Sipho Seepe
no blows barred
Stripped of all the hype and pomp, the Millennium African Recovery Programme (MAP) amounts to no more than Africans committing themselves to continental economic recovery, sustainable development and democratic governance.
It is a recycling of ideas articulated by leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere and our own Mangaliso Sobukwe and Stephen Bantu Biko at a time when Africa was gripped in an ideological contest between two opposing superpowers. Arising out of this contest, many wars were fomented and sustained by colonial and superpowers bent on expanding their spheres of influence. With the fall of the Soviet Union and the defeat of apartheid colonialism, the continent is provided with a breathing space. It is this new global and political context that gives freshness to the call for the African recovery.
MAP follows closely on the notion of the “African renaissance”. Both make bold promises and invoke an idyllic future and image for the continent. They are bandied around as if merely invoking them in every speech, however unrelated to the content, will make Africa’s problem disappear. They are presented as antidotes to prevailing African conditions of economic stagnation, famine, corruption, social conflicts, gross human rights abuses, health crises, burgeoning debt and a growing marginal role in the global economy.
To address these challenges, MAP is posited as a new partnership between Africa and the First World. To prevent the imposition of inappropriate policies and models of development, the partnership will be led by African leaders. They also commit themselves to democratic and responsible governance as if this should not have been their responsibility in the first place. In return, African leaders ask for debt relief and foreign investment.
What betrays MAP is its misreading of humanity, globalisation and the social dynamics of power. It places a blind faith on developed countries. In their statement of support for MAP, President Thabo Mbeki and British Prime Minister Tony Blair argue that “humanity cannot be indifferent to the fact that 40% of Africa’s people live on less than a pound [about R11] a day. The world cannot pretend to be at peace when parts of Africa are affected by violent conflict. When millions of Africans die each year from malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/Aids, humanity is left devastatingly the poorer.”
This view of humanity is at best ahistorical and naive, if not flawed. To see this we need to reflect on our own conduct. This enables us to understand how power, privilege and economic interests conspire against the powerless.
Firstly, it is naive to assume that the glaring global economic inequalities are mere accidents of history, divorced from the dictates of political and economic interests. If anything, it is the policies of the rich countries that have strangled the economies of poor countries. In our own country, the racially skewed economic inequalities will not be addressed by appealing to altruism but rather through conscious and deliberate efforts by those wielding political power. By extension of the same argument, moral appeals to the West to assist in addressing the African conditions are inadequate. Mbeki himself acknowledges this when he argued that “such is a degree of comfort among the haves, even in our society, that their ears are closed”, yet he allows himself to preside over a plan that is no more than “an age-old begging bowl”.
Secondly, while the West is called upon to display some form of humanity, African leaders have themselves failed to display such humanity. In our country the government has been reluctant to take steps to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV. The effect has been to condemn thousands of HIV-infected babies to an early death. This is despite (or to spite) many pleas from NGOs representing people living with Aids, Aids researchers, religious leaders and the medical establishment. If we cannot display any form of humanity to our own people, we should understand why an endeavour that relies on moral assistance is likely to fail. If the arrogance of power prevents the Mbeki government from being responsive to concerns of the weak, we may anticipate that a similar fate awaits Africa’s appeals.
While MAP calls for a greater voice in international institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the G8, it fails to appreciate that the exclusion of African voices is not accidental. It is fundamentally a consequence of power relations in the same way that we use our power in this country to marginalise minorities and the weak.
A further problem with MAP is the unsustainable belief that “globalisation offers the pros-pect of widening the frontiers of democracy, rising economic prosperity and eradication of poverty”. Firstly, the realisation of this prospect requires a constitutional world order that is shaped by a global ideology of human rights. Such a constitutional world order requires an establishment of strong regional and global authority and monitoring institutions. However, with the huge economic imbalances in which 20% have 86% of the global gross domestic product, equity among nations is not possible. In the world of realpolitik, the rich will always demand while the poor will give what they must. When nationalist and economic interests are threatened, Africa has always been the least of the West’s concerns.
Secondly, globalisation should not be seen as only confined to the objective outcome of the process of technological advancement. The exploitation of this technology is neither objective nor apolitical. A view of globalisation as an objective process fails to appreciate that the marginalisation of Africa in the global economy derives from decades of imperialist expansion whose foundation has been the exploitation and subjugation of developing countries. There is a growing awareness that the relentless advance of global information technology will result in a demise of nation states of weaker countries. Already, global communications and the globalisation of the economy through the operations of multinationals have led to a situation where governments have little control over their economies and monetary policies. The pendulum has swung completely towards total dependence on market forces. These forces emphasise competition, rather than cooperation. When faced with a tension between national interests and the common good, the interests of the wealthy and powerful will prevail. With its emphasis on altruism, MAP is likely to fade into oblivion, as have previous initiatives.