The Afrasian Quagmire: Why Did Asia Advance While Africa Struggled? V.L Ssali – editorial note
- Vick Ssali
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
Recently, our colleague at JSAS, Professor Seifudein Adem, shared with me another article he had written for The Mail & Guardian as part of the newspaper's special Africa Day edition, published on 25 May. In it, he addresses one of the central debates in African political and development studies. If thinkers such as Ali Mazrui identified colonialism's role in creating artificial borders, distorted economies, weak institutions, and ethnic divisions, why have so many post-independence leaders failed to address those problems—and in some cases made them worse? Why has independence not brought the development that many Africans hoped for? More specifically, Professor Adem, a disciple and perhaps the most articulate interpreter of Mwalimu Ali Mazrui's thought, asks: Why did some Asian nations leap ahead while much of Africa fell behind?
As usual, I am pleased to share Professor Adem's provocative article with JSAS Newsletter readers. The question he poses is one that many Africans ponder with a sense of frustration and, perhaps, even shame. After all, many of the explanations commonly offered for Africa's stagnation often sound like excuses. They include arguments such as:
Colonial legacies were deeply entrenched.
Independence did not provide a clean slate. Most African states inherited economies designed to export raw materials, centralized administrative systems, and borders that often ignored precolonial political realities. New leaders were forced to govern through institutions they did not create. Reforming them was far more difficult than criticizing them.
The incentives of power.
Many leaders discovered that the colonial state, despite its flaws, was an effective instrument for maintaining political control. Rather than decentralizing power or redesigning governance structures, some simply occupied the machinery left behind by colonial rulers. Scholars such as Mahmood Mamdani have argued that postcolonial states often reproduced aspects of colonial governance instead of transforming them.
Cold War politics.
During much of the first three decades after independence, African governments operated within the global rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union. External powers frequently supported leaders for strategic reasons rather than for good governance. This reduced accountability and often strengthened authoritarian tendencies.
Elite interests.
One uncomfortable explanation is that some political elites benefited from the status quo. A system that concentrates resources and power can be highly attractive to those at the top, even if it harms national development. In this view, the issue is not blindness but incentives.
The complexity of historical wrongs.
Even when leaders recognized the problem, there was often disagreement about the solution. Should states pursue socialism, capitalism, federalism, pan-African integration, traditional governance structures, or some combination? Africa's post-independence period is full of competing visions rather than a single agreed remedy.
My own argument is that agency matters. We should not fall into the trap of explaining everything through colonialism. Colonialism created major structural constraints, but African leaders and societies have also exercised agency. Some countries experienced periods of relative success, while others suffered from corruption, coups, civil wars, or poor policy choices. These outcomes cannot be attributed solely to colonial history. My native Uganda's political development reflects this tension. One could argue that the country's post-independence crises—from the 1966 constitutional breakdown through military rule and subsequent conflicts—reflect both inherited colonial structures and decisions made by postcolonial leaders. The challenge is determining how much weight should be assigned to each.
Professor Adem's article adds something important to this debate. Rather than replacing the traditional explanations outlined above, it complements them. His major contribution is to shift attention away from institutions, politics, and history alone and toward the nature of modernization itself. His central argument is that many African societies embraced the outward symbols of modernity ("soft Westernization") without sufficiently developing the technical, scientific, engineering, and productive capabilities ("hard modernization") that generate sustainable development.
He is provocative in that he implicitly challenges Africans to look beyond blaming colonialism alone. He asks whether postcolonial leaders and societies prioritized the wrong things: prestige over productivity, consumption over production, and cultural imitation over technological mastery. His use of Ali Mazrui's phrase "Westernization without modernization" is particularly powerful because it captures a reality that many Africans recognize immediately.
Read the article here:
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