07 July 2005
Liberate Africa from National Governments
In his article in the Wall Street Journal on 5 July 2005, Mr. Moeletsi Mbeki placed the cause of Africa’s economic problems at the feet of the political elites that have run the governments that were established by its colonial rulers. It was certainly narrow-minded of those empire builders to have assumed that the form of civil order that had grown to replace Western monarchies was suitable to the tribal communities that they assembled into “national” units for their own administrative convenience.
The solution to the corrupt and impoverished legacy of colonial rule in Africa can result from republican governments only if Africa is willing to wait centuries for acceptance of the principles that now guide, for example, South Africa. That is the benefit it owes to its unfortunate history of brutal European rule. The quicker path for most of Africa will adopt the tribal customs that have maintained order and equity for millennia. Maintaining the artificial templates of national government in many sub-Saharan African countries only invites entrepreneurial profiteering.
In his article in the Wall Street Journal on 5 July 2005, Mr. Moeletsi Mbeki placed the cause of Africa’s economic problems at the feet of the political elites that have run the governments that were established by its colonial rulers. It was certainly narrow-minded of those empire builders to have assumed that the form of civil order that had grown to replace Western monarchies was suitable to the tribal communities that they assembled into “national” units for their own administrative convenience.
The solution to the corrupt and impoverished legacy of colonial rule in Africa can result from republican governments only if Africa is willing to wait centuries for acceptance of the principles that now guide, for example, South Africa. That is the benefit it owes to its unfortunate history of brutal European rule. The quicker path for most of Africa will adopt the tribal customs that have maintained order and equity for millennia. Maintaining the artificial templates of national government in many sub-Saharan African countries only invites entrepreneurial profiteering.
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