Precolonial Black Africa

"He wrote about black African civilisation before colonialism. How blacks governed themselves, ran their economies and so on. Africa’s ethnic societies, which still exist, take decisions by consensus not by dictatorship. Traditional rulers – chiefs and kings – are surrounded by councils, without which they are powerless. And these rulers can be recalled or removed for dereliction of duty. The larger polities in traditional Africa – empires ( Ghana, Mali, Songhai , Great Zimbabwe) and kingdoms (the Ashanti Kingdom, the Ga Kingdom) – were all confederacies, characterised by decentralisation of power and a great deal of devolution of authority. The modern political systems – military dictatorships and one-party-state systems – are alien to Africa. The relevance of culture in development is increasingly being espoused by Africans. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter Markets were ubiquitous in Africa before the colonialists set foot in Africa. There were great market towns such as Timbuktu, Kano, Salaga, Mombasa and Sofala in pre-colonial Africa. Prices in Africa’s traditional markets were determined by bargaining, not fixed by chiefs or kings. In West Africa, for example, market activity has been dominated by women for centuries. Free-trade routes criss-crossed the continent, along which people and goods moved freely – the most famous example was the Trans-Saharan trade route. In short, there was much economic freedom in the traditional economic system of free enterprise, free markets and free trade. State interventionism was the exception rather than the rule. Again, the economic systems of socialism and dirigisme imposed on Africa by post-colonial leaders bore little affinity with the traditional system. There is nothing wrong with Africa’s indigenous institutions. All that the leadership had to do after independence was to build upon them. They didn’t. Only Botswana did, and it is doing remarkably well. These institutions – in particular social, political, economic and legal – define African culture. Let me give you just two examples where such knowledge is important. In agriculture, the vast majority of Africa’s peasant farmers are women, because of sexual division of labour in traditional Africa. The cultivation of food crops has always been the avocation of women, while men preoccupied themselves with hunting, fishing and other dangerous tasks. Women use farm harvests to feed their families, and sell the surplus on village markets. As a result, market activity, especially in West Africa, is dominated by women. Thus, one cannot start an agricultural revolution in Africa using male-driven agricultural machinery. The second example comes from conflict resolution. In Western jurisprudence, the emphasis is on punishing the guilty. In traditional Africa, the focus is on restitution, reconciliation and restoration of social harmony. For example, if after apartheid was dismantled in South Africa Western jurisprudence had been applied, there would have been few whites left in South Africa. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission which was set up was rooted in African jurisprudence. African solutions are those rooted in African traditions, and there are two areas where they are most needed: Conflict resolution, and governance. If it takes a village to raise a child, as a common African saying goes, then it takes a village to resolve a conflict. To resolve a conflict in a village, the two disputants will be brought before a chief. After each makes his case, anyone directly or indirectly affected by the conflict is also allowed to make their case. There are four parties involved: The two combatants; the chief as an arbiter; and civil society. By contrast, the model often sponsored by the West involves face-to-face negotiations between the government and rebel forces. There is no arbiter, and nor is civil society involved. More than 40 peace accords have been signed in Africa since 1960. Needless to say, they were shredded like confetti even before the ink on them was dry. Democratic decisions can be taken in two ways – by majority vote and by consensus. Majority vote can be taken quickly in a transparent manner, but the downside is that it ignores minority positions. Consensus takes all minority positions into account, but can take an awfully long time depending on the number of people. Traditional Africa takes decisions by consensus and practices the politics of inclusion. By contrast, modern Africa takes decisions by majority vote and excludes minority positions – the politics of exclusion. Too often in Africa, some group – racial, tribal, religious, political or professional – captures political and economic power and uses that power to advance its interest and exclude all others. This apartheid-like politics of exclusion has been the cause of much political instability and conflict in Africa. The object of development is to improve the lot of the people, not just the lives of the ruling elites. An African economy can be divided into three sectors – the modern, the informal and the traditional sectors. The modern sector – the abode of the ruling vampire elites – is centered on urban areas, which also house the government. The vast majority of the African people can be found in the informal and traditional or rural sectors. But these latter two sectors were precisely those that were neglected by the ruling elites, who channeled development resources and foreign aid into the modern sectors where they live. For example, about 80% of Ivory Coast’s development was concentrated around Abidjan, the commercial capital. The neglect of the informal and traditional sectors is one reason why Africa can’t feed itself, because agriculture is the main activity of rural Africa. And so real development is that which focuses on the informal and traditional sectors – not the development by imitation that the elites tried to impose on Africa. But you cannot develop these sectors without an operational understanding of how they work – an understanding which many Western development experts and African government elites lack."