What happened to Africa?
A friend of mine was back from the Congo recently. Not the ex-Belgian/ ex-Zaire/ past and present Democratic Republic/ Kinshasa-Congo. She had been visiting the ex-French/ Popular Republic/ Brazzaville-Congo, in particular the orphanages, and was astounded by the level of corruption.
That this was her first stay in that part of Africa might have influenced her reaction, or she may have been voicing what we hear all the time about that unfortunate continent. Or, again, corruption really is rife from Cairo to the Cape. However, should it be so, who are we to throw the first stone? And, anyway, we must first ascertain whether corruption is causing the breakdown in society and government, or is merely a symptom among others of this breakdown.
The world is a mess, but Africa seems in a worse mess than the rest. Wars and locusts and droughts, most of the world’s illnesses plus a few of their own, and a colonial history as savage as that of the Americas, where the native population all but disappeared. Whereas Africans survived. They survived the slave trade and they survived the forced labor that followed. They even achieved a neo-colonial form of self-government. But they didn’t go farther than that. They weren’t allowed to.
The colonial exploitation of tropical West Africa concerned rubber, cacao, timber, coffee, cotton, peanuts and all possible minerals. These raw materials were shipped to their corresponding European Metropolises, to be transformed and consumed. In return came mining equipment and railways, linking the mines to the coast, and lots of administrators with enough consumer goods to sustain a different life style. As for the natives, they were pressed into the mines and the laying of rails and the collecting of rubber, etc. While an ethnic minority was armed and used as a mercenary force to do the pressing. Along with frontiers and, for some, nasty protracted national liberation and civil wars, this was the heritage of the newly formed African nations: blood, tears and turmoil.
To function, government needs the structures of state. It must dispense security, education, justice and health and, to pay for it all, it must collect taxes. Government depends on some kind of consensus. It must convince a wide majority that the rule of law is superior to the rule of sheer might.
On the eve of obtaining independence, the geographical entities which were to become nations had no state structures and their colonial masters had ruled by constraint for centuries. Many of the new African governments were immediately plunged into civil strife. Sometimes this was due to the ethnic mercenaries of colonial times (Rwanda), sometimes the whereabouts of mineral resources was the cause (Katanga). In some of the smaller countries, those more culturally homogenous, attempts were made at state building. Hospitals and universities were inaugurated, a judiciary system was established, military and police forces were trained, but collecting taxes was problematic. Most Africans were (and still are) living a hand-to-mouth existence. The salaried few were (and still are) mostly state employees. And there are always limits to the taxing of private wealth and corporate profit. In fact, most if not all of state revenue came (and still comes) from the country’s raw materials.
The recognized function of government (other than status, careers and personal enrichment) is to administer and finance the structures of state. Administrations come and go because taxation is always considered excessive and the structures of state are always found wanting, and because taxation and representation are very hard to dissociate.
Autocracy has always been hindered by the state’s dependence on taxation. How much simpler when state expenses do not rely on taxes. How convenient for a despotic régime.
Many African states draw their incomes from the sale of their raw materials, often non-renewables. Those who govern these states are concerned by the world market, by the sale of their produce and the subsequent import of commodities. The rest of the nation’s economy is of no consequence. So the state has nothing to gain in helping development. In fact, post-colonial Africa has not been able to modify its colonial heritage. Raw materials are still shipped to the industrial “first” world. And, in exchange, consumer goods allow an administrative minority to have a different life style. Colonial administration has merely been localized and made plethoric by access to the world market and a better exchange rate. Independence has meant that Africans govern instead of Europeans but, for the rest, nothing has changed. Africa’s raw materials are transformed elsewhere and their market value comes back in the form of consumer goods.
Most of tropical West Africa is not making anything. This has kept it stuck in a pre-industrial time-warp. African farmers are still using hoes to work their fields. And, at the same time, ancient craftsmanship has disappeared – swept away by cheap plastic mass-produced goods. Africans are unemployed because production has been out-sourced a long time ago. Africa has supplied Europe (and the world) with raw materials and received consumer goods in exchange. All the transformations were in Europe, so was the labor and the creation of wealth.
Corruption depends as much on the corrupters as on the corrupted. And corrupters have flocked to the Gulf of Guinea from the start. Guns and trinkets were exchanged for (slave) labor sent to the Americas. Now guns and trinkets are exchanged for the wherewithal of labor, raw materials. We can’t blame African governments for their acts without admitting that we are the prime instigators (and beneficiaries) of the whole situation
However, the Wheel turns and History moves on. And it seems that our labor is being out-sourced to Asia. How long will be able to exchange our raw materials (know-how, patents and copyrights) for Asian consumer goods? How long will we maintain social peace and justice alongside mass unemployment?
That this was her first stay in that part of Africa might have influenced her reaction, or she may have been voicing what we hear all the time about that unfortunate continent. Or, again, corruption really is rife from Cairo to the Cape. However, should it be so, who are we to throw the first stone? And, anyway, we must first ascertain whether corruption is causing the breakdown in society and government, or is merely a symptom among others of this breakdown.
The world is a mess, but Africa seems in a worse mess than the rest. Wars and locusts and droughts, most of the world’s illnesses plus a few of their own, and a colonial history as savage as that of the Americas, where the native population all but disappeared. Whereas Africans survived. They survived the slave trade and they survived the forced labor that followed. They even achieved a neo-colonial form of self-government. But they didn’t go farther than that. They weren’t allowed to.
The colonial exploitation of tropical West Africa concerned rubber, cacao, timber, coffee, cotton, peanuts and all possible minerals. These raw materials were shipped to their corresponding European Metropolises, to be transformed and consumed. In return came mining equipment and railways, linking the mines to the coast, and lots of administrators with enough consumer goods to sustain a different life style. As for the natives, they were pressed into the mines and the laying of rails and the collecting of rubber, etc. While an ethnic minority was armed and used as a mercenary force to do the pressing. Along with frontiers and, for some, nasty protracted national liberation and civil wars, this was the heritage of the newly formed African nations: blood, tears and turmoil.
To function, government needs the structures of state. It must dispense security, education, justice and health and, to pay for it all, it must collect taxes. Government depends on some kind of consensus. It must convince a wide majority that the rule of law is superior to the rule of sheer might.
On the eve of obtaining independence, the geographical entities which were to become nations had no state structures and their colonial masters had ruled by constraint for centuries. Many of the new African governments were immediately plunged into civil strife. Sometimes this was due to the ethnic mercenaries of colonial times (Rwanda), sometimes the whereabouts of mineral resources was the cause (Katanga). In some of the smaller countries, those more culturally homogenous, attempts were made at state building. Hospitals and universities were inaugurated, a judiciary system was established, military and police forces were trained, but collecting taxes was problematic. Most Africans were (and still are) living a hand-to-mouth existence. The salaried few were (and still are) mostly state employees. And there are always limits to the taxing of private wealth and corporate profit. In fact, most if not all of state revenue came (and still comes) from the country’s raw materials.
The recognized function of government (other than status, careers and personal enrichment) is to administer and finance the structures of state. Administrations come and go because taxation is always considered excessive and the structures of state are always found wanting, and because taxation and representation are very hard to dissociate.
Autocracy has always been hindered by the state’s dependence on taxation. How much simpler when state expenses do not rely on taxes. How convenient for a despotic régime.
Many African states draw their incomes from the sale of their raw materials, often non-renewables. Those who govern these states are concerned by the world market, by the sale of their produce and the subsequent import of commodities. The rest of the nation’s economy is of no consequence. So the state has nothing to gain in helping development. In fact, post-colonial Africa has not been able to modify its colonial heritage. Raw materials are still shipped to the industrial “first” world. And, in exchange, consumer goods allow an administrative minority to have a different life style. Colonial administration has merely been localized and made plethoric by access to the world market and a better exchange rate. Independence has meant that Africans govern instead of Europeans but, for the rest, nothing has changed. Africa’s raw materials are transformed elsewhere and their market value comes back in the form of consumer goods.
Most of tropical West Africa is not making anything. This has kept it stuck in a pre-industrial time-warp. African farmers are still using hoes to work their fields. And, at the same time, ancient craftsmanship has disappeared – swept away by cheap plastic mass-produced goods. Africans are unemployed because production has been out-sourced a long time ago. Africa has supplied Europe (and the world) with raw materials and received consumer goods in exchange. All the transformations were in Europe, so was the labor and the creation of wealth.
Corruption depends as much on the corrupters as on the corrupted. And corrupters have flocked to the Gulf of Guinea from the start. Guns and trinkets were exchanged for (slave) labor sent to the Americas. Now guns and trinkets are exchanged for the wherewithal of labor, raw materials. We can’t blame African governments for their acts without admitting that we are the prime instigators (and beneficiaries) of the whole situation
However, the Wheel turns and History moves on. And it seems that our labor is being out-sourced to Asia. How long will be able to exchange our raw materials (know-how, patents and copyrights) for Asian consumer goods? How long will we maintain social peace and justice alongside mass unemployment?
posted by le Lézard at 2:02 AM
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