NO LONGER to be crudely misrepresented as the land of cannibals and savages, AIDS and grinding poverty, Africa is now poised to become the new region of opportunity in the world, according to President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.
Last night he painted a picture of an African continent trying to take its place in the world economic order, developing democratic structures within its states and working to overcome the disadvantages visited upon it by past exploitation by the richer nations.
It now faces a period of opportunity, despite many years of exploitation by the developed world, he said. Africa's difficulties have been created largely by its history, not its leaders, he maintained. The slave trade, colonialism, the Cold War and its aftermath all conspired to leave Africa - once a cradle of human civilisation - as the world's poorest continent.
In a controversial section of his address he contrasted western democracy, which put the accent on the rights of the individual, with African culture, which put the accent on the community: "Human rights to us must also include the collective rights of the community and not just those of the individual."
President Mugabe was delivering the main address on the problems of Africa and its relationship with the developed world at the Irish Times/Harvard University colloquium at University College Dublin last night. The event was hosted by Mr Conor Brady, Editor of The Irish Times, and Ms Sheila Burke, the Executive Dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Mr Brady described the function of colloquia as being "to provide a forum for the discussion and the exploration of important world issues of politics and governance, by bringing different perspectives and different viewpoints into contact with each other".
This year's subject, "Africa, Recognition of the Past Remedies for the Future", raised many moral and pragmatic questions about the relationship between Africa and the richer nations of the developed world, said Mr Brady.
"We are asked here to consider nothing less than the history of two continents - that of Africa and that of Europe which colonised it - as well as the present world order, which, so far, has not found a way of bringing Africa fully and successfully into a state of self sustaining economic growth on a level comparable with that which is general in western economies - and increasingly also in those of the Pacific region."
Mr Peter Sutherland, who delivered the formal response to President Mugabe's address, agreed that the colonial period had left a legacy that partly explained Africa's current difficulties. But he warned against focusing exclusively on past imperialist wrongs, as this could sometimes be a distraction from the need to develop policies for today.
Opening up economies rather than protecting them had shown remarkable potential in various former communist states. "The statist, closed economy model previously favoured by some developing countries is now widely, discredited in intellectual terms if, not always in practice."
Mr Sutherland, who also said that market forces alone were insufficient to deal with world poverty and inequality, was recently appointed chairman of the Overseas Development Council, a private "think tank" based in Washington DC. The council seeks to inform and improve the international approach to development issues and to the management of related global problems.
Mr Sutherland is a former Attorney General, European Commissioner, Director General of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs and of the World Trade Organisation. He is currently chairman and managing director of Goldman Sachs International.
President Mugabe disputed the "post war wisdom" that all Africa's ills can be blamed on "bad government of Africans by Africans". Africa's situation today was largely explained by the history of outside exploitation of the continent.
Colonialism broke down Africa's existing socio political systems and replaced them with "the brute force of arms". African economies were developed for the benefit of colonists, not the indigenous people, who were suppressed by the colonists' political structures.
But Africa's story is more than one of tragedies, he said. Now the continent aimed to create an African common market by the year 2030, consisting of durable, pluralist democracies. African states were developing conflict prevention, management and resolution devices and "as peace initiatives succeed, the environment for investment and development in Africa will naturally improve significantly."
With few exceptions, he said, the continent's states have embraced democracy. "The creative genius of its people is once again being unleashed. Its arms are open to its brothers and sisters across the seven continents, inviting them to come and join it in shaping a future of mutual prosperity based on the sharing of new political, economic, social and moral values."
When independence finally came to African states, he said, it had a "false start", and President Mugabe blamed this - the collapse of embryonic democracies and the emergence of military dictatorships in many African states - on the legacy of colonialism as well.
It had been unrealistic, he suggested, to expect a democratic ethos to emerge "practically out of the blue" and suddenly flourish as soon as the colonists left Africa. Instead, contesting leaders resorted to tribal or ethnic politics, tribe was pitted against tribe. Colonial leaders had always pitted one tribe against another competing for scarce resources, so it was understandable that this rivalry continued.
Africa's leaders accepted some responsibility for this situation. But once again, he said, the legacy of colonialism was the major factor in the failure of most of Africa to develop real democracy after independence.
New African leaders had tried to diversify their economies, he said, but colonialism meant that they did not have strong indigenous entrepreneurs so they created state- owned companies - "parastatals" - to fill the vacuum. These failed to deliver growth and development, resulting in hardship and growing unemployment.
Even now, he said, Africa is exposed to exploitation as a result of World Trade Organisation rules. Globalisation posed Africa with a big challenge, because while it stressed the opening up of all markets, it sought to protect information and knowledge, especially intellectual property rights and technology.