Kotoke, others:
Thanks for your insightful pieces.
I believe the tiff between Gambia and Senegal
underscores the difficulties of a future African
Union. The fact that tariffs continue to paid between
brotherly nations such as Gambia and Senegal, does not
augur well for a potential union.
While what I am about to suggest may not be the
panacea for Africa's myriad problems, it could have
been a start to make the continent's quest for unity,
a deliberate, but achievable goal. Because as it
stands, the AU is another joke out of Africa and a
conduit to more waste of scarce resources (paying for
fat cats to be members of a do-nothing parliament,
bureaucracy).
If the EU is going to be the template for the nascent
organization, well, methinks they should have done the
elementary thing: accept as members, only those
countries which have shown commitment to democracy and
the advancement of the economic well-being of their
citizens. To this day, Turkey is unable to join the
EU, because that organization found Turkey's
institutions incongruous, rightly or wrongly, with
modern democratic values.
What Africa ought to do, or should I say, what South
Africa ought to do, is reward with membership to the
union, the handful of African nations which have term
limits, independent judiciaries and legislatures(NEPAD
features.) Those countries can then move forward to
forge a union, that will be based on open trade and
mutual defense and social ties. If those nations lead
the way in feeding and efficiently taking care of t
heir citizens, it wouldn't take long before the rest
of the excluded nations begin taking note and desiring
to join the club. That is how the EU did it. Spain and
Portugal did not join the EU until dictators Franco
and Salazar were both dead.
Even the so-called paragon of the modern democratic
experiment, the U.S., had only 13 original states, and
every other state that was eventually admitted into
the union had to prove its values jibed with the U.S.
Constitution.
Open trade among African nations is going to be that
continent's saving grace. The hardships suffered by
both Senegalese and Gambians in the past week because
of the blockade ought to drive that point home.
Thanks for your time.
Abdou
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