Regionalism in Africa

Residents of Haut-Uele district, Democratic Republic of Congo, move along battered roads at dusk. The road network in Orientale Province, in northeastern DRC, is severely neglected leaving many villages to survive as islands in the middle of dense forest. The lack of roads means that very few goods and supplies are available in the area and those that are brought in are incredibly expensive. There is no mobile phone network, medical clinics or other signs of development. ─ Pete Muller

Mmmm ... there must be something wrong with my eyes today. I'm feeling a wave of sensuality and masculinity in the bush, and it seems, it is not because of the Ebola virus, may be caused by other types of viruses. Ahem, ahem. Ah, it's time to transition into a female monkey. Haa ... I feel like I want to bite you, Pete, slightly and briefly... mwah!
























I am back! Just need a little time to say something, and this is not so important. That since the first time I saw this photo, since I could smell the scent of sensuality, as well as masculinity in the bush, ... , now I move here to regain one important thing to say: tolerance. And I'm bringing it for you to know.

In his article, Regionalisation in Africa: Integration and Disintegration, Daniel Bach highlighted the failure of globalization and multilateralism in the welfare and security in Africa continent. Conflicts inherited from colonialism era left a series of problems, especially related to the border area and sovereignty, coupled with extreme poverty that drives a lot of human rights violations and crises such as civil wars. The problem of blurred boundaries will certainly trigger a civil war, also causes a variety of international organized crime such as trafficking network of illegal drugs, money laundering and terrorism. Especially for terrorism problem, Africa is an easy target of terrorists because in addition to the blurring of state boundaries, also supported by the weak rule of law. In economic field, Africa can be classified as periphery region. This means Africa does not enjoy (just a little) the impact of production progress, although Africa is more stable on global monetary instability, as evidenced by its strength in Asian crisis in the late 1990s, and this condition is a feat in itself considering Africa status as periphery country.

Outside of Africa's economic status, Africa's strength in international politics is still taken into account, particularly in the vote of international organizations such as the UN and WTO. Africa's position in international organizations is more visible in the face of regional organizations than the power of individual states. Regionalism in Africa is characterized by many regional organizations or sub-regional economic communities, in which the authority and its members sometimes overlap. This organization may include inter and non-governmental institutions.

With so many intergovernmental organization (IGO) , there's a cohesive integration in economic and political fields. This integration is claimed as a success of IGO, even though this integration emerged as intervention of NGOs and the government's failure to realize the security and prosperity in Africa. This overlap arises because the gap between institution-building and policy implementation. To make it easier in differentiating institutional functions and implementation of policies, Bach distinguished regionalism and regionalization definitions. Regionalism is defined as ideas, programs, and goals to transform the social area into a regional scale, because it is the implementation of the program required an institution-building and formal settings. Conversely, regionalization describes the process and results of regionalism, the emphasis is on interaction rather than a formal setting.

Regionalism Africa first appeared as its struggle to liberate itself from colonialism and white domination, for example the Front Line States, Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC) and Pan Africa formed in the twentieth century. The guerrilla movement then began the birth of Organisation of African Unity (OAU) through Addis Ababa Charter. OAU capacities ranging from conflict resolution that emerged after Cold War and colonialism, namely the territorial boundaries that raising a series of conflicts in Rwanda, Uganda, Congo. In carrying out its functions, the OAU to guarantee non-intervention in internal issues of member countries, which is then used by authoritarian regimes to oppress their people. This triggered the desire to establish African Union (AU). AU was formed on August 9, 2002 with a focus on security sector, economic development, and stability of African region. Because it was more focused on the search of more effective mechanisms for conflict mediation, then the AU member states could intervene in special cases, for example genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Pan Africa's state-centric then led to a new form of regionalism which was called the New Partners hip for Africa's Development (NEPAD). The birth of NEPAD was a form of people's disappointment against the claims of president of South Africa -- Thabo Mbeki -- who transforming Pan Africa for the sake of political strategy. NEPAD is encouraging Africa on international trade and opening the door for investors as well as economic growth and appreciation of human rights, democracy and rule management, sectors that have not been touched by regional organization established by the government.

The number of regional and sub-national organizations that emerged subsequently led to overlapping members which resulted in bloc-building and the adoption of European and the U.S. values. In addition to simply imitate the west, it turned out, regionalism project didn't touch the area of regionalization. Regionalization further clarified the government's failure to reinforce the control of territory. Clashes with government organizations occured in a variety of angles. First, the majority of regionalism emerged in sub-national level, which contrasts with pan-African ideals. Second, overlapping capacity of government and non-government organizations. Regionalism in Africa generally reflected the broad dynamics between trans-state and trans frontier networks. Trans-state networks hampered the institutionalization of state and territory control, because it increased regionalism through monetary and fiscal differences, so it didn't require harmonization of policies through formal institutions. Government and non-government disharmony then further weakened the existing regionalism integration.

This diversity of actors then increasingly punctuated by Timothy Shaw with his trilateral structure analysis, namely the state, corporations and communities. He agreed with Bach that government with formal rules couldn't address the needs of its member countries. Then African regionalism was more informal with the corporation and the community as the main driving force. This was referred to by Shaw as meso-regionalism. To simplify the complexity of African regionalism, some indicators such as issue areas, the level of integration and diversification of actors can be used.

Security had become a major focus of the beginning of regionalism Africa, mainly due to the internal conflict so easily spread to regional scale, such as Angola crisis that spread to Great Lakes and Congo. To overcome this situation, the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) was formed, involving not only the country but also corporations and communities. As a result, sanctions were now not only be imposed by the state. Non-state groups could freely carry out their activities, because regional organizations that has been formed no need to involve the whole territory or population, community and the resources of the countries involved.

If Bach saw regional non-governmental organizations as a counter to malfunction state, then according to Shaw, transnational network doesn't have to contradict with formal regional institutions, because they could be in charge of different issues. For example, the state may provide legal protection in the implementation of democracy, thus, have a positive impact on the accountability of consultants and NGOs, although there are times when the NGO has its own policy autonomy, independent of the government.

If the government defines the region according to the limits of sovereignty, then corporate and community have their own understanding of the defining regionalism as unfounded ecology, ethnicity, NGOs, professional associations, and so forth. The Corporation defines regional according to the corporate structure such as branches, distribution lines, franchise, and infrastructure such as electricity and water, plumbing lines, and transportation for corporate networks.

Shaw saw the prospect of African regionalism with increasing meso-regionalism, such as communities in the Great lakes, Nile Valley and the Rift Valley. Because it involves complicated trilateral structure, then regionalism is not necessary to benefit all three elements at once. In addition to focusing on trilateral structure, regionalism Africa also marked by economic and political integration that can provide benefits and threats, especially the emergence of more and more thriving illegal sector on a regional scale, such as money laundering.

In looking at the African regionalism, I personally see this process as a failure of Africa in developing patterns prevailing in the West, such as the European Union with the elimination of its economic protection. This "pilot" is inseparable from the euphoria of globalization as well as the historical experience of Africa which generally been under the Europeans occupation, so that -- indirectly -- European values are also carried away. The values -- if forced to be applied -- will certainly fail, given the Africa's geographical situation, demographic and cultural are much different from Europe. To promote the welfare and security of Africa, then the first step is to increase the economic growth of the mineral resources sector. Considering Africa as one of the major suppliers of gold, uranium, diamonds and cobalt world, then nationalization of mining companies and good governance will be the best solution for African economy. Furthermore, the regional organization of government and non-government should go hand in hand.

I am not agree with Bach and Shaw who see Africa as a meso-regionalism regionalism. Analysis of meso regionalism can't be separated from sub-national relations and transnational organizations, whereas Africa's sub-national organization relationship itself does not involve the state as a national organization. Moreover, African regional cooperation grows from a common political destiny, geographic and language among communities in a country, that is the main characteristic of micro-regionalism. Therefore, I prefer looking at Africa's regionalism in micro level.
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