Pierre Englebert’s attempt to measure all of Africa1
using the yardstick of a single historical factor is highly
problematic. In this regard, Englebert’s book suffers from four
tendencies, the first two of which involve a dominant mode in4
current writing about Africa, and the third and fourth of which
reflect the constraints of academic publishing, particularly in
the United States of America. Current writing about Africa is7
characterised, firstly, by a remarkable tendency to generalise
about the entire continent, which no author specialising in
Asia, for example, would dare contemplate. This usually10
involves the extrapolation of a single empirical situation to the
entire continent. In Englebert’s case, this clearly relates to his
experience in the eastern Congo, which is made to serve as an13
example for all of sub-Saharan Africa. This tendency is
associated, secondly, with an intensive search for a single
factor that would explain the plight of Africa, a conceptual16
master key that can unlock the puzzle of the “African
exception”. Englebert’s book is a typical example of this
tendency to substitute historical explanations with a philosophy19
of history. He is not concerned with the identification of
contingent factors which, through their myriad combinations
and mutual (correlated) causal processes, have led to the22
emergence of the current complex situation on the African
continent. Instead, he claims that the entire situation arose from
a single historical moment — that of decolonisation — and25
evolved by necessity from this, and that this historical moment
gave birth to a structure of post-coloniality, from which
African states are fundamentally incapable of liberating28
themselves (while non-African post-colonies apparently are
capable). Here, the argument becomes outright theological:
The sovereignty accorded by outside actors represents the31
“original sin” of African statehood. As a consequence, and
keeping in line with this theological mode of thinking,
post-colonial Africa can be saved only by others. 34
T. Bierschenk. Book Review — Pierre Englebert (2009), Africa: unity, sovereignty,
and sorrow. Internet: <http://journals.sub.uni-hamburg.de> (adapted).