"For most of its history, the African continent has witnessed momentous political change, remarkable philosophical innovation, and the complex cross-fertilization of ideologies and belief systems. This definitive study surveys the concepts, values, and historical upheavals that have shaped African political systems from the ancient period to the postcolonial era and beyond. Beginning with the emergence of indigenous political institutions, it traces the most important developments in African history, including the Africanization of Islam, liberal democratic movements, socialism, Pan-Africanism, and Africanist-Populist resistance to the neoliberal world order. The result is an invaluable resource on a region too often ignored in the history of political thought."--Publisher's website
Das Buch vereint neun in 26 Jahren Beschäftigung mit Afrika geschriebene Essays; ihr gemeinsamer Nenner, sowohl in ideologischer als auch praxiologischer Hinsicht, ist der Panafrikanismus. Auf ihn läuft ihn dem zusammenfassenden zehnten Kapitel alles hinaus. In den ersten vier Essays setzt sich der Autor mit den europäisch-afrikanischen Beziehungen auseinander, er diskutiert die Abkommen mit der EU (bis zum Cotonou-Abkommen) und untersucht ausführlich die französisch-afrikanischen Beziehungen. Das folgende Kapitel zeigt, dass von Blockfreiheit bei den frankophonen Ländern nur begrenzt die Rede sein kann. In den nächsten Kapiteln geht es um regionale Kooperation und Integration (Kapitel 6), Konflikt und Konfliktlösung (Kapitel 7) und internationale Solidarität bei der Flüchtlingshilfe (Kapitel 8). In Kapitel 9 konstatiert der Autor die Krise des afrikanischen Nationalstaates aus der er die Notwendigkeit für "Regional Governance" ableitet. Im abschließenden Kapitel versucht er panafrikanische Konzepte (von Nkrumah, Cheikh Anta Diop etc.) wieder zu beleben, die den Nationalstaat transzendieren und wahre Unabhängigkeit bringen sollen. (DÜI-Sbd)
The Pan-Africanists leaders' dream of unity was deferred in favor of the gradualist/functionalist perspective embodied in a weak and loosely-structured Organization of African Unity (OAU) created on 25 May 1963 in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia). This article analyses the reasons for this failure, namely: the reluctance of newly-independent African leaders to abandon their newly-won sovereignty in favor of a broader political unity; suspicion on the part of many African leaders that Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana intended to become the super-president of a united Africa; and divide and rule strategies on the part of major Western powers (including the United States and France) meant to sabotage any attempt at African unity. The African Union which, on 26 May 2001, formally replaced the OAU, is also bound to fail because it is modeled on the European Union. The article then briefly surveys proposals for a re-configuration of the African states and a revision of the political map of Africa put forth by various authors, namely: Cheikh Anta Diop's Federal African State; Marc-Louis Ropivia's geopolitics of African regional integration; Makau wa Mutua's and Arthur Gakwandi's new political maps of Africa; Joseph Ki-Zerbo's Federal African State; Daniel Osabu-Kle's United States of Africa; Godfrey Mwakikagile's African Federal Government; and Pelle Danabo's pan-African Federal State. The article concludes with an overview of Mueni wa Muiu's Fundi wa Afrika paradigm advocating the creation of a Federation of African States (FAS) based on five sub-regional states with a federal capital (Napata) and a rotating presidency, eventually leading to total political and economic integration.
