In a recent video, South African far-left leader, Julius Malema, admonished Africans to find indigenous ways to address their challenges and unite under a single state. He proposed the elimination of borders created by colonialists and the promotion of tolerance among Africans. To some extent, Malema is right. Borders are alien to Africa and people need to love one another. But he is fundamentally wrong about the prospects of Africa as a country.
Here are five reasons he and other advocates of a United States of Africa should have a rethink.
1. Africans are Historically Autonomous
One of the incoherent assumptions of this school of thought is that colonialism brought different tribes together without considering their distinct cultures. This they suggest should be replaced by uniting all ethnic groups on the continent—over 3,000 of them—under a bigger entity.
There are preferred modes of administration peculiar to each tribe and country. It makes no sense to suggest they all adopt a unilateral administrative pattern different from what they have known for thousands of years.
Perhaps, they are deliberately neglecting the fact that contemporary African countries are struggling because of the bad arrangements by colonialists. Another amalgamation of a sort, especially a larger one, will only create further problems, moreover, Africans have always been autonomous.
Before the scramble and partition of Africa in Berlin (1885), every African tribe lived within their own space with peculiar values and customs. Trade was one of the few things that brought them together while they always respected each other’s identity.
In fact, traditional Africans often broke away from their original tribes to form new communities for self-realization and freedom. The thought that this way of life can be changed by imposing a single identity is simply absurd and un-African.
2. The Language Barrier
Malema proposed Swahili as the ideal language for a united Africa considering it is the most widely spoken indigenous language. But Swahili only has some 140 million speakers, which is less than 15 percent of the 1.2 billion population of the continent.
The adoption of such a language, if at all accepted by speakers of the other 2,000 African languages, would require an extraordinary amount of effort, especially funding.
China and India are often referenced as good replicas for Africa in this regard, but both countries owe their success to shared ancestral language among their people. Whereas, imposing an alien language on a group, is an attempt to erase their identity. If Malema wants Africans to reject English and French because they demean their identities, then he should not be guilty of the same.
3. What’s an Ideal Administrative System?
Most advocates of a United States of Africa often propose a unitary system with one parliament and president. Others believe either federalism or confederalism would work better to preserve the autonomy of the numerous ethnic groups. Either way, the geopolitical structure of the continent would not allow for such unification.
African society is too complex to work under a unitary system. There are preferred modes of administration peculiar to each tribe and country. It makes no sense to suggest they all adopt a unilateral administrative pattern different from what they have known for thousands of years.
A unitary system is only ideal for a small geographical area with common values. Africa covers a staggering 11.7 million square miles—almost three times the size of Europe—and it is deeply pluralized. Equally, neither federalism nor confederalism would likely work. Both systems have horribly failed in many African countries and blocs. Nigeria and the African Union (AU) are good examples.
Nigeria, for instance, has over 250 ethnic groups, just like there would be in the United States of Africa. However, since the country adopted federalism in 1963, it has struggled with structural problems ranging from resource control to ethnic marginalization and defining the extent to which federating units should be autonomous.
Also, if the AU had achieved its goal of uniting Africa under a confederacy, there would be no calls for another form of union. The bottom line here is, people do better when they are not forced into a coalition.
4. Different Economic Values
Different tribes have specific attitudes toward the economy. Constricting everyone into a single mode of economic reasoning would be inhumane as much as it would be, chaotic. It is antithetical to how Africans have lived for centuries.
No traditional African society was the same in its approach to commerce and trade as the other, and those values stand until today. This peculiarity is one reason centrally planned economic reforms in many African countries often fail to yield expected results among different tribes.
Again, a critical reason the economies of equally larger unions such as China and India have worked is because of the homogeneity of values among their people. Regardless of whatever economic model is adopted in a unified Africa, it would be difficult to make it work for every society.
5. It is a Pathway to Tyranny
Perhaps Malema and his comrades have yet to realize that the more powerful a central government is, the greater the possibility of tyranny. This is evident in the level at which post-independence African leaders have grossly abused power. One leader in control of a big entity with enormous resources, judging by the political history of modern Africa, would be extremely dangerous.
More so, rotating the office of the Head of State among each tribe without problems is almost impossible as we have seen in the old Sudan, Rwanda, the Central African Republic and Nigeria.
There equally cannot be a parliament comprehensive enough to accommodate every tribe that makes up the continent. The end result would be an insufficient representation of interests, which often result in calls for secession.
Nonetheless, the effects of Colonialism on Africa’s political history is proof that bringing people together without considering their traditional ways of life is wrong. What Africa needs to work is for countries to allow more autonomy for local governments i.e., states, counties, provinces, etcetera, and prioritize multinational cooperation on the regional level, i.e., through ECOWAS, SADC, EAC, etcetera. Not through another catastrophic political unification.
Ibrahim B. Anoba is an African political economy analyst and a Senior Fellow at African Liberty. He tweets via @Ibrahim_Anoba.
U are just giving the same caucasianised view that makes the real solutions to Africa’s problems impossible without even proposing a better one. People like u are Africa’s problems.
Brother what we have in common far exceeds what we don’t. You have highlighted culture,language and customs…look at the United States of America,there are Germans,French,Jews…but due to intermarriage the Kids only know they are American not German or Italian ancestry…Swahili is an African language…if you can learn English or French,you can learn Swahili…Julius Malema aint saying forget you mother tongue learn Swahili… he’s saying lets leave the language of the former Colonists and adopt our own, look at the corruption in The mineral rich Congo…that kind of corruption can only end with a federal government keeping an eye on the resources and the Taxes.But once we have negative people who only see what we cant achieve,friend we can never take a step foward
I agree 100% with everything you have said here. It’s very important that Re unification happens, and the sooner the better for Africa. Remember “ Together we stand, divided we fall”. Let’s undo the Berlin treaty.
You have only highlighted elements that make a single African state seem impossible rather than identifying the commonalities that we could leverage upon to strengthen African unity. We can be more optimistic!
The solution is simple. Federalism. It will soothe the existing states to ratify the United States of Africa much easier than basing on tribalism. The Presidency should rotate from country to country for a term of one year only. This term limit will stop tyranny on its head, and force everyone to depend on others.
*{In February 2009, upon being elected chairman of the 53-nation African Union in Ethiopia, Gaddafi told the assembled African leaders: “I shall continue to insist that our sovereign countries work to achieve the United States of Africa.”[6] The BBC reported that Gaddafi had proposed “a single African military force, a single currency and a single passport for Africans to move freely around the continent”. Other African leaders stated they would study the proposal’s implications, and re-discuss it in May 2009.} Wikipedia. Two years later he was dead. Do you think his death was a coincidence? As a scholar, I would think you would look at the worldview and history before arriving at conclusions. Divide and conquer has been and will continue to be the strategy of the opposition. It’s how they were able to CONTROL slaves all over the world. And how they were able to control the colonies. A United States of Africa is absolutely feared by all outside interests. We are all different yet are one–African.
I’m Nigerian and agree with the article. A United States of Africa is a disastrous idea. The people that have been pushing this idea for decades are pan-africanist, Mugabe, black diasporians that don’t fully understand Africa beside their racial Black panther wakanda fantasy view of what they think Africa is.
First of all North africans are racial & culturally more connected to the middle east then sub-saharan africa, which is fine but as a result they will never agree to a united states of Africa cause the question that will come is who will rule africa as a leader?, will it become a region where Arabs and other non-black africans rule and black africans become second lass citizens in their own land like whats going on in Brazil or South Africa to an extent, where Blacks won’t have a say in their lands, or a presence in their own film industries(like Nollywood) or presence in Politics and will be at the mercy of people who hate them for merely existing. We must also add that many Arabs are racist towards blacks period, which has been high lighted more in the media with the slavery in Libya issue going on now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HV-RtBRZbfQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCcmuwrAUq8
Secondly, Larger African economies like South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and etc have their own internal problems and economies they are dealing with then to allow other africans to add their problems into their countries problems. Its not fair and not right, people need to realize you fix your own back yard before you fix others. Its like all asian countries or south American countries to be one country and turn to states without taking into consideration the internal issues and economic issues that they are dealing with.
Thirdly some countries internal problems will bleed over into other countries as will and turn Africa into a blood bath. Just imagine Al shabab leaving Somalia and not only spreading their terror into Kenya but ll over Africa at will. Nigeria for Example has a boko Haram issue in Northern Nigeria and now it has bled over into Border countries areas like Chad, Niger, Cameroon, if their were no border countries it would have spread like wildfire into other countries. I will even add that if it wasn’t for Nigeria’s 99% Christian south, Nigeria would have turned into another Somalia.
Fourth, Africans need to stop always blaming colonialism as the only issue that is causing africans issues, another big issues is africans themselves, many are greedy and selfish which is a current reason why dictators feel they can stay as leaders forever like Gaddafi & Mugabe and why corruption runs like wildfire that simple basic necessities that Africans ask for like electricity, healthcare and etc is a difficult task. People need to look at African Dictators Mugabe and Gaddafi for example, these men were the most influential men in Africa who were pushing this “United States in Africa” but can’t even fix the issues in their own country and were contributing to their countries issues, that it lead to one dying by his own people(Gaddafi) and another be pushed out by force by his own people(Mugabe), and we should forget that & take advise from those two, are you serious? imagine if those two were in charge of the continent, Africa would have been world war Z by now
There is many things to say but I will end it with saying that I do agree with african countries coming together economically when it comes to trade and doing business with each other so it can help the natives in the end of the day, which is happening BUT I don’t agree with a view to turn countries into states and make a continent into one country where there is a risk of a dictator like Gaddafi and internal issues spreading externally into other countries just to force this idealistic mindset down peoples throats to make people think like one. In the end of the day as much as Nigeria has its issues, I will always be proud of being Yoruba & Nigerian first then African second and their is nothing wrong with that. European nations that are more economically stable can’t even become one nation but we are asking all african countries to be one nation, Ridiculous
I think the best way to have one country or state in Africa would have been to unite group the country into blocks. If we have 5 different blocs this would make the administering of the country easily. The Bloc would have similar laws and culture and would make the country easy to administer.
So each Bloc would have its own Parliament and have unique laws within the laws of the One African State.
I also think that deviding the continent into blocks would be the best way to go about it. It would make the country much more governable. It’s just like in America, they have many smaller states (Texas, Chicago etc) within their country, each with its own parliament that makes laws for that particular state. Going about making all the laws uniform will take us centuries before we unite. Different ethnic groups are not a problem if we all have one common goal. We would need to invest heavily in research, manufacturing, mining, agriculture and education. I believe that if we focus on our strengths (like ample natural resources, arable agricultural lands and a plentiful supply of labor) we can achieve beyond our wildest imaginations. Think of it, we have it all here, including diamonds, gold, oil and gas. We would have more bargaining power and it would enhance trade amongst ourselves. Economic sanctions (which they use to devide us and instil fear into us) would have a lesser effect on our lives. We just need leaders with a backbone, like Mugabe and Gaddafi. If u look at it, Europe and the West are quick to label these as bad because they know that they were planting the seeds of Aficanacity into our minds
You are extremely right the foreigners know Africa would be too powerful to control if united.I believe the author of this article is against the rise of an African power.
You just foolish you have never had of adapting those Arabs will not torment us .majority rules.
Pessimistic people will go no where in life, have to WANT to be great in order to be great. It is way past time for africa to be united only thing missing is a fearless leader. Nothing but cowards running the government right now.
Yes you’re just doing your job; you’ve identified some of our challenges, and have given your expert opinion on why it won’t work. That is the job of an analyst. Leaders have other responsibilities
iam a kenyan and i think you’ve just locked your mind to think that the U.S.A won’t work.you’ve just revolved around one problem in diffrent forms.you should also have consindered the benefits of the unison rather than the downsides.the issue of tribes should also not be the seperating factor.and even though we speak diffrently we are one people.
I will rather fight for my own language (Nguni) to be respected than adopt Swahili as an official language. Don’t get me wrong Swahili should be learned to improve communication amongst us, but that should not come to undermine our own mother tongues. An example is how the Chinese have nearly destroyed all indigenous Chinese languages in favor of Mandarin. Our diversity is our strength.
The colonialists came and told us that there is six to ten separate Nguni languages (Zulu, Xhosa, Swati etc…) Which is not true, it is one language with different dialects. They did this so that we don’t unite and adopt their languages. I don’t believe there are over two thousand languages. In South Africa all Bantu languages can be grouped into three and four at most and but we are told there are 14 languages.
We need to get our regional languages respected in the academic field. It is nonsense that I have to learn German or French to work in laters countries. However, a french or German just needs to learn English to work in Africa. We need to start pushing and standardizing our own languages and making them more academic. They should learn our languages too. Problem is we have spine less unfrican people as our leadedrs
I don’t think u r going abou it right. The positive effects is that many countries have resources that can be used to support the country . The racist bastards don’t want to be a part of it as it will bring them back so that just leaves eastern western and southern. Subduing terrorists would be easy if done quickly and undercover. Internal conflicts would be brought about but by rotating leadership with a period of a year for every countries’ best interest and using federalism this subsides. I don’t think that we will amount to anything own our own . Outsiders continue to take advantage of Africa like their playing ground. I don’t blame it on our colonizers only however this doesn’t change the fact. True had it not been for them Africa would still be primitive however they helped by spreading trade ethics etc. This doesn’t mean that in the aftermath they can’t exploit us. World aid ,poverty movements and trash like that r fancy words they coined to soothe the shame pain and agony. True many have good intentions but after all most is controlled by their leaders and they don’t have it at heart. Every time I go outside I see homeless people and I can’t help but they can. In an hour’s drive u can see about 3 homeless each minute. They know of what comes when we stand together and won’t stop to tear that apart. 20 years from now the poverty might increase by 1.5 and we will keep saying we are educating moving to a brighter future but are we?the livelihood of the new born of the poverty stricken may stay that way for generations. True as it may be that many African countries are progressing what about those that aren’t . Countries that are alike and have mutual interests work together. Would u shake hands th a country with 70% of its population being in poverty while yours is under 1%. No some will develop then some will probably be run through the mud cos they can’t meet tenth of the own countries demand.
What a lovely discussion. The author is doing his job, addressing a huge issue and making it as contentious & controversial as possible. It brought us all together to argue or agree. If we want something badly we must first tackle the obstacles. Yes, I want unification. But my job is to solve the problems of those who dont. I am an inventor, an engineer, a business owner, I work in all the fields necessary to know how to solve problems. I walk onto a property and people let me work my magic. They know I can make their home look better and work better. My problem is their budget. That’s always the issue. For africa first we must address debt. If I want to tie this financial district with the other no one wants to absorb the deficit of others. But if you realize that once united we could create a line of credit using the continents aggregate resources and fund projects which will make us all financially more competitive and secure. If there is $200 trillion in minerals in the soil, I could loan 10 times that to the people, initiate a giant works program building modern infrastructure across the continent stimulating trade making every citizen theoretically 2 million usd richer once done. It also basically eliminates unemployment. The pride we would have initiating a giant works project and the good international press also makes us look and feel good. It’s a win win. You wont need to worry about regional ethnic differences . Maintain that and your language. We build our infrastructure and return home richer and reinforce them while staying militarily more powerful. I love the idea and love these discussions
Western propaganda. Such arrogance is a desperate attempt to avoid the inevitable.
My dear brothers and sisters United we conquer but divided we fall
We as Africans ,united we can achieve greater things never imagined, I believe our weaknesses lie in the fact that we are divided as a continent but we embrace and welcome foreigners to our lands who come here only to steal our resources and dont give a shit about the African black skin
The first step will be for us a continent to decolonize our African minds from mental slavery that keeps us from doubting ourselves and our abilities as Africans
The 2nd step will be to abolish and dump christianity a religion emposed on us by the former colonizers a religion that has brought so much suffering amongst Africans by keeping us enslaved and worshiping a so called white jesus christ that was manufactured by white people to control African minds and keep us waiting for this jesus to come and save us
We need a stronger African union that will work very hard to innovate and create a stronger Africa never imagined
Yes its possible black men we can do it only if we believe in ourselves and never doubting our abilities
We need to stop hating each other ,hating anything African , looking down our own old customs and beliefs
We need to stop embracing European culture and ideologies
Africa is rich in natural resources that we can use to benefit ourselves and better our lives
Mama Africa unite and innovate for we live in a world that is united against exploiting africa and an Africa that is divided and not United against the existing racist world
The European racists knows our weakness as Africans that we are not United and we hate one another
Which is their greatest weapon to penetrate and exploit our beloved mother land
Black men and women wake , unite , work together to build a successful innovative Africa
Our shining example is Rwanda that all dreams are possible when u believe in yourself and abilities
And thinking like that is the reason why your continent will always be a shithole.
If we use one currency as Africans we speaking the same language and most definitely will get along
UNITED WE STAND, DIVIDED WE FALL!! we need to get rid of the mental shackles that are still in our mind, making us to believe that other races are great and supreme than us!! that can only be achieved by having a sense of pride within ourselves, and that means bieng one, so that whenever you see a black person, you see an african, and that infact happens in other countries outside africa, when they meet a black person, they don’t see a Nigerian, they don’t see a Kenyan, they don’t see a Libyan,instead they see an AFRICAN. so we need to unite inorder to have that sense of pride and belonging!!!
You Guys yeah it’s time we got out of our comfort zone and United to form the United African States imagine the opportunities that may arise like the African child knows that you must study in order to become successful they don’t explore their gifts because there is no single opportunity in Africa Yeah most people will say it’s impossible but but we must prepare to fail in order to become a better country
The coward never achieve his goals..United Africa must be achieved when we believe in ourselves that we can..
First of all..just because we are black isn’t goo enough reason for people to form a country..its like saying Caucasian Europe become one country,or Asia becomes one country…Great Britain has issues with its union aswel..so did the Soviet Union..and Africans are not just black..the Africans in some islands are more European than sub Saharan African..then Arabs in the North.. Afrikaans,indians.. plus the many tribes,languages,religions..this will bring more problems than solutions..where will the capital be?,currency?do you know how an economic difficult it is to have money flowing across such a wide area,with a problem in this region can cause an economic issue.. everywhere…If this country some how can to be..in less than 5 years.. Africa would be broken into 300 countries… Problems are not always there to be fixed.. others are there to show that’s not the solution..try another way..
Am happy to hear such discussion from African mouths and I salute sir Ibrahim Anoba for sparking up the agenda. I like to believe that the idea of a unified Africa is not that far fetched however it has its challenges. What I want to point out is that an United States of Africa ( not necessarily its name) could only be achieved if we embrace black nationalism. Am talking about having a common situation that we all find ourselves in regardless our ethnicity, country political ideology etc, that is being a black people continuously oppressed and maimed our economic, critical and abstract regards on how to run our affairs . I will spair you our history but I strongly believe that we inevitably have to unite to awaken our continent in her dead sleep. I understand that inorder to recreate new structures we have to destroy existing ones and every one who prides themselves of their color and heritage will not be afraid of what will happen next. Africa is bigger than all of us and I will want to leave it knowing generations to come will be masters of their destinies and not slaves to pre-existing doctrines and beurracracy. Thanks
Real USA, Unite states of Africa. We have been raised in a way that everything we do , we always fall short or fail but i believe that if we can bring some of Africa best minds together this can be done and done with excellency. We have some of the best leaders in out continent as a whole and if we move beyond our own difference we can make Africa great once again. We can finally have our own resources backing up the currency that would be a great storm to hit our land and we can finally create our own Central bank that’s also backed up by our own resources and mineral altogether. Lets come together and unite Africa into one, Rise African child Arise.
I would rather envisage a new country entirely built in Africa called wakanda like the america in 1776. No tribe. Citizens will be all black persons who are prominent in the world. Obama as first president. Official language is modified swahili (simpler) like the american English. New system of govt where president are fire and hire not by election. House of chief instead of parliament
Wish some great black minds can come together for this. We can always let white do the thinking for us.
First of all i am Kenyan and i have seen first hand that the majority of your cherry picked differences don’t hold any actual form. Now how about listing the commonalities and framing our difference as our strength. We thrive on diversity. Or is our sorry state divided and dependent on the west and east sufficient for you? We propose the elimination of borders a single currency and a single passport. And we will remain a third world continent until the time comes that we unite.
We can only unite without Egypt,Algeria,Tunisia, and those Arabic countrys .if Africa unite it would only take 20nto be one of the most powerful countrys in the world .
wester propaganda indeed. a baker does put bread in the oven as bread. a baker mixes all the necessary ingredients tests them to his/her satisfactory before putting the made dough into the oven. we are trying to bake here. if you are not a baker do no come here to tell us we can not bake because the ingredients can not be combined or can not be found.
Yes, there are lots of procedures required to get all the ingredients together, they are possibly all found in different places but with one motive and intention, we will and shall get all ingredients in place and mix them for our delicious bread.
Look: United Africa will not happen through politics. it will happen through thick and thin and commitment of the people who believe its beneficial to our people.
We should not look for united africa for economic reason being our main purpose, our main purpose should be restating our identity? so if you talk about tribes and languages, it shows how much we need this badly. Today we are talking about these difference because we were told so. Today, our difference is created because our identity was destroyed, the borders divided us. Leaders adopted masters methodology and ideology of leadership. By looking for unit to gain our identity back before anything else, will be the move to the right direction. I conclude by saying ” watch this bread bake”