An open space

6 – Making Sense

So what, if anything, are we to make of this book? That is not an easy question to answer because it is not quite clear what lessons are there to draw. That we need more societal responsibility among the elites? That the elites need more backbone if they see their country go in the wrong direction? Far too easy to say when you are not directly involved. That we need better governance, or at the very least a state presence? That peace, development and all the other matters that render a country liveable will never be delivered from the outside? Absolutely. The point is that all these gaps are present in other parts of the world, too. Perhaps they have turned a shade more extreme in the CAR but they are not new.

Hence the great narratives that the writers and editors have wanted to weave around the story of the CAR. This materialise only partially. I liked the historical explanations for CAR’s current predicament, an element that is routinely overlooked when “Africa” is being reported. History matters greatly. The chapters on insecurity (and how this deeply felt notion of existential insecurity is intricately bound up with the way riches are accumulated) gave me interesting insights in a mindset that otherwise remains closed, especially in the case of the elites.

The failure of most if not all foreign interventions are all highlighted although I for one would have been much more severe with this last issue. When eleven peace-related missions have done nothing to lessen the mess the CAR finds itself in, then these missions should be put under the harshest light possible and mercilessly investigated, because they clearly do not do what it says on the label. And clearly, this does not only apply to the CAR. Mali is another place where an ill-considered, ill-conceived and dramatically misguided UN mission along the same lines is going very badly wrong.

There is really only one issue I would like to take with the book. With the exception of one, all contributions are by writers from outside the CAR and they have been drawn from basically two fields: NGOs and academia. We have a political scientist and an anthropologist editing the volume. Contributions come from a professor in African Studies (granted, with a long career in journalism), from researchers and consultants and a student of political science. This pool could have been broader. This is of course not to argue that outsiders should have nothing to say about the CAR. That would be patently risible. But more balance would have been welcome. I remember a volume of essays, done a few years ago about a country blighted by this sinister combination: a gangster state, a resource curse (in this case oil), violence against the population on an industrial scale and very little countervailing power. The volume on Sudan, (Darfur and the Crisis of Governance in Sudan), published by the Prince Claus Foundation of the Netherlands in 2009 provided a rich knowledge base not in the least because many of the contributing authors were Sudanese.

Still, as said at the beginning, this book is more than welcome as a contribution in its own right about a country few of us know a great deal about. The individual papers can be read on their own, as they tell a part of that largely untold story, fascinating, tragic and infuriating in equal measure.

Making Sense of the Central African Republic is published by Zed Books in London and costs £20 in the UK and an estimated €30 in the Eurozone.