Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Why is Africa in such a mess?

Peace Ochonu--Basically you have built a bad model and then complained about the fact that model cant possible work. The "chain" is not linear. In fact chain strikes me as a bad metaphor. And causality is not the same as constraint. Positing that structures can constrain or influence human action--that for example, unemployment leads to an increase in certain sorts of crime--is not the same as saying that humans don't have agency. I would agree that some versions of "World System" are too deterministic but I don't think we can deny the fact that we live in a World System. The US govt. spends trillions of dollars per annum bending the "system" to the aims and objectives of white American elites--we call it the military industrial complex--it is as much propagandistic as it is militaristic. That is no conspiracy. It is well documented. 

Are (most) African leaders/elites selfish? Absolutely. However, that is a character trait of most leaders/elites. But if we crunch the numbers Africa's wealth is not in the hands of African elites. Rather, it is flowing West and East. If you lopped off every African leader tomorrow you will still have to deal with the "flow." That would basically be World War 3 because the hyper-developed western world will kill Africans for their resources if necessary (cf. Patrice Lumumba). Last, people can and do resist the "system" but you first have to acknowledge its presence and its influence. kzs

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