1. You talked about how the Asian countries PROACTIVELY imposed conditions on foreign investors that required the transfer of technology and skills. Is it the fault of so-called foreign investors or neoliberalism or capitalism that African countries, even the ones with good resource (or geostrategic) leverage, have failed to negotiate similarly favorable deals? You neglected to mention the documented historical fact that the Asian countries also STOLE (as in espionage) much technology from the West. Meiji Japan perfected this, sending thousands of their gifted citizens to "study" in the technical and scientific fields in the West but also training them for industrial espionage. Historians partly credit the success of this industrial espionage with pre-World War II Japanese technological breakthroughs. My overarching point: It takes purposeful planning by a focused, determined, and visionary leadership to close the technological gap and to turn weakness into strength in the global capitalist game. The Meiji didn't sit around to complain about Western capitalist and technological dominance; they DELIBERATELY exploited the limited openings in the international system and STOLE what they could not acquire legally to fuel their industrialization. That is constructive agency and purposeful leadership. They could have sat around waiting and working towards a more egalitarian technological and industrial capitalist epoch to arrive. Instead, they chose the path of transformation; the path of leveraging what they had to improve their bargaining and competitive edge. We know the rest of the Japanese story
2. Your narrative on the discursive genealogy of "development" is familiar. Fred Cooper has written extensively on the pitfalls of "development" as a Eurocentric discourse of "modernity" and as an interventionist practice that thrives on the Othering of non-Western peoples and on emphasizing their supposed deficits. There is also James Ferguson's Anti-Politics Machine. Cooper's essays on the subjects of modernity and development and his book (written with Randall Packard) on development and the social sciences are fairly definitive commentaries on the dangers of uncritically deploying the term "development" in non-Western contexts. You are right that that history is relevant and that it sometimes intrudes subtly into our discussion of development. That said, I do think that there is also a risk of over-analysis and over-intellectualization here. Postcolonial Nigerians (I can only restrict myself to Nigeria) have since (re)calibrated the semiotic landscape of the term "development." When Nigerians use the term in official, activist, and everyday discourses, it is usually to denote the very basic idea of improved life that accrue from access to social infrastructure--good healthcare, security, roads, schools, drinkable water, and, in some cases, electricity. They are usually not referring to the grander narrative or practice that Western imperialists and present-day development "practitioners/experts" call development. I know that there is overlap between the two meanings and that these basic goods that my compatriots narrate as "development" are bound up in the much larger Western, Eurocentric discourse of development. But to always invoke the specter of Eurocentric modernity as a foundational trope in African discussions and understandings of development is to deny Africans the right to invert, redefine, and take ownership of "development" in their own millieus. I dare say that being excessively obsessed with the Eurocentric origins of development discourse when African registers are at work is itself Eurocentric. What's more, it is also guilty of Othering and belittling Africans as people who cannot pick and choose their own developmental indicators and/or are governed by a fundamentally different set of needs/wants than are Europeans. In fact other variants of this thinking suppose, rather condescendingly, that while Euro-Americans are steeped in "wants" that define their understanding of development, Africans are need-based minimalists. This is too Eurocentric for me. What's more, it is ahistorical.
On Mon, Dec 27, 2010 at 2:51 PM, kenneth harrow <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:
hi chikwendu
i have a partial answer to your question, that i am certain about.
all technology has been developed and extended through transfers of knowledge from one people, one culture, one nation, to another. no one developed alone. this has become increasingly the case since the industrial revolution.
so, i dodged the word "gift" in your question; but am addressing the key issue, which is that african countries will increase their productivity and wealth, their industrial bases, as they devote their efforts to acquiring the needed technologies and knowledge.
perhaps some will come in the form of aid; perhaps some african states will impose conditions on the use of their laborers so that the technology is transferred, as the asians have done so well. perhaps some will come from people trained within the country, or employed within the country.
equations travel; knowledge travels.
my own problem is with the word "development," which i mostly dislike as it suggests a western model or standard as the ideal toward which other nations and people should aspire. it has a history, a discourse, which has systematically belittled africans in comparison with westerners.
so western people are "modern," and the source of modernity; africans are "traditional" or worse, chose your epithet.
if the "development" of africa were to lead to the model we see in western countries, like the u.s., it might be of interest to know that one fifth of american children live in poverty, and the upper 1% of wealthy americans own a vastly disproportionate amount of the wealth of the country.
is that really "developed"?
it would help to begin with a discussion of what "development" should be, not assume it is obvious.
ken
On 12/27/10 11:18 AM, Chikwendu Christian Ukaegbu wrote:
It looks like this interesting debate is coming to an end, which I think it should
by now because ideas have become repetitive. But did the debate answer the question
it initially set to explore? That's why I reposed my question a few days ago but
mistakely posted it to myself rather than to the group. Please see my question
belwo.
Cu
--------------------------------- Original Message ---------------------------------
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Why is Africa in such a mess?
From: "Chikwendu Christian Ukaegbu"<c-ukaegbu@northwestern.edu>
Date: Thu, December 23, 2010 1:27 pm
To: "Chikwendu Ukaegbu"<c-ukaegbu@northwestern.edu>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I joined this debate thinking that it will still focus on how Africa can escape from
its developmental inertia, or underdevelopment. But what I've been reading since my
previous posting have been completely different from the initial subject of debate.
I'm therefore reposting my piece to seek an answer to one of my questions in the
second paragraph below. Is there any case in history where development occurred as a
gift from one country to another? Is African agency necessary for African
development? What does African agency mean with respect to development?
Cu
Sorry, I corrected some typos.
Cu
Chikwendu Ukaegbu wrote:
This interesting and lively debate has continued for weeks
now, I suppose. The debate has been between those who situate the
African condition in the structure created by the continent's history,
and those who argue that African agency, leadership agency especially,
is to blame for lackluster performance in 50 years of independence.
This debate is a good thing if we can learn something from it, and
*not* just for intellectual excitement alone.
Can any one, please, point to a case in history where a nation's
development occurred as a gift from one benevolent country to a less
prosperous and needy other? I mean development, I don't mean foreign
aid. One could cite that the Tiger economies received billions of
dollars of aid money from the West and access to Western markets to
sell their goods. But someone or group decided how, and implemented
the strategies, to use those forms of aid to eventuate in what is now
called miracle economies. If that is not domestic agency, what is it?
Chronicling his role, and that of his Singapore Action Party, in the
process of extricating Singapore from underdevelopment Lee Kuan Yew
stated that he was aware that the West possessed the modern technology
of production which would benefit his country. That he was, therefore,
determined to build a world class physical infrastructure and produce
a well educated manpower to entice Western firms to produce in
Singapore and sell their products in Western markets. Everyone knows
that he, his party, and country achieved this goal. If this is not
agency, what is it? What if Yew, his party and other Tiger economies,
decided to send those aid monies to personal accounts in Western
banks, buy palatial houses in advanced countries, send their kids
abroad for education, get health care in foreign countries, and fly
over potholes and dilapidated schools in helicopters and airplanes?
That's also agency. The difference is that one agency accelerated
development, the other perpetuates underdevelopment. Yew's vision
shows that humans can scale developmental obstacles if they have a
modicum of resources with which to do so. Africa has a lot of
resources with which to do what Yew did.
The posting below is right on the mark. Academic arguments that
continue to paint the African as slave to structure do a disservice to
the continent because the commanding heights of the global economy
will not and cannot philanthropically plant national development in
African countries. Lee Kuan Yew and his team forced the global economy
towards the needs of Singapore by doing those things of interest and
utility to both global capital and Singaporeans. Is the global economy
blindly bending to China's development needs or is Chinese agency
through the instrumentality of its leaders bending the global economy
to China's needs? Developmental structuralism is sexy and easy to
understand. But structuration theory (a la Giddens) is more
sophisticated, realistic and progressive i.e. the duality of structure
and agency-- human beings create structures which turn around to
influence them. What developmental structures have African leaders
created? Ali Mazrui said it best. Africa produced extraordinary
revolutionary leadership but has been unable to produce successful
developmental leadership-- again agency. A structural argument is too
simplistic and permits African leaders to hide in it and plead non
culpability because the iron cage of the global economy makes them
helpless. Africa will never come out of developmental doldrums if this
line of argument is the primary developmental paradigm. I want to be
counted out of that. African agency must take full responsibility for
its developmental successes or failures. That has been the history of
development through the ages.
Cu (Professor, Sociology of Development)
Anunoby, Ogugua wrote:
The evidence of history, human development, and progress is clear.
Leaders build nations and make them great or not great. There is no
informed person anywhere who would in good conscience, dispute the
past and continuing terrible exploitation of Africa through slavery,
colonialism, and neocolonialism. This is a settled subject for the
most part.
The concern now should be about what needs to be done to extricate
Africa from the steel clutches of exploiter-countries, and the
tangled webs of underdevelopment that her leaders seem not to be
worried about. It is even not clear that African leaders are not
helping to spin the webs. What is oftentimes forgotten is that the
countries that are believed to have and continue to exploit Africa
are always able to produce leaders that maintain the status quo in
favor of the countries at the same time that African countries seem
to be unable to produce leaders that will challenge and end the said
cycle of exploitation.
Right before our eyes and under our noses, China, India, and South
Korea have joined the ranks of Africa's exploiter-countries. Where
are Africa's leaders? Do they know that this is happening right now?
Do they choose to benefit from the said exploitation in the
advancement of their self interests at the expense of group interest?
History can be real but this is no reason to allow history to
successfully continue to take a perpetual mortgage on the present and
the past. It seems to me that the case being made sometimes, is that
the past, holding the present and the future hostage, is inevitable
and unstoppable. History is a great teacher. It is little use however
if its lessons are ignored or not/never learned.
oa
________________________________________
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
[usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of kwame zulu shabazz
[kwameshabazz@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, December 18, 2010 7:41 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Why is Africa in such a
mess?
Peace OA--African nations of been "independent" from roughly two
generations. How does that work out to "many years"? Moreover, we
have inherited borders and political systems that were mostly imposed.
Re: Sudan--There is a lot more going on there than bad leadership.
The Sudanese are divided by foreign religions. But they are also
* fighting over increasingly scarce resources, particularly in
Darfur (arable land).
* The north-south skirmishes are being pushed along by Islamicists
in Khartoum, by
* nationalists in Khartoum who believe that securing oil and other
natural resources by any means necessary from southern Sudan is in
the national interests
* Zionist who want to undermine Islamic regimes
* old and new imperialists (e.g. US and China)
* undisciplined rebel factions.
Re: Asia--Yes, Singapore, Japan, South Korea would appear to be far
ahead of many African nations. Most of these nations have not
abandoned their Gods and Ancestors, although Mau certainly tried to
banish them China. Also these nations was not forced to deal with
imposed languages and borders. This is especially daunting in Africa
given the stunning level of cultural diversity.
Chinese elites still speak Mandarin and Cantonese. African elites
often prefer English or French or Portuguese. Not only that but
China's path towards "development" is wrecking havoc on the
environment. And the level of poverty in some parts of India would
embarrass many Africans.
My sense of things is that we Africans have been colonized
psychologically in ways that Asian nations were not. This is what
Biko was attempting to address.
Last and most importantly, I think the slave trades--transatlantic,
saharan, red sea, indian ocean--have undermined African development
profoundly. kzs
--
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--kenneth w. harrow
distinguished professor of english
michigan state university
department of english
east lansing, mi 48824-1036
ph. 517 803 8839
harrow@msu.edu
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