Journal of Research in Philosophy and History Vol. 3, No. 2, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/jrph ISSN 2576-2451 (Print) ISSN 2576-2435 (Online) 32 Original Paper The African State in a Wake of Neoliberal Globalization: A Cog in a Wheel or a Wheel in a Cog Kizito Michael George1* 1 Department of Religious Studies and Philosophy, Kyambogo University, Kyambogo, Uganda * Kizito Michael George, Department of Religious Studies and Philosophy, Kyambogo University, P.O Box 1, Kyambogo, Uganda Received: June 27, 2020 Accepted: July 11, 2020 Online Published: July 19, 2020 doi:10.22158/jrph.v3n2p32 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/jrph.v3n2p32 Abstract This paper situates the Sub-Saharan African state amidst the conflictual interface between the forces of political (Note 1) and economic globalization (Note 2) that have been ushered in the state milieu by neo-liberalism (Note 3). The paper argues that states are situated in an imperialistic globalization with capitalistic economic extirpation as central concern and social justice as a peripheral one. This categorically explicates the persistence of globalised economies and localized oppressive state apparatuses, ideologies and practices. The paper also contends that the forces of economic globalization have superimposed the cultural mantra in the Sub-Saharan Africa state milieu, rendering it virtually impossible to pursue a Rights Based Approach to Development (RBAD). The apparent assault by this globalization from above (economic globalization), continues almost unabated due to absence of an afro centric globalization from below to mitigate the homogenizing effects of economic globalization. Worse still, the inability of political globalization to check the daunting implications of economic globalization using a human rights antidote and the consequent slumber of the glocalisation dialectic in the African state locale explicate the problematic of Africa in the wake of erosion from above (global pillage) and devolution from below. Keywords neo-liberalism, globalization, African States, empire, superimposition, cog, wheel www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/jrph Journal of Research in Philosophy and History Vol. 3, No. 2, 2020 33 Published by SCHOLINK INC. 1. Introduction The Sub-Saharan African State a once ontological transcendence (territorial sovereignty) appears to have been subsumed in a neo-liberal empire (global sovereignty) which is an ontological immanence without an outside or centre (Hardt & Negri, 2000, p. xi). However, the state in Sub-Saharan Africa has an ambiguous imperial positioning in the sense that it both integrated and excluded from empire (Dunn, 2004, p. 144). The resultant of this identity crisis is impoverished states with a weak body politic, puppet economies, contradictory policies, gender inequality, bad governance and human rights abuse. This paper argues that empire as envisaged by scholars like Hardt and Negri does not explain the intricacies of state sovereignty versus globalisation in Sub-Saharan Africa. Consequently it is imperialism and not empire that best explains the global unleashing of capitalism on states in the third world (Atilio, 2005, p. 113) with particular reference to Sub-Saharan Africa. According to Joxe, something resembling global structural slavery has re-appeared, leaving us with the prospect of totalitarian empires with camps and slavery (Joxe, 2002). The state in sub-Saharan Africa is entangled in a sovereignty nexus, where by though it has been economically de-sovereignised, it is still clinging to political and cultural sovereignties that are conflictual. 1.1 The State as a Wielder of Power Bourdieu defines the state as that institution which "successfully claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical and symbolic violence over a definite territory and over the totality of the corresponding population. Bourdieu expands Weber‟s definition to emphasize symbolic as well as physical violence. This definition points to Bourdieu‟s understanding of power, one clearly influenced by Weber in that power must be legitimated in order to be exercised in any enduring and effective way" (Bourdieu, 1994, p. 3). He sees the "modern state emerging from the culmination of a process of concentration of different species of capital: capital of physical force or instruments of coercion (army, police), economic capital, cultural capital or (better) informational capital, and symbolic capital. It is this concentration as such which constitutes the state as the holder of a sort of meta-capital granting power over other species of capital and over their holders" (Bourdieu, 1994, p. 4). In describing the logic of modern state development, "Bourdieu begins with physical capital (physical coercion), then economic capital, then informational (or cultural) capital, and finally symbolic capital". He then adds "statist capital" to his repertoire of capitals. Statist capital is a special type of capital, a kind of "meta-capital", that emerges with the concentration of other types of capital. It "enables the state to exercise power over the different fields and over the different particular species of capital, and especially over the rates of conversion between them (and thereby over the relations of force between their respective holders)" (Bourdieu, 1994, p. 4). Bourdieu goes on to say that "we must transcend the opposition that tends to view social relations in terms of purely physical force or in terms of pure forms of communication with only semiological significance". Bourdieu stresses that "the holders of bureaucratic authority never establish an absolute monopoly" because "there are always, in any society, conflicts between symbolic powers that aim at www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/jrph Journal of Research in Philosophy and History Vol. 3, No. 2, 2020 34 Published by SCHOLINK INC. imposing the vision of legitimate divisions. The state itself is a site for ongoing struggles between groups, each attempting to impose its understandings of the social world as legitimate (Bourdieu, 1989, p. 22)". Bourdieu‟s conception makes sense if applied to western liberal states but is very disconnected from the reality of Sub-Saharan African states that have been rendered fragile with the upsurge of neo-liberalism. 1.2 Sovereignty and Reterritorialization In their magnum opus, "empire", Hardt and Negri explore the immersion of states in an empire without an outside and centre. However, empire implies deterritorialization of state entities and not reterritorialization of the same. Critical ethnographers have vehemently criticized Hardt and Negri‟s grangiose empire by opining that: sorely missing in contemporary debates is a sense of "grounded" ethnography-detailed, fine-grained explorations of the cultural practices, symbolic imaginaries, and social relations that reproduce transnational processes linking distant and diverse sites. It is therefore pertinent to understand globalization through the means of critical ethnography-a methodology that explores how markets interact with political rule, social forms, and the production of cultural values across uneven geographies and histories of the modern. This ethnographic approach cuts against the grain of a recent tendency to map, unproblematically, the economic onto the global and the cultural onto the local and the territorial into the social. Global and local suggest a politics of scale and perspective-relational categories, not essentialized differences. Cultural processes and productive inequalities are translocal yet mediated through institutional forms-such as the household, the workplace, and the state-that are themselves situated in particular "localities". These globalizing tendencies suggest processes of reterritorialization, not deterritorialization. Relationships among identities, polities, and communities are being radically reconfigured, not eclipsed (Aihwa & Moore, 2002). One of the major lacunas in Hardt and Negri‟s grandiose empire is the assumption that boarders are impermeable containers of social relations (Dunn, 2004). It must be noted that the transcendence of USA as an imperial capitalist empire (Joxe, 2002, p. 187) (say in the Iraq war) is a negation of Hardt and Negri‟ post-modern state immanence. In addition, the treatment of Africa as a necessary but unwanted actor in their grand narrative renders it quite disconnected from the realities confronting these states in the wake of neo-liberal economic globalisation (Dunn, 2004, p. 143). There is no doubt that global economic liberalization leads to the crack up of sovereign states but this does not mean de-sovereignisation, in other words there is a difference between diminishing sovereignty and sovereignty extirpation. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/jrph Journal of Research in Philosophy and History Vol. 3, No. 2, 2020 35 Published by SCHOLINK INC. 2. Methodology This paper uses critical globalism and critical holism to unravel the situation of African states in neo-liberal globalization. These critical theory methodologies aim at exposing the emancipatory dimensions of texts related to globalization in Africa. Critical globalism refers to a critical engagement or assessment of globalization processes as well as policies and practices arising from globalization(s) (Nederveen, 2001, p. 45). This methodology is used in this paper to ascertain the ethicality of neo-liberal globalized policies, ideologies and practices related to justice, poverty and development. According to social holism or methodological collectivism, explanations of social phenomena such as globalisation should always start with descriptions and analysis of social structures, social facts or collective entities (Miller, 1994, p. 68). Social facts such as gender structures, classes, ideologies can only be explained by social facts and deep fundamental structures are more important and have greater explanatory power than individual actions (Durkheim, 1994, p. 435). According to the critical holism methodology, social phenomena such as neo-liberalism can fundamentally be explained by a deeper critically analysis of both domestic and international structures that produce and reproduce them. 3. Result 3.1 The Demise of the Anti-capitalism Movement in Sub-Saharan Africa Africa‟s current position as a loser in the globalization enterprise is premised on the fact that colonialism had created an elite of consumption rather than an elite of productivity. The post-colonial African elite was more adept at making money than at creating wealth. Money could be made in a network of capital transfers without generating genuine growth. The African elite had learnt the techniques of circulating money without a talent for creating new wealth. The colonial impact in Africa had generated urbanization without industrialization, had fostered Western consumption patterns without Western productive techniques, had cultivated among Africans Western tastes without Western skills, had initiated secularization without the scientific spirit (Mazrui, 2001). This renders the African state ambiguously positioned because it is incorporated but not "civilized" (Kiely, 2004, p. 151). This paper contends that the "modern" neo-colonial, neo-liberal African state has tremendously been impacted by political, economic and technological globalization. The state is at the cross roads, it is tantalized by the duty to protect the cultural values of the different ethnic groups in its bosom but is at the same time virtually overwhelmed by the apparition of globalization. The state is entangled in an imperial sovereignty that provides power without protection (Joxe, 2002) and hence is increasingly becoming intertwined in the "contradictory" policies and demands of the various international global actors such as; the urge to build democratic and accountability systems to guarantee good governance, the obligation to protect individual human rights enshrined in international human rights instruments, the duty to ensure macro and micro economic stability and economic liberalization, and the demand to pursue a Rights Based Approach to Development (RBAD) in all its programmes and policies. A number of African leaders are exploiting this perplexity to cling on to power so as to enrich themselves. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/jrph Journal of Research in Philosophy and History Vol. 3, No. 2, 2020 36 Published by SCHOLINK INC. 3.2 Globalization and International Institutions It is difficult to come across any precise, widelygreed definition of globalization or internationalization. However, the breadth of meanings attached to it seem to take cultural, political and economic connotations (World Bank, 2004). Five broad usages of "globalization" can be distinguished: internationalization, liberalization, universalization, westernization, and deterritorialization. Although these conceptions overlap to some extent, their emphases are substantially different (Scholte, 2000). Although sharp differences continue to separate participants in the ongoing debate, most contemporary social theorists endorse the view that globalization refers to fundamental changes in the spatial and temporal contours of social existence, according to which the significance of space or territory undergoes shifts in the face of a no less dramatic acceleration in the temporal structure of crucial forms of human activity (Scheuermam, 2002). Joseph E Stiglitz, the 2001 Nobel Prize winner in Economics ably defined it as the closer integration of countries and peoples of the world as a result of the enormous reduction of costs of transportation and communication, and the breaking down of artificial barriers to the free flow of goods, services, knowledge and to a lesser extent peoples across boarders (Stiglitz, 2002, p. 9). Nayan Chanda opines that: Since the first appearance of the term in 1962, "globalization" has gone from jargon to cliché. The Economist has called it "the most abused word of the 21st century. Certainly no word in recent memory has meant so many different things to different people and has evoked as much emotion. Some see it as nirvana -a blessed state of universal peace and prosperity-while others condemn it as a new kind of chaos. Globalization can best be understood as a leitmotif of human history. It is a trend that has intensified and accelerated in recent decades and come into full view with all its benefits and destructive power (Chanda, 2002). David Held et al. aver that : ....globalization reflects a widespread perception that the world is rapidly being moulded into a shared social space by economic and technological forces and that development in one region of the world can have profound consequences for the life chances of individuals or communities on the other side of the globe. For many globalization is also associated with a sense of political fatalism and chronic insecurity in that the sheer scale of contemporary social and economic change appears to outstrip the capacity of national governments or citizens to control, contest or resist that change. The limits of national politics, in other words, are forcefully suggested by globalization (Held et al., 1999, p. 1). Globalization is powerfully driven by not only international corporations which move capital and goods across boarders but also intergovernmental institutions such as the United Nations (UN), International Labor Organization (ILO), the World Bank (WB), International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Trade Organization (WTO) and World Health Organization (WHO) that has been especially concerned with improving health conditions in developing countries. It ought to be born in mind that the main institutions that govern economic globalization (neo-liberal globalization) are the IMF, World www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/jrph Journal of Research in Philosophy and History Vol. 3, No. 2, 2020 37 Published by SCHOLINK INC. Bank and WTO (Held et al., 1999, p. 10) but unfortunately Hardt and Negri‟s magnum opus is silent on the role of World Bank and IMF as fundamental organizers, supervisors and monitors of the day-to-day operation of empire (Atilio, 2005). Atilio Boron posits that: .....empire is the "superior stage" of imperialism and nothing else. Its functioning logic is the same and so are the ideologies that justifies its existence, the actors that make its dynamics, and the unfair results that reveal the persistence of oppression and exploitation (Atilio, 2005). 3.3 The Specter of Economic Globalization in the African State Milieu The minusculity of the term globalization is envisaged in not only the lack of a succinct and precise definition of the term but also the apparent vilification tendencies of both its critics and proponents. However, one cannot deny without contradiction the fact that globalization has political, legal, economic and fundamentally cultural ramifications. Despite the numerous connotations of the term, economic globalization that is "controlled" by the Bretton Woods institutions (IMF and World Bank) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) covertly superimposes all the other nuances of the internationalization or globalization and hence imposes debilitating consequences on the cultural particulars in the Sub-Saharan African state locale. Oliva Blanchete articulates the impact of economic globalization by reiterating that: ......now it seems that everything we do in modern societies is governed by some economic consciousness to which we must sacrifice our other spiritual and social aspirations and values. It seems that political consciousness, or the consciousness of a community has become totally subordinate to economic consciousness, or the consciousness of commercial interests (Blanchete, 2001). Economic globalization implicitly treats human rights, humanism and communitarian values as peripherals. It is characterized by an overriding zeal for profit and capitalistic economic domination and therefore renders the African state practically impotent to pursue communitarian ends or the common good as long as they are not in tandem with the interests of the precursors of western capitalistic neo-liberal globalization. In addition, the fragile African economies, debt burden, poverty and political conflicts among other economic vagaries make many African leaders easy prey for the manipulative economic policies of international financial institutions and donors. The veneration of the interests of foreign investors for instance in Uganda even at the expense of the fundamental rights of the citizens cannot be over emphasized (Note 4). Precisely, neo-liberal globalization determines the axis around which cultural particulars in a given state milieu must spin. It does not give the benefit of the doubt to the dialogue between cultural particulars (acculturation) (Note 5) but simply superimposes its tentacles around cultural aspects to neutralize and extort conformity (enculturation). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/jrph Journal of Research in Philosophy and History Vol. 3, No. 2, 2020 38 Published by SCHOLINK INC. 4. Discussion 4.1 The Impact of Conflictual Interactions between Political and Economic Global Actors on the African State Global political actors such as the UN, ILO and WHO and global economic actors such as the IMF and World Bank are pushing African states in opposite directions as regards development and good governance policy initiatives. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for instance is strongly advocating for a Rights Based Approach to Development (RBD) as a pre-requisite for human or people centered development in the various state locales, where as the IMF is giving lip service to the fundamental rights of the black people by practically bulldozing states to stringently implement neo-liberal policies such as privatization and retrenchment which have had daunting repercussions on the fundamental rights of the African peoples (Negel, 2004). In addition, despite the realization of the need to humanize or "ethicize" globalisation and the paradigm shift by the UN and other donors from the basic needs conception of development to Rights Based Approach to Development (RBAD), which basically treats development as the enhancement or expansion of freedoms (capabilities or functionings) that allow people to lead lives that they have reason to value (Sen, 1999, p. 1), the IMF and World Bank have clung to the conception of development in terms of economic growth and neo-liberal globalisation. According to the IMF, economic growth is the only way to improve living standards in developing countries, and is best achieved through economic globalization-which it defines as the process through which an increasingly free flow of ideas, goods services, and capital leads to the integration of economies and societies (IMF, 2002). Economic globalisation and development understood as economic growth, per capita income and American neo-liberal capitalism has led to unprecedented miseries such as dire poverty and unemployment which are clear violations of human rights and therefore unethical. Due to the growing divide between the haves and have-nots, an increasing number of people in the third world are living on less than a dollar a day and despite promises of poverty reduction over the last decades of the 20th century, the actual number of people living in abject poverty has actually increased by almost one billion. Many western countries are full of hypocrisy; they have pushed poor countries to eliminate trade barriers, but kept up their own barriers thus preventing developing countries from exporting their agricultural products and so depriving them of the desperately needed export income (Stiglitz, 2002). 4.2 Economic Globalization and Political Opportunism in Africa From Africa‟s colonization till now, globalization is heralded as making the nation state obsolete and hence leading to the integration of all humanity. Economic globalization and the power of transnational capital are dictating all human values and conforming social realities to economic manipulations engineered by the profit advantages of some core corporate shakers, who are growing day in, day out. Millionaires are being made in Nigeria, South Africa, Mozambique, Uganda, Botswana, even in war-torn Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Kofi, 2005). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/jrph Journal of Research in Philosophy and History Vol. 3, No. 2, 2020 39 Published by SCHOLINK INC. It ought to be borne in mind that the Breton Woods fraternity has bulldozed African states to liberalize their economies in order to stimulate economic investment, poverty reduction and better service delivery. However, this liberalization enterprise has become a breeding ground for individuals to build economic empires at the expense of the general population. The corruption schemes of the various ruling political classes in Sub-Saharan Africa be it in Uganda, Nigeria, Zimbabwe or even south Africa have obfuscated the benefits of this neo-liberal globalization endeavor from trickling down to people who live below the poverty line. Surprisingly, some of these economies have been praised by the IMF and World bank as role models that are doing wonders as far as the stimulation of economic growth, investment and poverty reduction are concerned. Yet they portray a very different picture on the ground as far as capability actualization is concerned. Precisely, the benefits out of neo-liberal globalization have virtually been striped by the political skullduggery of the patriarchal/patrimonial political regimes that characterize most of the African state milieu-a locale of pseudo democracies and kleptocracies to say the least. This tendency limits the benefits of globalization to particular individuals and groups, and challenges the generalization of benefits that has been variously touted. It also negates the African traditional concept of globalization which alludes to the redistribution of wealth and power in the family, in the community and reveals the contradiction between the global and the local realities, between the national and the provincial, between the local and the ward, between the ward and village, between the rulers and ruled, those who wield power and those who don‟t, between the center and the periphery. 4.3 "Ethicizing" (humanizing) Globalization Globalization constitutes a powerful and dynamic force which should be harnessed for the benefit, development and prosperity of all countries, without exclusion and developing countries face special difficulties in responding to this central challenge. While globalization offers great opportunities, at present its benefits are very unevenly shared, while its costs are unevenly distributed (Durban Declaration, 2001). The ethicisation of globalization implies giving globalization a human rights face where by it operates in tandem with norms and principles of right and good conduct (ethics) and hence does not relegate the protection of the worth and dignity of the human person to the periphery. It is important to note that although globalization has brought benefits to many peoples and countries, by lifting many counties from poverty and bringing greater awareness of peoples‟ entitlement to basic human rights, in many cases, however, the globalization processes have contributed to greater marginalization of people and countries that has been denied access to markets, information and essential goods such as life saving drugs (WHO, 2002, p. 15). Within the human community, certain trends associated with globalization have raised concern with respect to their effect on states‟ capacity to ensure the protection of human rights, especially for the most vulnerable members of society. Located primarily in the economic-political realm of globalization, these trends include: an increased reliance upon the free market; an significant growth in the influence of international financial markets and institutions in determining national policies; cutbacks in public www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/jrph Journal of Research in Philosophy and History Vol. 3, No. 2, 2020 40 Published by SCHOLINK INC. sector spending; the privatization of functions previously considered to be the exclusive domain of the state; and the deregulation of a range of activities with a view of facilitating investment and entrepreneurial initiative (Committee on ESCR, 1999). These trends serve to reduce the role of the state in economic affairs, and at the same time increase the role and responsibilities of the private (non-state) actors, especially those in corporate business, but also those in civil society. Such trends limit the ability of the state to protect the vulnerable from adverse effects of globalization. In this context, the United nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has emphasized the strong and continuous responsibility of International Organizations, as well as the governments that have created and managed them, to take whatever measures they can in the context of globalization to assist governments to act in ways which are compatible with their human rights obligations, and to seek to devise policies and programmes which promote respect for those rights (Committee on ESCR, 1998). The Rights Based Approach to Development(RBAD) has been envisioned as the best tool to humanize globalization but bearing in mind that it is being spearheaded by the forces political globalization, its good intentions are watered down by neo-liberal globalization. 4.4 The African State Milieu and the Glocalisation Myth 4.4.1 Homogenising or Heterogenizing Cultural Relations Globalization is apparently widely thought of as involving cultural homogenization; even more specifically as a process involving the increasing domination of one society or regional culture over all the others. However, although globalization has inherent homoginising aspects, it also has heterogenising aspects that are envisaged in what theorists refer to as glocalisation. Through the process of globalization, the global events/processes interact with the local events/processes to produce what is called glocalisation (Ostry, 1998). Under this condition, the global impacts on the local could be positive or negative. Consequently, people, ideas and cultural products move around, merge and influence each other more rapidly than ever before (Adamu, 2003). Most developing countries are both integrating with the world economy and devolving power to local governments and communities (This combination of globalization and localization is what is referred to as glocalisation). According to the Economic Times, the centralised nation-state is giving way to both supra-national and sub-national institutions. Underlying both trends is a single force: the empowerment of individuals and communities at the expense of the monolithic nation state. Glocalisation improves the voice, participation and prosperity of individuals and communities. This reverses decades of centralised rule and autarkic economic policies in developing countries. Colonial experience led them to believe that globalisation meant imperial enslavement. And many claimed that political decentralisation could spark secession, endangering their new-found nationhood. Alas, too often centralisation and autarky proved to be excuses for concentrating all political and economic power in the hands of ruling cliques, thus disempowering citizens (The Economic Times, 2002). This scenario is definitely negated by coflictual interactions between economic and political globalization especially on African states. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/jrph Journal of Research in Philosophy and History Vol. 3, No. 2, 2020 41 Published by SCHOLINK INC. 4.5 The African Renaissance and the Globalization Onslaught 4.5.1 Can Sub-Saharan Africa Return to Old Social Structures Although there is a lack of a clear definition of the term African renaissance, the views of its proponents seem to echo; "a rebirth of Africa‟s self image, a rediscovery, reawakening, or reinvigoration of the African glory, unity, consciousness and collective spirit, following the demise of economic and political cataclysms, such as colonialism, intertribal conflict, economic balkanization, bad governance and apartheid among others". The issues of African political unity and African development co-operation and integration go back a long way. For quite some time these issues progressed along disparate trajectories: the issue of political unity is much older and is linked with the histories of Pan-Africanism and the Organisation of African Unity; the other issue, that of continental and sub-regional development co-operation and economic integration is more recent and is linked to the Lagos Plan of Action (LPA) of 1980. For many years the political issues of continental unity dominated: "they manifested in demands for decolonisation, liberation from colonial rule, and the promotion of continental unity through the institutions of the Organisation of African Unity (1963-2000). Since then the African Union was established, now also providing for an Pan-African Parliament and an African Economic Community which links the institutions for political unity to the ideas about integration and NEPAD (the New Partnership for African Development)." (NNP, 2004). According to Francis Owusu: The long-standing disagreement between the international community and African leaders over an appropriate development strategy has been settled by the World Bank's Comprehensive Development Framework (CDF) and African leaders' New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD). Both documents support neo-liberalism and see increased global integration as the key to Africa's development (Owusu, 2003). NEPAD has undergone several changes of name, evolving from what was initially known as the Millennium Africa Plan (MAP) through the New Africa Initiative (NAI) to NEPAD. It has its roots in the African Renaissance initiative launched by the South African president, Thabo Mbeki, several years ago. The underlying message of the African Renaissance and NEPAD is that Africans must take charge of their own destiny. The introduction to NEPAD‟s founding document states: "The Programme is anchored on the determination of Africans to extricate themselves and the continent from the malaise of underdevelopment and exclusion in a globalising world." And it later underscores this message by stating: "Across the continent, Africans declare that we will no longer allow ourselves to be conditioned by circumstances. We will determine our own destiny and call on the rest of the world to complement our efforts (NEPAD, 2001)." There is a fundamental contradiction between the aspirations espoused by the African Renaissance and the onslaught of economic globalization. Former Present Mbeki‟s one time assertion that "... we cannot win the struggle for Africa‟s development outside of the context and framework of the world economy" on 28th September 1998 (Matheba, 2006) categorically stipulates how the issue of African identity and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/jrph Journal of Research in Philosophy and History Vol. 3, No. 2, 2020 42 Published by SCHOLINK INC. oneness is self defeating in the wake of international or transnational political, economic and social interactions and interventions suggested by neo-liberal globalization. In principle, owning to the fact that the homogenization implications of globalization gradually disempower weak states, and in lieu of the conflict between economic and political globalization, not only will the African masses become poorer as the world economy progresses to operate as a single unit, but also their governing institutions will collectively have little influence in determining economic policy priorities. More so, "there is no essential African, no essence to being African, no „one thing‟ by which we may say there is no essential African, except geography and history perhaps. Among the most salient aspects of that geography or history is its construction from the European point of view. If there is one identity to Africa, it is the one given by the colonial powers. If there are clear borders in Africa, they are those drawn by these same powers (Cochrane, 2001). The notion of an African Renaissance must take on a different character than one that sees linkage to the global economy as primary and technological equivalence as a sine qua non for such a linkage. It introduces into the idea of an African Renaissance something more than „catching up‟ with modernity, proposing that alongside any such moves must come attention to the way in which Africans do actually construct alternative practices, behaviors and identities without recourse to any primitive (in the strict technical sense) or quixotic African Past (Cochrane, 2001)." 4.6 Economic Liberalization versus Political Localization The state in Africa has been cajoled to privatize virtually all its public enterprises at give away prices by the IMF and World Bank. The resultant of this has been massive unemployment and dire poverty but surprisingly most of the monies derived from the privatization process have disappeared in thin air-I mean the bellies of the ruling class (The Monitor, 2001). The efficacy of the privatization project cannot be over emphasized owning to the fact that the people it was envisaged to benefit were not consulted at all (Munyonyo, 2002). Surprisingly, the forces that are behind economic liberalization in Africa are virtually silent when it comes the liberalization of the politics as long as their interests are being catered for under the undemocratic political status quo. For example, the government of Uganda virtually liberalized all its public enterprises but vehemently demonized political pluralism in favour of "no party political democracy" under the guise that if political parties are allowed to operate in Uganda, they would be a recipe for disaster because Uganda has no economic classes that would negate the ethnic and tribal inclinations and allegiances. The state in Uganda has theoretically okayed political pluralism due to political pressure from donors and the international community and has "transformed" the political utopia formally disguised as a no party democracy (of course one party) into a political organization (The Monitor, 2003). The above is an unequivocal elucidation of the conflictual relationship between the forces of political and economic globalization however, the forces of economic globalization seem to have reclaimed the day hence sweeping African states off their feet using the loan conditionality ruse. Henry Steiner and Philip Alston explicate that the historical models of the structural adjustment programmes required by www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/jrph Journal of Research in Philosophy and History Vol. 3, No. 2, 2020 43 Published by SCHOLINK INC. the IMF as conditions to a loan instituted new-liberal programmes that generally had the effect of requiring governments to cut back on social welfare programmes and related economic and social rights, to engage in deregulation and privatization, and to stress budget balancing as a vital ingredient of adjustment (Steiner & Alston, 2000, p. 1343). The fund‟s 1997 governance guidelines acknowledge that it is difficult to separate economic aspects of governance from political aspects. IMF loan conditions are politicized because they go far beyond monetary matters to cover trade, liberalization, privatization and financial reform, priorities said to reflect the strategic interests of major stakeholders notably the USA and France (Steiner & Alston, 2000, p. 1347). 4.6.1 Gender Relations and Patriarchal Social Structures The problem of male domination vis-à-vis female subordination is firmly entrenched in the African social milieu and explicitly manifests itself in the political, social, religious, legal and economic aspects of society. Despite the seeming commitment by African states to end gender-based violence and discrimination and the international pressure to gender mainstream (engender) the politics and the economic spheres of life in Africa, the problem still persists. There is an apparent conflict between the demands of globalization on African states and the drive to preserve the cultural particulars therein. Uganda for instance has witnessed the resuscitation of traditional leaders and institutions that are a clear reflection of a patriarchal society. Although some of the monarchs have disassociated themselves from certain outrageous cultural practices such as the "Nakku" issue in Buganda (Note 6), the resurgence of misogynistic cultural mannerisms and values (ebyaffe) that infringe on women‟s rights are eminent such as the denial of women the right to own land and property. African states have a challenge to harmonize all these tendencies with the human rights implications of political globalization. 4.7 Promoting and Protecting Minority Rights 4.7.1 Communitarian Social Structures and Minorities African states are not only faced with ethnic and political minorities but also minorities as a result of sexual orientation. These include; homosexuals, lesbians, intersex and transgender persons. Since time immemorial, the continent has witnessed a number of media reports related to the harassment of homosexuals and lesbians especially in Uganda and Zimbabwe (Human Rights Watch, 2003, BBC, 1998). African states are challenged by the need to protect their societies from "repugnant" cultural practices but are at the same time inundated by the obligation to promote and protect international human rights which they have fully accented to without any double standards. It is therefore not surprising that after intensive international pressure, President Museveni who had vehemently castigated same sex conjugal relations was lured to assert that homosexuals can be tolerated in Uganda as long as they kept their sexual orientation secret (Note 7). The urge by African leaders to preserve cultural identity and the moral fabric of the African communities is often surmounted by the demands of globalization. The mere fact that almost half or more than half more of many budgets of African states are externally financed by donors and IFIs gives www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/jrph Journal of Research in Philosophy and History Vol. 3, No. 2, 2020 44 Published by SCHOLINK INC. these donors the discretion to manipulate the tune of African economic and social behavior. For example, despite Uganda‟s determination to pass the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, 2009, which aimed at criminalizing homosexuality, the bill was shelved for some time due to international condemnation. Uganda‟s Minister of Justice "advised that homosexuals should be tolerated and that criminalizing them would be difficult to enforce, but he qualified his advice by cautioning LGBT persons to refrain from demonstrating same-sex attraction or related sexual behavior within the public space. The Uganda Human Rights Commission submitted to Parliament its judgment that it would be illegal for Uganda to legislate against homosexuality. Lately, President Museveni has conceded that homosexuals have in fact existed in traditional African society and acknowledged that in the past these people were not persecuted (Rukooko & Schwenke, 2012)". On 1st August 2014, Uganda‟s Anti-Homosexuality Act, 2014 was declared null and void by the Constitutional Court because it was passed without the requisite quorum. This law was passed by the Ugandan Parliament on 20th December 2013 and signed into law by President Museveni on 24th February 2014 (FIDH, 2014). The law called for a 14-year jail term for a first conviction, and imprisonment for life for "aggravated homosexuality". Despite Pressures from the public to re-table this law in parliament, the government has decided to shelve the law due to pressure from the precursors of political and neo-liberal globalization (United Nations, 2014). Shortly after nullifying the Anti gay law, Museveni told the members of the National Resistence Movement (NRM) caucus that the Uganda risked having its exports rejected on the American market, a move that would have adverse effects on the country revenues. He also pointed out that some investors from the US like the apparel factory at Bugolobi (which benefited from duty-free access to US markets) were also threatening to wind up their operations in Uganda if the Anti gay law was re-enacted (Kakaire & Kaaya, 2014). Among the challenges Museveni encountered, was a petition by 10 US senators to Barack Obama asking the American president to strike Uganda and Nigeria from the list of US‟ trade partners. Museveni described the dilemma of Uganda‟s Anti-Homosexuality Act using the analogy of a snake in the cooking pot. When you kill the snake, you destroy the pot and hence you will not be able cook and eat (Kakaire & Kaaya, 2014). Unlike in the past, gay persons today are openly coming out of the closet to express their sexual orientations. According to an openly gay Nigerian theologian Rowland Macaulay: Lesbians and gay men of African descent, like myself, today struggle to affirm our identity because we have often been expected to deny our sexuality for the sake of surviving in our spiritual communities. Religious tradition has too often emphasized the holiness of heaven over the holiness of the earth (Macaulay, 2007). Furthermore, a Ugandan LGBT activist Frank Mugisha is also opines that: Traditional culture silences open discussion of sexuality. I am 29. I grew up in a very observant Catholic family in the suburbs of Kampala. From the time I was old enough to have romantic feelings, I knew I was gay, but we weren't supposed to speak of such things (Mugisha, 2011). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/jrph Journal of Research in Philosophy and History Vol. 3, No. 2, 2020 45 Published by SCHOLINK INC. 4.8 African States and the Technological Malaise 4.8.1 Technology Relations and Marginalization The technological malaise manifested in the power of the internet, mobile phones and the print and electronic media has outsmarted the traditional moral fibre especially among the youths. These young people are being bombarded with a secular culture and its subsequent vices like pornography via television, the internet and the print media. Although a majority of Africans are still unable to access the internet, the print media seems to be filling up the lacuna. Consequently many rural Africans are able to access news papers in their local languages some of which contain a modicum of pornographic content. A Ugandan youth reacted to a Uganda government proposal to ban the miniskirt contained in the Anti-Pornography Bill as follows: Out of principle, or defiance, I am wearing something above the knees this week, and many more weeks to come. In science, when something is not researched, it is called a theory and this breeds a hypothesis. So, the Good Priest came up with a theory; "women wearing miniskirts is the reason for road accidents, since men are left ogling." If I were a man, I would be insulted by this assumption, which to me seems to mean men, his opinion, are generally like bulls and self-control is only a myth. Now, in my endeavours, I will make it a point to cross the street at least five times in a day and make sure that I only cross when a man is driving; that will make it about 150 times in a month. With me, I will also carry a notebook to record the statistics of how many road accidents will occur. I would get a statistician to, well, analyse the results and significance and so forth. Then we will determine if the Minister's allegations are well founded. If I find out otherwise, it would have nothing on me because I happen to have a pair of nice legs. Maybe it would also be prudent of me to visit police records, draw a pie-chart with drunken driving, over-speeding, and women being compared. As per the priest, women take up a very big percentage of causes of road accidents. And, how in the world do the Members of Parliament take time off to discuss how long the hem of one's skirt should be? Then, there are the "holier than thou" who it is safe to assume share the Lord's throne. In their opinion, how short a skirt is the reason there is a lot or moral decadence in society? Really? I guess I, alongside many others, need to see the report on this. So, supposing it is their daughter that ends up in jail? Or are theirs beyond the law or perhaps like their parents, they are saintly. And how short is too short? Are there going to be different dimensions for the different types and shapes of women or is it going to cut across? Are they going to tell us what percentage of one's bosom should or should not be on display? In a special budget, will they aid every woman or dressmaker perhaps shop attendants with tape measures so that we all get it right? How much cleavage is too much? They are just time wasters I conclude. Now, let me hear them ask for my vote come 2016; then they will know who has the upper hand (Nakakande, 2013) (Note 8). The technological malaise has tremendously widened the gap between the elders who are the custodians of cultural values and the young. No wonder, many African urban and semi-urban areas are "full" of drug addicts, street children and prostitutes. The African state cannot be blamed for failure to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/jrph Journal of Research in Philosophy and History Vol. 3, No. 2, 2020 46 Published by SCHOLINK INC. regulate the internet-after all this is a problem that cuts across the globe. However, the reluctance of African states to satisfactorily regulate the print and electronic media and the failure to repeal anachronistic media laws cannot go un critiqued. It must be noted that African leaders are only interested in regulating the media in order to promote their political skirmishes. African states are more and more consolidating their status as technology consumers other than innovative participants in the technological revolution. This dependency syndrome in principle repatriates all the profits out of the technological transactions back to western nations "where they belong". African governments have gracefully embraced the winds of technological change but virtually lack appropriate policy frame works to safe guard their "humane" cultural values. 4.9 Africa and the Third Globalization 4.9.2 Civil Society Relations Africa is not only faced with the globalization envisaged in the universal "languages" of ; money, the internet, and democracy and human rights but also the third globalization movement in the form of transnational human rights networks of both public and private actors. This international civil society is steadily working with governments, internal institutions and multinational corporations to promote both democracy and the standard embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Steiner & Alston, 2000, p. 1347). Although many African states have managed to cover their political skullduggery in relation to the violation of human rights and the negation of democracy, by compelling national civil society organizations to practice self-censorship using draconian laws, the forces behind the third globalization have managed to uncover the skeleton in the cupboard hence cautioning global actors such as multinational corporations and international institutions to warily deal with such governments. This has in principle put to test the fact that African states can no longer afford to play an isolationist role in the face of neo-liberal globalization forces. 5. Conclusion There is no doubt that the African state is positioned in a neo-liberal globalization that is precedented on imperial economic integration at the expense of good governance and social justice. No wonder, the African state continues to have puppet economies and repressive state apparatuses and practices, a scenario that has worsened inequality and human rights abuse. It would be fallacious to argue that the African state has not benefited from the forces of globalization. However, the African state is practically impotent to filter the bad and good cultural phenomena that are ushered in the African social milieu by the spectre of globalization. Consequently, the acculturation dialectics have been neutralized by the dialectics of enculturation. The polarities between the forces of political and neo-liberal economic globalization in the African state locale have compromised development centred on the human person. Unfortunately, the covertly evil forces inherent neo-liberal economic globalization have superimposed the good motives of political globalization and rendered the African state amazingly overwhelmed. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/jrph Journal of Research in Philosophy and History Vol. 3, No. 2, 2020 47 Published by SCHOLINK INC. References Aihwa, O., & Moore D. (2002). Critical Ethnographies and Globalization. Retrieved on December 20, 2019, from http://anthropology.berkeley.edu/gandg.html#ggoverview Amnesty International. (2000). Annual Report. BBC. (1998, April 23). Mugabe Attacks Homosexuals. Retrieved July 15, 2020, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/82377.stm Blanchete, O. (2001). Globalisation or Humanism: A question of priorities in Human Development. Retrieved July 15, 2020, from http://www.crvp.org/book/Series01/I-19/contents.htm Boron, A. A. (2005). Empire and Imperialism: A critical Reading of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. London: Zed Books. Bourdieu, P. (1989). 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Political globalization runs parallel to economic globalization and hence transcends nuances such as; free markets, economic growth, market logic. It is characterized by the advocacy for the implementation of good governance, civil, political, economic and cultural rights and global security guaranteed by a strong international legal frame work. Note 2. Economic globalization is fueled by international trade agreements signed between nations. The goal of these agreements is to get rid of barriers to trade by allowing companies to move their factories to countries with the lowest labour and environmental standards, countries where they can produce their products the cheapest and therefore sell them for the lowest price, earning them the highest profits. Note 3. Neo-liberalism (global market capitalism) aims at destroying the collective structures which may impede the fine market logic. Note 4. In August 2001, the government of Uganda deployed its army, the UPDF, to evict over 400 families with a population of over 2000 people in order to create a 9.6 square mile space for a Germany investor Newmann Kaffe Groupe locally registered as Kaweri Coffee Plantation ltd. These people were not compensated by the government and many of their children could not go back to school because their parents had lost the means of livelihood to sustain them. The people sought redress with the UHRC but were not helped because it does not resolve matters pertaining to land. Note 5. Acculturation is the process by which one‟s culture is inexorably interplaying with other cultures as a result of which it is influenced and modified beyond human control (Dalfovo, 2002). Note 6. In 1999, feminist and gender activists successfully blocked the "mock marriage" between the Kabaka (king) of Buganda and the 14 year old virgin (Sarah Nakku) who had been chosen to be the ceremonial wife of the already betrothed 44 year old traditional monarch. Nakku was to become a symbolic wife of the Kabaka whom the Kabaka marries to perform certain cultural rituals. He is not supposed to sleep with her, neither is she supposed to sleep with a other man for the rest of her life. In most cases she is confined to the palace and isolated in many aspects like even having to eat her food alone though occasionally she graces the royal functions. see, Uganda sacrificed for the king, Inter-church coalition for Africa (Gender and Women Rights News, 2003). Note 7. In September following a wedding between two men, president Museveni directed the police to arrest and charge all homosexuals. This was followed by reports of rampant harassment of homosexuals. In October five people were reportedly arrested at a meeting by the army and police officers accused of being homosexuals and held illegally for up to six weeks in illegal detention centers, army barracks and police stations before being released without a charge. A number of people fled the country fearing arrest. In November of the same year the president stated that homosexuals could live in Uganda as long as they kept their sexual orientation secret (Amnesty International Report, 2000, p. 246). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/jrph Journal of Research in Philosophy and History Vol. 3, No. 2, 2020 51 Published by SCHOLINK INC. Note 8. Stella Nakakande, Personal View: Go on: Lock me up for wearing a Miniskirt, The Monitor, Saturday, April 27, 2013.