Norman Pratt

Apparently, while we were enjoying some summer weather and the Olympic opening ceremony, the government has been hard at work on our education system. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19017544 http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/jul/27/gove-academies-unqualified-teaching-staff http://libcom.org/blog/education-round-27-july-2012-27072012

http://allafrica.com/stories/201207131248.html

Thanks John. A very useful resource and commentary.

There's a good discussion about the Kony-film-phenomenon on this 'Guardian' podcast http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/audio/2012/apr/20/kony2012-right-solutions-global-development-podcast More importantly, there is, on the same podcast and elsewhere in 'The Guardian', some very good analysis of the Kony phenomenon, a rather different and more important issue.

In 'The Wizard of the Nile' [Pub. Portobello] Matthew Green describes his attempts to track down, and interview, Joseph Kony. He describes the ethnic conflicts that produced the Lord's Resistance Army, and the policies of Ugandan and British governments that stirred up the conflicts in the first place. He also describes Kony's early influences and the havoc he wrought in Northern Uganda, giving in effect a guided tour of the ruins. But it's as though he is writing Ancient History – Kony and his followers had long since left for the Sudan (including what later became South Sudan), the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo. And this was written in 2008. I haven't watched “Kony 2012” and don't intend to. On the other hand, if this “utube sensation” brings about a little more knowledge in the rest of the world concerning this part of Africa I don't think the criticism of the film needs to be quite so loud. (There are, incidentally, a number of charities working among children in Northern Uganda which do good work.) As “Kony 2012” went viral, commentators in Uganda became unhappy at the representation of their country: http://allafrica.com/stories/201203080907.html The Ugandan government has now issued its own statement on the subject: http://allafrica.com/stories/201203120172.html The combination of African troops and Western advisers might eventually work, as it has to a limited extent in Somalia. Meanwhile perhaps “Kony 2012” will prove to be useful in encouraging more scrutiny of both the Ugandan Army and their American colleagues.

http://dynamic.csw.org.uk/article.asp?t=news&id=1142 http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/2012/02/pastor-youcef-nadarkhani-to-be-hanged.html

http://allafrica.com/stories/201202070300.html

Regarding different perspectives, in discussions on African matters it has seemed to me that an African perspective on African issues is often curiously absent from discussions about Africa. Near where I live they used to make the massive machinery which was supposed to break up the soil in preparation for the Tanganyika Groundnuts scheme: they were returned to the factory, broken and twisted by the African soil that hadn't been checked out properly. That seems to me an accurate picture of many solutions that are still offered to Africa from the outside world, political ones included. The destructive effects of the operations of multinational corporations was recognised as a growing problem years ago – even a slow response to it by governments would have been helpful! That's an interesting suggestion, especially if it leads to more realistic negotiations. A basic problem at the moment is that much diplomacy rests on the principle of 'my enemy's enemy is my friend' – which hardly seems much of a principle. In the early 1970's Johan Galtung http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_Galtung#Views_on_the_.22US_Empire.22 of the Oslo Institute of Peace Studies suggested the idea of regional security commissions. The idea was that the sort of issues dealt with by the UN Security Council would be 'dealt with' instead on a regional basis. The world would be divided up so that only Europeans would solve the problems of Europe, Africans those of Africa etc. Countries would be allowed to belong to only one of these regional commissions; the USSR would no doubt have chosen to be European, the USA American etc. Apparently irreconcilable enemies in the Middle East and in Africa would also have been required to talk to each other – an interesting prospect indeed. (One might see the current situation in Syria as one requiring a regional solution rather than one imposed by outsiders.) Although Galtung's ideas were radical, they might have kept some of the Cold War out of Africa, and the disasters that befell Ethiopia and Somalia, for example, might have been avoided. In Europe the ending of the Cold War was indeed helped by the existence of regional bodies that included nations from both sides of the Iron Curtain. And in practice, Galtung's ideas have proved prophetic. In Africa collective action, by both regional bodies and also by the African Union has recently become much more effective, and in some cases more effective than outside intervention. We are very far from seeing the world policed on this principle, but it seems to me that wherever it has been used there has been some success.

I'm pleased to see the jury's still out on King John. http://www.historytoday.com/graham-e-seel/good-king-john

John. I took your phrase 'low at least bridled capitalism' to apply to the Western World, and missed the fact that you disowned the phrase immediately afterwards by saying 'Which is a ridiculous concept'. Sorry if that has contributed to you getting stuck. I used the phrase 'bridled capitalism' because I believe the worst effects of capitalism are held in check in countries where there are strong governments. This is why I think the emergence of stronger economies in Africa – and therefore stronger governments - is an important event which should be welcomed. It is a question of degree – which on reflection makes 'bridled' an unhelpful metaphor in the first place if I may say so, as I imagine horses are either bridled or unbridled, and there are not many intermediate states as far as bridling is concerned! Maybe we don't have to agree on a method of removing capitalism before we solve some of the problems you mention. The danger of war with Iran could be averted, it has been suggested, if the USA would agree to a diplomatic solution, that Iran be allowed to continue its nuclear research under a more rigorous international inspection regime. The fact that this would be difficult to achieve is more to do with concepts of 'honour', in both Iran and the USA, than with the influence of capitalism.

Actually, I think Africa is entitled to the same bridled capitalism that the rest of us have to put up with, and that it is an international problem that she hasn't acquired it yet. Africa has been the one area of the world that appears to have gained very little from the economic and political progress that has taken place over last hundred years or so. Aid in all its forms has played a vital role in propping up African countries, and from time to time the 'Real Aid' you refer to has prevented mass starvation. African governments are well aware of their apparent lack of progress since independence, and their dependence upon aid. They are also very conscious of the fact that aid with strings attached has become an important part of the economy, and is a habit they have to break if they are to avoid always being in a position of permanent dependence. They would be very glad to get better trade deals out of the rest of the world instead of being forever dependent on handouts. But in the absence of fair trade, some African economists and commentators have advocated stopping aid - breaking the habit if you like. They argue that it is the only way to provide the incentive for their economies to prosper. Actually much of Africa has been steadily developing economically over the last 50 years, but this has been masked by a population explosion (a reaction no doubt to several centuries of genocide.) My point was that for the first time there are signs that actual economic growth is beginning to match and even overtake aid in importance. Unfortunately the newspaper story that best described this happening looked as though any link I provided wouldn't last a day, and, as it happened, it didn't. However, here's a similar story: http://allafrica.com/stories/201201111073.html

There are signs that aid is beginning to lose its dominating role in Africa: http://www.economist.com/node/17853324 which is probably a good thing.

The complexity of 'Go' is demonstrated by that fact that it has proved difficult to get a computer to play it convincingly (in contrast to, say, what happened with Chess.) I believe that this is still the case, and that the 'Go' experts still defeat any computer competition. Having said that, what progress I have made recently has been by playing a computer version of 'Go', using a 13 X 13 board, and by playing getting to learn some of the many different patterns that crop up. (At the moment the computer's memory generally wins over mine, but my memory is improving!)

Thanks, John, for the reading list. The comment about advertising is absolutely right. I confess to writing an advert for the 'Farmer's Weekly' before I became a 'new man', with the headline 'We understand the farmer's needs', which had a picture of an attractive young lady standing at a five-bar gate. I'm not sure whether the sales of Goodyear Tractor Tyres shot up, so to speak, and at the time I just thought it made a change from a picture of a tractor tyre 'facing left', or alternatively one 'facing right'. But I digress. My basic point was that I don't think we have begun to come to terms with either the causes or scale of civilian casualties that result from warfare, although some in this field clearly think we have: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228340.100-steven-pinker-humans-are-less-violent-than-ever.html

I'm inclined to think that the term 'Concentration camp', like 'Total war', was itself an important invention, rather than the activity it described. However, it was used in relation to the customs of war previously accepted by Europeans, at any rate when they were fighting other Europeans, in previous centuries. From a wider perspective I'm not sure how useful either term is, especially from the point of view of looking at warfare from the point of view of non-combatants. After all, in many ways a besieged city, while not actually isolating a civilian population, has all the other characteristics of a concentration camp. Most accounts of warfare tend to be from the point of view of the proud conqueror: "With battle and slaughter I stormed the city and captured it. 3,000 of their warriors I put to the sword; their spoils and their possessions, their cattle and sheep I carried off. Many captives from among them I burned with fire, and many I took as living captives. From some I cut off their hands and their fingers, and from others I cut off their noses, their ears, and their fingers (?), of many I put out the eyes. I made one pillar of the living, and another of heads, and I bound their heads to posts round about the city. Their young men and maidens I burned in the fire, the city I destroyed, I devastated, I burned it with fire and consumed it ... I took the city, and 800 of their fighting men I put to the sword, and cut off their heads. Multitudes I captured alive, and the rest of them I burned with fire, and carried off their heavy spoil. I formed a pillar of the living and of heads over against his city gate and 700 men I impaled on stakes over against their city gate. The city I destroyed, I devastated, and I turned it into a mound and ruin heap. Their young men and their maidens I burned in the fire." From the annals of Ashurnasirpal ll (c883 BC - 859 BC) quoted from 'The First Armies' by Doyne Dawson. What's important about Emily Hobhouse is that from her and people like her we begin to see this nasty facet of human nature from the point of view of the victims.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201111130186.html

Bill. I am about to move from my comfort zone of African history to commenting on African politics, thus laying myself open to enormous blunder. But here goes: I think Revolution is likely to be counter-productive in most African countries because of the experience of half a century of violence which followed Independence. I agree whole heartedly with the Revolutionaries' “... desire for change and a change in style and systems” as you put it, but I don't think the Arab Spring model is going to work South of the Sahara, or, in a sense, is needed: evolutionary change will work better, and it is happening. Round about the time, at the beginning of this year, when Gaddafi turned on his own people, Uganda was having an election. Museveni beat Besigye by securing 68% of the vote - a figure that suggests he's beginning to get the hang of being a dictator. Commonwealth observers criticised the conduct of the election, for the exploitation of government resources rather than anything more sinister. An account of the election: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12421747 Gauging the degree of government violence in general: http://allafrica.com/stories/201109121031.html To fight the election Besigye headed a coalition of opposition parties, one of the difficulties of ousting Museveni having been getting a united opposition. Besigye announced that if he was cheated at the election, he would make trouble - and he has been as good as his word, organising boycotts. His followers have undoubtedly drawn comfort from events North of the Sahara. However, people are already looking round for a new (perhaps more charismatic) opposition leader for the next election. To sum up, democracy in Uganda, and many other black African countries, has reached a critical point. Over the last year there has been much 'coup-or-election- watching', particularly in West Africa, to see which method would become the norm. Guinea is probably the next in line, and it's already being suggested that the use of social media may be a way of making the election process more effective. However, one of the things I was hinting at when I quoted the Charles Abugre article in my post of September 8th is that if there is a flowering of democracy in Africa we may not be prepared for the stance that a liberated Africa will take. Africans have a longer history of being exploited by the West than even the arab and muslim world, and a stronger, democratic Africa that was not forever holding out a begging bowl might pose problems to the West, which has routinely used aid to influence the policies of African governments. Another Ugandan example may illustrate this. Two years ago an anti-homosexuality law was discussed in the Uganda Parliament. Its aim was to strengthen the already harsh laws relating to homosexuality, including the death penalty for, as it were, persistent offenders. The demand for the law grew out of an (unsubstantiated) rumour that vast numbers of young men were being groomed by pedophile/homosexuals whose unafrican activities were being supported by foreign pressure groups. The bill was massively popular - and incidentally would have been over much of Africa – and only pressure from outside the country, such as (apparently) the threat of withdrawal of American aid, lead to its being gradually dropped, leaving the existing anti-homosexuality laws largely intact but thankfully unenforced. This is one example of human rights issues that may become much more common as Africa finds its own feet in the world.

Bill. Your analysis of the politics of the Arab Spring in a way highlights the unique heroism of the ordinary people who stood up the tyrants and their bullets: they must have been aware that there was a risk that even with the tyrant removed things might just return to where they were before. My point has been that South of the Sahara there is much more than a risk that nothing will change: there is a probability that a revolution will degenerate into civil war, and civil war into chaos. Generally speaking, what black Africa needs is more and better government. The UN thinks so too: http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/un/unpan020257.pdf Let me take the example of Uganda - because Museveni falls into the category of a ruler who appears to be founding a dynasty, and because he is one of the two dictators (the other being Mugabe) that many thought ought to follow the rulers of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. But Uganda is typical of the rest of black Africa in many ways: The coup. While President Milton Obote was at the Commonwealth Conference in 1971, taking the lead against African opposition to British policy in Southern Africa, General Amin, the army commander, took over the country. The takeover was typical of many such coups which took place all over Africa in the second half of the 20th Century. In fact by the late 60's if you wanted to get on in politics in many African countries a sensible career choice would have been to join the army. Before the time of these African coups, Samuel Finer, in his book 'The man on horseback', had pointed out that poor underdeveloped countries were particularly vulnerable to army coups - for one thing simply because the army contained a concentration of technical expertise which the country as a whole lacked. The last half century of African politics has proved his point. Many of the leaders of these African coups were highly educated and believed - as far as one can tell genuinely - that they were in a position to save their country from corrupt politicians. Some, like Amin, were NCO's promoted too rapidly because the colonial power hadn't appreciated the need to africanise their forces until too late in the day. The militarisation of Africa. At Independence (1962) the King's African Rifles in Uganda was only 1,200 strong. The British had been able to deploy forces from elsewhere if it ever became necessary. Obote wisely began to build up the strength of the Ugandan army, and used it to powerful effect in 1966 when the Kingdom of Buganda appeared to threaten national unity. But in doing this he created a rival to power, because it was actually Amin, at that point just a Colonel, who was given the job of expelling the king Freddie (who was also the President of Uganda) from his palace. The militarisation of Africa continued. The increasing size and firepower of the Uganda army helped to secure Amin's position in 1971, and enable him to pursue increasingly bizarre policies. This included the expulsion of the Asian community, and the massacre of hundreds of thousands of people in tribal groups who opposed him. Amin began a cycle of inter-tribal rivalry that culminated in the phenomenon of the Lord's Resistance Army, which turned Northern Uganda into a wasteland, and pillaged and murdered its way into Sudan and the Central African Republic. The L.R.A. still continues to evade capture today and still causes occasional mayhem. The horrors of Amin's rule were well portrayed in the film 'The last king of Scotland'. Altogether he probably caused the deaths of 300,000 people, which puts him on the same chart of other more famous 20th Century tyrants. The legacy problem. Uganda had inherited a fundamental problem when it became independent. It had a state within a state, Buganda. Originally Buganda was one of four Bantu kingdoms in what is now Southern Uganda. It had made a deal with the British in 1900, and eventually took over much of the rest of what became Uganda on their behalf. Later it wanted a special federal status within the rest of Uganda, or even outright independence, and also to keep territory it had acquired with British help. This issue is still very much at the heart of Uganda politics in 2011. But then nearly every state in Africa has a legacy problem. For example nearly all of them have a mixture of different ethnic groups brought together in an arbitrary fashion by the infamous carve-up of Africa at the Berlin Conference in 1884: whatever the participants were thinking about it was not nation-building. In Africa as a whole there are something like 5 quite distinct ethnic groups - Uganda has 3 of them living side by side. The only African country with a single ethnic group is, ironically, Somalia. Nkrumah, the leader of the first black African country to be given its independence by its colonial masters in 1957, recognised this particular colonial legacy right from the beginning, and tried to work towards a united Africa. This is a radical idea I'd like to return to, but for the moment I would like to concentrate on what I see as the irrelevance of revolution to the problems of black Africa today. How to depose a tyrant. Once Amin had consolidated his power the kind of resistance we saw in South Africa from the 1970's and more recently in North Africa was impossible. Amin was ready if necessary to kill his own soldiers in large numbers, as well as civilians. Potential demonstrators fled to the United Kingdom rather than demonstrate. The only way to depose him with any chance of success was with another coup, but Amin was particularly adept at preventing one. His removal could only therefore be arranged from outside Uganda. There was an opposition to Amin based in Tanzania, but it was only when Amin foolishly chose to claim some Tanzanian territory that he was at last removed – by the Tanzanian army. Amin was followed by Milton Obote (Part 2) and a number of military successors, all relying on an army composed of soldiers drawn from Uganda's North. In 1985 Museveni's National Resistance Movement rose up as the nearest equivalent I can think of to what happened in the Arab Spring, but from the beginning was an armed rising of the Ugandan people, though much of its support came from Southern Uganda fed up with the domination of Northern soldiers. It also exemplified the total militarisation of the country, when young boys armed with AK-47's would enter Ugandan villages and tell the elders what's what – the ultimate turning upside down of traditional values. In the way Museveni took power and in the way he initially aimed to use it, he lead a genuine revolution, and he did bring peace to a thoroughly traumatised country. In doing so he had had to tackle all of the major problems that had faced Uganda in the quarter century since Independence. One of the problems that faced opposition politicians in Uganda (apart from a degree of ballot rigging) was Museveni's record in bringing peace. In 1967 I did some research for a Ugandan politician who was writing a History of the kingdom of Buganda. One of his chapter headings referring to events in the 1950's rather struck me – 'Crisis after crisis'. It reminds me of how somebody once characterised History in general: one damn thing after another. North Africa has been largely free of revolutions since the 1950's. The rest of Africa needs change even more desperately, but it's had too many failed revolutions and too much violence to want any more.

Bill I admire your enthusiasm and enclose an interesting survey of barricades South of the Saharah. http://allafrica.com/view/group/main/main/id/00013988.html However, I have a few cautionary tales to tell you, and will do so the moment I've recovered from being called a conservative.

Bill Good news - and excellent news if the Arab Spring really is about to cross the Sahara. However, the Charles Abugre article I quoted is very far from being an isolated viewpoint. The viewpoint it presents may seem to us untrue, unfair and even perverse: so too was the position of the African Union, which wouldn't condemn Gadaffi or give its blessing to his overthrow. My point is that we need to understand what lies behind these views. The 'African dictators club' is one explanation, but I don't think it's the main one. Incidentally the striking thing about many of the African dictators is that they started out with very strong ideals indeed – Museveni is a case in point. So it is important to understand the underlying problems in Africa that have lead to so many African leaders losing their way and producing such spectacularly bad government. Gadaffi was, however, almost unique in not having a constituency to answer to; most African dictators do. I would suggest the main reason why African governments are so set against recognising rebels is awareness of their own chronic weakness and vulnerability. This weakness has historical roots, going back to the 15th Century or perhaps even earlier when Africa lost touch with the pace of economic change going on elsewhere. Africa became a victim. 'Right now, those southern African nations are begging for western interference and assistance in overcoming the drought and starvation, mainly being ignored by their dictator leaders.' I'm not sure which nations you have in mind here. The most damaging drought at the moment is the one in Somalia, which doesn't have an effective government, a problem for which the USA, and Russia as the successor to the USSR, must take a good deal of the blame. Recently, Ugandan and other African troops, supported by civilian advisers, have been remarkably successful in extending the Somalia government's area of control. One of the ways the West could improve security all over Africa is to beef up their existing policy of funding the training of African armies: http://www.ids.ac.uk/download.cfm?file=Rr67web.pdf I don't think the new US African command, despite its surprising success regarding Libya, is a healthy development. At the moment, as far as one can generalise about a continent of 54 nations, Africa is in a state of dependency, especially economically. It is also highly volatile. Many African leaders are on record as saying they would gladly give up Western Aid for fairer treatment on world markets. At the moment this dependency in itself is a danger to world peace, and it is therefore in our own interest to strengthen African institutions and economy, even if we would prefer to be dealing with more democracies.

Bill. I think you would find the main reason why many Africans admire Gadaffi is that he stood up to the West. From our point of view your description of Libya as 'the gateway to Africa from Europe and the West' would seem spot on; also we see the Arab Spring mainly in terms of the progress of freedom and democracy. However, to Africans south of the Sahara the perspective is different. What events in Libya look like to many of them is Western interference, and for them closer ties between Europe and North Africa could finally end of hopes of a united continent, of which Gadaffi of course was an advocate. Incidentally, the activities of a million Chinese in Africa is not seen as interference, another good reason why the West needs to be clear what it is doing in Africa.

Hi Bill. Most of the articles that appear on the 'All Africa' website are pretty routine stories from different African countries. But when articles on Africa as a whole appear, they tend to be like these - consistently telling a story very different from those written by Western journalists. I am wondering if they are anti-Western rather than simply left-wing. So I appreciate your point by point rebuttal because I have no detailed knowledge of the issues in question, and will have to look at what some of the specific points at issue again. However, the views of Charles Abugre et al - even if they contain many left-wing cliches as you say - seem to be widely held all over Africa. For example most Africans regard Gaddafi and Mugabe as heroes because they have stood up to the West, something which seems to outweigh their faults that appear pretty obvious to us.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201109052174.html

http://allafrica.com/stories/201109070038.html Africa is, it seems to me, flexing her muscles. And after all we've done for her !!!

Annie Oakley, and at the Kaiser's request.