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The United Nations and Some African Political Attitudes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Ali A. Mazrui
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What constitutes “sovereign statehood”? Elaborate answers can be given under international law, under theories of international relations, under jurisprudence, and under general political philosophy. But from the point of view of African countries the empirical answer is perhaps the simplest. These countries know that it was not when they assumed control of their domestic affairs that they ceased to be colonies. As a matter of experience, many of them found that the ultimate expression of sovereignty was not direct rule internally but direct diplomatic relations with other countries abroad. The very process of attaining independence might, in their case, be reduced to a single catch phrase—“from foreign rule to foreign relations.” In other words, an African colony was said to have attained independence when it had moved from the status of being under foreign rule to the status of conducting foreign relations with full authority.

Type
Prize Award Essay
Information
International Organization , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , Summer 1964 , pp. 499 - 520
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1964

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References

1 Speech of the Rt. Hon. Oliver Stanley to the American Outpost, London, on March 19, 1945. See British Speeches of the Day (London: British Information Services, 1945), pp. 318–320Google Scholar.

2 Carr, E. H., The Twenty Years' Crisis (London: Macmillan, 1948), p. 86Google Scholar.

3 Stanley, loc. cit.

4 Carr, loc. cit.

5 Ibid. I have not overlooked the fact that internationalist values are sometimes invoked for tactical reasons rather than out of genuine conviction.

6 “The Atlantic Charter,” United States Executive Agreement Series No. 236 (Department of State Publication No. 1732) (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1942)Google Scholar.

7 Speech to House of Commons, September 9, 1941. See Eade, Charles (ed.), War Speeches of Winston Churchill (London: Cassell St Co., Ltd., 1952), Vol. 2, pp. 71–72Google Scholar.

8 See the resolutions cited in Legum, Colin, Pan-Africanism (London: Pall Mall, 1962), Appendix 2, PP. 135–137Google Scholar.

9 Taken from the opening lines of reaffirmation of the United Nations Charter.

10 Text given in Goldwin, Robert A. with Lerner, Ralph and Sourzh, Gerald (ed.), Readings in World Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959), p. 539Google Scholar. The interpretation of the Charter in moral terms is by no means peculiar to “the Bandung spirit.” At the time of the Suez crisis Mr. Rodriguez Fabregat of Uruguay described the Charter as “the deepest expression of human conscience.” (General Assembly Official Records [first special session], p. 55, paragraph 115.Google Scholar) But what “the Bandung spirit” best illustrates is the emphasis on the proposition that colonial rule itself offended “human conscience” and was not adequately consistent with the Charter.

11 See, for example, Eagleton, Clyde, “Excesses of Self-determination,” Foreign Affairs, 07 1953 (Vol. 31, No. 4), pp. 592–604CrossRefGoogle Scholar. He said, “If the decision on such a claim is made by the United Nations, it is no longer correct to speak of self-determination.” He was sorry to see the United Nations becoming “the midwife of all groups desiring to be politically born.” Up to 1964, however, it was possible for an article in an African newspaper to start with the words: “The United Nations is preparing to renew its annual campaign to end colonial rule throughout the world.” See Ratzin, Gerald, “The U.N. Fights Colonialism,” Uganda Argus, 01 25, 1964Google Scholar.

12 Verzijl, J. H. W., “Western European Influence on the Foundation of International Law,” International Relations, 1955 (Vol. 1), pp. 137–146Google Scholar, cited in Röling, B. V. A., International Law in an Expanded World (Amsterdam: Djambatan, 1960), p. 10Google Scholar.

13 Ibid. A similar conclusion is reached by van der Veen, G. in his thesis Aiding Underdeveloped Countries Through International Economic Cooperation (Amsterdam, 1953)Google Scholar. He points to the admission of technologically underdeveloped countries into the international community and remarks that “these entrances brought about no alteration of principle in the law of nations” (p. 16); cited in Röling, B. V. A., op. cit., pp. 12–13Google Scholar.

14 Krishna Menon started invoking the concept of “permanent aggression” to reporters (the BBC broadcasted the doctrine) even before he arrived at the United Nations to defend India's annexation of Goa. For a fuller discussion of the implications of this concept, see my article “Consent, Colonialism and Sovereignty,” Political Studies, 02 1963 (Vol. 11, No. 1), pp. 36–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar. ProfessorAbraham, W. H. of Ghana lent philosophical backing to Menon's approach by reaffirming that “colonialism is aggression.” See his Mind of Africa (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962), p. 152Google Scholar. This idiom may have started as a merely figurative use of the word “aggression.” But it would not be the first instance in which a figurative use of a given term later took on a literal meaning as well.

The 21-member committee, which the General Assembly established in 1957 to advise it as to when to reconsider the question of defining aggression, held further meetings.in 1962 but decided to adjourn its deliberations until April 1965. Among those who supported the adjournment were Kenneth Dadzie of Ghana and Nathaniel Eastman of Liberia. The Liberian delegate stressed that 22 new states—most of which were African—had joined the Organization since the committee's last session in 1959 and that they needed time to submit their views. For the same reason Ghana supported adjournment. Jan Polderman of the Netherlands favored a definition of aggression which would serve the interests of the small countries, particularly those which had recently attained independence. However, he did not think the circumstances were any more propitious for such a definition than they had been in 1959. For a brief description of the positions taken, see “Question of Defining Aggression,” United Nations Review, 05 1962 (Vol. 9, No. 5), pp. 14–16Google Scholar.

15 The Congo story involved not just legal problems but also varying political issues touching on intervention. In spite of Dag Hammarskjöld's brave attempts to insulate the United Nations from the politics of the Congolese, the role of the United Nations gradually became interventionist, particularly after the resolution of February 1961 envisaging at last the possible use of force. But one of the political motives behind the United Nations' response to Lumumba's original invitation was, in fact, to avert the possibility of a clash of interventions by big powers in the Congo. The All-African Conference held in Leopoldville at the behest of Lumumba in August 1960 saw the United Nations' role not so much in terms of averting big-power intervention but in terms of ending Belgian intervention. The Conference passed a resolution commending the UN “for the work it is doing for peace in the Congo by effecting the withdrawal of the Belgian troops of aggression from the entire territory of the Republic of the Congo.” (UN Document A/PV 860, p. 81.)

16 See my observations in the Sunday News (Dar es Salaam), 11 24, 1963Google Scholar.

17 This is quite apart from trying to deter others from doing the same.

18 From the lines of reaffirmation opening the Charter.

19 Hans J. Morgenthau has argued in these terms:

Our foreign policy since the end of the two World Wars has had the overall objective to prevent a change in the territorial status quo. The rationale for this policy is sound: a change in the status quo by force or likely to lead to the use of force can no longer be tolerated in the atomic age. The flaw which invalidates the policy is the refusal to recognize that not every status quo is inherently unstable and that it is the task of foreign policy to create a status quo which is defensible because the nations directly concerned with it consider it worth defending.

(Morgenthau, Hans J., The Impasse of American Foreign Policy [Vol. 2 of his Politics in the Twentieth Century] [Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1962], p. 69.)Google Scholar

20 Even such a militantly anti-apartheid country as Ghana was recently accused of not practicing the sermon of boycotting South Africa. South Africa's Eric Louw had claimed that Ghana still traded with South Africa. Ghana's Ministry of Trade issued a statement recalling that on February 16, 1961, a ban was imposed on the import of South African goods by the Ghanaian government, and in October of the same year the open license for imports from South Africa was revoked. The statement continued: “The effect of these two measures was immediately reflected in the trade returns.” The statistics showed that in 1960 Ghana imported goods valued at, £1,200,000 from South Africa as against her exports of £1,300,000. In 1961 the balance of trade fell to £10,000 for imports and £228,000 for exports. In 1962 the position changed “out of all proportion”—Ghana's imports from South Africa totaled only £33 and her exports to South Africa amounted to £50. The statement explained that the figures for 1962 comprised “personal effects of South African citizens resident in Ghana as well as the return to South Africa of spare parts previously bought.” (Ghana Today, 12 18, 1963 [Vol. 7, No. 21], p. 2Google Scholar.)

21 Cited in Stone, Julius, Aggression and World Order (London: Stevens and Sons Ltd. [under the auspices of the London Institute of World Affairs], 1958), p. 165, footnote 29Google Scholar.

22 But for a more thorough discussion of this and of what reforms are needed, see Clark, Grenville and Sohn, Louis B., World Peace Through World Law (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958)Google Scholar.

23 Home was probably worried not only about relations between the new and the old states in the United Nations but also about those relations in other areas of international life. I related Home's fear to African relations with the European Economic Community (EEC) in my article “African Attitudes to the European Economic Community,” International Affairs (London), 01 1963 (Vol. 38, No. 1), pp. 24–36Google Scholar.

24 Carr, , op. cit., p. 13Google Scholar.

25 Quoted in Stone, loc. cit.

26 Hugh Foot said this in, among other places, a BBC overseas program called “African Forum.” The author of this paper was present when the program was recorded on December 14, 1962, in the BBC London Studios.

27 For the text of Dr. Nkrumah's letters to MrMacmillan, on the subject, see Ghana Today, 11 7, 1962 (Vol. 6, No. 18)Google Scholar.

28 The United States Administration was understandably uncommunicative on American aid to the United Arab Republic. See interesting analyses in The Daily Telegraph (London), 11 4, 1962Google Scholar, and The Sunday Times (London), 01 6, 1963Google Scholar.

29 I discussed this in a similar vein in a talk entitled “The Dress of African Thought,” first broadcasted on the BBC Third Program on August 19, 1963.

30 Although the significance of the Security Council has not formed a part of this paper, there are important implications in African demands for effective representation on that body. For one thing, the military insecurity sensed by individual African countries often arises out of relations with other African countries: Morocco and Algeria; Ethiopia and Somalia; Kenya and Somalia; Rwanda and Burundi. The Security Council can thus assume an intra-African significance when a crisis arises. Emperor Haile Selassie recendy said in Addis Ababa that Africans were now prepared and able to settle African quarrels—but then went on to add that “the United Nations represents the best and perhaps the last hope for peace in the modern world.” (Uganda Argus [Kampala], 11 22, 1963.)Google Scholar.

31 Wheare, K. C., Federal Government (3rd ed.; London: Oxford University Press [under the auspices of the Royal Institute of International Affairs], 1962), p. 37Google Scholar.

32 Spaak complained at the United Nations about the lack of a clear-cut definition of “neo-colonialism.” His intention was apparently to suggest that the term was meaningless. (The Times [London], 10 2, 1962.)Google Scholar

33 Wheare, loc. cit. Author's italics.

34 Carr, E. H., Conditions of Peace (London: Macmillan, 1942), p. 56Google Scholar.

35 Ibid., p. 60.