Visiting Dictatorland(s)

 

Although it does not have an academic approach per se, Dictatorland. The Men who Stole Africa by award-winning journalist Paul Kenyon may offer to academic researchers a good basis for figuring out the stakes of the research.

As I am often more journalist than academic, I dare to say that good journalism always leads to outstanding academic research. However, even well written journalistic pieces of information are not enough for making it into a serious academic research. Mostly, because although journalism is supposed to use a variety of sources, it may lack the proper critical approach and tools. This is due to lack of time sometimes, but also because it is not that the mission of the journalist: to compare and analyse and refute. A journalist will just be sure that he/she checked all his/her sources properly and offers in the end a quality piece of information reflecting the variety of points of views and approaches. Instead, a good academic article has the voice of the academic represented, as its framework is represented by the critical apparatus and the choice of one or another theoretical approach.

Dictatorland is, from this perspective, rather a collection of direct interactions and personal accounts while touring various countries in Africa: Libya, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea among others. Mostly, there are countries recognized for their rich resources but curses with corrupt governments leaded by dictators with a taste of both cruelty and lack of any contempt for their people. They mostly use the generous resources for peacock themselves - sometimes, literally. As for now, there are many African countries who remain enslaved by their leaders. 

Part of this situation is due, as mentioned in several occasions in the book, to the colonial history, but also to the Cold War tribulations when US preferred to support some paws only because it was useful in the front against the expansion of the Soviet Union. Nowadays though, and those aspects are not so well portrayed in the book, there are many more interests at stake, China being only one of the many main actors involved in using and abusing local resources. 

Each and every one of the cases featured are explained in the smallest details, with many information regarding the cases of dissent as well as the international games at play. However, although there may be a pattern in various situations and taking overs, it is important to avoid making comparisons which risk erase the specificities of the cases. For instance, the comparisons with Middle East, particularly Iran and the Mossadegh case can be useful for having a full picture, but does not necessarily make sense for the logic of the comparisons in itself. 

Books like Dictatorland are reminders not only that there is so much we ignore to know about the African diversity, but also how much share the former colonial powers do have in the current state of dependency and corruption. The problem is that new colonialist, non-Western powers are ready to use this context and deepen further the crisis while stealing the reminder of the resources left.

Rating: 3 stars