{UAH} Allan/Pojim/WBK: WHAT OTHERS SAY: We have taken a peek at a new Africa - Opinion/Editorial | The Citizen
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WHAT OTHERS SAY: We have taken a peek at a new Africa - Opinion/Editorial
The World Economic Forum Africa is taking place in Kigali, Rwanda, this week.
It is a big event, with thousands of important men and women from Africa and the rest of the world attending.
But it's the smaller stuff that interests some of us. I have been involved in a small way with two innocuous pan-African events, one of which will take place in a remote part of Rwanda in a few weeks.
The other was a toss up, but will now take place in Ghana.
Recently Ghana announced that from July it would begin issuing visas on arrival to citizens of all 54 African Union member states starting July. In other words Africans don't need pre-arrival visas before getting on a flight to Ghana.
For the longest time, the island nation of Seychelles was the only one that did that.
In January 2013, it was joined by Rwanda.
The small event that will be held in Rwanda, was supposed to convene in one of the big African countries, but after months of frustrating work getting visa clearance for all participants, the organisers gave up.
Another 10 countries offer visa-free access to Africans from selected countries.
The argument for open African borders is usually economic. Thus when Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda agreed to allow their citizens to travel between the three countries with IDs, it's reported that cross-border trade was boosted by 50 per cent.
But there is a more interesting African story. Historically, the shape of a "borderless" and a united Africa was defined – at the rhetorical level at least – by politicians from the bigger, richer, or more militarily powerful states either at the continental or regional level. Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, Ethiopia's Emperor Haile Selassie, Nigeria's Nnamdi Azikiwe, Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah, Senegal's Leopold Senghor, and Tanzania's Julius Nyerere. And in later years Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, South Africa's Thabo Mbeki, Nigeria's Olusegun Obasanjo, and Ethiopia's Meles Zenawi.
True, leaders like Uganda's Milton Obote, Guinea's Ahmed Sekou Toure, and Zambia's Kenneth Kaunda weighed in forcefully, but there was an unsaid understanding that they were chipping in as second tier forces, and the future of the continent would really be shaped by the bigger boys with large populations, armies, and deep pockets.
The borderless, Africa, though, in reality is being shaped by the underdogs.
Rwanda disrupted the region, removing work permit requirements for East Africans almost immediately upon joining the East African Community, forcing older bloc incumbents to respond, with Kenya, its eyes on protecting business and tourism, responding first.
Island nations are seductive as tax havens, so seeking to be an offshore money magnet, Seychelles among other things, did away with visas for Africans. It created pressure on Mauritius, also looking to profit from tax haven offerings, to respond.
As the continent's most advanced economy, South Africa would also have been its undisputed financial capital. As it is, the two tiny islands are eating South Africa's lunch, and are in another planet when it comes to enlightened immigration policy.
In West Africa, as the Nigeria behemoth is hobbled by a myriad of problems, Ghana, and in the horizon Ivory Coast and Senegal, are putting it in the shade.
But this is not to say the big nations are doing nothing. There are smaller, many private, entities in these nations that are up to their necks in the pan-African contest.
Take the DR Congo. With a population of just over 77 million, it's the fourth largest African country in that respect
Rwanda's population is just 10 per cent DRC's, and the country 89 times smaller, but probably punches 10 times above DRC's weight.
Until you get to DRC's TP Mazembe football club, that is. TP Mazembe is the top ranked club in Africa, and when someone last counted some time back, of its 35-man squad, some 22 players are not Congolese, but drawn from countries as diverse as Ivory Coast, Mali, Uganda and Zambia.
At its height, someone remarked that Kenya Airways had more offices in the world than the country embassies.
MultiChoice has more impact in several parts of Africa than the government of South Africa, and mobile operator MTN more clout in some capitals than President Jacob Zuma.
The remaking of Africa, therefore, is not a mainstream affair happening in the high corridors of power. It is an insurgent operation taking place on the edges. In the goodness of time, the insurgents will capture the capitals.
The author is editor of Mail & Guardian Africa. Twitter@cobbo3
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