INDEPENDENCE WAS A GIFT TO THE COLONIALISTS

INTRODUCTION

Once upon a time in Africa, some brave leaders took to the podium in front of large and optimistic crowds and loudly declared that “(’Africa’) is free forever”. With the declaration of independence, it was believed by many that years of agitation for independence from colonial rule had borne fruits and that with the governance of the nations in the hands of the “natives”, the Africans were indeed ‘free’ forever. Each year, nation after nation in sub-Saharan African celebrates what it calls Independence Day to much fanfare and festivities. Each Independence Day celebration is supposed to remind the African that he is free to decide his own destiny and that he must cherish his freedoms. There is some truth in that proposition that the declaration of independence was a day of some freedoms for the African. Nevertheless, no nation in Sub- Saharan Africa became “independent” on the historic day of so-called independence. The simple reason for this is that dependence is historic. It is economic, cultural, institutional, intellectual, spiritual, and legal and so on. If you can think of dependence as the hardware of the colonies, the software of the declaration could not undo that hardware. It was there and remained there after 4 the declaration. History, logical systems and long-term relationships have significant effects on dependence and these cannot be undone with mere declarations and decrees.

APPEARANCES

The declaration of independence passed the legal and the bureaucratic baton to the African but it did not and could not summon the spirit of great nationhood upon the African. “Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it”2: When did we invite God to build our nations? At law, the declaration meant that the foreigner was no longer the visible ruler. The declaration of independence changed the manifest identities, the faces and the colours of the rulers. But the dominant legal cultures, the language, the bureaucracies, the hierarchies and the justifications of power that the previous rulers had built over centuries, remained the same pre and post ‘independence’. What changed was “who” but not “what” ruled the nation. The ‘what’ was still in the hands of the foreign ruler because it was a great puzzle which they had created; and only they knew the correct answers. The faces of governance changed but the levers of governance did not change. The secret codes for governance were still controlled by the ruler-foreigner. It is important to keep in mind that the declaration of independence did not undo or dismantle the many other national and international structures of culture, of economy, of education and of spirituality that had over centuries ensured the strong dependency of the African on foreign rule and rulers. The declaration of independence sent the foreigner back home, but the foreigner’s prisons, his laws, his agreements, his myths, his language, his fashion, his candies, his temples and his gods were embraced and even worshipped by the so-called free Africans. The declaration of independence could not and did not set the Africans free from their emotional, intellectual, economic, spiritual and technological dependencies upon the foreign rulers. In any event, prior to the declaration of independence the foreign rulers had ensured that African political culture and economies were integrated into the global “cash” economies in ways that made it impossible to survive without taking instructions from and dancing to the tunes of the cash-masters also known as the rulers. In an Africa dependent on machines and other essential commodities which could only be accessed through imports from the foreign ruler, it was obvious that dependency on the ruler was guaranteed for the foreseeable future. Such a dependency had become so strong and so “natural” over time that the very suggestion that with words and wishes or with declarations and decrees alone, these dependencies could be undone ‘fore ever’, was laughable in London; in Paris and in Washington.

IMPORTANT QUESTIONS 

Even if it were argued that independence is not the same as true freedom but the opportunity of the African to manage his own affairs, still that opportunity is but a potential that can only become real with certain minimum conditions and efforts. For those who say for example, that that the main accomplishment of independence was to set so and so nation free, we must this question. When was the purported African nation created; and in what form did it exist so as to be capable of being set free? Isn’t the setting free of a non-existing nation, a very expensive exercise in vanity? Did the declaration of independence constitute sufficient cause of the necessary national competitive power for the African nation? Did the Declaration of Independence rain down true brotherliness necessary for the necessary collaborations and the required duty of care between Africans? Did the Declaration of Independence automatically transform the imagination, the knowledge and the resources of the African for the good of Africa? Did the Declaration of Independence pull down the many hidden prisons in which countless Africans found themselves? The answers are clearly, “no’. Whatever the vulnerabilities and the viruses that existed in Africa before independence continued to exists post-independence and did not crumble or disappear with the entry of the new faces unto the screens of her majesty. Furthermore, we cannot forget that power is relative to the competition. It is irrational to state that the ability to rule oneself without interference from another person is the same as the ability to rule oneself competently, effectively and competitively. Competence, effectiveness and competiveness are independent capacities that must be nurtured for generations by generations. These things cannot be assumed from the absence of third party-interference in internal management of the nation. To assume that independence gave the Africans the power to govern themselves is a gigantic fallacy that has misled a great many people. 

INDEPENDENCE & THEN WHAT? 

Furthermore, even if for the sake of argument only it were stated independence automatically gave the African the power to govern himself competently, that power could amount to ‘nothing’ relative to the powers of other competitors in the global race to empire. The relativity of power is well-known. The power of the lamb to tear grass to pieces is real power. Yet, that power, is nothing when faced with the demand to tear a lion into pieces. In an interconnected world dominated by irresistible, intrusive and patented sweets and technologies under the monopolies of super powers obsessed with empires, which poor African nation has had sufficient power to control its destiny and to govern herself as a free nation?  INDEPENDENCE IS MISLEADING  If some of our forebears thought that they had set Africans free forever with the departure of the foreign ruler, they were mistaken. What we know as a fact that is that the declaration of independence offered the Africans the opportunity to build their nations. They day of independence should have been the day of the gathering of the wise brethren on a sacred labour for the motherland. How many of the wise brethren were given the opportunities to lay the foundations for the new nations and to support the young to build the nations? When it comes to nation-building, you cannot have a few men no matter how brilliant, running the show. A nation is a very long-term project requiring thousands of brilliant hearts collaborating harmoniously under one God, one vision and one destiny. Unless you get the learned brethren on board and at work, you cannot and you will not have that great nation. As of the 1950s and 1960ss when many of the African nations obtained their so-called independence, the world had become so complicated, so integrated economically, technologically and politically to the extent that it was impossible for any poor nation to escape its “yoyo” status through legal promotion unto a ‘sovereign’ status. The “equality” of nations is a myth perpetrated to mislead the naïve. The equality of nations is more mythical than the birth of the gods as men. Thus, the independence phenomena merely repositioned rulers and rearranged the “how” but not the “who” of the rule. The key processes, the symbolisms and the visible identities of the rulers changed within Africa but the subject-status of the African was untouched by the declarations of independence. If you mistake appearances for substances, you would think that change is progress. Yet, the fact is that not every movement is progressive. Nations are not built by mere declarations and changes in the faces and identities of the decision-makers. The heart of a great nation is not the persons calling themselves its leaders. The heart of a nation is its people. Whatever the people are, that is the nation. The facts, weaknesses and relationships that made the African dependent on empires remained tightly in place at “independence”. Independence offered an opportunity for the great awakening and for the great work to begin. Without more, many of the new faces that become the rulers of supposedly independent Africa did not have sufficient time and the power to inspire and to gather the learned brethren to begin and to continue the sacred and difficult tasks of altering the deeply seated vulnerabilities that formed the foundations of the Unfreedoms of the African. In the circumstances, the take-over did not translate into nation-building but city-buildings. Many leaders equated the nation with infrastructure or with so-called development through physical structures. They assumed that roads, buildings and factories made up the nation. They therefore, spent precious resources on ‘great’ projects whilst the people remained apart from one another and could not collaborate to know and to build a future together. Many leaders put the cart before the horse and ignored the true foundations of the nation namely, an inspired and inspiring family of selfless creatives set on a sacred mission for posterity. We can say all these things with clarity because those of us living today have the benefit of hindsight and the luxury for objective analysis, which may not have been the lot of the freedom fighters. From our many far-reaching telescopes; through our greater access to enormously useful historic data and symphonic programs to analyze them all, we can see farther than our forebears. We understand their hopes and efforts but we also know their handicaps and some of their misconceptions. Empire and its effects were not going to disappear with the appearance of new faces in visible control of African affairs. Empire “gave in” to the demand for independence as quickly as they did because empire was prepared to undo the effects of independence. At all material times, empire formed far-reaching counter-measures and institutions that guaranteed continued or even greater control over the African post-independence. When faced with obstacles to their rule, the leaders of empire did not run away or simply give up. That is no what empires do. They thought about their options as you would do as a ruler with access to great thinkers and strategists. In the end, they found alternative and more efficient ways of ruling the African systematically through narratives, institutions, laws, technologies, credit, charity,expertise and so on in ways that minimized their visible control over African affairs and without the risks of being infected by mosquitoes and one thousand and one tropical viruses. 

INDEPENDENCE AS A GIFT TO THE COLONIALIST

What I am saying is that ironically, and with the greatest respect to our forebears, independence without effective nation-building, was a gift to the colonialists. Instead of being physically present and going through indescribable pain and suffering under African jungles, the parliaments, schools, the weaknesses and failures they left behind made it easier for their greatly profitable transactions and projects to be approved legally, cheaply and quickly by the natives without the need to leave Paris, London or New York. In the absence of a change in global power dynamics, what independence meant was that, the natives had voluntarily undertaken to do the “dirty work” for the ruler and to bring him the goodies a la law. When the weak pretend to be strong in a game of power, the powerful pretend to be weak in order to crush the weak. Just think about how clever the arrangement is. Of course, there is no evidence that the freedom fighters intended to be used by empire but the fact is that ‘independence’ reduced the risk of governance for the empire without reducing their control and profits legally. What the freedom fighters for the independence of Africans did not see in their honest, heroic and patriotic struggles for freedoms from colonial rules, was that the very concept of independence was in and of itself manipulative and misleading. With the greatest respect, the confusion was to equate the declaration of independence with the acquisition of national power. The two are not the same. One does not necessarily cause the other. Freedom for a nation surely depends on the power of each citizen working wisely and faithfully together with his brethren for the greatness of the nation. It is not possible for the nation to be powerful unless the greater majority of the citizenry or the dominant group of the nation are of themselves powerful enough to control their destinies. As of the time of the declaration of independence, the greater majority of Africans were illiterate, poor and disconnected from one another. Each was caught up in his subsistence farming and linked to others through tribes and affiliations that were not the foundations for power or for nation-building. In other words, the ‘nation’ did not exist and the people who would have formed it were powerless at the time of the declaration of independence. Something more was required to empower the people and to build the nation. That work; that monumental work of personal and community empowerment and of nation-building, did not automatically arise from the legal declarations and decrees in foreign languages. Who undertook that work and what happened? 

A CLEVER PLAN

 The leaders of the empires had the foresight to know that sooner or later the educated few in Africa would agitate for self-rule and that they would thereby demand the legal authority and the powers and the titles of the empires. The empires had prepared themselves for this. As I mentioned earlier, they a plan. Naturally, the plan would not have been to allow things to get out of hand so as cause permanent losses or injuries to the best interests of empire. The plan was to arrange matters in way that enabled parallel systems to negate or to counter the effects of independence. The empires also knew that total governance is a function of fractional governance. The sum reflects its parts. It is the little drops of governance found in the cup of each citizen that makes up the ocean of governance called the nation. Unless people have the capacity and the will to govern themselves effectively as families, as communities and as individuals, it is not possible to have good governance within the nation. Without good governance, there can be no power and no freedoms for the nation. No matter how brilliant the so-called leaders may be, they could not conjure sufficient: wisdom, power and the will, that was required to enable each citizen or the majority of citizens, to join the team as it were; and to play competitively according to the rules of the international games. Therefore, the leader of empire were not worried about independence. They were confident that the countless weaknesses of the African would guarantee the dependence on empire and that the declarations of independence without more, was an exercise in wishful-thinking.