"The State of Africa"

There is no shame in not knowing, the shame lies in not finding out. (Russian proverb.)

I've just finished reading Martin Meredith's "The State of Africa" (2005) which, as its tagline suggests, is "a history of 50 years of independence." It received stellar reviews as a general overview of the history of the continent over the last half-century, and I have to agree; Meredith's book covers the entire continent, giving satisfying summaries of the stories of a multitude of different countries. He illustrates the immense differences between the countries and regions of Africa, while at the same time showing that their problems have been, at heart, the same. His writing style is concise and readable, with enough colourful language to keep his readers engaged, but not enough to distract from the subject. He includes enough statistics to drive home the outrageousness of corruption and the tragedy of poverty, but never so many numbers that it becomes dry or tedious reading. Brutal massacres are presented with compassion but without sensationalism.

For me, "The State of Africa" will hopefully prove a springboard to easier reading. I find history in general difficult to read, although I love to learn about it; I suspect that the reason I find it so difficult is that I start from such a weak base. When I read through a chapter in which every name and every event described is more or less completely new, it takes an awful lot of backtracking, re-reading, referencing the index (and occasionally Wikipedia), and furious underlining before the story becomes clear. The chapter about Angola went slowly; the chapter about Rwanda went at least twice as fast. The more I learn, the easier and more exciting it becomes to learn more. I suppose that's the way all learning works. At any rate, after this thorough introduction to the subject, I hope some of the other books on my bookshelf will go faster.

Meredith offers very little editorializing throughout his book; in fact, I found the last chapter disappointingly free of opinion. I suppose any historian invokes their opinion to some degree, simply in how they choose to present their material and interpret the chain of cause and effect. There are a few main choices for "cause" (or perhaps we should say "blame") when people write about Africa: (1) The Evils of Colonialism! (2) The Evils of Tribalism! (3) The Evils of Corrupt Dictators! and (4) The Evils of Western Economic Imperialism! Meredith weaves carefully between these three, with the majority of blame landing on (3) The Evils of Corrupt Dictators!, which I tend to agree with. (Hold your horses, I know that colonialism set the stage for terrible leaders, but do you really want to make excuses for Charles Taylor?)

Many books about Africa end with a summary of hopes (or least predictions) for the future, but Meredith offers nothing more the sum of his 700 pages - which is that anything can happen, and even the most promising new leaders can quickly go bad. The common people of Africa have been screwed every which way by pretty much any power that has become involved in their continent,and there has been extraordinarily little positive leadership to reverse the trend. But as Meredith writes in his author's note, "What has always impressed me over the years is the resilience and humour with which ordinary Africans confront their many adversities. This book is intended as a testimony to their fortitude."

Amen, Martin Meredith!