Secure the Base: Making Africa Visible in the Globe by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (review)

Secure the Base: Making Africa Visible in the Globe consists of nearly thirty years of reflection by one of the most influential African writers of our time. It is a short but dense collection of seven essays, based on some of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's most thought-provoking lectures. The book tackles a wide range of issues, such as the continued importance of looking into slavery, colonialism, and neocolonialism by tying them to economic dependence and global inequality. The author denounces the devastating policies of international organizations such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank. Other topics include nuclear weapons, the African middle class, and most importantly, the moral responsibility of the global community to protect humanity.

Wa Thiong'o offers a series of indictments and prescriptions. On the one hand, he demonstrates the impact of the crimes perpetrated against the African continent and its people, with a special focus on Africa's relationship with the West. On the other hand, he does not fail to expose the crimes committed by Africans themselves against their own continent, formulating recommendations on how Africa can "lift itself into being a respected player in the world" (xvi).

Wa Thiong'o first tackles the power of representation, focusing on the negative impact of the word "tribe" and its derivatives that have long been used as templates for the description of any African conflict. For wa Thiong'o, using a biological argument and ignoring the historical roots of the problem—such as the colonial division of communal identity and uneven development among regions and within members of the same community—makes these conflicts seem hopeless and unsolvable. And yet, similar conflicts are experienced in other parts of the world without being saddled with the limiting term that is "tribalism."

In the second essay, wa Thiong'o provides a brief historical overview of capitalism in Africa and a detailed assessment of the nationalist middle class. He laments that Africa's historical relationship with capital has been and still is one of marginality, from the commodification of the African body under slavery to the unpaid labor provided by Africans under the slave plantation system. Under colonialism, he recounts, Africa served as supplier of raw material. After World War II, a wave of hope swept the continent as decolonization was under way. However, Cold War rivalries and the emergence of the Bretton Woods institutions curbed the hopes and dreams engendered by the African independence movements. Independence was then soon replaced by the cycle of debt and dependence following the arrival of neoliberal ideology.

The fifth essay expands on this argument by drawing the historical interconnectedness between slavery and debt slavery. Wa Thiong'o emphasizes that "The most developed countries in the West are largely those whose modernity is rooted in transatlantic slave trade and plantation slavery" (89–90). In addition to the economic consequences of slavery, he contends that the moral consequences are also often disregarded. For wa Thiong'o, without acknowledgement of the damages done and the trauma of slavery by the perpetrators, there can be no closure. He captures the moral and material dimension of neoliberal ideology by choosing to employ the phrase "capitalist fundamentalism" in place of the word "neoliberalism." He uses Margaret Thatcher's "TINA," which derives from her famous slogan "There Is No Alternative," to explain that "capitalist fundamentalism" implies that there is no alternative to neoliberalism; in short, there is only one way to successfully organize the economy. Wa Thiong'o speaks of the "worship of the market," explaining that the consequences are disastrous for postcolonial states which emerged in a context of intense globalization characterized by unequal distribution of resources.

The author dreams of an Africa that reclaims its own agency. He offers his vision in which he demands social justice and the West's rectification of historical injustices, and he dreams of...