 |
| Roberto Calderoli |
Africans
have for years been the targets of insults and racists vilification from
European politicians.
In the
latest development a Minister in the Berlusconi Government in Italy Roberto
Calderoni has compared has compared the image of an African to that of an
animal.
A
report written by Lizzy Davies is published below;
The
Italian prime minister, Enrico Letta, has condemned as unacceptable comments
made by a senior rightwing senator in which he suggested the country's first
black government minister had "the features of an orangutan".
Cécile Kyenge, an eye
surgeon who was born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo but has Italian
citizenship, has faced repeated racial slurs and threats since being appointed
minister for integration by Letta in April.
She was once again on
the receiving end of grossly offensive comments on Saturday when Roberto Calderoli,
a former minister under Silvio Berlusconi and senate vice-president of the
Northern League, told a rally in the northern town of Treviglio that Kyenge
would be better off working as a minister "in her country".
According to the
Corriere della Sera, which reported the event, he added: "I love animals –
bears and wolves, as is known – but when I see the pictures of Kyenge I cannot
but think of the features of an orangutan, even if I'm not saying she is
one."
The remark provoked
horror from the rest of the Italian political class, especially in Kyenge's
centre-left Democratic party. In a statement, Letta said the remarks were
unacceptable. "Full solidarity and support to Cécile," he added.
Asked about the
comments, Kyenge said it was not up to her to call on Calderoli to resign, but
hoped all politicians would "reflect on their use of communication".
"I do not take Calderoli's words as a personal insult but they sadden me
because of the image they give of Italy," she told the
Ansa news agency.
Ever since she was made
minister in Letta's fractious grand coalition government, Kyenge, 48, has been
the target of much
criticism from the League. Some
of it has been directed at her policies, particularly her desire to change a
harsh citizenship law to make it easier for Italian-born children of foreigners
to gain full nationality before they are 18.
But some of it has been very personal and
vitriolic. Mario Borghezio, a member of the European parliament for the League,
said in April that Kyenge wanted to "impose her tribal traditions from the
Congo" and branded Letta's coalition a "bongo bongo" government.
"She seems like a great housekeeper but not a government minister."
In June a local councillor for the League was
ejected from the party after she posted a message on Facebook suggesting Kyenge
should be raped. Referring to an
alleged attempted rape in Genoa, Dolores Valandro wrote: "Why does no one
rape her, so she can understand what the victim of this atrocious crime
felt?"
Asked on Sunday to explain the latest slur,
Calderoli insisted he had been joking. "I was speaking at a rally and I
made a joke, an unfortunate one perhaps," he told Ansa. "I did not
want to cause offence and if Minister Kyenge has been offended I apologise but
my joke came in the context of a much broader political speech that criticised
the minister and her politics."
This is not the first time that the 57-year-old
has caused controversy. In 2006 he quit the government after going on
television in a T-shirt emblazoned with cartoons of the prophet Muhammad – a
move credited with inspiring deadly riots outside the Italian consulate in
Libya.
Later that year, after Italy's football team
beat France in the World Cup, he said the opposing side had been made up of
"niggers, Muslims and communists". In 2007, he called for a
"Pig Day" protest against
the construction of a mosque in Bologna.
Editorial
SOMETHING TO LEARN
In spite of the numerous
problems facing the people of Nigeria, Ghanaian politicians have a lot to learn
from their Nigerian counterparts when it comes to the preservation of national
dignity.
Nigerian politicians are uncompromising when Western powers
assault their national dignity and they go to great lengths to insist on the
fact that they are not an inferior people.
From the way they dress to even their manner of speaking,
they unlike their Ghanaian counterparts always make the point that they are
proud of who they are.
When, the British authorities decided to impose a deposit of
£3,000 on “risky” Nigerians and other nationals traveling to Britain, the
reaction of the Nigerian Government was swift and decisive.
The British High Commissioner
was summoned to the Foreign Office and told in no uncertain terms that Nigerian
will react in equal measure.
In Ghana, foreign Ministry officials started off by making
excuses for the British authorities and ended up saying that Ghana cannot determine
the foreign policy of Britain.
What a pity?
Ghanaian politician ought to realize that if they fail to
stand up to the bullying antics of the West, Ghanaians will continue to suffer
racist abuse and other indignities.
REVOLUTIONARY PAN-AFRICANISM-KWAME NKRUMAH AND SEKOU
TOURE
 |
| Kwame Nkrumah |
By Lang T. K. A. Nubuor
Introduction
In
this contribution to the discussion of Ahmed Sékou Touré’s Revolution,
Culture and Pan-Africanism we need to first of all acknowledge the
fact of Sékou Touré being a Marxist. In an entry of Wikipedia, we find a
statement to the effect that Touré’s early life was characterized by challenges of authority,
including during his education. Touré was obliged to work to take care of
himself. He began working for the Postal Services (PTT), and quickly became
involved in labour union activity. During his youth and after
becoming president, Touré studied the works of communist philosophers,
especially those of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin…
During
his presidency Touré led a strong policy based on Marxism, with the
nationalization of foreign companies and strong planned economics. He won the
Lenin Peace Prize as a result in 1961. Wikipedia
This,
it seems to us, helps to understand the methodological essence of his thought
processes. In particular, his employment of Marxist usages help us not to
see logical contradiction in his assertion, for instance, that
culture being the creator of man is itself created by society. This assertion,
for those conversant with Marxist usages, is made on the basis of the Marxist
concept of dialectical contradiction which validates it.
We are
obliged at this early stage to state this acknowledgement in view of the
emergence of a certain concept of Afrocentricity or Afrocentricism within a
particular scholarly trend in Pan-Africanism. That trend, which we have had
occasion to christen as The Sankofa Tendency, implicitly rejects the use of
Marxist categories in the analysis of African reality. When pushed to the wall,
its younger advocates defensively refer to those categories having originated
from African sources. They cite the Arab African Ibn Khaldun as one of such
sources. We must confess that we are at a loss as to the point of their
contention: is it the categories that they are disputing or their authorship?
Whatever
it is that The Sankofa Tendency is contesting, we are certain in our mind that
both Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and Ahmed Sékou Touré hold on to a concept of
Afrocentricity that asserts the universality of culture. By this, they hold –
if we are to quote, firstly, from Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s 1944 dissertation Mind
and Thought in Primitive Society where he has a citation from his 1943
article ‘Education and Nationalism in Africa’ (published in Educational
Outlook, November, 1943) – to effect that.
In the
educational process of the African the best in Western culture should be
combined with the best in African culture. In this respect there should be
collaboration between educators, sociologists, and anthropologists, whose
findings should enable those who are responsible for African education to
prevent destruction of the best in indigenous African culture and at the same
time to acquaint the African with the best in his own as well as in foreign
civilizations. Any system of education is impossible without respect for the educand.
Whatever
may be the political and educational trends and potentialities, education in
Africa should produce a new class of educated Africans imbued with the culture
of the West but nevertheless attached to their environment. The new class of
Africans should demand the powers of self-determination and independence to
determine the progress and advancement of their own country. They must combine
the best in western civilization with the best in African culture. Only on this
ground can Africa create a new and distinct civilization in the process of
world advance. p.212
Dr.
Nkrumah reiterates the essence of this1943 statement in an
October 23, 1960 speech ‘To The Students of Ghana College’, Tamale, when he
tells the students that ‘Culture is universal, but every country adds a
specific flavour and a unique contribution to the heritage.’ (Samuel
Obeng, Selected Speeches –Kwame Nkrumah, Vol. 1, p.195). Endorsing
and elaborating on this dimension of the definition of culture, Sékou Touré
states at page 13 of Revolution, Culture and Pan-Africanism, that
‘The Peoples of Africa, emerging once again to the world of responsibility,
must collectively and resolutely rank under the banner of African Culture the
humanistic values, moral and material richness of which will constitute their
contribution to the universal cultural heritage’.
In
spite of their admission of the universality and particularity of culture, both
Dr. Nkrumah and Sékou Touré resist foreign domination of African culture and
suggest how the particular should relate to the universal. In their resistance,
they assert a concept of Afrocentricity. In this respect, as to which aspect of
the cultural mix must be dominant, Dr. Nkrumah asserts the centrality of
African reality in thought and practice at pages 78-79 of his 1964 book Consciencism in
these clear terms:
Our
attitude to the Western and the Islamic experience must be purposeful… Our
philosophy must find its weapons in the environment and the living conditions
of the African people. It is from those conditions that the intellectual
content of our philosophy must be created.
The
philosophy that must stand behind this social revolution is that which I have
once referred to as philosophical consciencism; consciencism is the map in
intellectual terms of the disposition of forces which will enable African
society to digest the Western and the Islamic and the
Euro-Christian elements in Africa, and develop them in such a way that
they fit into the African personality.
Hence,
the Afrocentricity adumbrated by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah is not only dialectical and
therefore non-exclusivist but also revolutionary in intent and
practice. It accepts the presence and reality of Western and Islamic cultures
in the African milieu. But it asserts the dominance of African
culture over those cultures within the African framework with this latter as
the base that enriches itself through a digestion of the others. And what is
digestion but the extraction of what is useful and rejection of
that which is harmful within what is taken in for one’s healthy living and
development!
In his
work at hand Revolution, Culture and Pan-Africanism, Ahmed Sékou
Touré elaborates on the universal when he explains that ‘The universal becomes
thus a set of guiding laws considered a common language, and which
express themselves both through all languages of culture of various social
dimensions and human qualities, and through means and conditions of existence
that are as diverse, and different as the standards of historical development
of human societies.’ (Italics added) He states one of such laws in these terms:
Human societies necessarily act on the basis of means and forms
peculiar to them; this explains at once the universal character of the People’s
aspiration to the same ideals of grandeur, happiness, justice and peace, as
well as their peculiarity, particularity and specificity which, in turn,
express the authenticity of their past, their social, historical context and
means. Page 13. (Italics added)
It is
in this spirit of contribution to the universal that Revolutionary
Pan-Africanists assert their right and feel no sense of being dominated when
they dip their hands into the universal culture fund to avail themselves of
what is useful for their purposes. This is why Dr. Kwame Nkrumah feels no sense
of shame when he says that.
For
the third category of colonial student it was especially impossible to read the
works of Marx and Engels as desiccated abstract philosophies having no bearing
on our colonial situation. During my stay in America the conviction was firmly
created in me that a great deal in their thought could assist us in the fight
against colonialism. I learnt to see philosophical systems in the context of
the social milieu which produced them. I therefore learnt to look for social
contention in philosophical systems. (Kwame Nkrumah, Consciencism,
p.5
In
fact, it is from this learning that he could be seen to pursue the truth about
the African reality from the living conditions of the African people but
not those of American or European society – leading to his brand of
Afrocentricity which does not invalidate the appropriation of laws, universally
contributed to in a long process of debates and polemics, like those of Marxism
in particular (contrary to the practice of the neo-colonial elite who equate
the universal with the particular and go around bleating out statements like
this: ‘You see, in America or the UK this is how it is done; so it’s wrong to
think otherwise’). On his part, Ahmed Sékou Touré puts all this by way of elaboration
thus:
The
foundations of African Culture were built by our own creative genius. We must
protect and enrich our own cultural wealth, our own conceptions, our own
values. We may learn by ourselves everything that is necessary, everything that
we find positive in Europe, America, etc. If necessary, we may adapt methods of
action of other Peoples to Africa’s development, provided that they are
convenient to us and that we are free to change them in order to further
valorize our own culture. (Ahmed Sékou Touré, Revolution, Culture and
Pan-Africanism, pp. 185-186)
At
this point, we make bold to assert that this is scientific and revolutionary
Afrocentricity as opposed to the undialectical, unscientific and metaphysical
as well as racist Afrocentricity or Afrocentricism that The Sankofa Tendency in
Pan-Africanism promotes with such pitifully misplaced scholarly audacity. It is
this scientific Afrocentricity that Revolutionary Pan-Africanism projects. It
is that Afrocentricity that shares in the universal appropriation of universal
laws that peoples of all cultures and climes, including Africans (be they Black
Africans, Arab Africans, Indian Africans, Boer Africans [Afrikaners] and
African Americans), have made and continue to make their contributions to.
In
this respect, let us remind those Sankofa metaphysicians that their opposition
to Marxism is oblivious of the fact that Marxism was in the 19th century
a culmination of philosophical materialism’s struggles against idealism from
the 18th century waged by materialist philosophers in Germany,
including the African philosopher from Ghana, Anthony William
Amo, who taught in German Universities in Halle, Jena and Wittenberg and wrote
the book De Humanae Mentis Apatheia. To deny the African the
use of universal laws they have contributed to in the process of discovery is
the quintessence of a nonsensical neo-colonial scholarly reactionary profile.
It is
in the face of such reactionary profile that Dr. Kwame Nkrumah boldly asserts
his ideological system as Marxism-Nkrumaism. (Check June
Milne, Kwame Nkrumah: The Conakry Years p.196). This is the
ideological system that guides and informs Revolutionary Pan-Africanism and
finds its elaboration in the works of Africans like Sékou Touré, Patrice
Lumumba, Amilcar Cabral, Felix Moumie, etc.
Defining Culture
In a
significant page 78 statement of definition in Sékou Touré’s Revolution,
Culture and Pan-Africanism, culture is defined as the totality of a
society’s accumulated material and immaterial equipment for a people’s
liberation and mastery of nature in the process of building a better society.
In the elaboration of that statement, Sékou Touré itemizes the components of
the said equipment as ‘works and constructive works, knowledge and know-how,
languages, behaviours and experiences’.
The
accumulation process is explained to exhibit stages. At page 70
Sékou Touré designates that ‘instinct … is a stage of culture’.
Instinct is then seen on the same page as capable of changing into a higher
stage; thus suggesting it to be a lower stage in the process of culture’s
development. That higher stage is asserted as ‘conscience’. In the words of
Sékou Touré: ‘The change of instinctinto conscience, in
the course of history, has marked and sanctioned the accession to a higher
stage, corresponding to a qualitative bound.’
The
process of how this change occurs might be found at pages 164
and 88. Whereas the poem that is captioned ‘Revolution’ at page 164 dramatizes
the process as ‘from the instinct suddenly appears …
conscience’, page 88 explains that ‘In the stage of development of life,
conscience substitutes itself to the instinct…’ This act of
substitution could be appreciated within the context of a statement at pages
56-57 to the effect that instinct and conscience co-exist in man from the level
of the cells that determine his/her form and capacities; but that in the course
of time conscience develops at the expense of instinct due to the fact that
experience (the past) feeds it and more. Read:
…
right from the cells which give him his form and his various capacities, man is
the mixture of the infinitely small and the infinitely great, the dynamic
synthesis of two beings identical by nature, while different. He is at
the same time instinct and conscience, the one developing at the expense of
the other. The past is the source which feeds conscience, and that conscience
has the role of actualising in the present a portion of that past, in view of
making it converge towards the future. This indicates that conscience is the
sum of experience (past) and knowledge (the present projected towards the
future). Pp.56-57
Certainly,
there is a difficulty in reconciling ‘substitution’ with ‘sudden (appearance)’
if our understanding is that there is a time sequence between
the emergence of both ‘instinct’ and ‘conscience’. This understanding is
reinforced by the statement at page 55 in reference to ‘the creation of …
conscience by a qualitative change of the instinct’
which implies the emergence of conscience from instinct.
The assertion, however, that man ‘is at the same time instinct and conscience’
rather suggests otherwise with the implication that the two emerge simultaneously in
the process of foetal development. Furthermore, Touré distinguishes instinct
(from conscience) as ‘an undefined cultural stock’ (page 69) or ‘the natural
cultural stock’ (page 129) that involves all animal categories but independent
of space, time and the environment. These are his words at page 69:
For us
… instinct represents an undefined cultural stock including all categories of
animals but excluding space and time as well as the surrounding creatures and
natural phenomena affecting the course of life. This distinction would
not be of the order of conscience, because it proceeds neither from
analysis, nor from a synthesis, nor even from a value judgement. But in fact, a
dog that avoids a danger has certainly analysed it before ‘taking the decision’
to keep away from it.
 |
| Sekou Toure |
Hence,
with Sékou Touré, as indicated by our italics in the citation immediately
above, instinct is not actually a stage of conscience as
some philosophers affirm. It is a stage of culture. That stage
is overtaken by the stage of conscience which, unlike
instinct, is susceptible to the influence of the environment as well as space
and time; but which, like instinct, as indicated by the analytical dog,
has always been present. In fact, he is impatient with philosophers who take
contradictory positions on the issue and thus declares: ‘We will not go into
futile philosophical discussions taking instinct at one time as conscience of
the lowest degree, at another time admitting it as totally different in nature
from conscience.’
At
this new stage, the stage of conscience, Sékou Touré concludes at page 72 that
conscience is ‘the prime mover of culture’. He also refers to this stage at
page 88 as ‘the stage of development of life’. He characterizes the previous
stage as ‘a biophysical stage’ where people protect their life first and where
‘instinctively imposed behaviour’ dominates (page 87). The instinct that is
said to dominate here is also, at page 70, said to have been endowed.
This forcefully explains the position above that instinct is independent of the
environment as well as space and time. Doesn’t endowment imply innateness here?
This requires clarification; for, how can a ‘cultural stock’ be innate? We’ll
be back.
Another
point that also requires clarification is the origin of
conscience. In stating above that man is at the same time instinct and
conscience Sékou Touré gives us an impression of the co-existence and
simultaneous origination of both instinct and conscience in man.
With respect to conscience, however, page 125 states that ‘The conscience,
contrary to what the idealists try to say, is not entirely in man as such, in a
perfect, completed state and the genesis of which would be inexplicable by its
own nature’. That appears to be a partial reiteration that conscience
originates (has its genesis) in man. But at page 124 we see
‘intelligence’ interchangeably used with ‘conscience’.
In
itself, intelligence could be understood to be part of the capacities that
at pages 56-57 Sékou Touré talks about when he refers to ‘the cells which give
(man) his form and his various capacities’. If this were so then the
equivalence expressed between ‘intelligence’ and ‘conscience’ should enable us
understand conscience in terms of intelligence. This is justified within the
appreciation of how Sékou Touré at page 126 apprehends the process of the
evolution of conscience: ‘In order for man to raise the level of conscience he
must as well continually perfect his theoretical knowledge, accumulate and
develop his experience, learn to analyse and select, to act concretely and
express what he feels and knows…’ That is how intelligence also develops.
All
this suggests that conscience, in Sékou Touré’s terms, is a capacity of
the brain susceptible to development from the exigencies of the environment. As
the prime mover of culture, therefore, conscience is the seat of
culture. In this sense, the usage of conscience here has no connotation of
ethical or moral suggestions. It rather suggests the presence of mind and it
is mind. It suggests consciousness and it is consciousness. It
is, therefore, interchangeably used with ‘mind’ or as ‘consciousness’. These
usages are in conformity with usages in philosophy where mind, conscience and
consciousness are employed in the same sense. This is, however, without
prejudice to the ethical or moral connotations of ‘conscience’ where it is
variously stated to mean:
Conformity
to one’s own sense of right conduct.
A
feeling of shame when you do something immoral.
Motivation
deriving logically from ethical or moral principles that govern a person’s
thoughts and actions. (The Sage’s English Dictionary)
Hence,
within the philosophical context, conscience connotes understanding in
terms of knowledge acquisition and morality or ethics in
terms of value judgement. These are more or less explicitly stated at page 129.
Regarding the understanding and knowledge it is therein stated that ‘Conscience
that man gets and which the beast lacks is the only factor which distinguishes
him more and more from the beast, that reinforces his power on nature by
knowing the laws of the latter, knowledge that makes him more and more man
thanks to natural philosophy, natural sciences, techniques and technology.’
In
respect of morality or ethics, Sékou Touré observes that ‘An unperspicacious thinker
affirms simply: there is always a man comparable with himself. But actually,
the analysis, to be complete, must distinguish two forms of conscience
corresponding to two forms of culture, two ways of opposed, differentiated and
antagonistic life, thought and behaviour owing to contradictory interests:
class conscience which regards man as an object or subject of history and for
which human progress is the end assigned to all social activities, and class
conscience which considers man as equal to instrument, a tool, a means to be
used by others.’ He then explains this by the assertion that:
The
history of Humanity then tends to be the history of the struggle of class
consciences, class cultures, characterized by class interests, the struggle
opposing justice to injustice, right to wrong, progress to stagnation and to
regression, finally Revolution to counter-revolution on the permanent basis of
antagonism between interests, objectives and cultures making groups of men
different.
It is
instructive to observe in these citations that the moral or ethical dimension
of conscience is not only asserted as class conscience but
also that this class conscience is of two forms
generated by contradictory interests in correspondence
with two cultures. These two cultures are then described
as class cultures. In dialectical terms, Sékou Touré states this in
this sophisticated way: ‘Culture, being the secretion of the conscience and the
generator of the supreme conscience, becomes then a culture of a social class’.
Having
identified what we may now call the epistemological and ethical dimensions
of conscience – one dealing with knowledge and understanding (truth search) and
the other dealing with morality (interests pursuit) – Sékou Touré shows how
they are connected: the one makes use of the other. At pages
104-106 he explains that one of the two class cultures utilizes the knowledge
resources (truth) generated by the epistemological dimension of conscience for
the advancement of the people while the other utilizes them
for their exploitation. This universal access
to knowledge to the classes is stated thus:
The
Man of Culture is … somebody who obeys the conscience of the right, the truth
and the individual who obeys the instinct of evil, cupidity and uses the
resources of knowledge against the People, and man in order to exploit them…
Among
men of culture loyal to the People, translating the deep aspirations of the
People, there are some who know how to handle marvellously a pen and know how
to speak; but there are also and mainly those who act courageously, with
lucidity and abnegation without knowing how to write while getting brilliant
and noble ideas.
Men of
Culture are undeniably masters of Arts; also, just as the first, they do
register events in the register of history which demands for its perenniality
neither paper nor pen: the immortal memory of the immortal People…
The
P.D.G. congratulates all the artists of all disciplines and urges them to
continue to produce and to make constant use of Revolutionary Culture in order
to accelerate the liberation of our People from mystification, from all
ideological and economic deficiencies.
It is
on the basis of this interconnectedness between the two dimensions of
conscience, which Sékou Touré sees as the prime mover of culture, that he makes
this final statement to encapsulate the entire idea of a culture thus: ‘Well
then, what is culture if not the sum of experiences of knowledge, allowing the
human being to regulate his own behaviour, his relation with external nature?’
But these, as required of a materialist philosophy, do not yet comprehensively
explain the origins of instinct and conscience. The assertion
of man being endowed with ‘instinct’ and by a certain
extension ‘conscience’ is not enough. As it is, it lends itself to claims
of innateness which is the arsenal of idealist philosophy for
the mystification of life through the introduction of objective spirit entities
into the philosophical discourse by the mistaken route.
That
explanation is found in Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s Consciencism at
pages 23-24. Firstly, let us note that Dr. Nkrumah treats ‘mind’ and
‘conscience’ as category equivalents and therefore uses them interchangeably
as, for instance, in the page 23 assertion that ‘philosophical materialism
accepts mind or conscience only as a derivative of matter’.
Secondly, the idea
of mind as a derivative of matter is biologically explained at
page 24; that is, the origin of mind or conscience is located
in a biological source but not in any process of mysterious endowment or
innateness externally conferred. The suggestion at page 24 is that mind or
conscience is not inborn but the result of developing matter or the nervous
system attaining a critical point. Intelligent activity cannot, therefore, be
observed in the foetus before that critical point. Read:
Mind,
according to philosophical materialism, is the result of a critical
organization of matter. Nervous organization has to attain a certain minimum of
complexity for the display of intelligent activity, or presence of mind. The
presence of mind and the attainment of this critical minimum of organization of
matter are one and the same thing … That is to say, notwithstanding that
the meaning of … ‘mind’, is not ‘a critical organization of nervous matter’, as
the meaning of ‘submarine’ is ‘a ship capable of moving under water’, mind is
nothing but the upshot of matter with a critical nervous arrangement.
Hence,
once again, we find that ‘intelligence’ ‘conscience’ and ‘mind’ are used in the
same sense by African philosophical materialists of the Pan-African
Revolutionary Tendency who locate ‘them’ in the process of the biological evolution
of the human foetus. It is within that process that ‘instinct’ also emerges
through the accumulative experiences that the foetus acquires from the
environment within the womb. (At page 129, Sékou Touré talks
about ‘instinctual culture which is accumulated’)
The
reactions of the foetus to change of conditions within the womb, which
conditions are the primary sources of experiences of pain and pleasure for the
foetus, constitute ‘the natural cultural stock’ that the born baby emerges from
the womb with as ‘instinct’. The use of the adjectival ‘natural’ only
refers to the biological environment of the womb as opposed to
the material environment into which the baby is later born. There is no
implication of ‘innateness’ which by itself suggests a presence even at the
very minute that the spermatozoic cell fuses with the ovular cell.
All of
us now know that kind of presence to be a mistaken claim. If it were not then
Sékou Touré would not talk about the possibility of getting rid of the instinct
and advocate such riddance. The possibility of this riddance is tangentially
acknowledged at page 138 thus: ‘The more man acquires by his scientific
knowledge, intellectual, technical, ideological and moral capabilities and the
more he gets power in order to get rid of the instinctual orders,
conscience evolution is therefore related to cultural efficient, historic and
rate value.’
Culture and Ideology
Sékou
Touré makes conscience the prime mover of culture; and while he
distinguishes conscience from ideology when
he states at page 72 that ‘conscience is not ideology’ he also states at pages
70-71 that ‘culture is the framework of ideology, the latter remaining the
content of the former’. Just as Dr. Kwame Nkrumah holds ideology as the content
of cultural expressions which it utilizes as its instruments for
self-realization so does Sékou Touré see culture as a container (framework)
within which ideology operates. Sékou Touré’s introduction of ‘conscience’ in
the equation appears to deepen it.
The
significance of this occurrence of three categories in the cultural equation
for the determination of the dynamism of culture could be felt in Sékou Touré’s
virtual comprehensive statement that employs them thus: ‘Since the foundation
of all culture is Society itself, since the prime mover of all culture is
the collective conscience of Society, considering that
collective conscience is not ideology, the
historical process of evolution of every Society has consistent repercussions
in the process of its cultural and ideological development.’
How do
we understand that? We appear to be aided at pages 75-76. There, we are told
that society creates culture, first, spontaneously and, second, more
consciously. As we have already seen, these correspond respectively to the
biophysical stage (instinctual) and the stage of development of life
(conscience) in culture. The said pages proceed to explain that once created by
society culture does not only become society’s ‘distinguishing characteristic
feature’ but in turn reacts upon society to recreate it.
It also has a corresponding ideology (pages 70-71) which consistently follows its
development and with it interacts. The content follows the framework. Read:
To
every culture corresponds an ideology and the nature of culture is but a
transposition of the ideology which, as a set of rules of conduct fit for the
attainment of certain ideals, follows unintermittingly (sic) the development
noted in culture which is the framework of ideology, the latter remaining the
content of the former. The harmony between the framework and the content forms
the basis for the appreciation of the viability and dynamism of culture and ideology.
This characteristic feature of the interaction between the framework and the
content justifies the specific character of the cultural personality of each
society.
Thus,
whereas ideology constitutes the content of culture as its framework, it appears
to be at the heels of and determined in its
development by culture. And since conscience is presented as ‘the prime mover
of culture’ we are obliged to understand conscience to be the ultimate determinant
of ideology. According to Sékou Touré (pages 75-76) although the analysis
distinguishes between the acts of creation of culture by society and
re-creation of society by culture in a sequential order, in reality the process
is integrated. We might be justified in including ideology in that integrated process.
Hence, ‘conscience’, ‘culture’ and ‘ideology’ are integrated in the definition
of culture – with ‘conscience’ being the source of dynamism.
Thus,
in the beginning are instinct and conscience:
Then
conscience overtakes instinct.
Conscience
shows two forms:
The
epistemological and the ethical or moral.
It
finally gets rid of instinct.
While
the epistemological understands the environment
And
constructs systems of science and philosophy,
The
ethical or moral sorts out the right and the wrong;
These latter
are determined by which class interests are represented,
On the
basis of which interests ideological systems are erected
To
determine the ideals to be attained in promotion of right.
Right
is justice
Wrong
or evil is injustice
In
promotion of which two – justice and injustice –
The
fruits of science and philosophy are mutually employed.
All
these actions and reactions on the environment accumulate
As
Culture of the people who thus create it
But on
whom it reacts to recreate them in their eternal march forward.
So
that every human society exhibits a culture of and for its survival;
No
human society therefore ever lives without a culture.
That
is why Africans have always had a culture;
That
Africans ever lived without a culture,
As
their colonizers and neo-colonialists claim,
Is a
lie that no African should ever accept
Lest
the light of the African Personality be dimmed in its brilliance!
Thus
saith Revolutionary Pan-Africanism
Through
the voice of Ahmed Sékou Touré
In
elaboration of Marxism-Nkrumaism.
Nigeria Goes Wild Over British Visa Conditions
 |
| Goodluck Jonathan |
By
Levi Obijiofor
The
proposal by the British Government to impose a compulsory bond of £3000 on visa
applicants from Nigeria and five other countries must be deemed offensive in
Africa and Asia. Mercifully, the proposed policy is already having ripple
effects in Nigeria even before the plan becomes official policy. The Federal
Government, the Senate and the House of Representatives last week reacted
angrily and understandably, threatening to introduce retaliatory policies aimed
to checkmate the British Government’s visa bond targeted at Nigerian citizens
planning to visit the UK.
If the proposal is implemented in November this year, Nigerians
and citizens of India, Ghana, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh who apply for
visitor visa to the UK will be required to deposit the bond. On Tuesday last
week, Foreign Affairs Minister Olugbenga Ashiru told the British High
Commissioner to Nigeria, Andrew Pocock, that the Nigerian government viewed the
planned visa bond “as not only discriminatory but also capable of undermining
the spirit of the Commonwealth family”.
Nigerians are entitled to view the British visa bond as a racist
policy. The British government has always regarded Nigeria as an
ill-disciplined little brother who should be treated as a second-rate country
and whose citizens should be dealt with like outcasts. Yet there are Nigerians
who hold British citizenship who have contributed immensely to the high profile
that the UK enjoys in international sports. Additionally, there are some
Nigerians who reside in the UK who serve as councillors, not to forget others
who excel in various fields of enterprise.
The official explanation for the introduction of the
discriminatory visa bond is that it is designed to discourage foreigners who
abuse British immigration rules, including those who overstay their visa or
those who breach their visa conditions. This argument flies in the face of
reason. The proposed visa bond is flawed because it regards everyone and all
citizens of the countries affected by the policy as criminals who should be
prohibited from gaining entry into the UK.
Although the British government could be seen to be responding to
increasing threats to its national security by its citizens and foreigners
resident in the UK, the proposed visa bond is not the best way to address the
problem. Of course, the UK has experienced various terror-related activities
since July 7, 2005. The growing involvement of British citizens or foreigners
with British nationality in terrorism has obviously prompted the government of
David Cameron to demonstrate to the larger population that the government is
responding to threats to national security. More specifically, the bomb
explosions that occurred in London on 7 July 2005, the violent street
demonstrations in 2011 that were led by disadvantaged migrants and
underprivileged youths, and the murder and decapitation in May 2013 of British
soldier Lee Rigby by two British nationals, would have provided a platform for
the British government to act decisively against people from certain countries.
Regardless of the reasons for the visa bond, the British
government should look internally at its domestic welfare policies rather than
externally for the causes of alienation and discontent among its citizens and
immigrant population. You do not punish all Nigerians, Pakistanis, Indians,
Ghanaians, Sri Lankans, and Bangladeshis for the sins of a few members of these
countries. All Nigerians are not criminals. The same argument can be made about
the larger population of the other five countries.
The proposed British visa bond is patently racist. If it is not
racist, why is it directed only at two African and four Asian countries? These
are non-western countries. The visa bond has to be ditched by its creators. If
the British government refuses to throw out that obnoxious visa directive, the
Nigerian government would be justified to retaliate in various ways, including
initiating reciprocal harsh visa rules targeted at British citizens. Also to be
considered as part of Nigeria’s response will be a review of our business
relations with the UK, as well as contracts awarded to British citizens.
In international diplomacy, a tit for tat policy is an accepted
way of sustaining relations. Historically, diplomatic relationships often go
cold for a while before they warm up again. For example, Nigeria once
nationalized a British oil company as a way to express its objection to the
British government’s refusal to take action to end the apartheid government in
South Africa.
Whenever the controversial visa policy kicks off, you can expect
Nigeria to retaliate forcefully, in fulfilment of its revitalised foreign
policy. At an induction course conducted for newly appointed envoys-designate
on Monday, 12 March 2013, Foreign Affairs Minister Olugbenga Ashiru told the
diplomats to operate in their countries of posting with an overriding policy of
“strict reciprocity” in dealing with issues that concern the interests of
Nigerians in their resident countries. That tough language will be tested in
November this year when the British government puts into force its proposed
visa bond policy.
The Foreign Minister’s directive to Nigerian diplomats focused on
three areas namely the adoption by Nigeria of a retaliatory policy that will
determine how the country would engage other countries; the advice to consular
officials to actively defend or represent the interests of Nigerian citizens
who reside overseas; and the directive to diplomats to demonstrate transparency
and accountability in their activities.
For record purposes, this is not the first time the British
government would issue a visa policy that is blatantly racist in conception,
intent and implementation designed to treat Nigerians as second class citizens.
In 2005, the British High Commission in Nigeria announced the commencement of a
policy that was intended to deny visa to Nigerian citizens aged between 18 and
30 who wished to travel to the United Kingdom for the first time for any reason
other than to study. That was discrimination by nationality, by age and by
purpose of travel. That bigoted policy was not extended to citizens of any
other western country or even citizens of other African countries.
In defence of that policy, the British High Commission in Nigeria
tendered unsound argument when it insisted at the time that no other country
generated as many visa applications as Nigeria did (and probably still does).
What that argument ignored was Nigeria’s population size. It is illogical to
compare the volume of visa applications generated from Nigeria with the volume
of visa applications from other countries with smaller population.
The plan to introduce the discriminatory visa bond to be paid by
citizens of a select number of African and Asian countries is not in the spirit
of the Commonwealth. Curiously, the countries identified for special attention
under the proposed visa bond are members of the Commonwealth.
The Commonwealth, we must remember, is an organisation of unequal
nations. There is no justification why the British government should target the
citizens of member countries of the Commonwealth through imposition of a
compulsory visa bond in its determination to reduce the number of foreign
citizens seeking entry into the UK. Of course, every country has the right to
outline policies to advance its national interests. However, that right should
not be exercised in a way that humiliates citizens of other countries. If
Nigeria has a sense of honour, it must respond to the visa policy in a robust
manner.
Perhaps the decision to introduce the visa bond must have been
informed by the misplaced perception that Britain still rules its former
colonies. What this policy tells us is that what is intolerable in western
countries should be alright for former colonised people.
Here is a paradox. The Commonwealth describes itself as “a
voluntary association of 54 countries that support each other and work together
towards shared goals in democracy and development”. You could argue that the
latest immigration policy envisioned by the British government is not designed
to support or work with the six countries targeted by the policy.
Within the Commonwealth, there is cultural, political,
educational, diplomatic, and social discrimination. Some of the leaders are
perceived as more superior than the rest. In the Commonwealth, western countries
treat African and Caribbean member countries as inferior and junior partners.
It is no wonder that the British government can afford to treat Nigeria and
other five countries of the Commonwealth in a condescending manner.
If the British government wants to maintain friendly diplomatic
relations with Nigeria, it knows what to do. It should scrap the proposed
racist visa bond targeted at Nigerian citizens. That policy is not a matter
that warrants roundtable discussion between British and Nigerian government
officials. The visa bond should not be negotiated or discussed with Nigeria’s
Foreign Affairs officials because, by the proposed policy, the British
government has slapped Nigeria in the face. No country should keep silent while
its citizens are subjected to discriminatory treatment by another country.
Even if diplomats don’t refer to it by name, retaliation is the
codeword for the defence of national interests. Nigeria must defend its
citizens. It does not matter whether that defence leads to the end of
diplomatic relations with the UK.
Wombs not bombs
in Palestine
By
Hamid Golpira
The
Israelis claim they fear Palestinian bombs, but their real fear comes from
Palestinian wombs, specifically the high birth rate among Palestinians, which
is creating a demographic time bomb for the Zionist regime.
The
Israeli military’s constant attacks on the Palestinians, and especially the
relentless onslaught on Gaza, are not being carried out in response to rocket attacks
by the Palestinians, as the Israelis claim, but are actually part of a
depopulation program, which was devised to slow down the growth in the
Palestinian population.
Israel
is currently facing a demography/democracy dilemma.
The
entire area that the Zionist regime controls -- East al-Quds (Jerusalem), the
Gaza Strip, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, the Shebaa Farms, and the
territories of Palestine occupied before the Six-Day War of 1967 -- is about
48.33 percent Palestinian.
However,
in a short time, due to the high birth rate among Palestinians, the area will
be over 50 percent Palestinian.
And
that will be the time when the demography/democracy dilemma really takes
shape.
Israel
claims to be a democracy, but that is obviously not true since the Zionist
regime does not grant the right to vote to all the people living in the
territories it controls.
The
Israelis say that they only allow citizens to vote, and since most of the
Palestinians don’t want to become Israeli citizens, they can’t vote.
But
when the territories are 50 percent Palestinian, it will become extremely
difficult for the Israelis to justify the disenfranchisement of the
Palestinians.
If
the Israelis allow all the Palestinians to vote at that time, then the
parliament would be 50 percent Palestinian, and the Palestinians would
rule.
In
that case, it would be a democratic country, but not ruled by Jews.
If
the Israelis do not allow all the Palestinians to vote, the Zionist entity
would be ruled by Jews, but it would not be a democracy, and it would be an
apartheid regime according to every definition of the term -- as it is
now.
As
democracy finally brought down the apartheid regime of South Africa, democracy
will also bring down the apartheid regime of Israel.
All
apartheid regimes are bound to fall, sooner or later. Many Israelis are well
aware of this fact, and that is the reason why some of them are pushing so hard
for the two-state solution, since allowing the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to
become an independent Palestinian state would readjust the demography and give
the Zionist entity a comfortable Jewish majority.
However,
there are some elements in Israel who do not want to allow the West Bank and
the Gaza Strip to become an independent Palestinian state and who also do not
want the Palestinians to become the majority and do not want to give them the
right to vote.
Thus,
in a desperate attempt to delay the inevitable, the Israeli military has been
targeting Palestinian women of child-bearing age.
There
is no military reason to target civilians, and specifically women of
child-bearing age.
Population
control is the only objective of such a strategy.
Some
political analysts say that the Israeli military has been targeting civilians
in order to turn the Palestinians against Hamas, but surely the Israelis know
that the Palestinians will continue the resistance, despite all the hardships,
and will not turn against Hamas.
The
only just solution is to organize a referendum with the participation of all
the people living in Palestine -- Muslims, Christians, Jews, and people with
other belief systems.
However,
all of the 5.8 million Palestinians in the diaspora would have to be granted
the right of return and the right to vote in the plebiscite.
The
choice is clear. Hold a referendum and establish a democratic state with rights
for everyone and peace, or allow the apartheid regime of Israel and war, death,
and destruction to continue for years.
Democracy
and peace, not apartheid and war, is the wave of the future. The sooner
everyone understands that, the sooner everyone can live in peace.
How to Use
Sex Like a Russian Spy
By Peter Sullivan
Former KGB
General Oleg Kalugin was once
asked why so many Russian spies used sex in their work, intelligence historian
H. Keith Melton recalls. Kalugin's reply was simple: "In America, in the
West, occasionally you ask your men to stand up for their country. There's very
little difference. In Russia, we just ask our young women to lay down."
Most people's first association with
spies and sex is James Bond, but conducting espionage through seduction happens
in real life, too. And in a briefing at the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C. on
Thursday night, Melton spilled some of sexpionage's greatest secrets.
One of the most significant episodes in the annals of
sexpionage occurred during the depths of the Cold War in 1963, when Britain
learned the hard way that mixing sex and spying could cause even the best-laid
plans to go off the rails. Britain's MI5 security service successfully dangled
showgirl Christine Keeler in front of the Russian naval
attaché Yevgeni Ivanov. But Keeler's knack for making men swoon had a downside.
John Profumo, the British secretary of war, was at a party that summer when he
saw Keeler swimming naked in a pool. He fell for her too.
As Melton put it, "You have a situation where the
equivalent of the secretary of defense is having an affair with the same woman
who is having an affair with the Russian naval attaché. This was not to end
well." Indeed, after Profumo emphatically denied the affair on the floor
of Parliament, Keeler decided to sell his love letters to the Express newspaper. Profumo resigned, and Harold
Macmillan's Conservative government crumbled.
In the United States, these kinds of scandals may have
gone all the way to the top of the government. Suspected East German spy Ellen Rometsch, for instance, was a call girl at
the Quorum Club, a favorite spot for politicians (who used the side entrance)
in Washington, D.C., who allegedly became involved with none other than
President John F. Kennedy. While the president had plenty of affairs, this one
was of particular concern to his brother, Robert Kennedy, who had the
unenviable task of sending her back to Europe, making sure she didn't talk, and
getting FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to drop his investigation into the matter.
Getting someone to fall into a sexual trap -- a
"honey trap," in spy talk -- is not automatic. Markus Wolf, a former head of East German
intelligence, was one of the masters. His idea was to dispatch male agents,
known as "Romeos," to targets like NATO headquarters with the mission
of picking up female secretaries. He later told Melton that a good Romeo had
three critical traits: he was likeable, he knew how to make himself the center
of attention, and he listened well, which made women enjoy talking to him.
If a Romeo wants to recruit women, Wolf told Melton once,
"you don't go to them, have them come to you. You become the center of the
party, you buy the drinks, you tell the jokes. You're the life of the party.
She will come to you. And then naturally that will make it easier."
The next step in East Germany's playbook was to escalate
the relationship. The agent would propose marriage and later reveal to his wife
that he was a spy -- but for a friendly country (like Canada!). The finishing
touch was for the agent to explain that he would have to be recalled, ruining
their precious relationship, unless the wife could cough up some information to
satisfy the bosses back home.
These tactics were so successful that by 1978 East German
intelligence had racked up at least 53 cases of women falling for Romeos. By
1980, NATO had started compiling and monitoring a registry of single female
secretaries to make sure they weren't marrying East German spies.
Sexualized spying didn't fade with the Cold War. Just
three years ago, the FBI arrested 10 Russian spies in New York City, the most
famous of which was Anna Chapman (pictured above), who used her
marriage to a British citizen, whom she met at a rave in London, to get a
British passport that she in turn used to enter the United States. Melton noted
that her husband, Alex Chapman, was later asked if he noticed anything unusual
about his wife. "Every time I would call her cell phone she'd answer me
from a payphone, but at the time I didn't think anything was unusual," he
said.
The digital age could make sex an even more potent tool
for espionage. "In the digital world, the new honey trap is not
sexual," Melton argued. "It's not compromise, but it's access."
To illustrate his point, he showed a training video for defense contractors
that depicts a woman picking up a man in a bar, drugging his drink, and then
retiring to a hotel room with him. While the man lies passed out on the bed,
the woman has plenty of time to install programs on his computer and read
messages on his devices.
"Unfettered access to his laptop and cell phone could
have provided unfettered vulnerabilities," Melton cautioned.
After the talk, one audience member pointed out that none
of the examples Melton gave involved U.S. spies wielding sex as a weapon.
"The official statement is that we not only do not
condone it, but that if someone did that, they'd probably also lose their
security clearances," Melton replied. "So that is not something that
we do."
At least that's the official statement.
Bolivia awaits Russia’s
technology and energy investment
 |
| Evo Morales |
Bolivia is underdeveloped technologically, so
we would like to learn from other countries in order to create added value by
processing natural gas, President of Bolivia Evo Morales told RT Spanish.
The head of the largest Latin American gas exporter was in Moscow
on July 1-2 for the Forum of Gas Exporting Countries. Evo Morales met with
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, the two presidents discussed access of
Russian energy companies to aid Bolivia’s oil and gas development.
"We would like countries like Russia and Qatar to
consider investing in Bolivia. We offer this as partners, not as the owners of
our natural resources. This is the new policy of the Plurinational State of
Bolivia. We would like to create added value, so that our countries get richer
and consumers benefit from this fuel,"Morales told RT Spanish ahead of
the meeting.
RT: What can you say about your visit in terms of
your bilateral relations with Russia?
EM: We want Russia to resume its technological
exports to Latin America and the Caribbean. We want to learn from you, to work
together and cooperate in investment, in order to diversify our investments and
our market. We cannot depend entirely on the US market, as some countries in
Latin America do. We cannot rely entirely on the European or the Asian market.
We want to have diverse markets. We also need to import technology in order to
avoid a monopoly in Latin America and the Caribbean.
We will soon sign an agreement with Gazprom and another company,
which will come to Bolivia in the near future to look at our reserves. We will
discuss the best way to explore new gas fields and develop them to our mutual
benefit. Second, we also need Russia’s technological assistance in fighting
drug traffickers. Bolivia needs radar and helicopters, ones that can be used in
the mountains as well as on the plains. In order to fight drug cartels, we
would like to buy big helicopters that we know Russia has. We would be
interested in buying them for a reasonable price or on credit. These are the
issues we would like to discuss with Russia. Pesident Vladimir Putin (left) of Russia and
his Bolivian counterpart Evo Morales Ayma seen meeting in the Kremlin, July 2,
2013. RT: Based
on what you are saying, I conclude that close cooperation between Russia and Bolivia
will continue.
EM: Of course, we will develop our cooperation, fair
trade and investment in natural resources. I would like to thank Russia
publicly. In the days of the Soviet Union, many Bolivians studied in Russia,
and today they are good professionals. Some of them work in the government;
some are engineers. They are well-disciplined and well-educated. Today, as
Bolivia develops, it would be very helpful if our young specialists could study
in Russia and then take their knowledge back to Latin America, to the
Caribbean, and especially to Bolivia.
RT: Speaking of this exact kind of liberalization,
your position towards the USA has been shaping over a long period of time. You
expelled an American ambassador, the DEA and, according to your latest statement,
USAID as well. What are the grounds for such measures?
EM: Bolivia wants to establish friendly relationships
with President Obama. He and I have something in common – we both descend from
oppressed population groups. I don’t know whether it is Obama’s instruction or
not, but this US organization was conspiring against our government, provoked
us, funded our opponents and turned some companies against us. All countries
and all presidents have their opponents but ambassadors and other members of diplomatic
missions shouldn’t participate in any plots. That is why we expelled the agents
of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration and the US Agency for
International Development. The USA pretends to help us just to conspire against
our country, weakening it. We are a small county, but we still have a right to
protect our dignity, independence and fight against foreign conspiracies. We
respect differences between countries and freedom of thought. There are many
different countries – be it capitalist, imperialist, anti-capitalist,
anti-colonial or anti-neoliberal – it shouldn’t hatch plots against us. I am
very sorry that the USA is involved in this, and it was the reason for the
expulsion of their agencies.
RT: What is the reason for this conspiracy? What
are the goals of the USA?
EM: They don’t want other countries to nationalize
their natural resources and utility operators. For instance, Entel
Telecomunicaciones (Entel Movil) was privatized during the period of
neoliberalism. Up to 2007 Entel had only been present in 90 out of 341
municipalities. In 2007 the company was nationalized and its services are now
provided in all the country’s municipalities.
In 1989, when I was a labor union leader, I had my first visit to
Europe within a program for legalization of the coca leaf, protection of human
rights, protection of the Earth, as well as supporting the rights of the Indian
poor. I visited Switzerland, France, Belgium, but most of the time I
spent in France working with the coca leaf campaign.
So one Sunday I had no conferences to go to, and a friend of mine
from France said, ‘Evo, I’m a farmer, let me take you to my farm’. I had free
time, so I decided to go. We went quite a long way in his car. I couldn’t
figure out how a farmer could own a car. After a long journey, we finally made
it to his farm. He pushed the button, and the garage door opened automatically.
I felt like I found myself in a different world. I’d never seen anything like
that garage before. We went in, and inside he had telephone, electricity,
drinking water, and shower. I’d never seen a shower before either. He said,
Evo, feel free to take a shower. It was totally amazing to take a shower. Then
I saw the phone, and he told me that I could use it. I was really overwhelmed
that someone living in a remote village had a private phone. For me, France,
Europe was a truly different world. At that moment I wondered when my brothers
in my village would have shower, electricity, and other amenities, and drinking
water of course. Just think how things have changed in Bolivia since 1989. The
Entel network now covers almost the entire country. Thanks to these programs
which encourage investing in water as the source of life, capital cities of
provinces and municipalities have got drinking water. Villagers used to have to
travel to cities just to be able to see electricity, television and drinking
water. And now, to the contrary, people go back to their provinces where they
now have garden water and drinking water, and where they enjoy electricity and
communication networks. This side of our public life has seen some profound improvements.
And we feel we’re obliged to continue changing Bolivia.
RT: Can you say that you as
president have managed to achieve your dream?
EM: I’d say I achieved more than one dream. During
the seven years of my presidency I’ve achieved truly historic, even
unprecedented results from the foundation of the republic. For instance, in
2005 prior to my election, the state investments amounted to $600mn, 70 percent
of which were loans and cooperation funds, and only 30 percent were actual
money. Last year, the state investments amounted to $6bn, about 20
percent of which were loans, and the rest was our state funds. We were able to
achieve this due to nationalization. Another important point, the YPFB
Company’s oil revenues were $300mn in 2005; and last year, oil revenues were
$4.2bn. This year we’re expecting to make over $5bn from oil. We went from
$300mln in 2005 to $5bn in 2013 in the oil sector alone. It means that
nationalized companies bring these revenues, which become the assets of the
Bolivian people. Bolivia used to have to borrow money to be able to pay
salaries, but this is no longer required. We used to always have a budget
deficit but now, in the first year of nationalizing the oil deposits, we had a
budget surplus, and now we can afford benefits and subsidies for our elderly
and children.
RT: Coca Cola and McDonalds got kicked out of
Bolivia. What was the reason for such measures?
EM: This was initiated by some of our comrades. It
caused an increase of consumption of national products and the development of
the domestic market. I welcome such initiatives, because if our market grows,
our economy will grow and our economic policy will become more stable. If we
depend just on the foreign market, when it crashes, we may experience the
economic crisis. Today we are trying to develop the domestic market. For
instance: city administrations have more financial resources, mayors purchase
national products from small producers to prepare breakfast and lunch for
primary and junior school students. Parents produce, mayors purchase and feed
the children to strengthen the domestic market and boost the economic growth.
I’m not an economist or a financier, but I realized that these measures benefit
our country and encourage us to expand our domestic market. We’re now talking
about guaranteed-income products that may cause economic growth.
RT: Do you believe that capitalism is the cause of
many of the world’s problems?
EM: Just like before I still believe that capitalism
is not the most successful way. The capital is concentrated in the hands of a
small group of people, the so-called oligarchs. They have all the economic and
political power. And they are using their economic power to increase the
economic power of certain businessmen. I know that some businessmen do not
participate in politics and are just doing business. They have the right to do
that, just like others. But there are businessmen-politicians, who use politics
to get money for their companies, and that’s what we call the politics of
oligarchy. As long as there are such politicians, as long as the capital is
concentrated in the hands of a few people, nothing will change. As long as
there’s capitalism and imperialism in the world, there’ll be struggle. FP Photo/Paul J. Richards
RT: Mister President, I would like to conclude our
conversation with a brief reflection regarding the future. How possible do you
think it is that major changes in the global economy will start in Latin
America?
EM: You know, the Queen of Spain told me during her
visit last year, “Evo, you will be the richest nation.” I asked her, “Why?” –
“Because as soon as you recover your natural resources, your economy will take
off.”
Nations where all natural resources are owned by the state and the
people, and where revenues from resource development belong to the people, such
nations will be alright. That is why it would be great to apply Bolivia’s and
other Latin American nations’ experience to the benefit of the rest of the
world. I always knew that Latin America is abundant in natural resources. Even
in Bolivia, after so many years of plunder, there are still considerable
resources that practically lie right beneath our feet, such as oil and
iron.
My indigenous brothers, peasants, once told me, “Mr. President, we
have found an oil spring, and it’s flowing with oil.” – “No way?” – “Yes, it’s
true.” – “Well, let’s go see it.”
We went to the site they were talking about, and there really was
a spring spurting with oil. It could be light crude or heavy crude, but the
bottom line is that it was gushing with oil. Unbelievable.
I am Bolivian, and I myself keep discovering my country and its
riches – it turns out we have vast deposits of lithium. And once, they brought
me to an area that borders on Brazil, and someone told me, “Look, Mr.
President, this is iron. Take that stone there.” I pick up a stone, and I see
it’s pure iron.
What we need are joint ventures. Foreign companies could team up
with our national companies and mine these resources for the sake of all
humanity, in a sustainable and responsible manner. What we need is partners
rather than “masters” who would misappropriate our natural assets.
There are still some decent foreign companies that continue to
operate in Bolivia, such as Repsol S.A. and Total S.A. But the law that used to
grant ownership rights over deposits to mining companies is no longer in
effect. It was a neoliberal measure enacted by one of the previous governments,
which effectively meant that natural resources were property of the Bolivian
people just as long as they were below ground – once developed, they no longer
belonged to us, as ownership rights were to pass to the owner of the mining
company. Consequently, Bolivians were entitled to a mere 18 percent of mining
revenues, while mining companies claimed the remaining 82 percent. Such was
their invention.
Our latest economic assessments show that a share of 18 or even 15
percent of the revenue is enough for a mining company to get a return on its
investment and make a profit. So nowadays, we Bolivians retain 80, 82 or even
85 percent of mining revenues, particularly as far as gas mining is concerned.
This has had a major impact on our economy.
We need to set up joint businesses that would benefit both Bolivia
and other countries. Which is why such meetings are so helpful. Like I said, we
are very enthusiastic about it, and we would like to continue getting to know
each other better, to our own benefit and for the best of humanity.
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