USA Africa Dialogue Series - A slap in the face of Euro- SAP by the Greeks

In the 1980s, the belt-tightening, stringent monetarist program called SAP was deployed on
various African countries. Many of us felt that the policy should have been rejected outright.

Students marched, journalists wrote articels, cartoonists sketched their views and
artists their depictions. Academics wrote books, websites were created and all activists hoped
that the message and their voices would be heard. The basic point propounded was this:

Stringent, onerous austerity programs do not create wealth. They are only great for the bankers and
lenders and are anti-people. They do not create employment but provoke endless lay -offs and
the medicine usually kills the patient.

Indeed these 'progroms' hurt African countries in the 80s and 90s and some argue
that the ebola crisis of today in G,S & L was facilitated, in some ways, by health systems compromised by
war and SAPs.

Well although the model deployed on Greece was not as utterly severe as the one
imposed on Africa and the Caribbean, it was still a nightmare for the population.

This week the Greeks took their future into their hands and rejected the onerous
package. The electoral victory of Syriza gave the new government a mandate to
reject the monetarist package and poisonous brew that the Troika (ECB, IMF and EC)
had deployed.

Congrats to Syriza and the Greeks for challenging the monetarist orthodoxy.





Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department
CCSU. New Britain. CT 06050
africahistory.net
vimeo.com/user5946750/videos
Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries on
Africa and the African Diaspora

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