It is often said that, for Africa’s voice to be heard on the global stage, it must be the host or a guest at the banquet, not an item on the menu. This means that Africa cannot expect to count in a world where it is not at the centre of the process that leads to decisions about it. But perhaps Africa has been on the menu for so long that it has grown accustomed to this position.
Since the creation of the modern African state at the Berlin Conference in 1884-85, in the European imagination Africa remains an entity to be conquered and organised. From the African perspective, this conjures up the prospect of a people to be pro-actively disorganised. To this day, the parceling up of the African continent into modern states remains a momentous historical occurrence in terms of global realignments and the establishment of world orders.
Another significant global realignment took place after the First World War, following which the ownership of African countries shifted from the losers to the victors.
Similarly, after the Second World War, the Soviet Union and the US which had no colonies in Africa supported independence for African countries. This was in order to level the playing field for influence with the then colonial powers. This scramble for Africa then led to the assassination of independence leaders, coups, and proxy wars.
Even with the entry into the fray of the US and the Soviet Union, Africans remained objects to be conquered. New tools with which to “organize” them were introduced. They remained on the menu throughout the Cold War, with decisions about what to do with their continent continuing to be made elsewhere, in Paris, London, Brussels, Moscow and Washington.
The fall of the Soviet empire in 1989 ushered in a new global realignment, with the United States as the top dog in the newly unipolar world order. Meanwhile, the post-World War II institutions set up to organise Africa under the watchful eyes of the former colonisers remained intact. They continued to gatekeep the banquet where the likes of Africa were items on the menu.
That lasted until China emerged as a disruptor in as far as dinner arrangements were concerned. Enter the emerging middle powers in the Arab world – Saudis, Emiratis, Qataris – and resurrected Russia as well as Turkey and India. These are countries boasting ancient civilisations that serve as their reference points and as the basis of their claim to greatness. Their rise has ushered in a new, major global realignment amidst territorial claims that are being negotiated via something of a subtle World War III entailing deadly proxy confrontation.
The outcome of this “negotiation” will be the next global order in which unipolarity will have died and been buried, with unpredictable ramifications for global stability. Right now the multipolar order is still work in progress. The world is caught up in labour pains, at great human cost, as has been the case at every similar turn in history.
Meanwhile, Africa is nowhere to be seen in the ongoing ‘negotiations’. And, as before, those who are involved in shaping the current shifts will determine what happens to the continent. As they have always done, they will be driven by the imperative to optimise their interests in Africa: how to exploit it “peacefully”, without fighting among themselves. In all cases of exploitation, the victim rarely enjoys the peace that exploitation brings to the perpetrator. Even when the former claim to be at peace, it is because they have become accustomed to the abuse.
There is some optimism that a multi-polar order will be better for Africa than the bipolar or unipolar systems ever were, and that African countries can play the new key powers off against each other and gain the most. This assumes, however, that Africa could speak in one voice. But even if one were to be optimistic that a multipolar order will be beneficial for Africa, the most pressing question is: “In what state will Africa be by the time we get there?”
There is no doubt that, as established and emerging powers continue to ‘negotiate’ what they see as their rightful place in the world, the impact on Africa will not be pretty. One need only look at the situation in the Horn of Africa, both between and within countries: Somalia and Somaliland, Somalia and Ethiopia, Ethiopia itself and Tigray, and even Ethiopia and Eritrea. The civil wars in Sudan and Libya also bear the hallmarks of this scramble for influence in the larger scheme of global realignment.
This is a dangerous trajectory that is likely to persist until further global alignment takes shape and those with influence determine what they want to do with Africa.
The pressing question, then, is not whether Africa will benefit from the multipolar order; it is how and whether it will survive the current “negotiations” shaping the new order. How bruised will it be in the end?
