The Postcolonial Condition

The thesis and analysis presented in this book are deeply rooted in what might be called the postcolonial condition, which signifies a complex web of power relations, institutional arrangements, socioeconomic structures both within formerly colonized societies and in their relationship to former colonial European powers and the postcolonial world at large.

In the case of Africa, the term postcolonial does not mean “after independence.” Rather it is a concept which takes into account the historical realities of the European imperial incursions into the continent from the fifteenth century onwards. These incursions manifested themselves in the transatlantic slave trade. The violent conquest of the continent in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in what may be described as the “scramble for Africa”, formally lasted until the decolonisation processes were complete. These processes began in the 1950s and culminated in the 1990s with the liberation of South Africa. Nevertheless, the enduring legacy of colonialism continues to be characterised by its neo-colonial policies. (Ahluwalia 2001: 14)

By the postcolonial condition in Africa I am therefore referring to a predicament whereby the colonial legacy endures in former colonies through the persistence of the inherited apparatus of colonialism and its political, social, economic, and legal consequences.

The postcolonial predicament sustains a sense of profound ambiguity among former colonies who are struggling to incorporate and reconcile contradictory histories and political visions. On the one hand, the postcolonial state is shaped by the colonial vision that subjugated and exploited its population, without sufficiently preparing them for the responsibilities of sovereign independent statehood. On the other hand, the postcolonial state is also shaped by the visions that have resisted the colonial apparatus and still sustain the intellectual and political legacies of anticolonial resistance and struggle. The postcolonial state is therefore being contested among competing constituencies of leaders and populations at large by the pull of colonialism and the push of liberation. This profound ambiguity also relates to an underlying paradox of the postcolonial state as a legal fiction, in contrast to empirical realities on the ground.

As elaborated further in this book, the African postcolonial state is a legal fiction in the sense that it is neither quite in control of its own territory, nor sufficiently sovereign in dealing with other entities, including the major transnational corporations that continue to exploit the human and material resources of the country. Yet, at the same time, the state does affect the life of people in a wide variety of serious and far reaching ways. As far as its own populations are concerned, however weak and artificial it may be, the state is a fundamental and effective reality through its monopoly of the use of force, its legal institutions, its ability to enforce its will in a range of fields, from taxation to education and economic policies, as the only means for private persons to engage in international trade, and so forth.

The approach to understanding and engaging notions of constitutionalism in African contexts presented in this book attempts to contribute to the mediation of the paradoxical nature of the African postcolonial state. As the means by which the power of the state is defined and mapped, both enabled and constrained, constitutional governance can be seen as the mechanism for bridging the gap between the fiction and reality of the postcolonial state. It can also be the medium for re-vesting the sovereignty of the state in the people, which can result in a transformation of the nature of the state, from a tool of hegemony and exploitation to an agent of positive social change and development that enjoys popular legitimacy and credibility. As a broader concept, constitutionalism can be the means by which various segments of each society can contribute to designing and implementing the kind of state they wish to represent them and regulate their existence. Even when this notion has been deployed by authoritarian or corrupt elites, the idea of constitutional governance has been an integral part of the postcolonial history of the continent because that indicates an acknowledgment of its popular appeal and legitimizing power.

An aspect of the postcolonial condition that is relevant here is the persistence of the view that African constitutionalism must be judged by European standards. The underlying assumption here, which was used to rationalize colonialism in the first place, is that Europe is always the origin of the history and culture of the world, the center that is dynamic, modern, and the source of innovation. In contrast, the peripheral world is “traditional,” characterized by stasis or lethargy, and merely imitates the West (Blaut 1993: 1). From this perspective, since concepts like constitutionalism and democracy are reflections of a self-contained “Europeanness,” derived entirely from an inherent ability that is lacking elsewhere in the world, then they are simply unattainable outside Europe (and by extension the Americas and other parts of the world populated by people of European descent) in their fully developed form and substance.

The colonial European stereotypes of Africa and Africans continued to hold sway in scholarship well into the twentieth century. For instance, the dominance of “ethnographic” modes of analysis of “tradition” in Western scholarship leads to an excessive particularism or exceptional-ism of African societies and politics, as if they defy understanding in broader comparative terms. Such conceptions of Africans in academic and nonacademic discourse have not gone uncontested (Falola 2002). African scholars have debated issues such as the representation of Africa in Western discourse, the relationship between African philosophy and Western philosophy, African philosophical and epistemological perspectives, and the role of traditional African thought in philosophy (Eze 1997; Mudimbe 1994; Serequeberhan 1994).

The question often raised in these debates that is particularly relevant to the subject of this book is how we use the tools and concepts of a European discourse that has systematically and consistently excluded and devalued African or Asian histories and societies? What is at issue here, it seems to me, is the relationship between concepts and history in understanding terms such as “constitutionalism.” Writing or speaking in English, for instance, such terms would necessarily evoke some sense of “Europeanness,” but does that mean that the term itself cannot transcend its Western historicity? In my view, as indicated earlier, such terms can be viewed as useful diagnostic and analytic tools for the study of African societies, provided they are conceived in transregional, “universal” terms beyond their Western relativity. The challenge is how to reconstitute African histories and concepts deemed in the postcolonial discourse to be provincial and affirm them as part of the more genuinely universal histories and conceptual formulations of humanity at large. For my thesis and analysis of constitutionalism in Africa in particular, and the implications for politics, policy, and advocacy, challenging Eurocentric perspectives is only one step in the right direction that must be followed by constructing universal concepts that are inclusive of non-European experiences and histories.