L-ers,
This was posted to ChatAfric by George Ayittey.
sidibeh

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Notable & Quotable

Intelligent Retrogression is the only Progression that will save our
beloved country (continent). This may sound a perfect paradox, but it
is, nevertheless, the truth; and if all educated West Africans could be
forced by moral suasion and personal conviction to realize that "Back to
the Land" signifies a step forward, that "Back to the Simple Life" of
our progenitors expresses a burning wish to advance, that the desire to
rid ourselves of foreign accretions and excrescences is an indispensable
condition of National Resurrection and National Prosperity, we should
feel ourselves amply rewarded.

-- S.R.B. Attoh Ahuma in 1911.

__________________________

For any reform to be permanent and enduring, it must be based on and
rooted in the principles of the aboriginal institutions.

- John Mensah Sarbah (1864 1910), a Ghanaian philosopher.

__________________________

"The Japanese, Chinese, and Indians still maintain their roots, and they
are thriving as nations. Africa embraces foreign cultures at the expense
of its own, and this is why nothing seems to work for us"

-- E. F. Kolajo of Thoyandou, South Africa (New African, February 1995;
p. 4).
__________________________

"Africans want change because there is so much suffering here. But
Africans are above all else devoted to their ancestors, and they do not
want to betray that by becoming something that they are not."

-- Patekile Holomisa, an inkhosi and head of the Congress of Traditional
Leaders in South Africa (The Washington Post, Dec 18, 2000; p.A1).
__________________________

" Everywhere the point is the same: African cannot just transplant
foreign models, like the (Western) parliamentary system, and hope it
will take root in native soil.
`It's a mistake to copy Western democracies because it's artificial,'
observed Cyril Goungounga, an engineer and national assembly deputy in
Burkina Faso. `Look at the U.S. You elect a President. He's in office
for four years, eight years. Then he's out. That's what the Constitution
says.
`We have a Constitution too,' he said. `But it doesn't work. It's just
a piece of paper. Because we have two civilizations here: The Western
one on top, where everything is fine and differences are submerged in
talk of national unity, and a parallel one underneath, an African one,
where ethnic groups are a reality (The New York Times, June 21, 1994;
p.A8).
__________________________

"When Japan's rulers decided in the nineteenth-century, that they had to
modernize to avoid being colonized they sent their brightest officials
to Germany, Britain and America to find out how industrial societies
worked. They then copied the ideas that seemed most useful, rejected the
Western habits that seemed unhelpful or distasteful, and within a few
decades Japan advanced enough to win a war with Russia – the first
non-white nation to defeat a European power in modern times.
Japan's example should be important for Africa, because it shows that
modernization need not mean Westernization. Developing countries need to
learn from developed ones, but they do not have to abandon their culture
and traditions in the process. Africans face the same challenge now that
Japan faced in the nineteenth century: how to harness other people's
ideas and technology to help them build the kind of society that they,
the Africans, want" (Robert Guest, 2004; p.23).
__________________________

To develop, Africa needs to return to its roots and build on and
modernize its own indigenous institutions. There is now a greater
awareness of the need to reexamine Africa's own heritage. Return to
traditional institutions will ensure not only peace but stability as
well:

Malians are quick to remind visitors that they were a nation long
before they embraced democracy. Their 12 ethnic groups governed
themselves for centuries before French colonization. Each ethnic group
governed a region of the [Mali] empire. The governors of each region had
to work together to preserve economic and political balance. The result:
one of Africa's more stable and powerful empires.
Such history has helped Mali resists ethnic tensions: When the Tuaregs
of northern Mali rebelled against this government, they found no allies
among the other ethnic groups.
"Ethnicity cannot be manipulated in this society," said educator Lalla
Ben Barkar. "The people may be from the north or the south, but in the
end they realize they are one nation, and that is Mali" (The Washington
Post, 24 March 1996, A28).

Carl M. Peterson and Daniel T. Barkely offered a reason why Somalia
imploded:

The previous government [Siad Barre's] failed to incorporate the
institutional aspects of Somalia's indigenous culture into a functioning
national body. [Therefore] a stable, viable and fair political system
must comprise the essential characteristics of Somalia's complex
society. This means revitalizing indigenous institutions, restoring
traditional powers and giving clans a legitimate outlet for political
expression. (New African, June 1993, 20).

The traditional institutions, often castigated as "outmoded," can be
useful. Indeed, this was exactly what was found by the multinational
force that was sent into Somalia in 1993 to maintain peace and ensure
delivery of relief food supplies to famine victims. The centralized
government structure and other institutions established by the elites,
such as schools, the postal service, and the central bank had all
collapsed. But Somalia's traditional form of local government survived,
and the U.S.-led military force tried to use it to revive the others. In
the traditional system, decision is taken by clan elders, gray-haired
men who have won inherited status in their communities as scholars,
clerics and business leaders. "`They represent legitimacy in this
country,' said Colonel Serge Labbe, the commander of Canadian forces,
who meets frequently with elders to discuss how to end lawlessness,
reopen schools and generally restore some degree of normal life.
`They're considered to be wise, almost supernatural in what they say.'"
The Washington Post, 28 March 1993, A30).

After its long civil war, "Mozambicans settled 500,000 property claims
with only verbal agreement mediated by village chiefs. Mozambique has no
psychiatric care, but local healers cleared up numerous cases of severe
post-traumatic stress disorders" (The News & Observer, 4 January 1998,
A18).

Benin City, Nigeria, is a remarkable haven of tranquility in a modern
Nigeria, exploding with tangled regional, ethnic and religious
hostilities.

Traditional Nigerian rivalries – northerner vs. southerner, Muslim vs.
Christian, Hausa vs. Yoruba – all exist in microcosm in this southern
city of half-million people. But so far, it has avoided the
conflagrations that periodically flare up across the country.

Violence has killed thousands since President Olusegun Obasanjo was
elected last year, replacing a military junta with democratic rule. The
latest round of bloodletting, touched off by plans to implement Islamic
law in some states, caused up to 2,000 deaths in February and March. A
flare-up May 21-22 in the northern town of Kaduna took 200-300 lives.

Benin City has remained an island of calm.

"It is safer here than the Bank of England," Idris Sanni, a prominent
Muslim and ethnic Hausa community leader, said with a chuckle . . .

Many observers credit the city's Bini ethnic majority, which once ruled
over an empire stretching hundreds of miles to the east and west, for
maintaining tribal and religious stability.

The empire, which was dismantled by the British colonizers in the late
19th century, has not relation to the modern country of Benin, west of
Nigeria.

The Bini are a distinct but minor ethnic group outside Benin City, where
the Yoruba, Igbo (or Ibo) and Hausa peoples dominate. Inside the city,
however, they are a majority.

The Bini King, N'Edo Erediauwa, 76, whose ancestors periodically slit
the throats of subjects as sacrifices to the gods, today has a
reputation as a peacemaker. He frequently goes on state radio to make
long addresses about the need for peace, and holds court with community
leaders to prevent quarrels from escalating into feuds.

When a Hausa man murdered the younger sister of the Bini high priest
several years ago, the royal family called for calm and urged Bini
subjects not to seek revenge.

"Under no circumstance do we want violence to destroy us like other
Nigerian cities," said the priest, Nasakhare Isekhure.

The word of the King, or "oba," is law for most people here. He lives in
a sprawling mut and log palace that is Benin City's biggest building and
he is revered by followers as a demigod.

Local Muslim and Christian leaders regularly pay homage to the oba for
his influential advisory role in Edo state government and in recognition
that many Christians and Muslims also believe in Bini mysticism and the
oba's spiritual powers" (Glenn McKenzie, Associated Press, in The
Washington Times, June 8, 2000; p.A16).

Institutions that have helped Africans survived for centuries cannot be
that deficient. At least, they are superior to the hastily imported
systems that could not last for even 30 years. According to Hitchens
(1994,) "The Swahili word for this concept, now coming back into vogue
after a long series of experiments with foreign models, is majimbo. It
stands for the idea of local initiative and trust in traditional wisdom"
(Vanity Fair, November 1994, 117).

Adebayo Adedeji, former executive secretary of U.N. Economic Commission
for Africa and director of the African Center for Development and
Strategic Studies in Nigeria, would agree: "Unfortunately, the
leadership that took over from the departing colonial authorities did
not go back to our past to revive and revitalize our democratic roots.
They took the line of least resistance and convenience and continued
with despotism, autocracy, and authoritarianism. But the basic
democratic culture is still there" (Africa Report, November/December
1993, 58).

E. F. Kolajo of Thoyandou, South Africa, concurred: "The Japanese,
Chinese, and Indians still maintain their roots, and they are thriving
as nations. Africa embraces foreign cultures at the expense of its own,
and this is why nothing seems to work for us" (New African, February
1995, 4). In fact, according to The Bangkok Post,
"Japan's postwar success has demonstrated that modernization does not
mean Westernization. Japan has modernized spectacularly, yet remains
utterly different from the West. Economic success in Japan has nothing
to do with individualism. It is the fruit of sheer discipline -- the
ability to work in groups and to conform" (cited by The Washington
Times, 9 November 1996, A8).

Africa's leaders and elites still have much to learn. They are now in
China trying to learn Chinese. Lord save us.

George Ayittey,
Washington, DC
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