Let's grow our own way

It is true that the issues being negotiated in the EPAs are complex and many of us do not understand them but that is no reason for any African government to exclude its own citizens from the discussion. Lest we forget, the struggle for independence was NOT too complicated for African peasants to understand, support and take part in. Only the Lancaster House Constitutional negotiations (or whatever their various equivalents were) were hi-jacked by the educated elites.

President Mkapa is right that it is shame on us for being recolonized twice but what baffles me is why we need an EPA in the first place given what neoliberal ideology says about free market. In a free market competition between Europe and China for Angolan and Nigerian oil, is it not the African producers that stand to benefit from higher prices and more respectable inducements? Does the same not apply to copper, coal or even organic tea and coffee?



Yash Tandon gives many reasons for not signing the EPAs in their current unequal form and lists preconditions for African RECs like SACU, SADC, ECOWAS or the EAC to consolidate and negotiate with Europe on an equal basis. But even with 100 per cent reciprocity and equality - why would Africa need EPAs with Europe? China has flooded African markets with all manner of manufactured goods - without the aid of EPAs. Indian firms run European steel industries and Zambian copper (for example) is mainly consumed in the Asian economies. Let’s face it: we were colonized by a young, dynamic Europe four hundred years ago, it would be a crime against humanity for an aging, de-industrialized and virtually bankrupt Europe to ride roughshod over Africa again. If we like being colonized then at least let us give the Chinese and Indians a chance to humiliate us also. 



When America offered African textile manufacturers preferential access to US markets through AGOA certain Asian firms relocated to Africa to take advantage of this. Why did African firms fail to take advantage of the opening? The answer is very complex but one main reason is that our leaders just do not know how it is done. So the problem is not with European neocolonialism or American imperialism but African rulers’ failure to make strategic plans. (Do you remember what happened to the Lagos Plan of Action?). 



Why for example should Kenyan agriculture be exporting flowers in the first place? Many African children are malnourished - should Kenya not be exporting the milk they poured down the drain recently to Sudan, Chad or Angola? Should Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire continue exporting raw cocoa beans instead of cocoa butter products and chocolates? 



Neither Europe nor America are as economically powerful as they were in the 1970s and Africa's slight recovery from the debt and poverty of the lost decades of the Lomé Convention has NOT been driven by EU aid or EPAs. Producing for local markets still works for Europe, America and Asia despite the joys of globalization so why is it that only Africa ignores local public opinion and continues to give preference to foreign tourists, foreign investors, foreign donors and foreign trade? Why should Southern African countries import dirty Middle Eastern oil (no offence meant the sulphur levels are high) instead of the cleaner Angolan crude? Rejecting the EPAs and consolidating the regional economic communities may well be the first step in Africa’s move towards regaining independence.