KOSOVO’S DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE: LESSONS AND QUESTIONS FOR AFRICA

Today, Kosovo declared its independence to much jubilation by the majority ethnic Albanians and to the consternation of the minority Serbians and the Serbian republic. In essence, Kosovo has seceded from Serbia. Since 1990, 33 new countries have been created through secession or merging. Much of these processes were after painful and/or bloody conflicts. Most of these countries were created from the disintegration of the former USSR and Yugoslavia. With exception of Eritrea in Africa, the rest of the countries created through secession and merging in this period have mainly been in Europe with a few cases in Asia. Looking farther back, the history of Europe is replete with secession and irredentism that was accompanied by bloody conflicts. The creation of modern day Italy and Germany in the second half of the 19th century as well as the demise of the Austria-Hungary empire and the Turkish empire at the beginning of the 20th century are but historical examples of these processes.

So, what has been the reason for all this? Ever since the French revolution, humanity has strived to unchain itself from the shackles of domination – class, race, gender, economic, religious……any form of domination. This war has been fought in the political arena, first through the civil route of representational democracy but if this did not work, people resorted to non-violent protest, violent protest and ultimately war to force a civil settlement. Along the way, individual leaders’ aspirations and those of groups that perceive themselves as being dominated have been confused, hijacked, subverted, and thwarted, in some cases extinguished. However, the groups outlived individual leaders and if the issues behind the perceived dominance were not addressed, the conflict would be postponed but not done away with.

Kosovo like Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro before it has unchained itself from Serbian dominance. East Timor in 2002 unchained itself from Indonesia. The former USSR republics broke away from the dominance of Russia and there are still groups within Russia and former USSR states like Georgia that are fighting to break away. We know of other ongoing conflicts – the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka and the Basques in Spain amongst others. Other conflicts have been diffused through offering greater autonomy to regions as the United Kingdom did to assuage the feelings of dominance the Irish, Scots and the Welsh had against the English. In fact, in Northern Ireland it turned into a religious conflict between pro-monarchist Protestants and pro-republican Catholics that is still a thorny issue, while the Scots diplomatically push for more and more autonomy to date. (Interestingly, some pundits were quick to point out that Gordon Brown, a Scotsman, would not be easily accepted as prime minister of Britain by the English) Moreover, many powerful modern day countries have come up with systems of governance that make regions not only feel that they have a voice in central government but which have also devolved substantial power to the regions as is the case in USA, Canada, Australia, Germany, Britain to name a few.

This brings me back to my Africa. The continent where we have 54 countries most of which are ethnically diverse nation states put together during the partition of Africa by European states. To serve their brutal exploitation of the colonies, the colonial masters put up highly centralized structures such as the provincial administration system in British colonies and prefectures in Belgian and French colonies which were headed by central government appointees. On departing, the colonial masters ensured that they left their surrogates in power under structures that continued to concentrate power at the centre. Probably this was done in this way to ensure that there were fewer obstacles to the continued plunder of the continent under neo-colonialism. The new African leaders further weakened any form of local representative government. They plundered their nations wealth with the help of their capitalist or socialist patrons while excluding a large portion of their countries from the wealth and decision making processes of their countries.

So here comes my question. Why is it that the democratic western countries have never been supportive of secessionist movements in Africa to create more ethnically/culturally/linguistically homogeneous states as they have done in Europe for centuries? One fallacy that has been used by both the west and African despots is that such countries would not be viable as states. I disagree, and can point to just a few cases that could be viable – Sudan, DRC and Nigeria. The conflicts in these countries over the years could easily have been reduced if they were split and they would still have been viable having huge populations, landmass (Sudan and DRC in particular) and substantial natural resources. Moreover, there are many tiny countries in Europe that do not have natural resources yet are still very progressive in terms of human development.

Barring secession on account of viability of the states, there is the case of devolution of powers and resources to the regions with elected regional governments. Again, few leaders in Africa have seen it fit to have such systems in their countries. Some countries that have had conflict over the sharing of resources and power have however been driven to the realization that this is probably the only way their countries would hold together. So countries like South Africa and Nigeria have strong devolved government. Sudan after years of conflict between the north and the south has one. War in Ivory Coast has pushed them into one as has been the case in the DRC.
My native Kenya, at the moment in the throes of our most serious post independence crisis, still has a highly centralized government. Feelings of ethnic suspicion, exclusion and dominance, be they real or perceived have finally led the peeling of the thin veneer of national unity that has held shakily for almost forty four years. Anti-devolutionist insist that devolution will lead to ethnic strife and the ethnic cleansing of regions. The odd thing is that ethnic strife has been occurring intermittently under the current constitution and large scale ethnic clashes have been witnessed in this period of crisis. I would rather argue that the law enforcement agencies and the justice systems under the centralized governance system are the ones that are failing.

The second argument of the anti-devolutionists in Kenya is that while the rest of the world is moving towards integrating, devolutionists are seeking fragmentation. I see no evidence of political integration in any region in the world that is merging the sovereign identities of countries. If anything as I have outlined earlier, more countries in Europe are fighting for and getting their sovereign identities. There is definitely more economic integration but only where the citizens of sovereign states agree to it. Hence the EU expands as an economic bloc but has made little headway in political integration.

Should Kenya and other African countries explore devolution as a tool to bring stability and cohesion in their unitary states or shall we wait until separatism knocks on our doors?

microsoft vs google...

...more like ballmer vs schmidt!

google doesn't think microsoft should acquire yahoo!. google's primary objection to microsoft's 31.7 billion euros (44.6 billion us dollars) yahoo! bid is based on antitrust regulations. google should tread carefully since it too can be accused of engaging in antitrust behavior by blocking microsoft's bid.

google will have a hard time fighting off microsoft over the yahoo! bid. i base this claim on the fact that microosft has cash. with cash, they can retain the services of their very powerful legal team. the fact that they haven't made a hostile bid in the past suggests that they are ready to duke this out including through a proxy fight with yahoo!'s board. with cash, microsoft has the option to engage in a tender offer which will allow them to negotiate with yahoo!'s shareholders directly, bypassing the board. simply put, microsoft is wealthy and can afford to pay a high premium for yahoo!'s shares.

although google rarely acknowledges that it is the dominant player in internet search and advertising, it is. microsoft and yahoo!, separately or as one company, have nothing on google. however, microsoft has a lot going for it; it is larger by market capitalization, roughly 55 billion euros (80 billion us dollars) more than google. microsoft also owns ninety percent of the desktop operating system market, an assets that makes it easy to force windows users into using microsoft products and services.

in as much as microsoft need's to diversify its portfolio from the desktop to the internet, market watchers should be sensitive to the rivalry between microsoft's ceo, steve ballmer and google's ceo eric schmidt. this business rivalry will play a factor in the yahoo! bid. schmidt's professional career includes stints at companies that directly compete with microsoft. with bill gates leaving microsoft later this year, ballmer will have more say over microsoft's technical vision (this was bill g's job). ballmer's aggressive leadership style and his propensity to publicly criticize microsoft's competition will make for an interesting fight with google over the yahoo! bid.

below are a few companies, products and services that schmidt, either directly or by association, has been a part of. it should help illustrate why ballmer is in this to win, and win he will. however, microsoft should learn that it can't be all things to all people. this is why google and apple are so successful thus far, they specialize.

note: schmidt has worked at sun, novell and is on apple's board of directors.

• mark lucovsky (google) - poached by google. lucovskly was a key player in the development of microsoft's flagship network operating system, windows nt. windows 2000, xp, server 2003, vista, home server, server 2008 are all based upon the windows nt system. he also did some work on windows live id, formerly known as .net passport; briefly known as microsoft passport network.
• java platform (sun) - operating system independent, mainly used for server programming in the java programming language. it is a competitor to microsoft's .net framework, a large library of pre-packaged solutions to common program requirements written specifically for the framework. the .net framework, unlike sun's java platform, is intended to be used on the windows platform.
• mono (novell) - a project led by novell to create a .net framework compatible set of tools. mono is operating system independent.
• novell netware and suse linux (novell) - network operating systems geared toward business customers. direct competitor to microsoft's windows server product.
• mac os (apple) - apple's primary operating system since 1984. competes with windows operating system. watch mac vs windows ads.
• ipod + itunes and itunes store (apple) - a popular portable media player managed by itunes software. itunes store sells media files at very competitive prices. together, these products give apple an edge over microsoft's zune media player and zune market place.
• iphone (apple) - an internet-enabled multimedia mobile phone designed with a touch screen with virtual keyboard and buttons. the iphone, like the ipod, competes with the zune media player and possible microsoft's windows mobile smart phones.