Another European Voodoo to “Save” Africa

By Tom Kamara

5 May 04

The British Prime Minister is a superbly persuasive man, with a face and tongue that say, "This man does not tell a lie."  If one does not want to believe him, it is better not to listen to him.

 "Africa is the only continent to have grown poorer in the last 25 years", he has declared in setting-up another commissions to tackle the continent's spreading problems. On it are many voodoo high priests, with Mr. Blair himself as the chief high priest responsible for finding Africa's problems and solving them. 

There has been no shortage over the decades of prescriptions dropped from the west to cure Africa's now arguably incurable economic and social sickness. We were told that under the hailed Structural Adjustment Programme, that near religious doctrine that said if the poor paid for costly medicines and sent their children to unaffordable schools at their own cost wealth would come for them and all. Structural Adjustment theologians have since admitted its failure obviously because it not only decreed poverty, but invited civil wars which in some cases suffocated development.  Prior to this, any state that did not accept the medicine of structural adjustment was an outcast, and as the South Africans are realising, taking drastic steps to address the endemic widening gap between the poor and the rich, or challenging the doctrine of the free market even where it leads to more poverty,  is dangerous, since this may anger donors from the west and lead to punishment, with Zimbabwe as witness.

Already, one prescription from one of the Blair high priests for Africa is that some states, landlocked and without resources, should be dismantled and amalgamated with others. It is like saying Eyadema of Togo, in power for over three decades, should close shop and join Ghana as an ordinary citizen, or that flowery Yaya Jameh of The Gambia, should stop enjoying himself as president with the gun in hand to join Senegal. "We are all presidents...There is no small or big president", Charles Taylor, now in Nigerian protection from the law, once reminded Lagos.  Independence has led to national identities not easily swept away for imagine economic benefits. The equal links between the two Grmanys, the wealthy west and the former socialst east, indicates that unification does not necessarily prosperity and equality.  

But working on such platform, dismantling non-viable states on a continent palgued with city-states, would require civil wars. No African president would like to see his/her city state dismantled because within it, he is king

Such bizarre prescriptions indicate that Europe is just awakening to the fact that its dissection of the African continent to address its economic and political agenda at the time were unjust and are being felt in grinding poverty and looming social disorder, all factors leading to the smuggling of thousands of African youths into Europe, where they face the Iron Curtain in failed dreams to be part of its wealth.   Now come the Blair prescriptions to be implemented by a array of high priests, some from Africa but the majority from Europe.

It is easy to see tears dropping form Mr. Blair's cheeks for Africa. In October last year, he said, Africa remains  "a scar on the conscience of the world".

"If the world continues to ignore the sufferings of African nations, like in the war- ravaged Democratic Republic of Congo, it would breed anger and frustration which would threaten global stability," he said, calling on the rich world to back a partnership[p with Africa.

Blair then issued his edict, a fair one but one difficult for many African states:

 "But it's a deal: On the African side: true democracy, no more excuses for dictatorship, abuses of human rights; no tolerance of bad governance, from the endemic corruption of some states, to the activities of Mr Mugabe's henchmen in Zimbabwe. Proper commercial, legal and financial systems."

"If the world continues to ignore the sufferings of African nations, like in the war- ravaged Democratic Republic of Congo, it would breed anger and frustration which would threaten global stability," he said

 So the tears are enough. The Safari tours, on which western president go to pour more tears for the poor and make promises they know cannot be kept, will continue. Bill Clinton, during last term, stormed Africa and sparked failed hopes of economic salvation to come. Shamelessly, those African states that did not see his saving hands felt neglected.  Mr. Blair followed, sending the same message. Then came President George W Bush, at the time when shells were falling on Liberia, its stepchild born out of the history of slavery. Many thought the tour was a prelude to US intervention, but they soon realised it would not be. It was a Safari of tears and promises.

One Blair high priest suggested that they would like to know what Africans want, and that writers, students, etc, will be encouraged to write essays that would help provide the juju to save sick Africa.

But Mr. Blair does not have to look to far to see some of the factors that have accelerated collapse. He may be very pleased with his role in the rehabilitation of Libya's Kaddafi after the payment of millions of pounds to British and American victims. The amount the north African state paid to London and Washington is sufficient to to solve the humanitarian problems it created for West Africa's millions in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. Were justice, and might, the norm, the world would have demanded that Libya pays reparations for the destruction of these fragile states for its backing of bandits like Charles Taylor now in safety in Nigeria and Foday Sankoh, now gone.

Mr. Blair's Commission for Africa is the thirteenth such entities designed to Africa save over the decades. But the more such bodies are formed, the higher the level of poverty. Many Africans now live in abject poverty more than at independence. The money spent on cosmetic alone in the rich world is sufficient to arrest the spread of hunger and disease and more.

With the new Blair Africa Commission, what is the fate of the much-celebrated New Partnership for Africa, with mesmerising acronym NEPAD?  NEPAD should have been a vehicle for "peer review", a mechanism through which African leaders and states would be judges on one another and passing verdict, which would form the basis of economic assistance from the masters. "Behave well, and you will east", was the directive.