Hope for Africa? Vinnie says yes!

I am often discouraged about Nigeria, the country I love and came to regard as my own. So much potential and so much disappointment.

I tuned in to the live video stream from Mount Holyoke College at noon today to hear Vinnie Ferraro, the Ruth Lawson Professor of Politics, talk about “American Foreign Policy: The Burdens of a Reluctant Hegemon.” I studied political science with Ruth Lawson herself – she frightened me with her wisdom and inspired me to dig deeper.

Were there professors who frightened you in college? Were there people who inspired you?

Today’s talk was not frighening in the least! At question time I wrote, “I joined the Peace Corps and went to Nigeria straight from Mount Holyoke in 1962. We were full of hope for Africa. Today I’m so disappointed. Is there still hope?” The question gave my name and class year.

His answer was wonderful. “Catherine, don’t lose hope. Don’t ever lose hope,” he said. “We tend to forget the legacy of imperialism which caused destruction of local culture in the 19^th century. Then African countries faced an incredible misfortune of conflation of the cold war with de-colonization.”Countries in Africa were not truly free – they were forced to decide on alignment with the U.S. or with the Soviet Union. Now with the demise of the Soviet Union, we are seeing countries in Africa able to make choices. But they are still struggling with the legacy of imperialism in their borders.

They face one more task before they can move fully into a modern liberal world – they will need to correlate ‘nations’ with ‘states’. States are territorial legal limits. Nations are made through emotional bonds. There will have to be re-arrangement. Once that happens, I have no doubts. Even today, if you look economically, they are making great strides, though politically they are in a difficult place. (paraphrased from his comments)

I will email him to ask him about the rearrangement he believes may be possible in Africa. He referred to it in later answers about other places, saying that there are 193 countries, but something like 2000 nations. He said that the U.S. has managed to be home to many nations, but maintains one state successfully.