Challenges Facing Contemporary Africans the Product of Internal or External Historical Forces - Research Paper Example

? Challenges Facing Contemporary Africans the Product of Internal or External Historical Forces Introduction Though there is no much written documentation about the challenges that faced the African continent before the coming of Europeans probably because of the weaknesses of the oval tradition, historians have agreed that the contemporary African society is being faced by a lot of challenges. Scholars like July and others have postulated that the problems facing the African continent could be as a result of both internal and external forces, but what is disturbing is the fact that these particular problems have continued to grow from bad to worse. This despite a lot of efforts being channeled towards solving these problems, a lot of foreign aid is used to help these particular societies. Even though many non-stake organizations put of attention towards trying to solve these problems, still there are a lot of challenges. The main problem remains as the most potential strategies to salvage Africa from the problems; what or when will Africa much other continents social, political and particular economic strength? Many African scholars such as Ngugi wa Thiongo and Chinua Achebe1 have always associated the problem facing the African continent today as a result of the coming of Europeans to Africa. The introduction of western culture and civilization, which according to these writers brought the continent to its knees and began to creep into Africa when foreigners mainly Europeans started arriving into the continent. They criticize Europeans as having the quest to impose imperial ideologies and pilfering African resources, and it is this foundation that African scholars fill continued to infiltrate the continent even after independence. In the 21st century, the following are some of the principle challenges facing Africa as a continent. External Factors Economic constrains The economic effects laid down by colonialism continue to be felt by the five million inhabitants of Africa. Many African scholars such as Dr Ibrahim Farah do maintain a strong feeling that colonialism should be viewed as a progressive integration of Africa into the world capitalist system where it was given the role of producing raw materials for the western industrial products. This colonial economy also diverted Africa societies to divert Agriculture to production of primary goods and cash crop which have led to the continuous hunger situation in the continent. Africa elites blame the colonial economy for encouraging Africa to produce ''more of what was needed least rather than more of what was needed most'', this is what explains why Africa has continued to sink into the balance of payment deficit e because the income they fetch from their exports is far much less than the revenue they spend on imports2. Rodney goes further to echo the same sentiments when he argues that the systematic corrupt enterprises established by the colonies to expropriate African natural resources to Europe. This facilitated what is today seen as under-development of Africa while it engendered the development of Europe. It is how the colonial master led to the re organs action of African economy that has today altered the manner in which people produce, consume and create things within the continent-colonialism came with new-liberalism a phenomena that seeks to enforce the principle law of demand and supply that is forces of demand and supply should be left to make the leading role in the market structure distorted the African way of life, which was communal and appropriate for the African setting. In addition this system substituted it with liberalism which was foreign and in this case alien for the African societies. Socially, colonialism as an external factor responsible for the problems facing African continent today greatly affected the close knit family structure and fragmentation of social relation. Colonialism is also responsible for urbanization that led to rapid exodus of masses from rural areas to urban centers. This had two major effects that continue to haunt the continent to date. First, the urbanization led to massive shortage of labor in the rural areas, which was the hub of agricultural activities since the most energetic men and women streamed into urban centers with the hope of getting white collar jobs, which led to reduced production of agricultural products. Thus, making famine inevitable; the starvation facing the continent today can be said to have started in earnest with this movement to urban centers3. Secondly, urbanization saw many unskilled labor moves from their villages in the rural areas to settle in towns. However, they found a rude shock as most of them could not secure jobs because of their lack of skills, and only a few were lucky to secure employment as casual laborers. The wages paid to these groups of people was very little and could hardly support their day to day life or afford a decent life. This saw the development of slums and other informal settlements in the urban centers, which continue to thrive to date. Those who could not secure jobs then resulted to social evils at least to earn a living. Therefore, this saw increased cases of crime, prostitution and conning that remain a menace in most of the African societies. Moreover, idleness and lack of jobs, many people who came to settle in the urban centers resulted into rapid population growth with an average family consisting of eight family members. These worsened the state of economy as the consequent government failed to provide for this big population, probably, due to weak economies. Overpopulation has continued to worsen the situation in Africa as more slum structures are put up, many cases of population, crimes, abortion, and other social evils get out of hand. Another social aspect of colonialism is that it led to cultural erosion. Proficiency in Africa, languages continued to decline to the extent that today they are considered primitive and uncivilized. The negative effect of this is that today in most African countries, there has been continuous alienation of those who cannot speak foreign languages such as French, English or Spanish language has always been used as a vehicle of culture, but today in Africa it continues to create dichotomy between the elites and masses. Politically, the alien political models that colonialism imposed to Africa could be the reason for the continued crisis in Africa. The fact that during the scramble and petitioning of Africa colonialist grouped diverse people together without their consent, ethnic tensions and were inevitable. These ethnic differences and conflicts are what actually tear the continent a part. Ethnicity plays a big role in elections, allocation of resources and job opportunities. It is a big blow to admit that there are some communities in Africa, particularly the monitory groups, which are alienated to the extent that they do not live to enjoy the basic necessities of life. Arguably, one can state that some of the darkest events in the African continent example the 1994 Rwandan genocide, the Katanga and Biafra secession was in Congo and Nigeria respectively were as a result of ethnicity and ethic tension that resulted from remapping and grouping of African societies by the Europeans. Foreign aid Another external factor that is responsible for the problems facing the African continent is foreign aid. Borrowing from the argument of Marxist theorists, it can be ascertained that the advancement of developed countries economies has led to an equal measure of underdevelopment in the third world countries which include Africa. This has been because of the foreign aid they receive. Marxist comments in the ''communist manifesto'' that foreign aid has always been counter productive this is in the sense that it maintains a substantial a mount of internal and external debts mainly from west. Foreign aid has created a phenomenon of master-servant relationship that sees most Africans countries not able to make up independent decisions. It also put them in a subservience situation, and a continuous dependency syndrome that see the individual states as continuously begging. Peter Baure, one of the earliest critics of foreign aid has been on records citing that aid based theories and policies were far a way from reality and sound economic reasoning. These particular sentiments are echoes by the former World Bank economist and author bill easterly, which provide a case study failure of foreign aid in third world countries. Here, the main concern is that majority of western countries give aid for nothing, meaning they provide aid but do not care about the return. In this case a few African individuals have enriched themselves using these loopholes at the expense of the masses. The Chinese government has brought another meaning to foreign aid a typology that may see African countries benefit. This is because they give money in turn for business, which has seen most African countries benefit from good roads and jobs. Foreign direct investment (F.D.I) This is one of the most fundamental development elements in the world. Many developing countries have been able to give thanks to foreign direct investment. This is because it consists of both tangible and intangible assets. It also complements domestic investment and facilitates trade, transfer of knowledge and technology across the globe. However, African continent compared to other developing economies has in the recent past not had a good number of cases that involve foreign direct investment. Statistically, in the year 1976, African share of foreign direct investment was at 28 percent, today this figure is 9 percent less. In fact, such reduction in foreign direct investment has denied Africa a chance to enjoy substantial inflow of external resources in order to fill the savings and foreign exchange reserve deficits, a fact that could help Africa develop itself to sustainable growth levels in order to eliminate its current state of poverty. Climate Change Debate Africa as a continent is a victim of what might be termed as the white elephant projects and economic growth, which simply means developing countries continuing to advance at the expense of developing countries as put forth by most representatives of Africa at environmental summits, where they argue that despite Africa trying its best to balance between economic development and environmental stability. Arguably, many European countries are fond of emitting poisonous gases into the atmosphere. Africa relies on Agriculture as the backbone of the economy, but today due to climatic problems they are not able to befit from the same. Cultural Diplomacy This is another external factor responsible for the troubles, which are currently facing the African continent. The center of this is globalization, which is expected to be imposed on everyone. What should be clear is that America and Africa have different social and political histories. Therefore, attempting to wholesomely impose American values has led to many problems such as drug abuse and unemployment situations in Africa. Internal Causes Political instability in Africa does owe a lot to the causes of African problems, which are often raised. Many political leaders steal wealth from the country and keep them in bank accounts abroad. Arguably, some of the cases include political elites like Mobutu of Zaire, Abacha of Nigeria, Moi of Kenya and most recently Gadafi of Libya4. In fact, such acts have worsened the counries' economies and led to high economic inflation. The same leaders are known to have misused the public funds to reward their political and ethnic cronies. In most cases, money donated to the countries has been reallocated to dubious projects in the backyard of the political elites who have the intention of rewarding their close allies. Therefore, these funds inform of foreign aid do not serve their purpose. Justice in Africa is also undermined from within those considered to bear greatest responsibilities of crime, corruption or even election rigging, which undermine democracy. These groups of people always find their way out in the courts of law through bribes. At times, this has led to a lot of tension within the country and in some cases the outbreak of civil wars and post election violence example in Kenya (2007) and Ivory Coast (2011), where the opposition party members felt that the justice would not be served right, if they went and petition their cases at the court of law. Ethnicity as an independent entity is also an internal factor that has denied many African countries, both political and economic progress. Many leaders commit atrocities and crimes against humanity then go and seek refuge, political protection and sympathy from their communities. They steal funds meant for health or educational factors, but when they are summoned to appear before the legal commission of inquiry, they commonly use words like “Our community is being targeted”. This has made it very difficult law enforcing arms of the government to successfully persecute perpetrators of these acts. African's principles challenges remain and they continue to spread far and wide, affecting the lives of many who live inside it. Precisely, as noted above these problems do have historical causes. However, one cannot underestimate current forces, which have continued to worsen the situation. For example, some of the diseases discovered in 21 century like HIV/AIDS, which have greatly affected the continent, especially the effective supply and use of resources meant for treatment and human development in Africa. In the case of African challenges, causation is one of the fundamental factors that attribute to outside forces. For example, colonialism as an event played a very significant role in laying the foundation or fertile soil for these challenges felt in Africa today to flourish had it not been for colonialism, probably African continent could not have been structural the way it is today and that means that those different communities and groups, which were amalgamated without their consent to form the countries present today could be independent entities hence ethnicity that has led to a lot of wars could not have existed. Another example of how causality led to external factors to become attributable is the coming of European explorers. They are the ones who came to Africa and realized that the people were primitive about the productive and economic use of some invaluable natural resources; there were a lot of natural resources and land to be occupied. Thus, when they reported this back it provoked imperialism. If they did not discover these Africa natural resources, then all these issues of colonial legacy could not exist. African challenges can be argued to have happened as a result of both internal and external factors. In fact, many scholars have admitted that it is an intellectual challenge to fully grasp the historical causes of the challenges facing Africa today, and particularly to distinguish between the internal factors and external factors, because most of the African problems are as a result of both African and European factors and the fact that Africa has been incorporated into the global economy on unfavorable terms on the other hand, many problems facing Africa as a continent are centered on ethnic difference, political and cultural traditions that make it difficult to create the relevant institutions that can address problems of globalization. Casualty cannot be easily intentional. It is a factor that happens with turn of events, which might take centuries. Therefore, it would be unjust for one to argue that casualty in this subject matter was intentional, whether from the African quarters or the European camp. Perhaps, it was not intentional at the start5. There are many ways on, which scholars have attempted to link together these challenges. For example, the challenge brought about by foreign aid. Indeed, it is counter productive in the sense that when being paid with interest, it does undermine development now that an external challenge, internally this foreign aid is always misappropriated or channeled to unrewarding and dubious projects, thus worsening the case of poverty as the masses are overtaxed to pay back the money, but they fail to see any projects or progress as a result of the aid. In the case of political instabilities and civil wars, western powers are in many times guilty of funding or providing military and logistical support to rebel groups. These militia groups cause a lot of damage and inflict a lot of pain to civilians and in some cases even overthrowing the government. The recent government of Egypt and Libya as a case study show this relationship that internally, the political elites had failed. Therefore, a revolution was looming and externally some state and non- state actors provided support to the militia groups, which successfully cause a lot of instability. Another related problem is that of foreign direct investment. Indeed, the African elites blame foreigners for not providing that crucial aspect by investing in Africa. Many African political leaders do not provide the favorable atmosphere that fit for investment. Their countries are filled with corruption and war, lack of security is the order of the day, in some extreme cases like that of Addi Amin of Uganda and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe chased away foreign investors from their countries, this means that both internal and external factors are responsible for these challenges. A lot of efforts are being put to place to try and solve some of these challenges facing Africa and important to note is that most African societies are resulting to find African solutions to African problems. For example, the question of foreign aid is being tackled by the establishment of the African development bank based in Abidjan. It provides funds for African countries for the construction of basic infrastructures such as schools and roads at very little interest and payment period being very flexible. The establishment of the organization of African union in 1964 and its rejuvenation in 2002 to become the African union is slowly but steadily attempting to provide some solutions to some of these challenges. For example, it provides a forum on, which African countries are given a platform to speak in one voice at the international system and make demands such as environmental conservation and better terms for African products. The African union has also played a significant role toward enforcing democracy and reducing political; assassinations. In addition, it does not recognize any regime that was not voted into power by the majority people6. Governments of Africa today are also trying to solve certain problems such as famine and diseases through establishment of research centers and institutes where better farming techniques, seeds and pesticides are invented to help African countries get better harvest and end hunger. Medical research institutes are also established to try and get the best solution for diseases affecting African countries7. The United Nations, an external agency has greatly attempted to solve some of these challenges. For example, the world health organization provides medicine and funds to many countries affected with dangerous diseases another branch of the United nations, the United Nations high commission for refugees also provide help to those who flee homes due to civil or political unrest The World Bank and the international monetary funds give loans to many African countries and at the same time ensure accountability and proper usage of these funds. They impose suctions, in case a country is deemed to have embezzled funds meant for particular projects. Importantly, the beneficiaries of these projects by World Bank and poverty have been able to eradicate poverty. Despite the fact African countries are engaging in a number of cross boarder initiatives and groupings. A number of Africans sates are engaging in bilateral and regional trade agreements with the European Union, the Caribbean and pacific, among other organizations. This has enabled them to acquire better terms of trade which intern boost their countries’ economic stand. What is apparent is that a lot of efforts are being put in place to attempt and solve the challenges facing African continent. What cannot go unnoticed is very slow progress being made by the concerned parties. The question that remains is,” When will it stop reigning on Africa?” When will Africa that is among the richest, if not the one continent in the world in terms of natural resources be self reliant? These are some of the questions, which should be addressed by further researches. References Achebe, Chinua. 1974. Arrow of God. New York, NY: Anchor Books. Gilbert, Erik, G. & Jonathan T. Reynolds, T. 2001. Africa in World History: From Prehistory to the Present. 3rd ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall. Moseley, William, G. 2009. Taking Sides: Clashing Views on African Issues. 3rd ed. Dubuque: McGraw-Hill. Niane, D.T. Sundiata. 1996. An Epic of Old Mali. Edinburgh Gate: Longman. Some, Malidoma. 1994. Patrice of Water and the Spirit: Ritual, Magic, and Initiation in the Life of an Africa Shaman. New York, NY: Penguin. Read More