African Anarchism

* * *

Socialism or communism as an ideological model is not entirely new to Africa; it first gained ground in South Africa with the formation of the Communist Party in 1921. The South African Communists, who broke away from the Labour Party in 1915 to form the International Socialist League (ISL), had as one of their objectives the pursuit of proletarian internationalism.[107] An editorial in the fourth issue of The International, the weekly paper of the ISL, stated on October 1, 1915 that “an internationalism that does not concede the fullest rights which the native working class is capable of claiming will be a sham... If the League deals resolutely in consonance with socialist principles with the native question, it will succeed in shaking South African capitalism to its foundation...”[108] Thus the International Socialist League made efforts to identify with the workers and with the plight of the down-trodden black population. It made contact with all existing black organizations, such as the African National Congress, and founded the Industrial Workers of Africa trade union.[109]

In 1921, under the auspices of the Third International, the Marxist-DeLeonist ISL accepted Lenin’s 21 demands and formed the Communist Party of South Africa. Its leaders were S.P. Bunting, former Labour Party Chairman W.H. Andrews, and direct-action mine workers Ernie Shaw and Percy Fisher. Though it adopted the organizational form of a Bolshevik party, the South African C.P. remained strongly influenced by IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) revolutionary syndicalist views, and by DeLeonist industrial union concepts.[110]

But through the years the South African Communist Party underwent a marked transformation, both in its relationship to the state and in its conception of the struggle for a better society. It abandoned its initial revolutionary program, and in alliance with other nationalist groups conceived and began to work for a two-step approach to liberation, to wit, a bourgeois democratic revolution, followed by a socialist revolution. The party was more concerned with the issue of state power than class power, and paid scant attention to bringing an end to power and privilege in South African society.

The major liberation movements in South Africa — the African National Congress and the South African Communist Party — both adopted a document known as the Freedom Charter as a framework for a liberated South Africa. The Freedom Charter, however, while it proposed to restrict the operations of monopoly capitalism, did not envisage the abolition of the capitalist system. As Sisa Majola states, the Freedom Charter “envisage[d] the development of small-scale capitalist enterprises as a result of the elimination of the various colour barriers.”[111] Accordingly, the Charter envisioned a South Africa where all people “shall have equal rights to trade where they choose, to manufacture and to enter all trades, crafts and professions.” Majola further observes that even the demand contained in the Charter, that “restriction of land ownership on a racial basis shall be ended, and all the land redivided among those who work it, to banish famine and hunger,” did not necessarily propose the socialization of land ownership and control.” From all of this we can conclude that the initial ideals which the South African Communist Party embraced were short lived; they were compromised by its alliance with nationalist groups for the purpose of acquiring political power.

The “Revolution” in Guinea

The so-called revolution in Guinea deserves comment in that the party that led the “revolution” — the Democratic Party of Guinea (DPG) — was a mass party with a revolutionary ideology based on worker and peasant interests.

The organization of workers in Guinea was led by Sekou Toure, a descendant of a famous anti-French colonialism resistance leader in the 19^th century. Under Toure’s guidance, trade unions merged their protest against French rule with that of various ethnic and regional associations, creating the PDG. In its early years, the PDG maintained strong links with the French syndicalist union, the CGT.

The objective of the PDG’s founders was to create a mass party, and they achieved this at least for the duration of the independence struggle. The PDG achieved its mass mobilization by appealing to workers on bread and butter issues — salaries, benefits, etc. — and then to peasants on the basis of needs such as roads and schools, and also on the basis of their resentment toward their chiefs and nobility who had sold them out to the French. They particularly appealed to women and to youth, both groups extremely exploited by the elders and chiefs.

Guinea’s chiefs were more or less tax administrators for the French, bleeding their own people dry. They also provided forced labor for mines and plantations. They had become discredited among their people, and the PDG exploited this. By 1956, the party had united the country and swept the elections of that year. This caused the French governor to issue a statement that recognized that the chieftaincy “was gravely compromised... and it was no longer admissible that we maintain against wind and storm chiefs who no longer represent anything.” Following the election, the PDG set up village committees, some of which made up lists of grievances against their chiefs and exacted reparations from them. This frightened many chiefs, who then fled to the capital, Conakry.

In 1957–58, the PDG stripped the chiefs of power and established popularly elected local governments, from the village up. They also began to tax French companies, broke up trading monopolies, and reformed government. When in 1958 the people of Guinea voted for independence, the French fled en masse, and in revenge took with them whatever they could carry, even the telephones from the walls. Only 20 French administrators out of an estimated 41,000 remained. The stage was then set for peasant and worker interests to influence the government and the development of Guinea. But, as in South Africa, this was short lived. The new “revolutionary” politicians soon prostituted the ideals of the liberation struggle, as is inevitable whenever “revolutionary” politicians occupy positions of power and privilege.

The Awareness League: an African Anarchist Movement

The Awareness League began as an informal study group at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, in the mid 1980s. The group continued to function essentially as a leftist coalition composed of marxists, trotskyites, human rights activists, and leftists and radicals of various persuasions. Until 1989, the group consisted mostly of student activists, journalists, and university graduates. The different tendencies within the body generated intense debates and self-criticism.

This type of group was not without precedent, though. At Ibadan University, a similar left coalition, The Axe, had existed since about 1983. Its members published for a while a periodic newsletter known also as The Axe, and later The Socialist Register. This group barely survived the crisis that engulfed the left, notably the authoritarian left, in the second half of the 1980s.

The debates that went on within the Awareness League at the end of the 1980s brought to the fore the need to transcend the body’s organizational structure — namely, its informality and its seeming absence of a clear ideological direction. This turmoil coincided with the political convulsions in Eastern Europe and the growing unpopularity of marxist socialism around the world.

The eventual collapse of Communism was foreshadowed in a lengthy analysis in The Torch newspaper, a monthly publication of the Revolutionary Socialist League in the U.S.A. The former trotskyites at The Torch ran a long and thorough repudiation of marxism-leninism and the state socialist systems it had given rise to. Authored by Ron Taber, and titled “A Look at Leninism,” the series attempted to show that Soviet-style state socialism was doomed.

Members of the Awareness League study group followed this critique with close interest. Its brutal perceptiveness left most members of the Awareness League in no doubt about the way forward for the League. In response to the series published in The Torch, the League wrote, “we are a body of young, unemployed university graduates, students, and artisans, interested in, and committed to, the teachings and principles of socialism. We hold revolutionary socialism as our manifesto... We are particularly impressed by the publication, ‘A Look at Leninism,’ which we consider an important self-critical effort, which no true marxist or revolutionary can afford to wish away.”

Subsequent events led to the transformation of the group into an anarchist organization, though it still retained its old name. By February 1, 1990, the Awareness League formally shed its former image as a leftist coalition. The group’s charter, approved in 1991, pronounced the League as a:social libertarian organization inspired by and committed to the ideals, principles, objectives, goals, ends and purposes of revolutionary socialism and anarchosyndicalism, characterized as the antithesis of statism as well as the manifestations and institutions thereof.

With capitalism enmeshed in interminable crisis and its institutions — social, economic, political and cultural — increasingly succumbing to fatigue across the globe, the imperative for sustained struggle against the forces of capitalism has never been greater. It is instructive to note that the crisis of capitalism has been most intensive and pronounced in the underdeveloped third world countries. This is not surprising, to say the least: capitalism’s chain was bound to break at its weakest links.

The Awareness League upholds the principles and dictates of internationalism, convinced that national boundaries and territoriality are but artificial creations. The League stands for and is committed to peace and rejects war, militarism, fascism, and racism as well as the acquisition and development of technologies that promote war, militarism, and, in turn, undermine peace and peaceful coexistence among nations.

The League advocates violence only as a form of resistance to the violence and violent methods and tactics of the ruling class, its agencies and collaborators or as a form of liberation struggle. To this end, the Awareness League, as an anarchosyndicalist and revolutionary socialist front, proclaims all over the world and insists that no form of collaboration can exist between the ruling classes — the exploiter — and their victims, the masses.

The League has since grown into a 1000-member movement with members in all 15 southern Nigerian states, as well as the states of Kaduna, Adamawa and Plateau in the north. In 1996 the League was admitted as the Nigerian section of the International Workers Association (IWA), the anarchosyndicalist international.

Chapter 5: The Failure of Socialism in Africa

Economic development has been central to the ideologies of post-colonial African states. In their choice of which ideological model to adopt for economic development, some states have chosen a form of socialism — “African socialism,” as some of its proponents have labeled it. However, the term “socialism” as used here does not signify a rigid, doctrinaire approach as in marxism-leninism. Thus Senghor identifies “spiritual values” which he feels were lost to Soviet Communists under Stalin; Kwame Nkrumah saw no contradiction between socialism and Christianity; and Julius Nyerere has associated African socialism with traditional kinship solidarity in his Ujamaa concept. Advocates of African socialism postulate that the marxist theory of material determinism should not be applied in Africa, given Africa’s vastly different (than European) economic and social conditions. Rather, they call for a decentralized, democratic African socialism, which they trace back to the history and cultures of the African people.

But the concept of African socialism has been severely criticized. Goldthorpe identifies a strong strand of elitism in “African socialism.” According to him, where there is socialism in Africa, it has been planned by an elite. Similarly, Paul Sigmund has pointed out that many post-colonial African states see strong government as the only way to achieve modernization and development, and their leaders coin phrases such as Sekou Toure’s “democratic dictatorship” to express their belief that the government or ruling party must lead the people. Nkrumah, who advocated African socialism, asserted that his Convention People’s Party formed the nucleus of a new Ghanian society. This required that the party “generalize” itself into society. As Nkrumah said, “the CPP is a powerful force, more powerful indeed than anything that has appeared in the history of Ghana. It is the uniting force that guides and pilots the nation, and it is the nerve centre of the positive aspirations in the struggle for African irredentism. Its supremacy cannot be challenged. The CPP is Ghana, and Ghana is the CPP.”[112]

The actual policies and the failures of “African socialist” regimes reveal the emptiness of such grandiose, self-serving rhetoric. The African poet Okot aptly captures the failure and tragedy of post-independence African regimes in his article, “Indigenous Ills”

...the most striking and frightening characteristics of all Africa governments is this, that without an exception, all of them are dictatorships, and practice ruthless discrimination as makes the South African apartheid look tame. African Socialism may be defined as the government of the people by the educated for the educated... [It is] discrimination by the educated men in power against their fellow men — their brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, against their own folk left in the villages.[113]

Let us look at some specific instances where African socialism failed to improve the lives of the ordinary people. What happened to the Guinean revolution after independence? Some analysts describe what happened in post-independence Guinea as simply an overreaction; but for a more detailed analysis we turn to Samir Amin’s book, Neo-Colonialism in West Africa. According to Amin, the first important point is that after independence, the PDG opened itself to the opposition parties that had represented the chiefs. The second important point is that, despite an original democratic organization from the village upward, soon major decisions for the country were made by the general secretary and the executive organ of the political bureau. Thus decision making soon became very centralized. The PDG incorporated all organizations, including trade unions and women’s organizations, into its fold, thus concentrating power at the top.

Given all this, it’s obvious that the Guinean peasantry had little impact on government decisions. As we have seen, decisions were executed by a cadre of the few African civil servants educated by the French, and by a number of expatriates. In the first three-year plan, the peasants were to be organized into cooperatives, and the government was to establish a number of state farms using modern techniques; but by 1970, Amin could report no serious start on cooperative organization, and the plans for cooperatives were subsequently dropped. He also reported that agricultural modernization had not proceeded at all.

R.E. Galli cites two factors for the failure of the Guinean revolution. One was the over-centralization of the party in the post-independence period. Second, and more fundamentally, the government and party deliberately chose to rely on mining as opposed to agriculture as the economic base of the country. From the moment that it achieved power, the PDG moved to ally itself with mining companies in the hands of foreign capital. According to Galli, the party saw the mines as its opportunity to extract an economic surplus with which to maintain the state and to keep the PDG in power, because the mines could provide an income source independent of peasants and workers, and the PDG could thus afford to ignore their interests.

However, despite its ventures into mining, Guinea today remains one of the poorest countries in the world. The United Nations has designated it as one of the 31 least-developed countries; and it has a very low GNP. Guinean workers, as one might suspect, have not fared well — throughout the 1970s and 1980s real wages fell as inflation rose.

The purpose of examining Guinea here is not to paint a complete picture of its political economy, but to lay bare the sham of African socialism and, in particular, the role of the state in it. The lessons to be learned from Guinea are:

There can be no development of Africa that does not raise the productivity and income of peasants, skilled and nonskilled workers, who form about 90% of the economically productive population of sub-Saharan Africa. Any development policy that aims at meaningful change must touch the lives of the poor majority.

The reliance on state power over workers and peasants directly contributes to Africa’s underdevelopment.

A successful agricultural production process will be based on the workers and peasants themselves running things (voluntary collectivization), the elimination of the profit motive, and the appropriate application of technology.[114]

Tanzania provides another pertinent case study of a country whose leaders dedicated themselves to rural development shortly after achieving independence (from Britain). Julius Nyerere, head of the Tanzanian government, was one of the foremost exponents of African socialism and the principle of self-reliance. In 1979 he addressed the World Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development, stating that:

Rural development means development. It indicates an approach and the order of priorities. It involves every aspect of government and social activities. It means acting to reverse the traditional flow of wealth from the rural areas into the towns and forcing that wealth into channels which will benefit the workers who actually produce it with their hands and brains. It means transferring to the poorer and rural areas some of the wealth produced in the richest economic sectors. In practically all developing countries these things require a revolution in the present patterns of government expenditure and taxation. They will be done if, and only if, the people can organize their own power in their own interest.

Has Tanzania practiced what Nyerere preached? To answer this question, let’s look at the story of socialism in Tanzania.

Tanganyika won its independence from the British in 1961 after years of struggle led by the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU). TANU was led by teachers, junior civil servants, merchants, rich farmers, white collar workers, salaried employees, shopkeepers — basically the educated and professional classes in the urban areas and rich farmers and merchants in the rural areas. TANU successfully mobilized the peasantry, to which it gave some economic and organizational support. Like the PDG, TANU aspired to be a mass party. In 1964, it organized itself in cell-like fashion in towns and in the countryside. Ten families formed a party cell at the base of the party structure. Organization extended from village to ward to district to region and, finally, to the national level.

The British did not abandon Tanganyika (later Tanzania, after its merger with Zanzibar) as the French did in Guinea, but very few Europeans ever lived in the country. The British owners of capital were indirectly represented by the colonial state and the managers of their plantations and companies. They employed as an intermediary group the Asian commercial class, which included merchants that dealt in importing and exporting, professionals such as lawyers, high state functionaries, and business managers. This Asian intermediary group was comparable to the French middlemen in Guinea. Even after independence the Asians stayed behind in their customary roles.

The rest of post-colonial Tanzanian society may be broken down as follows. There was an Asian class of artisans, white collar workers, small merchants, and even salaried employees. They were higher in rank than their African counterparts. Another class consisted of rich farmers. And still another consisted of mine, plantation, construction, and service workers. This last was a small but important group, though it never exerted any real influence in TANU. The final and most numerous class consisted of peasants, differentiated into middle and poor peasants.

One of the first actions of the new TANU Tanzanian government was to consolidate its power and position against the Asian commercial class. It did this by limiting the latter’s scope of activity and by expanding the state sector to take over commercial and industrial enterprises; the state was moving to take over the Asians’ intermediary role between the people and the foreign capitalists.

The government also moved against rich farmers who had benefitted most from the cooperatives set up to facilitate marketing. When inefficiencies and corruption became apparent, the government also moved against the cooperatives. And, to consolidate its control, TANU moved against the National Unions of Workers in 1964 after a series of disputes, placing the organization under the control of the Ministry of Labour. After the mid-1960s, Tanzanian workers effectively lost their right to strike.

By the end of the 1960s we can see that the leaders of TANU had limited the economic capabilities and influence of most rivals or potential rivals: the Asian commercial class; the rich farmers; and the working class. The next step was to consolidate their hegemony over these groups and any factions that were not yet under their control.

TANU leaders outlined their relationship with foreign capital and the peasantry in the Arusha Declaration of 1967. The state nationalized land, and it also took control of majority ownership in the major means of production — the banks and the large industrial firms. Did this mean that the Tanzanian state was driving out foreign capital? Did it mean that the state refused to play an intermediary role? No, according to notable scholars such as Colin Leys, John Saul and Michaela Von Freyhold. After all, the state was merely nationalizing the banks and industries, in some cases offering to merge its capital with that of large foreign firms, in effect becoming their partners. According to Von Freyhold, “no national bourgeoisie can any longer afford to ignore the facilities offered by international capital.” And, we might note, capital from the World Bank, the United States, Canada, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, even China, as well as Great Britain, poured in to assist in the building of infrastructure, the training of managers, and to foster agricultural and rural development. As of the late 1970s, foreign aid was paying 50% of the government’s development budget.

This alliance of national interests with foreign capital did not solve the problem of the government’s growing need for an economic base — that is, revenue to support the state and a surplus to invest in development. Nor did it build a political base in the form of a loyal, supportive constituency.

It was against this background that Julius Nyerere turned to the peasantry, which constituted 90% of the population, by preaching a return to the tenets of African communalism. Henceforth, agriculture and the people themselves would become the new bases for development. The government encouraged Tanzanian peasants to form themselves into villages based on cooperation and communal work — the Ujamaa villages. To support this, it would provide social services such as roads, schools, etc. In September 1967, Nyerere published his pamphlet, Socialism and Rural Development, in which he spelled out three fundamental traditional principles upheld by the African family: equality, mutual respect for all families, and participation in the benefits of collective production. These were to be the basis of the Ujamaa villages.

Today, there are no surviving Ujamaa villages in Tanzania, only memories of them. The economy is in serious financial and production crisis. Agricultural production continues to decline, and food shortages abound.

In the early 1970s, Gavin Williams wrote a short but very interesting article called “Taking the Part of the Peasants,” in which he compared Tanzanian and Nigerian government policies. He found that in both cases the governments considered the peasants the problem rather than the solution to raising agricultural productivity. Despite the fact that the one government called itself socialist while the other was avowedly capitalist, both governments focused on outside, particularly foreign, expertise and technology to develop agriculture, and ignored the peasants themselves.

The Ujamaa model failed because it degenerated into state control over the peasants. Through its bureaucrats and technical assistants, the state started to dictate to the peasants what to do and what not to do, what to produce and what not to produce. Soon, too, the World Bank and other aid donors hijacked the program. The government/World Bank/foreign aid strategy was to establish national production targets for each food crop, including export crops such as cotton, coffee, cashew nuts, tea, sisal, and tobacco. The next step was to set regional targets for the crops grown best in each region — a type of regional division of labor. The third step was to communicate these goals to villages through the state apparatus. Whatever the peasants produced was sold to the authorities, and the government controlled the prices. In this way, the state squeezed the peasants for as much surplus as possible. It would have been simply unthinkable to imagine that Ujamaa, in its original, undiluted form, would have succeeded as part of a state system. To that extent, its failure was logical and inevitable.

African socialism has been a failure in other parts of Africa as well. In Ethiopia under Menghistu, for instance, the so-called Workers Party by the late 1980s had failed miserably in its attempt to lay the groundwork for the socialist transformation of agriculture, the attainment of self-sufficiency in food production, and improvement in the standard of living. Although apologists for the regime normally blame these failures on “strong economic links with the capitalist countries... [which meant Ethiopia was] hard hit by the worsening economic crisis of the capitalist world,”[115] the crisis stemmed largely from Ethiopia’s state capitalism and bureaucratic centralism. It’s also worth noting that the Soviet-style Menghistu regime was one of the worst, most murderous human rights abusers ever seen in Africa.

In Mozambique, the ten-year development plan adopted in 1980 by the ruling FRELIMO party proved unsuccessful. This failure was blamed on “foreign aggression through bandit gangs.” Nothing was said of the excessive centralism of Mozambique’s planning and management, as well as retention of colonial structures inherited from the Portuguese.

In West Africa, the Burkina Faso “revolution” of 1984 came to an end in 1987 with the assassination of Thomas Sankara, its initiator. Although Sankara recognized that the majority peasant population was a key force, he unfortunately had an overtly critical attitude toward the trade union movement and left-wing parties.[116] Sankara’s efforts centered on the Committees for the Defence of the Revolution (CDRs). CDRs were organized at all work places and in all neighborhoods and military units, as “defenders” of the revolution; that is — as in Cuba — they functioned as spies for the government and as enforcers of its policies. The CDRs in Burkina Faso, however, did not have the time to develop the efficiency of their Cuban counterparts, which can be considered the backbone (or at least the far-reaching tentacles) of the Cuban repressive apparatus. In his review of the book, Thomas Sankara Speaks, Ahmed Azad notes that “no real attempt it seems was made... to resolve the issue of the role, functions, duties, and responsibilities of the CDRs and those of the trade union movement.”[117]

On October 15, 1987, Sankara was assassinated by his friend and comrade, Blaise Compaore. In justifying the coup, Compaore said that the Burkinan revolution had strayed under Sankara; he compared his “rectification process” with glasnost in the Soviet Union. However, according to Jabulani Mkhatshwa, Compaore’s idea of glasnost “is the further class differentiation that is taking place among the people, the creation of the petty bourgeoisie and the import of Mercedes Benz.”[118] Jabulani blames Compaore for the implementation of economic policies contrary to the original ideals of the revolution. As we have seen, however, the process of betrayal was already well under way under Sankara.

We can see that the so-called socialist parties and regimes in Africa — both those that led their countries to independence, and those that achieved power in the post-independence period — have not succeeded in changing the lives and fortunes of poor workers and peasants. These regimes have not achieved anything beyond what openly capitalist states have achieved. If anything, they have maintained and expanded the old system of class privilege. The result has been that class antagonisms, instability, and economic crisis confront the continent. As the crisis rages on and the prospect of the radicalization of the masses heightens, African regimes have been compelled to react. Some have turned into full-blown dictatorships and become openly repressive; other have tried one form of structural adjustment or another; and still others have experimented with various forms of electoralism. Yet all these are palliatives aimed at temporarily quelling restive workers and peasants, for whom daily life has become synonymous with misery.

State Capitalism and Instability

It’s now time to look at how the fundamentally capitalist state system in Africa has created unstable sociopolitical and economic structures, as well as the prospect of its own collapse. In analyzing the connection between state capitalism and instability in Africa, our primary objective is to demonstrate how the economic manifestations of state capitalism — underdevelopment, dependence, and subordination to foreign interests, plus their concomitants, poverty, illiteracy, and disease — have led to political instability.

The root of African underdevelopment is, of course, the establishment of colonial capitalism. Put differently, Africa’s recent economic history is the result of its colonial past, the most significant aspect of which was the displacement of the precolonial African mode of production through the expansion of mercantilist capitalism from Europe to Africa. As we have seen, during the struggles for national liberation, the fundamental economic relationships established during the colonial period were not generally seen as detrimental to the interests of the developing nations. Nationalism in Africa was thus primarily limited to the elimination of outright foreign political domination, and the granting of political independence witnessed the perpetuation of class antagonisms and the emergence of an indigenous ruling elite.

In accounting for the instability of present-day African political systems, Professor Claude Ake argues that there are strong revolutionary pressures against the existing exploitative class relations, and thus against the very survival of the ruling elite and the state. He attributes these pressures to, first, the desperate poverty of African workers; second, the huge economic and social discrepancy between rich and poor; third, rising expectations due to modernization; fourth, the enticing models provided by the developed countries, made even more piquant by their portrayals in the media and by the limited penetration of consumer goods and retail firms into African markets; and fifth, the politicization of the African peoples through their frustrating colonial and post-colonial experiences.

Ake notes that the African people are essentially demanding two things. The first is equality, which, in effect, means the abolition of post-colonial capitalism and its privileged classes. The second is “social well-being,... easing the agony of extreme want.”[119] Ake, however, postulates that neither of these demands will be granted by African ruling elites because “the very condition of underdevelopment very drastically limits the expansion of the economic surplus.” Thus the capitalists cannot react favorably to revolutionary pressures without committing class suicide, which, of course, they will not do. According to Ake, this leaves them the option of trying to discourage such demands, while preventing their political manifestations. This is what Ake means when he refers to “depoliticization.”

According to Ake, the primary manifestation of depoliticization in Africa is the preaching by African regimes of one-party-state ideologies; this, of course, tends to make African regimes particularly repressive. In Ake’s view, “every African country is in effect a one-party state in the sense that every regime in Africa assumes its exclusive right to rule and prohibits organized opposition.” Moreover, “given the contradictions in contemporary African society, depoliticization cannot be carried out without brutal repression.”

In considering the effects of depoliticization on African regimes, it could be argued that, since depoliticization helps maintain existing class structures, it promotes “political stability.”[120] Here, “political stability” means the persistence of the political structure, especially the relationship between the dominant and subordinate classes. Depoliticization in this sense enhances the stability of regimes when it leads to the homogenization of the exploiting classes. “Depoliticization increases homogenization by imposing ideological unity, by building alliances between factions, by co-opting dangerous opponents into the hegemonic faction and by liquidating certain other factions altogether.”

On the other hand, depoliticization may actually accentuate governmental instability. In fact, Ake postulates that “on balance, the intraclass depoliticization is more conducive to government instability than to stability.” He attributes this to the fact that “it greatly reinforces the destabilizing effect which statism produces by focusing the ambition of all the factions of the exploiting class primarily on the capture of state power, by making the outcome of the struggle for hegemony among the factions of the bourgeoisie too important.”[121] In effect, suppression in the political arena does not eliminate the crisis in society. Even with the depoliticization of the masses or the establishment of a one-party system, instability remains because the objective basis of the differences between factions in society remain. Thus, pressures mount, with explosive social tensions between groups in the system. “When major differences in this political monolith appear, a crisis invariably occurs.”[122] The options for resolving these differences are drastically limited, according to Ake, because they arise from the substructure. The rulers are obliged to use coercion, but this only worsens the unstable political situation, creating opportunities and conditions that facilitate military intervention.

The Military Factor

In the view of Peter Harris, the widening gulf between the progressively impoverished majority and the privileged few generates the potential for crises in African political systems.[123] Describing the present character of African political developments such as the phenomenon of military coups, Harris recalls that Franz Fanon had predicted as far back as the 1950s that the African middle and professional classes who led the national independence movements would increasingly turn their backs on the people and instead align themselves with foreign interests.

In Class Conflict in Africa, Markovitz argues that a fundamental reason for the ease of military takeovers across the continent was that the politicians represented only the privileged.[124] He agrees with Ruth First that in the absence of a socially rooted, economically productive base, “power lies in the hands of those who control the means of violence. It lies in the barrel of a gun, fired or silent.”

According to Harris, as the corruption and profiteering of the ruling class have become more blatant, and the stagnation of African economies has reached the point of national bankruptcy, popular discontent has become widespread. As a result, many regimes have discarded their populist smokescreens. This, combined with popular discontent, has set the stage for military takeovers. As Fanon had forewarned, when the discontent of the peasantry and the workers grows, and the regime is forced to resort to harsher measures of rule, “it is the army that becomes the arbiter....”[125] According to Harris, military officers corps, an important segment of the local ruling class, enter the center of the political arena by replacing discredited politicians, thereby preventing the mobilization of the people. The military assume power not only to preserve the continued dominance of the local privileged class, but also to protect the neocolonial interests of the former mother country and of multinational corporations. As Fanon puts it, “the ranks of the decked-out profiteers whose grasping hands scrape up the bank notes from a poverty-stricken country will sooner or later be men of straw in the hands of the army cleverly handled by foreign experts. In this way, the former metropolitan country practices indirect government, both by the bourgeoisie that it upholds and also by the national army....”[126]

Harris and Murray have also analyzed how the grave economic problems of post-independence African regimes have caused the decline of populist nationalist parties and of the charismatic national leaders that led the struggle for independence. Harris believes that the nationalist parties and one-party rule have become obsolete forms of protecting the interests of international and local capitalists due to the combination of predatory economic structures and the growing awareness of elite corruption. Murray attributes this to the deplorable economic conditions in Africa, growing political cynicism, and the abiding human quest for freedom in the social, economic, and political spheres. He argues that this decline is a direct result of the effects of economic stagnation, urban inflation, the ossification of the nationalist parties, and the rapacity of the ruling elites.[127]

Murray argues that because of the political and economic situation, many post-colonial governments have been unable to deal with growing contradictions in their societies, and have had difficulty legitimizing their authority. As a result, both foreign and internal pressures have provoked changes from civilian to military rule. According to Murray, the corruption and incompetence of the nationalist politicians have added to the “fringe costs” of economic activity in these states, and are undermining the function of these regimes as “political holding companies” for foreign capital. The military, on the other hand, has offered “a more effective alternative to foreign capital and to the local bourgeoisie not directly benefitting from the discredited regimes.”[128]

So, typically, the military intervenes and comes to power on the crest of rising public discontent, particularly over economic downturns, and the corruption and decadence of the political leadership. They succeed in turning the moral outrage of the people to their own advantage and justify their seizure of power by pointing to the corruption and inefficiency of the politicians. Kenneth Grundy states that, under the initial euphoric state of affairs that attends most military interventions, the military succeed in raising the expectations of the masses over and above their ability to deliver.[129] This strategy, of course, produces a time bomb.

In the long run, military regimes appear even less capable of winning popular support than the civilian regimes that they replace. Because of the time bomb of impossible-to-meet rising expectations, the military are ultimately forced either to resort to repressive measures and risk a counter coup or to relinquish power to a new set of civilians. Because of the reluctance of military regimes to give up power, this often sets in motion a vicious cycle of coups and counter coups, and helps “to bring into clearer focus the social and political crisis of neo-colonial society.”[130] According to Harris, this crisis stems from the fact that “the small local bourgeoisie (including its military component) have neither the economic power nor the support of other social strata to stabilize their position of domination and privilege.” Consequently, they are forced to rely on repressive measures. This “advances both the critical consciousness of the subordinate classes and the polarization of African society.”

Political Corruption and Social Instability: Case Studies of Ghana and Nigeria

Because of its role in creating instability in African states, political (official) corruption is directly associated with, and almost synonymous with, the state system. The existence of the state and the manipulation of the structures and institutions of the state by the ruling elite for the (mis)allocation and (mal)distribution of public goods and services inevitably leads to corrupt practices. Levine defines political corruption as the “unsanctioned, unscheduled use of public political resources and/or goods for private, that is, non-public, ends.”[131] In Africa, the coup d’etat is often preceded by the instability generated by political corruption.

In Ghana, the populist Convention Peoples Party (CPP) government of Kwame Nkrumah was more or less a conglomeration of divergent interest groups, some of which were more concerned than others with the plunder and expropriation of national wealth. To this end, it is pertinent, as Professor Card points out, to distinguish between the CPP leadership and the CPP membership in order to discern what Card terms the “class” basis of the party.[132] The tendency to see the CPP throughout its 15 years as an undivided entity has blurred this distinction.

As Card points out, many members of the CPP leadership began their careers as independent radicals “with little or nothing to lose, in the Fanonist sense.” However, over the years, many of the early CPP leaders gained access to wealth and power via the state, “and differences in purely personal interests began to be reflected in differences over policy matters related to the extent and pace of Ghanaian socialism.” By 1960, when inner party purges of the old leadership began in earnest, some of the formerly “radical” leaders had become wealthy men, whose prosperity was “linked to the state and foreign capital.”

The political corruption of the CPP began in the 1950s, when the party began to consolidate its hold over the population and over the centers of economic and political power. It organized party branches throughout the country, set up a variety of auxiliary organizations, and began to move its people into key positions in various government agencies. Levine cites as an example what happened when the party managed to gain control of the Cocoa Purchasing Company (CPC), formed in 1952 as an agency of the Cocoa Marketing Board. A 1956 investigation of the CPC revealed that the CPP had used the CPC’s control of agricultural loans, bulk purchasing, and transportation to enrich party coffers, to coerce farmers into joining the party, and to control petty commerce that was dependent on cocoa. By 1961, accusations of corruption among the party leadership had grown too loud to ignore, but even Nkrumah’s much-celebrated “Dawn Broadcast” of April 8, 1961 — in which he denounced official corruption and self-seeking — did not break the cult of corruption that had gripped the party and the state bureaucracies. Ocran charges that corruption had become institutionalized in high places and among Nkrumah’s minsters and followers in the CPP.[133] He mentions a report of the commission of inquiry into the affairs of the National Development Company which found that it was “established ostensibly to finance the CPP, but that it later became a clearing house for bribes paid to the party or to Nkrumah personally.” Ocran concludes that “Ghanaians both inside or outside the party were having a field day chopping Ghana small, without any let or hindrance whatsoever.”

The above occurred under the “socialist” government of Kwame Nkrumah, at the time considered the beacon of hope for the decolonizing countries in Africa. In Nigeria, shortly after independence on October 1, 1960, the young state came perilously close, first to collapse, then to constitutional chaos and a bloody civil war. The upshot was a rapid succession of civilian and military regimes. In the late 1970s under General Olusegun Obasanjo, a constituent assembly was set up to write a constitution for the country. In 1979 it produced a constitution which ushered in the civilian government of Alhaji Shehu Shagari.

Like previous Nigerian civilian and military governments, Shehu Shagari’s regime was a showpiece of corruption. Ill-conceived bills slid their way through the national legislature lubricated by bribes. Under Obosanjo and then Shagari, the Nigerian government lost millions of dollars to fraud; an example under Shagari was a $20 million (Nigerian dollars) fraud loss by the Federal Housing Corporation.[134] Another instance was the sale of 4,000 bags of rice to ruling party bigwigs at $6.00 per bag. They then resold the rice for between $60 and $90 per bag. An aggrieved permanent secretary in the upper chamber of parliament mentioned senior public functionaries — past and present — as some of the beneficiaries. He alleged that import licenses were given to 121 persons for 255,350 tons of rice, and that President Shagari took 200,000 tons for himself.[135]

A year after the multistory Republic Building in Lagos went up in flames, the Audit Division of the Federal Capital Territory was similarly razed. The incident was connected with a $15 million (Nigerian) fraud involving department payment vouchers. Another example of fraud was that reported in late 1982, in which five top officials of the Nigerian External Telecommunications Company were arrested for a $53 million fraud. These incidents are only the tip of the iceberg in the corruption that engulfed the Shagari regime shortly before the military coup on December 31, 1983.

Corruption and theft of public funds by public officials have since become a way of life in Nigeria, as every regime struggles to “better” the record of its predecessor in office. This reached its apex under dictator General Ibrahim Babangida who, along with his aides, salted away billions in overseas bank accounts. General Abacha, the man who succeeded him, is no less corrupt.

Is there any causal relationship between the two variables — political corruption and socioeconomic instability — in African states? Joseph Nye, in his article, “Corruption and Political Development: A Cost-Benefit Analysis,” argues that, so far as corruption destroys the legitimacy of political structures, it contributes to instability and quite probably leads to national disintegration. In many African states, “corruption contribute[d] to the aura of disillusion that preceded coups and made it impossible for the regimes to find popular (or elite) support when the chips [were] down.”[136]

Nye notes that “one of the most important functions of government is to provide goods and services to qualified recipients on a regular, predictable basis.”[137] According to him, there are two problems in the allocation of goods and services through politically corrupt relationships. First, they tend to be selectively allocated, not on the basis of need or utility, but on the basis of personal ties; second, that such allocation tends to be “unreliable because the goods themselves are closely tied to the political fortunes and positions of the distributor [or] office holder.” Individuals or groups who do not find themselves in any of the distributive networks get left out altogether, or, at best, are marginalized.

Against this background, one can see that in corrupt capitalist/ statist political systems, the distribution of political goods and services both creates social inequalities and exacerbates those that already exist. In Africa, the gap between the haves and the have-nots has continued to widen since independence, with the lot of both majority and minority ethnic groups deteriorating. It’s little wonder that both groups have become alienated and cynical. For example, Nkrumah’s “Dawn Broadcast” was privately derided by his colleagues and critics, and was received with cynicism by the public, because the corruption of the regime was by then too patent to be concealed.

The net impact of all this is a rejection of government and the political process by Africa’s poor majority, and the intensification of revolutionary pressures around the continent.

Structural Adjustment, Electoralism and Africa’s Future

The introduction of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF’s) Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) in the mid-1980s was a clear signal, if any were needed, that post-independence African regimes have not severed the bonds of imperialism. Despite the fact of political independence, African states are still closely tied to international capitalism.

Foreign control of African economic policies is facilitated by the massive indebtedness of African regimes to American and European governments and financial institutions. As Ablaye Diagne, a lecturer in economics at the University of Senegal, has stated, “the debt is one of the mechanisms through which the African countries have again fallen under the yoke of the most ferocious imperialist exploitation.”[138] Diagne identifies some of the causes of this massive indebtedness as: 1) the way in which African countries are integrated into the international capitalist division of labor; 2) the economic policies followed within that framework; 3) in particular, the forms of indebtedness and the use of resources borrowed from abroad; 4) the armaments race, into which Africa has been plunged by imperialism; and 5) debt rescheduling policies.

Because of the economic crises facing them, many African governments have had no choice but to borrow from financial institutions such as the World Bank and IMF. A standard IMF package often involves, among other things, the following “conditionalities”: 1) devaluation of currency; 2) tight monetary and fiscal constraints; 3) budget cuts, with sharply reduced public expenditures; 4) a wage freeze; and 5) sharp reduction or elimination of import and price subsidies.

Chinweizu argues that the IMF medicine administered to cure a country’s liquidity headache almost always worsens the illness. This is mainly because the IMF “treatment” is designed to help countries with strong industrial bases — countries that can overcome liquidity problems through more competitive pricing of their industrial goods. But for African countries, with weak or nonexistent industrial manufacturing bases, the IMF solution does nothing but stimulate more raw material exports at low prices into a weak world commodity market.

Nevertheless, African governments have had no alternative to bankruptcy other than to borrow from the World Bank and IMF and to introduce the harsh austerity measures they demand. Ethiopia, for example, introduced austerity measures in 1985 while Menghistu drained the national treasury on military expenditures; and Nigeria first introduced full-blown austerity measures in 1981 under the corrupt Shagari regime, and then again in 1986 through the World Bank/IMF Structural Adjustment Program.

The imposition of austerity measures has had far-reaching consequences in many African countries. Rather than ameliorate economic problems, these “adjustment” policies exacerbate them. Rising unemployment, inflation, a soaring cost of living, and other worsening social conditions give lie to the assumptions of SAP. Its social consequences alone are a strong goad to a revolutionary consciousness among Africa’s working class; but with the potential radicalization of this sector of African society comes the prospect of the return of military governments to protect the privilege of both foreign and local elites.

Apart from the prospect of military intervention, some African regimes have introduced constitutional conventions as a means of sabotaging the burgeoning of radical consciousness. Such a convention was employed with telling effect in Benin, where President Mattew Kerekou passed the political baton to Nicephore Soglo. Nigeria is the latest example in Africa where the government set up a constitutional convention to obviate the prospect of radical change.

Constitutional conventions normally prescribe electoralism as the way to alleviate a country’s problems. But electoralism in Africa is merely a diversionary tactic used to mask the transfer of power from one group of exploiters to another. The fact that dictators in countries such as Congo, Ethiopia, Angola, Mozambique, and Malawi have lately installed multi-party electoralism is evidence that it leads to nothing really new. As elsewhere, electoralism in Africa does nothing to fundamentally change the status quo; it does nothing to abolish the system of privilege and class differentiation. It seems obvious that at this point electoralism carries no redemptive prospects for Africa. The success rates of the various “democratizing” political movements in Africa on such minimal programs as human rights and the rule of law are nothing to write home about.

The introduction of SAPs and constitutional conventions have coincided with the collapse of marxist-leninist socialism the world over. Africa has witnessed the collapse of communist dictatorships in Ethiopia, Benin, and Somalia; and socialist regimes in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Angola are tottering and have sought respite by opening their economies to foreign trade and investment, and by allowing “free market” forces to operate. The point is, however, that the collapse of so-called African socialism does not translate into a triumph of capitalism, because African capitalism itself is enmeshed in deep crisis. Rather, it is a vindication of the anarchist critique of both private/corporate capitalism and of state capitalism masquerading as socialism.

The current crisis in Africa thus affords anarchism an historic opportunity to take firm root on the African continent. In reality, post-colonial Africa has always been in ideological flux, but this flux has increased with the collapse of marxism. The majority of post-colonial African states have traditionally tended towards the capitalist model only because it was foisted on them as a condition for the granting of political independence; due to capitalism’s failures, other African states opted for state “socialism,” which likewise failed to deliver the goods. This leaves Africa with an alternative model of development that will confront the present crisis of hunger, poverty, and disease by ensuring that Africa’s productive capacity no longer remains under the control of capitalist or governmental ruling classes.

Today, the military in Africa make no pretense of offering an alternative to capitalism or to state “socialism.” If anything, most military men are well aware that they are very much part of the crisis facing the continent. Gone are the days when Eurocentric scholars painted the African military as an alternative agent of modernization or development. Today, African military regimes know that the magnitude of the crisis facing the continent is beyond the capacity of their much-vaunted organizational capabilities. It is finally becoming widely recognized that military intervention in African states is fundamentally reactionary, a temporary aberration that serves to roll back the gains of the poor in their struggle against ruling elites. The way this works is as follows:

Upon coming to power, the military imposes martial law in an attempt to hold together the disintegrating state structure. As the crisis continues unabated in spite of military repression and dictatorship, the military regime is forced to announce dates for elections and the return of the civilian ruling elite. In reality, this is a vicious circle: elections lead to a corrupt civilian government, followed by military intervention, followed by elections leading to a corrupt civilian government, and so on and so forth.

In sum, both civilian and military regimes in Africa represent a mere transitional phase in the march toward a society which will fulfill the human aspirations for liberty, equality, and a humane standard of living. Throughout Africa, the enormous sociopolitical and economic tragedy that has been the continent’s lot since its first contact with capitalism and the state system continues to deepen. It is against this background that we postulate an inevitable new social order which will entail the reorganization of social life on the basis of libertarian communism, the abolition of states and political parties, the disappearance of monopoly control of property, and the elimination of all forms of domination. This will be achieved through the establishment of economic communes and administrative organs run by African workers and peasants themselves in their workplaces, forming a system of free, voluntary councils which will not be subject to authoritarian control by any government or political party.

The Human Rights Question

The human rights records of African countries — be they military (Nigeria), “socialist” (Zimbabwe, Libya), or bourgeois democratic (Kenya, Ghana) — have never been worse than they are today. This is in spite of the bourgeois democratic current currently sweeping the continent. Usually, the facade of elections is the only significant feature of the transition from an authoritarian, one-party state dictatorship to a multi-party “democracy.” Even the most minimal human rights agenda is almost always lost in the shuffle.

In Nigeria, for example, the number of political prisoners detained without trial in the past five years has risen significantly to over 1000 at any given time. Several detainees lose their lives daily in prisons and police dungeons nationwide, sometimes without any record of their arrests, detention, or deaths. The Nigerian government regularly closes or bans newspapers and other publications that it considers critical. Nothing, perhaps, better captures the Hobbesian state of Nigeria than the uncanny ease with which the military authorities promulgate decrees and edicts that override the regular courts, especially the notorious preventive detention Decree No. 2 that removes the jurisdiction of the courts over the indefinite detention of persons.

Those suffering long terms of confinement since 1991 include labor leaders, political activists, students, and politicians. These include four members of the Awareness League detained in 1992 and not released until March 1993. Nigeria’s military rulers have since proscribed all labor unions, dissolved their leadership, and frozen their assets. The massive repression in Nigeria is matched only by the climate of insecurity that pervades the country because of the criminal activities of armed robbers, the desperately unemployed, and outright gangsters.

Similarly, in Libya hundreds of political prisoners, including prisoners of conscience, are held in detention centers for reasons and/or under conditions contrary to international human rights standards. A report compiled by Amnesty International (MDE 19/03/92) puts the number of political prisoners in Libya in 1992 at 554, an increase of 127 over the previous year’s figure. Some of these prisoners have been held since 1974.

Like Nigeria, Libya has signed relevant international protocols on human rights, including the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights. These prohibit torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. Unfortunately these accords have done little or nothing to curtail human rights abuses by this “Arab socialist” state. Zimbabwe is another “socialist” state with a poor record on human rights. Under Robert Mugabe’s 17-year rule, state-sponsored harassment and intimidation of political opponents and the stifling of labor unions has been routine. And in Algeria the populace is held hostage in a virtual state of terror between an authoritarian military government and a murderous Islamic fundamentalist opposition.

The situation in the newly emerging “democracies” in Africa, namely Kenya, Ghana and the Ivory Coast, is not markedly different. Human rights violations in these places are systemic, thus enabling the authorities to invoke constitutional and legal provisions. Ghana under Jerry Rawlings has literally decimated the opposition. In Kenya, Arap Moi is engaged in an ethnic cleansing campaign against some nationalities, notably the Kikuyu and the Luo. And in nominally democratic Egypt, the police are conducting a “dirty war” against a violent, fanatical Islamic opposition.

What emerges is the omnipresence of authoritarian state control — in the new democracies, in the remaining state-socialist outposts, and, of course, in the military-ruled countries. It’s extremely unlikely that this situation will change significantly while private/corporate capitalist regimes (civilian or military) and state-capitalist (“socialist”) regimes remain in power. The abolition of these regimes and social reorganization based on the anarchistic elements in traditional African societies is the only answer.

Chapter 6: Obstacles to the Development of Anarchism in Africa

Anarchist theory, to put it mildly, is seen in Africa as a fringe, leftist ideology; one indication of this is that anarchism usually receives no more than a passing nod in the syllabi of African university classes. This is paradoxical because in no other continent have anarchist tendencies been as strong as in Africa, and because in modern times the prospect of turning mass action into class struggle remains brightest in Africa. We shall now consider some of the factors that have worked against the development of anarchism in Africa.

Colonial Education

One of the unpleasant realities we encountered while writing this book was how little the contemporary African, including the African political or social scientist (who has probably taken a course or two on comparative political ideologies), knows about anarchism. In terms of literature, virtually nothing is to be found on the bookshelves of universities and bookstores. This is not surprising, however; in his critique of marxism, Ron Taber points out that for over 70 years, anarchism was eclipsed by marxism. Nowhere has this subordination of anarchism to marxist “socialism” been more profound than in Africa.

Much of the dearth of anarchist literature in Africa is a result of the colonial educational system and the concomitant hegemony of Western imperialist literature in Africa. Colonial education in Africa did not seek to educate large numbers of students; rather, European educators selected what they considered the cream of the crop for advanced schooling. One result of this is that only a relatively small proportion of Africa’s population has been and is literate. A corollary of this was the emergence of an academic elite who considered themselves superior to the rest of the people. Because its philosophical and ideological assumptions were taken from European class societies, and not from communal and relatively unstratified African societies, colonial education was disintegrative rather than unifying.

Traditional African education, in contrast, emphasized the interdependence of individuals within the community rather than competition between them. It instilled a group social consciousness and fostered an egalitarian spirit; this in turn naturally led to an emphasis on common endeavors and the sharing of the products they generated. On the other hand, colonial education emphasized individualism and made social existence competitive. The communal spirit was supplanted by the concept of the isolated self and greed, materialism, and an unbridled desire for domination. Consequently, Africa has become a continent of atomistic, antagonistic, and competitive groups strongly committed to tribal loyalties and dominated by ethnocentric views.

In sum, colonial education has led to a high level of illiteracy in Africa combined with very low political consciousness, even among the educated. Neither Eurocentric nor Afrocentric scholars have researched anarchism as it relates to Africa. This has ensured that anarchism as a systematic body of thought remains an esoteric, if not unknown, subject to many Africans.

The Legal System

African legal systems are a hangover from the colonial past. For example, as in other former British colonies, the legal system in Nigeria is simply an imitation of British common law and equity. It views native laws and customs as barbarous to the extent that they do not reflect European standards and value systems.

Colonial laws were formulated essentially to maintain “law and order,” and this remains the cardinal aim of post-colonial African laws. This contrasts sharply with the pre-colonial African system of rights and freedoms. Traditional African societies had an intense sense of humanity and respect for human dignity. Pre-colonial Africans enjoyed most of the rights that today would fall under the rubric of civil and political rights, such as freedom of association, freedom of movement, and freedom of expression. Basic economic and social rights, like the right to the use of a piece of land, the right to work, and the right to an education, were also common in traditional African societies. And these rights were recognized and protected. “Adjudication,” if it can be called such, typically consisted of a fair “hearing” for opposing parties before the entire village or a council from it; the decision reached was respected and usually considered final. Post-colonial African legal systems, though, conceive of law as a body of rules for the preservation of the state and the perpetuation of order and stability. In many places any advocacy of the overthrow of the state is considered treason and is punishable by death.

In an attempt to humanize African legal systems, in June 1981 the 18^th assembly of heads of state and government of the Organization of African Unity adopted the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights. (Their collective conscience had been pricked by Idi Amin’s Uganda, Jean Bedel Bokassa’s Central African Republic, and Marcias Nguema’s Equatorial Guinea.) This charter sought to nudge Africa’s legal systems away from their heavy colonial influences; it was somewhat influenced by African tradition with its emphasis (relative to Western traditions) on the individual as part of a group and the correlation of rights with duties. However, the Charter falls far short of prescribing new laws that could guarantee the rights, liberty and economic well-being of the majority of the people.

For instance, Article 13(1) of the Charter guarantees as follows the right to participate in government: “every citizen shall have the right to freely participate in the government of his country, either directly or through freely chosen representatives in accordance with the provisions of the law.” In analyzing this proviso, we can see that the accommodating clause, “in accordance with the provisions of the law,” strips the article of any meaningful human rights content. Equally, “the right to freely participate” is vague and meaningless and is of no consequence. The objective interpretation of the clause is that one is “free” only to the extent specified in the applicable national laws. Kotey argues that against the background of the African experience of one-party states, military dictatorships, and “revolutionary” autocracies, to offer the African people the right to participate in the governance of their countries within the parameters established by national law is to offer nothing at all.

In sum, African legal systems remain an impediment to the development of anarchism in Africa. The extant body of laws is capitalist inspired and is designed to perpetuate the status quo and the state system. In most parts of Africa, military dictatorships and civilian autocracies have introduced decrees and statutes that prohibit workers from organizing themselves into unions. In some countries, in fact, strikes and other forms of workers’ actions are absolutely prohibited. To the extent that it sees nothing fundamentally wrong with the state system in Africa, The African Charter cannot address the issue of class antagonisms and oppression on the African continent.

And at the same time, as long as Africans continue to support the Western/colonialist-inspired legal system — and, importantly, to accept its underlying philosophies and rationale — African legal systems will remain an important obstacle to both human freedom and the development of anarchism in Africa.

The Military Class and the Status Quo

As discontent continues to heighten and the possibility of revolutionary action increases, the African military continues to act to maintain the status quo. Roger Murray explains military intervention as an attempt to prevent the radicalization of the people and revolutionary situations. Underlying this is the fact that the military is a central component of the national ruling class in all African countries and thus benefits from both continued government rule and from alliances with foreign investors and, in many cases, bribes from them.

The military itself perceives its function as protection of the state from both internal and external threats. This becomes obvious when one examines military coups. Professor Nnoli notes that in the January 1966 coup in Nigeria, the coup plotters had no intention, either stated or implied, of advancing the interests of the poor. “Their interest was [in] the reformation of the system, in other words, to achieve the interests of the privileged classes without imposing undue strains on the system.” Yet some commentators have dubbed this particular military coup as “revolutionary.” To dispel such illusions, all one needs to do is to look at the concrete economic, social, and human rights results of African military coups. The results are invariably enrichment of the military, continued impoverishment of the majority, and woeful abuses of human rights.

To summarize: as the radicalization of mass consciousness increases, the military intervenes under the guise of attempting to stop society from sliding into a state of “anarchy” — a deliberately misused catchword for chaos and disorder. What the military succeeds in doing is to temporarily roll back the gains of working people and peasants in their attempts to build better lives for themselves.

Ethnic Versus Class Consciousness

The national question in African politics derives from Africa’s colonial history and present-day neo-colonialism. The process of colonialization in Africa in which ethnic groups were arbitrarily regrouped into artificial political bodies has resulted in increased ethnic tensions and social and economic discrimination. Onigu Otite has noted that unequal access to political and economic resources among the various ethnic groups inevitably transforms ethnic divisions into antagonisms. Capitalist competition over control of the machinery of government plays on ethnic sentiments and sets groups against each other. Thus issues are distorted and simplified as ethnic- rather than class-based. In a paper presented to the Nigerian Anthropological and Sociological Association, Dr. Inyang Eteng exposes the successes of the Nigerian ruling class in utilizing ethnicity and religion to conceal “the class basis of most of the country’s basic problems.” According to Eteng, “the pernicious consequence of ethnic [consciousness] is to encourage communal hatred, corruption, violence, religious manipulation, interethnic conflict and to undermine the growth of class consciousness in favour of ethnic/state consciousness.”

All of this makes it difficult for anarchism to take root in Africa because the bosses find it easy to atomize the working class by fanning the embers of ethnicity. The labor movement, for instance, becomes polarized along ethnic lines, and issues are seen through ethnic prisms. In Nigeria, when the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) called a general strike in 1994 to demand an end to military dictatorship, the leadership of NUPENG branches in the northern part of the country resisted the strike. Their reason? They felt an ethnic identification with the military dictator, who is a northerner.

Religious and Cultural Factors

Religion is a profound feature of African life. Long before the earliest contact with Europeans, Africans had developed religious belief systems and ritual practices. This religious belief pattern was culture-based to a great extent, and it found expression in myths surrounding life and death questions. As we saw in Chapter three, certain beliefs and rituals actually solidified the communal nature of traditional African societies. But, like all religions, traditional African religions had conservative/reactionary aspects. The preeminent place accorded the supreme being or god in the affairs of men required every member of society to act and think in prescribed manners; holding beliefs perceived to run contrary to mainstream societal mores and values led to dire consequences.

Despite the compatibility of anarchism and the traditional African way of life, African culture still frowns on any set of ideas that conflict with religious beliefs or that promote values that lie outside the so-called mainstream, especially if they involve the overthrow of the existing system. This is not surprising, however, given the close affinity between spiritual and temporal powers.

Religion will continue to be an inhibiting factor despite such material factors as capitalist exploitation, social and economic inequality, and governmental tyranny — all of which inspire despair, upon which religion, especially imported Western religion, feeds. If war is the health of the state, despair is the health of religion. Until African workers and peasants find belief systems that provides them with real hope of happiness in the here and now, they will continue to grasp at religion’s false hope of happiness in the hereafter.

International Solidarity

As stated earlier, anarchism as a systematic body of thought is only now beginning to find adherents in Africa. Much remains to be done. High in priority is the need to make people aware of the theoretical bases of anarchism, and to understand that anarchism is at the least as credible as other ideologies. In Africa today, as in too many other places, the word anarchism is synonymous with violence and chaos. But the image of anarchism will change if sufficient literature becomes available on the subject. To this end, anarchist groups in Africa need to set up a press to produce leaflets, pamphlets, and newsletters. There is also the need for alternatives to the state electronic media, which along with state- and corporate-controlled newspapers is almost the only source of information for workers at present.

Africa remains a continent where no single ideological model can be judged to have been successful. Unlike America and Europe, where capitalism and “communism” have been institutionalized and practiced with qualified and limited successes, Africa presents an historical opportunity for any ideology capable of lifting people out of their present-day misery. Existing anarchist groups on the continent must and will play an important historical role in this regard.

Africa also needs international support for its emerging anarchist groups, which have only begun to challenge the state/capitalist system. Without international support, these groups, whom the governments view simply as troublemakers, stand little chance against the organized terror of the state. Because of the alliance between the state and international capital, local ruling classes are bound to receive the support of their international collaborators in crushing any perceived threat to the status quo.

In the last resort, will the local ruling classes call in foreign troops in an attempt to maintain their privileges, as occurred in Shaba Province in the Congo in the 1960s? Of course they will. Clearly the fight against international capital and against the state system must proceed internationally if it is to have any hope of success.

Chapter 7: Anarchism’s Future in Africa

Anarchism in a World Context

The prospects for anarchism on the African continent are, in the final analysis, inextricably tied to the future of anarchism worldwide. Owing to its internationalist outlook and platform, the future of anarchism must be appraised within a global context; any attempt to localize it is bound to yield a distorted outcome. The obstacles to anarchism are, in the main, global; only their specifics are determined by local circumstances as is the case in Africa.

The crises of capitalism and, lately, marxist “socialism” worldwide have, historically speaking, assured the future of anarchism. Marx’s devastating critique of capitalism as a mode of production remains overall as valid today as when Marx himself first unleashed it. But the admirable logic and systematic approach of marxism has, ultimately, been undone by marxism’s internal contradictions.

Marxism’s overt attachment to the state system and its structures, as the convulsions in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia have clearly demonstrated, is a fundamental flaw. It has made a mockery of marxism’s stated goals (freedom, socialism, and a classless society). The fact that there are still a few authoritarian state socialist outposts — China, North Korea, and Cuba — does not disprove this conclusion. Two outcomes in these nations seem very likely: a collapse of the state socialist ideology and system, as occurred in Eastern Europe, as these states lose their capacity to hold out on their own (Cuba, North Korea); and a transformation from state socialism to state capitalism — indeed, to a system with notable similarities to Italian-style fascism (China).

Either way, state socialism, like capitalism, is doomed. Throughout history, the overall tendency in the development of human society has been toward social equality and greater individual freedom. The pace has seemed agonizingly slow and there have been innumerable setbacks, but the overall trend is undeniable. Change has been the one constant in this development, and it almost certainly will be the one constant in the future. Given the endemic and irresolvable crises of both capitalism and state socialism, humanity’s next step must almost inevitably be toward greater individual freedom and greater social equality — that is, toward anarchism, and especially toward anarchism’s social expressions, anarchosyndicalism and anarchocommunism.

Marxist “communism” is a failed experiment. It simply didn’t deliver the goods (freedom, social well-being and social equality); and given its history in the 20^th century, it seems obvious that it cannot deliver the goods.

Neither can capitalism, including the laissez-faire variety of which American “Libertarians” are so enamored. Mere elimination of the state while retaining a capitalist economy would not eliminate hierarchy, domination, and the class structure. It would not and could not lead to a truly positive freedom. The best that it could produce would be a somewhat increased freedom from external interference.

Nearly a century ago, Emma Goldman defined “positive freedom” as the “freedom to [do].” While gross disparities exist in the distribution of wealth and income, it seems obvious that this positive freedom will exist meaningfully for only a small number of individuals — and social equality will remain an illusion. Of course, positive freedom is a relative, not an absolute, freedom; the best that we can strive for is equal positive freedom. And we cannot achieve that under any form of capitalism.

So, marxist “socialism” promised (but failed to deliver) equal positive freedom, while brutally suppressing the “negative” freedoms (freedom from restraint/coercion); and capitalism has delivered only severely restricted negative freedoms. And it does not even contemplate equal positive freedom.

Humankind can do better.

The African Condition

Africa today lies prostrate, bleeding, and embattled on all fronts, a victim of capitalist and, to a great extent, state socialist ambitions. The heart-rending misery of its peoples, the conditions of abject poverty, squalor and disease in which they live, exist side by side with the wanton luxury, rapacity, and corruption of its leaders. The misery of the overwhelming majority is the result of the opulence of a few, whose stranglehold on social produce and resources, in conjunction with the power of international capital, confers to them the virtual power of life and death over the majority.[139]

Acting as middlemen and commissioned agents to multinational corporations, awarding contracts and licenses, the local business class appropriates to itself, with the help of the state, Africa’s social surplus. While the local business class is very privileged in comparison with the rest of the population, it is still in a subservient role in relation to foreign capital; this, of course, is a result of the retention of the colonial economic structure in the post-colonial period.[140]

This is accompanied by coercion and massive repression of all forms of protest by the poor majority. Wages in Africa are among the worst anywhere; they are so low that they can barely guarantee basic subsistence. And the slave wages paid are perpetually “in arrears,” going unpaid for months on end.

The situation in the self-styled “socialist” states is not any better. The ruling socialist party cadres and the state are, for all practical purposes, fused into one. The net effect is that the process of primitive accumulation (for the benefit of a small minority) proceeds at an even faster rate than in openly capitalist states.

Because the local capitalist class is weak and dependent on foreign capital — and thus the state is relatively stronger than in developed capitalist countries — and because in “socialist” African countries the state is the sole owner of the means of production, the struggle for state power in Africa is fierce, often ruthlessly so. This explains the ease and regularity with which African politicians, once in power, transform themselves overnight into sit-tight rulers and presidents for life, impervious to the deteriorating socioeconomic conditions of their countries.

On a global level, the relationship between Africa and the rest of the world is characterized by unequal exchange and marginalization. The process works like this: Africa is consigned to the production of raw materials and primary goods at cheap rates, while it pays for finished goods and products at exorbitant rates. Because of this unequal exchange, African nations are debtor nations that must resort to external loans. The result is that sub-Saharan African nations are indebted to a current total of well over $300 billion. This, naturally, exacts its toll on national economies. An average of 40% of all foreign exchange earnings goes to debt service charges annually, leaving little or nothing for development needs.

The 1980s witnessed the collapse of economies across the continent. In response to this, the developed countries, acting under the aegis of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, formulated a scorched-earth Structural Adjustment Policy (SAP) which they forced down the throats of most African countries (see Chapter five). At the time of this writing, 35 African countries have been forced to adopt the program since 1985. It entails drastic devaluation of national currencies, the introduction of “market reforms,” and deregulation of national economies, including the privatization of state-owned industries and corporations.

In the 1990s, the situation has gone from bad to worse. Negative growth rates are the order of the day, as are unemployment, triple-digit inflation, falling manufacturing capacity utilization, and a rising crime rate. And those bearing this burden are primarily the poor, workers, and peasants. Many economists, including capitalist economists, agree that Africa’s debt load is, in fact, unrepayable.[141]

Against this backdrop, parts of Africa have erupted in orgies of violence, effectively spelling the beginning of the collapse of the modern nation-state system on the continent; and the rise of a new, angry generation during this chaos is an important factor in determining how and in which direction the present crisis is resolved.

However much we may want to explain away the events in Liberia, Somalia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Angola, Sudan, Algeria, and, not least of all, Nigeria and Zaire, the fact is that they have their roots in the state-capitalist system and in the social and economic relations it engenders. The modern nation state system, like the empire state system before it, has failed Africa, as it has failed the rest of the world.

Anarchism and the National Question in Africa

Perhaps the single most important question in the breakdown of the modern nation state is the “national question,” also called the right to “self-determination.”[142] The debate revolves around the rights of different ethnic groups to autonomous socio-cultural development within given states.

The national question is of particular relevance to Africa given the heterogeneity inside its component states. Many civil conflicts on the continent have been blamed, directly or indirectly, on the absence of homogenous populations. The problem is accentuated by the solutions proffered by both capitalism and state socialism: the one offers individuals and groups liberty without equality; and the other offers equality without liberty.

Common to both systems, however, is a strident appeal to patriotism, a concept that Bakunin contemptuously dismissed as the united interest of the privileged class.[143] Hiding behind patriotic appeals, the state in Africa imposes injustices and misery on its subjects, as, of course, it does everywhere else. And patriotism produces the false consciousness — in which individuals act directly against their own self-interest — that allows individuals to condone, indeed support, the injustice and misery caused by the state system. The state, in Bakunin’s words, “restrains, it mutilates, it kills humanity in [its subjects], so that... they shall never raise themselves beyond the level of the citizen to the level of a man.”[144]

Capitalist democracy and state socialism have both achieved the highest degree of intensified racial and national oppression. Marxist support for the principle of national self-determination is as illusory as is capitalist support of individual freedom.

G.P. Maximoff elucidates:

National rights are not a principle in themselves, but a result of the principle of freedom. No nation or nationality, as a natural association of individuals on the basis of common language, can find suitable conditions for its normal development within the confines of a capitalist environment and state organization. Stronger nations conquer the weaker ones and make every effort to dismember them by means of artificial assimilation. For that reason, national domination is a constant companion of the state and of capitalism.[145]

The national question in Africa, therefore, is only one component of the principal problem — namely, the attainment of true freedom and equality. The “national question” is thus peripheral to the real interests of Africa’s working class and peasants. As long as capitalism and the state system exist, “self-determination” of nationalities means little. Maximoff notes that without fundamental change, “The right of a nation to ‘self-determination’ and to independent sovereign existence is nothing but the right of the national bourgeoisie to the unlimited exploitation of its proletariat.”[146]

Having said that, anarchism is not in any way opposed to the rights of oppressed nationalities or ethnic groups in Africa or elsewhere. But anarchism stands above the narrow and petty ambitions associated with the quest for national self-determination. Anarchists see freedom, equality, and justice as higher goals than national interests, and the struggle for these higher goals must necessarily be international. The point, of course, is that the state, every state — no matter how nationalist — is an enemy of these goals. Maximoff explains:

Nations which achieve their right to self-determination and which become states, in their turn begin to deny national rights to their own subordinate minorities, to persecute their languages, their desires, and their right to be themselves. In this manner, ‘self-determination’ not only brings the nation concerned none of that internal freedom in which the proletariat is most interested, but also fails to solve the national problem. On the contrary, it becomes a threat to the world, since states must always aim to expand at the expense of their weaker neighbors.[147]

For that reason, anarchism repudiates any attempt to solve the national question within the context of the state system. Maximoff argues:

A real and full solution will be possible only in conditions of Anarchy, in a communism emanating from the liberty of the individual and achieved by the free association of individuals in communes, of communes in regions, and regions in nations — associations founded in liberty and equality and creating a natural unity in plurality.[148]

Anarchists demand the liberation of all existing colonies and support struggles for national independence in Africa and around the world as long as they express the will of the people in the nations concerned. However, anarchists also insist that the usefulness of “self-determination” will be very limited as long the state system and capitalism — including marxist state capitalism — are retained.

The implications of this for Africa are immediately obvious. A viable solution to the myriad of problems posed by the national question in Africa, such as internecine civil conflicts, is realizable only outside the context of the state system. This requires the destruction of the state system, and concerted international solidarity and revolutionary actions. The elimination of the state system is a long-term goal that will be difficult to achieve, but it is definitely preferable to the ongoing mechanistic approach as expressed in the creation of a multiplicity of unviable nation states across the continent.

Anarchism — The Way Forward for Africa

The relevance of anarchism to human society has nowhere been more obvious than it is in Africa. Given the multitude of problems that stare the peoples of Africa in the face, the debilitating socioeconomic conditions under which a great majority of them live, and the overall economically deprived status of Africa vis-a-vis the other continents, anarchism is really the only liberating concept capable of turning “the dark continent” in a truly forward-looking direction.

Things have gone haywire for too long; only a drastic cure can satisfy an increasingly angry, bitter and restive population stretching from Cape Town to Cairo. Conditions include the seemingly endemic problem of ethnic conflicts across the continent; the continued political and economic marginalization of Africa at the global level; the unspeakable misery of about 90% of Africa’s population; and, indeed, the ongoing collapse of the nation state in many parts of Africa.

Given these problems, a return to the “anarchic elements” in African communalism is virtually inevitable. The goal of a self-managed society born out of the free will of its people and devoid of authoritarian control and regimentation is as attractive as it is feasible in the long run.

At the global level, human civilization is passing through a period of transition occasioned by the collapse of marxist “socialism” and the evidently insuperable crisis of capitalism and the state system. So, where do we go from here? As we noted earlier, all advances in human history to this point have been made possible by humanity’s quest for both freedom and human solidarity. Since this craving seems a natural instinct and, as such, is not going to disappear anytime soon, it follows that the continued evolution of society will be in the direction of freedom, equality, and community.

The process of anarchist transformation in Africa might prove comparatively easy, given that Africa lacks a strong capitalist foundation, well-developed class formations and relations of production, and a stable, entrenched state system. What is required for now is a long-term program of class consciousness building, relevant education, and increased individual participation in social struggles. Meanwhile, the crises and mutations in capitalism, marxist socialism, and the state system, individually and collectively, cannot but accelerate. For Africa in particular, long-term development is possible only if there is a radical break with both capitalism and the state system — the principal instruments of our arrested development and stagnation. Anarchism is Africa’s way out.

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[1] The New Encyclopaedia Britannica (15^th Edition), Volume I, 1990, p. 371.

[2] The Encyclopedia Americana (International Edition), Volume I, 1981, p. 277.

[3] Collier’s Encyclopedia, Volume 2. New York: Macmillan, 1982, p. 127.

[4] Russell, B. Roads to Freedom. London: Unwin, 1977, p. 44.

[5] Ibid., p. 57.

[6] Bakunin, M. Marxism, Freedom and the State. London: Freedom Press, 1984, p. 22.

[7] Ibid., p. 5.

[8] Ibid., p. 31.

[9] Kropotkin, P. Anarchism and Anarchist Communism. London: Freedom Press, 1987, p. 23.

[10] Ibid., p. 29.

[11] Ibid., p. 51 and 52.

[12] Bakunin, Op. Cit., p. 33.

[13] Kropotkin, Op. Cit., p. 39.

[14] Bakunin, Op. Cit., pp. 33 and 34.

[15] Maximoff, G.P. Program of Anarcho-Syndicalism. Sydney: Monty Miller Press, 1985, p. 10.

[16] Ibid., p. 11.

[17] Ibid., p. 13.

[18] See The Principles, Aims and Statutes of the International Workers Association

[19] Dielo Trouda Group, Organisational Platform of the Libertarian Communists, 1926, Irish edition, republished by Workers Solidarity Movement, p. 18.

[20] Maximoff, Op. Cit., p. 34.

[21] See Doyle, K. Workers Solidarity, Issue #36, Autumn 1992, p. 20.

[22] See Statutes of the International Workers Association

[23] Anonymous, You Can’t Blow Up a Social Relationship: The Anarchist Case Against Terrorism. Tucson, Arizona: See Sharp Press, 1990, p. 20.

[24] Russell, Op. Cit., p. 56.

[25] Quoted in Russell, Op. Cit., p. 57.

[26] Bakunin, Op. Cit., p. 6.

[27] See Anarchism Toward the 21^st Century, published by Anarchist Media Institute, p. 27.

[28] Kropotkin, Op. Cit., p. 11.

[29] See Kropotkin, Op. Cit., p. 12.

[30] Ibid.

[31] See Bakunin, Op. Cit., pp. 12, 28, and 30. See also Russell, Op. Cit., pp. 48, 96 and 98.

[32] Quoted in Russell, p. 51.

[33] Kropotkin, Op. Cit., p. 9.

[34] Ibid., pp. 23 and 2.

[35] See Russell, B. Roads to Freedom. London: Unwin, 1977, p. 26. Russell, Op. Cit., pp. 65 and 66.

[36] Ibid., p. 29.

[37] Quoted in Russell, p. 30.

[38] For example, by 1869 he had begun a Russian translation of Das Capital, a book whose economic doctrine he enthusiastically supported.

[39] Quoted in Russell, p. 48.

[40] Ibid., p. 51.

[41] Ibid.

[42] Bakunin, M. Marxism, Freedom and the State. London: Freedom Press, 1984, pp. 11 and 12.

[43] Russell, Op. Cit., p. 52.

[44] Bakunin, Op. Cit., p. 39.

[45] Ibid., p. 47.

[46] Ibid., p. 43.

[47] Ibid., p. 32.

[48] Quoted in Dolgoff, S. (ed.) Bakunin on Anarchy. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971, pp. 331–332.

[49] Bakunin, Op. Cit., p. 16.

[50] Russell, Op. Cit., p. 57.

[51] Quoted in Dolgoff, Op. Cit., p. 323.

[52] McLoughlin, C. “Anarchism and Marxism,” Workers Solidarity Magazine, Issue #39, 1993.

[53] Appadorai, A. The Substance of Politics. London: Oxford University Press, 1978, p. 124.

[54] Ibid., p. 120.

[55] See The Encyclopaedia Britannica (15^th Edition), Vol. II, p. 464.

[56] Russell, Op. Cit., p. 62.

[57] Russell, Op. Cit., p. 62.

[58] Appadorai, Op. Cit., p. 120.

[59] Quoted in The New Radical Thinker, Sept. — Dec. 1994. See also Russell, p. 64.

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[112] Goldthorpe, J.E. “The Sociology of the Third World” in The African Communist No. 106, Third Quarter, 1986, p. 59.

[113] “Indigenous Ills in Socialism in Tanzania,” Ibid.

[114] Galli, R.E. Lecture on political economy, University of Calabar, 1982.

[115] The African Communist, No. 117, Second Quarter, 1989, pp. 70–71.

[116] Ibid., pp. 82–83.

[117] Ibid., p. 83.

[118] Ibid., p. 72.

[119] Ake, Claude. Revolutionary Pressures in Africa. London: Zed Press, 1978.

[120] Ibid. p. 79.

[121] Ibid., p. 80.

[122] Ibid.

[123] Harris, R., ed. The Political Economy of Africa. New York: Schwenkan Publishing Company, 1975, p. 30.

[124] Markovitz, L. Power and Class in Africa. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1977, p. 306.

[125] Fanon, F. The Wretched of the Earth. Middlesex, England: Penguin, 1961, p. 174.

[126] Ibid.

[127] Murray, R. “The Social Roots and Political Nature of Military Regimes,” in Gutkind, P.W., ed., African Social Studies. London: Heinemann, p. 384.

[128] Ibid., p. 385.

[129] Grundy, K.W. “The Negative Image of Africa’s Military,” Review of Politics, Vol. 30, 1968.

[130] Ibid.

[131] Levine, V.T. Political Corruption: The Ghana Case. Palo Alto, California: Stanford University Press, 1975, p. 65.

[132] Card, E. “The Political Economy of Ghana,” in Harris, R., ed., The Political Economy of Africa. New York: Praeger, 1969, p. 182.

[133] Ocran, A. Politics of the Sword. London: Rex Collings, 1977, p. 45.

[134] Nigerian Department of Information, Printing Division, Lagos (Audit Report, 1982).

[135] Sunday Concord Newspaper, October 9, 1983, p. 1.

[136] Nye, J. “Corruption and Political Development,” in Levine, Op. Cit., p. 65.

[137] Ibid.

[138] Cited in Levine, Op. Cit., p. 65.

[139] Ake, C. A Political Economy of Africa. New York: Longman, 1981, p. 33.

[140] Williams, G. in Gutkind and Waterman, eds., African Social Studies. London: Heinemann, 1977, p. 176.

[141] See Pius Okigbo’s paper, “Africa’s External Debt Crisis,” presented at a public symposium, University of Lagos, November 1989.

[142] Maximoff, G.P. Program of Anarcho-Syndicalism. Sydney: Monty Miller Press, 1985, p. 46.

[143] Bakunin, M. Marxism, Freedom and the State. London: Freedom Press, 1984, p. 32.

[144] Ibid.

[145] Maximoff, Op. Cit., p. 45.

[146] Ibid., p. 46.

[147] Ibid., p. 47.

[148] Ibid.

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