A Longing For Liberty

The human cost is appalling. In the poorest countries-Burkina-Faso, Ethiopia and Mali-about one in four children dies before the age of 5. More than 100 million people face chronic hunger. Two out three rural Africans don't have clean water. AIDS has spread farther and faster in Central and East Africa than anywhere else; the World Health Organization estimates that more than a million Africans now are infected with the virus.

Africa may have slipped out of the mainstream, but its problems can't be contained to the continent. Ecological collapse--increasing desertification and deforestation--affects the whole planet. Economic collapse would hurt banks. Immigration is a problem in several European countries. "Westerners must not forget that with the countries of the Third World, we are on board the same ship," says Guy Georgy, a former French ambassador in Africa. "We cannot lead the lives of millionaires on the upper deck while the hold is filled with the luckless poor ... the passengers in the hold will cut holes in the hull."

What, then, can outsiders do? It's unclear if the latest "quick fix"-Western-style pluralism-really is a cure-all. Africa lacks democratic traditions. The political systems created at independence developed along ethnic lines. Liberia's civil war is largely tribal; ethnic differences fuel the Kenyan protests. Still, "tribalism can work for democracy and against a one-party monopoly," says Cohen. An example is newly independent Namibia, where a pro-Marxist liberation movement dominated by the Ovambo tribe won a parliamentary majority last year but pledged to maintain a market economy and shares power with parties representing 13 other ethnic groups. And there are some other bright spots. Ghana enjoys roughly 6 percent growth because its military regime undertook massive economic reforms. Nigeria is well along in its third try at democracy. Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe has stuck to the free-market system, though he recently told Western advocates of pluralism to "go to hell." Botswana built a working democracy on an aboriginal tradition of local gatherings called kgotlas that resemble New England town meetings; it has a record $2.7 billion in foreign reserves.

Giant market:

The best hope for Africa is that the continent's two giant economies--South Africa and Nigeria--can be harnessed to pull the rest of the countries out of the mud. A post-apartheid South Africa could drive the entire southern region. A prosperous Nigeria--which alone contains a quarter of all Africans--could carry West Africa. Together, they could become a giant market to absorb the rest of Africa's products. But pessimists abound. A secret French study on "Crisis Scenarios in Africa" was leaked last week, warning of revolts or military coups across the continent. In Zaire, for example, President Mobutu Sese Seko "does not at any time envisage leaving power," the report said, in spite of his repeated vows not to become another Ceausescu. The road to recovery is open; so is the path toward anarchy and chaos. But, as in Eastern Europe, there is no way back.

WINDS OF CHANGE