United States of Africa? African Union launches all-Africa passport

Great idea in theory, but I don't see it being viable in reality any time soon. The OAU has been around for how long? It makes sense for landlocked countries like Rwanda to have multilateral agreements with bordering neighbors that have access to sea ports, though. I gave up on "Pan-Africanist" pipe dreams long ago. Regional trade agreements are more sensible. Africa is a continent, which also includes Islamist and Arabs, not just "Negroid" populations, so the terrorism point is valid. Stay tuned....

 

Anyone who has ever worked or spent any length of time in the average African country knows how out of touch Mr. Zounmenou is.

I doubt many people who are risking their lives to cross the Sahara and/or the Mediterranean will opt instead for going to another African country for a number of reasons. The unwillingness of African governments to criticize human rights violations by other African governments will not make people fleeing a country very comfortable in neighboring states that turn a blind eye to their neighbors actions. In addition, when times get bad host countries have a habit, not unlike the US, of expelling immigrant communities, as Nigeria did in the past with people from Equatorial Guinea, as recently happened to immigrants from Zimbabwe in South Africa.

 

Very cool. I'll have to look into this even more.

Hopefully they can avoid the pitfalls of the EU.

It's fascinating how the world was divided by old European powers- random lines drawn on a map. It's the reason we have some of the intractable issues in the Middle East and Africa today. I'm glad at least some African countries are trying to make those lines less relevant- after all, they often artificially divide ancient peoples.

Interestingly, this isn't a new idea. I'm a part of the West Indian/Caribbean diaspora. I won't say the island, but it's very, very small. The region has CARICOM passports. It eases travel between these nations. I'm trying to get one of these.

If it's possible, everyone should try to collect at least 1 or 2 other passports. You never know when it might be handy.

 

Man I am so proud of The Africa Union in general and Rwanda, in particular! The dreams of the Pan-african utopia aren't far fetched after all.

 

Dammit..now being a geography nut I want to play 'guess the island'. Very. very small...hmmm..is it independent or a dependency of another nation...?

*Unfortunately I don't share your optimism about Africa. Unless they can get their birth rates in check, even with great economic growth rates they are destined for increasing poverty and instability over there JMHO. And it is not as if the wealth is getting equally distributed and while China is investing, it does not care about anyone over there it is all about getting in where it missed colonialism the first time(when Europe carved up Africa after 1885) and getting a chance at the trough and creating a market for Chinese goods/exercising power in the continent(again JMHO).

 

I was speaking with a colleague about this and he sent me a very interesting report. In many ways an robust African Union and foster greater reunification and reconciliation of peoples who were divided up by colonial Europe. Greater coordination of the continents natural resources could drive economic development. I think Africans are less mobile with significantly weaker infrastructure so there would need to be a great attention placed on connectivity. I do think that there are significant security concerns that need to be addressed like building up an intelligence infrastructure to combat organizations like ISIL, Boko Harim, and Al Qaeda. Allowing terrorist to easily cross borders is the reason why europe is continuously under siege. Make into one country you can make it into all countries.

 

Do the divided up peoples of Africa have a history of ever being 'unified' though? They have to act now and together given that 40 percent of the population is under 15 years old and the continent is expected to more than double from 1.2 billion to 2.5 billion by 2050. They need to make sure that development is (as you stated) about connectivity, and not as it has been in the past about connecting natural resources to ports, etc. for export. You also have to get rid of endemic corruption and do it fast-things need to change and in a hurry because things need to be done way before 2050 and more than a doubling of population.

Is the Sahara a natural barrier to unification? Not only in a geographical sense but in a religious and cultural sense as well? Should sub-Saharan Africa focus on sub-Saharan African unity and development first and foremost? Should Morocco and Madagascar be in the same single African unit? Would that be best for both?

 

I think it is really difficult to have a 'United States' of anything given that the US for the most part developed to what it is today as an individual unit to begin with(at the expense of the original people's already here of course). Any where else this cannot happen-you will have to unify units that are already developed and have developed as distinct separate entities with different languages, cultures, religions, etc. (and the US has developed-for the most part-as a single unit into which people have blended as it expanded). Even if they have commonalities there has been a history now of being separate and that will make things difficult and for anything to resemble a 'United States' there will have to be a strong central government(we stopped being a collection of states long ago) and again that will be very difficult as well(see Europe).

 

True. On the economic front, people over there are discovering new uses of modern tech to overcome obstacles to trade etc., I just hope they don't get crushed by confiscatory taxation or burdensome regulation (cue Fela: "Army Arrangement"). Micro trade and micro lending coupled with personal digital assets can force innovation in the face of bureaucratic strangulation. Rather than the big government gestures and talks in the OAU, I'm more interested in the things that small entrepreneurs are doing with social media
Facebook. Instagram users in the Middle East and Africa use the site in some surprisingly different ways - How Africa

I know African scholar George Attiye addresses this somewhat, but a lot of his writing seems to be aimed more at evening scores against other African politicos and intellectuals. I'd like to research who is the modern African equivalent of my college economic heroes Muhammad Yunus (who was also a favorite of the President's mother) and Hernando DeSoto Polar (father of the Perivian miracle of the 90s); women and men who write to inspire an ownership class among the various African people's. Until you have a sea change in private property rights and small business and entrepreneurship, the big government aspirations of the AOU are meaningless.