Customer Reviews

The Shackled Continent

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In this captivating book, the author shares his experiences of Sub-Saharan Africa by exploring the reasons for the region's abject poverty and suffering. Guest takes into account factors like for example climate and history, whilst quoting African writers like Chinua Achebe, Themba Sono and Chenjerai Hove.

The text often focuses on rays of hope amidst the despair so the book is not a relentless tale of woe. Guest identifies negative issues like tribalism and corruption and the waste of aid money while pointing out positive developments in places like Botswana, South Africa, Uganda and Senegal.

He examines the good results in countries that follow sound fiscal and monetary policies as opposed to the vampire state in places like Zimbabwe or the failed state in e.g. Congo (Zaire). A very important point that Guest makes is that Africa can develop and improve the lives of its people without sacrificing its culture. Japan is proof enough that modernity does not necessarily threaten an indigenous culture.

Guest discusses Rwanda's holocaust and religious clashes in Nigeria, takes a balanced look at South Africa's successes and its failures like its lack of an AIDS policy and criticises western countries for their agricultural protectionism that is holding Africa back. More Western aid is not the answer, and in some places mineral wealth has been more of a curse than a blessing.

He makes a plea for increased trade and praises the stability that exists in those countries where property rights are respected. He also surveys the situation of the media, where both oppression and lack of money are impediments to a free press. The book ends on an optimistic note with the example of a young man in the KwaZulu province of South Africa having become a successful businessman after abandoning a life of violence.

The book concludes with bibliographic notes and an index. The Shackled Continent can be heartbreaking at times, but the overall tone is optimistic, and realistically so. The book leaves an impression of hope and the reader can only pray that good government may soon come to Africa. The title of South Africa's national anthem by Enoch Sontonga, says it all: "Nkosi sikelele i'Afrika", meaning God bless Africa.

One cannot help get the impression that Africa only surfaces in the news whenever there is famine in that continent, another pogrom, or when the bizarre excesses of one of its many despots is exposed.

In this highly readable and provocative book complete with detailed footnotes and a useful index, Robert Guest, African editor of the Economist, draws on his vast experience as a correspondent in sub-Saharan Africa. He chronicles the endemic poverty, egregious corruption and blatant cronyism, vicious inter-tribal feuds (including a harrowing account of the Rwanda genocide), and the squandering of millions of dollars of foreign aid in the breezy, informal style one has come to associate with the Economist.

Why is Africa so poor, indeed becoming more of a `basket case', asks Guest? Afterall, Africa has received the equivalent of six Marshall plans since 1960 (p.150). Despite this infusion of $US400 billion in aid, all but four of the 34 countries on the UN list of Low Human Development indicators are in Africa.

From the outset, Guest concedes that Africa has suffered at the hands of rapacious Western powers which ruthlessly exploited cheap labour and carved up the continent without consideration for tribal loyalties. Quoting historian, Basil Davidson, these loyalties have eclipsed any allegiance to the nation-state which have hindered efforts to govern Africa's 600 million citizens. Nor has geography been kind to Africa (pp.7-8). Extreme, warm climates contribute to the prevalence of malaria and other debilitating tropical diseases which cripple large segments of the African workforce and stall economic progress.

Notwithstanding these drawbacks, Guest is in no doubt that Africa's malaise is primarily due to the incompetence and abuse of power by its authoritarian leaders whose kleptomania has prevented the continent from modernising and reaching its full potential. The wealth generated from Africa's immense quantities of natural resources, as well as billions of dollars of Western aid, have been siphoned off by `vampire' states. He is particularly scathing of African elites and Western apologists who reflexively assign blame for Africa's abject poverty on imperialism arguing that many non-African nations have overcome their own legacy of colonialism, and that this experience has not been an unmitigated evil (p.9).

Guest might have explored the argument that the behaviour of developed nations perpetuates the cycle of bad governance and diverts overseas aid from those states most in need. Governments and corporations in wealthy countries rarely seem to question the legitimacy of unscrupulous and corrupt rulers in the developing world to forge deals on buying and selling of oil or minerals that belong to the peoples of those nations. Nor do they demur when the resultant windfalls are used to purchase arms - from manufacturers in the developed world. These fuel the wars and civil strife racking Africa. By the end of the 1990s, one in five Africans lived in a country engulfed in a civil or cross-border war (p.54).

The book's coverage of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa reinforces Guest's recurring theme that factors such as denial, neglect and superstition are key impediments to tackling the crises it faces. AIDS has lowered life expectancy, devastated families and is draining resources from communities and local economies. Hardest hit are Zambia and the otherwise successful, Botswana. With the notable exceptions of Uganda and Senegal, African governments have generally been loathe to admit the ruinous potential of the HIV virus and failed to prevent its spread through public health campaigns. Some of Guest's observations on the spread of AIDS can seem a little trite, such as his suggestion that `[T]hose who cannot afford television find other ways of passing the evening' (pp.16, and in case we missed it, repeated on p.99). Nevertheless, his account of this ongoing tragedy is as comprehensive and compassionate as could be expected in a book of this scope.

Having catalogued Africa's woes, mixing anecdote with analysis, Guest advances several solutions to address the continent's ills. Two countries, Zimbabwe and South Africa, are telescoped in Guest's assessment of Africa. He recounts how the post-liberation governments and their supporting elites in those countries have taken the short cut of expropriating assets instead of developing their own - and have suffered economically as a consequence. The Mugabe regime is condemned as being symptomatic of all that is wrong in Africa - a nation with great potential thwarted by despotism. On South Africa, Guest is less convincing, especially his political analysis of that country's recent history. In one of his last pieces of journalism, the late Anthony Sampson, maintains that it is flawed to assert, as Guest does, that the collapse of the Soviet Union prompted the ANC, the main black liberation movement, to renounce Marxism. Rather, it was the American banks, and the sanctions imposed by the US Congress - pressed by Christian and student lobbies - that undermined apartheid long before the collapse of the USSR.

Guest recommends wholesale economic modernisation throughout Africa. This is where the book stumbles. As one would expect of a journalist from the Economist, he is an unashamed advocate of the `free' market as an antidote to the ills plaguing Africa. To be sure, any economic regeneration must entail some adherence to the market, if only because Africa cannot prosper and attract badly-needed foreign investment without participating in the global economy. And regressing to a command economy or the failed model of collective farming - ujama - followed by Tanzania under the benign reign of Julius Nyerere, would only deepen Africa's underdevelopment.

However, Guest fails to examine whether the unswerving adherence to market solutions promoted by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund do more harm than good by entrenching economic inequality and engendering social instability. A new work by Chang and Grabel ('Reclaiming Development: An Alternative Economic Policy Manual', London, Zed Books, 2004) challenges the `myths' of neoliberal economic policies in both the developed and developing world have contended that interventionist policies that regulate the market are entirely compatible with economic growth and national well-being.

The author does acknowledge, though, that trade remains slanted in favour of the developed world, and that subsidies and import barriers imposed by many developed countries need to be dismantled. He notes that agricultural protectionism amounts to an astonishing $1 billion a day - equivalent to the GDP of all of sub-Saharan Africa (p.165).

Guest only briefly touches on debt relief, a cause popularised by rock stars such as Bono and Bob Geldof. Recently, the British Government offered an assistance package to Africa doubling bilateral aid to £1 billion in 2005 and writing off 100 per cent of the debts of the globe's poorest countries. Guest would approve the conditions that are increasingly being attached to such generosity: namely, that African leaders embrace political reforms that enshrine openness, transparency and the rule of law, as well as democratic advances that hold these leaders accountable to the people they serve. In other words, economic reforms must be accompanied by wide-ranging restructuring of African political institutions.

A more far-reaching proposal from Jeffrey Sachs, head of the UN Millennium Project and special adviser to the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, aims to convince the G8 countries that $75 billion per year in aid till 2015 is required to eradicate extreme poverty.

Guest favours trade as a more reliable vehicle to curb poverty than yet more infusions of foreign aid (p.162), but remains surprisingly sanguine about Africa's future. It is likely that a combination of these two views - massive outside assistance, and radical internal political and economic reforms - is needed to lift Africa from perennial squalor to the prosperity Guest believes that continent is capable of achieving.

Why is Africa the only continent that has not seen economic growth in the last 40 years? It is all too easy to blame just AIDS and the legacy of colonialism for all the problems. In this razor-sharp analysis Robert Guest uses examples from his experience as a traveling journalist for The Economist to explain his view on Africa's problem. Sure, AIDS and other infectious diseases is one of them, but far more important are corrupt leaders, warlords fighting for the raw mineral reserves in many countries and the enormous amount of red tape in combination with the impossibilities to get loans when you want to start a company. The appalling infrastructure (especially roads) together with policemen and other officials one has to bribe along the way do not help either to get from A to B. And often it is in the interest of the political leaders to steer up tribalism to divert people's attention from the misdeeds of the government.

Robert Guest not only describes the problems, but also discusses possible solutions, which in his opinion mainly lie in giving people opportunities to develop themselves and trade freely. A very well-written book with a lot of recognizable examples for a regular Africa traveller like myself. It's not often that I read a book like this in 1 day, but this one I did.

This is an excellent book. The author takes what could be a dry as Karoo dust subject and makes it come alive. The basic premise is that much of the population in sub-Saharan Africa is poor while the countries are rich in resources. It doesn't need to be that way. Good government coupled with enlightened economic policies can change the region into an economic dynamo.

One of the more entertaining and, at the same time, thought provoking chapters has to do with transporting a truck load of beer from the brewery in coastal Douala, Cameroon to a distribution depot 500 km to the east. A planned two day trip becomes four on the road. The troubles encountered, 47 police checkpoints among other things, illustrates the problems to be overcome.

It is a generally up beat book that doesn't pull punches when they need to be thrown.

Like too many books these days, more and better maps would be nice to supplement the text.

The Guest book was a kind of interesting counterpoint to The State of Africa, by Martin Meredith. The Meredith is by far the superior book, but Guest offers a more anecdotal journey over the same terrain.

The Shacked Continent is witty, funny and tells a mean anecdote. Unfortunately, Guest seems to think that wit, humor and stories are a substitute for a well-argued thesis. If you read the epilogue, it is clear that Guest thinks that people dislike the book because he is "blunt and clear". In fact, I disliked it because he said very little of original interest while building his arguments up as though they were entirely novel. He also stops to take aim at every (perceived) liberal myth that he can find. While amusing, it hardly seems relevant to the point.

If you would like to read this sort of book, I would certainly recommend William Easterly over Robert Guest. He makes many of the same points, but with a much sounder base under his feet.

Note to publisher: A bibliography would have been useful.

This excellent book of 288 pages is an examination of Africa and all it's problems and potential, by a reporter for the London-based The Economist magazine. Robert Guest was one of their African correspondents for seven years, residing for most of the time in Johannesburg, South Africa.

This book was recommended to me by a friend who's travelled extensively in Africa and whose wife is African.

A term frequently used for Africa is "an enigma." In this book Guest looks at the historic and current reasons why Africa is so poor, and what can be done about it. It is a book about sub-saharan Africa, so the issues of Arab North Africa or of Darfur and the Sudan never come up.

Despite the serious, indeed tragic subject matter, Guest manages humor and a breezy style.

A brief sample of some things he touches on - African Socialism (the failure of) - Mugabe and the gradual destruction of Zimbabwe - Nigerian Petrodollars and Nigerian Tribalism - progress in South Africa - the fall of Zambia, from a promising position the 60's to total basket case - success in Botswana - how first world trade protectionism costs Africa twice what it gets in aid from the developed world.

He tells a funny story about an 18 hour drive with a Guinness brewery beer truck to supply bars in Cameroon. Or rather it should have taken 18 hours, but actually took five days because of horrible roads, corrupt police and third world bureaucracy. (NOTE - despite this, it's still worth it for Guinness to do business in Africa. One thing I learned when I lived in Jamaica is that breweries always manage to turn a profit!)

How does Africa leap into the 21st century? Guest offers some standard answers - eliminate the corruption, improve the infrastructure, don't give foreign aid to corrupt regimes. He points out that Africa, by borrowing contemporary technology, can leapfrog over some problems. For example, why build land phone lines when you can go straight into the cellphone era.

So, a fine book and I learned quite a bit. One example: the mid nineties genocide in Rwanda as Hutus slaughtered 800,000 Tutsi's (and any Hutus who protested). I always assumed there was emnity between the two tribes going back for centuries. Not so. They got along just fine until the Belgians arrived and took over from Germany after World War I. The Belgians literally stirred up rancor between the two tribes.

Another fine book on third world problems and how they have developed and what not to do to solve them (and a few things that work) is "The Elusive Quest for Growth." Also highly recommended.

Chapter by chapter, Guest takes up a number of the challenges facing Africa and examines them. Beginning with the rapacious and rabidly corrupt power lechers who have headed up the governments of many, if not most African countries since independence, he then moves through topics such as how abundant mineral wealth and foreign arms supplies have lengthened the violent power struggles that have wracked the continent, the social and economic devastation of the AIDS plague, how tribal loyalties have been exploited by those wishing to seize or maintain power, why Western aid policies have largely failed and how trade would be a better alternative.

The book's portrait of Africa is not all negative. The remarkable economic growth of Botswana and the huge (though belated) success by Uganda and Senegal in tackling the AIDS problem are discussed. The post-apartheid successes and challenges in South Africa are examined and some cautious reasons for hope are put forward.

Within each of the topics examined, Guest uses a mixture of illustrative historical examples and stories from his own personal experience as a journalist for The Economist in Africa to support his arguments. His style is engaging and very easy to read and his comments are perceptive and enlightening. If I have one criticism of the book, it would be that each of the topics discussed is largely self-contained with few threads connecting the various arguments. Overall an extremely informative read, however.

Sub-Saharan Africa is frequently in the headlines, but rarely does one read anything truly brilliantly-researched, extraordinarily well-written, or intelligently analytical about why Africa has suffered---and continues to suffer---so much. Robert Guest, a correspondent for The Economist, the premier English weekly news and analysis magazine, devoted seven years of his life to reporting on Africa. In addition to his weekly dispatches, this indispensable book is the extraordinary result.
No one writing in English today has the ability of Robert Guest to get to the heart of a large, thorny issue with such wit, such insight and such pleasurable prose. Although the subject matter here is often grim, reading Robert Guest is never a grim experience. He combines the wit of P.G. Wodehouse with the analytic genius of the finest political scientist, historian or anthropologist. All of his splendid skills as a diligent reporter and a vivid eye-witness are on display here.
For anyone wishing to understand the challenges and even some hopeful causes for optimism confronting a continent that few will visit with the courage and intellectual curiosity of Robert Guest (going on "safari" to photograph lions, whilst staying at a five-star, air-conditioned lodge is not the same as riding in a truck for five days with an Africa driver trying to traverse 400 miles to deliver beer) this is the book to read. Highest praise to the incomparable, courageous journalist and analyst, Robert Guest.

Thought provoking, intelligent, studiously researched - yet utterly non-judgemental and humane. The Shackled Continent is a must read for anyone who is interested in all things Africa, shame not enough African leaders and politicians alike get their hands on it.

Robert Guest is the Africa editor for The Economist, and to me this book read like a very long version of one of the country or continent Surveys that that magazine publishes from time to time. I suppose its possible Guest actually participating in writing a lot of those surveys himself, and it seems this book may have been thrown together from a lot of notes that he had left over!
I enjoy reading The Economist, so I gave this book five stars. It's generous with criticism of all who let Africa become such a relative disaster, and his criticisms are fair overall. This book isn't one long list of fact following fact; Guest's writing style is entertaining, considering the rather sad subject matter. It's not a book for scholarly research, but if you want a quick overview of the present situation in Africa, this book is a good choice. My only criticism is that, like all journalists who write on Africa (or any other place for that matter), they are required by their employers to go to where there is war, famine and disease. The book not an accurate representation of Africa and all of the nice, generous and friendly people whom I have met who actually fill that continent, but it does give an accurate description of of the source of their problems.