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African Union Liberalism

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The African Union (AU) promotes a philosophy of “finding African solutions for African problems”. This is a key founding principle to ensure unity amongst the members of the African continent. As part of its objectives the African Union identifies promoting peace, security and stability on the African continent as a primary objective. I will discuss this objective and the establishment of the Peace and Security Council (PSC) as an organ to help achieve this objective. I will discuss how this objective relates to the International Relations theory of Liberalism and justify the importance of finding African solutions for African problems below.
Liberalism is a key theory in international relations, it argues that human beings act in their own …show more content…

I believe that the AU should find African solutions to African problems because if it is left for the United Nations the cultural aspects to many of the issues in Africa, tend to be overlooked or undermined. To substantiate my argument I will make reference to cases where international originations have attempted to come and aid African issues but have failed. The first occurrence I will use is the attempt of the UN to initiate peace keeping in Congo in 1960. The UN Operation of the Congo (UNOC) saw more UN peace keepers lose their lives than in any other UN sanctioned operation due to the lack of understanding the ethnic differences. This disastrous event saw the UN pull out of African issues for almost 25 years (Mays, 2003). Another reason as to why the AU should find solutions for African issues is that the West would only pursue peace operations in Africa when it is in favour of their own interests, a view that goes against a key assumption of liberalism that people consider how their actions affect others and while pursuing their own interest they will consider the best way to make everyone happy (Steans, et al., 2010). An instance of this was when the US and France used their power to keep President Mobutu of Zaire in control even though he was labeled as corrupt, they did this to receive assistance from President Mobutu in the cold war (Mays, 2003). It becomes more and more evident that in order for the African continent to prosper, Africans will have to rely on themselves to solve their problems. If the validity of this statement is still questioned then the case of Rwanda should prove my point. When violence broke out in Rwanda in 1994 there was no particular interest to help from the US. To support this theory here is a comment from the deputy assistant secretary for African affairs James

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