Book Review
Oseloka Obaze*
Monday 26 February 2007
Ibrahim A. Gambari
Africa at the United Nations in a Changing World Order
Selected Speeches
(ISBN: 0-9632145-4-3; Chaneta International; Atlanta, Georgia, USA, 2006, p. 551, Price $49.99)
Available at: Misteranire2003@yahoo.com
Collected Speeches are rarely hard-to-put-down thrillers, but they form in their own right a useful genre of modern day publications. Aside from their historical and reference value, they offer us a glimpse into the soul and views of the speaker. Contextually, collected speeches also fill a gap and help researchers and posterity connect the dots between policy and action and between decision making and the eventual implementation of policy or lack thereof. By analogy, any volume of collected speeches, is like a camera with its shutters open, in that it passively records for posterity, without thinking or hard labor, a vivid image of events from the keen perspective of the speaker.
The importance of a collection of speeches such as this, is that it is neither history nor biography, but a combination of both. Like oral history, they help posterity understand the past and the role of the speaker as a protagonist just as a biography would. But unlike oral history, they do not become varnished or undergo transmutation or politically convenient redaction over time.
As the editor of Africa At the United Nations In a Changing World Order, Thomas Okpaku has done a super job in putting together this compendium of speeches by Professor Ibrahim Gambari. The volume covers the period 1990 to 2004, when Gambari was a pivotal player in Nigerian and African diplomacy at the United Nations. Globally, the period was marked by three watershed events: the end of the Cold War, Rwanda Genocide and the September 11 2001 terrorist attack on the United States. The nexus between these three events and the role of the United Nations, were inextricably linked to the fate of Africa and policies that impacted on the African continent at the United Nations.
The importance of this collection may be underscored by the fact that President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and President Sam Nujoma of Namibia agreed to individually write the foreword to the volume. Also, an array of international figures, namely, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Madeleine Albright, Emeka Anyaoku, and Donald Payne, to name a few, consented to provide preview comments and reviews for the volume. As Congressman Payne observed, “for those who share a passionate interest in Africa’s development, this book provides valuable insight into the past and the future of the continent.”
Africa At the United Nations In a Changing World Order documents the evolutionary aspects of multilataralism at the global forum. It critically examines the questions of democracy, human rights, good governance, and development in Africa. In hindsight, it offers a glimpse into the state of the world and Africa, which has since undergone profound transformation, thus affirming in the words of Dr. Gambari, “prescience of some of the observations contained therein”.
The forty-four selected speeches in this volume are compartmentalized into ten neat and related sections. As Gambari observed, it reflects his “belief in the concept of concentric circles of foreign policy interest, objectives and priorities, that is, from Nigeria at the core, extending to Africa, South-South cooperation and the rest of the world”. Invariably, some thematic issues are also covered.
Whilst the selected speeches are all deemed to have significant political relevance -- otherwise why select them—three in particular, struck this reviewer as being of utmost importance. “The Security Council and the (Mis) Handling of the Tragic Situation in Rwanda (1994-1995): An African Perspective” (p.75); “Challenges of United States Policy Towards Africa” (p.423) and “Africa in A New World Order” (p.493). Depending on one’s area of academic or historical interest, several other speeches offer deep insight into the African perspective on specific issues of concern, as well as political, economic, social, and development probmematiques facing Africa. Indubitably, Gambari can authoritatively speak of the role of the UN Security Council in the Rwandan fiasco, because it coincided with Nigeria’s membership of the Council.
The value of this collection lies in the balance and perspective from which the speeches were delivered. While most were given when Gambari was Nigeria’s ambassador to the UN, several others were products of his tenure as an international civil servant and the Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Angola, and later, as the Special Adviser of the Secretary General on Africa. In the latter capacity, he was charged with coordinating United Nations system and international support for the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), which was diligently covered in several speeches.
There is hardly any issue of controversy in this volume, but is sufficiently illuminating in that it sheds light on the intricacies of diplomatic efforts, which were carried out behind the scene as well as overtly, in order to keep Africa’s interest in the forefront of international concern, amidst other competing interests. A key corollary is Gambari’s observation, “As the Cold War waned, the five permanent members discovered that they could indeed collaborate on a wide range of issues. A once largely dysfunctional Council suddenly became a generally effective working body” (p.37). This point, amongst others, highlight how the Cold War had contributed to the supererogatory nature of the Council, to the detriment of international peace and security and specifically, to Africa’s needs.
Gambari’s collection joins an elite class of similar compendiums by African scholar-diplomats. One singular achievement of this unusually heavy, door-wedge volume, is that it offers an insight-- a truly African perspective- of an era that had been tagged as the end of history, not just for Africa but for mankind. Broadly, it mirrors an observation once made by an eminent African, that “The Cold War was over. And Africa lost.” Inevitably, historians will in years to come, explore Africa’s voice and role in the debate that ensued. If as President Mbeki hopes, this book helps in dispelling “myths” and “misconceptions” about Africa, it would have served its purpose. In that context, Professor Gambari has made an invaluable contribution, even if purely from an individual perspective.
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Mr. Oseloka Obaze, an aspiring writer, is a founding member of the Kwenu.com Book Review Forum, which is dedicated to the promotion of books with Igbo and Afrocentric themes. He is also a supporting Member of the African Writers Endowment (AWE). From 1999 to 2005 he served on the editorial board of INYEAKA, the journal of Songhai Charities, Inc., a New Jersey community-based charity founded and run by Nigerians based in New York Tri-state area in the United States, first as its founding Publisher and later as the Editor-At-Large. He is also on the editorial board of The Amaka Gazette, the journal of the Christ the King College, Onitsha Alumni Association in America. His collection of poems, “Regarscent Past: A Collection of Poems” was among the top three finalists in the poetry category in the African Writers Endowment Publishing Grant Program for 2004. His novel, “Happy Eulogy” will be published in the spring of 2007. He reviews books and arts strictly as a hobby.
© Copyright 26 February 2007