Development Africa

A cursory study of Malcolm’s life quickly illustrates the reasons behind his popularity and the desire of so many to move him into their political camps. Malcolm’s well-documented journey from street hustler to world renowned spokesperson and organiser for African liberation reflects the hard work and determination that many of us can only dream about. His fearlessness in articulating the problems of white supremacy and capitalism and his unique ability to take difficult political and economic concepts and break them down for common consumption and understanding were skills that motivated millions since Malcolm first joined the Nation in the 1950s.

Malcolm’s final speeches are filled with invectives for Africans in the US to stop expecting freedom in the US, while Africa was subjugated because Africa’s freedom was dependent upon releasing the very same forces that keep Africans in the US oppressed. Malcolm characterised this reality with his statements that Africa “is at the centre of our liberation” and that socialism is “the system all people in the world seem to be coming around to”.

The writing on the wall had been provided to Malcolm by his meeting Pan-Africanists like Kwame Nkrumah and Sekou Toure. For anyone who doubts the impact these meetings had on Malcolm’s thinking all one has to do is read his own words in his autobiography. Malcolm described his meetings with Nkrumah as “the highlight of my travels” and “the highest honour of my life”. These words are true despite those meetings being ignored in Spike Lee’s 1992 biopic film and in pretty much everything else portrayed about Malcolm’s life.

Sobukwe was arrested in Soweto, Johannesburg, in 1960 and subsequently imprisoned for organising and leading the March 21, 1960 anti-pass march. It was a peaceful protest against an indentification card that was mandatory for Africans under the apartheid regime. The march culminated in the settler-colonial regime massacre of people at Sharpeville and Langa townships of present-day Gauteng and Western Cape respectively. While wee may probably never be able to hear Sobukwe’s voice again because the settler-colonial regime ensured he remains silent beyond his grave by banning him and destroying the audio material containing his voice, his ideas remain. We wish we could hear him talk.

there had to be an African democratic government

there had to be rapid extension of industrial development to help, among other things, alleviate pressure on the land as well as ensure full development of the human personality in a socialist context.

Compaoré is not alone in extending presidential term limits. President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda disposed of them altogether when he amended the Ugandan constitution. Yet both these men deposed their predecessors on the grounds of incompetence, repression and corruption.

Despite what melancholic lyrics may suggest, they exist – the men and women who want to change things. In the months leading up to the 2006 elections in Uganda, there were demonstrations outside the Central Police Station and the High Court where an opposition presidential candidate, Dr Kiiza Besigye, was first detained and then brought to trial. The big open air Nakasero Market is located a mere 200 metres from there. On one of the trail days, I found the market deserted. Everyone was at court, I was told.

The West was willing to help with the rehabilitation. The only condition: that the leaders sign up for IMF economic structural adjustment programmes. Should someone who actually needs micro-finance really borrow a large development loan without hope of ever paying it off? Was there really a choice? For Sankara there was. He declined all offers. His disagreement with what he called “debt imperialism” became the centrepiece of many of his speeches. “We can produce enough food to feed ourselves….Malheureusment, for lack of organization we still need to beg for food aid. This type of assistance is counter-productive and has kept us thinking that we can only be beggars who need aid…I am asked ‘Where is imperialism?’ Just look at your plates, you see imported corn, rice or millet. C’est ça, c’est ça, l’ímperialism. Let’s not look any further [i].”

With the weight of its recent past and in particular its long struggle for independence that served as a model for several liberation fronts across the globe and given its assertive diplomacy and audacious foreign policy in the 60s and 70s, the Algerian capital was to become a Mecca for all revolutionaries. As Amilcar Cabral announced at a press conference at the margins of the first Pan-African Festival held in Algiers on 1969: “Pick a pen and take note: the Muslims make the pilgrimage to Mecca, the Christians to the Vatican and the national liberation movements to Algiers!”

Fanon’s concern with what the masses do and say and think and his belief that it is the masses, and not leaders nor systems, who make and determine history, is at the centre stage in his books.

Reading Fanon’s words and especially ‘The Pitfalls of National Consciousness’ his famous chapter in The Wretched of the Earth (based on his reflections on his West African experiences as well as his concerns about the Algerian revolution),[v] one cannot help being absorbed and shaken by their truth and foresight on the bankruptcy and sterility of national bourgeoisies in Africa and the Middle East today; bourgeoisies that tended to replace the colonial force with a new class-based system replicating the old colonial structures of exploitation and oppression. Today we can see states across the formerly colonised world that have ‘bred pathologies of power’ as Eqbal Ahmad has called them, giving rise to national security states, to dictatorships, oligarchies and one-party systems. [vi]

Nyamnjoh based his talk on his essay with the same title published in the Journal of Asian and African Studies in which he argues for conviviality as a currency for frontier Africans by using a literary example, The Palm-Wine Drinkard, by the late Nigerian writer Amos Tutuola.

The skull represents the quest to become the “complete gentleman”, and when Africans are on such a quest to adapt to a Western style zero sum logic, “we lose out”, Nyamnjoh argued.

Nyamnjoh says Africans are “frontier beings”, which he defined as people who question institutionalised ideas and practices of being, becoming and belonging.

While the Kurds have been fighting for their survival against ISIS in the Syrian/Turkish border town of Kobane, the Zapatistas put down their arms over 20 years ago and have maintained a non-violent struggle since. In both cases, women have fought alongside men against their own collective obliteration while making radical changes in their gender relations. Working towards more equity makes possible more direct democracy in building greater autonomy from the state.[1] In both efforts, there is also a deep connection to land[2] that regards the value of women and the environment as essential to life itself.

These radical changes in gender relations are occurring in contexts of tremendous violence and war of both high and low intensity. In Kobane, near the Turkish border, Kurds have been upholding a heroic resistance to the ravages of ISIS on the one hand, and the racist and repressive manipulations of the Turkish State on the other. In Chiapas, the Zapatistas have been building their autonomy within the increasing violence of a narco-state that dominates much of the nation, where it is hard to discern the difference between government and drug traffickers.

Abdullah Öcalan, who has been imprisoned in Turkey since 1999. His “Democratic Confederalism” aims to build a new system that works towards the just distribution of resources as well as the conservation of the environment. It seeks to create a society free of sexism, replacing traditional patriarchal societies, religious interpretations, and capitalist merchandising of women. The movement has undertaken an intense societal and educational labor to combat the patriarchal mentalities implanted in women, as a form of submission, and in men, in form of domination.[4]

can this requirement be fulfilled this year? For many pressure groups like the Committee of Actions for Ivory Coast in the United States (C.A.C.I-USA), there cannot and should not be any election in Ivory Coast in 2015, unless the political body wants to trigger new violence and erase the democratic gains that Ivorians have enjoyed starting April 1990.

The second reason is that accepting a presidential election in 2015 would legitimate the regime in power, condemn Laurent Gbagbo, approve violence as a means to access power, and negate Ivory Coast’s right to sovereignty and democracy.

The relative obscurity for Ivory Coast is the uncertainty of durable peace and independence. There are two ways to end this obscurity: refraining from a presidential election in 2015 and installing a political transition. There are ample constitutional reasons to object to the presidential election now. The most important is avoiding further chaos and giving the political body sufficient time to install a political transition. Indubitably, a political transition is the golden alternative for peace in Ivory Coast.

It is my submission that regarding presidential terms limit, under Rwanda’s constitution, Kagame has only two options: either to abide by the Article 101 provision that ‘Under no circumstances shall a person hold the office of President of the Republic for more than two terms’, or overthrow the constitution and his government, which would allow him to write a new constitution.

the decision by opposition political parties to institute their own militias isn`t an act of mere emulation. Rather, it is a protest against how the ruling party and government have been handling democratic transition in the country, at least, and a failure of the establishment to uphold the constitution, at most.

Analyses of previous elections in Tanzania (2005, 2009 and 2010) indicate that election related violence and cases of electoral misconduct have been increasing in tandem with the increase in political competition especially in the mainland. Several scholars have postulated that the 2010 general election experienced increased competition and unprecedented levels of violence in that part of the country.[17]

In this election year, the main role of the party guards, according to CHADEMA, will be protecting its share of votes against usual thievery from the ruling party. Several thousand youths took their oaths early this year.[31] The police force was keen enough to notice and promise action.[32] It is hard to tell how many youths CCM has mobilized, again because of their discreet approach.

‘In the 18 months or so since her appointment, Phiyega and the SAPS have stumbled from one crisis to the next’, reported the Mail and Guardian in a sad account of her performance so far.[7] It’s important to note too that the saga surrounding Transnet for pension plundering during Phiyega’s tenure is ongoing.[8] ABSA is but a part of the world’s biggest bank, Barclays, an institution not adverse to criminal activity either. ‘Ed Miliband demands criminal probe into Barclays interest rate rigging scandal as £3.2bn is wiped off bank in share plunge’, roared a recent Daily Mail news story.[9] The fine the bank got amounted to a tee-hee-hee slap on the wrist; relatively speaking black folk in South Africa have been hit far harder for nicking bread to eat. Of course both instances are damning by association only, but certainly a murky background worth noting if only for the standard business practice and the fluid line between business and politics.

He calls it ‘No-Fly Zone For Legal Eagles’, written in 2015: ‘The presidency is working to remove police and prosecutors who refuse to suspend actions against highly influential people. The decline in independence of South Africa's top criminal justice institutions is accelerating as President Jacob Zuma redoubles his efforts to immunise himself and his entourage from prosecution over corruption. That is the verdict of a growing number of legal experts as more and more senior police officers and prosecutors are removed. Corrupt business links with the governing African National Congress and the Presidency are mounting, so the pressures on prosecutors and investigators to be soft on them multiply. State officials are increasingly facing administrative suspension if they do not comply.’

the decision by opposition political parties to institute their own militias isn`t an act of mere emulation. Rather, it is a protest against how the ruling party and government have been handling democratic transition in the country, at least, and a failure of the establishment to uphold the constitution, at most.

He forcibly removed blacks to native reserves through the 1894 Glen Grey Act, which presaged apartheid’s notorious Bantustan policies by half a century. Rhodes further pushed the Cape parliament to introduce hut and labour taxes on blacks to force them into the cash economy; packed over 11,000 black miners into inhumane, dog-patrolled, wire-protected barracks; and supported draconian labour laws (including the legal flogging of “disobedient” black labourers through the notorious “strop bill”) that facilitated the continued supply of human fodder to his mines, and impoverished the black population.

Price’s fifth claim was that Rhodes was a great philanthropist. Aside from the difficulty of being generous with stolen booty, it is important to note that, though 7,688 Rhodes scholars have studied at Oxford University since 1903, the scholarship scheme excluded women until 1976 and had clearly been designed for a “heaven’s breed” of largely Anglo-Saxon white males. The Rhodes trustees themselves today remain mainly white men, while most of the scholarships still go disproportionately to white Americans, Canadians, Australians, and South Africans. Contrary to Price’s statement that Rhodes did not graduate from Oxford, the imperialist - not reputed to have been a particularly good student or a potential Rhodes scholar! – took eight years to achieve a “gentleman’s pass” in law from Oxford. The South African scholarships – from which Price himself benefitted - have been particularly controversial, since they have effectively served as a form of white “affirmative action” for over a century, disproportionately going to schools that did not admit blacks or girls until the 1980s. Only four of the first 80 scholars were black.

this is not limited to the public sector. In the private sector, tribalism promotes the creation of self-sustaining and mutually supportive bubbles based on ethnicity. During the hiring process, tribalist bosses will preference people from their own social grouping for top jobs. In workplace disputes, they will not be impartial but will often favour their tribal comrade. During business deals, especially within corporates and multinationals, ethnic affiliation becomes a big factor in building trust between two parties and often in concluding mutually beneficial deals.

It’s shocking that in this day and age – in the so-called “new” South Africa – there are few public figures willing to call the actions and voting patterns of Afrikaans- and English-speaking white South Africans for what they are: narrow-minded tribalism.

The real tribalists (and racists) who Mbeki failed to mention are white South Africans, who effectively come together to vote as a bloc for only two political parties: the white-led Democratic Alliance and the smaller white nationalist Freedom Front Plus.

As one of the perpetrators explained, “When I returned to the community, I was worried about the way people would conceive me. I learnt about the Gacaca and I went to confess and ask for forgiveness. I was living with the guilt of what I committed and I wanted to let it out. I served a term in prison and got to know that some people I harmed were still alive. I wrote to them asking for forgiveness. Some of them visited me in prison. We talked and they forgave me. I took me a long time to be able to live in peace with myself”.

As one of the perpetrators explained, “When I returned to the community, I was worried about the way people would conceive me. I learnt about the Gacaca and I went to confess and ask for forgiveness. I was living with the guilt of what I committed and I wanted to let it out. I served a term in prison and got to know that some people I harmed were still alive. I wrote to them asking for forgiveness. Some of them visited me in prison. We talked and they forgave me. I took me a long time to be able to live in peace with myself”.

The CDKN consortium includes PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), Fundación Futuro Latinoamericano (FFLA), SouthSouthNorth, LEAD International and INTRAC. I know some of them well from previous interactions with them. The ODI, for example, advertises itself as an ‘independent think tank on international development and humanitarian issues’. From my knowledge of the ODI (on matters related to development aid, trade and EPA negotiations, for example) I can say without a moment’s hesitation that it is really an arm of British foreign policy. It is the ‘soft arm’ of British imperial diplomacy whose ‘strong arm’ comprises of instruments of force, including sanctions and war.

What is significant about the Rwandese concept is its dual objective of saving the forests and also the ‘forest communities’. For the environmentalists forests are simply biomass that on the one hand provide fuel and on the other hand carbon dioxide absorbing ‘lungs’ as a counter against global warming. But besides the forests there are also forest dwellers. The challenge is to save the forests and the forest communities; the people as well as the environment.

This, in brief, is the first point. Africa is run by a global kleptocratic system, a system which enriches a minute number of economic and power elites in Africa and the global bankocrats and corporatocrats at the one end of the pole while impoverishing the masses of African people at the other. Economists call this ‘rent seeking’, but it is, bereft of linguistic and technical finesse, simply looting.