Dowden has a moving account of a village in Sierra Leone that he visited in 1993, when the civil war was at its worst. Here in the forest life continued as normal. Maize and coffee were grown with a little over to sell; salt, sugar, cooking oil and lamp oil were bought. There were three generations in one family to be fed, six children, two small cousins, no money for medical bills, wood smoke, a cooking pot and a woman singing at sunset to ‘the beat of poles’ thudding into a deep wooden mortar. In Africa the family is everything, kinship is essential to life. At night on the nearby roads there were reports of child-soldiers burning villages and prepared to kill even their own parents, but Dowden writes, ‘I have never encountered hopelessness in Africa’.
In a post-national Africa most people most of the time would probably settle for life in that village. They would ask for a political system that guaranteed them freedom from war, because war brings starvation, a plot of land large enough to grow a small surplus of food, a clean water supply, wood for fuel. They would use their cash surplus to buy primary education and basic health care. And they would look to their community leaders to settle their disputes and protect them from robbery and violent death. If they were to be taxed they would demand an affordable power supply, a public transport system, a regional hospital service and secondary education for those who wanted it. As prosperity grew into commerce they would need a reasonably competent public administration. If foreign interests were profiting from their country’s natural resources they would expect a free press and tertiary education. And that is probably all they would actually need. If they chose to live in a more complex society they could develop it. But it would not need an air force, land mines, sex tourism or slavery, everything they have been so lavishly provided with in the name of and by Western democracy. Today Africa’s most effective allies are the Chinese, who pay for the huge quantities of mineral wealth they extract, not in cash but by sending engineers and even labourers to build roads, railways, hospitals and schools. Or so they claim.
They do things differently in Africa. When President Museveni of Uganda abolished party politics, pointing out that in his country people were divided by ethnicity not class, and asking voters to join one movement and negotiate within it, he was penalised by the West. Dowden argues that the consequent return of party politics actually diminished Ugandan political freedom. He believes that the way forward in Africa will be an African way, not one designed by the World Bank or the US State Department. Perhaps America’s first Afro-American president will understand this and leave the place alone, except where he is invited to assist. At least a Luo from the shores of Lake Victoria will not suffer from the nightmares described by Pont.
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