African Aspirations Still Depend On Economics

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31057, 12 May 1966, Page 26

African Aspirations Still Depend On Economics

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright J LONDON, May 10. The dramatic difference between the soaring aspirations of Africa’s independent States and the appalling economics and social conditions that begin where the pavement ends is a basic, continuing problem, writes Drew Middleton of the “New York Times.”

Middleton writes: While this difference exists, “neo-colonial-ism” and “neo-imper-ialism” will vex African politics because the new States cannot exist, much less develop, without investment and technical help from abroad and without foreign markets for their products.

Until education has provided the trained Africans to take over jobs now held by whites in government, industry and commerce, the demand for jobs for Africans — “Africanisation” —will plague the heads of African governments.

Few of them have the confidence of the Ivory Coast’s President, Felix HouphouetBoigny, who rejects what he calls “cut-rate Africanisation.” That is putting partiallytrained people into jobs beyond their capabilities simply because they are black.

This situation aggravates the sense of inferiority among educated Africans that complicates relations between white and black.

“Do you realise there’s nothing on this airfield that we Africans have invented or made?” a young customs official asked one morning at Douala.

“Everything froin the planes to the luggage tags is made by the white man. Yet we are told this is our continent.” Kwame Nkrumah’s was the extreme African response to this situation. In an effort to increase pride in the African past he emphasised the somewhat tenuous connection of past Africans with landmarks in scientific and political development More Study Less imaginative leaders today demand more study, more work and greater concentration on essentials as the slow but sure route to African independence. To them pan-Africanism, the Organisation of African Unity and other prestige elements of African independence are less important than education and development of Individual countries. “Whenever the O.A.U. gets lost in some cloudland,” a Foreign Minister said at Addis Ababa, “I comfort myself by the thought that all over Africa schools are being built. That’s what counts.” True although this may be, the harsh fact is that it will be many years before education and development enable Africa to stand on her own feet. In this turbulent period of transition the new States are in many ways more dependent than independent in spite of their formal political status. Foreign Banks Independent States like Chad or the Central African Republic are almost as dependent upon French investment and technical aid as the Portuguese territories of Mozambique and Angola are on the homeland’s bounty. The difference is that, in theory at least, Chad and the C.A.R. could accept extensive help from other governments.

The great British and French banks, industrial organisations, trading corporations and construction companies overshadow the economies of most black African States.

The shortage of trained Africans keeps French and British engineers, German and Norwegian teachers, Jugoslav and Italian doctors profitably employed. American private industry and investment, although more modest than the British or French stake, is growing in black Africa, but not, it appears, as rapidly as in racist South Africa. The Agency for International Development is the principal United States channel for aid. In Nigeria, for example, A.l.D.’s technical assistance programme spends about 17m dollars yearly. The agency's contribution to the country’s six-year growth plan may exceed 200 m dollars. Success Story Nigeria is one of Africa’s economic success stories with a growth rate of more than 6 per cent in the gross national product last year. Some of its light industry is owned by Africans, a situation unusual in black Africa. A.l.D.’s objective is to provide the technical training that will enable Africans to run the country’s light industry and boost its farm production.

Once trained, the visitor is told, the African is the equal of the European worker.

In less fortunate countries, American aid is directed at public works —water systems, for example—which will help build a viable economy in the future.

But in these States the list of necessities is discouragingly long, and the political end social barriers to progress formidable. A second important aspect of African dependence is the reliance of a majority of African States on foreign markets for their agricultural and mineral products.

The development of a new CJnthetic in Germany, a

change in American taste, a fluctuation on a London commodity market may seriously damage the economy of any one of a dozen countries. Africa has its “rich” countries like the Ivory Coast, Senegal, Nigeria, Ghana, and Zambia and its “poor” countries like Tanzania, the Chad, and the Central African Republic. A natural development toward economic regionalism—with the stronger economies attracting the weaker, complementary ones—would help. Nigeria, with its expanding urban population, could be the centre of a region in which, for example, Chad’s beef would feed Nigeria in exchange for manufactured goods and oil. But Nigeria was British and Chad was French, and France wants to keep Chad and the others firmly in her economic orbit even though States of the region formerly French Equatorial Africa do not have complementary economies.

The rapid expansion of education is the key to ending African dependence. This includes conviction that education is needed. School Drop-outs

In many parts of Africa it is almost as important to convince the warrior tribesman that there is nothing demeaning about manual labour as it is to herd his children to school. Labour demands of a still largely subsistence economy increases the number of school drop-outs. Also a class of children from four or five tribes has to learn a common tongue before schooling can begin. Schoolhouses, books, equipment, teacher training and salaries often lay a strain on impoverished governments. There are two positive factors:

Africa generally is moving away from classical education toward the wider vocational training that an empty, undeveloped continent demands, and Emphasis is being placed on education by parents as well as governments.

Parents realise, as the children may not, that the future belongs to the educated. They themselves often will finish a hard day’s work and then attend night school for three or four hours. Education also will in time broaden the contribution of women to African society. Women Work In many places the women

seem more enterprising than the men—a visitor repeatedly is struck by the larger number of men idly chatting in the shade while women work. One instrument of popular education that has not achieved its potential in Africa is the newspaper. Too many of them seem anxious only to avoid angering the government and losing their licence to print. There are notable exceptions like the “Nation” in Nairobi, but too many black African papers seem more interested in buttering up the government than in independent reporting. This is especially true of foreign-owned journals. Social progress in Africa will depend, too, on strong judiciaries and independent police forces. Primitive emotions are very close to the surface in Africa

and require restraint and prompt punishment. Corruption, so powerful a factor in black Africa’s life, already has affected the courts and the police in many countries. The most encouraging factor is the manner in which a high percentage of the educated are coming to terms with twentieth century ideas and concepts outside their previous experience. Men who have fought for education and influence now apply these for their country’s good. These are the people who will guide their countries when the leaders of the struggle for independence have gone and the British and French have departed. If there is time enough to train even more of them this difficult period of transition may end in true African independence.