User:Peregrine981/socialism

Thorfinn Stainforth Dr. Zachernuk Essay 2 April 19, 2002 African Socialism Socialism, social revolution, and African identity were all popular ideas in the era of African independence because they all offered the newly independent nations ways to break from the imperial past, economically and ideologically. There were, as can be expected, wide differences in the interpretation and implementation of these ideas. Socialism was popular to some because it represented something that the imperialists had not been. Many justifications were found to support traditional socialist, planned economies. There were also many attempts to build a new African socialism by people such as Nyerere, who tied socialism into a feeling of national identity by saying that African Socialism had existed before the arrival of the Europeans, and was therefore completely independent of Europeans, unlike Nkrumah, who built his socialism partially out of what the Europeans had left behind. Both of these two leaders combined the ideas of socialism, social reform, and african identity to bring their nations out of the colonial system, but they implemented them differently. Nyerere tried to use African identity more, while Nkrumah was used a slightly more traditional socialism in the Western way. These two were only partially successful at accomplishing their goals, although Nyerere seems to have come closer to accomplishing his, than Nkrumah did. The imperial powers had all been notionally capitalist, even if their commitment to free market capitalism was dubious. In most cases they had come to Africa to make a profit, or at least to make some money to justify the adventure. Another prominent characteristic of imperialists is that they were firmly convinced of their own superiority to black people. Consequently, when they left, the new African Nationalists were not very impressed by their ideologies; they wanted to change them to legitimize their own rule in the eyes of their people. They could not easily claim a great victory over their oppressors if they continued to use the same system that those oppressors had designed. Socialism was popular among African leaders because it represented a break from the imperial ruling tradition. Socialism seemed, to many, to be all that capitalism was not, and that was attractive. Although few leaders advocated traditional, scientific socialism, their socialism was still opposed to capitalism. Perhaps the truly African socialisms were even more opposed to capitalism since they did not rely on capitalism for their existence. African socialism was not the opposite of capitalism, or a response to it. It was something completely different. Nationalists could claim it was fully African, appealing to an African identity that was even stronger than anti-capitalism. Their socialism, they claimed, was merely a recapturing of the spirit of what it was to be African. There were also a multitude of other reasons presented in support of African socialism. Many believed that Africa was too far “behind” other capitalist states in terms of economic development to compete fairly with them. Others appealed to a sense of unity that would not be provided by the competitive capitalist and democratic systems.1 Still others believed that the development of Africa should be planned in order to avoid wasting scarce resources, and avoid future class conflicts. African identity and socialism were often intertwined. Some leaders claimed that Africa had always been “socialist,” and appealed to socialism as a unifying cultural element for Africans. This was not by any means the only form of african identity that they appealed to, but the combination of socialism and African identity was doubly effective in ending the era of old imperial regimes. Social revolution usually went hand in hand with socialism, and was an inevitable development during this period. Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana was a more traditional socialist than some other African leaders. He believed that capitalism's effects were going to stay with Africa for a long time, if not forever.2 Therefore, he reasoned, something would need to be built out of its ruins to replace it. He thought that socialism was the system that would best accommodate the changes that capitalism had brought, while still respecting African values. He did not believe that socialism would return Africa to a condition similar to that which had existed prior to the arrival of imperialists, but he did think that it was the best way to lead Africa forward while still respecting the distinctions between Europe and African ways of living. Nkrumah attempted to move Ghana’s economy toward a more industrial model. His reasoning was that moving Ghana out of the colonial trade system by reducing its dependence on foreign capital, technology, and material goods would allow it to become truly independent. Unfortunately, he moved to industrialization at the expense of his country’s cocoa growing sector, which had been a strong economic sector until then.3 In the end, the various economic projects that he undertook were generally unsuccessful and hugely expensive.4 Neither did they remove Ghana from dependence on Western imports. Julius Nyerere of Tanzania was more of an African than a socialist, as was Nkrumah; the difference is that Nyerere really was not a traditional socialist at all. Nkrumah was partially a scientific socialist, and believed in industrialization, but Nyerere did not.5 Nyerere had tremendous faith in rural African people and their traditional values and ways of life.6 He believed that life should be structured around the ujamaa, or extended family found in traditional Africa. He believed that in these traditional villages, the state of ujamaa had existed before the arrival of imperialists. All that needed to be done was to return to this state and capitalism would be forgotten. Africans were already, recently, socialists, all that they needed to do was return to their traditional mode of life and they would recapture it. This would be a true repudiation of capitalism, since his society did not rely on capitalism to exist. Unfortunately, there are at least two serious problems with Nyerere’s theories. Firstly, he may be too idealist about the egalitarian nature of pre-colonial African society. Even if he is just using this state as a motivational idea, it may well set the goals of his society too high, and if the equality never existed in those villages, then it is foolish to use them to capture equality and brotherhood. Secondly, the late 20th century was a very different world from the 18th or 19th century. He could not expect the new ideas and forces at work to have no effect on Tanzania. Thirdly, he eventually abandoned some of the principles of his plan. During the 1970s his government decided to relocate many peasants into new more centralized villages. These villages did not particularly imporve efficiency and they antagonized the villagers. On top of that, these relocations went against the spirit of African communal pride and ownership. He could not at the same time preach equality and then force villagers against their will to do something that he thought they should do. They should have stayed in their villages, and perhaps they would have been better off, and the project wouldn’t have lost its basis. His experiment was not entirely successful for these reasons, but he did have his successes, perhaps vindicating his approach to some extent. Although Tanzania never became very rich or particularly prosperous, it was able to give a home to most of its residents, and has some degree of self sufficiency in terms of feeding its own population. This is very a good situation compared to many other African nations.7 Nyerere’s plan leads more to an agrarian self sufficiency than building a new socialist paradise. Agricultural self-sufficiency is a wonderful goal, one that Nyerere seems to have achieved. Although Tanzania has many problems, they may be better able to cope with the future than other nations in Africa thanks to the path that Nyerere chose. It may have been wise to rely less on the government’s power, and more on the local people’s power, since the people had been on the land for a long time, while the governments were still very new. Socialism and African identity were useful ideas to the African nationalists when they were building their nations. They combined the two into previously unknown forms to suit their own nationalistic, nation building purposes. In the process they may have learned something about both, that other socialists and even other nationalists could learn from. The grandiose industrial, scientific socialism of Nyerere, resembling the socialism seen elsewhere, was less successful than the local agrarian quasi socialism practiced by Nyerere. Perhaps other socialists could learn that people may be smarter than they were given credit for. Nyerere and Nkrumah may both have been overly idealistic about the traditional practices of Africans, and Nyerere was certainly idealistic about the current practices of his people. Other nationalists might well learn something from these examples.