Hadsel, Africa and the World

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merican cademy of Political and Social Science

Africa and the World: Nonalignment ReconsideredAuthor(s): Fred L. HadselSource: Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 372,Realignments in the Communist and Western Worlds (Jul., 1967), pp. 93-104Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.in association with the American Academy of Political andSocial ScienceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1037716.

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Africa and the World: Nonalignment ReconsideredBy FREDL. HADSEL

ABSTRACT: African nonalignmentdeveloped between 1955,when its Asian counterpartflowered at the Bandung Confer-ence, and 1965, when it was shaken by the failure of Afro-Asians to hold their conference at Algiers. Articulated by anumber of leaders but never adopted by them all, Africannonalignment usually involved efforts to assure independence,resist external neocolonial ntervention, avoid entanglementin great-power conflict, emphasize economic development,seek aid without strings, proclaim confidence in the moralrightnessof the underdevelopednations, and exert influenceincertain international issues. Toward the end of this decade,and especially in 1965-1966, many African countries reconsid-ered their views on nonalignment. The Soviet-Chinese splitwas disillusioning. The change in African leadership throughmilitary take-overscaused a turningtowardnational problemsof political stability. Continental questions, especially thoseof southern Africa, grew in importance,as did the pragmaticemphasison economicdevelopment. Nonalignment in its oldform has been transformed,but since many of the reasons forits first growth continue, it may well reappear in a modifiedform.

Fred L. Hadsel, Ph.D., Washington, D.C., is Director of the Ofice of Inter-AfricanAffairs, Department of State. A Foreign Service Officer, he has served in Europe andAfrica, and has been concerned with African affairs for more than a decade. He is alsoProfessorial Lecturer in Political Science at the George Washington University, Wash-ington, D.C., and has contributed a number of articles to various journals on interna-tional affairs. The views expressed in this article are entirely personal and are not tobe considered as official comments of an official of the Department of State.93

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94 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYFRICAN nonalignment as initiallyformulated and first flourished

during the decade between the holdingof the Afro-Asian conference at Ban-dung in 1955 and the failure to holdthe Second Bandung at Algiers in1965. Two streams of thought andaction contributedprincipallyto Africannonalignment-the Asian conferencesinthe immediate postwar period, wherenonalignment,as a term, received gen-eral currency, and the African inde-pendencemovement of the 1950's,whichwithin a few years transformeda largelycolonial domain into a generally inde-pendent continent. These two streamswere like the White and Blue Niles attheir confluence at Khartoum. At first,they retained a separate identity, al-though traveling along the same direc-tion, but fairly soon they largely inter-mixed, even though they never quitelost the qualities of their separatesources.The several Asian conferences be-tween 1947 and 1954 were a search foridentity on the part of new independentnations and a reaction against colonial-ism as they had known it during theirdependentyears. This movement cameto a heady fruition in the BandungConference of 1955. Thereafter it in-volved itself more and more with Af-rican and other nations-eventuallyreaching as far west as Cuba and, indue course, becoming entangled withthe Sino-Soviet dispute. In the courseof this development, it lost whateverAsian cohesiveness it ever had and be-came a battleground for other powersand other movements.'

GROWTH OF POLITICAL NONALIGNMENTIN AFRICA

During the formativeperiod of Asiannonalignment, the activators of inde-pendence in Africa were so deeply en-meshedin their struggle both to achieveleadershipwithin their potential area ofauthority and to obtain independencefrom their colonial metropoles, thatthey initially had neither the time northe inclination to branch out beyondthese immediategoals. However, as theindependencemovement gained momen-tum, its leaders instinctively sought co-operation from each other, and out ofthis pan-Africanismof the 1950's camethe desire for still wider association thatled to a marriageof the newer Africanwith the older Asian movement. Ameasure of this expanding association isfound in the numberof Africansattend-ing such meetings at the beginning andthe end of the first decade of Africaninvolvement in nonalignment. At Ban-dung in 1955, four African countriestook part while, after the floodtide ofindependence, twenty-eight Africancountries were representedat the CairoConferencein 1964.2

Thus, the independence movementof this decade was what in economicjargon is called a precondition or thedevelopment of African nonalignment.The pan-African movement, then, gaveAfrican nonalignmentits initial formu-lation and, in fact, was an importantconditioning element throughout thisperiod.3 For example, Ghana's inde-

1 See especially G. H. Jansen, Nonalignmentand the Afro-Asian States (New York: Fred-erick A. Praeger, 1966); Cecil V. Crabb, TheElephant and the Grass: A Study in Non-alignment (New York: Frederick A. Praeger,1965); John W. Burton (ed.), Nonalignment(London, 1966); Nonalignment in ForeignA fairs, THE ANNALS,The American Academyof Political and Social Science, Vol. 362 (No-vember 1965).

2 African delegations were in the followingratio: Bandung, 1955: 4 of 29; Belgrade,1961: 10 of 24; and Cairo, 1964: 28 of 47.3See especially Colin Legum, Pan-African-ism: A Short Political Guide (rev. ed.; NewYork: Frederick A. Praeger, 1965); S. Oke-chukwu Mezu (ed.), The Philosophy of Pan-Africanism (Washington, D.C.: GeorgetownUniversity Press, 1965); and Immanual Wal-lerstein, Africa: The Politics of Unity: AnAnalysis of a Contemporary Social Movement(New York: Vintage, 1967).



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AFRICAAND THE WORLD:NONALIGNMENTRECONSIDERED 95pendence in March 1957 provided itsleader Kwame Nkrumah the sovereignpolitical base from which to launch thefirst Conference of IndependentAfricanNations, April 1958, and the first AllAfrican Peoples Conference, December1958. Thereafter, conference followedconference in the continent until themeeting at Addis Ababa in May 1963,which established the Organization ofAfrican Unity (OAU). The charterwas an amalgamof these various move-ments. It dedicated the member na-tions (1) to safeguard their nationalsovereignty, (2) to eradicate colonial-ism from the remaining dependent ter-ritories of Africa, (3) to support unityamong membernations, and (4) to up-hold nonalignment in Africa's relationswith the rest of the world.It is impossible for any observer tomeasure the strength of African devo-tion to these various principles, which,in any case, merged one into another.It would be logical to assume that theintensity of feeling was probably great-est with respect to national sovereigntyand most diffuse with respect to politi-cal nonalignment. The problemsof na-tional development, continued colonialcontrol, and all-African co-operationwere certainly of more immediate inter-est. Whatever the differencemight bewith respect to these questions, therewas a generally held feeling of mutualendeavor, even brotherhood, in theOAU, which was more tangible than thesentiments recorded at the more infre-quent meetings of Africans and Asians.For one thing, the OAU was more ac-tive. It held three full Assemblies, tenForeign Minister meetings, and a num-ber of commission and special meetingsin the period 1963-1965, while duringthe same years the larger Afro-Asiannonalignedgroup held only two confer-ences and founderedin two preparatorymeetings for the third. For anotherthing, the OAU soon turned to national

and colonial questions. Resolutionsdealing with these issues were widelydiscussed and generally accepted, eventhough differences on such matters asthe pace of African unity were some-times sharply drawn. After the firstmeeting, the OAU did not deal withnonalignmentas such, and while certainof its resolutions were concerned withissues which related to nonalignment,ittended to concentrate on problemswithin the continent.

Nevertheless, a number of Africanleaders developed an extensive interestin nonalignment. President Nasser hadtaken part in the Bandung Conference,and the other three African heads ofstate sent senior ministers. PresidentsNkrumah, Toure, Keita, Nyerere,Obote, Ben Bella, and others were in-creasingly active in nonaligned confer-ences after their countries achievedindependence. At the same time, non-alignment obtained less explicit adher-ence from other African leaders. Inthese cases, endorsement ranged fromsupport of particulargoals to lip-servicefor political purposes. Finally, a fairlysmall group of African leaders made itclear to their colleagues that they didnot subscribe at all to this point ofview, even though their countries weremembersof the OAU.It is difficult, even impossible, to tryto make an exact count of the views ofAfrican leaders on nonalignment duringthis decade. Governments changed;new problems emerged; attendance atparticular meetings was sometimes in-complete. Rather, the events of thisfirst decade of African involvement inthe movement showed a wide variationin the degree of acceptanceof the ideasmaking up the doctrine and a similardiversity in the extent of participationin formulating such views in the non-aligned conferences. This is hardlysurprisingwhen one considers the rangeof ideas which, in accumulation, made



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96 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICANACADEMYup the political content of African non-alignment of this period.

PRINCIPALTHEMES OF POLITICALNONALIGNMENTAlthough the number of Africanleaders who devoted themselves activelyto the propagationof nonalignmentwasrelatively small, no single person wasrecognized as the high priest of themovement,and many of them were con-cerned with one or a few of its tenets.

While, therefore, it is possible in verygeneral ways to identify the principalthemes of nonalignment, t is also neces-sary to pave any formulation withcaveats as to the universality, cohesive-ness, and applicationof these ideas. Inshort, it is hard to be more than im-pressionistic or to achieve more thanan approximate consensus as to therecurringelements.First, nonalignment was one formula-tion of an overriding aspiration, thatof preserving the independence of theAfrican nation. By no means the onlyway this desire could be articulated,nonalignmentwas nevertheless a call tojudge foreign policy primarily on thebasis of new-found freedom.Second, nonalignmentperformed twovery important tasks in the internal

politics of African nations whose inde-pendence and political stability was notalways secure. In states made up ofdisparate peoples and divergent tradi-tions, nonalignment helped secure thesupport of these various elements in thebody politic by reinforcing the goal ofindependence in foreign policy. Instates where either the anticolonialistorpro-Communist groups were at oddswith the government-or with eachother-nonalignment became a meansof neutralizing these critics of theestablishedleadership.Third, nonalignment, which wasviewed by the skeptics as wishful think-ing, was in another sense a supremely

realistic assessment of the weakness ofsmall nations in a world of more power-ful nations. Proponents of nonalign-ment in this context argued that theonly way for a small nation to maintainits identity was to stay out of thestruggle among the giants. In a similarsense, advocates of nonalignment de-clared that military alliances with thepowerful caused small countries to for-feit their independence,and abstentionfrom such alliances was therefore con-sidered the hallmarkof the nonaligned.

Fourth, nonalignment could not es-cape the historical circumstances fromwhich it emerged. Being part of theindependence movement and intenselyanticolonial in background, nonalign-ment sometimes emphasized primarilynot aligning with the former colonialpowers or their Western allies. Evenafter independence,since many colonialadministrators, institutions, and connec-tions remained intact, African leadersunderpressureto seek furtherattributesof sovereignty attacked those nationalsand nations closest at hand. Hence,Western critics of nonalignmentclaimedthat it, in fact, leaned toward the East.This chargeseemed reinforced when oneobserved the active participation ofeither the Soviet Union or CommunistChina, or both, in conferences whichwere ostensibly nonaligned. Such a cli-mate of controversy not only madereal nonalignmentnext to impossibleto define, but made a real consensusonthe term impossible,even at conferencesof the nonaligned.Fifth, nonalignmentprovided a wel-come basis for co-operation among na-tions which were otherwise distant fromeach other in geography, people, orhistory. In that sense, it was an um-brella under which widely different na-tions could find a communionof views,such as anticolonialismor disarmament;a common cause, such as economicdevelopment or eradication of disease;



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AFRICA AND THE WORLD: NONALIGNMENT RECONSIDERED 97or confirmationof their fears, especiallyconcerning great-powerpressures.Sixth, nonalignmentbecame a meansof co-operation among nations with aview to exercising influence in worldaffairs which individually or in smallgroupsthey could not otherwiseachieve.Inherent in this co-operative effort wasoften a judgment as to the moral rightof the nonaligned as against the im-morality of power politics as exercisedby the great powers of the world. Tosome observersthis appearedto be littlemore than moralizing based on weak-ness and was a point of view quicklyforgotten when it came to issues closerat home. But to others, this point ofview stemmed from an urgent searchfor human values and a desperate fearthat they would be destroyed beforethey could be achieved.Other elements were to be found innonalignment,such as the condemnationof nuclearweapons, the instinctive aver-sion to military bases, and the dangerof external involvement jeopardizingdomestic economic growth. Specificsituations or particular problems calledforth variations in these themes. Butlike the abstraction of the compositeaverage man in public opinion sur-veys, these six elements were the mostcommon attributes of nonalignmentduring this decade.

EVOLUTIONOF ECONOMICNONALIGNMENT IN AFRICA

During the same decade betweenBandung and Algiers, African leadersalso developed their views with respectto economic nonalignment. More dif-fuse than its political counterpart, andneither as fully formulatednor as gen-erally endorsed,economic nonalignmentbecame increasingly important in Afri-can thinking as this period moved to aclose.Three generalreasons account for thedifferent state of economic nonalign-

ment. In the initial surge of inde-pendence, the emphasis was more gen-erally placed on political action andpolitical effect. Most African leadersappearedto accept PresidentNkrumah'sadmonitionof seeking first the politicalkeys to the kingdom of full indepen-dence. Moreover, the various confer-ences dealing with nonalignmenttendedto emphasize the political more thaneconomic.

Equally important,moreover,was thefact that African nations were alreadyin a special economic relationshipwithEuropean countries, both individuallyand with the Commonwealthand Euro-pean Economic Community. All ofthem were heavily dependent upon ex-ternal assistance from the West. Itmight be within the realm of the prac-tical for many of the African nationsto eschew military alliances, but it wasobviously impossible for any govern-ment to avoid economic agreementswith the former metropoles.

PRINCIPAL THEMES OF ECONOMICNONALIGNMENT

Under these circumstances, it is un-derstandable that the themes of eco-nomic nonalignment developed duringthe decadebetweenBandungand Algierswere neither clear-cut nor universallysupported. Moreover, they developedmore slowly in an era where politicalconsiderationspredominated.First-aside from the overriding de-sire to obtain as much economic assist-ance as possible-there developed a de-sire on the part of many African leadersto decrease dependenceon a single for-eign country. Stimulated in part bycriticism from within the country, theseleaders tended to equate a greater de-gree of independence with a largernumber of nations giving them assist-ance. In the first instance this usuallymeant turning to the United States,whose technical assistance and develop-



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98 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYmental aid increased to a high pointin 1963.

Second, for political reasons as muchas economic,there developeda tendencyto balance the West against the East.There then began dialogues with theSoviet Union, East European countries,and finally with Communist China.This trend was also attractive to a num-ber of Africans as a direct means ofincreasing their total help, and it wasattractive to some because they hopedto play off one power bloc against theother.Third, the slogan of aid withoutstrings became a part of the doctrineof economic nonalignment. In somecases, this became an emotional reactionagainst even efforts to make assistancemore efficient; in others, this attitudewas part of the negotiatingprocess thattook place as African countries soughtto minimize the burden inherent to ob-taining funds for economic develop-ment. Whatever the exact rationale, itis clear that some leaders exaggeratedthe strength of any alleged strings, anda number were certainly fearful lesttheir independence of political actionbe compromisedby such agreements.4Fourth, there developed among somespokesmen, especially of Sub-SaharanAfrica, the point of view that the Westhad an obligation to assist their eco-nomic growth. The colonial powers(includingthe United States) had takentheir manpower during the years ofslave trade; they had exported their re-sources, both mineral and agricultural;and as developed nations they had aduty to help the less developed.Finally, the preference increased incertain African quarters for multilateralassistance rather than bilateral. Theseproponentsstated that since the United

Nations, the InternationalBank for Re-constructionand Development (IBRD),the International Monetary Fund(IMF), and other specialized agencieswere not controlledby any single power,it was better to obtain assistance in thatform if at all possible.

THE PERIOD OF TRANSITIONToward the end of the decade be-tween Bandung and Algiers, Africannonalignment began a transformationwhich is still under way. This transi-

tional period, however, is too much withus to permit a satisfactory sorting outof the interaction which affected Afri-can nonalignment. What we can dis-cuss, instead, are several probablecauses of the change we are livingthrough, and certain directions alongwhich African thought seems to be mov-ing. Infallibility in this analysis isclearly impossible.In the first place, the change wascertainly a product of the split betweenthe Soviet Union and CommunistChina. This split destroyed one of theassumptionsof the Third or NonalignedWorld-that these countries of Africaand Asia were standing between twogiant blocs. In fact this situation re-cently stimulated the editor of JeuneAfrique, the most widely read of franco-phone journals,to declare that the ThirdWorld had become the Second, since theCommunistworld, which had been theSecond, had fallen apart. As the splitwidened and the competitionintensified,the Chinese in particular became moremilitant in pressing nonaligned coun-tries to join them in attacking the Westand the Soviet Union. This not onlyrevealed the hypocrisy of Communistco-operation with nonaligned countries,but it highlighted the futility of tryingto get agreement on a nonaligned po-sition in particular problems in whichCommunistChina had a stake, such asits border dispute with India.4This view reached an extreme point inKwame Nkrumah, Neo-Colonialism: TheLast Stage of Imperialism (New York: Inter-national Publishers, 1965; London, 1965).



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100 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYBella and Nkrumah. Second, as thepattern of leadership changed, therewas a perceptible turning of attentionaway from distant foreign issues toproblems of politics in Africa and athome.

Along with the series of politicalchanges in the leadership of Africa,there also developed a new pattern inthe issues which preoccupied the Afri-can nations. The Congo problem,which had long been a barometer ofconflicting African attitudes on theUnited Nations, the role of metropoles,and the orientation of newly indepen-dent Africannations, slowly became lessacute as an international issue as therebellionwithin the countrywas broughtunder control and the government atKinshasa gained acceptability withinAfrica. Meanwhile, the issues in south-ern Africa were increasingly concerningthe leadership elsewhere in the conti-nent. The most dramatic of theseemergingissues was Southern Rhodesia,whose unilateral declarationof indepen-dence on November 11, 1965, openeda new phase in the problems of south-ern Africa. Rhodesia occasioned aspecial meeting of the OAU ForeignMinisters in December 1965 and be-came a principal concern of the organi-zation thereafter. At the same time,it became apparent to most observersthat other issues in this part of Africa--the Portuguese territories, SouthwestAfrica, and South Africa itself-wereoccupying a larger amount of attentionthan matters outside the continent.It would be a serious exaggerationtosuggest that after 1965 a clear-cutswing away from political nonalignmenttook place. Circumstances were toocomplex to be neatly described,and theresponses of the various leaders wereinevitably in terms of the problemswhich were of particular concern totheir particular country. One of themost articulateof Africanleaders, Presi-

dent Nyerere, mirrored the difficulties,dilemmas, and aspirations facing hiscountry in a series of public statementsin the summer of 1966, when he em-phasized the costs of an independentnonalignedpolicy, the necessity for de-veloping national economicand politicalstrength, and the need for African co-operation to this end. As far as po-litical nonalignmentwas concerned, hestressed the view that its enduring ele-ments were protection of independence,friendship with all countries (or non-engagementswith any bloc), and adap-tation from any source of institutionswhich contribute to economic develop-ment. At the same time, these effortscould only be successful, in his view,when accompanied by co-operationamong Africans to settle disputes andto build toward African unity.5 Otherleaders saw the problem differently,thereby confirming the general impres-sion that there was no single responseto the changing African scene.An increasing emphasis on economicdevelopmentalso occurredin this periodof transition, although its themes aredifficult to identify, even in a tenta-tive manner. It can be said-if notproved-that, proportionately,therewasgreater concern with economicproblemsas of the mid-1960's than earlier in thedecade. Political independencehad runits course for the time being-with theexception of Botswana and Lesotho in1966-but political independence hadnot brought the economic growth thatthe leaders hoped or that many of thepeople expected. Hence, there wasbroaderrealizationof the economic dif-ficulties facing Africa and greaterrecog-nition that Africa faced a long haul5Julius K. Nyerere, The Cost of Non-alignment, Africa Report (October 1966), pp.61-65 (Memorandum to TANU of June 9,1966); Africa Faces a Dilemma, Speech atthe University of Zambia, Lusaka, July 13,1966; Address delivered at Mogadiscio,Somalia, August 23, 1966.



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AFRICA AND THE WORLD: NONALIGNMENT RECONSIDERED 101in this field of effort. An eloquent de-scription of Africa's needs and one na-tion's proposals to meet these problemswas given by the Kenyan Chairman,Mr. Tom Mboya, at the biennialUnited Nations Economic Commissionfor Africa (ECA) conference in Lagos,February 1967.6The consequencesof the greater con-cern for economic development werenumerous,and in their total effect theycontributed to reconsiderationof viewson economic nonalignmentwhich a fewyears earlier were widely, if not gen-erally, accepted. As African leadersmeasured the magnitude of problemsfacing them and felt the continuedpres-sure of their people for improving ivingconditions, they recognizedall the moreclearly the fundamental importance ofexternal assistance. Facing a plateauin the over-all amount of assistanceavailable from foreign donors, more-over, some African nations began toreconsider their previous positionsand, along with this review, to modifysome of their views and tactics ofnonalignment.One of the changes in emphasis tookplace in the attitude of African na-tions with respect to the EuropeanCommonMarket. The eighteen-nation-association agreement had been signedon July 20, 1963. Discussionfor admis-sion as associated members were openedby Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, and Tan-zania during 1965-1966, thus adding tothe number of African nations whichare seeking economic benefits througha formal association with Europeancountries.Another change was the higher prior-ity given to commodity agreements,par-ticularly those concerning coffee andcocoa. African countries began to take

a more active role in implementingthecoffee agreementand in seeking the con-clusion of a cocoa agreement. Indi-cating a wider recognitionof the impor-tance of co-operative institutions forthe regulationof such crops, the nationsdirectly concernedsettled down in 1966to negotiations necessary to reach aworkablesolution to the cocoa problem.A third trend has been a decrease inthe suspicions directed against privatebusiness as agents of neocolonialism.Not only have a number of states en-acted legislation to attract business,but,during the period 1964-1967, theysigned some thirteen investmentguaran-tee agreements with the United Statesand gave other indicationsof their inter-est in the co-operationof United Statesand other firmsin their development.These scattered illustrations, how-ever, point to another trend which alsosuggests a greater pragmatism. This isthe recognitionof the role of self-helpin economicdevelopment. Such an em-phasis, of course, relates to one of theinitial elements of nonalignment,that ofachieving real independence. One canargue that self-help is a new way ofdealing with an old desire.Throughoutmost of the period of therise and modification of nonalignment,African nations had welcomed interna-tional co-operation in the field of eco-nomic development. The United Na-tions Economic Commission for Africa,established in 1958, had been moreactive than its counterparts in otherregions of the world. This trend con-tinued during the period of transitionwith respect to nonalignment. The ele-ments abetting the modificationof atti-tudes towards nonalignment appeared,in this instance, to reinforce what hadbeen gradually developing during pre-vious years. The United Nations De-velopment Program, for example, in-creased its African activities, especiallyin the direction of regional river basin

6Tom Mboya, A Development Strategyfor Africa: Problems and Proposals, State-ment at the Eighth Session of the ECA,Lagos, February 13, 1967.



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102 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYprojects. The World Bank similarlycontinued to expand its activities inAfrica during the mid-1960's. Interna-tional institutions were particularly at-tractive to these countries concernedwith nonalignment,since they thoughtthat any political conditions would beavoided by virtue of the nature of thelending agency.7Another developmentin internationalorganization,however, took place duringthe mid-1960's, which may have consid-erable effect in reshaping the Africanviews on economic nonalignment. Thiswas the growth within the United Na-tions of a common effort on the partof underdevelopedcountries to devotemore of the United Nations efforts totheir problems. This feeling had helpedstimulate the holding of the United Na-tions Conferenceon Trade and Develop-ment (UNCTAD) in 1964. At thisconference, some seventy-five of themembers from the undeveloped partsof the world grouped themselves to-gether to further their common goal ofrapid economicgrowth. Declaring thata division of the world between the af-fluent and the impoverishedwas intol-erable, they hailed their unity at theconference as the first step towardachieving development.8 Both the ap-proach and substance of the seventy-five (now seventy-seven) suggest someof the concerns which underlay earliernonalignment,but they began develop-ing a far different strategy as theysought to secure greater economicbene-fits and, therefore, economic indepen-dence for the developingnations of theworld. The proposal made on severaloccasions in the past year by PresidentSenghor that these nations meet, pos-

sibly in Algiers, to preparefor the nextUNCTAD conference,presently plannedfor 1968, may lead to further steps inthis direction. In referring to thismeeting as an economicnonalignedcon-ference,President Senghorwas adaptingan old label to a new situation.

CONCLUSIONA descriptionwhich indicates so manystrands of development and so muchdiversity in the patterns of events can-not fail to lead to highly qualified con-

clusions. Yet it is clear, at the tacticallevel at least, that certain of the modali-ties of nonalignment have been dis-carded. For example, the large confer-ence producing many resolutions hasbeen abandoned for the time being.Moreover, some of the assumptionswhich gave rise to nonalignment havebeen called into question. Thus, thefears which metropoles instinctively in-cited in many newly independent na-tions are receding into the backgroundas time goes by. In addition, in thebalance of attention which every leadermust strike on the problems that pre-occupy him, those matters closer tohome have become proportionatelymoreimportant than those which stimulatedsome of the nonalignedpronouncementsof previous years. Political stability,relations with nearby nations, and Af-rica's own tranquility have weighedmore importantly than Berlin, Tibet, orCuba.That this transformation is not asimple turning within, a sort of Africanversion of isolation, however, is es-pecially clear in the fields of economics.Recognition of the tremendous task ofdevelopment has accentuated the needfor national action, self-reliance, andself-help. But it has also stimulatedmore relations with the outside world,in particular Europe and the WesternHemisphere. It has brought renewedattention to problems of trade and

7An editorial in the Ethiopian Herald,March 29, 1967, is one example of this pointof view.8 For one assessment, see Sidney Weintraub,After the UN Trade Conference: Lessons andPortents, Foreign Affairs (October 1964), pp.37-50.



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AFRICA AND THE WORLD: NONALIGNMENT RECONSIDERED 103commodities. And, as a long-termtrend,it may well lead to a new communityof interest among the underdevelopednations. While any action in confer-ence will be very different from themeetings between Bandung and Cairo,African leaders will nevertheless bedealing with some of the same issueswhich stimulated the first wave of non-alignment: national independence, eco-

nomic development, and relations withnon-African powers. In such a situa-tion, it is safe to say that the prag-matism which is a significantcharacter-istic of the transitional period throughwhich nonalignment is now going willhelp to avoid some of the abstractionand unreality which characterized theAfrican movement during its initialdecade.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERSQ: Is it possible that the UnitedStates administration's policy towardsouthern Africa may be wrong? Bywrong I mean, not in the best politicaland economic interests of the UnitedStates and not conducive to peace andstability in Africa because the policiesof the unstable Central African statesare now being supported against thesmall, stable, southern African states.Are the economic sanctions againstRhodesia, which are very actively sup-portedby the United States, not hurtingboth black and white people? Are theynot designed to produceeconomichard-ship and hence political unrest andrevolution? And should the UnitedStates government not better serve itspeople, the cause of black advancementin southernAfrica, and peace by a pol-icy of noneintervention in the internalaffairs of the states of southern Africa,the only states which want trade, andnot aid?A: As for stability, I look at stabil-

ity in Africa as a very long process, arelative process. And one of my greatfears with respect to southern Africais that the presentpolicy being foundedthere is storing up an explosion whichwill be far worse than anything thatAfrica has yet faced.

I think that underlying the otherquestions is a basic question as towhether or not I think that our policywith respect to the problems of south-ern Africa might be wrong. I haveobserved,and I am not a Catholic, thatthe Pope asserts infallibility only ina very narrow area of theological dis-cussion. I certainly do not claim in-fallibility on any matter in Africa. Ido personally feel that our policy isbasically correct, that it is in the na-tional interests of our government. Ifany of you are interested in going intothis in some detail, I refer you to aspeech made in California on February24, by Assistant Secretary of StateJoseph Palmer, with respect particularlyto the SouthernRhodesia question.

Q: Professor Wilcox has describedthe limitations of translating the mili-tary and economic power of the greatpowers into effective political influencein dealing with small states. Howcould this power be maximized by theUnited States and by the Soviet Union,particularlywith regardto Africa?

A: I confess, I ought to feel old-fashionedand idealistic in my comment,rather than discussingpower and deter-



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104 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYrence. It seems to me that our rela-tionshipwith Africa over the next manyyears quite fortunately may have verylittle to do with power, at least in atraditional, let alone a military, con-notation. At present, our military as-sistance to Africa is something like 2per cent of our military assistancebudget, and most of us hope it will notincrease because of the very burdenthat this type of weaponry places uponcountries who need their resources sodesperately for economic growth.

I would hope that what we would dowith respect to Africa is to help developits economic capabilities on the truismthat trade and its economic relations areinevitably going to be much better be-tween two areas of prosperity thanbetween an area of prosperity and oneof poverty. The fact is that Africa is

going to double its population in thenext thirty years and that the presentlevel of per capita income is only$125.00 per year. All of us should tryto do something more about this prob-lem in this decade, which is hopefullybeing called a decade of developmentand which African leaders have seen asa decade of practically nondevelopment.What is needed, it seems to me, is adeployment of resources to begin todevelop the continent, which, like LatinAmerica, has become a food-importingarea. So it is within that frameworkthat I would think that our nationalinterest lies in Africa-an interest thatis, in a way, far removed from thedeployment of power, but in the longrun will be very much related to thedevelopment of neutral welfare in twocontinents.

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Hadsel, Africa and the World