The African Union is turning 50. It was
established as an organization to fight for African unity and initially
fought against colonialism. Today it seeks African solutions for African
problems.
An African continental union which is economically strong and
politically autonomous - that was the vision Kwame Nkrumah had back in
1958, just one year after he had led the British colony of the "Gold
Coast" - today's Ghana - to independence. Now, as the country's
president, Nkrumah invited other African heads of state to a summit.
Only eight countries were able to respond. The rest were still
struggling to free themselve from colonial rule.
Africa shakes off its colonial chains
Five years later, on May 25th, 1963, Nkrumah had found people from all over Africa who believed in his vision.
Representatives from 30 states gathered in Ethiopia's capital Addis
Ababa for the founding summit of the Organization of African Unity
(OAU). The charismatic Ghanaian and "Father of Pan-Africanism" told the
delegates that their positive response was "an open testimony to the
undamagable and irresistible surge of the people for independence." He
said that Africa was about to free itself from the yoke of colonialism.
Nkrumah was well aware of the expectations of the African people from
Cairo to the Cape. "A whole continent has given us the mandate to set
the foundation for our unity at this conference," he said. At that time
South Africa was still ruled by a racist white minority regime.
The doctrine of non-interference
The main doctrine of the OAU was its policy of non-interference in the affairs of sovereign states.
But it was this which became the organization's biggest burden. That
became evident when the euphoric spirit of optimism of the late 1960s
was replaced by military coups and civil wars - and Africa's leaders
could only stand by and watch. Soon critics named their yearly summit in
Addis Ababa the "Dictators' Club."
Former Ethiopian diplomat and author Mengitse Desta does not agree
with the accusation that the OAU failed on every level. He insists that
the OAU "had strong teeth," considering its main goal. "The primary
objective at the time it was established was to liberate the entire
African continent from colonial, racist and apartheid systems," says the
AU expert.
The Iron Curtain fell in 1989 and a few years
later South Africa celebrated the end of apartheid. Dr Mehari Maru from
the Institute for Security Studies in Addis Ababa says that soon after
that the old ways of thinking were no longer sufficient. "The end of
apartheid and colonialism in Africa gave rise to discussions of what
should be holding Pan-Africanism and what the new causes of
Pan-Africanism are." Maru says a new institution was needed for the
discussion on a new form of Pan-Africanism and that is why the African
Union was born.
From OAU to AU - to the United States of Africa?
In 2002, right after the end of the Cold War, the AU officially took
over from the OAU in a formal ceremony held in Durban, South Africa.
From then on, the organization began searching for a new reason to
exist - and found it in economic integration and democratization, which
was only proceeding slowly. It was Libya's revolutionary leader and
self-proclaimed African "king of kings" Muammar Gadhafi, who came up
with a new idea - namely to implement Kwame Nkrumah's vision of a
"United States of Africa". His motives had, however, more to do with
power politics than with philosophy.
Gadhafi's plan was to create a union with a single army, a common
currency and trade and travel freedom, similar to the European Union.
But this plan brought more division than unity. It split the states into
two factions, with political heavyweight South Africa on the opposite
side to Gadhafi.
Woman power from South Africa
The controversial election last year of Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, South
Africa's interior minister, as the new head of the AU Commission
revived past differences between member states.
However, she is the first woman to head the Commission and a reformer
who immediately announced her aim of making the African Union more
effective.
The crises in Mali and the Central African Republic, plus the
setbacks faced by the AU mission in Somalia, AMISOM, are putting the
Union's resolve to the test.
For Dr Mehari Maru from the Institute for Security Studies, Africa is
today "more democratic than ten years ago when we had less
democratically elected leadership." What needs to be achieved now is
governance democracy, he says, adding that there's a lack of
"accomodation of diversity which is the main cause of most of the
political problems we see in Africa."
"African solutions for African problems" is the slogan today - with what success, the next 50 years will show.
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