What Africa should look for in Europe


It is a well-known fact that African nations have been shaped by their colonial powers in terms of borders as well as in terms of their thinking. As a result, Africa is divided into over fifty independent states, ethnic groups are split by state borders, and tribes from varied ethnic backgrounds are grouped within one state and supposed to form a nation, complete with its flag, anthem, embassies in some 190 other states worldwide, and a sense of national identity supposed to be stronger than tribal allegiance. African leaders are literally told by Europe and the USA to apply Western style democracy and how. French President François Mitterrand said exactly that in his landmark speech at the French-African summit of La Baule in 1990. He meant well. The trouble is that while almost all newly independent African states had set off to apply this theory, about half of them have since been torn apart by civil war along tribal lines. Peace and stability are waning prospects on the continent, as the organisers of the Paris-Dakar rally are by now painfully aware, having had to eliminate as unsafe most of the countries where they could race.
The latest addition to the list of troubles is prosperous Kenya. A solicitor from Nairobi explained: “The Mau-Mau militias, which were instrumental in ending British rule in Kenya, were mainly from the Kikuyu tribe. Jomo Kenyatta, the first head of state was himself a Kikuyu. The estates abandoned by the British and about everything else ended in Kikuyu hands. They became the richest. This has quickly generated envy and hate.”
Also making it to the headlines is Chad, a country divided in twelve main ethnic groups where over a hundred languages are spoken. When the French left, power fell into the hands of the main ethnic group, the Sara people from South Chad, because the leader of the independence movement, François Tombalbaye, was a Sara and had won the elections. He soon became a dictator and the northern Muslims found his rule increasingly unacceptable, so that northern tribesmen eventually seized power. Coming from various minorities, they have had to maintain their power by reckless force since.

So, the fair treatment of minorities is the sticking point all along. To be quite honest, it is difficult in Europe too. Like in Africa, many ethnic groups have been split by national borders, and many minorities have claimed their rights, sometimes violently. Examples spring to mind: the Basques, Northern Irish, Belgians, former Yugoslavs...
But there are also points of light that must not be ignored. The Swiss, the Spanish and others have built their political system on more or less autonomous entities. But a specific story of change is particularly hopeful.
In April 2007, the Austrian chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer was trying to fine-tune an honourable agreement between the Serb government and the Albanian speaking majority of the secessionist province of Kosovo; at that point, he suggested that the model of the semi-autonomous Italian province of Alto Adigio be applied to the Serb minority within Kosovo. Why? Although the episode is largely forgotten today, this German speaking area of Northern Italy was once on the brink of civil war. At the end of the fifties, a terrorist movement was formed in order to claim the reunification of this area – Südtirol in German – to the rest of the Austrian province of Tirol. 361 attacks, mostly bomb attacks, sometimes gun attacks, took place between 1956 and 1968; there were fatalities. Today, as an Italian foreign minister once said, the capital of Alto Adigio, Bolzano, should be made « European capital of inter-ethnic comprehension. » What happened? In 1968 the really tough questions were honestly debated by delegations of both communities meeting in Caux (http://www.caux.ch/): the old social and cultural bones of contention, the new wounds opened by Facism and the war, as well as the mistrust born from the incomplete application of previous autonomy statutes by the Italian government, etc. The idea of the meeting was not to negociate, but to get to know each other, to understand each other better and to genuinely search in conscience for a positive way out for everyone.
One of the figureheads of the delegations, German speaking leader Silvius Magnago, declared: “After having lived together through the Caux experience, I am convinced that, when we will meet again at the negotiation table, friendship will have made the old caustic words disappear.” The regional daily Il Giorno reminded his readers in 1969 about “the help that Moral Rearmament has given to politicians of both ethnic groups, which made a solution to the problems of Alto Adigio possible following the Italian proposals.” In 1971, the Italian and Austrian parliaments approved the “package” of new laws guaranteeing autonomy and the rights of the German speaking minority of Alto Adigio, something former Austrian vice-chancellor Alois Mock called « a landmark in European history », which retained « a model value because both parties had respected democratic principles, renouncing violence. »

So, former French minister Claude Allègre was of course right when he called a few days ago in a newspaper column for Western powers to cease to try and impose inadequate forms of democracy on multiethnic African countries, and to keep in mind moral notions such as individual human rights, leading to democracies based on strong autonomous provinces where tribal identities would be recognised and where minorities rights would be guaranteed by the institutions.
But alongside this necessary quest for more adapted institutions, there must also be a will to cooperate and live peacefully, be it at the cost of some of the privileges inherited from the past. Listening to the still small voice inside, the voice of conscience is what turned a war zone into a model of interethnic comprehension in Alto Adigio.
If there is anything coming from Europe Africa could benefit from, it is that type of moral and institutional experience.