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Reflections
on Africa Day
Arthur
Mutambara
May 25, 2008
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Introduction
As we commemorate Africa Day, the 25th of May, it is important that
we reflect on the economic circumstances obtaining on our continent.
Much discourse has taken place on the challenges of poor political
governance and leadership failure in Africa. This is not the primary
objective of this treatise. Of particular interest here are lessons
that can be drawn from Africa's economic experience, as a
basis for formulating new developmental trajectories. We are very
alive to the fact that an economic model will depend on foundational
matters of political governance and legitimacy. The economy cannot
be de-linked from politics.
While it is imperative
to address the fundamental issues of how political power is distributed
and exercised, and to develop and live a new democratic culture
characterized by people crafted constitutions, political pluralism,
leadership renewal, and freedoms of association, assembly and expression,
it is equally important that we also work towards achieving freedom
from poverty and breaking the cycle of destitution among all our
people. Africans' economic rights to employment, decent housing,
adequate healthcare, and affordable education should receive the
same guarantees and safeguards as their political freedoms. It is
therefore imperative that, as we celebrate the unity of our continent,
some time be spent reflecting specifically on the nature of the
African economy?
Eradicating
xenophobia: The case for both shared and regional economic growth
The recent xenophobic attacks
against Black immigrants in South Africa (SA) signify a shameful
and despicable development on our continent. This has been made
worse by the fact that it is taking place in May, a month in which
we are supposed to be coming together as Africans to celebrate our
unity. These attacks constitute a terrible indictment of our collective
and historical commitment to Pan-Africanism, the African Renaissance,
Ubuntu, African dignity and Black humanity.
However, rather than
address the symptoms of the crisis we should deal with the fundamental
issues that have caused this sad development. Both the push and
pull factors of the tragedy must be attended to. The xenophobic
attacks should be understood from the premises of two empirical
factors. Firstly, the poor people of SA have not yet economically
benefited from their nation's transition from the evil apartheid
system to democratic rule. Secondly, the economies of other African
countries in the SADC region and beyond have not grown sufficiently
enough to provide a decent standard of living to their peoples.
Most of these economies are very weak in comparison to SA.
At the root of the attacks
are the South African poor people's grievances of increasing
poverty, growing inequality and unemployment, coupled with a deplorable
social infrastructure where health, housing and education are woefully
inadequate. This is a crisis driven by incompetent delivery of social
services and lack of economic opportunities for the poor. SA's
developmental programs, including black economic empowerment, have
failed to address historical economic imbalances inherited from
apartheid. True broad based social transformation has been elusive.
By and large, the traditionally rich Whites, and their new Black
counterparts, are getting richer while the poor Blacks are receding
into abject poverty. Unfortunately, to the down-trodden South African
have-nots, poor black immigrants are then conveniently perceived
as job stealers, criminals and competitors placing unreasonable
demands on scarce resources and a shaky infrastructure. The foreigners,
in particular the undocumented ones, are loathed for receiving slave
wages for unskilled jobs, and in the process undercutting the South
African lumpen proletariat.
Indeed, SA businesses
have also mercilessly exploited this glut in cheap labour in pursuit
of supersonic profits. They are guilty as charged. There is need
to reflect on the role of capital in SA, and Africa in general.
We should debunk once and for all the outdated and flawed concept
of the trickle down effect. Not all economic growth automatically
benefits all the people in a country, nor is the greater the growth,
the more widespread the benefits. Throughout the world, recent economic
growth has benefited only a small portion of the population. Almost
without exception, growth has led to the widening of the gap between
the rich and the poor. In many countries, including some of the
richest countries in the world, there is increasingly no middle
class to talk about. There are essentially the super rich and the
desperately poor. SA is a classic case of this.
By any standard, the
SA economy has had a good performance since the transition to democracy.
The captains of SA industry have become super rich through obscene
compensation. Meanwhile, the majority of the population continues
to mire and wallow in poverty. This has perpetuated the unjust circumstances
that used to prevail during apartheid. Squalid conditions have persisted
in informal settlements such as Thembisa and Alexandria. So, while
economic growth is crucial, there is need for active social justice
to ensure that the prosperity is shared.
The crisis of unbridled
capitalism is not unique to SA. Globally we witness the tragedy
of unfettered market forces running amok as executives are paid
exorbitant salaries while they hire people at near-slave wages to
toil under inhuman conditions in Asian and African sweatshops. Oil
companies wantonly pump toxins down rivers consciously killing people,
animals, and plants and committing genocide among ancient cultures.
The pharmaceutical industry denies life-saving medicines to millions
of HIV-infected Africans. We are experiencing a global crisis that
calls for business and political leaders to start thinking differently.
In particular governments
must effectively play their role in setting the business terms of
reference, leveling the economic playing field, and providing a
safety net for the poor. This is clearly more imperative in Africa,
SA in particular, where there has been a history of economic exploitation,
social degradation, and political subjugation, of one group by another.
It is on this score that the SA state is found miserably wanting.
There has been a major policy failure on the part of the SA government
with respect to the underemployed, the unemployed and the unemployable.
Any attempt by the Mbeki regime to link the uprisings to third force
actors should be rejected with the contempt that it deserves. Even
if such actors existed they will simply be taking advantage of systemic
and structural policy failures rooted in inadequacy and incompetence
of economic governance. The buck stops with Mbeki.
External to SA, the economic
and political instability within the SADC region and other parts
of Africa has led to an influx of both skilled and unskilled Africans
into a fairly stable South African economy. Of particular significance
is the meltdown in Zimbabwe which has led to disproportionate displacements
into SA. Here again SA foreign policy failure has led to a harvest
of thorns. It is a case of the chickens coming home to roost. If
Mbeki cannot be convinced that there is a crisis in Zimbabwe, may
be he can be convinced that events in that country have lead to
a crisis in SA. What a comedy of errors! We need to paraphrase Kwame
Nkrumah into the language of a 21st century characterized by globalization.
Economic prosperity in SA is meaningless without prosperity in the
rest of Africa. More importantly, that economic growth and success
must be shared with those at the bottom of the pyramid, the poor.
For the despicable xenophobia we have witnessed to be effectively
contained, the needs of the poor in SA must be met. There must be
efficient social service delivery and increased opportunities for
the poor, through a radically overhauled and broad based economic
empowerment model. We are not in any way advocating for equality
of outcomes but rather equal access to opportunity. The importance
of personal agency and responsibility cannot be overemphasized.
Beyond SA, there is need
for an inclusive Pan-Africanist approach that puts regional sovereignty,
stability and prosperity ahead of narrow and perverted definitions
of sovereignty. This means, for example, the crisis in Zimbabwe
must be viewed as an African catastrophe that undermines both strategic
and economic interests of the SADC region. It demands immediate
and unequivocal African intervention. We must totally disregard
any claims to sovereignty by the illegal, illegitimate and kleptocratic
regime of Robert Mugabe. It is the people's will that is sovereign.
Under globalization nations will only prosper as successful regional
economic blocks. The collapse of one national economy is detrimental
to the entire region.
Furthermore, there is
need to ensure that economic paradigms and programs are transportable
across African borders. For example, will it not be sensible to
have an Africa-wide, broad based economic empowerment model that
ensures that SA corporates which operate in other African countries
are legally bound to empower black people and poor communities in
those countries? What is currently happening is that White SA corporates
are essentially exporting apartheid and unbridled exploitation to
the rest of Africa, while carrying out minimum and ineffectual empowerment
in SA (characterized by the enrichment and corruption of a few Black
elites). This is unsustainable for both SA and the rest of Africa.
There is need to rethink. It is important that the economic growth
and prosperity in SA is shared among all citizens and effectively
extended to the rest of Africa. This is the only sustainable way
to contain xenophobia among Africans.
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