Claire Metelits’ book is an important contribution to the study of security in Africa. It proposes a new approach, Critical Security Study, to correct the weaknesses of Traditional Security Study. The book is well organised, well written and reader-friendly.
Politicians, military analysts and scholars have been debating and reflecting on the nature of the new world order since the collapse of the Soviet Union and its consequences for global and regional security. The security implications of this evolving new world order have been previously analysed in Martin van Creveld's 1991 book The Transformation of War, in which he predicted that state-led wars will be replaced by wars fought by non-state actors. Metelits’ book is in the same tradition of the search for meaning in the evolving world order and greatly contributes to the reflection on the complexities of international security and its implications for the continent of Africa.
For scholars, military analysts and policymakers, this book presents many advantages. It explains the need to evolve from Traditional Security Study to Critical Security Study: a move from excessive focus on the Westphalian state in order to take into account local conditions. Metelits suggests two important ideas: a process of resolving conflict that ceases to ignore conflict legacies within given states and a method to avoid escalation by recognising that the nature and praxis of statecraft in Africa could be, itself, a source of instability. In this regard, the author emphasises that the political institution doesn't enjoy an equal level of legitimacy throughout the governed space.
Another major contribution of Metelits’ book is her assertion that ‘securitization’ of Africa is based on western perception and perspective. Because there is a hierarchical relationship between those who assist and those who receive assistance, African voices are absent in policy design and decision-making. ‘Let Africans define their own challenges’ (p. 113), she concludes.
This conclusion highlights an unresolved dilemma, and a millennia old one: how to alter a hierarchy that is embedded in the structures of the prevailing world order. Hesiod (c. 700 BCE) described the unequal relationship between the hawk and the nightingale in Works and Days. As Athenians put it to the people of the island-state of Melos during the Peloponnesian War (416 BCE), ‘the strong take what they want and the weak accept what they must’. The Melian leaders did not consult their people before making decisions with dire consequence for the lives of their citizens. Maybe the starting point for African governments is to listen to their own people.
