Bottle-Necks of Development in Africa

First Bottleneck:
The absence of peace and security

Peace and security are required for substantial development, furthermore it is a

human right and desire to live a save and fearless life. In the following the
reasons for the lack of these essentials are divided in:

Africa during the Cold War

Oppressive governments
o

Culture of fear and silence -> semblance of peace

Africa during the cold war

In times of the Cold War Africa was struggling between the superpowers fighting
for economic and political power. The results were fatal hot conflicts all over
Africa. The oppression of the governments, which will be further described in the
following, was being tolerated in favor of the power struggle.

Oppressive governments
The dictators and totalitarian regimes that had been tolerated and in some cases
even supported by the superpowers of the Cold War, still hold on to their power,
by creating a culture of fear and silence. That means that they suppress their
people and humiliate human rights, while issuing them self as modern,
progressive, stable and peaceful states. The distressed calls of the people were
minimized against the massive civil wars raging in many African countries.

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Second Bottleneck; Part1:

Historical reasons for destructive style of
political and economic leadership

In times of colonial administration Africa was exploited by the western powers.

The most important powers where France, Great Britain and Germany. They
wanted the precious resources from Africa to increase their own environmentally
power and wealth. The colonial powers needed especially goods which werent
available or rare in Europe, for instance: copper, cotton, tea and caoutchouc.
They imported African resources to their countries, produced goods and sent
them back to Africa to sell them there.
Another important point was the great international force western powers got by
founding colonies in Africa. They destroyed the traditional forms of selfgovernance and banned the African culture and religion to impose western values
and religion. The western powers took over the government in Africa and the
exploitation took its course. It's a matter of common knowledge that nearly no
money was invested in Africa but in the navy to secure oversee trade routes.
Before the western powers granted Independence (after World War 2) they
trained young Africans and gave them important positions in politics and
economy, which were occupied by western people before. Most of these Africans
where corroborators with the colonial administration and could be described as
nave and uninformed. Because of that they could be easily blinded by the
western powers with material wealth and privileges. These African leaders
developed to a small group of rich elites that support the neo- colonialism.

Second Bottleneck; Part2:

The situation today

Due to the totalitarian systems which can still be found in many African countries,
the people of the civil society dislike and mistrust officials and politicians because
they're commonly perceived as egoistic, greedy and at last but not least corrupt.
They revolt against their national state and fight for better rights. Regardless the
public opinion, the governments don't even try to change it by approaching one
another or compromising.
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Example:
The citizens of Kenya have become prisoners and refugees within their own
borders. (Wangari Maathai)
They rather continue to terrorize them by refusing access to exact and
independent information (e.g. independent radio and TV stations, internet
sources, etc.) and disallowing people to speak in freedom, to move where and
how they want to and to associate with somebody. In addition to that they spy on
their own nations and scrutinize their civilians, e.g. by requiring them to always
carry identity cards which the police would randomly demand at gun-point.
Many African dictatorships argue that the Western influence will never work in
Africa. In fact the situation will probably not change if the civil society is
continued to be kept within the current restrictions. Without access to the real
information and external influence, the citizens won't be able to stop the powers.

Third Bottleneck:
A Frustrated Democratization Process
Dr. Maathai explains in this part of her speech what the African population wants,
namely justice, equity, transparency, responsibility and accountability, ()
respect and human dignity. The dreams of a decent life and an opportunity to
feed, shelter and clothe their families through honest, hard work, amongst with
a strong civil society which can hold its leaders accountable and responsible
she names as the logic and satisfiable aims of each African country. All these
values mentioned are standards in Europe and North America. To achieve this,
Africa needs to create such a climate of creativity, innovativeness, selfconfidence, persistence and progress in which the general security of the nation
is the most important thing.
Dr. Maathai brings a good example for her demand, mentioning Kwame
Nkrumah of Ghana who told his people to create political freedom first, because
without freedom neither of this aspired aims could be reached. But in her speech
Dr. Maathai demands to add liberty, equity, justice and peace into that political
freedom, as a secure foundation for all progresses.

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Then she demands the world, to help Africa reaching democracy. She justifies
this, saying whether the traditional acquisition of absolute power and the control
of national resources by the winner , a system taught to the Africans by the
Europeans during their Imperialism period, was one major motivation for
dictatorships in Africa.
Finally, Dr. Maathai gives the example of South Africa which was able to break out
from this system and achieved huge goals.

Example:
Here is another example to what happens to a country, whose democratization
was wanted, but then wasnt supported by the democratic states.
In 2011, as one of the consequences of the Arab Spring, Hosni Mubarak, the
longtime potentate of Egypt, was toppled over by his people. Mohamed Morsi
was elected for next president in 2012. During that year Morsi then tried to
change the existing constitution, which caused an outcry of the Egypt population
which feared another dictatorship, when Morsi tried to eliminate the separation of
the powers. He was criticized in most northern countries for this; in Egypt itself
also were demonstrations. Nowadays the economy is massively deteriorated, the
unemployment rate has grown, in some parts of the country are riots.
This incident shows very good that it is the peoples desire to have a fair
democratic system and whether they want to live in peace and from their work.
On the other hand, after 150 years under dictatorship they simply dont have the
knowledge and enough political importance to control what is going on in their
countries and to prevent bad things.

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