The US and Africa: History, Politics & Policy

Transcription

1 The US and Africa: History, Politics & Policy Professeur Invité Christopher LaMonica, Ph.D. SciencesPo Bordeaux, Université de Bordeaux Sessions: The US and Africa: History, Politics & Policy BACKGROUND: Today, scholars too often conflate the scholarship and policies of all Western states toward Africa. Ironically this is true of the more conservative US scholars (and politicians) who, like Samuel P. Huntington, emphasize the increased clarity of cultural divides in an ever-shrinking globalized world (Huntington 1993); it is also true of our more critical scholars, like Robbie Shilliam and Errol Henderson, who speak to the overarching Western aim of imposing modernity on all of the non-west and, notably, people of color (Henderson in Shilliam 2010; Shilliam et al. 2014). For his part, Huntington views Africa as civilizationally and otherwise weak and therefore scarcely worthy of serious consideration (2010); while Shilliam et al. view Africa(ns) as an historically marginalized and exploited lot who continue to fall on the wrong side of the global color line (2014). In both instances, a powerful modern West has relations (of one or another kind) with a weak non-western (to include Africa) entity. For certain, there are parallels of thought and policy aims among Western states but there are also differences. Lest we fall into the age-old trap of good/bad dichotomies that, as writers such as Albert Camus, Theodor Odorno, Ryszard Kapuscinski, and Edward Said have so famously pointed out, so often lead to dehumanization of the Other (and too often violent conflict), it is important to distinguish the unique cultural environments and histories that have led to differences of perspective, scholarship and policy (Camus 1942; Adorno 1966; Said 1978; Kapuscinski 2009; Eco 2013). As we encounter each other with increased frequency, let us not lose sight of what matters most: human life and a sustainable peace. The study of Africa reminds us that we all come from the northeastern reaches of that continent, moved to all geographic locations on this earth in just tens of thousands of years, and are just now (past 500 years) re-encountering one another. It asks us: How are we doing? And to get to that answer, we need to avoid the historical temptation of simply dividing us all into two opposing camps. There are a great many differences, subtle and otherwise, both within the West and the non-west (if one is to use that dichotomy), that matter greatly and are worthy of careful investigation. The obvious and historically appealing alternative oversimplifies thought and practice and is unnecessarily divisive: All Westerners do this.. is just absurd a statement as all Africans do that To wit: in an earlier era, much was made of the differences between the two most powerful European colonizers in Africa (Britain and France), and there remains much to explore there, in terms of their respective aims, true role, and ongoing influences. Yet there has been little scholarly attention to the historical relationship between the US and Africa, and how that relationship might be differentiated from those of the European powers with Africa. This course starts with a quick survey of the historical relationship among the aforementioned a discussion that most often falls under the rubric of Atlantic history with the aim of exploring how and why US relations with Africa developed in ways that can differentiated from those of the European powers. 1

2 In the literature it is often said that the US foreign policy toward Africa really started post-wwii, during Africa s era of independence and notably in the aftermath of then Vice President Richard Nixon s attendance at the Ghanaian independence ceremonies in 1957 (Ungar 1989; Meredith 2011). Indeed, from that point forward, the US did often view African affairs through a Cold War lens: lending support to not only carefully selected (pro- West/anti-Communist) allies on the African continent but to their proxy wars. In short, as we are still learning in the wake of the Arab Spring, there is much to reproach here, to include the support of nondemocratic leaders and the lack of all forms of development. For certain, not all on the African continent has gone as might otherwise have been planned or dreamed of in the 1950s and 1960s. And that is a true tragedy. For once, US Republicans and Democrats were on the same side. Optimistic for Africa s future, American citizens left and right generally supported the enthusiasm of Africa s masses for a better democratic future in Africa: democracy and economic development on the African continent seemed, for many, inevitable, just a matter of time. Decades later, though often framed as an African Dilemma, the truth of the matter is that US policymakers have continued to watch the continent s many dilemmas, sometimes approaching the African continent with too much idealism and bravado ( Operation Restore Hope in 1993 in Ethiopia) and sometimes doing far too little (the 1994 Rwandan genocide). As was the case in an earlier European-dominated colonial era, the US was often of two minds and commitments, pursuing both self/state-oriented interests (often justified under the rubric of security interests) alongside often lofty humanitarian aims. What we have all discovered in the post-cold War period is that even the most well-intentioned policies have too often led to failure, sometimes making matters worse. It is in recognition of past failures that the 2005 Paris Declaration (followed by Accra in 2008 and Busan in 2011) aims at making aid policies toward Africa more effective. In the post-wwii era, the US has led the OECD charge of claiming that aid is bad, that it continues to do more harm than good on the African continent. But again, the US has continued to be of two minds on the matter: on the one hand, assisting in the pursuit of the UN Millennium Development goals (under the leadership of Columbia University s Jeffrey Sachs), while on the other hand, committing a smaller percentage of her economy s GNP toward Official Development Assistance (ODA) than any other OECD state. And in the 21 st -century, while the goal of aid effectiveness is avidly pursued, other Asian actors, notably from China, continue to remain outside of that dialogue, preferring to offer more practically-oriented business alternatives via direct negotiation with African state leaders. For years citing deep historical ties to Africa, Asian leaders continue to expand their networks with Africa via alternative (non-bretton Woods Institutions) means such as the BRICS New Development Bank. COURSE CONTENT: The course starts with the entirely unique relations that the US and all of the Americas have had with peoples of Africa, from the 16 th -century forward. This mercantilist ( ) period is of course dominated by the slave trade, part of what is referred to as the Triangle Trade ; a period that intimately involved both US and European interests. It is from this period that African-American scholar W.E.B. DuBois declares a white-black dichotomy was firmly established in America s political culture, norms and institutions. That divide was ironically and tragically aggravated by the perpetuation of the slave trade through the Enlightenment era, during which many celebrated ideas were established; in short, theory proclaimed the equality of man but practice lagged far behind (Eze 2005). Whereas an Ancient world might have enslaved with less regard to race, the post-enlightenment world equated darker skin with inferiority and enslavement (Bernal 1989). The history of US capitalism includes that history and, during the era of slavery, those contradictions (Williams 1944). Notable gains in civil rights and equality for African-Americans have been made, for example in and again in , but they have comes in fits and starts, and are somehow never resolved. Whether or not the present millennial generation s push for true equality (in its many forms) will be successful, the role of racial attitudes in US history remains worthy of consideration, if we are to better understand US relations with Africa, as a growing number of scholars have commented (Shilliam et al. 2014). In this course, we briefly survey scholarship on the matter of race in US history, leading up to the period during which Americans (again) started to take an interest in African affairs. We will see that while US foreign policy started with a seemingly unfounded optimism 2

3 during the African independence period, US scholars eventually reverted to their more traditional divide, blaming one or another political point of view for an African dilemma. Ultimately I conclude that, in fact, there has been very little difference among Republican and Democratic policies toward Africa for they are essentially different sides of the same modernity coin; Shilliam et al. are right in many ways to make this claim. Still, what both political sides within the US need to improve upon is their respective abilities to listen to African voices, to their local concerns and possible solutions, in order to move forward constructively; the same can be said of many scholars. The course is divided into four parts, as follows: I. The US in Black and White: America s historical relations with Africa. II. US Takes Note: Africa at Independence III. US Scholarship: 1950s - present IV. US Policy: 1950s present CLASSROOM/WEEKLY MEETINGS AGENDA: Week 1 Part I: The US in Black and White: America s historical relations with Africa. Assigned Readings: 1. W.E.B. DuBois, Souls of Black Folk (New York, NY: Penguin, 1989, orig. pub. 1903), Ch. III: Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others, pp ; 2. Eric Williams, Capitalism & Slavery (Blackwell Publishers, 1994, orig. pub. 1944), Ch. 3: British Commerce and the Triangular Slave Trade, Chs. 1-3, pp (skim); 3. Howard Zinn, A Peoples History of the United States (orig. pub. 1980), Ch. II: Drawing the Color Line, pp Assigned Readings: Review above. 4. Richard Wright, Black Power (Harper Perennial Classics, 2008, orig. pub. 1954), Intro., pp. 1-48; 5. John Gunther, Inside Africa (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1955), Preface and Ch. 1, pp. xxi-xxiii; Week 2 Part II: US Takes Note: Africa at Independence 6. Sanford J. Ungar, Africa: The People and Politics of an Emerging Continent (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989), pp ; 7. John F. Kennedy, Special Message to the Congress on Foreign Aid, March 22, 1961 ( 8. Andrew David and Michael Holm, The Kennedy Administration and the Battle Over Foreign Aid, Diplomacy & Statecraft, Vol. 27, No. 1: 65-92; 9. Richard Nixon, President of the United States, US Foreign Policy for the 1970s: Building for Peace, A Report to the Congress, Feb. 25, 1971 (declassified). John F. Kennedy, Address at American University, June 10, 1963; John F. Kennedy, Remarks of Welcome to President Nkrumah of Ghana at the Washington National Airport, March 8,

4 10. Subhayu Bandyopadhyay and E. Katarina Vermann, Donor Motives for Foreign Aid, FRB of St. Louis REVIEW (July/August 2013); 11. Lawrence E. Harrison, Culture Matters, The National Interest (Summer 2000). Hanes Walton, Jr. et al., eds., The African Foreign Policy of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007). Week 3 Part III: US Scholarship: 1950s - present 12. David Wiley, Militarizing Africa and African Studies and the US Africanist Response, African Studies Review, Vol. 55, No. 2 (Sept. 2012): Modernization Theory. Samuel P. Huntington, Political Development and Political Decay, World Politics, Vol. 17, No. 3 (April 1965): Todd J. Moss, US Policy and Democratisation in Africa: The Limits of Liberal Universalism, Journal of Modern African Studies, Vo. 33, No. 2 (1995): ; 14. Immanuel Wallerstein, The World-System After the Cold War, Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Feb. 1993): 1-8; 15. James J. Hentz, International Relations Theory: Communitarianism and US Grand Strategy, American Behavioral Scientist, Vo. 48, No. 12 (August 2005): Review: Marxist perspectives dominate, then the Lost Decade, Reagan/Thatcher/End of Cold War. Week 4 Part IV: US Policy: 1950s-present 16. Ryszard Kapuscinski, Encountering the Other: The Challenge for the 21 st -Century, New Perspectives Quarterly, Fall Aid: The Left a. Jeffrey Sachs, Growth in Africa: It Can Be Done, The Economist, June 29, 1996; b. Ralph Nader, Oppose the Misnamed African Growth & Opportunity Act [citation needed]; c. Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty (2005) TO DISCUSS (no reading). 18. Aid: The Right a. William Easterly: TO DISCUSS (no reading); b. Newt Gingrich: TO DISCUSS (no reading). Development-Security Nexus; US Africa Command; Comprehensive Government Approach. 19. Kofi Nsia-Pepra, Militarization of US Foreign Policy in Africa: Strategic Gain or Backlash? Military Review (Jan-Feb 2014):

5 20. The Economist, The Next Great Disruption: America and Africa, Aug. 2, 2014; 21. The Economist, Neglected: Barack Obama and Africa, July 25, 2015; 22. Obama Administration, Memorandum on Establishing a Comprehensive Approach to Expanding Sub-Saharan Africa s Capacity for Trade and Investment, Aug. 4, [INSERT TBD: Either Pres. Hillary Clinton or Pres. Donald Trump US policy stance toward Africa.] Bibliography: Theodor Adorno, Negative Dialectics (1966). Martin Bernal, Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Western Civilization, 3 vols., (Rutgers, NJ: Rutgers Univ. Press, 1987, 1991, and 2006). Albert Camus, L Étranger (1942). Umberto Eco, Inventing the Enemy, (Boston: Mariner Books, 2013). Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze, Race and the Enlightenment: A Reader, (Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing, 2005, orig. pub. 1997). Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations? Foreign Affairs (Summer 1993). Ryszard Kapuscinski, Encountering the Other: The Challenge for the 21 st -Century, New Perspectives Quarterly, Fall Martin Meredith, The Fate of Africa: A History of the Continent Since Independence, Rev. Ed. (New York, NY: Public Affairs, 2011). Edward Said, Orientalism (1978). Robbie Shilliam, ed., International Relations and Non-Western Thought: Imperialism, Colonialism and Investigations of Global Modernity (London: Routledge, 2010). Robbie Shilliam, Alex Anievas and Nivi Manchanda, eds., Race and Racism in International Relations: Confronting the Global Colour Line (London: Routledge, 2014). Sanford J. Ungar, Africa: The People and Politics of an Emerging Continent, Rev. Ed. (New York, NY: 1989). Eric Williams, Capitalism & Slavery (Chapel Hill, NC: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1994, orig. pub. 1944). 5