite the recent commemorations of half a century of independence across the continent, nation-building still does not seem to have a compass. Drawing on history, development studies and theories of institutions, he concludes that when the original project of nation-building runs aground the state turns inward and becomes an end in itself.
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- 1.
The most vivid illustration of this irrelevance is NATO’s intervention in Libya in 2011, and the subsequent overthrow and assassination of its leader, Muammar al-Gaddafi, in violation of the UN mandate that only sought to protect civilians and prevent a humanitarian disaster. The AU (African Union) stood completely voiceless.
- 2.
William Moseley, “Understanding African Issues in Context: Global and Local forces,” in Taking Sides. Clashing Views on African Issues, ed. William Moseley (Dubuque, Ia.: McGraw-Hill/Dushkin, 2007), xvii–xxv.
- 3.
Albert Memmi, The colonizer and the colonized. Introduction by Jean-Paul Sartre; afterword by Susan Gilson Miller; trans. Howard Greenfeld (Boston: Beacon Press, 1991). See especially the chapter “Portrait of the Colonized.”
- 4.
Michael Mahadeo and Joe McKinney, “Media representations of Africa: Still the same old story?” Policy & Practice: A Development Education Review Vol. 4 (2007): 14–20, http://www.developmenteducationreview.com/issue4-focus2
- 5.
On this point see, for example, the chapter “Of Commandment” in Achille Mbembe , On the Postcolony (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 2001).
- 6.
Ibid., 43.
- 7.
V.H. Mudimbe , The Invention of Africa. Gnosis, Philosophy and the Order of Knowledge (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1988); 5.
- 8.
Ibid., 4.
- 9.
Ibid., 5.
- 10.
See Dwight E. Lee, and Robert N. Beck, “The Meaning of “Historicism”.” The American Historical Review 59, no. 3 (1954): 568–77, doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/1844717, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1844717
- 11.
Arnold Rivkin, ed., Nations by Design (New York: Anchor Books, 1968); 19.
- 12.
Amilcar Cabral, “Connecting the Struggles: an informal talk with Black Africans,” in Return to the Sources: Selected Speeches of Amilcar Cabral (New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1973), 83.
- 13.
Michel Foucault, “Society Must be Defended” in Lectures at the College de France 1975–1976, trans David Macey (Paris: Éditions de Seuil/Gallimard, 1997, 2003); 8–9.
- 14.
Mbembe , On the Postcolony, 32.
- 15.
Afrique, je te plumerai / Africa, I Will Fleece You, directed by Jean-Marie Teno (1992; San Francisco: California Newsreel), DVD.
- 16.
Mbembe, On the Postcolony, 42.
- 17.
See the chapter “The Pitfalls of National Consciousness,” in Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (New York: Grove Press, 1963).
- 18.
Cabral, Return to the Sources, 83.
- 19.
David B. Abernethy, “European Colonialism and Postcolonial Crises in Africa,” in The Crises and Challenges of African Development, ed. Harvey Glickman (New York, Westport, London: Greenwood Press, 1988); 10.
- 20.
Aaron T. Gana, “The State in Africa: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow.” International Political Science Review / Revue Internationale De Science Politique 6, no. 1 (1985): 115–32, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1600974
- 21.
See Thandika Mkandawire, ed. African Intellectuals: rethinking politics, language, gender, and development (London and New York: Zed Books, 2005).
- 22.
Cahiers de l’Afrique Occidentale et de l’Afrique Équatoriale 337 (Paris: 1967), 15 quoted in Arnold Rivkin, Nations by Design, 8.
- 23.
Arnold Rivkin, Nations by Design, 23.
- 24.
Arnold Rivkin, Nation-Building in Africa. Problems and Prospects (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1969); 8–9.
- 25.
Gana, “The State in Africa”, 115.
- 26.
Robert H. Bates, When Things Fell Apart. State Failure in Late Century-Africa (Cambridge: University Press, 2008); 138.
- 27.
Bates’s title purposefully echoes Chinua Achebe’s acclaimed novel Things Fall Apart.
- 28.
Bates, When Things Fell Apart, 130.
- 29.
Toyin Falola , The African Diaspora. Slavery, Modernity and Globalization (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2013); 344.
- 30.
Mudimbe . The Invention of Africa, 2.
- 31.
Giorgio Agamben , Means without Ends. Notes on Politics, trans. Vincenzo Bineti and Cesare Cesarino (Minneapolis, London: University of Minneapolis Press, 2000); 3–4.
- 32.
On this point, see, for instance, Achille Mbembe’s On the Postcolony already referenced above, and Fabien Eboussi Boulaga, La démocratie de transit au Cameroun (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1997); 167–171.
- 33.
Michel Foucault, “Right of Death and Power over Life,” in The Foucault Reader, ed. Paul Rabinov (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984); 259.
- 34.
Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer. Sovereign power and bare life (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998); 83.
- 35.
Agamben suggests that the modern state is born out of a contract between the constituting power on the one hand (the people, who are the actual source of power) and the constituted power on the other hand (the state). This contract is also the foundation of the democratic state . The philosopher considers that in our era , in the wake of the rise to power of technocrats and finance capital, democracy is in peril and the gains of the original social contract are jeopardized.
- 36.
An illustration of the claim I make here can be seen in Burkina Faso. In the summer of 2013, this land-locked West-African country was shaken by protests over the creation of a senate, which transformed the parliament into a bicameral house. In a context of rampant inflation, the population of this very poor country did not see the justification for this new institution , and the political unrest that ensued led to the fall of the president. In neighboring Côte d’Ivoire, the current president recently forced the creation of the senate through without a broad consensus, an initiative that has left his country profoundly divided.
- 37.
Abernethy, “European Colonialism ”, 5.
- 38.
Mongo Beti & Kom, Ambroise, Mongo Beti parle (Bayreuth: Eckhart Breitinger, 2002); 139.
- 39.
“Mugabe insists “Zimbabwe is mine”,” BBC News, December 19, 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7791574.stm
- 40.
On this topic, refer, for example, to V. Adefemi Izumonah, “Imperial Presidency and Democratic Consolidation in Nigeria,” Africa Today 59, no. 1(2012): 43–68.
- 41.
Richard Bjornson, The African Quest for Freedom and Identify: Cameroonian Writing and the National Experience (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1991); 140–141.
- 42.
See Gana, “The State in Africa”, 123.
- 43.
For illustrative purpose, I would mention Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Senegal, The Democratic Republic of Congo and South Africa , where the revival of civil society organizations is noticeable.
- 44.
Peter A. Hall & Rosemary C.R. Taylor, “Political Science and the Three New Institutionalisms,” in Political Studies 44, issue 5 (1996): 936–957.
- 45.
Arnold Rivkin, Nations by Design, 61.
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Fonkoué, R.A. (2018). The Impossible Craft of Nation-Building in Postcolonial Cameroon. In: Falola, T., Kalu, K. (eds) Africa and Globalization. African Histories and Modernities. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74905-1_9
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