Militarism through militarism

Why is there war in Africa? Many academic reputations have been built and ruined trying to answer this question, proffering a wide range of ''root causes'': the superpowers' confrontation during the Cold War, the geopolitical vacuum that followed, Africa's unequal incorporation into the world economy, ethnic and religious divisions, the legacy of colonially created rivalries, weak or collapsing states, overblown ''winner-take-it-all'' states, foreign meddling, lack of international interest. But what happened to what is perhaps the most common theory of war propounded by historians of Europe: that wars arise from the (mis)calculations of interest by political leaders. Niall Fergusson writes in ''The Pity of War'': ''The First World War . . . was nothing less than the greatest error of modern history.''

Gabriel Kolko, in ''Century of War'', attributes European wars to the self-delusions of political leaders who believed they could control and in a meaningful sense ''win'' a war. A parallel with Europe in the first half of the 20th century may not be appropriate for contemporary Africa. Our hypothesis - that war is started by men who mistakenly believe that they can control it and benefit from it - is so simple and obvious that it has usually been advanced only by those who study far-gone times. All history indicates that war, once started, cannot be controlled and can rarely, in any meaningful sense, be ''won''. In almost any war of the last 100 or so years the winners, if any, have been the bystanders. So why does a political leader start a war? Does there come a point at which a military leader is so fatigued by the demands of politics he says: ''fuck this political/diplomatic process. It's too slow and too difficult. Let's just have a battle and kill some people and sort it all out''? Probably yes. And probably he feels a surge of emotion or relief that he has delivered his (and his country's) future back into the hands of fate. And then the moral decay sets in.

Human life becomes relative. The logic of war takes over. The demand of winning, or avoiding defeat, rules all. Politics, life, emotion, the calculus of means and ends, enters an alternative universe. The longer or bloodier the conflict becomes, the higher the stakes and the harder to give way. War breeds war. Militarism breeds militarism. The exhilaration of decision, the orgiastic delight at sending young men to their deaths, becomes the weariness of entrapment in a maze of confusion and hopelessness.

The delusional thinking that sparked the initiation of the war is compounded. And any peace settlement would only expose the flawed decision-making and debased values of the man who made the decision to go to war in the first place. Since war was probably a cop-out from addressing tricky problems, how is the initiator of the war going to explain that after a peace settlement everyone has to go back to conducting messy and uncertain politics at square one, or square minus one - or minus 250.

War, especially protracted and costly war, demands a narrative of comparable scope and grandeur to make it meaningful, to keep its initiators in power, and preserve their legitimacy before their people. Nothing justifies genocide, but it is a historic reality that genocidal extremism in Rwanda developed after the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) invaded in 1990. The Southern Sudanese have legitimate claims to self-

determination and deep-seated historic grievances. But Islamic extremism exploded and took power in Khartoum after the Sudan Popular Liberation Army (SPLA) launched its rebellion. Similarly, southern separatism and anti-

Islamic sentiment have grown massively after the national Islamic coup. Eritrean nationalism was nourished in the crucible of the thirty-year struggle against Ethiopia. And in Africa, where the weaponry for battlefield escalation may be too expensive, and the bureaucratic machinery for mass conscription too ineffectual, our war-makers must resort to ideological escalation instead.

Ethnic or religious extremism is a poor country's Panzer Brigade, and its leader's Viagra - a way of sparking into life the paralytic centralism that afflicts a militarised regime with no war to fight. War is also a golden opportunity for corruption. It is an expensive business, and if the frontline commanders can finance it from their own entrepreneurial activities, so much the better. As for the soldiers, few African militaries can afford to pay pensions or support families, so the opportunity to earn enough cash to buy a small hotel or nice car replaces the more standard benefits provided in industrialised countries.

Wars generate wars. While almost every citizen and soldier becomes weary of war and dreams of finding a way of getting leverage on the war-makers, those in charge derive power, wealth, legitimacy, and psychological satisfaction from the state of affairs. Peace for them is a problem.

The central dilemma of peacemaking is that peace has to be made between the war-makers. But satisfying the demands of the war-makers can only leave a country in a deeply vulnerable position, ruled by people for whom personality, ideology, con-

stituency, and history establish a dangerous proclivity to start fight-

ing again. The long-term challenge is the demilitarisation of politics: creating an environment in which the use of force for political ends no longer commands any legiti-

macy. Africa's world war is the con-

tinent's biggest mistake. It is in the hands of Africa's leaders to stop it.

Alex de Waal, writer and activist, is director of ''Justice Africa''.

Freitag, 27. Juli 2001