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Arabica Robusta

Pambazuka - The revolution and the emancipation of women - 0 views

pambazuka.org/...83074

africa development international news governance pambazuka bank world us intervention burkina faso africom

shared by Arabica Robusta on 23 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • Second, US military personnel conduct training sequences with African militaries.
  • Third, the US military funds social science research into African society, culture and politics. This takes various forms, one of which is the use of SCRATs (or Sociocultural Advisory Teams) for the purposes of preparing US military personnel for deployment and missions.
  • A strong military structure paves the way for the resource plunder and large scale dispossessions that are seen in neoliberal states in the so-called Global South. In this system, the state ensures profit for class elites (both international and domestic) by guaranteeing the super-exploitation of labour and the dispossession of millions of people of their lands and livelihoods for resource extraction at serious costs to local ecology, health and wellbeing. This guarantee can only be made through an increased militarism that stifles political mobilisation.
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  • Thomas Sankara and the August Revolution of 1983 tells us another story. They provide a different way of thinking about social organisation. Sankara understood that capitalism is dependent upon the unequal deployment of and distribution of power, particularly state power. But, as he showed us, the state is not unalterable. The state is a complex system of human relationships that are maintained through violent power/coercion and persuasion. And what Sankara did was work to bring the state apparatus down to the level of the people, so to speak.
  • The image of my daughter’s grandfather entering his home and collapsing onto the sofa, holding his face in his hands and crying emerges in my head each time I think of Sankara. This image of a middle aged Cameroonian man, Jacque Ndewa, thousands of miles away, who had never travelled to Burkina Faso, crying quietly on his sofa. This is the resonance that Sankara had, across the African continent and among disenfranchised and dispossessed people everywhere.
Arabica Robusta

Pambazuka - Moeletsi Mbeki addresses AFRICOM - 0 views

www.pambazuka.org/...64413

africom intervention news us africa pambazuka mbeki

shared by Arabica Robusta on 31 May 10 - Cached
  • as a self-critical entrepreneur in post-Apartheid South Africa, Mbeki was in a position to use the controversial platform to test his persuasive prowess, exhorting them to consider a more humanitarian and developmental AFRICOM, that would link not only to African governments, but also to ‘society’. It is this link to society and Mbeki’s development thesis that piques curiosity about Mbeki’s opening remarks – that South Africa was the lead capital exporter into Africa, ahead of traditional rivals the UK and France, as well as the US. The common interest between the US and South Africa, said Mbeki, was to provide security for their mutual investments in the region. The ‘truths’ Mbeki espoused may not be convincing to critically engaged Africans; they seem tailored to the sensitive palate of his audience.
  • Mbeki said he tried to show that the challenge facing sub-Saharan Africa, based on ‘the deep roots of Africa's security and development crises’, is ‘not state building as many analysts believe. The immediate challenge most of Africa faces is society building.’ In short, this is the role he recommended for AFRICOM.
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 31 May 10
       
      (Neo)colonial intervention as "governance" and "capacity building." The civilizing mission re-dux.
  • ‘Building a viable, sustainable and stable society requires the establishment and development of legitimate, socially hegemonic group or groups that can then build a viable state,‘ he said, which the European colonial powers failed to do. They left behind a semblance of a state that had no social anchors, which ‘led to Africa's instability during the last half a century‘ and continues to this day in many countries.
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 31 May 10
       
      How can AFRICOM accomplish this? It's a military command first and foremost.
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  • While addressing the legacy of slavery and colonialism, Mbeki seems to have also taken obsequious self-effacement to new heights, perhaps reflecting his perceptions of the audience’s susceptibilities and his desire to be persuasive or influential. He cited a number of reasons why Africans were to blame, and responsible for the current problems. These types of remarks were made when he described Africa’s handicaps
  • On the results of instability, Mbeki said that an important factor that determines whether a country develops or not is, on the one hand, its ability to generate a meaningful economic surplus. On the other hand, it is its ability to direct a large part of that surplus to productive investment rather than merely to private consumption. As a result of Africa's endemic instability, a large part of sub-Saharan Africa's surplus leaves the continent.
  • Assessing Mbeki’s positions is complicated, as one cannot easily discount the accommodation he made to reach out to his audience. After all this is an audience charged with everything from humanitarian relief to covert anti-terror activities, some of whose operations are alleged to violate fundamental international laws.
  • Second, Mbeki posits a developmental model based on comparative advantage, but he does not explain its failure even though it has implemented in many parts of Africa for over 30 years. Yet Mbeki does not hesitate to put the blame ‘in the final analysis’ squarely on African leaders themselves, even though he glosses over the evidence produced by the developmental model he endorses, which north of the Limpopo was foisted on many African countries in the most dastardly circumstances.
  • South Africa endorsed the comparative advantage development model as part of its home-grown structural adjustment programme, GEAR (Growth, Employment and Redistribution strategy). As a consequence of this and other flanking policies, the quality of the composition of its exports has been primitivised and it is more commodity dependent than it was during Apartheid.
  • Third, it is unclear why Mbeki views the US AFRICOM as important. There is already a multilateral body legally charged with maintaining peace and security – the United Nations. The castration of the UN Security Council by the US invention of the concept of pre-emptive war and its invasion of Iraq serves only to weaken the thrust of Mbeki’s case. Not to argue for Africa‘s rights, at the very least, under settled international law is a glaring and pandering omission.
  • Recently the South African Defence Minister Lindiwe Sisulu told Parliament that she wanted the defence force to provide a rite of passage for young people..."l
  • No doubt there are many weary and heavy hearted mothers and fathers across the country that would perceive this as the answer in dealing with their wilfully delinquent and errant adolescents, more out of desperation in the hope that some stern discipline from figures of authority will wise them up to the requirements of life.
  • There are many things that as citizens we do need, and there are many things that the Minister of War and the ANC should be doing for this country, but they have chosen not to – instead they hang yourself on the view that “...We can do that for this country, because that is the one thing we need...” . Sure! You do need to co-opt some of the youth into the army to protect you and your ilk against the rest of the youth and all the workers who take to the streets in righteous indignation to protest against your inept overnment of crony capitalism.
  • America's record is clear - it simply wants control of land (food), water, minerals and energy resources for its own benefit, plus cheap labour. Africom is there to 'command' and prop up servile local elites who will allow American multinationals to take whatever they want. Sadly many of our leaders already eagerly follow the US example of plunder for personal profit and will be happy to get a small personal share of the spoils while their people are impoverished.
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