Change in Africa, as in most places in the world, comes about slowly. But it also occurs with more suddenness, with more violence and with more ferocity than on other continents.
I am thinking here essentially of the political arena and of how national leadership - so many years after the end of colonialism - is still so often secured by the gun or by the threat of the gun. Consider the countries with which I have been primarily concerned since I moved to Kenya to work as a foreign correspondent four years ago: Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire). The regimes in all of these countries have come to power either by rebellion, civil war or military coup. I must exclude from the list Somalia by virtue of the fact that, seven war-torn years after the overthrow of a democratically-elected president, there is still no government in place.
In fact, the country in which I live - and the country which I am about to leave - is a rare exception. Despite the usual African maladies of corruption, economic mismanagement and general inefficiency, Kenya continues to be reasonably peaceful and stable. Of course, there is a worsening crime problem and this year there was a horrific terrorist attack which left more than 200 dead and some 5,000 injured. Most of the casualties were Kenyans, but the target of the bombing was the American embassy, not a Kenyan institution. That Kenya appears so secure might seem in some ways strange for its President, Daniel arap Moi, is one of the old-style rulers, the sort of traditional African Big Man dismissed not just by progressive thinkers in the West but also by the new generation of leaders in Africa.
Kenya's neighbours, on the other hand (Tanzania excluded), are enmired in their own internal conflicts or in other countries' conflicts. Burundi, whose minority Tutsi leader Pierre Buyoya came to power in a bloodless coup while I was there 21/2 years ago, is still blighted by seemingly insoluble hatred between Hutus and Tutsis. Somalia is, of course, in a category of its own, a state so riven by clan divisions that the prospects of a national consensus on peace appear as evasive as ever. The most serious civil wars on the continent are those in Sudan and the Democratic Republin of Congo (DRC). A sort of ceasefire has prevailed in the famine-stricken areas of southern Sudan for some months and has helped in allowing a massive aid effort to ward off wholesale starvation. But the Islamic regime in Khartoum is still pursuing its "jihad" or holy war against the south. The conflict, which began in 1983, shows no signs of slowing down, and the south seems no nearer to achieving self-determination.
Both Ethiopia and Eritrea - which a year ago were involved in their own violent border dispute - are involved in the war in Sudan. Both support the southern rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) though, because of their own border problems (which some believe might reignite), their involvement has been less overt of late. Uganda too is implicated in the war in Sudan, although its president, Yoweri Museveni - whom many consider the very model of the new African leader - denies support of the SPLA. More serious than the Sudanese war is the fighting in the DRC. There is, of course, a sense of deja vu about it all. Like many commentators, I was among those who last year welcomed the overthrow of corrupt dictator Mobutu Sese Seko by Laurent Kabila. But a year and a half after the ousting of the late Mobutu, here we are again - or rather there they are again - ensnared in another civil war.
The implications for the rest of the continent are just as serious though the world is less concerned than it was last time around. In the place of the charismatic crook, Mobutu, is the rotund and rather hopeless President Kabila. Those who had hoped he might belong to the new club of progressive African leaders have been disappointed: he has trampled on human rights, encouraged pogroms against the Tutsis who helped bring him to power, and practised nepotism on a grand scale. Having led a dashing seven-month campaign to oust his predecessor, he is himself facing rebels who are firmly in control of the east of the country.
Rwanda and Uganda, which formerly backed Kabila and helped bring him to power, are now against him. President Museveni and Vice-President Paul Kagame (the power behind the throne in Rwanda) have been playing down the extent of their support for the anti-Kabila rebels but the presence of their troops and hardware in the DRC has been firmly established. Attempts at arbitration, mainly by the southern African states, have come to little. Kabila says Rwanda and Uganda must withdraw before there can be peace talks while the rebels insist there can be no ceasefire in the absence of direct talks with President Kabila. Hope of a bright, new future for Africa - a prospect many were entertaining just a year ago - must thus be put on hold.
There are some changes for the better: Nigeria is finally moving towards democracy and, despite unrest in Lesotho this year, the southern African states are prospering. But for every Mozambique - a poverty-stricken nation which has managed to put years of civil war behind it - there is an Angola, constantly teetering on the brink of renewed conflict. The most overused word in connection with Africa is "potential". Economists, diplomats, politicians, missionaries, journalists, we all use it as we try to find some ray of hope for the future. Certainly it is there, not only in the mineral wealth below the soil but also in the hearts of ordinary people striving for better lives.