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The Roots of African Despotism: The Question of Political Culture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Ibrahim K. Sundiata
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Extract

Early in this decade a political observer, looking at one of Africa's least known and most sanguinary states, described Equatorial Guinea as “Cambodia minus ideology” (Pélissier, 1980:13). During the eleven year presidency (1968-1979) of Francisco Macias Nguema, up to half of the population was liquidated or went into exile. Little is known on the internal workings or ideology of the regime. However, just as we can no longer say that there are peoples without histories, we can no longer assume that there are rulers without ideologies. Much statistical and other information on Equatorial Guinea is fragmentary or missing. It is possible, however, to trace the lineaments of the rise and fall of the first post-independent government. It is the purpose of this essay to examine that development. We shall seek an explanation, although it be a partial one, of the ideological and economic conditions which provided the context for the creation of a mass concentration camp in the tropics.

Since the nineteenth century, the materialist/idealist dichotomy has been at the center of much historiographical debate. A sub-theme has been the role of the individual in history. An increasingly wide range of scholars have used material conditions as the basis for their analysis. The individual is not an automous historical force, but rather represents a class and its interests as the class acts to maintain or establish its hegemony. Others, on the contrary, continue to maintain that the individual can, under certain circumstances, mold history to his or her will. It can and has been maintained that the idiosyncratic behavior of a leader can be an important independent variable in history.

Type
Articles
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , April 1988 , pp. 9 - 31
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1988

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