 |
| Dr Kwesi Botchwey |
By Ekow Mensah
The much hyped leaked report of the Kwesi Botchwey
Committee is nothing more or less than fake news being deliberately circulated
to dissuade former President John Dramani Mahama from offering himself as
Presidential Candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).
Over the last couple of days, various media houses have
claimed that they have seen copies of a 67-page report blaming former President
Mahama for the defeat of the NDC in the 2016 elections.
However, checks by “The Insight” have revealed that no
such report exists.
NDC General Secretary Johnson Aseidu Nketia was emphatic
that the leaders of the party have not received any such report from the Kwesi
Botchwey Committee.
Some members of the Committee who spoke to “The Insight”
also said that the report of the Committee is not ready and therefore could not
have been leaked.
The Kwesi Botchwey Committee was set up by the National
Executive Committee of the Party to find out why the party lost the 2016
elections.
So far, it has toured the country to listen to party
leaders and cadres in addition to engaging officials and elders of the party.
There are very strong indications that former President
Mahama will join the contest for the presidential candidature of the NDC even
though he has repeatedly said that he has not made up his mind.
Party stalwarts including Hannah Tetteh, former Minister
of Foreign Affairs, Okudzeto Ablakwa, former Deputy Minister of Education and
Kofi Adams, National Organiser have all said that the former President is the
best bet for the NDC for the 2020 elections.
Editorial
KUME
PREKO
The anniversary of the Kume Preko demonstration has
passed without fanfare even though President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was
one of the key figures who organised it on May 11, 1995.
Perhaps being in government is so very different from
being in opposition and therefore the things to highlight today may be also
different from what was focused on yesterday.
The Kume Preko demonstration brought out an estimated
120,000 people into the streets of Accra to demand the abolition of the Value
Added Tax (VAT) and an end to the economic and social hardship facing the
people of Ghana.
The protest was against increasing petroleum prices,
very high utility tariffs and high school fees.
As far as we are concerned the most important lesson of
the Kume Preko protest is that no government can fool the masses all the time
and that Governments which fail to meet the aspirations of the people will
incur their wrath.
The spirit of Kume Preko will continue to live on until
true democracy is firmly established in Ghana.
Local News:
'Second revival
coming to Komenda sugar factory'
The Akufo-Addo government has assured, it will revive
the Komenda Sugar factory after it was shut down last year for reasons blamed
on the former government's poor economic judgment.
Deputy Trade Minister Carlos Kingsley Ahenkorah told
Joy News, government is 'working frantically' to get operational, a $24m
factory which worked for barely 4 weeks after it was commissioned.
While holding out a promised revival, the politician
could not help but take a swipe at the previous NDC government for
"putting up a factory when you don't actually have raw materials".
The Komenda Sugar factory became a sour point of
controversy over its viability after some traditional pomp.
Commissioned seven months to a crucial election, the
opposition NPP described it as a vote-buying ploy.
Critics lined up to stress the factory will produce more 'propaganda than sugar'. They said building a plant without a guaranteed supply of raw
materials is putting the cart before the horse.
But the Mahama government stayed the course,
defending the project touted to create 7,000 direct and indirect jobs in one of
Ghana's poorest regions, the Central region.
It was explained, 60% of the needed sugarcane will
bought from farmers within the catchment area and 40% will be supplied by the
company's own farms which had reached nursery stage.
After pushing out some bags of sugar, the factory
inaugurated May 30 2016 was shut down by June 24. A move explained as routine
maintenance.
A promise to get the factory operation in October was postponed to November until a change in government in December ended any further
assurances from the Mahama administration.
Taking over the baton of assurances, the Deputy Trade
minister and Tema West MP said the new government is holding talks on fixing
the project's faulty economic foundation.
When the factory is ready to work again, the
government will tell the story of Komenda's misfortune all over again, he said.
Built in the 60's, liquidated in 1995, the factory's
first resurrection happened in 2016. Revamped in 2016, defunct again in 2016,
there is a new promise of a second and final resurrection - hopefully.
Ghana:
Kofi Ghanaba; Afro
Jazz legend and the first African to present for the BBC
 |
| Collins with Kofi Ghanaba |
I watched with intense concentration as the flames
shot up with white smoke swirling into the clear bright sky. My thoughts
wandered and went to Chicago USA to a struggling African musician who was
trying to get his music heard. He was in good company as most of the Jazz
musicians of that era were also going through the same frustrations of the
industry.
Guy warren brought his Bintin Obonu (Talking Drum)
into American Jazz. It was an introduction which earned him a residency at the
African Room and took him off the cold windy streets of Chicago. At the African
room, Guy found his voice, he had put together a small group that was blowing
audiences away night after night. He was writing and playing his own material
and his drumming was causing a School rather abruptly, Guy Warren decided to
follow what his heart desired most, Jazz.
In the early 50’s he had a spell with the ET Mensah
Tempo band which he had led and then moved to London and joined Kenny Grahams
Afro-Cubists where he became an influential and well sought after Bongo player.
He presented programs on BBC the famous “Calling West
Africa” (the first African to present for the British Broadcasting
Corporation). It was from here that he journeyed to the shores of America
pursuing the desire to record his music. Guy persevered and went hungry on many
a night . Knocking on doors all the time in relentless pursuit of getting his
music on record. Through the wife of a fellow musician he got a lucky
introduction to an old Jazz musician Red Sanders who instantly took to Guys
music. Red Sanders decided he would fund the recording as long as he was
allowed to play on it.
It didn’t sit well with Guys sideman and faithful
friend Genero Esposito. The deal for the album was made by Red Sanders who cut
himself into the contract with Decca . Despite Guys misgivings he still thought
it has a good chance to have his music recorded.
The album was recorded with a lot of difficulty with
Guy going through a series of session men who couldn’t play his music. He
eventually settled on a few and the Album was recorded and released.
A year after the album’s release Guy was still broke
and starving. The band had broken up and he was looking for work again. After
knocking on several doors he eventually found a place in African Room where his
Guy Warren sounds enjoyed a residency. It was from the African Room that Guys
fame spread.
He had introduced for the first time the Bintin Obonu
drum (Talking drum) into Jazz and was mesmerizing audiences with his style of
Jazz drumming. He blew away Americans great jazz drummer of the time Maxx Roach
and great drummers like Willy Jones who greatly admired his playing. Max Roach
was so incredulous of Guys drumming to the point that he refused to believe Guy
had played all the drums on “The Lardy Marie Drum Suite. Guy was in the mix
from here on. His musical encounters with contemporaries like the great Charlie
Parker (Bird) Clifford Brown, Ritchie Ponell, Hark Mobley, Abbey Lincoln.
Billie Holiday, Miles Davies, Lester Young and many more reads like a who is
who of Jazz.
The song “Happy Feeling” was the hit off the
album and caught worldwide attention when it was covered by Englebert
Humperdick the German Orchestrator and went to No 1 in the billboard charts.
Guy followed the success of African Speaks America
Answers with another recording “Themes for Africa Drums”. Guy Warren recorded a
total of 10 Albums on labels like Decca, RCA Victor, leading labels of this
era.(see discography for full list).
Guy was emphatic about his African identity even in
the hard times of the 50’s when African s were called Negroes and were conking
their hair. He insisted on donning his African costume and sat proud behind his
drums.
His insistence on this African identity earned him a
close personal relationship with the Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah the first president
of Ghana who was espousing the African Personality. Guy much later on in his
life asserted this further by dropping his rather western name Guy Warren for
the name Kofi Ghanaba which means the son of Ghana
In the Who is Who of Jazz 1957, Leonard Feather Jazz
critic write, “Guy has a detailed and authentic knowledge of African rhythms
and dance which he uses in his playing”.
Ghanaba’s Seminal album “Africa Speaks America Answers
defined the way in which African music will be seen and directly influenced the
music and musicians of Africa. The music of Osibisa, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, Hugh
Masekela and Man Dibango to name a few were very much influenced by this album.
When you listen to the opening track of Osibisa’s debut album “The Dawn” you
get a good sense of the direction. The heavy grooves of the track “Highlife”
have been replicated over the years by many an Afro Rock or Afro Jazz musician.
Ghanaba’s influence looms large over the music of Africa in many ways as he
took the drum music of Africa to another level hitherto unheard of. A lot of
wildlife documentaries frequently use his music in the background as well.
The greatness of this man’s contribution is
inestimable. He is the first African to be listed in the Encyclopedia of Jazz.
In the Who is Who of Jazz and the first African member of ASCAP (American
Society of Composers Authorized and Publishers).
Ghanaba’s experiments with African drums continued on
his return to Ghana and until his death ,He had the title of Odomankoma Kyerema
meaning “The Divine Drummer” bestowed on him. He continued to perform
into his 80’s and his last performance at age 86 was two weeks before his
passing at the Goethe Institute in Accra at which he also delivered a lecture
on “the African presence in Jazz” I watched the smoke swirl up to the clear
skies and my thoughts came back with a smile and a thought, this great son of
Africa was off to play the great Fontomfroms (the massive twin drums of the
Akan people of Ghana) in the heavens. Ding-Dong!
Source: Scratch Magazine
Africa:
History: How African Muslims
“civilized Spain”
 |
| The Moors |
The Moors invaded Spain in 711 AD and African Muslims literally
civilized the wild, white tribes. Recent scholarship now sheds new light on how
Moorish advances in mathematics, astronomy, art, and philosophy helped propel
Europe out of the Dark Ages and into the Renaissance.
Four hundred and eight years ago today King
Phillip III of Spain signed an order, which was one of the earliest
examples of ethnic cleansing. At the height of the Spanish inquisition, King
Phillip III ordered the expulsion of 300,000 Muslim Moriscos, which initiated
one of the most brutal and tragic episodes in the history of Spain.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, it was ancient
Africans that brought civilization to Spain and large parts of Europe and not
the other way around.
The first civilization of Europe was established on
the Greek island of Crete in 1700 BC and the Greeks were primarily civilized by
the Black Africans of the Nile Valley. The Greeks then passed on this acquired
culture to the Romans who ultimately lost it; thus, initiating the Dark Ages
that lasted for five centuries. Civilization was once again reintroduced to
Europe when another group of Black Africans, The Moors, brought the Dark Ages
to an end.
When history is taught in the West, the period called
the “Middle Ages” is generally referred to as the “Dark Ages,” and depicted as
the period during which civilization in general, including the arts and
sciences, laid somewhat idle. This was certainly true for Europeans, but not
for Africans.
Renowned historian, Cheikh Anta Diop, explains how
during the Middle Ages, the great empires of the world were Black empires, and
the educational and cultural centers of the world were predominately African.
Moreover, during that period, it was the Europeans who were the lawless
barbarians.
After the collapse of the Roman Empire multitudes of
white warring tribes from the Caucasus were pushed into Western Europe by the
invading Huns. The Moors invaded Spanish shores in 711 AD and African Muslims
literally civilized the wild, white tribes from the Caucus. The Moors
eventually ruled over Spain, Portugal, North Africa and southern France for
over seven hundred years.
Although generations of Spanish rulers have tried to
expunge this era from the historical record, recent archaeology and scholarship
now sheds new light on how Moorish advances in mathematics, astronomy, art, and
philosophy helped propel Europe out of the Dark Ages and into the Renaissance.
One the most famous British historians, Basil
Davidson, noted that during the eighth century there was no land “more admired
by its neighbours, or more comfortable to live in, than a rich African
civilization which took shape in Spain”.
The Moors were unquestionably Black and the 16th
century English playwright William Shakespeare used the word Moor as a synonym
for African.
Education was universal in Muslim Spain, while in
Christian Europe, 99 percent of the population was illiterate, and even kings
could neither read nor write. The Moors boasted a remarkably high literacy rate
for a pre-modern society. During an era when Europe had only two universities,
the Moors had seventeen. The founders of Oxford University were inspired to
form the institution after visiting universities in Spain. According to the
United Nations’ Education body, the oldest university operating in the world today
is the University of Al-Karaouine of Morocco founded during the height of the
Moorish Empire in 859 A.D. by a Black woman named Fatima al-Fihri.
In the realm of mathematics, the number zero (0), the
Arabic numerals, and the decimal system were all introduced to Europe by
Muslims, assisting them to solve problems far more quickly and accurately and
laying the foundation for the Scientific Revolution.
The Moors’ scientific curiosity extended to flight and
polymath. Ibn Firnas made the world’s first scientific attempt to fly in a
controlled manner in 875 A.D. Historical archives suggest that his attempt
worked, but his landing was somewhat less successful. Africans took to the
skies some six centuries before the Italian Leonardo Da Vinci developed a hang glider.
Clearly, the Moors helped to lift the general European
populace out of the Dark Ages, and paved the way for the Renaissance period. In
fact, a large number of the traits on which modern Europe prides itself came to
it from Muslim Spain, namely, free trade, diplomacy, open borders, etiquette,
advanced seafaring, research methods, and key advances in chemistry.
At a time when the Moors built 600 public baths and
the rulers lived in sumptuous palaces, the monarchs of Germany, France, and
England convinced their subjects that cleanliness was a sin and European kings
dwelt in big barns, with no windows and no chimneys, often with only a hole in
the roof for the exit of smoke.
In the 10th century, Cordoba was not just the capital
of Moorish Spain but also the most important and modern city in Europe.
Cordoba boasted a population of half a million and had street lighting, fifty
hospitals with running water, five hundred mosques and seventy libraries, one
of which held over 500,000 books.
All of these achievements occurred at a time when
London had a predominantly illiterate population of around 20,000 and had
largely forgotten the technical advances of the Romans some six hundred years
before. Street lamps and paved streets did not appear in London or Paris until
hundreds of years later.
The Catholic Church forbade money lending which
severely hampered any efforts at economic progress. Medieval Christian Europe
was a miserable lot, which was rife with squalor, barbarism, illiteracy, and
mysticism.
In Europe’s great Age of Exploration, Spain and
Portugal were the leaders in global seafaring. It was the Moorish advances in
navigational technology such as the astrolabe and sextant, as well as their
improvements in cartography and shipbuilding, that paved the way for the Age of
Exploration. Thus, the era of Western global dominance of the past
half-millennium originated from the African Moorish sailors of the Iberian
Peninsula during the 1300s.
Long before Spanish Monarchs commissioned Columbus’
search for land to the West, African Muslims, amongst others, had long since
established significant contact with the Americas and left a lasting impression
on Native culture.
One can only wonder how Columbus could have
‘discovered’ America when a highly civilised and sophisticated people were
watching him arrive from America’s shores?
An overwhelming body of new evidence is emerging which
proves that Africans had frequently sailed across the Atlantic to the Americas,
many years before Columbus and indeed before Christ. Dr. Barry Fell of Harvard
University highlights an array of evidence of Muslims in America before
Columbus from sculptures, oral traditions, coins, eye-witness reports, ancient
artifacts, Arabic documents and inscriptions.
The strongest evidence of African presence in America
before Columbus comes from the pen of Columbus himself. In 1920, a renowned
American historian and linguist, Leo Weiner of Harvard University, in his
book, Africa and the Discovery of America, explained how Columbus noted in
his journal that Native Americans had confirmed that,“black skinned people had
come from the south-east in boats, trading in gold-tipped spears.”
Muslim Spain not only collected and perpetuated the
intellectual advances of Ancient Egypt, Greece and Roman civilisation, it also
expanded on that civilisation and made its own vital contributions in fields
ranging from astronomy, pharmacology, maritime navigation, architecture and
law.
The centuries old impression given by some Western
scholars that the African continent made little or no contributions to
civilization, and that its people are naturally primitive has, unfortunately,
became the basis of racial prejudice, slavery, colonialism and the ongoing
economic oppression of Africa. If Africans re-write their true history, they
will reveal a glory that they will inevitably seek to recapture. After all, the
greatest threat towards Africa having a glorious future is her people’s
ignorance of Africa’s glorious past.
* Garikai Chengu is a scholar at Harvard University.
Contact him on garikai.chengu@gmail.com. This article previously appeared in Global Research.
Source: Pambazuka
Feature:
Africa in the 21st century: Legacy of
imperialism and development prospects
Some arguments made today on why Africa cannot catch
up with the West were also made 100 years ago when Africa was under European
colonization, with the colonizers blaming everything but imperialism as the
root cause of underdevelopment. The world economic structure has not changed,
no matter the rhetoric of globalization. Africa remains semi-colonial:
increasingly dependent on developed countries for overvalued manufactured goods
while exporting raw materials at prices determined by commodity markets in the
West.
Abstract
This essay argues that Africa is undergoing changes in
its economies in the 21st century, not only because of the role that China is
playing but owing to intense competition from other Western countries and the
Middle East. China’s role is within the capitalist world economy and within the
patron-client model of integration that the Europeans followed after African
countries achieved their formal independence from colonization. During the
second half of the 20th century, northwest Europe remained the conduit for
African integration into the US-centered global economy, despite the role of
US-based multinational corporations. According to Pew Research Center polls of
African nations, the issue concerning the vast majority of the people remains
the gap between the rich and poor. This is directly related to the
international competition for market share in Africa as well as the security
issue intertwined with local rebels groups and what the US labels
Islamic-inspired “terrorism”, or another form of guerrilla warfare. This essay
examines many of these issues for a deep understanding of Africa today and its
future prospects.
Part I: Structural
obstacles to development and social justice
Decades after the decolonization of Africa and after
Frantz Fanon (Wretched of the Earth) depicted the social, economic, political
and cultural problems associated with the legacy of colonialism there has been
no structural change in the political economy of the 54 African nation-states
any more than in ending endemic poverty as the UN and other organizations have
been promising for decades or closing the rich-poor gap. It is misleading and a
remnant of imperialist political labeling to lump all African countries under
one category, just as it is misleading to place all of Latin American countries
in a single category, although they do have common characteristics and a common
legacy of colonialism and the current reality of foreign control of resources
and market share.
There is a huge difference between South Africa now
part of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) economy, and Somalia
ranking as one of the world’s poorest nations with political instability and
dim prospects for economic growth. It is just as difficult to make comparisons
between Islamic North Africa with sub-Sahara Africa, despite political
instability that is a common characteristic in most as the continuation of
foreign economic dependence after the end of colonial rule. With this caveat in
mind, for purposes of this very short essay I will address some common features
and note differences as well in development models.
Apologists of capitalism argue that Africa’s current
problems are strictly cyclical because the prices of metals, oil and other
commodities, especially coffee and cocoa, have been declining amid a
deflationary international climate. While it is true that the slowdown in
commodities demand in China has obviously impacted Africa, the majority of the
people were not better off when prices were rising. Regardless of capitalism’s
expansion and contraction cycles, from the 1950s to the present, living
standards for the African people have not improved, no matter the lofty claims
from Western governments, NGOs and other organizations about helping Africa
become self-sufficient.
In the second half of the 20th century, Africa’s
division of labor and national institutions – everything from military to
banking and foreign trade - was largely determined by the core countries - US
and northwest Europe - with the considerable assistance from the International
Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and its affiliates, African Development Bank
and a number of United Nations agencies, and of course, the explosion of NGOs
some of which are fully funded by governments trying to peddle political and
economic influence. In short, the external mechanisms of Africa’s dependence
became stronger and more solidified in the last six decades than they were
during the era of colonial rule.
In fact, there has been a downward trend in living
standards for the vast majority of Africans from 1990 to 2015, despite the
remarkable uptrend cycle in commodity prices and massive new investment from
China. This is evident by examining all indicators from life expectancy to
access to clean water and sanitation. There are those who point to periodic
drought primarily in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia; local wars and rebel
conflicts in the drought-stricken countries as well as others especially where
Muslims have influence such as Sudan, Nigeria, and Libya.
Besides endemic poverty that creates fertile grounds
for Islamic or community inspired rebel movements throughout many parts of the
continent, the population explosion, corrupt politicians, contraband and
informal economy, absence of infrastructural development, and modern technology
to help the continent achieve capitalist development comparable to that of the
West are obstacles to progress. It is noteworthy that some of the arguments
made today on why Africa cannot catch up with its Western counterparts were
also made one hundred years ago when Africa was under European colonization,
with the colonizers blaming everything but imperialism as the root cause of
underdevelopment.
One cause for the systemic underdevelopment of Africa
has been and remains that more capital flows out than comes in, invariably
foreign loans having the role as catalysts to the process of de-capitalization.
The cycle of public foreign debt and de-capitalization continues across the
continent under the watchful eye of the International Monetary Fund and foreign
financial institutions that represent big banks in the US and Europe and large
corporate interests.
It is, indeed, a monumental step forward that Africans
have served as heads of the United Nations and in key positions of
international organizations. From a symbolic perspective, it was great to see
Kofi Annan as the UN secretary-general, but was Africa better off when he left
the UN than when he came in; or was there any structural change in the
political economy of the entire continent from Egypt to South Africa, from
Nigeria to Kenya? Inordinate dependence on the foreign–dominated and
outward-oriented primary sector of production owing to failure to diversify the
economy remains the major obstacle to raising living standards.
Many observers of the African political economy argue
that there have been success stories, among them South Africa freeing itself
from white minority political rule though keeping white minority economic
hegemony. With the exception of Israel and rightwing elements in the US, the
entire world celebrated the end of South Africa’s apartheid a generation ago.
Nelson Mandela became a symbol of freedom and self-determination for Africans.
However, high unemployment, low living standards among blacks, lack of upward
mobility, and the rich-poor divide persist, with the country occupying the
world’s last place for life expectancy.
Although South Africa was on its way to catching up
with Brazil, India and Russia, enjoying 38 per cent GDP growth in the last
decade, this was not indicative of social mobility but rather capital
concentration. In 2015, South Africa suffered unemployment at the same level as
Greece that has been under IMF-EU austerity since 2010. Socioeconomic and
political conditions are worse in the rest of Africa, and this includes Muslim
northern Africa that has suffered US-NATO direct and indirect military
interference in its social uprisings during the Arab Spring revolts that once
represented the promise of a democratic Africa free of dictators linked to
large domestic and foreign capitalists.
Judging from the unemployment statistics in Africa’s
two largest economies, Nigeria and South Africa, both dependent on extractive
industry exports, there is not much difference between them, with all of those
natural resources, and Greece suffering five consecutive years of
IMF-EU-imposed austerity and downward socioeconomic mobility. One could argue
that 26.4 per cent unemployment for South Africa and 24 per cent for Nigeria
are understandable owing to the cyclical nature of the commodities market –
both gold and crude oil are sharply down from their highs, along with all
commodities. However, the core issue is not capitalism’s cyclical contraction,
but the high levels of structural unemployment and underemployment in the
continent’s richest countries, as well as the vast income gap between the very
few wealthy individuals and the vast majority of the masses.
Obstacles to development account for a division of
labor that has remained about the same in the last half-century. This is
despite reductions in extreme poverty (under two dollars a day category) in the
last two decades. By all indications, globalization has accounted for the
downward mobility of most Africans, although this may not be as clear when
looking at GDP statistics of certain countries, including South Africa and
Nigeria. The world economic structure has not changed, no matter the rhetoric
about globalization and neoliberal policies uplifting all economies across the
world. Just the opposite, the overall economic picture of Africa is one of
steady decline since the 1980s. The continent’s share of global trade was 3.1
per cent in 1955 and in 1990 it was a mere 1.2 per cent.
Largely because of China as a major new player in the
region’s trade, there was a rise after the recession of the early 1990s, but
this too was limited to the primary sector of production. The China factor did
not help the continent lift its GDP amounting to under $300 billion in 1997
while the debt was $315 billion. This allowed the IMF to impose austerity and
neoliberal measures of privatization, corporate tax reductions, and trade
barrier removals that further weakened the national economies. The austerity
measures not only prevented upward socioeconomic mobility, but actually drove
more people into lower living standards.
In December 1993,UN secretary-general Boutros-Boutrros
Ghali argued that the solution for Africa’s socioeconomic problems rested with
greater integration. In an essay on this issue, Robert J. Cummings noted that:
“From the 1950s to the present, more than 200 organizations have been founded
on the continent of Africa for the purpose of fostering regional and
sub-regional integration and economic cooperation. The performance record of
these myriad organizations historically have not been sterling.” (R. J.
Cummings “Africa’s Case for Economic Integration” (www.HU Archives.net )
The efforts on the part of the UN, World Bank and
other Western institutions and governments to forge African integration have
not altered the dependent structure of the economy based on the primary sector
of production nor have such efforts resulted in higher living standards and
upward social mobility despite some reduction in poverty in the last two
decades. Integration on the patron-client model is at the core of
neo-colonialism in Africa and favors the multinational corporations, thus
perpetuating external dependence and underdevelopment.
The most significant challenge for Africa in the next
few decades will be to transform itself from a largely "dependent
outward-oriented" economy (primary sector production exports) providing
cheap raw materials for the advanced capitalist countries to an inward-looking
(producing to meet domestic demand through import substitution
industrialization) integrated via an intra-continental model and developing
more equitable terms of trade with developed countries. The uneven terms of
trade, the inherent lower value of African exports vs. its imports from the
developed countries has been and remains a core problem in development.
To achieve the goal of self-sufficiency Africa would
need more than NGOs and UN intervention that only target emergency areas during
war and famine. Africa would need more than China funding infrastructural
development intended to accommodate extractive mining and agricultural regions,
and more than regional integration that the World Bank has been advocating and
without success by its own admission, and only intended to strengthen the role
of multinational corporations trying to dominate key sectors of the raw
materials economy.
In the absence of a systemic political change, just as
took place in England (1689) and France (1789) that paved the way for economic
modernization, Africa cannot achieve its goal of self-sufficiency no matter the
rhetoric by politicians on the continent or Western organizations like the
World Bank and corporations employing the self-sufficiency rhetoric but
operating as imperialists not much different in results than the colonialists
of the 19th century.
Part II: China’s economic role in Africa
Is China threatening to displace the Europeans from
Africa at some point in the second half of the 21st century, as the mass media
in the US has been hinting since the global recession of 2008? Or is EU-Chinese
capital so intertwined that what may be counted as China’s market share in
Africa could very well be yielding profits for French, British and German
multinational corporations? If capitalist China is such a threat to the West,
why has the very Western World Bank been collaborating with China on a number
of fronts? Is it merely the fear of the US that China as the inevitable number
one economic power in the world will corner the most abundant and cheapest
markets in Africa?
In 2010, Wikileaks published the US concern about
China helping to develop the infrastructure strategically in those countries in
Africa where it plans to do business. Two things alarmed the US: a) no strings
attached to infrastructural development, at least no direct strings as the US
and EU always impose on the recipient country; and b) the clever way the
Chinese are including the World Bank and European governments and EU-based
multinational corporations. In short, China’s multilateralism as a strategy of
securing market share has been upsetting to American unilateralists who see a
fiendish plan that would entail Africa transferring its historical dependence
from the West to East.
Another issue regarding China is the scope of its role
in Africa in 2015, considering that the Western media present it as hegemonic
and potentially threatening to “US and Western interests”, thus invoking
national and trade bloc capitalism as a populist tactic. In reality, as we will
see below, China currently has a small role while the Europeans, US and
wealthier Gulf Arab states enjoy the lion’s share of the market.
What has alarmed the Western capitalists and
politicians is the reality that African exports to China went from a mere 1 per
cent of world share in 2000 to 15 per cent in 2012, and are likely to continue
rising for the indefinite future. Despite the inevitable cyclical economic
slowdown in China, it is just as inevitable that by the 2030s we can safely
predict much closer trade, investment and overall economic dependency of Africa
on China. This in itself poses not just a threat to Western capitalism but to
Western geopolitical designs on a continent very rich in natural resources.
Because the US does not compete with China in Africa using the same tools of
economic integration, about the only response the US has is to flex its
military muscle and secure as much as it can for US-based multinational
corporations.
Before we assume China’s role is benign, the issue of
China as the panacea for Africa is one that many have emphasized, given that
European and US economic, military and political roles throughout Africa have
not resulted in improvements as judged by standards the West has been
proclaiming – democracy, freedom, economic development and higher living
standards. Some observers in and outside of Africa believe that China’s
integration model, which starts with infrastructural development that would
help the domestic economy as well as forge greater regional integration while
stimulating the export sector, is promising. After all, the European
imperialists had done nothing but pillage Africa from the start of the
trans-Atlantic slave trade in the 15th century when the Portuguese landed until
the more subtle late 20th century policies of assisting corporate exploitation
of natural resources. Moreover, if China is so well integrated into the global
economy and it is helping to forge a new integration model in Africa, this
presents new opportunities for African counties, at least for those rich in
natural resources.
The bottom line is whether China will help Africa
develop or merely perpetuate underdevelopment as did the Europeans and the US.
Underdevelopment is a process, just as development, that takes place amid
domestic and international political economy dynamics. Development is not a
matter of a country having a surplus labor force, or having near
self-sufficiency in minerals and raw materials, or enjoying an infrastructure
that can accommodate rapid development to buttress the capital-intensive export
sector mostly of extractive industries. Africa is one of the richest continents
on the planet in natural resources and it certainly has a surplus labor force
at the lowest cost on the planet in comparison with the other continents. Can
Chinese investment do something with these cheap assets to help itself while
also helping Africa?
In order to secure a segment of Africa’s natural
resources for its own growth and development at the lowest possible cost, China
has been investing in the continent and counting on it for rapid export growth
in the 21st century. Despite its rich resources and new investment from China
as well as Gulf Arab countries, Europe and US, the persistence of
underdevelopment in Africa defies logic at least on the surface beyond the GDP
growth numbers and marginal decline in extreme poverty. Why is there reason to
believe the Chinese will change a history of five centuries of colonialism and
neo-colonialism?
One could argue that the structural causes have
everything to do with the corrupt and incompetent political regimes combined
with the uneven development complicated by the periodic famines and droughts in
a number of sub-Saharan regions. Another argument that the apologists of
globalization and neoliberal politics make is that Africa has not fully
integrated into the world capitalist economy, leaving much of its productive
capacities underutilized or outside the domain of international trade owing to
persistence of tribalism. Is Africa’s problem underutilization of natural
resources, or uneven terms of trade, chronic exploitation of low labor values,
massive capital concentration in the hands of very few comprador bourgeoisie
linked to foreign capital, and of course corrupt politicians that foreign
corporations bribe to secure contracts?
Another issue that Western analysts are constantly
making is that there is instability owing to civil conflicts in a number of
countries, from Sudan and Nigeria to Central and East Africa where rebels are
an obstacle to stability and development. In the Islamic countries north of the
Sahara, there is the instability caused by jihadist elements as there is in the
East; activities which also impact Africa more broadly. However, jihadist
conditions, as we will see below, are of fairly recent origin and even so a
reaction to neo-colonial conditions, among other causes related to tribal and
religious differences. If we were to sum up, the Western analysts conclude that
the fault for the absence of development in Africa rests squarely with internal
dynamics and has absolutely nothing to do with Western imperialism as a chronic
presence.
When we examine the lofty promises of growth and
development by the UN, World Bank and Western governments whose only interest
is to assist corporate control of Africa’s resources and market share the
result is that by 1995, 25 per cent of the people in the sub-Sahara region had
no job and were homeless. Even more alarming, Africa’s agricultural growth
rates have been declining since 1965. From an annual average of 2.2 per cent
(1965-1973), to 0.6 per cent (1981-85), per capita food production continued to
decline throughout the 1980s and 1990s, necessitating four times as much food
aid. Why is anyone surprised that there is the level of rebel activity,
including jihadist as of late, when the question really ought to be why is
there not more such activity given these conditions that people in the West
would not tolerate and demand change?
There are those who argue that China’s presence
actually helps to tame the sociopolitical mood throughout the continent. China
is investing in everything - hydro-power, dams, water and sanitation, ports,
railroads, roads, mining, timber, fisheries and agriculture. At the same time,
France and the rest of Europe as well as the US and the rich Arab countries
have been competing with China and want to maintain their market share. What
exactly this entails for the people of Africa and the development model that
would eventually lift the majority of the people from abject poverty is another
story.
The Chinese are not in Africa to lift living standards
for the population but to strengthen their global competitive position. China
will need Africa’s raw materials, everything from foodstuffs to minerals, in
order to remain a global economic power in the 21st century. China accounts for
about one-fifth of the planet’s population, but it only has six percent of the
planet’s water and nine percent arable land, forcing its government to look
outside its borders to sustain its growth and development. Just as Africa
provided cheap raw materials and cheap labor for Europe and the US from the era
of colonialism until the rise of China as a global economic power, in the 21st
century it will play a similar role with China competing for Africa’s cheap raw
materials and labor. Investment has risen from a mere $210 million in 2000 to
$3.17 billion 2011 and it is expected to skyrocket.
Africa is the world’s fastest growing continent for foreign
direct investment (FDI), but it starts out at such low levels that it can only
go higher. While historically FDI went primarily to the extractive industries,
there is new emphasis on manufacturing, with energy as a key industry where
revolutionary methods could make a difference in bringing electricity to more
people than ever and make manufacturing even cheaper. The continent’s global
share of FDI rose from around 3 per cent in 2007 to 5 per cent in 2012, a
period of global recession. But among the top 25 countries in the world with
the highest incoming FDI, Africa is nowhere to be found; and if it were not for
South Africa, the continent as a whole would be at the very bottom along with
some of the Eurasian countries. As miraculous as it may appear, China’s share
of overseas direct investment in Africa is a mere $26 billion, while France and
UK continue to lead in this category. On the other hand, few would argue that
China is poised to impose economic hegemony of some type over Africa under an
integration model presumably better than what the French and the British had
imposed after decolonization.
By extending concessional loans – more generous terms
and longer term – to the tune of $10 billion amid the global recession of 2009
to 2012, China bought itself enormous influence without literally dictating
terms down to the minute detail as do the IMF and World Bank. Chinese President
Xi Jinping doubled the concessional loan commitment to Africa from $10 billion
to $20 billion in the 2013-2015 period, and the Chinese Export-Import Bank
announced an ambitious financing program of $1 trillion by 2025; something that
could be scaled back owing to the slowing Chinese economy in 2015.
Although Africa accounts for such a small percentage
of Chinese global investment, Africa has been a top foreign aid recipient. Aid
donors have always used it as a policy instrument and leverage in every respect
to influence not only investment and trade policy of the aid recipient but
defense and foreign policy as well. In providing various types of aid to
Africa, from medical and humanitarian to debt relief and development, China is
in fact investing in good will diplomatically as well as economically for the
future market share that it wants in Africa.
Can we expect from China what we have seen on the part
of the European and US companies in Africa since the 1960s? From the early
1960s to the present, large foreign companies secure public financing for
privately operated projects that have been uneconomic across Africa. However,
the foreign firms risk no capital of their own because their loans to finance
their operation are guaranteed by their governments or development banks, as
are interest and profits. Because most of the investment is invariably in
mining and commercial agriculture, involving multinational companies like
Monsanto, the Carlyle Group, Shell, and other Wall Street and EU giants, the
goal is to strengthen the export sector by taking advantage of cheap labor
without much benefit for the broader economic diversification in a continent
desperate for greater self-sufficiency.
Although China has followed this pattern, its focus on
developing the infrastructure in a number of African countries has the
potential of laying the foundations for a sustainable diversified inward
oriented economy. After all, China has provided assistance for schools and some
textile factories, but it often labels loans as “aid”, and most of its
investments go to those countries rich in natural resources.
Foreign investment in Africa under terms no developed
country would permit is virtually unregulated, thus constituting a drain of
natural resource wealth. Suffering the lowest labor values on the planet,
Africa attracts foreign capital investment because it is the next frontier to
realize high profits. Moreover, foreign capital flows because foreign
businesses demand that African countries provide local financing under
government-guaranteed loans and very generous terms that include profit
repatriation, liberal terms on the environment, and minimal labor protection.
According to the World Bank that has partnered with
China on many projects, the goals in Africa include (i) accelerating
industrialization and manufacturing; (ii) making special economic zones (SEZs)
and industrial parks work; (iii) infrastructure and trade logistics, including
regional integration; (iv) creating the conditions to accelerate responsible
private sector investment, (v) skills development for competitiveness and job
creation, and vi) improving agricultural productivity and expanding
agribusiness opportunities.
These are indeed lofty goals, and one could argue that
all countries undergoing industrialization had to suffer, so must Africa,
despite its unique relationship with industrialized nations. If we analyze each
of the above points that the World Bank has outlined, we conclude that the goal
in Africa is to create a climate conducive to foreign corporate investment
under the best possible terms. There is nothing about protecting workers’
rights, collective bargaining, livable wages, appropriate affordable housing,
hospitals and schools, and above all under a political regime that respects
human rights and civil rights pursuant to principles of social justice. The
only concern of the investors, governments, and international organizations
assisting them in Africa is the investment itself not the social, cultural,
economic and political welfare of the people.
Part III: The new scramble for Africa, narcotics and
human trafficking
There is a 21st century version of "the scramble
for Africa", a continuation of what started in the 19th century
(1880-1914) by the Europeans who pillaged the continent's resources,
systematically exploited its people, caused community and regional wars,
destroying its culture; and all of it by invoking social Darwinism and other
Eurocentric theories, including ethnocentrism and 'exceptionalism', to justify
white hegemony. The new round of neo-colonial race to carve up Africa's
lucrative agricultural lands, mineral wealth, fishing rights within its
territorial waters also extends to its geographical location that makes it so
convenient for South American cocaine trade through West Africa and
heroin-cannabis trade through East Africa.
According to the World Bank (September 2010), more
than 110 million acres of farmland (the size of California and West Virginia
combined) were sold during the first 11 months of 2009. This was all in a mad
rush of foreign private and government investors to secure cheap land (and
labor to work the land), and all during the most serious economic recession in
the postwar period. Between 1998 and 2008, the World Bank provided $23.7
billion for agribusiness around the world, much of it in Africa promoting what
it calls 'efficient and sustainable' agriculture. Along with the erosion of
subsistence farming that sustained families, there is the corresponding erosion
of subsistence fishing owing to competition from European and Asian commercial
fishing operations in coastal Africa. All of this is an integral part of the
corporate control of Africa with the support of governments in the advanced
capitalist countries and with the backing of the IMF and World Bank Group’s
subsidiary agencies like the International Finance Corporation (IFC).
In 2010 the IFC invested an estimated $100 million in
agribusiness in sub-Saharan Africa, compared with merely $18 million per year
in the previous decade. Naturally, IFC and World Bank investments which run
into the billions focuse solely on corporate agriculture that displaces the
small farmer. This despite the advice from experts in sub-Saharan countries who
argued that the best use of farmland is to distribute it to villagers (about 12
hectares per family) and give them the means to cultivate it to end hunger
while also generating a potential surplus for trade. Foreign-owned agribusiness
backed by their governments and international financial organizations such as
the IFC produce commercial crops for export, while the native population
remains poverty-stricken. It should be noted that foreign aid for Africa's
agriculture dropped by 75 per cent since 1980, thus creating the need for
private foreign investment in the sector. This is all in the name of furthering
the goals of privatization that Western neo-liberals push across the world with
devastating consequences for workers and peasants.
In the last one hundred years, agriculture in the
industrialized countries has undergone a revolution that has resulted in just a
small segment of the labor force earning its living from farming, animal
husbandry and fishing. Technology and science applied to the sector has raised
production and made agriculture less labor intensive just as specialization and
concentration has resulted in higher productivity. Modernization of the primary
sector of production entails that large commercial operations in the primary
sector of production, backed by favorable government policies, have taken over
the sector that requires expensive agrochemicals and machinery, and a
distribution network to secure steady profits. In Africa’s case, only large
invariably foreign-owned commercial enterprises are able to operate under this
model of development, forcing the small farmers and peasants into poverty.
With each recessionary cycle more small farmers in
Africa and around the world are squeezed out of business, while neo-liberal
apologists not just in the corporate boardrooms and the media, but in
government and UN continue to sing the praises of large scale commercial
operations as the panacea for capitalism. The transition from subsistence to
commercial agriculture first in Western Europe and then in US freed the surplus
labor force for the manufacturing and service sectors of production. In the
case of Africa, however, there is no manufacturing or service sector large
enough to absorb the surplus labor force that is uprooted from subsistence
farming and animal husbandry.
The assumption by governments, banks, and mainstream
economists is that commercial agriculture in the form of agribusiness is a
necessary development of modernization. Another assumption is that only
large-scale agribusiness, which is subsidized by government and international
organizations like the World Bank and IFFC among others, can meet the world's
rising food demand while keeping costs low. After all, manufacturing is just
around the corner for Africa, although it promises to be the kind of
manufacturing we have seen in Bangladesh and other south Asian countries, where
living standards are very low and working conditions very poor.
Given the trend toward corporate agriculture, in the
last fifteen years, governments and private firms from around the world have
been investing in sub-Saharan Africa because corporations chase the highest
return for the lowest possible investment under the most favorable conditions
to capital possible. Besides agribusinesses acquiring more land, banks, hedge
and pension funds, commodity traders, foundations and individual investors have
been buying land as part of portfolio investments for an average of $1 per
hectare. This is in an attempt to cash in on low-cost land and labor amid a
growing demand for raw food products and bio-fuels.
The EU is hoping to reduce carbon emissions by using
at least 10 per cent bio-fuel of all fuel products by 2020. The US is aiming to
reduce its foreign dependence on oil by 70 per cent in the next 15 years. With
the help of the World Bank and IFC, the EU and the US have been looking to
Africa - more than 700 million hectares appropriated for agribusiness - as the
continent to invest in bio-fuels; this at a time that the Europeans have also
been eyeing Africa as the next frontier for solar energy. Latin America is also
a target for bio-fuel and other agrarian investment, but Africa offers even
more attractive prospects in part because of the Arab and Chinese interest as
well.
In the past decade, India, China, Japan, and Arab
countries have joined the 21st century scramble for Africa, in some cases
because governments are concerned about soil, water, and natural resources
conservation in their own countries. Private investors and governments are
aggressively seeking to partition Africa's rich agricultural land as the cost
of agricultural commodities is expected to rise once the current recession
ends. Saudi Arabia has set aside $5 billion in low-interest loans to Saudi
agribusinesses to invest in agriculturally attractive countries. Another reason
for the new scramble for Africa is because of what the UN Food and Agricultural
Organization calls 'spare land', areas not under cultivation, or underutilized.
Developed countries have used Africa for its raw
materials and as a consumer of imported manufactured products and foreign
business services, but not as roughly equal trading partners as is France and
Germany. Rather, Africa has been the victim of unequal terms of trade, and
external control of its key extractive sectors. In short, Africa remains
semi-colonial and continues to become increasingly dependent on developed
countries for overvalued manufactured products and services while exporting raw
materials at prices commodities markets in the West determine based on
speculative interest.
One is favorably impressed by the rhetoric regarding
“sustainable development” that the media, governments, the World Bank and even
corporations promise as though such development translates into social justice.
After all, the hypocrisy of corporate responsibility regarding the eco-system
has been exposed repeatedly not just by oil companies operating in Nigeria, but
even by Volkswagen as its flagrant scandal regarding emissions manipulation
proved in October 2015. The EU and US quest for bio-fuel development in Africa,
and for that matter in Latin America, has nothing to do with 'sustainable
development' or engendering greater 'self-sufficiency' or helping to 'develop'
Africa - rhetoric that the UN, World Bank, western governments and
multinational corporations are using to make 'the new scramble for Africa' more
palatable to the world. The rhetoric is obligatory to placate the masses to
retain their trust in the corporate world.
Will the people of Africa solve the chronic problems
of poverty and disease as a result of the exploitation of land and labor to
satisfy the demand for food and bio-fuels in Western nations? Africa's food
requirements will double in the next two to three decades, a point that foreign
agribusinesses, governments and IFC and World Bank are using to justify the
commercialization of agriculture under foreign ownership. In the process of the
neo-colonial land-grab, evictions of peasants and small farmers, entire
villages uprooted, civil unrest, and citizens' complaints of 'land grabbing'
have been common. Protests owing to social injustice do not stop governments
from approving agribusiness deals backed by powerful forces. One common
justification used for the new scramble for Africa is that the acquired
territories are not utilized or 'wasteland'. Governments often do not charge
agribusiness for the water they use. Just a single agribusiness belonging to an
Arab investor in Ethiopia, for example, uses as much water as 100,000 people -
water of course is the most precious commodity in many parts of Africa. This is
the reality of agribusiness and its role in drought-ridden East Africa.
One reason for the rise of the informal economy that
includes everything from hand-carved wood statues to cocaine from Colombia and
heroin from Afghanistan using West and East Africa as hubs before sending the
product to Europe is that the neo-liberal model of development has failed. In
fact, it has failed so miserably that young impoverished Africans join rebel
groups inspired by radical Islam or community loyalty. At the same time the
combination of rebel activity, and violence linked to narcotics as well as
human trafficking and weapons, also linked to radical Islam and tribal
allegiances in some cases, is a reflection of a neo-colonial system, no matter
the lofty claims by Western governments, NGOs, media, the UN and World Bank
that they are looking after the interests of African people.
Narcotics trade in Africa
Africa's structural problems have contributed to a
thriving narcotics trade through the Western and Eastern areas because of
geographical considerations. Given that in sub-Saharan countries the percentage
of labor force involved in agriculture, animal husbandry and fisheries ranges
from 50 to 75, the result of agribusiness is to create a larger percentage of
wage laborers instead of engaged in the subsistence economy. A percentage of
this population will choose to make a living in illegal activities – human
trafficking, weapons, and narcotics trade; others in piracy, still others in
the thriving teenage prostitution business that has a ready market around the
world.
All of this is an integral part of an informal economy
that according to the African Development Bank contributes 55 per cent of GDP in the sub-Sahara region and
accounts for 80 per cent of the labor force. “Nine in 10 rural and urban
workers have informal jobs in Africa and most employees are women and youth.
The prominence of the informal sector in most African economies stems from the
opportunities it offers to the most vulnerable populations such as the poorest,
women and youth.”
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime has been warning for
many years that a number of West and East African countries are now immersed in
the international drug trade, a reality that has consequences for criminal
activity and the overall subterranean economy and politics of Africa. Because
the drug trade is so lucrative, the income it generates is often larger than
the entire GDP of some African countries. This is the case with Guinea-Bissau
where the cocaine trade amounts to more than $2 billion and where violent crime
in this former Portuguese colony has been rising steadily. The situation is not
very different in Senegal where the airport at Dakar has been used to transport
cocaine from Latin America to Europe.
While West Africa is a hub for cocaine from Colombia
and Peru, East Africa is a hub for heroin and cannabis coming to the region
from South-East and Southwest Asia by air and sea, often onboard vessels that
transport legitimate commodities, and often owned and operated by European shipping
tycoons and of course European banks to launder drug money. A number of Greek
shipping tycoons have been linked to the illegal narcotics trade in Africa, but
they invariably enjoy European connections for distribution and laundering of
enormous amounts of money considering the street value is 20 times higher than
its original value when the products land in Africa.
While the drug trade may appear that it is outside the
mainstream of economic activity, it actually operates under the same laws of
capitalism and in practice under similar routines. The laws of supply and
demand apply as does the cooperation of government, albeit at a sub-level of
illegality through bribery no different from when a multinational corporation
bribes officials. Moreover, just as the extractive industries drain Africa of
capital so does the narcotics trade. People involved in this business are in
fact businessmen running operations of an illegal product but observing all
other rules of the market within which they operate and which makes no
distinction between drug money and corporate money. The bottom line for Africa
is that both the corporate and drug businesses result in taking capital out of
the area and leaving behind all the social and political problems.
The process of de-capitalization, especially amid
recessionary cycles in the world economy as in the current case of depressed
commodity prices, only increases the problems with the informal economy that is
a mere extension of the overall outward-oriented dependent economy and a
colonial remnant that gives rise to illegal activities. East Africa around the
Gulf of Aden is already the pirate center of the world, and this in addition to
the weapons and human trafficking trade. Everything from illegal handicraft
items to diamonds and gold are illegally traded. West Africa is slowly
transforming itself into the new world center for South American
narco-traffickers. Guinea, Mauritania, Guinea Bissau, Ghana, Benin, Sierra
Leone, and Senegal are among the most significant intermediary narco-traffic
countries linked to the Colombia-Venezuela coca trade.
In the absence of official cooperation, everyone from
custom officials, port authority, police, army and navy, all the way up to
cabinet officials, the drug trade would not be possible. In short, the drug
trade in Africa is an integral part of the political system and informal
economy that enjoys protection from a wide variety of players. This makes
transport low-risk in comparison with the Caribbean. With Russia as a new
player in the international drug trade and oligarchs behind the regime, the
activity has increased in the last decade.
During the "just say No!" campaign of the
Reagan era the US had the highest per capita use--US population was around 4
per cent but consumed 25 to 40 per cent of the world's illegal drugs--and this
is not to say that a legal pill-for-everything panacea in the US is not at its
root a cultural trait. Today, however, both UK and Spain surpass the US in per
capita use of cocaine, and both countries along with Portugal and France are
the major destinations for coca that comes from Latin America through West
Africa.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that Somalia, currently in
the process of establishing a central authority, is host to widespread illegal
transactions, including drug and arms trafficking. There are two important
international airports in the region, servicing the capitals of Ethiopia and
Kenya, which are used as transit points for drugs. Both airports have
connections between West Africa and the heroin producing countries in South
West and South East Asia. There is also an increasing use of postal and courier
services for cocaine, heroin and hashish.
Heroin trafficking from Pakistan, Thailand and India
to East Africa has been rising in the last two decades. Some of this heroin
finds its way to West Africa that also exports to Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya
through Ethiopia. Increasing numbers of Tanzanians and Mozambicans are involved
in the trafficking of heroin from Pakistan and Iran, given the limited options
in the formal economy. West African and East African drug syndicates are
inter-connected as they are to smugglers from Latin America and South Asia,
reflecting high level of organization.
Considering that multinational corporations from Shell
Oil to Siemens have a long history of bribing African officials as they do
non-Africans, narcotics traffickers' mode of operation is no different than
that of "legitimate" businesses. And if the opportunity presents
itself to make a living why is "dirty money" any less valuable than
"clean money," the latter of which seems to be less than $500 a year
for most Africans? Judging on the basis of postwar recessions when per capita
income has dropped as much as 50 per cent, this means that in this current
crisis Africa will not only suffer greater impoverishment than the rest of the
world, but its economic problems will cause more ethnic and community conflict,
more epidemics, more intra- and inter-continental emigration, and more
political turmoil than any developed nation can expect.
Such a climate is ideal for more piracy, more weapons
and narcotics transfer, more human trafficking, and all of it part of the
colonial and neo-colonial legacy of outward oriented economy benefiting the
developed countries. Though the continent is in need of debt-relief and
development assistance for the short-term, the solution for a small segment of
unemployed and destitute young Africans is drugs, guns, and human trafficking
that generates money, although most of that money does not stay in the region
and creates violence that disrupts legitimate economic activity.
Conclusions
The social fabric disrupted yet again by 'the new
scramble for Africa', continued political instability is a guarantee as much as
a rise in crime and social unrest. Amazingly, the same institutions that
contribute to Africa's devastation claim that they are acting in the name of
progress, sustainable development and efficiency, helping to raise productivity
and exports, to create jobs by bringing foreign investment,' etc.; the modern
versions of "The Whiteman's burden".
The 'politically palatable' rhetoric of 'efficiency
and sustainability' has resulted in an outward-oriented agrarian sector
catering to foreign markets instead of inward-oriented economy designed to meet
the rapidly rising population's food needs. In 16th century England, farmers
switched to animal husbandry owing to rising demand for wool textiles. Peasants
starved as the cost of grain increased, thus "sheep ate people". In
this century, 'agribusinesses will be eating Africans'.
Apologists of agribusiness justify their support by
various arguments including ‘no country has developed’ with two-thirds of its
labor force living off the land and dependent on extractive industries. It is
an interesting coincidence that just as sub-Sahara Africa has been targeted by
drug lords in the last few years, it is also targeted by corporate farm
investors whose mode of operation is to use the low-valued land and labor and
corrupt public officials in order to serve foreign market demands. Rural
poverty will rise as a result of foreign corporate investment in African
agriculture. Will the 'new scramble for Africa' by corporate investors and drug
lords result in the elimination of famine and disease; will it result in higher
rising living standards for the native population, or will it be another form
of neo-colonialism in the name of progress?
Using the pretext of “terrorism”, a guerrilla movement
under the flag of jihadists in recent years, the West and pro-West regimes
default all problems on such fanatics in Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, Somalia, Kenya,
Niger, Cameroon, Mali, Uganda and Mauritania. In other words, the US and its
European partners would have the public believe that for decades when there
were no Islamic jihadists, sub-Sahara Africa under colonial and neo-colonial
rule enjoyed social justice and upward social mobility under democratic
regimes. Even more insulting is the implication that the Islamic militants are
the cause and not the symptom of Western exploitation of Africa and that if
they are eliminated the continent would have no problems. As counterproductive
as jihadist warfare has been, and as futile in achieving its goals, it is not
the cause but one more symptom of the neo-imperialist structure in the
continent from Libya to South Africa, from Nigeria to Kenya.
Besides defaulting Africa’s problems on Islamic
‘terrorism’, there are also the advocates of the neo-Malthusian theory - too
many people too few resources, rather than unequal income distribution. It is
true that drought is a cyclical natural disaster in parts of Eastern and
Southern Africa and generally a problem in a few other parts as well. However,
does drought justify Malthusianism and does it explain structural impediments
to African development? This is not say that a form of managed population
control is not desirable, but this is a matter of resources and education for
the general population.
Uniting and organizing at the grassroots to end racist
neo-colonial exploitation whether in the form of the formal economy based on
mineral and agricultural exports or in the informal economy that includes
narcotics is the only solution for Africans. Working toward sustainable
development can only come from indigenous movements that first change the
externally-dependent political regimes and then undertake to change the social
order that would engender economic growth under an inward-oriented model. Given
the deep historical ethnic antagonisms in Africa for which westerners are
partly to blame, and the even stronger western neo-colonial foundation the
prospects of any of this taking place in the forthcoming decades is highly
unlikely. Africa will remain the continent of contradictions with the world's
poorest people, but some of the world's richest natural resources.
* Jon V. Kofas, Ph.D., retired professor of
history, is author of ten academic books and two dozens scholarly articles.
Specializing in international political economy, Kofas has taught
courses and written on US diplomatic history, and the roles of the World Bank
and IMF in the world.
Source:
Pambazuka
Open Letter to UN
Ambassador Nikki Haley
 |
| Nikki Harley |
By Richard Falk and Virginia Tilley
Dear Madam Ambassador:
We were deeply disappointed by your response to our
report, Israeli Practices Toward the Palestinian People and the Question
of Apartheid, and particularly your dismissal of it as “anti-Israeli
propaganda” within hours of its release.
The UN Economic and Social Commission for West Asia
(ESCWA) invited us to undertake a fully researched scholarly study. Its
principal purpose was to ascertain whether Israeli policies and practices
imposed on the Palestinian people fall within the scope of the
international-law definition of apartheid. We did our best to conduct the study
with the care and rigor that is morally incumbent in such an important
undertaking, and of course we welcome constructive criticism of the report’s
method or analysis (which we also sought from several eminent scholars before
its release). So far we have not received any information identifying the flaws
you have found in the report or how it may have failed to comply with scholarly
standards of rigor.
Instead, you have felt free to castigate the UN for
commissioning the report and us for authoring it. You have launched defamatory
attacks on all involved, designed to discredit and malign the messengers rather
than clarify your criticisms of the message. Ad hominem attacks are usually the
tactics of those so seized with political fervor as to abhor rational
discussion. We suppose that you would not normally wish to give this impression
of yourself and your staff, or to represent US diplomacy in such a light to the
world. Yet your statements about our study, as reported in the media, certainly
give this impression.
We were especially troubled by the extraordinary pressure
your office exerted on the UN secretary general, AntónioGuterres, apparently
inducing him first to order the report’s removal from the ESCWA website and
then to accept the resignation of ESCWA’s distinguished and highly respected
executive secretary, Rima Khalaf, which she submitted on principle rather than
repudiate a report that she believed fulfilled scholarly standards, upheld the
principles of the United Nations Charter and international law, and produced
findings and recommendations vital for UN proceedings.
Instead of using this global forum to call for the
critical debate about the report, you used the weight of your office to quash
it. These strident denunciations convey a strong appearance of upholding an
uncritical posture by the US government toward Israel, automatically and
unconditionally sheltering Israel’s government from any criticism at the UN,
whether deserved or not, from the perspective of international law. Such a
posture diminishes the US’s reputation as a nation that upholds the values of
truth, freedom, law, and justice, and that serves the world community as a
regional and global leader. It also shifts the conversation away from crucial
substantive concerns.
It may have been that the word “apartheid” alone was
enough to trigger your response, a reaction undoubtedly abetted by Israel’s
instantaneous denunciation of our report. In following Israel’s public lead,
however, you fail to consider that Israeli leaders have themselves grasped and
warned of the apartheid features of their policies for decades. The widely
admired Yitzhak Rabin, twice Israel’s prime minister, once confided to a TV journalist,“I don’t
think it’s possible to contain over a long term, if we don’t want to get to
apartheid, a million and a half [more] Arabs inside a Jewish state.”
Prime ministers Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak both warned publicly that
Israel was at risk of becoming an apartheid state and cautioned their
constituencies about what would happen to Israel if the Palestinians realized
this and launched an anti-apartheid struggle. Former Israeli attorney
general Michael Ben-Yair has stated flatly,“we established an
apartheid regime in the occupied territories.”
These prominent Israelis were clear-headed observers
of their own country’s policies as well as patriots, and it was their cautions,
as much as any other source, that inspired ESCWA member states to consider that
the possibility of an apartheid regime existing in this setting must be taken
seriously and so commissioned the report now under attack.
It is therefore wholly inappropriate and wrong for you
to charge that, simply by accepting this commission, we as authors were
motivated by anti-Semitism. The reverse is true. To clarify this claim, we call
your attention to two features of the report that we hope will lead you to
reconsider your response.
Firstly, the report carefully confines its working
definition of apartheid to those provided in the 1973 Convention on the
Suppression and Punishment of the International Crime of Apartheid and the 2002
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. It does not rely on
definitions developed in polemics about the conflict or taken casually from
online sources. As the 1973 Convention and the Rome Statute are part of the
same body of law that protects Jews, as well as all people in the world, from
discrimination, this authoritative definition should not be set aside. Any
responsible critique must therefore engage with these legal definitions, and
the larger body of international human-rights jurisprudence in which they are
situated, so as to address the report for what it actually says rather than
concocting a straw man that can be easily dismissed. We hope you will
reconsider the report in this light.
Secondly, the member states of ESCWA requested that a
study be commissioned to examine whether Israel’s apartheid policies
encompassed the Palestinian people as a whole. This meant that, as authors, we
were asked to consider Palestinians living in four geographic regions within
four legal categories or “domains”: those living in the occupied territories,
those resident in Jerusalem, those living as citizens within Israel, and those
living in refugee camps or involuntary exile. For each domain, we found that
Israeli policies and practices are, by law, internally discriminatory. But more
importantly, we found that all four operate as one comprehensive system that is
designed to dominate and oppress Palestinians in order to preserve Israel as a
Jewish state.
It is this whole system of domination, too long
misinterpreted by treating Palestinians as situated in unrelated categories,
that generates the regime of domination that conforms to the definition of
apartheid in international law. Moreover, it is this system that has
undermined, and will continue to undermine, the two-state solution to which the
United States has committed its diplomatic prestige over the course of several
prior presidencies. Appraising the viability of this diplomatic posture in
light of findings in this report would, we propose, be crucial for the
credibility of US foreign policy and should not be blocked by political
considerations.
Finally, we find it deeply troubling that your
objections to our report have extended to criticism of the UN itself, partly on
grounds that the UN devotes excessive attention to the question of Palestine.
For one thing, this reasoning rests on a “false fact”: The UN, and ESCWA,
engages with a vast range of issues, with Israel constituting only a small
fraction of the whole. For another, denying that the UN has a special role here
ignores the unique responsibility of the UN in relation to this conflict.
Immediately after World War II, a war-weary Britain, then the Mandatory
authority in Palestine as a result of arrangements following World War I,
turned over the future of Palestine to the UN for resolution. The UN was
therefore, from the outset of its existence, given a responsibility for finding
a solution to the conflict in Palestine. This was unlike any comparable
responsibility the UN possesses anywhere else in the world. Seven decades of
human suffering and insecurity have resulted from the UN’s failure to discharge
this obligation—not because it has paid too much attention to Israel but
because it was not able to bring its influence sufficiently to bear so as to
produce a sustainable and just peace. For observers able to view the conflict
with impartiality, it has become clear that what has happened in Palestine can
only be resolved when the rights and security of both Israelis and
Palestinians are taken into account. The UN continues to have a vital role in
that mission, and it is crucial that its member states, including the United
States, endorse this role and do its best to enhance its effectiveness.
We hoped our report would give rise to discussion of
all these issues. Especially, we hope that its findings will inspire a review
of this question by authoritative legal bodies such as the International Court
of Justice. We did not seek a shouting match. We therefore now respectfully
ask, against this background, that our report be read in the spirit in which it
was written, aiming for the safety, security, and peace of everyone who lives
in territory currently under Israel’s control. As the report’s authors, this
was our moral framework all along, and we still retain the hope that the
serious questions at stake will not be buried beneath an avalanche of
diversionary abuse of our motives and character. Charges of crimes against
humanity should not be swept to one side out of deference to political bonds
that tie the United States and Israel closely together, or for reasons of
political expediency. Such machinations can only weaken international law and
endanger us all.
Sincerely,
Richard Falk,
Professor of International Law Emeritus, Princeton University
Professor of International Law Emeritus, Princeton University
Virginia Tilley,
Professor of Political Science, Southern Illinois University
Professor of Political Science, Southern Illinois University
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