> Travis:
>
>
> What has been the block to pan africanism? If your initial analysis is
> correct it savages your proposed solution.
>
> [WS:] It was not a solution but a thought experiment. The problem, as I
see
> it, is structural contradictions of African states that make investment
very
> difficult. I do not really know how to solve that problem - the Hobbesian
> idea that I proposed was just one possible approach, especially that
> pan-Africanism was once quite popular among intellectual elites of that
> continent. But I am all ears to other proposals.
>
> Wojtek
>
But Woj what I am trying to get you think about is that your so called
Hobbesian thought experiment finds a direct referent in all three
modernization strategies attempted by the Ethiopian state over the last one
hundred years. And one could argue with ample evidence that it was
precisely this Hobbesian modernizing state that resulted in the
ethnicization of Ethiopian politics today. In short you are conducting a
mind experiment which has been conducted tried and failed. And there are
actually projects in place which have taken stock of these failures which
reject the bipolar opposition between "un-modern" and "modern".