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For several decades, Africa has been subjected to the critical observations of numerous international organizations, and other associations, mostly from the western side. But the recent world financial crisis and its dramatic consequences reminded us that the deficit of ethics is widely shared by the entire world.

In September 2000, during the UNO's general assembly, Paul Biya had claimed the creation of a world committee for ethics. Further to the international financial crisis, he renewed, nine years later, his call to the same assembly: " A few years ago, down from this stand, I advocated the creation within the United Nations of a world committee for ethics, because it is a real combination of moral drift and serious infringements of ethics which are the causes of the world current financial crisis." Will he be heard, this time?

"InAfrica, this western vision faces a reality which resists with aparticular strength. It remains unsubdued and rebellious: neither theeconomic sphere is autonomous there with regard to the rest of thesocial scope, nor the law can do without the mediation of thetraditional wisdom."

The call to ethics of the president of an African country classified by various international organizations among the most corrupted of the planet will undoudtedly surprise the upholders of a world order which always place the North over the South, including from the point of view of morality. Nevertheless, with the eyes of the specialists, the Cameroonian president's initiative turns out to be judicious.

Laws and loyalties
Questioned on this subject, Professor Paul Dembinski, General Secretary of the Finances Observatory in Geneva, acknowledges that it is "relevant to examine the cause from which ensues the deep meaning that the West gives to terms such as corruption, opaqueness or ethics ". For this pioneer of financial ethics, it would be necessary to distinguish, first of all, the law from morality: " Regarding ethics, the western world privileges the law, including that of contracts, and sees the ultimate reference of the standards of the ethics there. This is particularly true for the world and business ethics. It ensues from this the superiority of legal actions which is supposed to transcend all the personal loyalties." So, to reduce the ethical question to the respect of the law would mean admitting that ethics has no place in an economic life in which only the law would dominate. " In Africa, this western vision faces a reality which resists with a particular strength. It remains unsubdued and rebellious: neither the economic sphere is autonomous there with regard to the rest of the social scope, nor the law can do without the mediation of the traditional wisdom. The actors, far from being algorithms of maximization, evolve in the heart of parallel and multiple loyalties ", pinpoints Professor Dembinski.

For a shared definition of ethics
This difference of approach in the economy and in the social relationships makes Africa look as an actor that can not be ignored within the framework of a redefinition of ethics, which would be shared by all the cultures and will no more be delineated from North to South and from East to West by Roman or Anglo-Saxon law. "During the past fifty years, Africa has changed a lot and seems ready for a wide debate of ideas ", declared Paul Biya from the stand of the UNO last month.
"Bet you!", answered Paul Dembinski: " There are no determined reasons why the solution currently offered by the West should be more appropriate to continents such as Africa, which adopts different cultural traditions. A program of interdisciplinary research could be set up to study the link, on one hand, between the social and the economic and, of the other one, between law and ethics. "

By Dominique Flaux