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Books on Contemporary Life and Politics in Sub-Saharan Africa
John Bing
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[John Bing (1B) teaches a course in African history at Heidelberg College in Tiffin, Ohio] The experiences of expatriate employees in Africa over the past several decades provide insightful, if alarming, portraits of contemporary life and politics in Sub-Saharan Africa. Two exceptionally well written and interesting books, A Continent for the Taking, by Howard French, a senior writer for the New York Times, and The Trouble with Africa, by Robert Calderisi, are excellent representatives of this genre as well as troubling accounts of the deep problems facing Africa in the 21st century. Calderisi spent most of his 30 years in international development as an employee of the World Bank and focuses on the problems associated with international assistance and debt relief. Like French's, his book is filled with personal experiences and reported conversations with Africans from all walks of life. Both books provide chilling reminders that corruption and incompetence are rife throughout Southern Africa and that human suffering is unparalleled. They are valuable case studies of failed hopes and lost opportunities. French, particularly, gives a moving and vivid portrait of the lives of ordinary people that he meets in remote villages and refugee camps, "a brilliant and nuanced meditation on the complexities of contemporary Africa," according to Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Both books, in their unflinching accounts of the corrosive influence of ethnic politics in the hands of ruthless and cynical political leaders, are analytical in part. Calderisi, after a hard hitting analysis of the relationship between external assistance and the present crisis, offers concrete policy suggestions for the future. "Few of these recommendations," he writes, "are original, but some highlight issues that have been treated as marginal until now; others take current trends in international affairs to a more logical, starker conclusion; still others challenge conventional prescriptions, like the need for more aid. Some are radical and may appear unreasonable." French, on the other hand, reaches further back into history for his understanding of the present. While Calderisi tends to discount the impact of the long history of destructive European involvement on the continent and focuses on the greed and cruelty of the present generation of African leaders and the complicity, wishful thinking and incompetence of international donor organizations and staff, French relentlessly exposes the extent to which four centuries of invasion and exploitation of Africa by Europe has shaped the present. He exposes the cynicism of American as well as European Cold War and post Cold War policies in Africa, and the hollowness of American calls for democracy and progress. I find French's account more nuanced and compelling, particularly his repeated discovery of the unquenchable spirit of an Africa that survives and sometimes triumphs over odds that are increasing cruel and nearly insurmountable, but I recommend reading both books, perhaps in tandem, to provide an overall perspective. Calderisi's case studies of aid projects are particularly informative and make for exciting, even suspenseful, reading. And reality is at least as complex as a synthesis of both accounts. Is there a "bottom line"? I find that both books, although chilling in their detail and infinitely sobering for the typically naive "friend" of Africa, are finally heartening. Out of all this tragedy a new generation, born of suffering, schooled by pain and fear, will build and create a new Africa. It will not be the strutting "big men," the neo-thugs who still deposit the riches of Africa in Swiss bank accounts, or the self-important international civil servants, or the cynical strategists of empire, who will shape the future. Out of the heart of Africa young men and women are even now creating a different and better world. |