AN AFRICAN CHARTER?
THE African Heads of State are meeting at Addis Ababa this week to talk about African unity. They do so against a back- ground of dissension and smouldering dis- putes which makes their task a daunting one. It is true that the division between the Monrovia and Casablanca blocs of powers has seemed recently to be breaking down; but the knowledge that President Nkrumah of Ghana is likely to push his plan for pan- African political unity to the utmost sug- gests that there may emerge a more per- manently divisive grouping between those powers which support the Nkrumah ideal and those which prefer to see African unity made up of a number of smaller, more local alliances. Opinion is divided in fact be- tween those who would see political unity growing out of economic unity and those who would put political unity before any- thing else.
It is important to understand the causes making for disunity. There is in the first place the increasing division between ex- French and ex-British Africa. The high amount of aid given to the ex-French terri- tories through association with the EEC is a benefit these countries are unlikely, to spurn for purely political reasons, though it clearly arouses the envy of less fortunate lands. There is again the unending series of possible frontier disputes due to the ex- colonial boundaries often cutting right across natural tribal boundaries. The Kenya-Somalia dispute is perhaps the most potentially explosive here, bringing as it does Arab ambitions face to face with Bantu. There are also a number of deeply founded inter-State rivalries among those who compete for the leadership of Africa. Possibly the most vital factor here is the emergence of an independent Algeria and the known African ambitions of Mr. Ben Bella. But the unhappy disarray into which Nigeria has recently been falling will also have its consequences.
It is to President Nkrumah's credit that he understands these forces of disunity as well as anyone, and better perhaps than almost any other African leader. This• is why he sees the plan for political unity as being of such immediate importance. The test of his statesmanship will be whether he will press on for a close unity of the few, thus driving others into opposition, or whether he will recognise the element of idealism in his plan and settle for a more loosely knit unity of the many. In other words, will he be able to realise the very real purpose that could be served by his All-Africa Committee of Foreign Ministers, meeting regularly and with a permanent body of officials and experts under them, as a sort of United Nations for Africa, but without pressing an idealistic form of African unity too tactlessly and too fast?
But it would be wrong to over-stress the dissensions in Africa and to underestimate two forces working towards unity. One is the vitally strong will of a number of Africans towards union and the de- termination that Africa must never be allowed to go the way of Latin America. The other is the desire on the part of all Africans to combine in pushing African nationalism still farther into the South. The independence struggles that are still to come in Africa will differ radically from those in the past in that the active and effec- tive support of already independent powers will always be available. For this reason the internal situation in South Africa has changed substantially in the past year. It is no longer a rising from within which Dr. Verwoerd's Government fears but the pros- pect of sustained and organised aid to Black Africans from outside the Union.
Independent Africans, of course, them- selves differ about the method of approach. Mr. Ben Bella would prefer at first to con- centrate all efforts on Mozambique. A case will be advanced also for attending rather to the eminently vulnerable Southern Rhodesia and the Pan-African Congress will deplore any plan that leaves on one side the question of South Africa, however temporarily.
It is because anyway the meeting will not end without Heads of State agreeing on a concerted plan for action against the re- mains of white supremacy in Africa, that the British Government cannot show any marked enthusiasm for the Addis con- ference. Whatever the outcome, Britain's attitude is likely to be criticised on all sides, and her ambiguous policy of doing what she can to help the Protectorates and re- strain Southern Rhodesia while at the same time eschewing any public break with South Africa will be made more than ever difficult to maintain. Certainly when the United Nations produces its expected recommendation that South West Africa be turned into a United Nations trust, the British Government will be forced into making the final choice of deciding to sup- port the UN or of making public what has long been suspected in many parts of Africa : that it is unprepared effectively to condemn the policies of the Union.
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