Afro Pessimism in the West Has Gone Too Far: Part II
Side Goodo
August 15, 2008
3. Comment on "Africa is giving nothing to any one, apart from Aids"
Myers´ Arguments Untenable
Myers´ frustration on lack of sustainable economic progress in Ethiopia is shared by many. However, Africa is not Ethiopia. The picture of wide-eyed child does not reflect the picture of the entire continent. The authors´ sweeping generalization about the continent is cynical, patronizing, inaccurate and racist. It not only disregards the continents´ finest achievements in recent years but brushes aside the historic contribution of the African peoples to the global civilization. The link between the famine in Ethiopia and the failure of the African leaders to condemn the Zimbabwean leadership reflects the writer´s utter hypocrisy.
No doubt that Ethiopia´s repeated failure to feed its population is the cause for concern by everyone, donors and citizens alike. However, labeling the entire continent as "predatory and dysfunctional economic, social and sexual system" is untenable and racist.
The article is a gross misrepresentation of Africa as a continent and Africans as peoples. Africa is a vast continent with enormous social, economic, political and cultural diversities. Ethiopia´s problems greatly differ from problems in the rest of the continent. With geographical area of 30.3 million square kilometers, Africa is the second largest continent in the world. Africa´s geographic size is greater than China, USA, India, Europe, Argentina and New Zealand combined together. However, its population of 900 million is less than that of India.
Africa is heterogeneous in various other ways. North Africa is completely different from the sub-Saharan Africa. North Africa represents relatively richer middle income economies that have never depended on western food handout. This sub region includes Libya, Algeria and Egypt which are the three of the five top oil producers in Africa, the remaining two being the two top oil producers, Angola and Nigeria (Africa supplied 12.5% of daily oil output to the world market in 2007). No doubt that the sub-Saharan Africa is the least developed region in the world with 33 of the world´s 49 LDCs found here. However, in recent years, this sub region has shown remarkable economic progress. With the discovery of oil and the end of civil war in Angola; with the discovery of oil in Gabon, Congo, Cameron, Equatorial Guinea, DRC, Cote d´Ivoire and Sudan; the end of civil war, the discovery of gas and successful democratic changes in Mozambique; The discovery of gas and successful democratic changes in Tanzania; democratic changes in Liberia and Seira Leon and relative stability in the Great Lakes region, the sub Saharan Africa is heading for a successful economic and political transformation. In fact, civil wars and serious economic hardships are confined to less than 5 countries in the sub region at present: the Sudan, Somalia, Zimbabwe and Ethiopia. This week´s military coup in Mauritania is the cause for further concern but does not reverse Africa´s resolve for transformation. The successful resolution of the political conflict in Kenya, and the renewed hope for the power sharing arrangement in Zimbabwe are signs of Africa´s resolve for change and renewal.
With 54 sovereign countries and over 2000 nations and nationalities with their own unique languages and culture, Africa presents great challenges as well as opportunities for prosperity in the 21st century. Africa has already begun tapping its potential since the beginning of the century and this will continue.
With its massive geographic area, the continent has not yet reached catastrophic demographic stages. China´s population has more than doubled from 500 million to 1.3 billion in half a century. However, this did not deter China from achieving an economic miracle to become the fourth largest economy in the World (China is set to become the third largest this year). That is why Myers´ statement "Indeed, we now have almost an entire continent of sexually hyperactive indigents, with tens of millions of people who only survive because of help from the outside world", is factually incorrect and racially motivated.
Equally damning is his suggestion to let an Ethiopian child die instead of giving an opportunity "for it to survive to a life of brutal circumcision, poverty, hunger, violence and sexual abuse, resulting in another half-dozen…wide-eyed children, with comparably jolly little lives ahead of them…".
We do not deny that there is poverty in Africa; we do not deny that female circumcision is practiced in few countries in the continent, but we emphatically reject any suggestion that an African child has to die because he/she faces these scourges. We are not impressed with Myers´ prescription of Malthusian negative population checks for the entire continent. Make no mistakes; an emaciated African child you saw on pictures this year will live to transform the continent into an economic miracle in the 21st century. The economic transformation in Africa will be achieved faster if the industrialized nations eliminate their agricultural subsidies and allow poor framers in Africa an equal access to their markets. The transformation will happen faster if industrialized nations increase foreign direct investment in Africa instead of blaming China for its rapidly increasing trade with and investment in Africa. Africa´s economy is expanding rapidly at present. If Africa maintains the current pace of economic expansion, famine and hunger will be history with in a generation.
Africa´s Contribution to the Global Civilization Undermined
Myers´ article misses out other important facts about Africa. The world owes Africa much more than emergency food aid to save lives in Ethiopia, Somalia or the Sudan during recurrent droughts and famine. Africa has made tremendous contribution to the current global prosperity at the cost of its own development. First, consider the economic contribution of the African slave labour in the Americas. Between 1440 when the Portuguese first started slave trade from Africa until the official abolition of slave trade in 1807 (although slavery was officially abolished in America after nearly six decades on December 18, 1865), over 12 million able bodied Africans have been uprooted from Africa and transported to the Americas to provide cheap labour on the plantations and mines. (Some argue that trans-Atlantic salve trade began in 1441 when the Portuguese sailor, Antam Goncalves, seized ten Africans near Cape Bojador). African slave labourers were often praised to be very hard working and resistant to tropical diseases compared to the indigenous peoples whose population was dwindling from time to time due to various diseases brought by the European settlers. The slave trade depopulated Africa, deprived the continent of its productive labour force and contributed to its underdevelopment.
Second, immediately after the end of trans-Atlantic slave trade Europe felt that its natural resources needed for industrialization were being depleted. Therefore, European countries decide to directly take over Africa and ensure unlimited supply of raw materials to their expanding industries. Of the three motives given by the colonizers, commerce, Christianity and civilization, commerce was by far the superior motive for colonization of Africa.
Although European colonization of Africa began with the Portuguese settlement in the present day Angola in 15th century, the formal and complete colonial partitioning of Africa followed the Berlin Conference of 1884-85 also known as the Scramble for Africa, in which major European countries including the United States of America agreed to peacefully divide Africa among themselves. In 1914 only Ethiopia and Liberia were outside of the European control. The raw materials and capital generated in the entire African continent ensured successful industrial revolution in Europe while Africa is left to be what it is today: Myers´ "predatory and dysfunction economic, social and sexual system"?. Keeping aside the argument of civilization for the moment, colonization was the second major bottleneck for Africa´s development. Colonization stifled Africa´s raw materials and capital and led to inhumane exploitation of its human resources and contributed to Africa´s current state of underdevelopment.
This is not a simple blame-game. Kleptocracy was rife in Africa after decolonization and was equally to blame for Africa´s development failures. Ethiopia was never colonized by Europeans except a brief occupation by Italy during WWII. However, the global power relations during the late 19th century and particularly during the Scramble for Africa played a major part in shaping what Ethiopia is today.
Further Bottlenecks to Africa´s Development
Apart from economic exploitation, colonialism created sustainable bottleneck to Africa´s peace, stability and development by creating artificial states. Almost all of the present day African countries are the result of colonial partitioning. Unlike other regions of the world, where national and political boundaries evolved through centuries of social, economic, cultural and political developments, African boundaries were the direct result of the European Scramble for Africa. They were hastily drawn to ensure that major European colonial powers had sufficient access to raw materials for their industries, regardless of who was living on the land. Therefore, in most cases the colonial boundaries divided one nation or ethnic group in to 2 or more countries or amalgamated major nations and tribes into one large pseudo state. The creation of artificial states is one of the main reasons for continued political instability in the post colonial Africa.
Decolonization in 1950s and 1960s ensured nominal political independence for most African countries but economic dependency continued. Africa remained under the neocolonial influence. Former colonial masters continued to actively control the affairs of newly independent states through economic and monetary measures. Apart from this, Africa became the battle ground for new form of ideological war between the west and the socialist block, the Cold War, the confrontation between US and the Soviet Union following the outcomes of WWII.
Since the beginning of the Cold War in mid 1950s until its end in 1991, both western powers and the socialist block created, harbored and supported the worst dictators in the history of the African continent. A typical case in point is Zaire, the present Democratic Republic of Congo in 1960s. Due to its size and abundance of natural resources, this country was the first to suffer a Cold War proxy battle. The Congo civil war led to the deposition of Joseph Kasa-Vubu, the first president and the assassination of the nationalist Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba by Mobutu Sese Seko who thereafter ruled the country from 1965 to 1997.
Mobutu´s 32 years of rule was characterized by unimaginable level of kleptocracy but enjoyed unreserved support from the west. Equally abominable was the support received from the communist block by some African dictators due to their socialist orientations. In this regard one is often tempted to ask: Who is the champion of democracy in Africa?
Africa today is the result of 5 centuries of European influence
Therefore, from 15th century until the end of the Cold War in 1991, Africa´s direct and indirect interactions with Europe and the rest of the World resulted in what it is today. We want the western writers to analyze what went wrong during the 5 centuries of European influence in Africa. We are tired of hearing half baked stories written by some western Afro pessimists who mistreat the symptoms instead of the causes of the continent´s problems. We are equally less impressed with the warnings about China´s current involvement in Africa, with out any scrutiny about Africa´s historical relationships with the rest of the world. We agree that Africa has to ensure that both China and Africa benefit from the rapidly increasing Sino-African trade and investment relations on equal basis. At the same time, we are aware that to maintain the current pace of economic growth, Africa needs an increasing foreign direct investment and reliable markets for its natural resources both of which are not forthcoming from the west.
As stated earlier, Africa regained relative freedom only in 1991, right after the end of the cold war. This is Africa´s true testing times. With in a decade of relative freedom since 1991, Africa showed remarkable improvement in political transformation, conflict resolution, and economic growth. Over 40 of the 54 countries held multi party elections in less than 2 decades. Over 20 countries have become promising democracies in less than 2 decades. African average annual economic growth of over 5% since 2001 has been remarkable and has surpassed the world economic growth for the first time in the history of the continent. Once again, Africa has proved Afro pessimists wrong!
4. Conclusion
"Africa is giving nothing to any one, apart from Aids" is a concept that has come either out of unwitting ignorance about the continent today, or a usual racist stereotyping of the continent. Africa had given free slave labour for the development of the Americas. Africa has given raw materials and capital for the industrialization of Europe. Africa has given the greatest statesmen of all time such as Nelson Mandela of South Africa, it has given the Pharos and the Pyramids, it has given the miraculous Lalibela rock hewn Churches, and the Axum Oblisks, and above all it has given the human kind, Homo Sapiens, the ancestors of Kevin Myers himself.
Whatever Myers´ intentions were, we are concerned but not perturbed by his insensitive remarks on the continent. The great consolation to our minds is that his opinions on Africa do not reflect the opinions of the majority of the Irish people in Ireland or the rest of the world. Nor do they represent the opinion of the majority of the western societies.
The Irish society has given Africa and the world the most caring and humanitarian individuals. Apart from the remarkable humanitarian contributions to Africa by Bob Geldof and Bono, the Irish NGO, Goal and its leader John O'Shea have always been the champions of the poor in Africa and the World over. The Irish Bilateral Aid in Africa has been the most effective development aid program in the continent. The Irish Bilateral Aid in the Sidama province of Ethiopia between 1994-2001 was one of the greatest success stories in the continent. With its core value of community participation, gender sensitivity, and sustainability, the stated aid programme harnessed the material and human resources of the region in a relatively short period of time in a scale never witnessed in the history of the country. The Irish staffs worked in the most remote villages of Sidama to provide clean water, health posts, schools, electricity, roads and micro credit to the rural poor. The aid programme that focused on the development of rural socio-economic infrastructure, access to micro credit by the rural poor and capacity building, benefited hundreds of thousands of the Sidama people and the elements of the programme continue today 8 years after the withdrawal of the Irish aid from the region.
Apart from this, the Irish liberation struggle of the second decade of the 20th century was an inspiration to the newly colonized countries of Africa. When I got an opportunity to watch the essence of that struggle in retrospect in "Michael Collins" in Dublin movie house 12 years ago, I was moved by his courage and determination and the political subtlety of Eamon de Valera. I am certain that if these Irish anti-colonial leaders and liberation heroes were alive today, they would be appalled by the insensitivity with which their fellow Irish handled the African issues.
Africa has proved its critics wrong time and again in this century. Indeed as The Economist magazine rightly puts, today, Africa is An Unexpected Bright Spot in the Global Economy. Do not miss the opportunity to be part of the African renaissance!
Myers´ Arguments Untenable
Myers´ frustration on lack of sustainable economic progress in Ethiopia is shared by many. However, Africa is not Ethiopia. The picture of wide-eyed child does not reflect the picture of the entire continent. The authors´ sweeping generalization about the continent is cynical, patronizing, inaccurate and racist. It not only disregards the continents´ finest achievements in recent years but brushes aside the historic contribution of the African peoples to the global civilization. The link between the famine in Ethiopia and the failure of the African leaders to condemn the Zimbabwean leadership reflects the writer´s utter hypocrisy.
No doubt that Ethiopia´s repeated failure to feed its population is the cause for concern by everyone, donors and citizens alike. However, labeling the entire continent as "predatory and dysfunctional economic, social and sexual system" is untenable and racist.
The article is a gross misrepresentation of Africa as a continent and Africans as peoples. Africa is a vast continent with enormous social, economic, political and cultural diversities. Ethiopia´s problems greatly differ from problems in the rest of the continent. With geographical area of 30.3 million square kilometers, Africa is the second largest continent in the world. Africa´s geographic size is greater than China, USA, India, Europe, Argentina and New Zealand combined together. However, its population of 900 million is less than that of India.
Africa is heterogeneous in various other ways. North Africa is completely different from the sub-Saharan Africa. North Africa represents relatively richer middle income economies that have never depended on western food handout. This sub region includes Libya, Algeria and Egypt which are the three of the five top oil producers in Africa, the remaining two being the two top oil producers, Angola and Nigeria (Africa supplied 12.5% of daily oil output to the world market in 2007). No doubt that the sub-Saharan Africa is the least developed region in the world with 33 of the world´s 49 LDCs found here. However, in recent years, this sub region has shown remarkable economic progress. With the discovery of oil and the end of civil war in Angola; with the discovery of oil in Gabon, Congo, Cameron, Equatorial Guinea, DRC, Cote d´Ivoire and Sudan; the end of civil war, the discovery of gas and successful democratic changes in Mozambique; The discovery of gas and successful democratic changes in Tanzania; democratic changes in Liberia and Seira Leon and relative stability in the Great Lakes region, the sub Saharan Africa is heading for a successful economic and political transformation. In fact, civil wars and serious economic hardships are confined to less than 5 countries in the sub region at present: the Sudan, Somalia, Zimbabwe and Ethiopia. This week´s military coup in Mauritania is the cause for further concern but does not reverse Africa´s resolve for transformation. The successful resolution of the political conflict in Kenya, and the renewed hope for the power sharing arrangement in Zimbabwe are signs of Africa´s resolve for change and renewal.
With 54 sovereign countries and over 2000 nations and nationalities with their own unique languages and culture, Africa presents great challenges as well as opportunities for prosperity in the 21st century. Africa has already begun tapping its potential since the beginning of the century and this will continue.
With its massive geographic area, the continent has not yet reached catastrophic demographic stages. China´s population has more than doubled from 500 million to 1.3 billion in half a century. However, this did not deter China from achieving an economic miracle to become the fourth largest economy in the World (China is set to become the third largest this year). That is why Myers´ statement "Indeed, we now have almost an entire continent of sexually hyperactive indigents, with tens of millions of people who only survive because of help from the outside world", is factually incorrect and racially motivated.
Equally damning is his suggestion to let an Ethiopian child die instead of giving an opportunity "for it to survive to a life of brutal circumcision, poverty, hunger, violence and sexual abuse, resulting in another half-dozen…wide-eyed children, with comparably jolly little lives ahead of them…".
We do not deny that there is poverty in Africa; we do not deny that female circumcision is practiced in few countries in the continent, but we emphatically reject any suggestion that an African child has to die because he/she faces these scourges. We are not impressed with Myers´ prescription of Malthusian negative population checks for the entire continent. Make no mistakes; an emaciated African child you saw on pictures this year will live to transform the continent into an economic miracle in the 21st century. The economic transformation in Africa will be achieved faster if the industrialized nations eliminate their agricultural subsidies and allow poor framers in Africa an equal access to their markets. The transformation will happen faster if industrialized nations increase foreign direct investment in Africa instead of blaming China for its rapidly increasing trade with and investment in Africa. Africa´s economy is expanding rapidly at present. If Africa maintains the current pace of economic expansion, famine and hunger will be history with in a generation.
Africa´s Contribution to the Global Civilization Undermined
Myers´ article misses out other important facts about Africa. The world owes Africa much more than emergency food aid to save lives in Ethiopia, Somalia or the Sudan during recurrent droughts and famine. Africa has made tremendous contribution to the current global prosperity at the cost of its own development. First, consider the economic contribution of the African slave labour in the Americas. Between 1440 when the Portuguese first started slave trade from Africa until the official abolition of slave trade in 1807 (although slavery was officially abolished in America after nearly six decades on December 18, 1865), over 12 million able bodied Africans have been uprooted from Africa and transported to the Americas to provide cheap labour on the plantations and mines. (Some argue that trans-Atlantic salve trade began in 1441 when the Portuguese sailor, Antam Goncalves, seized ten Africans near Cape Bojador). African slave labourers were often praised to be very hard working and resistant to tropical diseases compared to the indigenous peoples whose population was dwindling from time to time due to various diseases brought by the European settlers. The slave trade depopulated Africa, deprived the continent of its productive labour force and contributed to its underdevelopment.
Second, immediately after the end of trans-Atlantic slave trade Europe felt that its natural resources needed for industrialization were being depleted. Therefore, European countries decide to directly take over Africa and ensure unlimited supply of raw materials to their expanding industries. Of the three motives given by the colonizers, commerce, Christianity and civilization, commerce was by far the superior motive for colonization of Africa.
Although European colonization of Africa began with the Portuguese settlement in the present day Angola in 15th century, the formal and complete colonial partitioning of Africa followed the Berlin Conference of 1884-85 also known as the Scramble for Africa, in which major European countries including the United States of America agreed to peacefully divide Africa among themselves. In 1914 only Ethiopia and Liberia were outside of the European control. The raw materials and capital generated in the entire African continent ensured successful industrial revolution in Europe while Africa is left to be what it is today: Myers´ "predatory and dysfunction economic, social and sexual system"?. Keeping aside the argument of civilization for the moment, colonization was the second major bottleneck for Africa´s development. Colonization stifled Africa´s raw materials and capital and led to inhumane exploitation of its human resources and contributed to Africa´s current state of underdevelopment.
This is not a simple blame-game. Kleptocracy was rife in Africa after decolonization and was equally to blame for Africa´s development failures. Ethiopia was never colonized by Europeans except a brief occupation by Italy during WWII. However, the global power relations during the late 19th century and particularly during the Scramble for Africa played a major part in shaping what Ethiopia is today.
Further Bottlenecks to Africa´s Development
Apart from economic exploitation, colonialism created sustainable bottleneck to Africa´s peace, stability and development by creating artificial states. Almost all of the present day African countries are the result of colonial partitioning. Unlike other regions of the world, where national and political boundaries evolved through centuries of social, economic, cultural and political developments, African boundaries were the direct result of the European Scramble for Africa. They were hastily drawn to ensure that major European colonial powers had sufficient access to raw materials for their industries, regardless of who was living on the land. Therefore, in most cases the colonial boundaries divided one nation or ethnic group in to 2 or more countries or amalgamated major nations and tribes into one large pseudo state. The creation of artificial states is one of the main reasons for continued political instability in the post colonial Africa.
Decolonization in 1950s and 1960s ensured nominal political independence for most African countries but economic dependency continued. Africa remained under the neocolonial influence. Former colonial masters continued to actively control the affairs of newly independent states through economic and monetary measures. Apart from this, Africa became the battle ground for new form of ideological war between the west and the socialist block, the Cold War, the confrontation between US and the Soviet Union following the outcomes of WWII.
Since the beginning of the Cold War in mid 1950s until its end in 1991, both western powers and the socialist block created, harbored and supported the worst dictators in the history of the African continent. A typical case in point is Zaire, the present Democratic Republic of Congo in 1960s. Due to its size and abundance of natural resources, this country was the first to suffer a Cold War proxy battle. The Congo civil war led to the deposition of Joseph Kasa-Vubu, the first president and the assassination of the nationalist Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba by Mobutu Sese Seko who thereafter ruled the country from 1965 to 1997.
Mobutu´s 32 years of rule was characterized by unimaginable level of kleptocracy but enjoyed unreserved support from the west. Equally abominable was the support received from the communist block by some African dictators due to their socialist orientations. In this regard one is often tempted to ask: Who is the champion of democracy in Africa?
Africa today is the result of 5 centuries of European influence
Therefore, from 15th century until the end of the Cold War in 1991, Africa´s direct and indirect interactions with Europe and the rest of the World resulted in what it is today. We want the western writers to analyze what went wrong during the 5 centuries of European influence in Africa. We are tired of hearing half baked stories written by some western Afro pessimists who mistreat the symptoms instead of the causes of the continent´s problems. We are equally less impressed with the warnings about China´s current involvement in Africa, with out any scrutiny about Africa´s historical relationships with the rest of the world. We agree that Africa has to ensure that both China and Africa benefit from the rapidly increasing Sino-African trade and investment relations on equal basis. At the same time, we are aware that to maintain the current pace of economic growth, Africa needs an increasing foreign direct investment and reliable markets for its natural resources both of which are not forthcoming from the west.
As stated earlier, Africa regained relative freedom only in 1991, right after the end of the cold war. This is Africa´s true testing times. With in a decade of relative freedom since 1991, Africa showed remarkable improvement in political transformation, conflict resolution, and economic growth. Over 40 of the 54 countries held multi party elections in less than 2 decades. Over 20 countries have become promising democracies in less than 2 decades. African average annual economic growth of over 5% since 2001 has been remarkable and has surpassed the world economic growth for the first time in the history of the continent. Once again, Africa has proved Afro pessimists wrong!
4. Conclusion
"Africa is giving nothing to any one, apart from Aids" is a concept that has come either out of unwitting ignorance about the continent today, or a usual racist stereotyping of the continent. Africa had given free slave labour for the development of the Americas. Africa has given raw materials and capital for the industrialization of Europe. Africa has given the greatest statesmen of all time such as Nelson Mandela of South Africa, it has given the Pharos and the Pyramids, it has given the miraculous Lalibela rock hewn Churches, and the Axum Oblisks, and above all it has given the human kind, Homo Sapiens, the ancestors of Kevin Myers himself.
Whatever Myers´ intentions were, we are concerned but not perturbed by his insensitive remarks on the continent. The great consolation to our minds is that his opinions on Africa do not reflect the opinions of the majority of the Irish people in Ireland or the rest of the world. Nor do they represent the opinion of the majority of the western societies.
The Irish society has given Africa and the world the most caring and humanitarian individuals. Apart from the remarkable humanitarian contributions to Africa by Bob Geldof and Bono, the Irish NGO, Goal and its leader John O'Shea have always been the champions of the poor in Africa and the World over. The Irish Bilateral Aid in Africa has been the most effective development aid program in the continent. The Irish Bilateral Aid in the Sidama province of Ethiopia between 1994-2001 was one of the greatest success stories in the continent. With its core value of community participation, gender sensitivity, and sustainability, the stated aid programme harnessed the material and human resources of the region in a relatively short period of time in a scale never witnessed in the history of the country. The Irish staffs worked in the most remote villages of Sidama to provide clean water, health posts, schools, electricity, roads and micro credit to the rural poor. The aid programme that focused on the development of rural socio-economic infrastructure, access to micro credit by the rural poor and capacity building, benefited hundreds of thousands of the Sidama people and the elements of the programme continue today 8 years after the withdrawal of the Irish aid from the region.
Apart from this, the Irish liberation struggle of the second decade of the 20th century was an inspiration to the newly colonized countries of Africa. When I got an opportunity to watch the essence of that struggle in retrospect in "Michael Collins" in Dublin movie house 12 years ago, I was moved by his courage and determination and the political subtlety of Eamon de Valera. I am certain that if these Irish anti-colonial leaders and liberation heroes were alive today, they would be appalled by the insensitivity with which their fellow Irish handled the African issues.
Africa has proved its critics wrong time and again in this century. Indeed as The Economist magazine rightly puts, today, Africa is An Unexpected Bright Spot in the Global Economy. Do not miss the opportunity to be part of the African renaissance!
Print
Share
Email
