The British Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair is in the process of changing
history vis-à-vis the African continent.
The everincreasing level of poverty in Africa has been current talk of
world leaders. If there is no news about the poverty, sickness, civil war
and some sort of disaster to be reported on Africa, one can conclude that
there was no exciting news. Thank God they are reported to the rest of
the world. In this age of global communication, nothing can be kept hidden.
The benefit of this reporting is that it created a disturbance in the
conscience of many leaders and raised the question “why are they happening
in the Continent and what needs to be done to improve the situation?”
As a result several efforts have been made by multilateral organizations,
individual governments and non-governmental and civil society
organizations, but with very limited effect. The situations are such that it
has become a norm to patch up things as they happen instead of dealing
with the real causes of the problems.
The British Prime Minister chose to raise concrete issues and deal with
them. He set up a Commission for Africa on 27 February 2004 (see my article
on the UN Special No. 629, May 2004) to look into the past, present and
future of the Continent to see what went wrong, what are the current
obstacles which prevent progress and what needs to be done in the future
to change the image and reality of Africa. This new opportunity hopefully
makes other leaders of the rich countries and those of the African continent
think on how to reverse the current trends and bring new hope and
light to the people of Africa.
Concrete results are not yet visible. They cannot be achieved by just canceling
debts and/or giving more aid to the Continent. This new window of
opportunity should challenge all African leaders to put their countries and
peoples first. They should “put their houses in order” as the aid donors
insist. They should achieve this by setting certain standards for themselves
and evaluating performances of their leaderships and by honestly accepting
responsibilities to relieve their own conscience. They could also achieve
peace and success by simply listening to the people that put them in power.
They need to understand their needs and aspirations, respect their views,
wishes and fulfill their promises. They could realize the commitments and
promises they made, among others by establishing good governance and
management systems. They could save resources by insisting that government
officials, presidents, prime ministers, ministers etc. are not above the
law and should be accountable to the people for the decisions that they
make and the resources they manage. Furthermore, they should also be
measured against standards of performance and delivery. It is a crime to put
incompetent people in responsible positions just because they are loyal to
the party and/or to the government that appointed them. At the end of the
day, incompetent civil servants expose not only themselves but also their
government and bring disaster to the nation. Civil servants should be
reminded that they are appointed to serve the people who chose them and
put them in power. From what I observed during the third Ethiopian election
in my own country, held on 15 May 2005, the ordinary African is intelligent
and knows who should be his leader. Most Africans are decent, honest,
cultured and hungry for democracy. Ethiopian voters started going to the
polling stations at 4 a.m. in the morning in order to make their voices heard.
In some areas it was rainy and cold. Over 90 per cent of the people have no
cars and very limited public transports. At that time of the morning they
walked and stood for hours and exhibited dignified character and behavior.
I simply hope and pray that they will achieve the benefits of democracy
which all Africans surely deserve. Democracy does not have several faces, it
has only one and that is to respect and accept the rights of citizens as specified
in the United Nations Charter on Human Rights and not to abuse them
when they show a little bit of dissatisfaction. Who said Democracy is not
good for Africans? To the contrary, it is most needed in the continent as a
foundation for peace, security of citizens, economic, social and political
progress. History has taught us that none of these factors could be achieved
under dictatorship.
Most world leaders are trying to do something about African misery.
Let us hope that African leaders also honestly and sincerely share this
responsibility and take this window of opportunity and commit themselves
to change the Continent. Such opportunities come once in a century.
Without the commitment of our leaders and individual citizens, we
can expect little change or even no change for the 700 million people of
Africa. They continue to lag behind the rest of the world and we have no
one to blame but ourselves.
Prime Minister, Tony Blair and many other world leaders and individual
citizens are making history in the new awakening of Africa. To succeed in
this global responsibility, they need the commitment and active participation
of Africa’s democratic sons and daughters and especially those who
are elected by the people as leaders.
Tony Blair on the making of history
Seble Demeke
