Blame the natives

Former World Bank official Robert Calderisi throws p.c. rhetoric to the wind in his new book "The Trouble With Africa."

By G. Pascal Zachary

Read more: Books, Africa, World Bank, Reviews, Book reviews

July 5, 2006 | On my most recent trip to an African country, I avoided the far north because of a vicious and persistent civil war. In the ultra-safe capital, I was plagued by electricity outages, which usually lasted the entire day. I needed a massive Toyota Land Cruiser to survive the treacherous dirt roads required to reach the farming villages I'm currently studying. A national election had just been held, extending the rule of the countrys unpopular president -- in power since 1986 -- for another five years. Dissenters talked openly about mounting a violent uprising against him, should the results of the election stand. Britain, fed up with official corruption in the country, suspended its aid and was urging other donors to do the same. At the same time, the government arrested an American evangelical preacher for promoting an end to the violent conflict in the north.

This was the mess I found in one of Africa's best-run countries, Uganda -- long a darling of aid donors, blessed with fertile farms, excellent weather and talented, well-educated people. When Uganda is a success story, there is indeed trouble in Africa.

Africa's woes -- from interminable civil wars, poverty and economic stagnation to the persistence of AIDS, famines and the worst kinds of oppression against women -- have spawned a small army of saviors. They are a diverse bunch. Philanthropists -- Bill Gates is only the best known -- have plowed billions of dollars into the region. Rock stars Bono and Bob Geldof have put the fate of Africa on the media's front burner. Bible-thumpers have invaded, hoping to save the region by saving souls. Many individual governments, along with the United Nations and other international agencies, provide steady aid. Even the Bush administration, which won't win any humanitarian awards based on its Iraq misadventure, has sharply raised the official amount the U.S. gives to Africa.

Yet, however different their perspectives, the saviors of Africa do have a few things in common. For one, they all see sub-Saharan Africa -- black Africa -- as a patient in need of treatment. Yet diagnoses of Africa's "illness" differ. Some argue that the poverty plaguing the region can be cured by more money alone. Others bemoan the corruption of African elites, and promote ethics and old-fashioned patriotism as a remedy for the disorder and disappointment in Africa. The battle for control of Africa's ample natural resources -- also known as the "curse of oil" -- is another favorite malady. Or maybe what ails Africa is a lack of freedom and democracy, and an expansion of both will do more to end Africa's troubles than any manner of handouts. Some promote a single big idea, such as U.N. advisor Jeffrey Sachs, who is trying to rehabilitate 15 African villages as proof of the power of aid. Others, notably economist William Easterly, think that lots of small ideas will help Africa more, so long as they can be spread across the region.

But these are trying times. Africans are proving to be nettlesome patients for these would-be healers. They are not taking their medicine or following the doctor's orders. Perhaps worst of all, Africans are not grateful. The saviors are frustrated; they are neither appreciated nor effective. Talk to any of them about the task of saving Africans, and they quickly start complaining. Sooner or later, their complaints are directed at Africans themselves.

Most of the rough talk about the personal failings of Africans occurs in private, never traveling beyond the clubby expat bars and posh private offices that are ubiquitous in African capital cities. That's why Robert Calderisi deserves to be congratulated for his new book, "The Trouble With Africa." Calderisi, a former World Bank official and a veteran of many years of working on African issues, exposes the dirty little secret harbored by so many saviors of Africa. Indeed, Calderisi has written a book that is positively boiling over with resentment toward Africans. They are dishonest and unfeeling. They are greedy and materialistic. They lack the values, training and even the motives necessary to govern themselves. They are religious, superstitious and prone to brutality. Were it not for Africans themselves, the saviors might actually notch some successes.

Calderisi excoriates Africans for "looking for excuses," the title of his opening chapter, and hiding behind those they find. These excuses are, in his mind, predictable: colonialism and racism. Calderisi dismisses those who cite the history of European colonialism and the legacy of transatlantic slavery to defend Africans. Slavery wasn't so bad, he says; at least the peculiar institution delivered some Africans from living in Africa itself. And colonialism had a silver lining. Without contact with Europeans, Africans would be even worse off, he insists.

To be sure, Calderisi does not express himself quite like this. In fact, he is even more blunt and more simplistic in his ideas about the failings of Africans. He has identified an "African character" and claims, "There is a darker side to the African character."

Darker? Calderisi is deaf to the sound of his unintended pun.

Not to mention that he doesn't say just how dark he finds the African character, perhaps because he's impatient to make other sweeping generalizations. He finds, for instance, that "Africans are not savers." "They are also superstitious." "Most uneducated Africans are fatalistic," he adds. "They accept and submit." But they are not so accepting or submissive. Rather, "Africans can be brutal to each other, especially in groups."

Such generalizations might seem refreshing because, as Calderisi himself notes, "political correctness" has made any critical evaluations of African behavior off-limits. Indeed, Calderisi presents himself as a brave truth-teller, willing to break taboos and speak openly about what he thinks is said all too often in hushed tones about Africans, but rarely in public. And the essence of what is said in those secret conversations about Africans is that -- full stop -- they are what's wrong with Africa.

Next page: Calderisi comes close to reviving the core canard of racism: That Africans are inherently inferior