Stability will only be achieved in Africa when the continent commits to resolving its disputes, writes Bryan Mukandi
When I was young, my father enjoyed making fun of us, his children.
When in an especially good mood, so good that he could look back on hardship and laugh at it, he would tell us about how good we had it.
"When I was your age, we would eat meat only at Christmas," he would claim. "Presents? What are those? When I was young, you were lucky if you got a new pair of shoes for Christmas," he would say.
It would go on until my sister had sulked long enough for him to confess he had no intentions of making our plight anything like his. None of my father's children will be spending their Christmas in Zimbabwe this year. But many other people's children will be in Zimbabwe, in makeshift refugee camps in South Africa, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and in Sudan.
For many of these people, the kind of modest celebration my father would have expected on Christmas Day, decades ago, would be a dream come true. Good health, a meal shared with one's family, the hope of a better year to come, and perhaps, time spent reflecting on the idea of the immortal having lived in their skin and trod their path. That these things, far more than creature comforts, have been robbed from people living in conflict areas around the world, and particularly in parts of Africa, is tragic.
I have just finished reading Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun. In this incredible novel, Adichie traces the fate of two sisters during the Nigerian-Biafran war that occurred in the late 1960s. She vividly brings to life the hardship and suffering that was brought on by that conflict.
Most importantly, I think, is the way Adichie shows how quickly people get lost in their anger and hate. How violence becomes a cycle and people stop being able to see their "enemies" as former friends, neighbours and colleagues.
Asked in an interview whether people in Nigeria still speak about the war, Adichie said: "I find that it is mostly talked about in uninformed and unimaginative ways. People repeat the same things they have been told without having a full grasp of the complex nature of the war, or they hold militant positions lacking in nuance."
I find that the same tends to be true of discussions on all African conflict. More worrying than the uninformed are those who chose to reduce these complicated issues to simple, black-and-white constructs. Zimbabwe is where it is because Mugabe is a horrible corrupt little man who has stolen everything. Darfur is a mess because China wants Sudan's oil. And Congo - that probably has something to do with Africans just not knowing how to make nice with each other, or, in the words of an acquaintance, their "corrupt leaders don't care about their people".
There is more truth in some of those statements than in others, but all are, at best, far too simplistic.
The problem with simplistic, or sometimes plain wrong diagnoses, is that the prescribed solutions that are derived from them will almost certainly be wrong. At best, there may be a transient improvement, but if the underlying condition is not addressed, the consequences could be catastrophic.
So what is the underlying condition in places like Zimbabwe and Congo? I cannot answer that question with certainty. But I would suggest that the systemic nature of the continent's problems, in the countries that are doing well and those that are struggling, means that there is probably a systemic problem. As important as it is to deal with the immediate crises, the same attention should go into investigating underlying causes and attempting to address them.
That said, a good starting place can be found in the words that Adichie ascribes to the charismatic Odenigbo in her novel, who says: "The real tragedy of our postcolonial world is not that the majority of people had no say in whether or not they wanted this new world; rather, it is that the majority have not been given the tools to negotiate this new world."
With that in mind, is it any wonder that Mugabe can, without shame, make claims like "Zimbabwe is mine", that "only God" could remove him from office, and my personal favourite: "We will never allow an event like an election to reverse our independence . . . "
Is it any wonder that Rwanda's military establishment has no qualms about crossing borders and ignoring the principle of state sovereignty in order to settle tribal scores.
There is often a disconnect between the "international community" and the African Union (AU) and Southern African Development Community (SADC) because the latter have not wholeheartedly stepped into the world of the former. Thus, while there is a chorus crying out for the removal of Robert Mugabe, the official AU position is still that a unity government with either Mugabe or one of his men at the head, is the best solution.
This bridge will be crossed when either the AU and SADC learn to negotiate their way around this world, or when they alter their legal and governing structures. Both solutions come with their problems, but both could also result in more stable and prosperous, though very different, societies. Either way, true stability will come when Africa commits to either course.
Until those foundations are laid, there will continue to be people who are displaced, hungry, ill or missing at Christmas. For every Mugabe or al Bashir that is weeded out, others will sprout.
Garret FitzGerald is on leave