Growing sentiment across continent
'Africa is not for sale!'
By Monica Moorehead
The following article is based on a talk given at a New
York Workers World Party meeting on July 11.
President George W. Bush has just returned
from a visit to Africa. Bourgeois analysts are asking: Was the
trip a "success" or a "bust"?
Some editorials have made the point that with 2004
presidential elections coming soon, Bush was especially trying
to score major points with the African American community by
showing his "concern" for Africa, such as visiting the
centuries-old "Slave House" in Gorée Island, Senegal.
Bush is certainly trying to attract more of the Black vote. And
he is undoubtedly worried about the growing disaffection of
U.S. troops, Black, Latino and white, who have been thrust into
the position of being colonial occupiers in Iraq.
But Bush's trip to Africa goes much deeper than publicity
stunts, like shaking hands with African children living with
AIDS or affected by the HIV virus.
In his work "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism,"
V. I. Lenin examined the various stages in capitalism's
evolution into imperialism as a worldwide economic system that
is governed by the expansion of profitable markets. Lenin
stated, "Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development
at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is
established; in which the export of capital has acquired
pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among
the international trusts has begun, in which the division of
all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist
powers has been completed."
What does this pamphlet, written in 1916 during World War I,
have to do with Africa? Everything. Especially the last point,
which reflects the current world reality of the U.S. drive to
recolonize the world, including Africa.
Up until the early 1990s, when the collapse of the Soviet
Union and the socialist camp was in motion, the U.S. rulers'
interest in Africa was mainly from a geopolitical perspective.
The CIA had helped to overthrow and assassinate
pro-independence leaders, like Patrice Lumumba in Congo in
1961, to counter the progressive role that the Soviet Union was
playing in the 1950s and 1960s, when it provided material aid
to national liberation movements, especially in southern Africa
and the former Portuguese colonies.
But all of this changed once U.S. finance capital gained
hegemony over the former European colonial powers in Africa.
This new neocolonial relationship took root in the 1980s and
has deepened ever since. The U.S. ruling class, through
organizations like the International Monetary Fund, has been
telling African leaders that if they hope to receive aid and
loans, they must first bring stability to Africa--a code word
for letting cheap government-subsidized U.S. goods, especially
agricultural products, flood African markets, destroying local
economies in the process.
They must also adopt "democracy"--that is, U.S.- style
elections, in which the candidates with the most money behind
them usually win. The U.S. tries to influence elections with
promises of aid if the opposition it supports wins. The
Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act, passed by the
U.S. Congress before the last election in that country,
promised $25 million in aid if the U.S. president certified
that Zimbabwe was making "progress" toward democracy, as well
as "a U.S. commitment to reschedule or eliminate Zimbabwe's
billion-dollar debt to the World Bank and other international
lending agencies."
Many African leaders are not seeking U.S. aid. They want
African products to be able to compete on the world capitalist
market, especially in the area of agriculture, the backbone of
many African countries' economies. An opinion piece entitled
"Your Farm Subsidies Are Strangling Us" and signed by Amadou
Toumani Touré and Blaise Com paoré, the
presidents of Mali and Burkina Faso, respectively, appeared on
the op-ed page of the New York Times of July 11.
The column is an appeal to reduce the billions of dollars of
subsidies that the U.S. government pays to agribusiness each
year, especially in the area of cotton production. In the
production year 2001-2002 it paid $3 billion in subsidies to
25,000 U.S. cotton farmers--the equivalent of the entire
economic output of Burkina Faso alone. As a result, African
cotton cannot compete on the world market with the low-priced
cotton exported from the U.S. and other rich capitalist
countries.
This is but one example of how the destruction of local
economies in the less developed countries by the highly
industrialized capitalist countries leads to a brake on their
economic development and resulting dire unemployment, poverty
and civil wars.
The discovery of oil in the Gulf of Guinea off Nigeria and
close to Liberia was the primary motivation for Bush's trip.
This is why Bush is considering sending troops to Liberia and
West Africa. It has nothing to do with humanitarian reasons and
everything to do with the U.S. wanting to dominate the oil
market and increase its imports from Africa by at least 25
percent.
Anti-imperialist ideas spreading
Anti-war protests occurred throughout South Africa before
and during Bush's visit. Indymedia reported 10,000
demonstrators in Pretoria on July 9. These mobilizations seem
to escape the attention of the big business press. The demands
were highly political and militant. For instance, a major
slogan called for the arrest of Bush and his trial before an
international tribunal for war crimes against the Iraqi
people.
There were signs that read "Africa is not for sale,"
especially the oil.
The main protests were organized by the South African
Anti-War Coalition, a united front of hundreds of groups that
came together last year to oppose the war on Iraq. The
coalition's call for protests against Bush had support from the
leading Tripartite Alliance of South Africa--the African
National Congress, the Congress of South African Trade Unions
and the South African Communist Party.
These three organizations, along with Friends of Cuba, held
a protest in front of the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria on July 9.
To quote their official statement: "The U.S. government
continues to display contempt for the right of all nations to
self-determination, the right to determine their own policies
in the interests of their own people. This is evident, among
other ways, in the U.S. policy towards Cuba, Iraq, Afghanistan
and other countries it does not agree with. It remains the
critical stumbling block in the struggle for the
self-determination of the people of Palestine. ... We call on
the U.S. to respect the right of all nations to determine their
own future free from any external military, economic or other
pressure."
Mandela lambastes Bush, Blair
On July 10, former South African president Nelson Mandela
spoke in West min ster, England, where he lambasted both Bush
and British Prime Minister Tony Blair for carrying out the war
on Iraq. Mandela accused Bush of caring only about Iraqi oil
and accused Blair of being the "foreign minister of the U.S."
Mandela's criticisms of Bush and Blair are a moral blow against
imperialism and a boost to the worldwide anti-war movement.
During a week-long strike in Nigeria against painful oil
price increases, the youth carried signs calling for an end to
the anti-poor, pro-rich imperialist agenda. A new generation of
revolutionary African leaders seems to be on the horizon, who
will look for political solidarity from the movements in the
imperialist countries, especially the U.S.
A number of African thinkers have stated that the only way
Africa is going to find its way out of gross underdevelopment,
poverty, civil wars, disease and much more is for Africa to be
genuinely independent from the legacy of colonialism and the
present-day slavery of neo-colonialism, especially the banks.
This goes against everything imperialism stands for--which is
to suck out all the resources from other countries in order to
enrich the coffers of the imperialist ruling class.
African peoples were enslaved in the U.S. and throughout the
Western Hemi sphere centuries ago, and are still being enslaved
by capitalist greed and plunder. The imperialists should be
forced to pay reparations to Africa, including providing all
the up-to-date technological advances, with no political and
economic strings attached.
Reprinted from the July 24, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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