Africa: African unity at 50, still “shuffering and shmilingÀ?

Grahamstown: 24 May: As we commemorate Africa Day, the African Union (AU), formerly known as the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), celebrates its 50th anniversary. These two celebratory moments evoke a tragicomic melody in my mind’s ear, “Shuffering and Shmiling” by legendary Nigerian musician, Fela Kuti.

Kuti wrote the in song 1979 during Olusegun Obasanjo’s military rule. The lyrics comment on the hopelessness and militarised political repression that characterised daily life in Nigeria at the time. In the song, he says:

“Every day my people dey inside bus. Forty-nine sitting, ninety-nine standing. Them go pack themselves in like sardine…Them go reach road, police go slap. Them go reach road, army go whip… suffer, suffer… Every day na the same thing.”

As the song resonates in my mind, I realise that the ghost of Kuti is alive forcing us to ask ourselves whether Africans, specifically African women, are still “shuffering and shmiling”, after 50 years of independence.

The African Union Heads of State Summit is in progress in Addis Ababa, under the theme 50th Anniversary Celebration of Pan Africanism and African Renaissance. The Summit aims to take stock of how much progress this unified African body has made by encouraging state collaboration for Africa’s growth. It also aims to draft Vision 2063, a blueprint for Africa’s development for the next 50 years.

Reviewing the legacy of the OAU in gendered terms allows for a sober judgment that avoids the unnecessary nostalgia that might give the OAU too much credit than it actually deserves. Under the OAU ordinary African women were still “shuffering and shmiling” due to the organisation’s masculinist nature and fixation on regime security rather than human security. The OAU ignored feminist calls that without emancipation of women, there will be no peace, democracy or development.

AU Head, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the first ever woman to be elected as chair, reinforced this this message at the recent meeting of the AU’s Ministers of Women’s Affairs and Gender. She said, “Women’s emancipation is the emancipation of everyone”.

The AU replaced the OAU in 2002 and the new body has certainly put gender higher up on the agenda. However, has 50 years of African unity made a tangible difference to the lives of women on the ground?

The AU increased women’s participation and produced institutional mechanisms embedded in a language inclusive of gender in peace, security and development programs, such as the Protocol to the Charter on the Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women, as well as the AU’s declaration of 2010-2020 as “African Women’s Decade.”

These efforts should not be seen as charitable gestures to women, but rather as fundamental to the survival of the current body and the prosperity of the African continent.

The past ten years have seen a greater recognition of women’s agency and contribution in ending wars, for example, Leymah Gbowee’s role in ending the war in Liberia. However, the war waged against women every day, across Africa persists despite all these paper bound mechanisms and protocols in place.

According to the SADC Gender Protocol Barometer published by Gender Links, within the Southern African Development Community (SADC,) men dominate the economy, whether in the bedroom or the boardroom, women are still voiceless. Young women remain the majority of those newly infected by HIV and AIDS and violence against women is now a pandemic, remaining the most telling indicator of women’s lack of rights and agency.

How much credit can we give the AU for holding critical discussions around vision 2063 behind closed doors, denying access to NGOs and civil society organisations? This seems contrary to Dlamini-Zuma’s recent declaration that the AU needs to “unite or perish.”

If the AU excludes the voices of civil society and pushes paper instead of implementation there will be no “shmiling”. If countries across Africa continue to militarise politics and everyday life there will be more “shuffering” in the region and women will bear the brunt.

Africa Day and the anniversary of the AU remind us that unity is a gendered project that means inclusion and transformation, not merely the ‘unity of some men’. Any African body or country that thinks it can deny people’s rights and still succeed will indeed perish! May Kuti’s plea echo in all our minds; “You Africans, please listen to me as Africans, and you non-Africans, listen to me with open mind”.

Siphokazi Magadla is a politics lecturer at Rhodes University, with a special interest in gender and security, African development and international relations. She writes in her individual capacity. This article is part of the Gender Links Opinion and Commentary Service that provides fresh views on everyday news.