Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 May 2014
There is no consensus among students and politicals, particularly in Africa, on the importance of efforts to obtain political and organizational unity in Africa and the role of the Organization of African Unity (OAU). (See Duffy and Manners 1961.) Some scholars follow K. Nkrumah's (1963) views that the continent will he unable not only to rid itself of backwardness, but it will not even be able to live in freedom and peacefully coexist with other nations without unity, considered by them to be a precondition to putting an end to colonialism and imperialism on its territory. Others stress that as in other parts of the world the conditions are not ripe for the realization of this end, and even not for larger cooperation and coordination, and that in Africa, above all, there is only room for limited frameworks between the different sovereign states. However, the latter—according to this approach—may contribute with time to greater partnership and, in spite of differing interests, develop into an important subsystem in international relations (Dekkers 1964, McKay 1963) free from subordination (compare Zartman 1967, P. 545 and Rivkin 1963). Some consider the OAU as absolutely helpless, stressing its failure even to prevent the United Kingdom's open decision of July 1970 on arms supplies to South Africa. Others stress that this decision is, above all, a result of U.N. weakness. Accordingly this has nothing to do with the prospect of the OAU's becoming an important factor in the international arena (Burke 1964).