by William Pfaff

Mugabe, who made his name as a guerrilla warrior fighting to free Zimbabwe from British colonial rule, has argued that Great Britain should assume greater responsibility for rectifying the economic imbalances and unequal land distribution that were a legacy of the colonial era. Indeed, columnist William Pfaff wrote in the mid-1990s that many African nations seem hopelessly destitute and the European powers who colonized Africa are responsible. Africa, said Pfaff, lacks the educated middle and professional classes and the institutions that compose a civil society, which is essential to democracy. And the former colonial rulers have both the moral obligation and the expertise collected from the colonial experience to help. Pfaff, however, argued not that London or Brussels should compensate their former subjects but impose a new, "disinterested neocolonialism." The Europeans also have a special interest in Africa's condition because the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Africans to Europe is causing immense social problems and tensions there. In Pfaff's proposal, "The European pledge to the Africans would be: We imposed this ordeal of modernization on you, which you are determined to complete. We are prepared to rejoin you and support you in that enterprise." (January/February 1995)