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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.

He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.

In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.

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Fifty-three leaders of countries within the African Union decided to push forward toward creating a USA, or United States of Africa. No later than 10 years from now, they say, the poorest continent in the globe should have its united government. Unity is prescribed as the best solution for solving the chronicle problems of the continent, poverty, wars, and diseases, to mention just few. It sounds attractive as idea. The EU and the USA are given as models. The problem with the African unity is that none of the existing mechanisms for continental integration that were applied in Western Europe and Northern America can work in Africa. In absence of such mechanisms the idea of pan-African government, if materialized, will take much longer period, many generations instead of years.

At the beginning there was the idea of pan-African political unity that would eliminate the legacies of colonialism. When African nations struggled for freedom after the World War II, many of their leaders did it in the name of continental solidarity. What came later, the division of the continent on more than 50 states, was an unanticipated byproduct of the independence struggle. The administrative apparatus inherited from the colonial powers turned out to be more inflexible than anticipated. Instead of brotherhood between all people, most communities turned into proto-national communities, united around a strong leader, feeling a deep passion of hate toward other ethnic communities and neighboring countries. Many African nations that were economically as developed as many future Asian tigers, slowly lost economic momentum and are now among the poorest in the world.

North America and Western Europe provide successful examples of political integrations. But are these models applicable to Africa? Let's begin chronologically with the United States of America, which independence is celebrated today. Before the independence there was only one colonial power that controlled this part of North America, Britain. Accordingly the administrative, economic, and social conditions were similar if not identical throughout these American colonies. The war of independence itself united the local population against the foreign enemy. After the independence creating a federal government wasn't the first political option, but given the financial impossibility to pay the huge debt, the colonies decided to unite. No foreign threat made necessary this decision. So for decades the U.S. federal government remained largely a tax-collecting agency without other significant functions.

In Europe, the main integration factor after the World War II was the need to eliminate the war as a method of resolving international conflicts. Originally the EU countries, except for Italy, were traditionally rich nations; they all, including Italy, were independent nations for many generations if not for centuries. EU was originally designed as a trade union, later as a custom union, and only then what we see today as political structures began taking shape and power. The Europeans, unlike the Americans, had no common identity outside Christianity very broadly speaking. Most of them, however, have something in common, a well-functioning bureaucracy that works following similar if not identical principles. This bureaucracy seems enough of pushing ahead with the integration even when the common identity is missing.

What has Africa from all this? Most African countries were at some point European colonies. The colonialism, however, wasn't identical in all places, from semi-dependences to private domains, and everything in between. The independence from Europe, accordingly, occurred in different ways, from long struggles to quick agreements. The Africans, like the Europeans, have no common identity inside the continent. Unlike the Europeans, however, they still have no independent bureaucracies ready to push forward the integration without the active support of national governments. Fifty years after the independence of most African countries, they are neither united, nor they are consolidated as nation-states.

To sum-up, Africa so far has nothing that was used in America and Europe for political integration. Any political integration based on the current pillars will be premature. Instead of solving pan-African problems it may create new, anarchy on sub-national and national level, lack of coordination on supranational level. Yet, the idea of United States of Africa is basically sound; it just will take much more than a few years for materialization.

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