Development, social citizenship and human rights: Re-thinking the political core of an emancipatory project in Africa.

Abstract

The paper begins from the axiomatic point that, despite the form it eventually took, namely that of a neo-colonial process, development was understood and fought for in Africa as (part of) an emancipatory political project central to the liberatory vision of the pan-African nationalism which emerged victorious at independence. Indeed independence was always seen, by radical nationalism in particular, as only the first step towards freedom and liberation from oppression, the second being economic development. Indeed 'economism' and 'statism' were mirror images of each other; it was believed that only the economy could liberate humanity and that only the state could drive the economy to progress. Today, the first proposition as been retained by the second has been dropped from hegemonic discourse. Yet the two are inseparable twins; it is in fact the case that just as the latter is false so is the former, for human emancipation is and can only be a political project. While development...