Dorothy-Grace Guerrero and Firoze Manji (ed) (2008) China’s New Role in Africa and the South: A search for a new perspective. 
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Pambazuka News 234: Alternatives to neo-liberalism
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CONTENTS: 1. Highlights from this issue, 2. Features, 3. Comment & analysis, 4. Pan-African Postcard, 5. Letters, 6. Books & arts, 7. Blogging Africa, 8. Women & gender, 9. Human rights, 10. Refugees & forced migration, 11. Elections & governance, 12. Corruption, 13. Development, 14. Health & HIV/AIDS, 15. Education, 16. Racism & xenophobia, 17. Environment, 18. Land & land rights, 19. Media & freedom of expression, 20. Advocacy & campaigns, 21. News from the diaspora, 22. Conflict & emergencies, 23. Internet & technology, 24. eNewsletters & mailing lists, 25. Fundraising & useful resources, 26. Courses, seminars, & workshops, 27. Jobs, 28. Global call to action against poverty
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Highlights from this issue
Recommended reading this week
2005-12-15
EDITORIAL: George Dor from the Southern Africa Centre for Economic Justice introduces a series of articles on alternatives to neo-liberalism
COMMENT&ANALYSIS:
- An alternative vision to water privatisation trends in Ghana
- Economic Demands take on Political Form in Mauritius
- Swaziland: Developing a participatory course in environmental education
- The case of the Malawi Economic Justice Network: Economics for the people, by the people
- Working towards another Southern Africa: The ANSA initiative
LETTERS: Africa in Hong Kong/Human Rights Day
BLOGGING AFRICA: Race riots, air crashes, harassment of women, fuel shortages and the legacies of colonialism
Pan-African Postcard: Time to get tough on Darfur talks, says Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem
BOOKS&ARTS: A review of Kwani, a compilation of contributions by Kenyan writers/Poems on 16 days of activism against violence
GLOBAL CALL TO ACTION AGAINST POVERTY: GCAP trade demands presented in Hong Kong
CONFLICTS&EMERGENCIES: UN out of Eritrea/ICC interviews Darfur witnesses
HUMAN RIGHTS: Call for investigation into Egyptian police killings
REFUGEES: Toddler latest to die in Sudanese refugee protest in Cairo
ELECTIONS&GOVERNANCE: Call for suspension of Zenawi regime/Civil society challenge to dictatorship in Nigeria
WOMEN&GENDER: Gender and Human Rights in the Commonwealth
DEVELOPMENT: All the news from the WTO in Hong Kong
RACISM&XENOPHOBIA: Indymedia Sydney reports on race riots
ENVIRONMENT: Climate talks end in Montreal
MEDIA&FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: Discussing advocacy journalism
NEWS FROM THE DIASPORA: The Execution of Stan Tookie Williams
ADVOCACY&CAMPAIGNS: Appeal to AU to confront Eritrea on human rights violations
INTERNET&TECHNOLOGY: FrontlineSMS now available FOR NGOS
+ E-newsletters, Fundraising, Courses and Jobs
Dear Subscribers,
Please note that this will the last edition of 2005. The next edition of Pambazuka News will be on January 5th. We wish all of our subscribes a restful few weeks.
Features
Case studies in alternatives
2005-12-15
George Dor
How do we challenge neoliberalism and corporate globalisation? Can we develop demands that enjoy the support of those most severely affected and simultaneously lay the ground for an alternative system? How do we develop educational programmes that encourage critical thinking in countries where such thought is actively discouraged? Can the demand for reparations for damage caused by neoliberalism and its predecessors be conceptualised as part of a process of fundamental change? These are the types of questions that are tackled in the series of articles in this week’s Pambazuka News. The articles reflect a growing debate on economic alternatives to neoliberalism from countries as far afield as Mauritius, Swaziland and Mali. In this article, guest editor George Dor, who was responsible for bringing together these articles, introduces some of the issues playing themselves out in the debate over alternatives.
The search for alternatives to neoliberalism is increasingly being identified with the need to transform the entire capitalist system. Debate on socialism is gaining increasing prominence. It is not just the nature of the alternatives that is being explored. The perhaps even more critical question of the process towards these alternatives is also a focus of increasing attention. There is a clear recognition that abstract academic formulas will not provide lasting solutions. Alternatives have to be developed from the ground through struggle. This entails the development of appropriate strategies, with workers, the unemployed and the poor at the centre of decision-making. It also entails the development of a vision of a new society as well as the values and principles that should underpin it.
Resistance and Alternatives
The debate on alternatives has its roots in the relatively recent growth of resistance to neoliberalism and corporate globalisation. In keeping with international developments, there has been an emergence of organisations across the continent around issues such as debt, trade, privatisation, land, food security, water, large dams, conflict and war.
Much of the initial emphasis in these new organisations and related networks was on resisting the very real hardships faced by people in impoverished rural and urban areas, as well as on developing a greater awareness of the neoliberal causes of these hardships. But, even as these organisations were being formed, the question of alternatives was already appearing on the agenda.
As early as 1999, newly-formed Jubilee campaigns and anti-debt coalitions met in Lusaka, Zambia, and identified the need for an “Africa Consensus” in opposition to the Washington Consensus. The concept was further developed by the African anti-debt formations at the launch of Jubilee South later in the year and was renamed the “African Peoples Consensus” in recognition of the very different class interests on the continent. It received further support at a large event of organisations representing a range of sectors and interests, held in Dakar, Senegal, at the end of 2000.
The formation of the World Social Forum sparked forums at continental, regional, country and local levels. The African Social Forum (ASF) was first held at the beginning of 2002, and the Southern African Social Forum (SASF) met before the end of 2003 and for the second time in October this year. Many countries have held national social forums. Discussion on alternatives is an increasingly prominent feature of these forums.
The African Peoples Forum
A West African initiative, the African People’s Forum, has been convening every year since 2002. Just as the World Social Forum is counterposed to the World Economic Forum, the African Peoples Forum is held in opposition to the G8, at the time of the G8 annual meetings.
The four editions of the forum have been held in different outlying towns in Mali. There has been representation from, amongst other countries, Benin, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, DRC, Gambia, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal and Togo. The forums have included large numbers of small-scale farmers from the eight regions of Mali and the forum held in Fana this year had over 1000 participants.
Mrs. Barry Aminata Toure, Chairperson of CAD-Mali, a coalition for alternatives to debt, highlighted the importance of the forum in contesting the G8 and neoliberalism: “This People’s Forum is a critical opportunity to inform and sensitise African social movements on international political and economic mechanisms, which constrain the national policies of developing countries of the South. Faced with the G8, which plays the role of a totally illegitimate world board of directors, African social movements are organising themselves to formulate alternatives to current neo-liberal policies and are firmly resolved to show their determination.”
The forum in Fana was promoted under the slogan, “From Resistance to Alternatives”. It included debates on alternatives to the system of indebtedness and structural adjustment policies, reinforcing regional integration, finding a new approach to North/South relationships, the need to reinvent the education system in Africa, public funding and community participation in the management of basic social services, the possiblity of withdrawal from cotton agriculture, alternatives to the over-indebtedness of the farming community, alternatives to rice imports from the North and rural women’s access to land and agricultural inputs.
Given the large numbers of farmers, food sovereignty was a central issue. The forum concluded: “We refuse to become the waste bin of the world. We ask for just international regulations that guarantee an equitable trade. The international community should recognize our right to maintain, protect and develop our food capacity, while respecting the diversity of our crops and without threatening other countries’ food sovereignty. This right for each country - or region - we call the right to food sovereignty.”
Debating Values and Principles
Recently, there have been various activities on economic alternatives in Southern Africa, including an afternoon seminar at the African Social Forum in Lusaka, Zambia, in December last year and an economic alternatives workshop in Johannesburg, South Africa, in May this year.
The Lusaka event was a well attended and very well received event, highlighting the importance of engaging in debate on alternatives at events of this nature with a wide range of participants from different organisations and countries. There was a tangible sense that there is a widespread desire to take forward debate on alternatives.
The Johannesburg workshop built on this event by bringing together a somewhat smaller group of participants central to the question of alternatives in their organisations, sectors and countries. The nature of the workshop allowed for a more intensive interrogation of neoliberalism and debate on the nature of economic alternatives, including the process towards developing them.
The workshop concluded that it would again be important to further the debate at the Southern African Social Forum in Harare, Zimbabwe in October this year, including discussion on the values and principles that should underpin alternatives.
The forum was organised very differently to the Lusaka African Social Forum. The organisers deliberately organised the event outdoors in the major public park in central Harare to make it more accessible to people. In general, this proved to be very successful. There was participation in substantial numbers, perhaps some 3 000 in all, including many from the Harare townships and other parts of Zimbabwe. The event had the feel of a forum, with lively discussions, heated debates and very impressive cultural activities. This represents a significant advance on previous forums in Africa, which have often been criticised for coming across more as conferences than social movement events.
However, this did have the unfortunate consequence in that the venues for the different discussions were not easy to find. The economic alternatives activities were some of those negatively affected. The forum programme included various organisations that had applied to make presentations on different aspects of economic alternatives, but only three of these organisations were able to locate the venue.
The South African Centre for Economic Justice (SACEJ) took up the role of facilitating the day-long discussion. Other participating organisations convened a discussion on socialism at a different venue on the same afternoon. Unfortunately, these events took place separately. SACEJ facilitated discussion in a way in which participants were given the opportunity to express their views as to the vision they have of an alternative society and the principles that should guide us towards the realisation of that vision.
It was stressed that current conventional development processes are not acceptable to the majority. Few have benefited. The colonialists and those in post-independence leadership “enjoying the class system hierarchy” had and have ulterior motives. It was passionately stated that “it is time to rise up as people and fight this capitalism.”
The development of alternatives by consultants from abroad and the “NGO syndrome” was criticised. It was argued that universities intellectualise knowledge and make it irrelevant. Universities are not generating holistic, environmentally and economically sustainable approaches to development. Urban, male and age biases were noted and it was asked whether we at the forum, reflecting these biases, are qualified to raise the discussion on alternatives.
It was argued that there is a need to develop theories relevant to alternative economics. Students should be drawn in. We are not sharing information and documentation. People and organisations should pull together across clusters and sectors in developing economic alternatives. There is a need to strengthen and consolidate alternative networks and develop a think tank that interrogates alternatives.
There was a fairly extensive discussion on language. This was sparked off by points raised on the corruption and the black market. The phrase, “black market”, has a negative connotation and is but one example of the way in which the word “black” is used in negative terms. It also assumes that the legal market has an ethical standing. Why not rather use a phrase such as “parallel market”?
The forum itself proved to be far from immune to the use of problematic language. There was widespread dissemination of stickers attacking “Zhing Zhong” goods, motivated by concern at the increase in imports from China, but encouraging the racist conclusion that Chinese people are the problem, masking the neoliberal roots of unfair trade.
It was argued that there is a need for a paradigm shift. We need to move beyond criticising and start the important task of identifying true values and establishing clear principles. Values have to come from the heart. We should look at ourselves. “Are we social ourselves?” Capitalism is not far away, in fact it is within us. The “I factor”, “what do I get out of this”, tends to dominate even in forums like the Southern African Social Forum. We have to change our mindsets, we have to practice the values we identify, it starts with us: “Let’s start by socialising ourselves”.
We also need to be more proactive in setting the agenda. This needs to draw on past values. We have to rethink what we have been doing. For example, in the agricultural sector, we have been changing to modern systems, thus abandoning organic farming and indigenous systems, losing a lot of traditional knowledge. We must engage in research as to what is suitable and what is not.
There were many points made on culture and values. Marginalisation and Westernisation has destroyed cultural and social values. Family forms are being eroded. People have become selfish and corruptible. All too often the poor are exploiting the poor. We need to cultivate a positive image of us as African people, as against, for example, pentecostal values that counter our values. We must introduce cultural values into educational materials and instill these values into the educational system, radio and TV.
The process towards developing alternatives was also addressed. One shouldn’t impose external alternatives. We should be mere facilitators to assist the emergence and strengthening of people’s structures. Inclusion to the benefit of people and participation in decision-making are crucial. An alternative society should embrace the positive qualities of inclusivity and maximum participation of the historically marginalised. It should take into account all of its members.
There must be democratisation throughout society. Those who produce have more control over their lives. There must be democracy in the workplace and educational institutions.
Participants tried the difficult, if not impossible, task of capturing the essence of the values and principles of an alternative society in a sentence:
- An inclusive society where processes and structures combine to allow people to coexist and actively participate in economic and social systems and live a life of dignity and justice;
- An alternative society portrays and projects positive values about human existence and livelihood into economic and social production and encourages development processes with a respect for human dignity
The discussion on values was located within the current context of neoliberal power. It was asked how we work towards a society with our values given existing power relations. Transnational corporations have financial resources, machinery, technical expertise and patents and control trade. To defeat the enemy, sometimes you have to use their tools. For example, small sugar producers should come together to increase their power. Where rights are not given, they must be taken. The building of strong organisations is central to the task of taking up the struggle against neoliberalism and for an alternative society.
It was again stressed that: “It is not supposed to end here.” The discussions need to be taken forward. It was suggested that we need to continue to engage ourselves through a centre that can take up the tasks of disseminating information and networking around the issues.
* George Dor is with the Southern Africa Centre for Economic Justice
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org
Comment & analysis
An alternative vision to water privatisation trends in Ghana
2005-12-15
Rudolf Amenga-Etego
Rudolf Amenga-Etego argues against the privatization of water in Ghana and introduces an example of community driven water delivery managed for the public good instead of profits. In a country where in some parts the average citizen earns only 50 cents a day, but is expected to pay the full market price for water, he argues for a water management system that “incorporates the collective wisdom of the community as an operative rule”.
The neo-liberal ideology that is driving water policy globally is rooted in the in the so-called “Washington Consensus”, which is nothing but a market fundamentalist conspiracy to corner the world’s resources to satisfy the greed of a tiny minority. It is an ideology that puts profits before people, threatens our eco-systems through excessive exploitation and turns the essentials of life into mere articles of trade.
Ghana, a country of 20 million people with 10 million of them earning less than 2 dollars a day, is a typical example of a well-endowed country reduced to begging. After decades of trying to adjust our economy to fit into a global trading system crafted by a few corporations with the complicity of the Bretton Woods institutions and spineless governments at their beck and call, we are consigned to the fringes of humanity where life is cheaper than condoms. There are parts of Ghana, the Upper East region being typical, where the average citizen earns only 50 cents a day and is now also expected to pay the full market price for water.
This is a consequence of the signing of a management service contract in November this year, handing over the management of the water service to the private sector. The signing of the contract is significant in a number of ways:
- It signals a change in the World Bank policy, which hitherto favoured leases and concessions. The assumption then was that the private sector would invest in the water sector. This didn’t happen.
- It is an indication that the water corporations now prefer management service contracts that guarantee upfront payments with little or no risks.
- The World Bank remains essentially the smokescreen behind which the corporations operate.
- To the activist, it means “not yet uhuru”.
Management service contracts are essentially attempts to take over public utilities for the purpose of making money without investment risk. The operational principle remains full cost recovery from consumers, irrespective of the ability to pay. Creative and innovative ways of providing safe water, especially to the poor, are ignored and therefore no investment flows into alternative thinking.
In Ghana, keeping water in public hands is an expression of sovereignty. The country has been declared a “highly indebted poor country” (HIPC) by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, who structurally adjusted her into debt in the first place. This is a country at the mercy of aid agencies. Surrendering her water to foreign corporate control will be the final act of capitulation.
There is no shortage of talent in Ghana. What is needed is a management system that incorporates the collective wisdom of the community as an operative rule. It is by involving people not as mere consumers but as citizens with rights, including the right to participate and to hold the management system accountable that will ensure the changes necessary for good water governance and universal access.
Certain policy interventions are key to eliminating the current neoliberal inequalities in water delivery to better achieve the ‘public good’ aspects of water services. These include:
- no prepaid meters for poor households;
- increased amounts of free water;
- better regulation of tariff structures so that they do not penalize the poor; and
- a non- discriminatory infrastructural plan that ensures that poor areas are equally served.
There should also be increased public funding for improving the efficiency of water systems and access. There should be a programme aimed at promoting public sector alternatives including community-based systems.
A celebrated example in Ghana which clearly demonstrates innovativeness is the Savelugu-Ghana Water Company partnership. In 2000, the Savelugu community and the Ghana Water Company signed an agreement to supply water to the Savelugu Township. Roles for both parties were defined, and the terms of the agreement were negotiated. The agreement involves the supply of bulk potable water to the township, which has the responsibility of retailing the water to community members. The bulk price is negotiated from time to time and a community water and sanitation board meets to set the retail price and discuss exemptions.
The success of the Savelugu experiment derives largely from its underlying principle that a community is able to work with a public utility to provide a service for its members efficiently. A recent base line survey by the Foundation for Grassroots Initiatives in Africa (GrassRootsAfrica) stated some of the ways that the township and the Ghana Water Company have benefited from the partnership as follows:
The township:
- It has guaranteed supply of potable water from a public utility.
- It is relieved from the complex process of producing and treating water as in other small towns practicing community management.
- The means exists to negotiate with the utility on price and quantity of water to be supplied.
- There is democratic decision-making among community members on tariffs and exemption procedures.
- Profits accrued from water sales are used for expansion and other community development projects.
- There is capacity to negotiate with private sector companies to provide services.
- There is the opportunity to benefit from technical support from the public utility at acceptable costs.
- Equitable access to water supply is promoted through participatory decision-making and management processes.
- Women are involved in decisions on water delivery.
- Social control measures are used to check pilfering and illegal connections and ensure prompt detection and containment of leaking pipes to reduce losses.
The Ghana Water Company:
- It saves on the cost of personnel to bill and collect tariffs from the community.
- It attains a relatively higher economic return per unit of water supplied to domestic consumers, as compared to other parts of Tamale.
- Unaccounted for water reduces to a minimum (near zero), as the community pays for all water consumed.
- It enjoys an intimate and healthy relationship with consumers.
- Pilfering and collusion with consumers to manipulate revenue due to the company is eliminated as the community pays to the company through crossed checks.
The argument that there is no efficient way of delivering safe water without the participation of the private sector peels off in the face of the Savelugu example. Shockingly, in spite of this exciting news, the World Bank is refusing to look that way. The World Bank’s privatization fixation is entirely inappropriate in the delivery of water to the people of Ghana. Activists in Ghana have argued that the government of Ghana and the donor community, if they are really serious about addressing the accountability and efficiency issues alleged to be bedeviling the Ghana Water Company, should be investing in the Savelugu model and investigating ways of replicating it. Wholly community-based systems should also be supported as alternatives to privatization.
* Rudolf Amenga-Etego is with the Foundation For GrassRoots Initiatives In Africa
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org
Economic Demands take on Political Form in Mauritius
2005-12-15
Alain Ah-Vee, Lindsey Collen, Ram Seegobin
Lalit, a political party in Mauritius, has been conducting a campaign for “an alternative economy”. As Lalit’s Alain Ah-Vee, Lindsey Collen and Ram Seegobin explain, its just not acceptable that those who own land refuse to produce food for people to eat, while people who want to produce food to eat have no land.
Since 2004, Lalit, the political party we are members of in Mauritius, has been accentuating its campaign for what we call “an alternative economy”. This involves looking at questions like: “What are the demands that working people and the unemployed today see as eminently reasonable and that, at the same time, put into question the entire economic system? And, how do we identify these demands collectively? What is the process?”
Stated differently, “What is the content of the political program (and by what processes is it developed?) that would bring us, as socialists, off the defensive on economic issues, and on to the counter-offensive? What political demands, in these times, simultaneously pose questions of ownership and economic control?”
This paper is a brief outline of what our campaign means, both as an idea, and in practice, focusing on two of our demands as examples.
Politics in the economy
At certain times in history, the economy moves to the centre of the political stage all by itself. In the press, the “economy” is on separate pages; in the universities, economics and politics are in different departments; and during elections, newspapers and radios avoid any genuine debate on control over the economy. Bourgeois ideologues believe in the two following contradictory statements: that the economy is not linked to politics, and that it ought not to be. The truth is that it is linked, and it ought to be consciously linked to every human being’s political opinions and interests.
Today, sugar and free zone textiles, two of the major sectors of the Mauritian economy, have both become politically hot issues. The price of petroleum products is also being discussed politically. All this is on the agenda because of contradictions within capitalism, exposing very clearly the international realities of the Mauritian economy.
The open-ended political agreement between African, Caribbean, Pacific countries and Europe, known as the Lome Convention, included a sugar protocol. Earlier this year, the sugar quotas and guaranteed prices under the convention’s Sugar Protocol came to an abrupt end. A World Trade Organization Disputes Settlement Unit judgment, provoked by sugar producers in Australia, Thailand and Brazil, ruled that European subsidies on sugar are illegal. So, all the Mauritian Ministers are running around looking for political palliatives to the immense price drop that has ensued, but they are looking within a very narrow choice of economic alternatives.
The first of January saw the demise of the Multi-Fibre Agreement, another political treaty that gave privileged access to European markets to countries like Mauritius for their industrialists’ textiles. So, these two economic sectors, together with oil prices, have leapt out into the political arena. And this is where our Lalit campaign comes in.
Past political debates, strategies, positions and activities help. Lalit, from its earliest beginnings as the Lalit de Klas monthly political magazine from 1974, was well known for constant criticism of the short-term limited form of “development” that could be expected from sugar and textiles. These stands were accompanied by thorough arguments around the need for diversification of the agricultural and agro-industrial sector, for both local consumption and for export, and the need for developing renewable non-polluting energy. One of our early campaigns, in 1984, was called “What future is there in sugar?” It was famous partly because the Government banned our popular slide show on beet sugar and Brazilian workers’ struggles. So, when these two sectors, sugar and textiles, are in crisis, people look to us.
What is the Lalit campaign for an alternative economy, and who is in it? Our aim is to have ongoing economic and political analyses that are sufficient to put us one or two steps ahead of the next moves of the different sections of the ruling class, of the State, the press, and of the political parties in power, so that we are often predicting what will happen next.
At the same time, we involve working class people, union members, women and young people in active research. We publicise this through leaflets, neighbourhood informal meetings, slide shows and public meetings on street corners with PA systems. We use the press, whenever they are not in practice banning us. We make our perspectives known through participation in electoral campaigns, often putting up candidates for parliament or municipalities, through poster campaigns, sometimes hand-painted, sometimes printed, even through court cases, for example challenging the constitutionality of the Privatization Fund Act.
This all involves a two-way movement of ideas not just within our party, from its centre to its branches and districts, but within the women’s movement, the homeless peoples’ movement, education organizations, language promotion organizations, and through working with the trade unions, preferably at delegate or grass roots level. It also involves us being on the political arena during elections, sometimes by putting up candidates, other times by defining the agenda through other means.
By working this way, we come up with demands that workers and unemployed people, whatever their political affiliations for the moment, consider reasonable right now. At the same time, even while we all find these demands eminently reasonable, it is also evident that, as we push for them, we will increasingly find that the present way society is organized will prevent us winning our demands, or winning in full. Thus, there develops a conscious awareness that the demands also involve putting into question the social organization of the economy.
The first effect of both the cuts in sugar prices and the end of the Multi-Fibre Agreement is that bosses and government have only one type of solution. They cut production costs by sacking people, cut losses by closing down factories and make profits by exporting capital to where labour is cheaper (in Madagascar, other parts of Africa, China) or by bringing in cheaper labour on a contract basis. In overall terms, the solution of the bosses and government means making a large percentage of human beings redundant, and as many as possible as poor as possible. They say so themselves.
Let us take the example of the sugar sector, to explain our campaign. Our aim is this: “To build up enough popular support for our demands so that the government is obliged to force the sugar estates bosses to implement them. Or else, how can the sugar estate bosses justify their monopoly control over land and capital?”
Everyone’s political consciousness permits the idea that the people can influence the Government. This is where people’s ideas are at. Everyone also knows that it is difficult to force the sugar estates to do anything they don’t want to. Thus the importance of the “or else”, which opens up the possibility of questioning their ownership and control of the means of production.
If, by contrast, we just said: “Nationalize the Land!”, people would not think the demand reasonable. And they would be right in a way, because it implies that the present government and its state would run agricultural production, whereas our demand does not. Ours implies that the people will mobilize behind a government, which forces the bourgeoisie to act in favour of the people or else risk sacrificing its monopoly control over production. That’s the program.
So, to get down to the nitty-gritty, we have developed, amongst others, the following two related demands:
* That the government obliges the sugar estates to arrange the way they plant their rows of sugar cane so that they can plant other useful crops in between the rows. This inter-line-cropping, as it is called, has already been successfully used, and this is known by all workers, but the sugar estates have limited its use to only once every seven years, when the cane is pulled up. We are proposing a wider spacing, either between all the rows or between half of them, allowing inter-line-cropping every year, before the cane gets too high. This way they will need to take on more workers, instead of destroying jobs. It also means that, instead of burying their heads in the ground ostrich-like over the price of sugar, they would, as we already are, be facing the reality. And it means, with exchange rates making imported things more costly, we could get cheaper potatoes, onions, vegetables, canned and freeze-dried vegetables and cooking oil, as well as food crops for export earnings. It also means that the economy would be more flexible: if it was necessary to pull up some cane altogether, this could be done. The alternatives will already be in the process of taking over. Seeds, know-how, fertilizers, markets, will all already have been acquired, tried and tested. It means, in broader terms, that people are consciously putting political pressure to an economic end.
* That the sugar estates not be given the government permit that they already require by law to close down a sugar factory. Instead, they should be granted a permit to convert their factory into some other agro-industry, such as processing tomatoes, making oil or freeze-drying. Again, this means workers would be taken on instead of being fired, and the economy would be developing. The form of development would be related to what the land produces.
Both demands immediately involve a new fluidity of certain capitalist categories. The concept that the owners have total control over “their” factories and expanses of land stands questioned. The idea that peoples’ labour is just like any other commodity that can be demanded or supplied stands challenged. The idea gets born that some crops are more useful than others.
We also point out the collusion of the State with sugar, by reminding people of the massive subsidies that could be shifted from sugar to whatever people think more useful. All we have to do at a meeting is call on people to list the actions and institutions that support sugar, over time. Many are often entirely government funded. From 1853 to 2005, the State has supported the sugar industry in various ways, including the building of dams and irrigation systems, the opening of tertiary education institutions for agriculture and the establishment of the Mauritius Sugar Industry Research Institute, Bulk Sugar Terminal and Sugar Authority. It has introduced insurance and related funds, devalued the rupee, given concessions on and finally removed the export tax on sugar, granted tax concessions for land conversion and allowed factory closures and job destruction.
This makes us all realize that to change the direction of the economy is not so difficult. Governments that we all elect can and do support parts of the economy.
Now, where do the demands take us? If you win your demands (which is possible), then the victories give everyone who has participated in the campaign confidence, a very particular kind of confidence: that political action can change the way the economy runs. This in turn creates possibilities that working people think up further common demands that will make humans more human, and life more liveable. These can then be put forward, and worked on. And, the more people there are in jobs, means the more people free to participate in political life, and the higher their hopes for a fulfilling life become.
If you lose, then time is immediately ripe for political activists and for Lalit, as a party, to put into question how it is that the bosses can control the means of livelihood, in this way, to the exclusion of other human beings on the planet.
But of course, the winning and losing, because we are thinking beings, are discussed all the time, on the way. Some discussions are around the most theoretical of questions. In particular, Lalit has held dozens of sessions on “What is labour?” based on Karl Marx’s writing, which we have made available in Kreol. We have also initiated debate on the Marx and Engels Manifesto and have developed CD-audio and booklet versions in Kreol.
Other discussions are around practical issues. Here are some further demands that have come out of the campaign:
* The government must use any “European Compensation” money (for which negotiations are taking place) for the conversion from cane to food production, for local use and export.
* Work conditions in the agricultural diversification sector must be improved to the level of the (better) conditions already won in the cane and sugar sector.
* Government must prevent the estates from continuing making people redundant and give them targets for job creation.
* Government must convert the existing “Sugar Authority” into an “Optimal Land Utilisation Authority”. Similarly, it must convert all the institutions that support sugar into institutions that support food production.
* The Cyclone and Drought Fund must be extended to vegetable planters and animal keepers.
* Government must give advances (“fezans”), which are currently only given to cane planters, to all small vegetable planters and animal rearers.
* There must be a stop the destruction of traditional agriculture. Scientific knowledge must be built on to the existing knowledge and experience of the people.
* Profit-based GMO production must be stopped at once. The government must amend the law on bio-technology so that it is based on the precautionary principle.
* Government must compel the private sector to invest in fishing on a large scale, enforcing rights over the Economic Zones around all the islands of our Republic. This includes Chagos and Diego Garcia, now housing the US military base, and Tromelin, occupied illegally by France. The US military base must be closed. A big, nature-friendly fishing industry would be a source of new employment, and would replace the pillage that goes on at the moment.
* Government must itself invest in Barachois, marine farms, and the transformation and preservation of marine products, not just the “Sea-Food Hub” they now have that is like a fisheries “free-zone”.
* Energy production should not be privatised. This process must be reversed, and the CEB Bureaucracy replaced by a “CEB under democratic control”. There should be a massive development of ‘clean’ and ‘renewable’ energy, like solar energy, wind energy, tidal and wave energy. Thus, Mauritius (with a well-organised CEB) can situate itself as a country at the avant-garde of clean, durable and cheap energy production.
* The process of privatization where it has started and the privatization of any further sectors must be stopped.
* Government must oppose any new WTO “round”, and put all existing agreements on hold till a “World-Wide Audit” of the effects of liberalization exposes its crimes.
Our conclusion is that it is just not acceptable that the people who have the land and capital refuse to produce food, while people who want to produce food do not have land and capital. It is not acceptable that people who possess capital don’t create employment while people who need work do not have control over the capital that they themselves produced.
It is not just in Mauritius that capitalist rule is exposing itself as bankrupt. Its rot is showing up all over the place, perhaps most clearly at its centre. The US economy is in double-debt (balance of payments and budget), it is resorting to criminal military activity to exert its influence and it is unable to look after its own people after the cyclone in New Orleans.
Its allies are weakened. Blair has 40 of his own backbenchers not prepared to vote for 90 days’ detention without trial. Howard has had to face 600,000 striking Australian workers. In France, 300 cities were recently taken over by rioting youths, unhappy with unemployment, burning cars by the thousand. In Latin America, challenges to US capitalism grow apace.
Eventually, this destructive capitalist system must be overthrown and replaced by a socialist system where people organise collectively in association with one other. Already, especially in the case of women, we run much of our lives this way. This change will need to happen world-wide, so that, wherever we are, we are part of this future. This will need very clear political demands for the economy, as part of its program, every step of the way.
NOTES: LALIT is a political movement born out of the mass workers’ movements of the 1970s, out of the women’s movement and students rebellion of the same epoch. Its name means “struggle” in Mauritian Kreol and “beautiful” in Hindi.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org
Malawi: Economics for the people, by the people
2005-12-15
Francis Ng’ambi
The Malawi Economic Justice Network (MEJN) campaigns for just economic policies by engaging in economic literacy programmes, budget monitoring and lobbying on trade issues and trade agreements that relate to Malawi. Historically, the space for civil society organisations to engage government has been limited or non-existent, leaving MEJN and other civil society organisations (CSOs) with much to do in offering alternative suggestions to influence economic policies.
In the five years (2000-2005) of its existence, the Malawi Economic Justice Network (MEJN) has recorded tremendous achievements in the areas of economic literacy, formulation of Malawi’s PRSP, budget monitoring and trade and trade agreements in Malawi. Through the economic literacy programme, MEJN has reached many people to make them understand the dynamics of the political economy of the country. Its interventions in policy formulation processes show the critical role of civil society organisations (CSOs) as partners with government and donors in poverty reduction programmes.
However, a question that is often asked is to what extent has the work done by MEJN shifted the boundaries of engaging with government to influence economic policy change for the country?
The danger of cooption
The danger and dilemma faced by CSOs working with government, especially in the areas of economic justice, relates to maintaining independence and legitimacy. There is a fine line between implementing their programs so as to be able to influence change of policy and being submerged or co-opted into the government machinery in the process.
This has a lot to do with the political governance that a country has as well. For instance, in Swaziland and Lesotho, which are monarchies or semi-monarchies, the role and influencing abilities of CSOs in the fields of economic justice is greatly diminished. Giving alternative suggestions to the budget process is seen to be opposing the powers of the monarchy to control the economy, hence the weak role of CSOs in Swaziland and Lesotho.
In Malawi, MEJN has been associated mostly with monitoring the national budget. To that effect, MEJN has been making statements as to how budget allocations could be improved through advocating for a prioritized budgeting process and also by involving other stakeholders to scrutinize the national budget. Through its district chapters, MEJN has been able to track budget allocations and even to do satisfaction surveys to check on the quality of the outcomes of the budget allocations.
Government’s View of MEJN’s Role in Economic Justice
A snap survey on the extent to which MEJN’s role is influencing government policy in Malawi indicated varying answers. From government circles, MEJN is seen as a very important partner in development of Malawi’s Economy and it is for that reason that MEJN is always brought aboard whenever government is discussing economic programmes. They regard MEJN as the most active NGO/Network in Malawi that is helping to disseminate information on poverty reduction and educating people in Malawi to understand budgetary issues.
However, according to government officials, MEJN cannot influence government policy in terms of changing economic policy developed by government. Consultations and involvement of MEJN in economic policies is meant to solicit views on the development of economic policies. According to officials from government, it is the role of government thereafter to decide on the formulation of economic policy.
Civil Society’s View of MEJN’s Role in Economic Justice
In civil society circles in Malawi, MEJN is applauded for the work that it has done in the field of economic justice in Malawi, more especially in the area of giving economic literacy to people. However, the country is yet to see the real impact of MEJN’s work in changing policy direction in government circles.
Involvement of MEJN in economic policy formulation by government could be cosmetic in that decisions may already have been made and, for the sake of inclusion of CSOs, MEJN could be called in but not to change anything. There is also the problem which was so apparent with the Muluzi Government whereby people were allowed to talk but government would not listen. And so the government was stubborn despite allowing dissenting or alternative views from civil society. In that type of atmosphere, no matter how good MEJN’s alternative views could be, they would not be effective because of government’s unwillingness to listen and use the ideas.
Another point which has been remarked about MEJN’s role is the fact that MEJN at times has made too much noise without giving alternative criticism or without giving expert advice as an alternative. MEJN has made statements on many aspects, some of which were not within its mandate. A good example is where MEJN commented on purely political matters as opposed to economic issues. This irritated policy makers but also showed lack of focus on the side of MEJN and to a certain degree did undermine MEJN’s credibility.
Lack of focus, lack of specialization and making unnecessary comments has the potential of derailing the work of MEJN and its ability to be taken seriously by policy makers in government.
Conclusion
Influencing policy change and making in government by civil society is a process that requires a democratic, transparent and accountable culture to achieve. It is an on-going process. For the case of Malawi, participation of NGOs in government policy is a recent phenomenon that is still being understood by both parties.
During the Banda era nobody ever thought of opposing a national budget let alone the national assembly. And so the change of the political system has also brought in a political economy that allowed dialogue with NGOs in Malawi. What remains to be honestly achieved is reaching a point where the government would be influenced positively by civil society in policy formulation for the good of the country’s economic growth. MEJN and other CSOs have much to do in giving expert and focused alternative suggestions to influence economic policies.
* Francis Ng’ambi works for the Malawi Economic Justice Network
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org
Swaziland: Participatory course in environmental education
2005-12-15
Sivumelwano Nyembe
Imagine an educational process that produces 200 graduates with no internal or external funding, where the institution running the course has no offices or support staff and where knowledge is viewed as a negotiated common commodity for all. Impossible? Unrealistic? Read on to find out about how The Swaziland Environmental Justice Agenda developed their course on environmental justice.
The Swaziland Environmental Justice Agenda (SEJA) is a social movement concerned with a variety of social issues. The issue of environmental injustice is central to SEJA’s concerns. SEJA has developed the Swaziland Participatory Course in Environmental Education, known as the ‘environmental course’, which uses an alternative approach to education to develop a critical understanding of environmental injustice.
According to SEJA’s viewpoint, environmental injustice is embedded in the global economic system, a system that is built around non-humanistic values. Over the years, the system has been sweet-coated by policy announcements that do not translate to sustainable support for people or the environment. The recent military actions that have been launched by the architects of the globalization process have proven that the capitalist values are still the same as those that informed the colonialisation process.
Swaziland is a society where people are not on the information super train. Many people in Swaziland, even the middle class, have no economic means to access the information in magazines and books, on the internet, etc. They are thus kept from the issues that define policy directions and programmes.
Swaziland is a country with an education system that is heavily influenced by its colonial past. It is a system which discourages the development of critical thinking. Free speech is banned in Swaziland by a 1973 decree and the education system has been able to enshrine a culture of compliance to this decree.
The Environmental Course
The SEJA environmental course is a humble act of activism to address this reality and start the process of social emancipation. It has opened up several alternatives to the way in which Swaziland society approaches issues of education.
The purpose of the course is to create an opportunity for environmental and development workers and activists to acquire the knowledge base that will allow them to critically debate the issues that define the progressive agenda. The course has been designed to make it possible for marginalized groups in the Swazi society to access tertiary-level education. The fundamental principle informing enrollment is the “open entry open exit” principle. This means that the course participants come from different educational backgrounds and levels.
Teaching a class with, for example, domestic workers, bus conductors and university lecturers is an experience that is sobering in many ways. It challenges our assumption about knowledge and the way knowledge is “developed”. It also requires alternative means on how education is conducted. The approach and methods of this course are not unique, they draw on Paulo Freire’s ideas, articulated in the book, “The Pedagogy of the Oppressed”.
The reason why we developed the course was the realization that many environmental educators and activists have no deep understanding of the issues. International groups are organizing campaigns in several fronts. Swaziland is always being left behind.
The course is structured around four key themes, namely:
- Theme 1: The Environmental Crisis: Issues, Problems and Risks
- Theme 2: The Response to the Environmental Crisis
- Theme 3: Environmental Education: Processes and Methods
- Theme 4: Curriculum and Programme Development
Each theme is introduced by a core text, which provides an overview of the issues and concepts. Every year, the tutors look at the core text and make changes based on the assignments of the past participants. This is done in an attempt to contextualise the core text to the realities of Swaziland.
In addition to the core text, there is an attachment of further readings, which include academic papers, newspaper cuttings, past participant’s assignments, case studies, reports etc. This allows the participants access to a diversity of perspectives, thus enriching the debates.
To use the first theme as an example, the core text introduces the issue of the economic system as the cause of the environmental crisis. Discussion is informed by a Theodor Shanin essay, “Idea of Progress”. The participants engage the question as to whether the international economic regimes result in improvement of the third world. They debate the availability of loans that continue to worsen the debt crisis.
Environmental education includes a four-dimensional framework for analysis of issues, namely the economic, political, social and biophysical dimensions. This framework opens up a broader spectrum for the analysis of issues. It deepens the ethos of critical thinking, which is an essential element of the development of social praxis. Praxis is the ability of participants to translate learned theory to social action and to translate the experience gained into improved theory.
What has become apparent is that most people in Swaziland have an in-built self-censorship. This is a major contributor to the reality that Swaziland is lacking literature that defines its unique political, social, economic and environmental crisis. The course, by allowing an environment of free speech, is helping to heal this problem.
Contextualization, Reflexivity, Praxis and Reflection
The course process is based on four fundamental principles. The first is the contextual principle, based on the view that a socially meaningful educational process should address itself to the issues that are relevant to that society. The course includes four assignments which act as a mechanism by which the participants discuss and review their individual context. This may be drawn from the work that the participant is engaged in, the campaigns that he or she is currently working on, etc. The course has an immediate benefit for various social programmes. It allows the participants to identify the political conditions that enable or disable social progress. It encourages the application of social praxis.
The reflexivity principle is about the internal mobilization of the participants to take appropriate action to mitigate and correct a social problem that is identified in the contextualisation of their reality. To date, Swaziland’s progressive forces have been able to narrate the political, social and economic conditions prevailing in the country. But, definite actions that can address the conditions have not been taken. This is due to a lack of reflexivity, which is embedded in an education system that discourages critical thinking.
The third principle is that of social praxis. There is a huge difference between theory and practice. An approach to social change that is led by a group of intellectuals that are excited by externally-developed theories and ideologies tends to emphasise theories without making the connection to practice. The course teaching and learning is informed by social constructivism. Knowledge is constructed by people in a social setting. This process detects that knowledge development cannot be created by academics to the exclusion of the people and the social reality. Social programmes of meaning are informed by a sound theory and that theory is continuously being informed by the reality.
Swaziland in the mid-nineties saw the progressive movement wage its greatest challenge to the state yet. The actions, including mass stayaways, demonstrations, petitions and boycotts, were informed by a particular revolutionary theory. Unfortunately the leaders of the different groups did not practice praxis. As a result, the masses lost the necessary steam to sustain the action.
It is essential that an educational process empowers the participant with the ability to take time out from the on-going activities, that he or she engages in reflection. In the social milieu, a number of processes are at play. There are many times that you find that the comrades you are working with do not share the same values as you or the movement you all belong to. The revolutionary comrade, Mphandlana Shongwe, once said during a college class boycott, “It is necessary for one to move out of a supposed straight road, in order to verify that it is still a straight road”. The reflection principle is basically about that, being able to think deeply about process. The power of reflection lies in its ability to bring clarity.
NGOs and Funding
The course is readily distinguishable from those routinely offered in the non-governmental organization (NGO) sector. Many people have been disillusioned by the reality that social programmes under the leadership of NGOs that are purported to be people driven are all too often nothing of the sort. They are conceived by NGO elites. NGO officers in executive offices in capital cities have been able to define the people’s agenda and content of programmes of action. Practice has shown that, even with NGO-driven educational programmes, the content and scope is also determined in a non-participatory manner.
These activities are entirely dependent on the availability of foreign funding. Moreover, the greatest percentage of funds that goes to NGOs is not taken by project activities but by personnel costs that go to finance the unsustainable lifestyles of the NGO elites. It is a sad reality that NGO offices are generally far removed from the problems experienced by their so-called target groups. These groups are defined in different ways, depending on the current fashionable donor description. People are defined in NGO official documents as marginalized people, Orphans Vulnerable Children (OVCs), etc. These descriptions create a barrier to meaningful consultation with them. In subtle ways, those that use these descriptions elevate themselves above their target groups.
The cost of food, accommodation and travel at many civil society gatherings limits the extent to which these programmes are accessible to the people defined by NGOs as poor and not privileged. This artificial over-costing of civil activities is in effect a marginalisation of the people. I was shocked by the paradox that emerged at the annual Environmental Education Association of Southern Africa (EEASA) conference, namely that members continuously complained about the “poor standard” of conference venues. This is not a comment about the organizational shortfalls of the conference, it is rather an indictment of the materialistic values of those that attended. This is true of many conferences of groupings that work for sustainable development and sustainable living environments. There is a related problem in that many comrades hide their true values behind politically acceptable words in fancy documents, publications, conferences, seminars and workshops, while their actions do not demonstrate a shift from the values of the corporate world.
All too often, social groups are not able to develop programmes that address their issues because there is no external funding. But the lack of financial resources is a challenge that has to be overcome. The Swaziland Environmental Justice Agenda has not received any external or internal funding to support its programmes. More than 200 people have graduated from the environment course without the course having received any funding in the NGO sense.
When SEJA embarked on this course, there was no physical office of the organisation. It was started by a small civic group of people concerned about particular issues or problems. There were eight of us, the majority of whom were not members of any political group. Environmental processes are political in nature, but affiliation to a political grouping was never an issue.
The participants brought food for tutorials and ate together. After participants graduated, many volunteered to become tutors for the next round of participants. The course has continued to depend on the ability of tutors to volunteer their time and knowledge. (By volunteering, we do not mean the existence of allowances that are far more than other people’s salaries. These are the tricks other people perform with our good hearts and intentions.)
The course provides a platform on which a new alternative approach to education can be launched. The educational process is emancipatory in a sense that knowledge is a negotiated common commodity for all. It opens up the boundaries of the course content to all stakeholders. It is truly driven by participants, giving meaning to the philosophical orientation that it a participatory course.
The true value of the course must be measured by the extent to which the participants influence people to approach their context with an attitude based on critical thinking and the degree to which it stimulates civic programmes that are no longer informed by liberal economic ideas.
Sivumelwano Nyembe, vuminyembe@eml.cc
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org
Working towards another Southern Africa: The ANSA initiative
2005-12-15
Globalisation is often presented as something from which one cannot escape. It is compared to gravity; to resist it is seen as going against gravity. As Margaret Thatcher proclaimed, “There is no alternative” to neo-liberal capitalism. So, mainstreaming in the 1990s and since then has meant joining the bandwagon of capital-led globalisation. It has been widely pronounced to be Africa’s inevitable destiny too, but Alternatives to Neo-liberalism in Southern Africa (ANSA) is an initiative that attempts to provide a framework for alternative policies and strategies, which can bring about sustainable, human development. Their aim is to stimulate the growth of a mass movement which can successfully advocate for a radical alternative for Africa.
Exposing The Myth
A passive acceptance of destiny forced on Africa from outside goes against the grain of Africa’s history. Africans fought to resist colonial occupation, and in some places resistance went on for some three decades after the carving up of Africa at the Berlin Conference of 1884-5. Then, when Africa was finally subjugated and occupied, Africans put up resistance against the occupation itself for another five decades and more, and finally liberated themselves from colonial rule, and its vicious offsprings such as apartheid. In other words, resistance against oppression has been the principal mode of African existence, almost a way of life for most Africans for the best part of a hundred years.
Unfortunately, the first generation political leaders after political independence from 1957 (when Ghana got its independence) through the 1960s and 70s were caught up in the cold war and the ideological battles of the period. Some of them, like Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, tried to experiment with their own versions of African socialism; others like Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya followed the capitalist model; and yet others tried various versions of “scientific socialism”. After the end of the cold war, and the demise of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the capitalist system came out triumphant, and all alternative options appeared to have vanished. Hence the increasingly strident assertion of the unavoidability of neo-liberal globalisation.
However, the myth of the inevitability of globalisation is as misleading as the myth about Africa’s passive acceptance. Globalisation is nothing but a policy response of the capitalist nations in crisis, the beginning of which goes back to the mid-1970s. Contemporary globalisation is part of the strategy of transnational corporations backed by the military, political and institutional (including WTO, WB and IMF amongst others) power of the G8 states, collectively constituting the Empire. Its alleged gravitational property has nothing to do with reality; it is a self-serving myth perpetuated by the imperial nations through systematic media disinformation and fatuous academic discourse.
Indeed, capital-led globalisation is even at the root of the crisis in Africa. It is by now agreed by wide sections of Southern African society that the neo-liberal paradigm of development has failed the people. Poverty has not only been entrenched but it has also deepened, and the gap between the rich and the poor has increased.
The ANSA Initiative
It follows that there must be an alternative and that such an alternative is of vital importance. The Alternatives to Neo-liberalism in Southern Africa (ANSA) initiative represents an attempt to address this need. Its roots reach back as far as 1993, when the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZiCTU) took the initiative to formulate an alternative to the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme, ESAP, which had been introduced in Zimbabwe in 1991.
Based on the experience gained in Zimbabwe, in 2003 the ANSA initiative took off, but now as a regional programme and initiative. Initially, a small group of individuals linked to the ZiCTU worked out the principles of an alternative approach and provided scientific and research materials. The project was gradually broadened until, in January 2005, representatives from affiliates of SATUCC adopted the programme. Since then, the initiative has aimed at and gained wider name and recognition among progressive academics, unions, social movements and beyond, both within and outside Africa.
From the beginning, ANSA’s aim has been not to produce another academic report, but to stimulate the growth of a mass movement which can successfully advocate for a radical alternative for our region.
The Root Causes of Underdevelopment
ANSA’s overall economic analysis revolves around dualism and enclavity and external dependency as the root causes of pervasive unemployment, and hence underdevelopment, in Southern Africa.
In plain language, dualism and enclavity describe Southern African economies that are generally characterised by a relatively small formal sector, which co-exists but is separate from a large informal sector, the latter one located both within urban areas and rural regions (the communal sector).
The formal economy consists of capitalists interested in profit making and workers who primarily depend on wages for their sustenance. In Africa it can be assumed that less than 20% of the labour force earns a living in the formal sector. The sector consists of large, medium, small and micro enterprises that are formally registered and recognised; as such they encompass activities in the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors of the economy.
The urban informal is a residual sector, which has come to have a high degree of permanence in many African countries. It is a sector characterised by easy entry and exit, driven by self-employment activities that reflect linkages with the formal sector and rural sector as well as the ingenuity of the individuals involved in the sector. Levels of productivity are low in terms of returns per hour worked, while wages tend to be below poverty levels. This sector absorbs surplus labour from the rural and the formal sector such as retrenchees. Generally about one third of the labour force in many countries tends to be involved in urban informal sector activities. In some regional countries the informal economy is in fact the ‘mainstream’ economy.
The communal sector is the original traditional or pre-capitalist sector with all the variations this entails in the African context. The present-day communal sector is also highly differentiated and has a number of linkages with the formal and urban informal sectors. However, the majority of the households are involved in low productivity farm and non-farm pursuits in which surplus generation is low and primarily not directed at accumulation but consumption. In most African countries, the majority of the households live and work in what we are labelling the communal sector.
The root problem of under-development now lies in the fact that the majority of the labour force is involved in low productivity pursuits that result in incomes and consumption levels that are close to poverty. The relationship between the three sectors and the external world is such that it tends to reproduce the continued marginalisation of the majority and continues to constrain the development of the economy as a whole.
Internal and External Distortions
Underlying this problem of underdevelopment are internal and external distortions, distortions which the ‘free’ capitalist market system has not been able to solve. Indeed, it has even caused, reproduced and strengthened these distortions. They therefore have to be carefully analysed and understood, after which a successful strategy to solve them can be formulated.
The formal sector shows a bias toward large-scale enterprises and against the evolution of dynamic micro, small, medium enterprise. It favours relatively capital intensive methods of production that are not warranted by the amount of labour available, given high unemployment rates. It is biased toward externally driven demand given that the majority of the domestic population lacks effective demand. It favours imports of capital and intermediary goods as well as high income consumer goods given the inability to produce these locally due to lack of critical minimum level of effective demand.
The formal sector is not able to play its dynamic role in terms of transforming the economy through trickle down effects, since the linkages with the non-formal sector are minimal and mostly restricted to use of cheap labour.
The urban informal sector is well known for its deficiencies in terms of lack of capital, improvised technology, high transaction costs and inadequate access to infrastructure. There is an absence of an adequate facilitating legal, regulatory and institutional regime for assets, intellectual property and market transactions As a consequence, the urban informal sector is prone to lateral expansion, depressed returns that verge toward subsistence, stunted growth and endemic poverty for many.
Although the communal sector may have developed production methods and non-farm activities that are appropriate for the environment in which they live, the sector has not been able to be fully integrated into modern forms of economic organisation. The sector shares a number of the characteristics of the urban informal sector, like the absence of social and economic infrastructure, the absence of an adequate facilitating legal, regulatory and institutional regime, high transaction costs and inadequate access to information useful for participation in the modern economy. There is an outward migration of able-bodied males. In some countries the shortage of land due to land degradation or land appropriation is also resulting in increasing marginalisation of peasants.
Thus, participants in both the urban informal sector and the rural communal sector are unable to lift themselves since their capabilities and their environment is highly compromised. They are also not able to benefit from trickle down effects from the formal sector or abroad in the absence of facilitating interventions.
The global environment has had the tendency to perpetuate the underdevelopment based on enclavity. For example, with regard to its interaction with the formal sector, this has been such that it reinforces both primary export and import dependency in a manner that does not facilitate the transformation and upgrading of the domestic economy. Terms of trade have generally been to the disadvantage of the formal sector in African economies. Monopolistic tendencies and protectionism among the developed countries have made it difficult to acquire competitive advantage that would allow the developing countries to compete on an equal level with the developed countries and even allow them to reconfigure their exports and imports.
More generally the international economy has been dominated by private and public interests which have systemically pushed for economic transaction regimes that work primarily to serve their interest rather than the development needs of countries such as those in Africa.
As another consequence of the above problems, African countries find themselves in a dilemma whereby disarticulations at the national level, coupled with external dependency, militate against effective regional co-operation and national development within a regional context as well.
The ANSA Declaration
This analysis shows why a neo-liberal ‘free’ market system can not solve our problems and, at the same time, provides a concrete framework for alternative policies and strategies, which can indeed bring about sustainable, human development. It is the foundation upon which a comprehensive ANSA Declaration has been developed, which, in turn, serves as the basis for ANSA’s further plans and activities.
The declaration sets out the 10 principles of the ANSA strategy:
1. At political and social level, a people-led strategy (as opposed to IMF-WB-WTO-donor-led).
2. At the economic level, an alternative production system, one that is based on domestic demand and human needs and the use of local resources and domestic savings, that is autocentric development (as opposed to the present system that is dominated by an export-oriented strategy, based on foreign investments and ownership).
3. Grassroots-led regional integration (as opposed to the current fragmentation of the region by the Empire).
4. A strategic, selective delinking from neo-liberal globalisation (as opposed to further deepening of integration within the existing iniquitous global system), and preparing for leveraged negotiated relinking in a restructured and transformed global production and distribution system.
5. An alternative policy on science and technology based on harnessing and owning the collective knowledge and wisdom of the people (as opposed to the present blind emulation of techno-science of the empire).
6. A strategy of alliance and networking with national, regional and global progressive forces (as opposed to the present system of co-optation of social forces in the capital-led globalisation process).
7. A strategy with a politically governed redistribution of the wealth and opportunities from the so-called formal sector in society to the informal sectors (as opposed to the present system of misallocation of resources, and the integration of the informal sectors through their providing cheap inputs and a reservoir of semi-employed labour).
8. A strategy where women’s rights are in focus as the basis for a healthy and productive society (as opposed to the present system based on the exploitation of women labour).
9. A strategy where education addresses the needs for sustainable human development, and which is aimed at improving the technical and managerial as well as research and development skills of workers and those directly in control of matters of production and governance (as opposed to education for a bureaucratic and academic elite).
10. A strategy where peoples’ mobilisation and visible demonstrations, and open hearings, in support of the evolving ethical and developmental state, are seen as embodying the democratic strength of the society, creating a dynamic, participatory and radical democracy (as opposed to the present system, where mobilisation is seen as a threat to the existing system, and where the representative democracy can sign away the future rights of people).
Framework for an Alternative Policy
Based on the above analysis and guided by the 10 principles, the ANSA Declaration then submits a detailed alternative policy and strategy for sustainable human development in Southern Africa. It does that both in general terms as well as for the various sectors like manufacturing, agriculture, trade and mining; for macro-economics and finance; for policies like education & training, science & technology and infrastructure; and for cross-cutting issues like gender and culture. Unfortunately it is beyond the scope of this article to present them here.
It should be well understood that the ANSA Declaration only sets out the general alternative policy framework for the region. It is necessary that each country will formulate and push for its own specific alternative policy and strategy within this regional framework. The ANSA Programme is actively working towards this follow up. A training and advocacy programme is also being developed.
As said before, the ANSA programme is not a separate academic exercise; it is aimed at stimulating and facilitating the growth of a mass movement, the ideal being that the numerous localised centres of resistance and initiatives for alternatives will in the end pressurise for change from a common perspective.
ANSA therefore seeks active co-operation and mutual reinforcement with progressive individuals, unions, churches, youth and women groups, social movements etc. within the region, the continent and beyond to join forces to pressurise for often very practical and local alternatives, placed within a broader vision and strategy.
A start has been made already with the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) where Trade Unions in the SADC are getting together to deliberately and systematically lobby and campaign for alternatives to the anticipated EPAs which are being imposed on us by the EU. Privatisation and commercialisation issues are definite other possible areas of action and levers for a common demand for an alternative policy.
ANSA is not a grouping, a political party or a movement. It is not an advance party either. You cannot become a member. ANSA is a non-partisan, facilitation project, the function of which is to act as a focal point, guide and catalyst that stimulates people, institutions and movements in the region and beyond to join hands and forge alliances in a common pursuit of an alternative to neo-liberalism.
In January 2006 the ANSA Declaration will be launched at the Africa Social Forum in Bamako, Mali. After that it will become available in print, a full version in English and a popularised version in both English, French and Portuguese.
* This article was compiled by the ANSA Co-ordinating Committee
December, 2005 (For more information about the ANSA-initiative, contact us at ledriz@africaonline.co.zw or, alternatively, at fos-sa@telkomsa.net)
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org
Pan-African Postcard
Time to get tough on Darfur talks
2005-12-15
Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem
The clock is ticking when it comes to current peace talks on Darfur currently taking place in Abuja, writes Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem. But this time its not the Government of Sudan who is the spoiler at the talks, but rather the rebel forces, most of whom do not represent their people and are using their time in Abuja to snuggle up to Western donors and have a holiday at the expense of the international community.
This week is very crucial for the now-on-now-off African Union sponsored peace negotiations on Darfur in Abuja. The agreement on security is supposed to be signed failing which these round of talks could be declared dead and all the negotiators, peace envoys, rebels, government representatives and the assortment of various 'international' (meaning non African and predominantly European and American) supporters of the peace negotiations should do their tax payers a big favour and pack their bags and go home.
It is a big irony that the main culprits for this failure will not be the usual first suspect of everyone: the Government of Sudan. There is no doubt that the government is a bad government that is decapitating its opponents and aiding and abetting atrocities in Darfur and also implicated in the imploding civil war in Chad. While the government of Sudan may deserve most of the criticisms against it the obstacles to peace in Abuja are sadly fully manned by the Darfur rebel groups: JEM (Justice for Equality Movement) and SLA (Sudan Liberation Army) and the way in which their international backers continue to treat them with kid gloves and thereby encourage their belligerence.
So fixed are many on the vile nature of the Khartoum government that by definition anybody opposed to it, for whatever reasons, must be good. So desperate have various sponsors of the negotiations become that they seem prepared to get an agreement at all cost. The obsession with delegitimising the Sudan government even while negotiating with it has produced a mixed signal of inertia. At what stage does the illegitimacy of the NIF/CP government become delegitimation of the Sudan state?
These factors have prevented a more objective appreciation of the situation. The painful truth that must be faced is that neither JEM nor SLA (as presently constituted) and the various factions within and between them with their fluid alliances and struggles for personal power and prestige, are in a position to make any deals that will hold for long. How can one justify the enormous expense of having over a hundred rebels in Abuja for weeks and months with only a few of them able to engage in any serious talks and the majority just playing spoilers or peace vultures? They are becoming to Abuja what, for many years, Burundi rebels or Somali factions became to both Arusha and Nairobi respectively: Permanent tourists sponsored by the international community as a kind of direct aid to the local hospitality and leisure industry.
The rebels' attitude makes it much easier for the Sudan government to do nothing other than just watch its ill-prepared bunch and bands of armed rebels. Consequently Khartoum's representatives and commitment remain untested by the mediators and the rebels on many issues because the rebels are too absorbed in their own self-importance to concentrate or focus on the larger picture. While the Sudan government has in Abuja obviously experienced, informed and well connected security and political figures, the rebel groups have chosen to send largely ineffectual, faction-ridden elements. Give or take half a dozen on both sides, all the rebels could be sent back without any impact on the talks.
After all the months of talks one had expected that these rebels would be gaining in experience and acquiring needed skills in engaging in negotiations, but they are rather stagnating and playing reactionary politics with the lives, blood, sweat and suffering of their peoples.
There is no doubt that the cause of Darfur is just but these rebels claiming to represent the suffering masses of Darfur are not doing so justly. Like the Khartoum government they are not legitimate leaders of the people. They are their self-appointed liberators. But unlike many liberation movements in Africa, which had to depend on the people to build and plan with them, these rebels have too many willing regional and international actors indulging their delusions of grandeur.
There are many weaknesses with the AU force in Darfur and also with the mediation framework but clamouring for its replacement with a UN one instead of helping to strengthen it, is a recipe for prolonged dithering on the part of the rebels and the government. A situation in which the rebels seem to have no faith in the AU and implicit confidence in non-African governments and institutions is playing into the hands of the government. The belief by the rebels that the AU will be replaced by a different force and mediators is actually encouraging the rebels to consider their role in Abuja as mere “walk on parts”, since there will be other forums for them outside of Africa for negotiations. By default they are conceding the diplomatic and political terrain in Africa to Khartoum while putting their faith in non-Africans. They obviously have not learnt anything from the crisis of the opposition in Zimbabwe.
While they are not talking with the AU mediators they are flattered to be the darling of many Westerners in the talks. Like the true colonial-minded leaders they are, they feel gratified to be seen with one western diplomat or the other, no matter how lowly placed. It boosts their sense of self-importance. It also gives the diplomats, security operatives and intelligence gatherers masquerading as supporters of negotiations a ringside seat in playing God with African lives. I honestly think the ritual presence of outsiders (especially so called Donor-countries) in these negotiations is, on the whole, negative. They are not putting pressure on the rebels to engage positively and instead seem to be encouraging their belligerence.
The priority should be to make the ceasefire effective, stop the massacres and protect the civilians. These can only be achieved through making the African Union troops more effective and expanding their mandate if possible through the UN Security Council. If this is not possible, the AU should do so by itself and seek the necessary international support to carry out the mandate. This also means that the loopholes in the original ceasefire that are being exploited by the government and its killer groups and the rebels too, need to be plugged. It means putting all pressure on Khartoum and the rebels to sign off the security agreement and be held accountable for it. In the worse case scenario, the AU needs to show political courage and call the bluff of the rebels by calling off the talks and advising them to call back when they are ready for serious talks and agreement. Meanwhile the threat of not giving Khartoum the diplomatic and political honour of hosting the next summit, due in Khartoum in January, should be made clear if the government continues to kill its own people. A government and opposition force whose power depends on mass suffering and death of their own peoples should be denied the company of other Africans and all decent peoples the world over.
* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org
Letters
Africa in Hong Kong
2005-12-12
Sergio Martins
What we need is to do our work and to use our freedom in all the fields! How long will we wait for someone to do it for us? Our leaders must re-direct the talks in Hong kong.We can't continue to wait for the WTO to solve our famine and agricultural needs.
Human Rights Day
2005-12-12
Graham Bailey
Greetings from Johanesburg. Two comments if I may.
1. Congratulations on a fine magazine, it is an essential part of my reading. Well done to you, your staff, and all your contributers. It opens up my knowledge and understanding of Africa in it's widest sense, through reportage of all it's other struggles, campaigns, and the growing awareness and solidarity of it's peoples.
2. Dr Tajudeen Abdul Raheem's human rights article on Human Rights Day is one of the best (short) expositions that I have read in some time. My congratulations to him and to you for publishing it.
Books & arts
* Kwani?
Edited by Binyavanga Wainaina
2005-12-12
Published by Kwani Trust, 2005
Distributed by African Books Collective Ltd.
This latest release by the Kwani Trust is the third in a collection of books. Short stories, academic essays, cartoons, photographs, travel writing, poems, journalistic articles – anything goes in the Kwani? compilations. Founded by Kenyan writers, Kwani? is meant to get a new generation of Kenyans interested in reading. Kwani? also provides excellent insight into life in Kenya and other parts of Africa – in its many forms. Included in the anthology are the voices of activists, students, and members of U.K.O.O. F.U.L.A.N.I (a collective of Kenyan hiphop artists involved in social justice); they are joined by a number of established poets and authors. There are serious pieces, tongue in cheek satires, political commentaries, quiet observations on the mundane – each contribution is as diverse as the country which has produced the writers.
There are a number of themes that run throughout the book, but none as strong as the legacies of colonialism. Brilliantly analysed by Professor Wambui Mwangi in “Imperative Matters: Jee, Huu Ni Ungwana? Or The Scramble for Africa,” the story/essay takes the reader on a journey through African post-colonial studies. Debating the effects of colonialism on academics who study Africa in its post-colonial form, this is a brilliant examination of the ironies of African academia.
An interesting journalistic/human rights addition to Kwani? comes in the form of Billy Kahora’s “The True Story of David Munyakei.” The piece tells the story of Munyakei, who, noticing irregularities in the practices of his department, blows the whistle on corruption taking place in Kenya’s Central Bank in the early 1990’s. The story details his life history, focusing primarily on the effects that exposing this corruption have had on him and his family. Finding Munyakei 10 years later parallels this account. Having moved to the Kenyan countryside, Munyakei is living a subsistence lifestyle with his wife and two small children, having been pushed out of Nairobi with few opportunities for work because of his once high profile. He is finally recognised for his contribution to fighting corruption by Transparency International, and is awarded their Integrity Award. They have also started a campaign to have Munyakei’s job reinstated, as well as for the compensation of back pay which was lost as a result of the events. But the story doesn’t have a happy ending – readers are left with no closure – Munyakei still struggles on to provide for his family and regain what has been lost.
“She,” by well-known author M.G. Vassanji, contributes to the short stories included in Kwani? Offering a group of small characters, including a Tanzanian female National Guard, an American Peace Corps volunteer and a Kenyan, “She” tells a love story that unfolds on a posting in a small Tanzanian village where the three are teaching. Unfolding over a series of letters years after they left that village, the characters share what they could not communicate in person.
Kwani? also offers a number of creative and powerful poems. Written by Ed Pavlic, “Checkpoint, North of Lagos,” presents the everyday details of transportation. Bribery and the threat of violence run throughout the lines of this poem, but are treated as if they were normal, or ordinary. The tiny details – a wedding band, a belt buckle – these, rather than the danger of aggression, stand out.
Kwani? first appears to be an intimidating mishmash of writing. The format of the book is loose, imaginative, and follows no prescribed format. But this design makes it what it is – an extremely provocative compilation of young talent, offering insight info Kenyan life and critical thinking.
* Reviewed by Karoline Kemp, a Commonwealth of Learning Young Professional Intern with Fahamu.
Africa: African Colours – online exhibition
2005-12-12
http://www.kenya.africancolours.net/Exhibition05
African Colours presents its first online exhibition with the theme 'African Cultures, African Colours'. The display is a rich pool of artistic and creative talent, with works of art drawn from Eritrea, Sudan, Uganda, South Africa and Kenya. Participating artists include Thom Ogonga, Kanyiva Kahare, Alex Mbugua, Maggie Otieno, Beatrice Wanjiku, Tabitha wa Mburu, Leon Kuhn, Kevin Kariuki, Fitsum Berhe, Annabelle Wanjiku, Patrick Kirono, Wilson Mwangi, Samuel Githui, Nelly Wanjiru, Veroniccah Muwonge, Mary Ogembo, Yassir Ali, Salah Ammar, Patrick Mukabi, Peterson Kamwathi, David Mwanik and Simon Muriithi.
Poems: Child and Mother
Poems on 16 days of activism against violence
2005-12-13
The two poems below were submitted by Ann Kithaka. She wrote: "Please accept two poems to commemorate the 16 days of activism against violence. They are dedicated to the
African Woman, to our mothers, sisters, and daughters, who continue to suffer even in this age of enlightment."
CHILD
Child,
You saw him last night;
Your enraged father;
Half-naked; drunk as a skunk.
Tottering into your room.
Poised on your bedroom doorway;
Baying for blood,
My blood.
You saw me too;
Cowering at the corner,
Holding into your bedpost;
My red night dress torn in the middle;
Bloody hair piece hanging askew my head;
Face puffy and swollen;
Cowering like the coward that I am,
Entreating him to spare me tonight!
I saw the fear in your eyes,
And that of your elder sister,
Who stared around her in a daze
Wishing the bad dream away.
But the macabre drama
Refused to go away.
She took refuge beneath
Your double Decker bed.
But you, my brave little solder,
You stood firm;
Your plaintive voice
Beseeching him to stop;
STOP DADDY! DON'T BEAT MUM!
He did not stop.
You saw him came after me
Like an enraged bull
Charging relentlessly.
You saw him grab my waist,
Jerking me away;
Pulling me this way and that way
Trying to ply me off the bedpost.
How i resisted, protesting loudly
Shouting at the maid
To come to my rescue--
But she slept on,
The impunent girl!
You saw him strike my
Tear streaked face,
And as I reeled in pain
He dragged me off,
Pulling me towards
Our bedroom,
To complete the battering.
I felt you leap off your bed,
And follow us,
Enraged like a tigress,
In defense of her young one.
I felt him brace himself,
As he steadied himself
For the mighty kick that
Knocked you flat into the cold floor.
Then I saw red!
The adrenaline pumped into my veins
My heart beat wildly,
I started gasping for air;
And in an instant
Reason fled away;
I kicked him hard,
And beat him hard
Crawling at his sweaty face,
Blow upon blow,
Shrieking like a woman possessed.
Did you see him crumble
Like David's Goliath,
As I knocked the wind out of him
Cutting his life-line off?
Child, hush!
Did you feel me
Gather you in my flail hands,
Whispering my fright into your ears,
Before we took flight into
The dark night?
Written August 2004
MOTHER WHY.
Exalted mother,
I shall extend you no reprieve,
For your blatant silence,
When they spilt my virginal blood
On alter of tribal misogamy.
Had your indomitable maternal instinct,
Taken a compulsory leave of absence.
Were you a manacled captive,
Your leap, thrust and heave
Insufficient to stop the sacrilege
So callously, wrought on me .
Show me the gag then,
That stopped you from condemning ,
Or even cursing this macabre rite.
Where was the spirited female fraternity?
Could their ingenuity not conjure
A conspiracy to cut only a small bit
Instead of this sadistic butchering
Of all that is soft and best in me,
Leaving my womanhood this gaping scar
This jagged relic of primitivism
That has so eroded my self-esteem
Leaving me vulnerable and insecure.
Could not the council of elders
Be appeased by a surface job,
Could they not mother?
August, 2004
Blogging Africa
Africa: Race riots, air crashes, harassment of women, fuel shortages and colonial legacies
2005-12-15
Sokari Ekine
A number of African bloggers have written on the Australian race riots. MentalAcrobatics from Kenya - Mental Acrobatics (http://www.mentalacrobatics.com/think/archives/2005/Dec/race_riots_in_a.php) discusses the riots in the context of Australia’s “White Australia Policy” which itself is rooted class conflict between “convicts and exclusives”. Australia is well known for its disgustingly abhorrent treatment of indigenous Australians which continues unabated today. It is therefore hardly surprising to hear that race riots have broken out and even less surprising to hear that once again it is Islam that is being blamed yet again. He concludes by pointing out that there is a lesson for Kenyans:
“Remember Mboya's quote on, ‘avoiding the pitfalls of those who run before us?’ Not only on a tribal level but on a racial level as well. For example when you ignore one part of the country while formulating a development agenda justifying it with statements like, ‘well they are not really Kenyan’ disaster will come, did come.”
Chippla’s Weblog - Chippla's Weblog (http://chippla.blogspot.com/2005/12/reforming-nigerian-aviation-sector.html) writes critically on the Nigerian aviation sector following yet another plane crash in which 110 people died, of whom 52 were children. Chippla has already written extensively on the previous two crashes and here he questions “the wisdom in allowing airliners older than 22 years to remain in service in Nigeria”. Apparently there is a law to this effect but it has not been implemented. The post goes on to provide a brief historical overview of the Nigerian airline industry from the early days of Nigerian Airways to the present liberalisation of the domestic airline industry.
“With the rush to liberalize the domestic airline market in Nigeria, common sense seemed to have been thrown to the dustbin. For instance, the airplane which crashed two days ago was not only 32 years old but was actually bought five years ago when it was 27 years old according to this report. Why should a carrier be allowed to buy an airliner this old? Furthermore, the airliner in question, a DC-9, was bought in 2000 at a time when its manufacturer McDonnell Douglas no longer existed (McDonnell Douglas was bought over by Boeing in 1997) which would have made it difficult to obtain spare parts.”
He concludes that temporary solutions should no longer be tolerated and there should be nothing less than an outright ban on aged airliners.
Freedom for Egyptians - Freedom for Egyptians (http://freedomforegyptians.blogspot.com/2005/12/social-freedoms-and-chastity-in-egypt.html) posts about the different responses in Egypt and the US to women being harassed by their partners. Using a female friend as an example, he writes that in Egypt harassment of a woman is not discussed or followed through in order to avoid spoiling her reputation:
“A family might advise their daughter never to mention a harassment issue no matter what because if a would-be groom learns that somebody tried to harass his future wife he might consider not marrying her. The reason is always that if a woman has good manners, she would not have been harassed in the first place. Having a harassed daughter in the family is a lasting stigma, because this means that she did not respect herself. Reporting violated rights is not an issue.”
On the other hand in the US when a woman reports sexual harassment either to her employers or her apartment owners, she is treated with respect and her concerns and fears are taken on board. He goes on to discuss “social freedoms” of women in Egypt and female circumcision both of which are used to control and subjugate women to “complete sexual obedience”.
Unashamedly pro American and libertarian, Rantings of a Sandmonkey - Rantings of a SandMonkey (http://egyptiansandmonkey.blogspot.com/2005/12/europeans-pissed-at-ahhnold-over.html) has a rant about the European media being “mad and disappointed at Arnold for rejecting clemency for Tookie's execution”. He is referring to the execution of convicted murderer and ex-gang leader, Stanley Tookie Williams at midnight on Monday in California. Clearly in favour of capital punishment, Sandmonkey writes in response to calls for clemency by the European media and human rights organisations:
“Let's see if you can follow this with me: Tookie killed people, and he founded a gang that killed people and ruined hundreds if not thousands of lives. The fact that after his arrest, conviction and being put on death row he finally saw the light and wrote a couple of children books against joining gangs, well, it's pretty goddamn convenient and doesn't change what he did. Will executing him bring back those he killed? No. Will it bring some sense of justice to the families of his victims? Sure. Is it an appropriate way to make him pay for his crimes? Nope. He should be executed 4 times, one time for each life he took by his own hands. But since that's impossible, killing him once will have to do. The fact that you can only kill him once, well, that's the travesty of justice. Ok?”
South African blogger, Mzansi Afrika - Mzansi Afrika (http://mzansiafrika.typepad.com/mzansi_afrika/2005/12/fuel_shortages_.html) writes about the recent fuel shortages in South Africa which are causing planes to be delayed and petrol stations to run dry. Apparently the cause of the shortages is being blamed on the change to unleaded fuel as from 1st January 2006, though it is not clear why this should cause fuel shortages. Coming from an oil producing country - Nigeria - where fuel shortages have been an everyday part of life for as long as I can remember, I don’t hold much sympathy for this temporary blip in fuel consumption for South African motorists - unless of course it continues for the next three decades!
Black Star Journal - Black Star Journal (http://blackstarjournal.blogspot.com/2005/12/shame-on-you-george.html) comments on George Weah’s refusal to concede defeat in the Liberian elections:
“The political neophyte lost a runoff to veteran opposition leader and economist Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, despite the fact that most of the political class endorsed him. I'm not sure if Weah is sore about losing to a woman or if his influential entourage is upset about not having access to the spoils of power.”
Given Liberia’s recent violent history, Weah’s macho muscle flexing behaviour is distasteful and irresponsible and transforms his reputation as an “honest” man into a spoiled brat and one who if not careful could lead the country into further violence.
Nigerian blogger in London, Soul On Ice - Soul on Ice (http://obifromsouthlondon.blogspot.com/2005/12/smells-like-biafran-money.html) raises the issue of Biafra which is once again in the news as the Movement for the Actualisation of a Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) calls for strikes in Eastern Nigeria in support of a new Biafra. Referring to the Nigeria civil war (1967-1970) in which a million plus people died including Soul’s own relatives, he concludes that 35 years on little has changed – the legacy of colonialism lives on.
“From Nigeria, Palestine all the way to Pakistan and India wars and tribal tensions flourish. You gotta love the British Colonist. First they enslave us and then leave our lands in ruins. Incapable of unifying because of marked differences. Differences ignored because of the hunger and greed for everything African. Divide and conquer. The art of war. The sun tzu doctrine. For how can you drive out the invader if you are fighting amongst yourselves? The British legacy lives on till this day. Amen.”
* Sokari Ekine produces the blog Black Looks, http://okrasoup.typepad.com/black_looks
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org
Women & gender
Global: Gender and Human Rights in the Commonwealth
2005-12-14
http://tinyurl.com/8m2dw
The purpose of this book is to contribute to current policy-making, programme planning and implementation on Gender and Human Rights. It is intended for a wide audience of policy makers, magistrates, judges and lawyers, academics and civil society organisations grappling with these issues, and is published by The Commonwealth organisation. It is also intended as a conceptual and policy-oriented resource for those committed to implementing and supporting the Human Rights goals of the new Commonwealth Plan of Action for Gender Equality 2005-2015.
Global: The economic human rights of women and girls - a justice issue
2005-12-12
http://www.africafiles.org
Systems of power universally limit power and opportunity for women. Like other systems, churches everywhere are only beginning to tackle the systemic reasons for genderism. Some, of both genders, having been helped by some church workers and wise ones in their communities, will have been moved towards understanding and action. Such individual actions are commendable but systemic change in power is required on a very large scale that most have not imagined yet. It will take generations for substantive change, and it could come faster in developing countries, as women and men mobilize there.
Global: U.N. gender equality starts at the top
2005-12-13
http://www.ipsnews.org/news.asp?idnews=31366
A leading international women's rights group has launched a campaign calling on the U.N. Security Council to consider a woman candidate for the post of the next secretary-general. With Kofi Annan's tenure as U.N. secretary-general ending next year, Equality Now drew up a list with the names of highly-qualified women leaders who should be considered for the position. "The question is not whether or not women will do a 'better job' at the helm the of U.N., the question is why, since the founding of the U.N. 60 years ago, has a woman never been selected -- or at least publicly considered -- to serve as secretary-general, despite the fact that there are many qualified candidates and despite the promises made by governments to reach gender equality within the U.N.?" said Taina Bien-Aime, executive director of Equality Now.
Nigeria: Women ignore bike ban
2005-12-14
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4525140.stm
Women in the northern Nigerian state of Kano are ignoring a ban stopping them travelling on public motorbike taxis. On Monday (December 12) religious authorities began implementing the ban passed earlier this year. In accordance with Sharia law, men and women are not allowed to travel together on public transport. The women say there are not enough public transport alternatives in the state that adopted Sharia law in 2000.
South Africa: Time for an emergency plan to end gender violence
2005-12-12
http://tinyurl.com/an8nd
The man who would be president is accused of rape. A soccer star admits to having sex with an under age girl but claims it was consensual and he did not know her age. His wife is charged with ass