What Is Africa's Problem?

Recent seismic shifts in Congo and Rwanda have exposed the continued volatilityof the state of affairs in central Africa. As African states have shaken offtheir... » 

Recent seismic shifts in Congo and Rwanda have exposed the continued volatilityof the state of affairs in central Africa. As African states have shaken offtheir postcolonial despots new leaders with sweeping ideas about a panAfricanalliance have emerged and yet the internecine struggles go on. What isAfricas problem? As one of the leaders expressing a broad and forceful visionfor Africas future Ugandas Yoweri K. Museveni is perhaps better placed thananyone in the world to address the very question his book poses.In 1986 after more than a decade of armed struggle a rebellion led byMuseveni toppled the dictatorship of Idi Amin and Museveni at 42 becamepresident of Uganda a country at that time in near total disarray. Since thenUganda has made remarkable strides in political civic and economic arenasand Museveni has assumed the role of the eminence grise of the new leadershipin central Africa Philip Gourevitch The New Yorker. As such he has provena powerful force for change not just in Uganda but across the turbulent spanof African states.This collection of Musevenis writings and speeches lays out the possibilitiesfor social change in Africa. Working with a broad historical understanding andan intimate knowledge of the problems at hand Museveni describes how movementscan be formed to foster democracy how class consciousness can transcend tribaldifferences in the development of democratic institutions and how the politicsof identity operate in postcolonial Africa. Musevenis own contributions to theoverthrow of Zaires Mobutu Sese Seko and to the political transformation ofUganda suggest the kind of change that may sweep Africa indecades to come. WhatIs Africas Problem? gives a firsthand look at what those changes might be howthey might come about and what they might mean. «