So it is goodbye to the Organization of African Unity and hello to the African Union. After 39 years, the OAU has been wound up, replaced by an organization which is intended to bring about the continent’s economic integration and, through it, its prosperity. The idea is that it will in time play the role of its European counterpart.
It is supposed to be bad form to speak ill of the dead, but rarely has the demise of an international organization been more welcome. Throughout its existence, the OAU was a charade. It did nothing for African unity or Africa’s well-being. Its claims to have done much to bring an end to colonialism and the apartheid regime in South Africa, were a gross exaggeration: they ended for a variety of circumstances both in Africa and in the outside world. The OAU will be remembered as an organization that feasted while Africa starved, in particular for its grandiose, multimillion dollar summits, with fleets of Mercedes in attendance, where pampered leaders thundered from the podium about the wicked West and then flew home without doing anything to end the misery of the continent. When so many of Africa’s postcolonial regimes gave themselves over to varying combinations of corruption, cruelty, tribalism, greed, tyranny and dictatorship, the organization did not merely tolerate them; it embraced them with open arms, vigorously defending them against outside condemnation.
Whether the AU will be any better, only time will tell. The fact that it intends to pay attention to the continent’s good governance and to its economic integration and growth is encouraging although it has set itself a mountain to climb if it intends to end up where the EU is today. One delegate to the new organization’s inauguration in the South African city of Durban was spot on when he said that for Africa to enjoy an effective voice in the world’s corridors of power, it would have to have the equivalent of what Europe enjoys: a Pan-African parliament, army and central bank. They may be easier to invent given the relatively short political history of most African states. But there is no evidence yet of any willingness by any African state to surrender an iota of national sovereignty — and without that there will be no change.
South African President Thabo Mbeki is right when he says that it is time that Africa has its place in the affairs of the world, time that it ceases being marginalized. But what he omitted to add was that it is also time that Africa takes responsibility for itself and stops believing that its problems are someone else’s doing. Africa has to find its own answers to its problems, not expect others to pick up the pieces from the innumerable messes that its politicians make. Maybe the new organization will allow that to happen. But there will inevitably be a suspicion that this development is a case of rebranding — a cosmetic change of name and location of headquarters.
The problems of Africa and its political leaders remain the same, whether it is OAU or AU. The sort of fine words that were heard at Durban have been heard too often at the OAU, and to no effect. So, it is not easy to be optimistic about it — certainly not in the short or even medium term. Long term? Let us hope that Africa will not be let down again.
