An Argentinisation of Tanzania?

From colonial resource exploitation to the negative impact of rampaging neo-liberalism, Africa has always followed behind the experience of Latin America. With general elections due to take place in late October in Tanzania, Issa Shivji asks why the candidates aren’t talking about how the country is going to avoid recent Latin American experiences with the Washington Consensus?

Latin America in the third world is a good barometer of what follows and what to expect in Africa, particularly in relation to economic policies. Being in the backyard of a superpower, Latin America’s experience tends to be more severe and so is the anti-imperial resistance of its people. The experience of imperialist-generated military coups that we had in Africa during the first two decades of independence was preceded by a similar wave of militarism in Latin America. US-supported Mobutus and UK-Israel supported Idi Amins, were pale shadows of the suppression, torture, and disappearances of the CIA-installed Pinochets.

The pillage of the resources of the DRC, the former Congo-Zaire, is a mirror image of the century old pillage of the timber, oil, mineral and other natural resources of Latin America by imperialism. Now that imperial powers have turned their attention to the African oil in West Africa, Sudan and possibly the Eastern seaboard, we may well be on the way to repeat that tragic episode in Latin American history. God forbid.

In Africa, our leaders tend to cower before our imperial paymasters. Somehow we seem to be so impervious to lessons of history, both our own and others’, that we tragically repeat it. Important substitution industrialization was tried out in Latin America long before we experimented with it. It failed. Yet we didn’t learn from Latin America’s failure. The free market and privatisation policies worked out by the IMF, the World Bank and US Treasury called the “Washington consensus” has been on in Latin America for some time now. The policy prescriptions of the IFIs (International Financial Institutions) for Africa were virtually carbon-copies of those imposed in Latin America.

I once downloaded some of the IFI-generated policy papers for Argentina and found that they were so similar to those for Tanzania; you only had to change the country name and currency denomination!

Argentina became the star of the Washington consensus. The IMF held it up as a showpiece. Water, electricity, telecommunications, gas, post office, the national airline and many other state companies were cut up and sold off within years. Foreign investment flowed in at the rate of US$800 million a month. The GDP grew by 10 per cent. Ten years into the reforms, Menem, once a populist president of Argentina, now wholly taken in by the “Washington Consensus”, went to the US declaring that his country had pulled off an economic miracle: hyperinflation had been brought under control, corruption was reduced and everybody was happy. The Argentinian middle class deposited their pesos in dollar accounts, thanks to easy convertibility.

Then came the great crash in 2001 as banks could no longer honour deposits and billions of dollars flowed out at a faster rate than they had flowed in. Within 5 days in July (2002) alone, 2.6 billion dollars left the country. By 2002 the GDP had fallen by 21 per cent, a performance similar to the depression years of the 1930s. Even middle class professionals, including engineers and bankers and white collar workers found themselves with begging bowls in the street. Some attempted to commit suicide while, once passive, society-women were out demonstrating in the streets banging their fancy, but empty, pots and pans. Governments changed every week. The ‘Washington’ baby collapsed like a pack of cards. Argentina threatened to default on its $141 billion foreign debt. The IMF pumped in more billions which came through the door and left through the window in the form of capital flight and debt servicing.

The rise and fall of the neo-liberal experiment in Argentina, which reduced a once prosperous country to economic ruins, thanks to the “Washington consensus”, made a great impression on the South American continent. A wave of backlash against the free market and privatisation set in. Left presidents have been elected in a number of countries through popular vote, the best example of which is Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. The American-backed attempt to overthrow him did not survive. He was out of the state house for two days but was literally reinstalled by massive demonstrations of the poor – the “wretched of the earth” - from the slums of Caracas. But the rich and middle classes did not give up. The imperialist media kept instigating and middle class opposition was mobilized to call for a referendum to overthrow Chavez. In August 2004, Richard Gott reported:

“To the dismay of opposition groups in Venezuela, and to the surprise of international observers gathering in Caracas, President Hugo Chavez is about to secure a stunning victory on August 15, in a referendum designed to lead to his overthrow. First elected in 1998 as a barely known colonel, armed with little more than revolutionary rhetoric and a moderate social-democratic programme, Chavez has become the leader of the emerging opposition in Latin America to the neo-liberal hegemony of the United States.”

In a recent speech Chavez finally declared.

"I am convinced, at this stage of my life - I am now 50 years old - after six years as a president, after nearly 30 years of political struggle, since 1997, when I had the idea of taking an oath from a small group of fellow countrymen, soldiers, to create the first nucleus - there were only about 5 of us then - of what later became the MBR-200 [Bolivarian Revolutionary Movement 200] ... after many readings, debates, discussions and many travels around the world, etc., I am convinced, and I think that this conviction will be for the rest of my life, that the path to a new, better and possible world, is not capitalism, the path is socialism, that is the path: socialism, socialism…Capitalism leads us straight to hell.”

The experiences of Latin America are passing us by in Africa. Our intellectuals and leaders continue swearing by the “Washington consensus” whereas we should be learning from history.

In this election year, we should be taking stock of the last twenty, particularly the last ten, years of neo-liberal reforms. In taking stock we should not only critically examine our own experience but also the experience of other continents which have gone through a very similar process. Regrettably none of this is happening. The so-called free media does not even report of such experiences like Argentina. Instead, editorial writers are busy positioning themselves to curry favours from the establishment. Some of them are more establishment-minded then the establishment itself.

Our aspirants for “serving the people” , for that is the cliché politicians use during the election season, are talking little of ‘service’ or ‘people’, and more about preserving “the good” done by the third phase government. But why don’t we also learn from the bad of the first, the second and the third phase and, indeed, from the effects of the global hegemony of neo-liberalism elsewhere?

Aren’t Argentina and Venezuela relevant to our people? Shouldn’t our aspirants be telling us what they have learnt from those experiences and how do they propose to avoid the Argentinisation of Tanzania?

© Issa Shivji. Shivji is Professor of Law at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

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