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

Structural catalysts and constraints are important, but I insist that in many local or localized struggles, these global structural realities are of little consequence. Look, guys, these African leaders are ahead of us: they are adept as using these structural realities as alibi for their incompetence and greed and for improving their personal economic and political fortunes at the expense of their citizens. In my opinion, it is therefore a little escapist to continue to chase after the distant unseen forces of the global capitalist order and to psuh fantastically for elusive and Utopian egalitarian ideals in the spirit of an anti-capitalist International while local actors in Africa and elsewhere wreak havoc on their citizens. Even more unacceptable is to pursue this revolution-on-a-world-scale ideal while looking beyond the evils of our proximate leaders who are clearly culpable for blaming every failure of theirs on the evil, menacing global capitalist hegemony even while colluding with the same hegemony to bilk and brutalize their citizens. And, Ken, please don't get us started on socialism. The track record is as depressing as that of "unrestrained capitalism." It's not really about ideology but the ABUSE of it. Socialism was abused by rapacious and incompetent rulers to entrench and manufacture misery and inequality and to engender political crisis and fissures in several African domains. Just as capitalism and its associated accumulative tendencies are being serially abused by African leaders today to spread misery and stoke crisis. So, you see, it still comes back to leadership and LOCAL institutions. We need a critical mass of leaders and elites who will resolve to do what is right and to govern or formulate policies selflessly. I agree that this would not magically cure all of our ills and that the fundamental global capitalist relations impose restrictions on what ultimately can be done. But there is ample room for maneuver and for self-interested, people-oriented action. It takes a good, selfless leadership to take advantage of these narrow interstices.

On Fri, Dec 17, 2010 at 8:10 AM, kenneth harrow <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:

kwame
here is another example of where it isn't simply leadership, or individuals, but systems that drive the situation. consider russia: the minute it passed from a state controlled economy to a free market there was a rush to accumulate capital by any means, with horrible scenes of impoverished pensioners, of gross billionaires, of unreal criminality extending its benefits from the property on the riviera to the banks of brooklyn. and then the undemocratic strong arm, the imprisonment of opposition politicians, the mysterious assassination of journalists, the human rights abuses, and on and on. sound familiar?
same people, same history, same same, but new face of russia instantiated by unrestrained capitalism.
when i use the work socialism, it is not for nostalgia. or if it is, it is nostalgia for a just social order, based on principles that oppose everything the results in the above conditions. the free market is a recipe for an oppressive society, and we need to work for something better.
ken

On 12/16/10 9:42 PM, kwame zulu shabazz wrote:

Peace All,

Kenneth, that is great sketch of economic domination by remote
control. I am African American. My African comrades and I go back and
forth on this frequently. Whereas I tend to favor structural
explanations, many of my African comrades tend to point to what is, in
their view, corrupt African leadership. As you rightly note, all
factors must be placed on the table. That said, brother Moses didn't
dismiss structure outright. He acknowledges that its a "culprit," but
a "more distant" culprit.

That brings up a related issue that I wanted to toss out. I think we
still have a poor grasp as to _how_ structural factors shape or
influence human action. Which is not exactly the same as understanding
how a given structure works or functions (your sketch, for example).
And because we don't fully understand how structure constricts and
induces action, we tend to conceptualize structure, spatially, as
"distant." Last, I wanted to note that structural arguments push
against our commonsensical ideas of self-actualizing autonomous human
beings--that are actions are fully voluntary and self-actuated. So-
called "free will" or what liberal academics call "agency." kzs

On Dec 15, 6:10 pm, kenneth harrow<har...@msu.edu>  wrote:

moses
while i agree largely with your careful reasoning, there is one point
where i stopped. see it below.
ok, you are a farmer: you are growing a crop that was introduced to your
region during the colonial period. call it, oh, cotton. why not.
the u.s. subsidizes cotton, thus enabling it to undersell mali. even in
the poorest and most dispossessed region, cotton is affected since the
malians cannot put up protective tariffs thanks to the stupid neoliberal
rules that govern the imf.  and just in case we forgot, european
subsidies exceed, in percentage, u.s. subsidies, and both the eu and usa
are excempt from imf rules against erecting tariffs.
you live, let us say, in e congo where tin is mined. tin goes out, guns
go in, militias, uganda elites, rwandan generals, all get rich
  you live, where? in senegal where those trawlers have harvested all
the damn fish in the ocean, driving thousands to take piroques north,
endangering themselves and drowning, only to get to a xenophobic europe
ready to lynch them en mass, especially in italy which is ruled by a
rightwing maniac.
should i go on? where is that corner, moses, where this economic order
does not matter??
please. i know the leadership works hand in glove with the corporations
that buy the diamonds, with the gun runners that sell the armaments. i
know the chinese stepped into s sudan oil fields when the westerners
moved out. please, where is this remote untouched corner?
i know, it is in the sahara. wait, what is africom surveilling? why are
they expending millions to expend rule over mauretania, why did the
chinese build a superhighway in mauretania. oh, oil. need i go on.
the order that is decimating africa reaches from elite to elite, and the
rest of us, trawled up by those inhumane monsters, are left to cheer on
bono.
we have to recognize ALL these forces if we are to establish a coherent
policy for change. i would very very willingly start with the bottom up
that you evoke, the subalterns that reach in peculiar ways across
countries. all countries, integrated now more than ever into mechanisms
of exploitation of resources and labor.
ken

On 12/15/10 11:53 AM, Moses Ebe Ochonu wrote:

it is my view that for most peoples of the South and the North who are
poor and dispossessed, the global neoliberal order is a more distant
culprit in their predicament than are their proximate leaders and
political actors.

--
kenneth w. harrow
distinguished professor of english
michigan state university
ph. 517 803 8839
har...@msu.edu

--
kenneth w. harrow
distinguished professor of english
michigan state university
ph. 517 803 8839

harrow@msu.edu

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