Review of Surrogates of the State by Michael Jennings (Kumarian Press, 2008)
Surrogates of the State looks at the role that nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) played in the implementation of the Tanzanian Ujamaa decentralization program in the 1960s and 1970s. The Ujamaa program involved “the ‘villageization’ of the nation by the large scale relocation and consolidation in the rural areas . . . coupled with social change designed to promote development along a designated path [with] a renewed emphasis upon the rural sector.” The program has been described as a coercive and violent one in implementation.
Michael Jennings analyzes the NGOs’ role in Tanzania in the program’s implementation and finds that their level of cooperation with the state in perpetuating the destruction caused by the program was questionable. NGOs such as Oxfam, Christian Aid, and Catholic Relief Services, convinced that the overarching Ujamaa objectives of equality and economic growth complemented their mission, tolerated the brutality of the program for the greater good it promised but eventually did not realize.
In particular, he finds that Oxfam favored the development of “social machinery based on traditional forms [for the] restor[ation] of the traditions of the socialist African society.” Yet Oxfam was witness to the atrocities of autocratic and forced resettlement of the Tanzanian people and claimed it had to go along because there were no other options for action available. Jennings claims that of all the NGOs, Oxfam was “probably the most aware of the political realities and events on the ground.” Planned Ujamaa villages were attractive to Oxfam and other NGOs: villages made it easier to hold planning meetings and provide services compared to scattered communities. They also hoped the villages would raise productivity and reduce inequality while giving a voice to the “traditionally marginalized.”
Jennings is not generally critical of NGOs but insists that they must take a look at their past and learn from their mistakes in order to renew their operating methods. He also looks at the historical development of NGOs and their involvement in politics and government despite their “supposed apolitical character” in carrying out their mission. He finds that the context of the country within which these NGOs work can reverse this character, creating space for irretractable alliances with governments and the political machinery.
While academic in style, this book is still relatively easy to read. Indeed it is a must-read for those interested in analyzing the evolution of the NGO, the NGO’s role in international development, early involvement of NGOs and intergovernmental organizations in developing countries, and the Ujamaa program in Tanzania.
Review of The Bottom Billion by Paul Collier (Oxford University Press, 2007)
Paul Collier’s book is based on a glaring truth mixed with a bevy of insight and precisely focused recommendations — some original and some less so. The central argument of the book is contained in the title: The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It. Collier points out that economic growth and convergence, especially in Asia, has ended the radical dichotomy between rich and poor countries, between North and South. Instead, the world is divided into a billion people in developed countries, four billion people in developing countries, and a billion people in countries that are stagnant, in decline, or disintegrating. The people in the latter group, who live mostly but not exclusively in Africa, are the bottom billion.
Collier’s research yields many fascinating insights into the state of the bottom billion countries. Their poverty and hopelessness is not new, but unlike the rest of the developing world, they are stuck there. The most original finding is the “conflict trap”: countries that suffer coups and civil war are mostly doomed to repeat them. Civil wars end only through exhaustion (consider, perhaps, Southern Sudan) or more happily through outside intervention (for example, Sierra Leone, Liberia). Unlike Jeffrey Sachs, whose The End of Poverty claims that “we have the solutions,” Collier is hesitant regarding what policies offer the best response to the situation of the bottom billion. Aid, Collier finds, is only marginally effective in stimulating development, though it may be necessary to stave off crisis. There is no easy path to growth, especially for landlocked countries. Corruption is always a problem but does not always stop growth (think of Indonesia); however, it is precisely in the resource-rich countries that depend on governments to redistribute their resource wealth that corruption most hampers effective government.
Collier is a native of Yorkshire, England, who has worked at the World Bank and throughout Africa. He currently directs the Centre for the Study of African Economies at Oxford University. The research he has led there is controversial; political scientists and anthropologists feel his characterization of civil wars as “mostly a result of greed rather than grievance” is oversimplistic. Collier deserves credit for pushing the boundaries of economic research, but some of his calculations seem overambitious. For instance, he estimates the average cost of a failed state at something like U.S. $64 billion. This may be true, but it’s not very helpful to use the same figure for states as different as the Congo (population 45 million) and Guinea-Bissau (population 1.5 million); the cost per person or dollar of gross domestic product would be more interesting. In any case, the gravity of a civil conflict is about the number of dead or displaced people, not just the economic output foregone.
The book’s most glaring omission is a list or map of the bottom billion countries. Collier tells us there are 58 of them and calls them “Africa+”, but does not publish the list for fear of stigmatizing the countries and keeping them in their bottom position. This is sensible: African countries rarely benefit from being “named and shamed” by White Europeans. They might, however, benefit from being “named and shamed” by each other. In his enthusiasm for targeting aid to “good” governments and military interventions à la Sierra Leone, Collier does not consider how the West might support African solutions to African problems. If France is too embarrassed to intervene in civil wars directly, why can’t France fund and supply an African Rapid Reaction Force in Darfur? If good governance is so important, how can Western nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), which have a long record of forcing governments and business to respond to civil society, strengthen Africa’s vibrant media and nascent democratic institutions? Collier laments the economic illiteracy of Christian Aid and the antiglobalization lobby, but their passion and fundraising prowess can be turned to getting African governments to serve their own people better. Economists may advise governments on policy, but campaigners create the environment that makes radical reform happen.
Overall, this is a powerful and thought-provoking book. Multilaterals and NGOs should heed the call to focus on the people in the bottom billion, because the rest of the world will achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goals without them. Activists and policy makers in developing countries should demand assistance but know that they are ultimately responsible for their own development. Collier’s book has little advice for them, save to “become more ambitious.” Collier’s work demands a sequel from a bottom billion economist, subtitled: “Why the poorest countries are failing and what we are going to do about it.”
Review of The Mission Song by John le Carré (Little, Brown and Company, 2006)
In the fiction book The Mission Song, John le Carré speaks through an interpreter — literally as that’s the profession of his main character — of the intricacies of Congolese politics and salvation.
In The Mission Song we meet Bruno Salvadore, or Salvo, the orphaned love child of a Congolese mother and Irish Catholic missionary father. Salvo is hidden within a secret school at a Congolese Catholic mission and connects to his birth mother and peers through their many African tongues. He has a skill in adopting these voices — for learning languages — and becomes an interpreter, a role which is often a nameless entity that is not really considered present but instead just a screen through which others are understood. His ambiguous and purposely clouded identity is mirrored in his work. His success as “l’interpréte” comes from his ability to switch seamlessly between accents, languages, and worlds; he is able to hide from his listeners, and also from himself, his true identity and true knowledge. Eventually he makes his way to England and gains British citizenship. He marries Penelope, a British journalist. Loyal to the Crown and to his British wife, Salvo soon finds himself betrayed. He loves his wife for all the things that, he finds, she does not want to be, and it may be that he loves the British government and in particular the powerful men that plot to prop up a Middle Road in the Congo for the same reasons. For while Salvo believes the men are planning for the same thing he wants — peace and prosperity with dignity for the country he loves — that’s far from the truth.
As an anonymous voice of indistinguishable origin, Salvo is the suave interpreter, the man at the top of his game. Faced with a true decision about something that he loves, he loses his anonymity and becomes unquestionably and irrefutably a man of Africa.
Review of Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
In the custom of her literary predecessors, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie builds on the oral tradition’s unique contribution to African fiction. With the Nigerian civil war, popularly known as the Biafran War, as the setting of this, her second, novel, Adichie serves to elevate the lives and the circumstances of those who shaped a nation emerging from this turning point in Nigerian history. In a riveting, historical account of the birth of a nation, Half of a Yellow Sun is the story of lust, love, betrayal, and resilience.
Set in the 1960s in independent Nigeria, Half of a Yellow Sun uses timely character development, imagery, foreshadowing, and flashback to express the plight of these recently emancipated peoples and their quest for regional economic and political freedom. The better part of the story — to Adichie’s credit — is told through the innocent eyes of Ugwu, a “houseboy” from a rural village. Ugwu’s perspective is both naïve and pure, ignorant of his own potential and satisfied with his station in life. Enter Odenigbo, the politically conscious university lecturer in Nsukka who employs Ugwu and introduces him to a sophisticated circle of influence built on intense study and spirited debate with university colleagues. Odenigbo’s position — expressed when he communicated that “the only authentic identity for the African is the tribe . . . I am Nigerian because a white man created Nigeria and gave me the identity . . . I was Igbo before the white man came” — is reflective of the sense of isolation and tribalism that pushed the Igbos into war. Ugwu’s development begins with his exposure to Nsukka’s English-speaking elite, which serves as motivation: “Ugwu did not understand most of the sentences in the books, but he made a show of reading them. Nor did he entirely understand the conversations of Master and his friends but listened anyway.” Referring to him as “Master,” Ugwu’s fear of and love for Odenigbo’s intellect and courage propels him into the position of Master of the House. Unfortunately his position is compromised when Odenigbo’s well-to-do yet passive mistress, Olanna, takes her place as matriarch of the household. Throughout the buildup and chaos of forced relocation and extreme poverty, Olanna and Ugwu’s relationship evolves from antagonistic to friendly to protective.
Adichie’s development of the primary characters and their supporting cast, which include a scorned African American woman who was directly affected by the notorious Birmingham, Alabama, church bombing, do well to establish a sphere of influence and context for the tense existence of Black people living in constant fear of attack and persecution throughout the world. Juxtaposed with Ugwu and Olanna’s struggles to establish themselves in a culture dismissive of women and children are Olanna’s twin sister, Kainene, and her boyfriend, Richard. Kainene represents the alternative effect nurturing can have on Nigerian women. As an ambitious businesswoman and aggressive lover, Kainene possesses all the courage Olanna never had. Enter Richard, the inquisitive Brit whose insecurity appears to conflict with Kainene’s confident personality: “Richard was bewildered by Kainene’s busy life. Seeing her in Lagos, in brief meetings at the hotel, he had not realized that hers was a life that ran fully and would run fully even if he was not in it.” The love/hate relationships of Olanna and Kainene and their lovers mirror one another in their ability to forgive while reenlisting for future disappointment. Adichie is effective in sharing the tale of resilience Olanna and Kainene display — indicative of the character crucial to the well-being of Nigerian women during the war. Whether it be a village girl gang-raped by inebriated child soldiers, a poor teenager forced by her family into marriage with a rich army general, or the woman caught carrying the head of her dead child around with her, women’s ability to assist others in recovering and rebuilding in turmoil is central to the story’s message of extraordinary character in ordinary people.
This story of the Biafran War is not without its shortcomings; Half of a Yellow Sun’s abrupt ending, without alluding to the fate of a main character, is anticlimactic. Throughout the story, we become attached to characters and eventually trust them and identify with their decisions and circumstances. Adichie’s luring of the reader into a sense of trust, without full revelation, only leads to a sense of disappointment.
In spite of this small limitation, Half of a Yellow Sun will surely become the consciousness of an often misunderstood people and history.