Herculean Tasks Ahead

Abstract

By now the challenges of righting decades of wrongs in Africa should be apparent. As exciting as the independence years have been, Africa’s political and economic landscape reveals extreme poverty, criminal or vampire states, economic chaos, diseases, ecological disaster, and social banditry. Africa’s woes are vividly and tragically displayed on television and in the press. Between a rich heritage and the limitless possibilities of the future lies a painful present. The ongoing political, social, and economic difficulties echo the assertion that Africans cannot take care of themselves. African leaders seem incapable of digging into the triple heritage of indigenous, Islamic, and Western influences, that has destined their continent to chart a new course. African economies have over the past severely succumbed to the vagaries of nature, international economic upheavals, civil strife and international conflicts. However, Africa’s socioeconomic malaise can be traced back to human action or inaction.

The struggle for political power is still infused by a “sharpness” not experienced in other parts of the world because the possession of political power is so central to accumulation and the maintenance of patronage networks. As such, elections have more of a “life and death” feature for them: incumbents who lose elections can find their private avenues to wealth cut off; worse still, they may be brought in front of a judge to explain their ill-gotten gains.

Graham Harrison, The Dynamics of Struggle and Resistance.