It would have been a gigantic undertaking to write Howard W. French's kind of book about all of Africa. Africa is, after all, a large continent with the greatest diversity in species, ecosystems, peoples, languages and histories. French does not attempt such a challenge. His primary focus is the part of Africa that he knows best, Central Africa, and its complex history since independence. While he draws some general conclusions for Africa, resulting from the colonial carving up of the continent, his concern are the events in "the heart of Africa". Given the common misconception that Africa can be regarded as one unitary region, the title "A Continent for the Taking" strikes me as somewhat unsuitable and the subtitle as misleading. Only a few chapters relate French's travels in other countries, all in West Africa, and almost all struggling with their own post-colonial catastrophes such as Sierra Leone and Liberia. One notable exception is Mali where recent history has demonstrated that democratic development is possible despite political, environmental challenges and severe poverty of the vast majority of the population. Here, French finds some of hope among the tragedies.
French feels privileged for his position given his personal background and family connections in and to the region. As West Africa representative for the New York Times between 1994 and 1998, he traveled extensively in the region. The book records one major political crisis after another: most of those happened to occur in Zaire in the last years of Mobutu's reign.
French complements his current affairs coverage with reflections on the impacts of colonial history and political power play during the Cold War. While he places the responsibility of much of the ongoing crisis in the region at the feet of the former colonial powers, especially Belgian's King Leopold, his outspoken critique is particularly poignant regarding the US and its philosophy of "African Solutions for African Problems". Supporting authoritarian strongmen and dictators, he argues, has been more important for American foreign policy than promoting nascent democracy and the protection of human rights. Despite the known brutality and rampant frauds of Mobutu's regime, he was only dropped from the list of "acceptable" African leaders when another equally ruthless strongman, Laurent Kabila, stood at the gates of Kinshasa, the capital. French was also a close and disparaging observer of the US welcome for Kabila as the new president.
French writes with great empathy and passion for the peoples living in Central Africa, the two Congos, one of them the former Zaire, as well as the displaced refugees from Rwanda. They are the real victims of the regimes and the continuing power plays by western governments. These are more interested, he suggests, in the exploitation of rich natural resources, oil, diamonds and metals, than in good governance and democratic participation by the population. For example, French follows groups of desperate Hutu refugees from one camp to another exposing the participation of the Rwandan army (post genocide) in massacres and violence against the refugees and related tribal groups in Eastern Zaire. He laments the Rwandan government's continuing profound involvement with the events in Zaire/Congo and explores the reasons why the US administration failed to intervene.
He interleaves his investigative reporting of events with descriptions of his encounters with many individuals, whether opposition leaders, artists, Hutu refugees or just plain village folk suffering from the fighting in their surroundings. His direct approach invites the reader to follow his travels into remote areas of the lush rainforests or the wide ranging savanna. He focuses our attention on the individuals he meets and their circumstances. Reflecting their perspectives on local events, he lets them convey their views directly in dialogue with him.
It is somewhat disappointing that an important book like French's, published in 2004, stops in 1998 when he left his position in the region. One can appreciate his frustration and sense his exhaustion from four years of crisscrossing the difficult terrain. Nevertheless, the reader would have greatly benefited from and expected some kind of epilogue on the various events still unfolding when he described them. Also, for those not that familiar with the contemporary history of Central Africa, a summary of historical chronology would have assisted in placing the events described more comprehensively. [Friederike Knabe, Ottawa Canada]
