By Hadebe Hadebe
The African continent is known for its many ethnic groups who in turn speak various languages. Our place of birth is unique with its very high linguistic diversity, there are an estimated 1500-2000 African languages. Swahili is the most spoken language with over 100 million speakers who reside in a vast area covering Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and northern Mozambique. Yoruba is one of West Africa’s most spoken languages and accounts for over 30 million speakers in Nigeria, Benin and Togo.
Besides languages, many countries have significant ethnic pluralism. Places such as Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa contend with racial, ethnic, religious, or cultural divisions which make governance a serious challenge. Some “require special arrangements to be mutually accommodating in an ambivalent form of unity in diversity”. In other extreme instances, it has been a zero-sum conflict scenario where different groups have a go at each other with devastating results such as war and genocide.
Writing for the US-based think tank Brookings Institute, Francis Deng argues that “the modern African state is the product of Europe, not Africa”. The same goes with the identities that the people carry today were accentuated by the colonial powers for their nefarious ends. For example, the tensions between groups in areas like Sudan, Nigeria, Rwanda and Burundi are part of the colonial legacy. However, it is important to note that ethnicity, as Deng contends, “is more than skin colour or physical characteristics, more than language, song, and dance”.
Deng continues to explain that the notion of ethnicity “is the embodiment of values, institutions, and patterns of behaviour, a composite whole representing a people’s historical experience, aspirations, and world view”. He adds that “deprive a people of their ethnicity, their culture, and you deprive them of their sense of direction or purpose”. Basically, ethnicity and or identities have preoccupied the post-colonial state since independence, and there are few success stories than disasters.
This brief background focused on the obvious, but Africa has another ethnic dimension that cuts across the groups, languages, religions and cultures. This entails yet another colonial feature, but which is classist and even more divisive than mainstream ethnicities. African countries host the least spoken about tribes of ruling elites, who are a minority, and the millions of “invisible citizens”. This article dissects these two groups and how they shape African countries today.
This article further argues that the anti-colonial or liberation struggles were more about the local ruling elites taking over from the foreign elites (colonialists) and had less or nothing to do with freeing peasantry classes from oppression, neglect and abuse. The elite groups that had some status under colonial rule continued to dominate the political and economic landscapes after colonialism and are responsible for more than underwhelming performance of post-colonial states in improving lives of people and ensuring that their dignities are restored. The peasants have not seen any change in their fortunes after colonials, and therefore yearn for, what Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, calls the “second independence”. The only difference this time is that they demand their freedom from the elite tribe.
As a starting point, it is worth to state the obvious that the African continent was never partitioned into states before the Europeans imposed a Westphalian state system with dire consequences. Deng asserts that “in the process of colonial state-formation, groups were divided or brought together with little or no regard to their common characteristics or distinctive attributes”. For a while, the conquerors used force to control the natives who were unwilling to obey their authority. The wars that took place in the early days of the colonial conquest pitted Europeans and Africans who resisted to be ruled by an external power. However, the European strategy of forcing people into submission was not sustainable, and a new form of governance was therefore deemed necessary.
Acquiesce. The colonial administrators developed a class of locals, or the “anointed ones”, that was going to break rank and assist them to run the vast territories. The colonial system always ran on two parallel streams: one for the settler community and another for the oppressed masses. A bridge was essential to link these two subsets in the colony. This arrangement is the one that produced elites and “invisible citizens” even long after the colonialists had left the colonies. One may argue that the tensions between these two tribes were always going to emerge. The present misrule in the post-African state was therefore planted a long time ago. Misrule include such things as corruption, uncaring state, inequality, poverty and half-hearted governance.
In places like Nigeria and Sudan, Moses Ochonu states that Britain used one group to manage others on behalf of the coloniser. He refers to this as “colonialism by proxy”. In Nigeria’s Middle Belt, the British outsourced the business of the empire to Hausa-Fulani sub-colonials because they considered the area too uncivilised for indirect rule. The Hausa-Fulani Muslim rulers were roped in to control the non-Muslim peoples. Ochonu argues that British authorities “constructed a political imaginary of precolonial Hausa-Fulani Muslim aristocracy as natural rulers of “backward” autochthonous peoples of the Middle Belt”.
It follows that traditional authorities in British colonies such as South Africa, Lesotho, Zambia and Botswana performed more or less the similar function but as an extension of the colonial administration. They were rewarded for providing quasi local government administration in the areas where the natives resided. The traditional rule system that is found in South Africa, for example, traces its origins from the colonial times. The chiefs extended the autocratic rule of their British seniors, and the people were obviously denied rights and freedoms. The foundation of an African state is based on violence, pillaging and total disregard for the masses. This feature continues to define the post-colonial state as well.
Parallel to traditional rule system, the colonial state also created a native elite that was going to perform and deepen the “civilization” function. These included the educated classes like priests, clerks, teachers, nurses and other professionals. They took over the roles that were generally performed by missionaries. Before 1961, education in South Africa and the region was under churches and not the state. The American missionary couple of Daniel and Lucy Lindley launched the Inanda Seminary School in 1869. And the National University of Lesotho, formerly a Catholic University College, was founded by the Roman Catholic in 1945. The Catholics also established Inkamana High School in 1923.
Nonetheless, these institutions together with Fort Hare educated many of the elites in Southern Africa from politicians to top authorities in their fields such as medicine, engineering and education. These individuals played an active role in the “opposition” of colonial rule in the territories where they resided. Frantz Fanon refers to them as the “petit bourgeoisie” and l labelled them as “amazemtiti” in my previous article. These elites substituted the colonial masters as head honchos in the now independent states. They emulate the behaviour and lifestyles of the people they replaced. It made sense for the colonialists appoint loyal successors who were going to safeguard their long after they were gone.
Now organised as a superior “tribe”, this elite class have also retained the link between their countries and former colonial powers through language, culture, religion, education and mannerisms. It does not come as a shock to see the continent divided into Anglophone, Francophone and Lusophone in an unusual show of loyalty by these tribal formations to their colonial past. The colonial continuities would not have sustained this long without the presence of the elite tribe. In short, these individuals, no matter their political orientation, have demonstrated unwavering commitment to retaining colonialism in Africa.
The second “tribe” refers to the subalterns or the lower classes who were oppressed under colonial rule and who still do not know if colonialism ended or not. These people form majorities in their respective countries, live in abject poverty and are denied fundamental rights. They are targets of acute discrimination and brutality of the elites. These are the same people who were mowed down in Nairobi (2007), Marikana (2012), and ESwatini (2021). The fact that is often disregarded in history is that colonialism, apartheid and the violence that accompanied them disproportionately affected the peasant classes more that the elites, black or white. This situation continues under post-colonial states who have not really changed much from their colonial days, in form and substance.
The lowest classes are treated as invisible citizens in their countries, and some are even stateless since they have never been formally registered and never had opportunities to be educated or recognised as humans with dignity. They have never tasted the fruits of freedom. Any discussion about war, migration, repression, hunger and neglect basically refers to this group. They die in high seas and dangerous planes trying to run away from persecution and hunger in the hands of the members of the elite tribe. These are sacrificial lambs of global capitalism – their habitat is treated with disdain as large international companies that are hungry for resources like minerals and agricultural produce are permitted to violate their human rights, in exchange for dirty jobs characterised by poor pay and decent work deficits. Their lives are used as a collateral for such things as FDI and international agreements – the oppressed tribe has never derived any benefit from the economy but pain, hunger, and abuse.
The relationship between these two tribes mirrors colonial recklessness and carelessness. The members of the elite tribe keep wealth to themselves while their less fortunate countrymen are forced to eat from the garbage bean. As unbelievable this may sound, although Malawi and Togo may be among the so-called poorest countries in the world some members of the elite group have earnings of USD 60,000 per month and have lifestyles that even Germans and Scandinavians can dream of. By the way, the national minimum wage in Switzerland is about USD4,600. Looking at this situation, the notorious elite club would not want things to improve in their countries to continue reaping the reward from present inhumane conditions that the members of the lower tribe experience throughout their life.
The elite tribe mismanages resources and is selfish – it does not believe in sharing wealth and extending political rights to those in the lower class. This tribe behaves the same in all countries of Africa. It is therefore a fallacy that Africa has many diverse ethnic groups when it has just two. The senior tribe speaks European languages, and the masses are left to speak economically worthless indigenous languages. The invisible citizens are only useful to legitimise vacuous political ideologies and systems. From Kenya to Senegal and Mozambique to Egypt, the elite tribe oppresses the lower-class tribe with the assistance of external powers who at some point ruled the large territories wherein the labour of masses was harvested at little or no cost.
The Fulani and the Zulu are one tribe and so are the Kikuyu and Berbers. The English, French and Portuguese speakers are another tribe. What separates these two tribes is poverty and political power. Colonialism never ended but it was reformed. Those with darker hues are in charge over their distant cousins whom they treat with disdain and brute. Unsurprisingly, the representatives of the people throughout the continent fear their country and that is the reason they have bodyguards and retaliate with disproportionate violence when they are called to account.
Siya yi banga le economy!