In the West African nation of Benin, hardly noticed political development may turn out to be the spark that ignites a democratic rebellion throughout Africa. Responding to massive protests to a sagging economy, Benin's Marxist-leaning dictator Mathieu Kerekou renounced Marxism-Leninism, the guiding ideology of his government, and rescinded an order forcing Benin's citizens to address each other as "comrade.” For Africa, where almost the entire continent suffers under authoritarian rule, it was an encouraging step forward.
But what happened next was nothing less than extraordinary. People in Benin's capital of Cotonou, responding that Kerekou's largely cosmetic reforms did not go far enough, descended on the city's "Lenin Square" where, armed with clubs and hammers, they attacked a statue of the Bolshevik leader, nearly tearing it down. Chants of "Kerekou out" and "power to the people" rocked the square, and Kerekou sent his forces into the streets to establish calm.
Like last year's student protests in China's Tiananmen Square, the anti-Kerekou rallies in Cotonou were finally suppressed by government forces, but the message was not. The mass opposition forced Kerekou to relinquish most of his powers to a reform-minded prime minister, who is expected to nudge Benin away from Kerekou's Marxist economics and political authoritarianism. The new Prime Minister, Nicephore Soglo, had legalized opposition parties and scheduled elections for this January.
Authoritarianism's meltdown
Ever since the developments in Benin, the calls for multiparty democracy have been intensifying throughout the continent - in Angola, Cameroon, the Congo, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Mozambique, Tanzania, Togo, Zaire, and Zambia. Only 5 of Africa's 45 nations are truly democratic. But the fear that typically prevented many Africans from daring to oppose their country's dictators is beginning to disappear. Not since the demise of colonialism have the prospects for fundamental political and economic change in Africa been so great.
Unfortunately, the potential for such change in black Africa has received little attention until recently. The Western media covered democratically inclined political developments in Eastern Europe and South Africa exhaustively, but little focus has been placed on the growing frustration with Africa's political and economic systems. As former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Chester Crocker has observed, discussion of Africa's oppressive, corrupt regimes was a taboo subject until very recently.
When the Berlin Wall crumbled last year, the global media swarmed on Berlin, analyzing, correctly, that the Wall's collapse signaled the opening of a new chapter in European history. Similarly, when Nelson Mandela, South Africa's heralded resistance leader, walked out of detention this February, his freedom was greeted by widespread reports that apartheid's demise was imminent.
In contrast, the potential significance of developments in Cotonou's Lenin Square went virtually unnoticed. The prodemocratic sentiments in Benin - when combined with the mounting calls for democratic change throughout sub-Saharan Africa - are an indication that the vast African continent may soon undergo changes nearly as dramatic as those in Eastern Europe and
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