thanks for taking on this question of mine. it was an honest one, and maybe the answer is that chinese conditions will ultimately prove better than any others. it isn't simply europe; right now malasia is making a big play for the minerals trade in the congo, there where some of the worst of the worst have operated for a long time.
you rightly say i am in contradition when i have nothing to offer but personal recollections, whereas i am soliciting experts who know something about the field who have a lot more than personal experiences to base their claims on.
but the two really go together, if we are to understand the human price of these international relations.
moses really got on my case for comparing how bad things were back home, in the u.s., or in europe, with africa, stating that i was in effect mitigating the effectiveness of a critique of african practices by doing that.
so that has made it harder for me to posit european or global north forms of exploitation in comparison with the chinese.
i have no illusions about europe's role in africa, past or present. no need to be quoted walter rodney. sorry, but i have written along the lines of left/marxist critique of european neocolonialism since my first writings on sembene a quarter century ago. i have no illusions about europe's exploitation of africa: i lived it, saw it live, close up, in cameroon in 1977-79, when i saw the strong strong hold of the french over all aspects of that country's economy. what's the point of it? i am simply asking, now that china has come in, has even supplanted the europeans, what are the conditions and terms, and will they prove better or worse than what was there before.
don't we all have to ask that question now??
there is no hidden agenda. nothing that wishes to elicit how much better the europeans were or are.
there is a strong acknowledgment onmy part that it is good that european hegemony not go unchallenged.
however, however, this is perhaps my strongest concern: the chinese are completely given to the powerplay of globalization where economic strategies trump any other concern. this is true of all the dominant corporations of our day, global north or global east, and they are so ruthless, at home and abroad, that they are willing to see humankind choke on their fumes, and see their workers destroyed, in order to realize a profit. it makes no sense to tell me how bad the americans or europeans are, when ignoring china's role in globalization and what it is they are bringing to africa.
i really don't know whether what they are bringing will turn to something we will all celebrate. i hope in the long run it will. i fear that once the oil in sudan is gone, the chinese spring will have turned to winter, and nothing good will have come of it. meanwhile, we have a nice road in mauretania. so what? there are nice narrow gauge tracks of the german rails in yaounde. a memory of what?
ken
On 9/9/11 8:23 AM, Cornelius Hamelberg wrote:
Stockholm, 9-9-2011 Dear Kenneth, You planned to get away with this? You won't. Here's some resistance from yours truly : me: it's me, simple simon it's not propaganda, this legally mindless ramble is concocted for anybody's attention : it's just some more questions to add to yours. Therefore although no one should be compelled to wade through all this bull you may , if you like Be patient to the last! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiokJfXQBsQ&feature=related and no one wants to compare what was once the feudal system in china, with the white man's extermination of the native americans and their buffalo or the institution of american slavery and the enslavement of africans, or barack obama notwithstanding, the survival of racism which is nothing to write back home to africa about or to boast about. or what happened to lumumba or nkrumah and and a few others ... and no one has won the mo ibrahim prize for a few years now., not even colonel gaddafi the emperor of all africa with himself as the first person. makes you wonder, if gaddafi is the king of kings of africa, then who is the queen? could ken harrow himself or some other man of knowledge please tell us that? seems that after the demise of the iron curtain and after the everlasting war on terror the next big problem looming large for america and the West is 1.5 billion chinese in africa …..more of a western problem than an African problem.... for some , this too is a problem on african soil : africom http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&sugexp=gsis%2Ci18n%3Dtrue&cp=6&gs_id=i&xhr=t&q=AFRICOm&pf=p&sclient=psy&site=&source=hp&pbx=1&oq=AFRICO&aq=0&aqi=g5&aql=&gs_sm=&gs_upl=&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=57ec33848115ad35&biw=1024&bih=603 on the other hand china's military has been given free hands to operate in africa as an independent business/ trading partner and a fixer of deals but back to your problem you saw with your own eyes, so you thought that you could intimidate me into silence or better still compliance with your views by merely saying " i was hoping some with expertise in this field--about which i am ignorant--would have something to contribute to our knowledge "? ha ha someone who knows ( who be dat?) will tell you and then you/ we will all keep quiet? nice try, but no cigar. China respects the arms embargo on Libya. what more do you want ? That Chinese planes take part in maintaining the No-Fly zone ? That China should join NATO? Here's another brother, other ideas: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2mQ5vRJe_k You ( Ken Harrow) do not represent Western Imperialism and you are not going to go down on your knees and apologise for it either. Nor is Barack Obama going to be the American President who will be the first one to sob and apologise for American slavery. Let the White man do it. But Brother Barack should push the reparations button when he comes back for the second term, so that the Afrikanists can join the Hallel choir. You are of course fully aware that you are making all these points that you have made, in an African not a Chinese forum. You ( Professor Ken Harrow) if you were busy spreading English Language influence in China ( and getting paid for it too) I doubt very much whether you would have the liver to have been saying some of the things that you've said so far in the relative safety First Amendment to the American Constitution. Not that you are now in protective custody or that you are bound and your mouth is now muzzled like Bobby Seale's during the Chicago Conspiracy Trial: http://www.richsamuels.com/nbcmm/chicago_conspiracy_trial/images/bobby_seale_bound.jpg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjmwsIzakaY But really some of the things you've said so far, such as the American holier-than-thou " having seen the great brotherly b.s. of chinese 3d worldism in cameroon in the 70s, the chinese maybe the most racist of any foreigners on the continent at that time... ok, now it's different; they are richer. but also, from what we have seen in senegal, again almost completely indifferent to african culture, indifferent to learning african languages, being with african people, unless those are people working for them. there for the money, short term pain, long term profits what is there to love? " I should like to make the following observations: It seems that first you want "others on the list give us something to hang onto, to have hope for a positive result? i mean from personal experience, not more propaganda " Then you improve on that. You now want, not mere personal experience but someone/s " with expertise in this field...to contribute to our knowledge " There's all kind of expertise. This one for example: http://www.google.co.uk/#sclient=psy&hl=en&source=hp&q=+Walter+Rodney+:How+Europe+underdeveloped+Africa&pbx=1&oq=+Walter+Rodney+:How+Europe+underdeveloped+Africa&aq=f&aqi=g2g-v3&aql=&gs_sm=s&gs_upl=3303l3303l0l5733l1l1l0l0l0l0l195l195l0.1l1l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=57ec33848115ad35&biw=1024&bih=603 I should like to make these points: 1.First of all, everybody is in Africa or outside of Africa off the coast of Mogadishu and the Guinea Coast sweeping away with their trawlers creaming off all the fish. US would ( if they could) like to supply all of Africa's needs , supply all the technology (good business......cell phones for the continent …..and so would China …. 2.China is not the United States of America and Africa is not the plantation. Whatever economic statistics IMF expertise could evaluate/ interpret/ manipulate / reel out, shout about the balance in trade and services between China and Africa (or indeed through the ages the relationship between the slave trading imperialist, colonial and neo-colonial West and Africa ) at the end of the day we will get back to the ideological and it's about freedom of choice, the freedom of Africa to choose her best friends in Africa's own interest, even if the West loves Africa's people and China and have their interests at heart more than Africa and China love themselves and each other. Is China killing people in Africa? It's as if one of the things you are saying is " it's not good competition it's bad for american business and it's not fair that china is winning because the more china does and has done for africa in africa, the less america has done for africa in africa". The other thing you are saying is that on her own Africa can't resist what China's offering Looking at the whole (composite) picture , China- Africa is a part and China- Europe is another part as is China USA etc....just today the big news in Sweden - an economic commentary I read this morning is that China / a Chinese company is waiting for SAAB to declare bankruptcy before taking it over so that they won't have to pay SAAB's debts. Understandably, it's not a charity organisation that is going to take SAAB over. You say : to be or not to be "how are we to assess what china, the china of today, can bring to africa, that is my question. " So, what do you think about the Arab Development Bank? http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&sugexp=gsis%2Ci18n%3Dtrue&cp=21&gs_id=3&xhr=t&q=Arab+Development+Bank&pf=p&sclient=psy&site=&source=hp&pbx=1&oq= I see, China doing something for Africa (building all those roads, railways, houses, hospitals, schools that the US and Europe have not built in Africa, setting up all those farms and teaching all that rice cultivation expertise etc. etc.) hopefully they will soon be training hundreds of thousands of medical doctors, engineers, technologists, science teachers. All that is better than doing nothing, better than that state of Nirvana which equates with doing nothing whether the nothing is done by the USA or Venezuela. http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&sugexp=gsis%2Ci18n%3Dtrue&cp=32&gs_id=3&xhr=t&q=Biggest+arms+suppliers+to+Africa&pf=p&sclient=psy&site=&source=hp&pbx=1&oq=Biggest >From personal experience I'll give you a little example please make a psychological note of this : After Sierra Leone independence in 1961 Chinese farmers taught our farmers how to get two rice harvests from banks of the Great and Little Scarcies Rivers. The great farmers of the United Sates came with the bigger and better attitude which is so much loved in Africa; they came along in their Willis Jeeps and drinking water flown in from Florida and lived in prefabricated houses. Our farmers then deserted the China experiment - they said, " Look at the Chinese - they live like us in tents " They preferred the Gringos and their prefabs to two harvest a year. Today a few families from China are teaching and doing rice cultivation in Sierra Leone ...they are helping to feed the Sierra nation.... http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&sugexp=gsis%2Ci18n%3Dtrue&cp=38&gs_id=3&xhr=t&q=The+good+work+China+is+doing+in+Africa&pf=p&sclient=psy&site=&source=hp&pbx=1&oq= >From experience too, 1964 in Sierra Leone, a Chinese fisherman gave me a piece of bread which I threw away (have subsequently learnt from the Talmud, that it is forbidden to throw away 70 grams of bread) . When I threw the bread a way, he took my toes with his toes, and squeezed them . He was a little angry.....) I'm happy to observe that at least you've toned down the rather racist terms on which your arguments (in the post before this ) was originally founded : You now say that "anyone who cares about african literature and cinema, my fields, and who lived in francophone countries, is well aware that much work was done by the ex-colonizer to support and promote african culture. that is still the case, as anyone who has passed through the french cultural center in downtown dakar can attest." You left out all that Western missionary activity, but no matter, through colonisation the French & English- speaking world have had a head start , veer since Robinson Cruse taught his Man Friday, as Defoe tells us "But to return to my new companion. I was greatly delighted with him, and made it my business to teach him everything that was proper to make him useful, handy, and helpful; but especially to make him speak, and understand me when I spoke; and he was the aptest scholar there ever was." And you and Michael Crowder know better than anybody that in pre- independence Senegal the assimilé policy was a successful brainwashing colonial experiment and that the mostly Wolof-speaking Senegalese people studied history books which informed them that their ancestors were Gauls. There are probably no Lamentations about this, on your part. Thankfully the Chinese have not yet set up colonial schools to indoctrinate Africans that their ancestors all came from Mainland China http://www.google.co.uk/#sclient=psy&hl=en&site=&source=hp&q=FRancophone+assimilation+policy&pbx=1&oq= The present state of affairs would be consistent with China's policy of non-interference in the internal affairs ( in contrast with Ken Harrow's policy of interference in African cultures and politics) I assume that you are no doubt looking forward to China setting up language schools with the aim that everybody should speak Chinese ( I know a number of Swedes who already do so fluently) and, since Rome wasn't built in a day, so let us pray and in time China could be promoting or infiltrating African Culture and you will see Chinese cultural centres in down town Dakar....but hopefully there will never be a " cringe or starve" Chinese policy - a " you do exactly what I say or yu is gonna get no-thing..." I should also like an expert ( preferably a Chinese expert ) to compare China's role in Africa with Gaddafi's role in Africa...... ( apart from Gaddafi re-exporting some of the weapons he has bought with the Libyan people's oil money... Hopefully, we are not witnessing America's decline - that presidential Brother Barack Obama can lay $300 billion to solve unemployment is evidence of a nation on a way up and up....and we don't want to see the decline that is rumoured and feared and eagerly looked forward to by the Muslims who believe in Toynbee that once some empires collapse they never resurrect. They keep ion telling me that USA shall go down twice and that will be USA's final end and the rise again of al Islam as a world power - the world power...... "the longer term investments are crucial for this debate ". You echo David Cameron who believes that China's rapid progress is not sustainable in the long time and perhaps that that means that it will one day be back to the British Empire? Finally, Africa could do with a large dose of the Confucian philosophy / protestant ethic.....the work ethic.... It's 14.20 I have to leave now and would not have read this over. I apologise for all my mis-takes. Bon Vent : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpNIK8kjOsQ Have a nice weekend, Cornelius On Sep 8, 4:06 pm, kenneth harrow <har...@msu.edu> wrote:dear cornelius how are we to assess what china, the china of today, can bring to africa, that is my question. on one point, made earlier on this list, i quite agree. when europe had its way with africa, without the competition of china, the affects of the past 60 years reflect largely exploitation and negative cultural domination. largely, but not entirely. anyone who cares about african literature and cinema, my fields, and who lived in francophone countries, is well aware that much work was done by the ex-colonizer to support and promote african culture. that is still the case, as anyone who has passed through the french cultural center in downtown dakar can attest. but the larger economic and political roles have been generally to europe's advantage and africa's disadvantage. that is why the u.s. and europe are so negative about china's entry into africa--it represents real competition. i agree that that alone denotes a positive role for china. but that isn't enough. we need to see the cost-benefit sheet; the prices paid for china's support of repressive regimes; the economic relationships and how africans are benefiting from the chinese deals. those deals will not be any prettier by our considering confucionism, probably the world's most boring religion (yes, i did study it as a student, along with other world religions, with houston smith at mit.) i see negative interventions in places like the great lakes basin. but the longer term investments are crucial for this debate, and the terms of the sale of african minerals have to be known if we are to believe chinese business is good for africa. i was hoping some with expertise in this field--about which i am ignorant--would have something to contribute to our knowledge ken On 9/8/11 9:09 AM, Cornelius Hamelberg wrote:Dear Kenneth,But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; and I am treading softly.Yes, it does make sense to review the past. As Professor Paul Eidelberg says, When I visited China, I learned that the Chinese word for China means "center of the universe."Now, you can't say of today's China, Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold etc. etc.Whilst not reviling any of China's past ( Professor Eidelberg doesn't talk about it ( China's past) in the article I am referring to and can't find at the moment ) but he does however show a lot of animosity towards China for China being the only nation emerging in today's world, with the potential of making even greater strides in the coming decades if not centuries, to challenge Western dominance in the near future. That's real not just potential fear.Once upon a time in this world my best friend was was a gentleman by the name Dr. Michael Tunkel, a Lithuanian Jew (of Lithuanian parents) who was born and bred in Harbin, China which he left in 1950 at the age of 34 - after Mao& the Communists took over as a result of which they lost their business and he emigrated to Israel. He emigrated to Sweden in 1983 and I met him in 1995. from which point on until about nine months before he passed away at the age of 92, I saw him at least two to three times a week. He taught me a lot. He played Chinese piano. He said that unlike us normal mortals, the Chinese people have a sixth sense in their hands ,greater dexterity of the hand - a more developed tactile sense... He was a great admirer of Mao and the Chinese people with special emphasis on the fact that Mao united China. He was also a devoted hardliner fan of Vladimir Jabotinsky.I'm talking about the China that produced Confucius and Li Po, the same China that the United States owes four trillion dollars.We are talking about the same China, the same continuum, many epochs of development, a strong foundation, the more recent China of which Gavin Menzies, wrote these two books:"1421 The Year China Discovered the World"1434: The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance.The China of which one of my English teachers in secondary school, Major A.T. Von S. Bradshaw ( an Englishman ) used to spend the first few minutes of every English Literature lesson lecturing us about and telling us believe it or not , this was around 1962 that the future belongs to China!Now of course we are talking about the Great China in the same breath that we are talking about Christopher Columbus' discovery of America in 1492, the same year that the Jews suffered the Inquisition and all those who refused to convert to Isabella's religion were expelled from Spain and many found refuge in Turkey and what is now the latest greatest newcomer, to the world stage, the United States.You are the one raking up not a glorious past, but one riddled with Chinese ills.I do have Chinese friends and relatives here and friendship is something especially of great value to a person from China, something to be cultivated, so I had better pay much more attention to them.....I think that the people relationships also have to be developed , not just between Israel and the Arabs...On Sep 8, 4:45 am, kenneth harrow<har...@msu.edu> wrote:dear cornelius i wonder if it makes much sense to go back to the past to evaluate where a country is now. think of japan just 70 years ago, compared with now? and which china, in the past, are we to celebrate? the ming dynasty, the long long feudal periods, the rise of chang kai shek and incipient modernism, the communist revolution, the american collusion and mao's great march, the cultural revolution, the great leap forward, and the repression, the backward anti-intellectualism that killed a generation of artists and thinkers, or what, the globalization pragmatists, with their soft repressive authoritarian state now? is there anything left for us to embrace? where is the china we want to love and celebrate in this? now??? and as for myself, having seen the great brotherly b.s. of chinese 3d worldism in cameroon in the 70s, the chinese maybe the most racist of any foreigners on the continent at that time... ok, now it's different; they are richer. but also, from what we have seen in senegal, again almost completely indifferent to african culture, indifferent to learning african languages, being with african people, unless those are people working for them. there for the money, short term pain, long term profits what is there to love? i really wonder what others experience of the chinese on the continent in our times has been. can others on the list give us something to hang onto, to have hope for a positive result? i mean from personal experience, not more propaganda kenOn 9/7/11 4:34 PM, Cornelius Hamelberg wrote:Dear Ken, Thanks for the details. Hopefully the Chinese weapons if they ever arrive on Libyan soil will be delivered unto the hands of the NTC and stay with them and not be passed on and find their way into the hands of eager terrorists ,be they affiliates of Palestinian Jihadists, al- Qaeda or the ambitious elements cloaked as Boko Haram. About your concerns about China's future in Africa/Africa's future in China I'm afraid that what you'll get from some of the powerless AfriKanists of the Gaddafi's hue is more toothless ideology (mostly theoretical building of castles in the air about e.g. The Constitution of the United States of Africa which they say will be implemented , latest 2017) ) and about liking China more than America which has given them everything, because China turns a blind eye on Human Rights Transgressions being committed by many of the African leaders with whom they do business whereas the US and the best of the West at least would like respect for human rights as a condition for doing business or giving development aid. The Chinese civilisation has been around for a very long time and the Chinese are said to be thinking and planning for the next five hundred years. Like, Well, I don t know, but I ve been told The streets in heaven are lined with gold I ask you how things could get much worse If the Russians happen to get up there first Wowee! pretty scary! For some people, the idea of China/ the Chinese taking over in Africa within 150 years of the Berlin Conference, that too is pretty scary, especially since the Chinese have the advantage in the eyes of all those who look at the past and chime, The Chinese never colonised us ; China doe not have that back-load, so today the Chinese don't use big grammar - they can speak the same Broken Palm Wine Drinkard metaphorical English as Amos Tutuola : all the Chinaman has to do is to take Mugabe by the left or right arm , hook up with him arm in arm and ask him this question : We make friendship? - we make friendship and we do business and the deal is done. Indeed, Chinese weapons could be very big business in Africa. This news flashed from the Tripoli to the cape and I' sure that it must have resonated a worrisome chord in you too: David Cameron warns Africa about China: http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=sv&sugexp=gsis%2Ci18n%3Dtrue&cp=38&gs_id=... Stretching my imagination a little further ahead and should China want to take it all....I suppose that Africom could come in useful if the West and China will be battling it out on mainland Africa in the not too distant future not for the souls ( Human Rights) but mostly for gold in Ghana and South Africa and it will not be an ideological or religious battle. he comes for your gold, watch out for your soul. : http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Rock-%27N%27-Roll-Is-Music-Now... The war mongers among the AfricKanists who want a unified African continental army of their own mostly speak English and have still not got around to adding Chinese to their secret language repertoire.....who knows, one day every Chinese will be a professor of English - but not every colonial subject is yet ambitious to be a professor of Chinese hieroglyphics yes, but not Chinese to write competent linguistic analyses, not even those who would like to be somewhere in the chain along the Chinese military chain of command at a time that they could want to be fighting side by side with China for possession / mastership of their own homelands http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQXqgk_GPxc Others are a little more cautious and say, Better the devil you know than the devil you don't know... Me? No more hide and speak, I'm going to get that Skype; I'll continue to be me but like Leonard Cohen, I'm staying home tonight http://www.google.com/search?q=Leonard+Cohen%2C+Democracy&ie=utf-8&oe... On Sep 7, 4:49 pm, kenneth harrow<har...@msu.edu> wrote:dear cornelius just reading the bloomberg account of this issue, on the site you provided. it does make it seem that private companies in china made deals; it isn't clear if they were carried out, or if a variant of the deal was consummated by the flow of chinese arms previously stocked in algeria. further, the ntc alluded to weapons used against them that they thought were chinese. it seems to me that if the chinese govt says they are now going to make sure that arms are not shipped without their approval they are conceding that this might have occurred beforehand. the globe and mail reporter, whom i heard discuss this on the radio, alluded to papers he saw that indicated a deal had been struck. if that is true, it seems less relevant whether they were able to actually ship them over in time to meet their contract. this is part of our larger question, still a question open for discussion, of the role of china in africa. i hear pros and cons, and remain interested in knowing ultimately whether this will benefit african states or not. china built a great road in mauretania. what did they get in exchange? who will benefit from it? i want concrete answers to concrete questions, not ideological posing, in this debate. i am truly curious about what the chinese money means for africa. ken On 9/7/11 9:40 AM, Cornelius Hamelberg wrote:There's no good reason for this drawn out debate about whether or not China has recently been selling arms to Gaddafi when China has made it clear that they have not. First of all we must make a distinction between private firms and the government of China which in the end is the authority that grants or denies permission to do business - even a potentially lucrative business possibility such as taking over Sweden's SAAB - not to mention a major foreign policy affair such as selling arms to Gaddafi in the middle of an arms embargo against Gaddafi which they themselves supported when the UN voted. What actually happened is that in desperation some of Gaddafi's big guns went over to China and tried to make some arms deals there with the firms that they contacted, and they did not succeed . The media is replete with these denials and explanations about what actually happened : Gaddafi's unsuccessful attempts to buy more weapons: http://www.google.com/search?q=China+%3A+we+did+not+sell+arms+to+Gadd... There are a number of other issues here that have been erroneously reported along with spurious claims that will be vengaged most vigorously if those erroneous reports persist On Sep 7, 10:35 am, Olayinka Agbetuyi<yagbet...@hotmail.com> wrote:Thanks for the clarifications on the specific issue of voting on the arms embargo, but the jury is still out on the veracity of its violations by China. Whichever way that eventually unravels, my point is that Gaddafis and Chinese models of governance (given the American issues with human rights violations in the latter) should leave no one in surprise if the latter goes to any length to prop up the erstwhile regime in Tripoli. This was my connection with the proxy wars. We know how much surreptitious support the French gave the Continentals in the American War of Independence from England even though a large section of American historigraphy represented that as the sole victory of the colonies against England. Olayinka Agbetuyi Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2011 19:02:57 -0400 From: har...@msu.edu To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - chinese arms for ghaddafi china voted to accept the arms embargo which it itself violated ken On 9/6/11 7:00 AM, Olayinka Agbetuyi wrote: Ken: Having read some of Abdul Bangura's opinions and the view of Friedman in the article supplied by Cornelius Hamelberg I do not know whether the comparison between China and Walcotts poem is entirely...read more-- kenneth w. harrow professor of english michigan state university department of english east lansing, mi 48824-1036 ph. 517 803 8839 har...@msu.edu
-- 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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