The Fate of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence by Martin Meredith Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Fate of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence
Book Review: Pessimistic yet fascinating and highly informative account of recent African history
Summary: 5 Stars
_The Fate of Africa_ by Martin Meredith is a impressively through (688 pages) and yet highly readable account of the history of Africa - all of Africa, including North Africa - since independence, beginning (after a good introductory chapter on general African history) with the independence of the Gold Coast (becoming Ghana) in 1957 all the way up until events in the mid 2000s, including such issues as the genocide in Rwanda and Burundi, the civil wars in Liberia and Angola, the collapse of Joseph Desire Mobutu's Zaire, Nigerian delta oil politics, the genocide in Darfur, Robert Mugabe's ruinous reign over Zimbabwe and his seizure of white-owned farms, the AIDS epidemic, the advent and role of conflict diamonds, and post-Apartheid and post-Mandela politics in South Africa.
Though this book could have been a sprawling if interesting mess, trying to cover fifty years of history of a huge continent, it isn't, as Meredith did a good job with the material. Part of it is from his excellent writing style and his vivid and engrossing portrait of Africa's often quite colorful leaders, but part of it is sad to say from a theme that gets hammered home again and again with many examples from fifty years of African history. With a special emphasis on the role of African leaders and their role in the fate of their countries, Meredith examines why, "after the euphoria of the independence era, so many hopes and ambitions faded and why the future of Africa came to be spoken of only in pessimistic terms." Though acknowledging the diversity of Africa, he noted that African states have much in common in terms of their origins and the problems they face. Time and again, Meredith in his country by country history of the continent provided tragic examples of states with vast economic potential being ruined by the "predatory politics of ruling elites seeking personal gain," often exploiting ethnic tensions for their own ends (it was sickening to read the political and economic motivations of those who helped fan the flames of genocide in Rwanda for instance, or how Mugabe essentially ended up ruining Zimbabwe, blaming and in the end chasing away the vital white farmers in order to cover up his own massive mistakes). Many though not all colonies at independence were often able to produce nearly all their own food and had a functioning infrastructure of roads, bridges, hospitals, schools, and a civil service as well as in many cases a thriving export industry, but after often epic mismanagement and corruption, massive embezzlement, squandering of national budgets on useless prestige projects, and ruinous involvement in foreign wars, most African states "have become hollowed out," no longer able to provide basic services, able to feed themselves, mired in debt, dependent upon international aid, the only ones in the country wealthy are governments themselves and the "vampire-like" politicians who run them as personal fiefdoms and who come to regard the populations they rule over "as yet another burden they have to bear in the struggle for survival." You can count on one hand the number of times African leaders have peacefully allowed themselves to be voted out of office, and even when regimes do change, as the result of either a military coup or a popular uprising, that despite initial hope and euphoria, the only result is a different group of politicians and their friends siphoning off a nation's resources and often times a different ethnic group being persecuted. Africa in the 1980s was dominated by Big Men, dictators who tolerated no opposition or dissent and whose faces appeared on currency notes and their faces looming over stores and offices. While many dictatorships in Africa fell in the early 1990s, a new breed of dictators emerged, adept at maintaining the appearance of a democracy in order to appease foreign aid donors while maintaining the same systems of patronage and autocratic rule of their predecessors, replacing "Big Man" rule with "Big Man democracy." Even attempts at reform backfired; when the IMF and the World Bank pushed African states towards parastatal reform, notably the privatization of public companies and factories, what instead emerged was "Crony capitalism" as government assets were instead sold off to select businessmen and friends on highly favorable terms (often ruinous to the government). In worse cases "cannibal capitalism" emerged as state-controlled industries were looted for the gain of politicians (so bad was the plundering in Zaire for instance of state-owned mining companies that copper production fell from 450,000 tons in the 1970s to 30,600 tons in 1994 and diamond production was nearly halved).
Much of the book as noted is a country by a country account of the main points of recent African history. Some of the events might be fairly well known to the general reader, such as Algerian war of independence in the 1950s and 1960s and the1980s famine in Ethiopia (though I wager many of the details will be quite surprising). Other events a good deal less so, such as the insane regime of Francisco Macias Nguema in Equatorial Guinea (among other things, he personally hoarded all foreign currency, ordered foreigners ransomed to generate income, banned the use of the word "intellectual," and decreed that priest must reiterate slogans such as "There is no God other than Macias"), Julius Nyerere's socialist experiments in 1960s and 1970s Tanzania (which included mass nationalization and a gathering of the scattered rural population into poorly planned and poorly run communal "ujamaa" villages, a movement of some 11 million people, the largest mass movement in African history), and how the Rwandan genocide and resulting conflict's aftermath lead to a massive four year war in the late 1990s in Zaire in which 3 million people died and "like vultures picking over a carcass," Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Angola, and Zimbabwe engaged in a scramble for "the spoils of war," tearing apart the country fighting each other and trying to secure Congolese mineral wealth and their own private business empires.
Book Review: A darker chapter yet?
Summary: 4 Stars
A year or so ago, I titled an Amazon review "The dark continent's darkest chapter." It was on Thomas Pakenham's "The Scramble for Africa" about the European colonial conquest of Africa in the late 19th century, and it painted a disturbing portrait of greed, racism, and hypocrisy. As awful as that period was, after reading Martin Meredith's "The Fate of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence," I'm no longer so sure that it was Africa's darkest chapter. Meredith forcefully argues that the period of post-colonial independence in Africa has been darker yet.
Meredith spins a tale of woe on the African continent that is so widespread, so endemic, and so deep that it nearly defies belief. This book could be read as a companion to William Easterly's "The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good," a passionately argued, caustic attack on western development and aid efforts, especially in Africa. As Meredith sees it, there isn't a glimmer of hope in Africa today - not politically, not economically, and not socially. African economies and civil societies have gone down hill steadily since the first optimistic flush of independence around 1960, he writes, and everything is poised to get even worse. Meredith claims that Africa's "entire economic output is no more than $420 billion, just 1.3 per cent of world GDP, less than a country like Mexico." Moreover, "sub-Saharan Africa is home to just 10 per cent of the world's population but bears more than 70 per cent of the world's HIV/Aids cases." Such depressing statistics roll on for seven hundred pages. If Meredith's assessment is even remotely accurate, nobody in their right mind would invest in the continent.
Why has Africa fared so poorly? Meredith pulls no punches - he sees it as a collective failure of native leadership, pure and simple. He stresses the role played by tribal conflict in causing so much graft and bloodshed. Religion is portrayed as much less a culprit, with the notable exceptions of Chad and Sudan. African leaders from Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah, Tanzania's Julius Nyerere, Central African Republic's Jean-Bedel Bokassa, Uganda's Idi Amin, Senegal's Leopold Senghor, Zambia's Kenneth Kaunda, Kenya's Danial arap Moi, Liberia's Charles Taylor, Malawi's Hastings Banda, Zaire's Joseph Mobutu, Togo's Gnassingbe Eyedema, and Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, among others, are described as essentially cut from the same clothe. Most played the nationalist card to build popularity and launch themselves into unrivaled leadership positions, but once installed quickly fell back on tribal connections and loyalty, and pillaged the national treasury as though it were their personal bank accounts.
The net result is a searing indictment of an entire continent and its leadership over the past half century.
Book Review: Devil Take the Hindmost
Summary: 5 Stars
I knew the post-independence years in Africa were bad, but didn't realize how bad. Never perhaps has Lord Acton's comment that "power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" been applicable on a wider scale.
A clear justification for dealing with a whole continent in a 750-page book is to allow the emergence of common traits across dozens of countries. The quote from Nigerian Claude Ake sums up a major general point: "The problem is not so much that development has failed, as that it was never really on the agenda in the first place". What seems to have been on the agenda in most countries was power and riches to us and ours and the devil take the hindmost.
The chief surprise is the almost total absence, over dozens of countries, along some five decades, of even reasonable government; only Nelson Mandela, forced to attain "maturity" in prison, and obliged by age to curtail his moment on stage, comes across as a great leader.
Given the size of the book it is a bit surprising that the author decided to lump together "Black" Africa with the Arab north: although the de-colonization process occurred in the same period the two areas have very distinct traditions. Concentration on one or the other would have allowed more space for analysis.
There is a damning account of the role of foreign governments and institutions, but if there is anything to criticize in the book's general orientation it is in relation to its cursory coverage of the illegal activities of multinational companies. By furnishing the instruments of war on one hand and ready cash on the other two key groups intensified conflict and magnified the impact of corruption: arms suppliers and minerals purchasers. This is important because it removes another
piece of blame from the African governments themselves.
There is not the shadow of a doubt that this is essential reading for anyone with a serious interest in contemporary Africa. However, while Meredith's writing is concise and as clear as crystal, only someone with a very specific interest will want, for example, to wade through the complexity of years of Nigerian politics. But there is something for everybody: having lived in Kenya and the then Rhodesia, and travelled through most of eastern Africa in the early 70's, the book filled in hundreds of blank spots for me.
On the other hand, while the work could usefully serve as a reference for particular countries, I do not think it suitable for someone wanting a general introduction to post-independence Africa: the level of detail is too great.
A final word about the title, which seems inappropriate. No one yet knows the "Fate of Africa" and we won't discover it from reading the book which concludes, not with a bang, but with the wimper "In reality, fifty years after the beginning of the independence era, Africa's prospects are bleaker than ever before". So what's new!
Book Review: Great General Reader of Modern Day Africa
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a great general reader covering the African continent. Most countries in Africa are covered and the period is from near the end of the colonial period ending roughly somewhere between the late 90's to early 2000. If you're looking for more detailed information about a specific African country then this isn't the book for you. If you're seeking a great general history book about modern day Africa then this is a great place to start. This would be a great textbook on Modern African history and if more people read this book they certainly would have a better understanding of the many countries in Africa.Book Review: This is the book I've been looking for
Summary: 5 Stars
This book looks at the Africa since the Independence Era, when France, Britain, Portugal and Belgium all divested themselves of their colonies on the continent. I was unconvinced that a single book, even one as thick as this one, could do justice to the story of what happened to the former colonies. After all, Africa is not a single entity no more than Europe is, but Mr. Meredith illustrated the fate of Africa through the personalities which shaped it in the aftermath of colonialism... Kenyatta, Lumumba, Nkrumah and the rest... and explains how their decisions and their programs shaped their countries and in turn how the overall trends effected the continent overall.
The Fate of Africa does not attempt to blame the colonial powers for all the ills that have gripped their former domain, nor does it try to paint the revolutionaries and first presidents as well-meaning but naive, nor does it excuse the disasters as being part of overwhelming poverty... the book explains how bad decisions at the highest levels have left this part of the world in disarray.
You must read this book to understand Africa today.