Nigeria Content Online

The
World Cup is bringing deserved appreciation of South Africa as a nation
that transitioned from white minority domination to a vibrant pluralist
democracy. Yet its achievements stand largely alone on the continent.
Of the 17 African nations that are commemorating their 50th
anniversaries of independence this year – the Democratic Republic of
Congo and Somalia will both do so in the coming weeks – few have
anything to truly celebrate.

Five decades ago, African independence was worth
rejoicing over: These newly created states signaled an end to the
violent, humiliating Western domination of the continent, and they were
quickly recognised by the international community. Sovereignty gave
fledgling elites the shield to protect their weak states against
continued colonial subjugation and the policy instruments to promote
economic development.

Yet because these countries were recognised by the
international community before they even really existed, because the
gift of sovereignty was granted from outside rather than earned from
within, it came without the benefit of popular accountability, or even
a social contract between rulers and citizens.

Buttressed by the legality and impunity that
international sovereignty conferred upon their actions, too many of
Africa’s politicians and officials twisted the normal activities of a
state beyond recognition, transforming mundane tasks like policing,
lawmaking and taxation into weapons of extortion.

So, for the past five decades, most Africans have
suffered predation of colonial proportions by the very states that were
supposed to bring them freedom. And most of these nations, broke from
their own thievery, are now unable to provide their citizens with basic
services like security, roads, hospitals and schools. What can be done?

The first and most urgent task is that the donor
countries that keep these nations afloat should cease sheltering
African elites from accountability. To do so, the international
community must move swiftly to derecognize the worst-performing African
states, forcing their rulers – for the very first time in their
checkered histories – to search for support and legitimacy at home.

Radical as this idea may sound, it is not without
precedent. Undemocratic Taiwan was derecognised by most of the world in
the 1970s (as the corollary of recognizing Beijing). This loss of
recognition led the ruling Kuomintang party to adopt new policies in
search of domestic support. The regime liberalised the economy,
legalised opposition groups, abolished martial law, organised elections
and even issued an apology to the Taiwanese people for past misrule,
eventually turning the country into a fast-growing, vibrant democracy.

In Africa, similarly, the unrecognised, breakaway
state of Somaliland provides its citizens with relative peace and
democracy, offering a striking counterpoint to the violence and misery
of neighboring sovereign Somalia. It was in part the absence of
recognition that forced the leaders of the Somali National Movement in
the early ‘90s to strike a bargain with local clan elders and create
legitimate participatory institutions in Somaliland.

What does this mean in practice? Donor governments
would tell the rulers of places like Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea or
Sudan – all nightmares to much of their populations – that they no
longer recognise them as sovereign states. Instead, they would agree to
recognise only African states that provide their citizens with a
minimum of safety and basic rights.

The logistics of derecognition would no doubt be
complicated. Embassies would be withdrawn on both sides. These states
would be expelled from the United Nations and other international
organisations. All macroeconomic, budget-supporting and post-conflict
reconstruction aid programmes would be cancelled. (Nongovernmental
groups and local charities would continue to receive money.) If this
were to happen, relatively benevolent states like South Africa and a
handful of others would go on as before. But in the continent’s most
troubled countries, politicians would suddenly lose the legal
foundations of their authority. Some of these repressive leaders,
deprived of their sovereign tools of domination and the international
aid that underwrites their regimes, might soon find themselves
overthrown.

The international community would reward African
states that begin to provide their citizens with basic rights and
services, that curb violence and that once again commit resources to
development projects, with re-recognition. Aid would return. More
important, these states would finally have acquired some degree of
popular accountability and domestic legitimacy.

Like any experiment, de- and-re-recognition is
risky. Some fear it could promote conflict, that warlords would simply
seize certain mineral-rich areas and run violent, lawless quasi-states.
But Africa is already rife with violence, and warlordism is already a
widespread phenomenon. While unrecognised countries might still
mistreat their people, history shows that weak, isolated regimes have
rarely been able to survive without making significant concessions to
segments of their populations.

For many Africans, 50 years of sovereignty has
been an abject failure, reproducing the horrors of colonial-era
domination under the guise of freedom. International derecognition of
abusive states would be a first step toward real liberation.

Pierre Englebert, a professor of African politics
at Pomona College, is the author, most recently, of “Africa: Unity,
Sovereignty and Sorrow.”

© 2010 The New York Times