THE CAMPAIGN MANUAL
Frequently asked questions from Africans
Question 1: How do we get from the African Union to the federal state?
The African Union is an intergovernmental organization governed by a Charter. The United African States emanates from the will of the African Peoples to pool portions of their current sovereignty to gain full and complete sovereignty for all member countries. Consequently, the federal state will be governed by a Constitution reflecting the will of the African Peoples. It is therefore a totally different approach. It is up to the African Union to operate its transformation to contribute to the birth of the United African States.
Question 2: Why not create Regional Federations before arriving at a continental federal state?
A federal state must be a viable state. If there is a great disparity between the members of a federation without a counterweight, the federation is not viable. An ECOWAS state would be crushed by the weight of Nigeria. A federal state based on SADEC would be crushed by the weight of South Africa. Moreover, the question of the balkanization of Africa, which weakens it, would not be resolved, because it is always possible to pit regional federations against each other on issues of continental macro-economics. Julius Nyerere, who was in favour of regional federations, thus opposing Kwame Nkrumah's continental vision, acknowledged in 1997 that Kwame Nkrumah was right. A continental federal state will be much more balanced with South Africa, Nigeria, Algeria, Tanzania, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo as heavyweights in terms of both economic and demographic power.
Question 3: Why not start with the economic integration of Africa by making the African Free Trade Area effective before moving on to political integration?
A free trade zone is an area within which economic exchanges are free of all taxes, while outside the zone various customs taxes may apply, particularly on imports and exports. To be effective, this zone must be managed by a single political authority responsible for ensuring compliance with all the clauses related to the zone, including control of the zone's borders. It is simply impossible to manage this zone well with 54 governments that have to make decisions, each one for its particular interests. Under these conditions, foreign powers and their multinationals can make bilateral agreements with different states to easily enter the free trade zone and dump their industrial products without paying taxes, which condemns African companies to unfair competition that they cannot survive. For the free trade area to be a formidable asset for the development of African companies, it is imperative that it be managed by a single political power with jurisdiction over the entire continent, in this case, the Federal Government of the United African States. Political union must therefore precede economic union.
Question 4: The European Union is built with several countries without becoming a United States of Europe, but they have been able to create an integrated economic policy with standards that all members agree to apply. Why not duplicate the European model?
The European States are constituted through more than a thousand years of history, marked by incessant internal wars that they have exported to the whole world: slavery, colonization and two world wars. From the invasion of the world, they have made an inestimable economic and political profit which guarantees them a positive sovereignty free from any threat. Under these conditions, they have no interest in forming a federation of United States of Europe. The only portion of sovereignty that many of them have been unable to manage individually is currency. And that is why they have mutualized the management of their currency by creating the euro and a common market, a European free trade zone. This currency is not adopted by all European countries.
Copy the European model? It is already done! The African Union is nothing more than a copy of the European Union but with negative sovereignty, with an inapplicable free trade zone, and without a common currency. Worse, the majority of African countries have an economy directly dependent on the European colonial powers and are controlled by them in many ways (the famous zones of influence). Under these conditions, no copy of the European Union can lead Africa to gain its full and complete sovereignty.
Question 5: In terms of defense, European countries are grouped together in NATO, although each country also has its own army that manages internal problems or defends its international interests. But as soon as a member is attacked, NATO intervenes in the name of the defense agreements and it is there that the USA intervenes.
This observation suggests that Africa should probably do something similar. If one observes the ease with which current African states are destabilized militarily, it is easy to understand that these states are very fragile and do not have the capacity to defend themselves or their populations. The mutualization of the means of defense managed by a federal state will bring them greater security, because the federal state will have many more resources to create and maintain a large army (air, land, and sea) that can intervene in the defense of any member state of the Federation. The division of powers between the national and federal armies can be defined both by the constitution of the federal state and by appropriate legal agreements between the federal state and each member state.
Question 6: How might leaders at the federal level be chosen/elected? What mechanisms for electing federal leaders?
When, at the end of the campaign, a sufficient number of countries declare their readiness to participate in the Constituent Assembly of the United African States, the second MFPA Congress will be convened for the delegations of these countries to discuss the Constitution of the federal state. All possible mechanisms for the election of federal leaders will be discussed and chosen during this Congress. Numerous commissions will be set up to work out the details of legal arrangements in various areas such as economic policy, currency, debt issues, diplomacy, defence, security, administration, federal agencies, justice, education, etc. Congress will set the timetable for this work and the duration of the transition to the establishment of the essential institutions of the federal state.
Question 7: What will be the language policy? Will cross-border languages be retained as official languages, and what will happen to colonial languages?
The Pan-African Federalist Movement does not make policy for the federal state in any area. It is up to the federal experts in each field to develop such policies within the framework of the normal functioning of the institutions of the Federation. The fact remains, however, that the federal state must be able to provide itself with the means to function in the long term by ensuring an effective means of communication between the various organs of its own administration and between its administration and the member states. The following elements can guide the reflection:
a) Language policy, like cultural policy in general, is left to the discretion of each member state.
b) States that share one or more cross-border languages may have an interest in harmonizing their language policies to make the most of the language(s) they share.
c) The federal government can follow the lead of the African Union by choosing Kiswahili as the language of the federal administration, and encourage the teaching of Kiswahili in African universities and high schools of administration and the judiciary, from which future federal civil servants will be trained. Under this option, the translation of federal texts into cross-border languages will be provided by the federal government.
d) In no case should the choice of a language for a given purpose lead to the abandonment of other languages which should be valued. Africans are polyglot because multilingualism is much more widespread in Africa than monolingualism. It is therefore possible to conceive of a balanced linguistic policy that articulates the learning of national languages at the state level with that of cross-border languages at the regional level and that of Kiswahili for federal administrative use.
e) It is highly likely that the federal government will continue to work in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic and Kiswahili for a long time, with numerous translation offices until a new generation of Kiswahili-speaking civil servants is available wherever needed.
Question 8: Circulation of human resources: the Addis Ababa Convention can be used because it aims at the mobility of teachers and students and even other sectors through a system of equivalence of diplomas.
It is clear that the federal state can implement this convention in addition to any system that facilitates the free movement of people and goods, especially students, teachers and others who contribute to the dissemination of knowledge and know-how throughout the United African States. The system of equivalence of diplomas and certification depends much more on the professional corporations according to each field than on a political decision of the federal state. The most successful and attractive training and educational institutions will undoubtedly become references and examples for others.
Question 9: What will be the role of the federal government in the education system? Is the management of education going to be reserved exclusively to the federal government or specific to each local government?
Each state is free to organize and manage its education system as it sees fit because of its cultural specificity. This is particularly true at the primary and secondary levels, including vocational schools.
At the level of national and regional universities, the states can be encouraged by the federal government to develop professionalization programs that promote the economic development of the region, as well as programs that allow for a wide opening to the United States.
It is only at the level of pan-African federal universities that the federal state will fully assume its role in ensuring the training of the high-level executives that the Federation needs.
Question 10: Natural resources must be inventoried in each region and an exploitation policy must be defined and the strategy for using the revenues from these resources to invest in structuring programs at the country (%), regional (%) and federal (%) levels. Transparency at all levels of who manages the mining sector must be demanded because it is the source of all conflicts in our countries.
In principle, the federal state only takes responsibility for investments that exceed the capacity of each member state. When a natural resource located in one country or in a region comprising several countries is of major strategic importance for the whole Federation, the federal state joins with this member state or the states of the region for a joint exploitation of this resource. The distribution of benefits from this exploitation is defined by the laws and regulations (contracts, agreements, etc.) that relate to it. Regardless of the intervention of the federal state for the exploitation of a specific natural resource in a state or region, a system of solidarity among all the member states will allow them to pay the federal state a royalty according to their capacity, and to receive from the federal state a remuneration according to their needs. It is obvious that transparency at all levels is required.
Question 11: At the regional level, it would be necessary to identify how to undertake partnerships and privilege decentralized cooperation at this level! How will the diplomatic portion be managed?
When it comes to negotiating with international organizations such as the UN, the IMF, the WHO, the WTO, etc., or major powers and multinationals, it is in the interest of the United African States to speak with one voice so that international agreements are in no way unfavorable to them. Bilateral partnerships in the form of decentralized cooperation should be possible if they are well managed and must not under any circumstances be detrimental to the security of all or part of the United African States. It can therefore be said that the field of diplomacy can be the subject of co-management between the federal state and the member states, with the distribution of competences being determined by regulatory texts in addition to the Constitution.
Question 12: Will the United African States maintain or abolish the current state borders?
The United African States is not intended to intervene in the abolition or retention of existing state boundaries. In principle, it should be expected that the Federation of United African States would not support the further fragmentation of Africa and its member states. Conversely, one would expect that the reunification of fragmented territories into a single state would be welcomed. But all of this depends, in the first place, on the will of the people concerned.
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