Henning Melber tackles the critical issues surrounding the EU-African summit.

Gone are the days of perpetuating historically entrenched interests and relations between “old Europe” and its in the meantime sovereign African colonies as unchallenged integral part of a global economic and political system in favour of the imperialist powers. The former hunting grounds for slaves fuelled European early capitalist development and pushed the continent ever since into structural dependency from a world market, which benefited others. Africa remained on the receiving end since then. But with increased competition for its natural resources, African economies emerge as a new attraction for a multiple range of potential partners, allowing the governments more choices than ever before.

The preparations for the EU-African Summit in Lisbon during December happen in the midst of what could be termed a new scramble for Africa’s resources. At a time when the US-American administration under the outgoing president Clinton enacted the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) to secure mainly its own interests through a new preferential trade scheme, the trade department at the EC headquarters in Brussels initiated negotiations for a re-arrangement of its relations with the ACP countries of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific through so-called Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). The declared aim was to enter an agreement meeting the demands for compatibility with the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The EPA negotiations have since then entered critical stages and should have been finalised by the end of this year. They provoke reluctance if not fierce resistance of many among the ACP countries, who feel that Brussels seeks to impose a one-sided trade regime in its own interests.

Meanwhile China as a new kid on the block expands aggressively into African markets and seeks access to the fossil energy resources and other minerals and metals it urgently needs to fuel its own further rapid industrialisation process. In a matter of time, India, Brazil and Russia (as well as a number of other actors such as Malaysia and Mexico) are likely to add further pressure to the scramble for limited markets and resources. It appears at times, that the criticism often raised these days in the West against China and other potentially emerging competitors is more so an indicator of an increasing fear for losing out on own interests than being motivated by a genuine concern for the African people.

The interests guiding decision-making in this new constellation are illustrated prominently by the discussion over Zimbabwe’s participation in the summit. The overwhelming majority of EU member states seem to be prepared to accept the presence of President Robert Mugabe in violation of the own sanctions decided earlier on. The main argument is the concern that his exclusion would result in a boycott of most African countries, weaken Europe’s status among African governments and thereby strengthen the Chinese influence further. More pragmatically, it is also maintained that using Mugabe’s presence for a discussion over the situation in Zimbabwe would allow the further pursuance of a negotiated solution. This could strengthen SADC’s mandate to Thabo Mbeki for seeking an acceptable exit option for the aging despot and a political solution to the ongoing crisis.

The new rivalry between external players strengthens at the same time the political bargaining role of African governments. In the presence of alternatives to the historically established exchange relations, their heads of state can easier agree on signs of solidarity among themselves, threatening to turn a back on Europe if it is not complying with their demands – such as the one to include the Zimbabwean despot in the list of invited guests.

The long lasting dependency syndrome, which characterised the North-South relations, is replaced by a feeling of having alternative choices at hand. While this expands the action radius of African governments, it has not necessarily a positive impact on improved governance. Quite the opposite: it might create new exit options for kleptocratic regimes to once again being able to literally get away with murder.

* Henning Melber is the Executive Director of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation in Uppsala.

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

This paper was presented to the Africa University Annual Conference on the 'Commemoration of the Legacy of Dag Hammarskjöld', held in Mutare, Zimbabwe, 24-26 September 2007. The author, Henning Melber, was prevented from participating in the event, since the Zimbabwean embassy had informed him a day before his departure from Sweden that the immigration authorities in Harare had turned down his visa application.

During a visit to India in early February 1956, Dag Hammarskjöld presented one of the very rare impromptu speeches of his career as second Secretary General to the United Nations (1953-61) when addressing the Indian Council of World Affairs. Prompted by a moving encounter with local culture performed in his honour earlier on, his mainly extemporaneous speech explored the dimensions of human universalism. A commonality beyond Western – or, indeed, any other culturally, religiously or geographically limited – ideology or conviction.

'It is no news to anybody, but we sense it in different degrees, that our world of today is more than ever before one world. The weakness of one is the weakness of all, and the strength of one – not the military strength, but the real strength, the economic and social strength, the happiness of people – is indirectly the strength of all. Through various developments which are familiar to all, world solidarity has, so to say, been forced upon us. This is no longer a choice of enlightened spirits; it is something which those whose temperament leads them in the direction of isolationism have also to accept.'

Isolationism is a phenomenon guided by a lack of reality, or by selective perceptions, found often by leaders and their followers. It is a universal feature, and not confined to any particular society or group. By no coincidence it was the British Lord Acton, who stated, within the society considered to be one of the cradles of the modern day political system called democracy, that power corrupts, and that absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Former liberation movements, who, after long and painful sacrifices by the oppressed people fighting against colonial occupation ultimately secured the fundamental right of self-determination and seized the legitimate political power based on popular vote, are not protected from these temptations. As a result of such 'limits to liberation', Zimbabwe is in the midst of an ongoing crisis. The 'political economy of decline' can hardly be ignored by anyone living in or having insights into the social and political realities. Even though Zimbabwe has frequently denied the freedom of movement and the freedom of expression to those seeking to form or to articulate a view on the ground; just as the apartheid settler colonial regimes of Rhodesia, South West Africa and South Africa had done during earlier (and definitely not so good old) days.

Notwithstanding such disturbing features of limiting the freedom of individuals, to which numerous (and much more serious) incidences against its own people over the years since the Gukurahundi of the mid-1980s in Matabeleland have alerted us, some maintain the impression that ‘business as usual’ exists (- and maybe it does?). There remain ‘professional denialists’, who continue to dismiss any such notion – even if the authorities of a state without any serious crisis of legitimacy could afford to allow visitors to enter their country freely. Zimbabwe’s ambassador to neighbouring Namibia (where an increasing number of Zimbabweans are seeking refuge and thereby testify to the ongoing crisis at home) stated in an interview to the state-owned daily newspaper as late as mid-September 2007 that, 'Zimbabwe […] is a peaceful paradise and politically stable since 1980'. Asked how the political situation in his country can be resolved, he answered: 'The question is misleading because it assumes that there is a political problem in Zimbabwe. This is not the case. There is no political situation in Zimbabwe.' According to most others, and in direct contradiction to the diplomat’s view, there clearly is.

These more critical views do not have to be a part of or closely affiliated to any of the organised political rival groupings contributing to a chronic state of protest, unrest and repression spiralling the country’s people further into misery and suffering. The sub-regional body, SADC, has officially acknowledged the need to mediate, with the goal to bring the decline to a halt and the country back on track towards a peaceful future in stability. The Communiqué of the Extraordinary Summit of the SADC Heads of State held, because of the Zimbabwe crisis, on 28-29 March 2007 in Dar-es-Salaam, however, provided a classic example of a dilemma, when it 'reaffirmed its solidarity with the Government and people of Zimbabwe'. In this case, obviously, one can hardly have it both ways.

It is fair to assume that Zimbabwe 'has posed fundamental questions about the extent to which SADC members can and should intervene in the internal affairs of other member countries for the sake of regional interests. […] SADC has been slow to respond to the crisis. It has failed to replicate the positive solidarity that SADCC members once levelled against apartheid South Africa.'

Notwithstanding the reservations provoked by the ongoing double-bind message by SADC as the sub-regional organisation as well as individual SADC member countries, the latest assessment of the International Crisis Group (ICG) concludes that the regionally negotiated solution would be the most feasible option for Zimbabwe:

'The next few months present a moment of truth. […] SADC and its member states have the capacity to reverse a downward spiral which increasingly threatens the region’s stability but they must be prepared to support the initiative they have begun and Mbeki’s mandate. This means using economic leverage, conditioning a recovery package on performance and making clear that if there is no cooperation they will not hesitate to call the initiative a failure and reject elections that are not a product of their mediation and do not comply with SADC’s own democratic standards.'

Such pro-active policy is a kind of interference, which corresponds with the new political realities and a common understanding as codified in the currently applicable documents guiding African continental politics. The Constitutive Act of the African Union (AU) deviated in a substantial paradigm from the fundamental principles of the earlier Organisation of African Unity (OAU).

The non-intervention into matters of member states had been a hitherto holy principle, on which the OAU based its continental policies. The AU constitution has replaced this by a clear notion of collective responsibilities, which under grave circumstances even justify joint intervention into the internal affairs of the member states. This new approach has already provided results by means of a visible implementation on several occasions.

Along similar lines and despite all critical analyses - justified with regard to the reluctant pursuance of the noble goals defined - The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and its African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) have created a corresponding new paradigmatic framework for good governance and the commitment by African states to comply with such defined standards. It could do no harm to measure those governments not volunteering to this screening exercise according to similar criteria and seek their application. Similarly, as suggested by SADC at its last ordinary summit in August 2007 in Lusaka, a few among the growing number of voluntarily retiring elder statesmen and former presidents might be a suitable task force to seek negotiations with an aging autocrat reluctant to give up power.

But seeking a lasting solution for Zimbabweans means more than entering into a negotiated compromise in terms of power sharing among segmented political elites representing different interests, while offering guaranteed protection for perpetrators if they comply with such controlled change. In an analytically remarkable Pastoral Letter released by the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops’ Conference on Holy Thursday of 2007, the internal, class-related roots of the current Zimbabwean crisis were highlighted:

'Black Zimbabweans today fight for the same basic rights they fought for during the liberation struggle. It is the same conflict between those who possess power and wealth in abundance, and those who do not; between those who are determined to maintain their privileges of power and wealth at any cost, even at the cost of bloodshed, and those who demand their democratic rights and a share in the fruits of independence; between those who continue to benefit from the present system of inequality and injustice, because it favours them and enables them to maintain an exceptionally high standard of living, and those who go to bed hungry at night and wake up in the morning to another day without work and without income; between those who only know the language of violence and intimidation, and those who feel they have nothing more to loose because their Constitutional rights have been abrogated and their votes rigged.'

This insight is of relevance not only for Zimbabwe. It is relevant for all societies marred by antagonistic forces culminating in extreme social disparities, where a privileged few feast at the expense of the marginalised majority. This includes (though is anything but confined to) the societies in (southern) Africa, who for both external as well as internal limiting factors have not managed to overcome the colonial legacy and its fundamentally unjust and discriminating social structures and corresponding mental dispositions.

This paper opened with a quote from a rather spontaneously motivated speech by Dag Hammarskjöld in 1956, documenting his firm belief in the unity of humankind and its shared values and norms. Much remains in this world, even half a century later, as a continuing challenge to enhance such understanding. A challenge, which clearly embraces the need to reduce the gross imbalances, which, in a very concrete and lasting material sense, prevent the full implementation of such universal ethical and moral norms to the benefit of most, if not all, in this world of the early 21st century.

But the lack of progress does not mean that Hammarskjöld’s words and visions were neither practical nor realistic. For him, the work of the United Nations should build on the commonality of humankind, its conduct and experience:

'With respect to the United Nations as a symbol of faith, it may […] be said that to every man it stands as a kind of "yes’ to the ability of man to form his own destiny, and form his own destiny so as to create a world where the dignity of man can come fully into its own.'

These words should continue to serve as an invitation to jointly turn all corners of this world into a better one to the benefit of the ordinary people. 'In such a world', the late Secretary General further clarified in no uncertain terms, 'it is impossible to maintain the status of "haves" and "have-nots", just as impossible as it has grown to be inside the nation state'. The challenge to turn his words into social and political realities remains on our agenda. It includes the southern African region in general, and, in particular, Zimbabwe.

Such a demand is by no means a Eurocentric fantasy of neocolonial or imperialist interventions, as so often claimed by those local elites under siege, simply because they are measured and judged against universal standards and values relating to fundamental and undivided human rights based principles and norms: the same principles and norms, they claimed to be fighting for, when fighting against settler-colonial minority regimes denying them those rights. The same rights they are now denying to so many among their 'liberated' people. The current necessity to take sides is by no means drawing a dividing line along race or the North-South axis, as relevant as such criteria for historically rooted privileges, identities and interests might generally be. Instead, such dismissals of human rights-related notions are nothing more than a smokescreen, a constructed escape route for those, who try to get away with cheating again the 'wretched of the earth'. As a pan-African human rights campaigner clarified:

'I have heard some people argue that the "enemies" of Africa now crying about human rights did not burden their conscience with such luxuries when benefiting from 400 years of industrial scale slavery, colonialism and brutal exploitation of Africa and its peoples. In other words, that ‘white farmers’ deserve some of their own medicine. Not only does such thinking reduce Africans to the moral bankruptcy of colonialists, it also fails to understand that it risks granting unlimited and indefinite power to Africa’s actual and imaginary liberators such that we may all end up being shackled by them. Africa’s liberation movements drew their moral strength from the fact that on the balance, they fought for social justice, human rights, equality and democracy – for all […].'

The 25-year old unemployed Harare woman Ndakaitei captured the sentiments after three chimurengas on behalf of a frustrated post-independent urban youth when she cried out: 'We desire a future that is not like the present!'

Notes and references

I owe this information (and the quotes) to the fascinating manuscript submitted by Manuel Fröhlich on ‘The Unknown Assignation’. Dag Hammarskjöld in the Papers of George Ivan Smith for forthcoming publication with the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation in its new Critical Currents occasional paper series. This will then – like many other publications - also be available on the Foundation’s web site:

Dag Hammarskjöld, ‘The United Nations – Its Ideology and Activities. Address before the Indian Council of World Affairs 3 February 1956’. In: Andrew W. Cordier/Wilder Foote (eds), Public Papers of the Secretaries-General of the United Nations. Volume II: Dag Hammarskjöld 1953-1956. New York and London 1972.

Henning Melber (ed.), Limits to Liberation in Southern Africa. The unfinished business of democratic consolidation. Cape Town: HSRC Press 2003.

Suzanne Dansereau/Mario Zamponi, Zimbabwe – The Political Economy of Decline. Uppsala: The Nordic Africa Institute 2005 (Discussion Paper; 27).

A recent volume included a variety of case studies from SADC countries ranging from better to worse practices with regard to state presidents (not) leaving office, including Botswana, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe; see Roger Southall/Henning Melber (eds), Legacies of Power. Leadership Change and Former Presidents in African Politics. Cape Town: HSRC Press and Uppsala: The Nordic Africa Institute 2006.

Rotimi Sankore, ‘Pan Africanism and the Zimbabwe Crisis’, Pambazuka News, no. 319, 12 September 2007.

* Henning Melber came to Namibia as a son of German immigrants in 1967, where he joined the liberation movement SWAPO in 1974. He was director of The Namibian Economic Policy Research Unit (NEPRU) in Windhoek (1992 to 2000) and research director at The Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala/Sweden (2000 to 2006). He is presently the executive director of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation.

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

The internationally renowned African scholar Mahmood Mamdani is said to hold the view that the only feature of post-colonialism he is aware of is the post office. He tries to suggest that true Independence as liberation from the structures, contents and ideologies of the colonial era remains a remote goal.

Decolonisation was more so a hand-over of formal political power, while social structures and hierarchies - as well as mindsets - remained largely intact.

Little has changed in terms of a shift in power relations or alternative concepts of power. This includes the political sphere with regard to the character of political dominance. Looking back at the 17 years since Namibia's formal Independence one is tempted to agree with Mamdani's sobering conclusion.
As if to make a point, the current political culture is a far cry from the liberating gospel originally preached. Not that there was - realistically and in retrospective - much to be expected (although we did). After all, more than a century of colonial occupation took its toll. Apartheid was anything but a fertile ground to socialize democrats and to allow for the internalization of fundamental respect for human rights and differing opinions. Nor was the authoritarian organization of the exile situation under the liberation movement Swapo an alternative to repressive control.

The movement's recognition as the sole and authentic representative of the Namibian people by the General Assembly of the United Nations in the mid-1970s was a celebrated diplomatic victory in our ranks and within the supporting solidarity movement. What we then did not realize: it was also a very undemocratic notion, based on exclusion. It handed over the sole power of definition of legitimate Namibian identity to the leadership of one (admittedly by far most relevant) among several organizations. Those not members or followers of Swapo were not entitled to any representation to shape the guiding principles leading into Namibian nationhood.

Despite a constitutional framework, which laid the foundation for a pluralist, human rights oriented and democratic society (as a result also of the international - meaning Western - desire to control and limit social change), Namibia since then became neither more tolerant nor more democratic. Nor did the majority of the formerly colonized population reap any meaningful material benefits from the shift in political power (forget about the fat cats). Poverty remained chronic, so did other forms of destitution. Violence against women and children has abhorrent dimensions, and the self-enrichment by members of the new elite seems to have no limit. Educational services and health provisions deteriorate, and Namibia's rank in international standardized surveys (as problematic and dubious as some of these might be) did not improve. Instead, we are campaigning for a status as an “as if Least Developed Country (LDC)”. What a shame.

Namibia started under a United Nations supervised transition to a sovereign state as the darling of the international community. In the meantime it has become - in the words of Joe Diescho - just another African country; which, of course, it is. The way Diescho uses the image, plays with the existing Eurocentric stereotypes, that this is nothing to be proud of. But did we not have the opportunity to build a society offering reasons for pride, self-respect and confidence as an African country, which used its opportunity to present evidence that this is nothing to be ashamed of or associated with negative stereotypes?

The honeymoon is long over. Hardly noticed, all Nordic states - once the pioneers among the Western countries, which supported Swapo and the Namibian people for the right to self-determination - have reduced diplomatic representation below the rank of ambassadors or even closed their embassies. Their bilateral development cooperation is shrinking continuously. Norway has withdrawn years ago, and Sweden will be closing its offices next year. Finland's ambassador - who dared to publicly share criticism over the government's dubious priorities to engage in a war in the Congo instead of reducing poverty at home - was requested a decade into Independence not to return from his annual leave at home. He was never replaced on an ambassadorial level, nor was the Swedish ambassador whose term ended shortly afterwards. The government seemed not to be bothered by such visible loss of legitimacy among these good friends. Instead, other alliances were consolidated with countries such as Zimbabwe, China, North Korea, Russia and other states hardly known as welfare societies or for their democratic achievements.

Looking at the hype of the last few weeks and months, one has no reasons for optimism. John Makumbe, who was denied to deliver his lecture on Zimbabwe as originally announced on the campus of UNAM, sees the writing on the wall. Let's hope he is wrong. Students only a few weeks earlier felt a need to demonstrate in support of the University's chancellor and Founding Father of the Republic in a political and legal dispute not related to the university at all. Sadly enough, they did not come out as forcefully to defend academic freedom, which was so blatantly violated by the same person, when intervening to prevent the internationally well known Zimbabwean academic from presenting his lecture, thereby making a mockery of the country's highest research and teaching institution's autonomy.

Interesting too is that almost everyone - despite controversial views - seems to accept that the NSHR submission to the ICC touches upon the (undefined) notion of national reconciliation. It does not. It seeks to hold high-ranking office bearers in the former liberation movement accountable for human rights violations within its own ranks. This addresses issues of internal oppression against own members, including rape, torture, execution and murder by neglect. That some among the many victims were suspected to be spies is not the point.

The point is, that many were not, and that the treatment as such violated any minimum standards of a human rights based culture, as the kind of injustice practiced under the Apartheid regime against which we were actually fighting.

Those few hundred who survived the ordeal (while most others did not) have ever since their return in mid-1989 asked for an admission that Swapo did wrong and should deal with the issue instead of sweeping it under the carpet. Seeking to enforce such demands after painful 18 years of denial by trying to use international legal options at hand (even though the effort is doomed to fail for formal reasons) is declared an act of national betrayal and heresy. This merely confirms the misperception among the political rulers that their party organization is in their eyes identical with the nation and the state. They are untouchable and above the law. - Instead of hiding behind such a misleading smokescreen, they should regain legitimacy and moral commanding heights by dealing with the failures if not within the national judicial system then by an honest and fact seeking investigation initiated by themselves. Otherwise the rule of law will soon end as law of the rulers.

Instead, once again, it's the old game of blaming and accusing the messenger for disclosing the worrying moral decay when it comes to the state of the nation. The so-called misguided elements allegedly seeking to orchestrate a vendetta for merely personal frustrations (which these victims undoubtedly and understandably also have) are singled out and blamed. So are those media, which dare to make it a public affair and provide a platform for the dissenting voices in civil society. Far from dealing with the matter, it is dealt with those who dare to join the demands for transparency and accountability through efforts to limit their rights to do so. It is about getting rid of inconvenient truths and their advocates, not about addressing the root causes of the affairs.

Just as with John Makumbe and the likes: prevent them from speaking out, as if this would allow ignoring what is going on. At the end, we might indeed end in a similar state of affairs as his home country, in which so many dedicated citizens were forced into exile once again. This time by those who claimed to have liberated the people. So far, differences do however still remain: Namibia's head of state generously offers one-way tickets to unwanted dissenting voices. They are neither arrested nor killed. Not yet. But his softer approach is already another form of liquidation.

Namibia lacks civility defined as an agreement to disagree agreeably. But Independence is something to fight for, daily and always. Solidarity should be with them, who dare to do so and challenge the sell-outs to individual privilege, who are occupying state power and shy away from taking responsibility in the public interest. Their duty would instead require acting not only in their own interest, but in the interest of all they claim to have liberated. Like in so many other societies, however, those will ultimately have to accept and execute such responsibility themselves, guided by their own convictions and values, against all odds. The fight for ownership over the definition of what is supposed to be acceptable and what not is far from over. It has just started.

* Henning Melber joined Swapo as a son of German immigrants in 1974. He was director of The Namibian Economic Policy Research Unit (NEPRU) between 1992 and 2000 and is currently the executive director of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation in Uppsala/Sweden.

* Please send comments to or comment online at

Black economic empowerment (BEE) continues to cultivate human and natural exploitation for the benefits of few at the expenses of far too many. It turns de-colonisation into a private business for self-enrichment. Henning Melber on the ensuing kleptocracy in Namibia and the possibility of another Zimbabwean style tragedy.

A Namibian parliamentary committee hearing was told in April 2007 by the executive secretary of the state-owned Namibia Development Corporation (NDC) in liquidation (during apartheid days the 'Bantu Investment Corporation'), that the tens of millions of Namibian dollars dished out earlier as credits to black empowerment initiatives will in most cases not be repaid – even though many of the lenders are among the nouveau riche.

Limits to liberation
Ever since independence in 1990, Namibia’s government has blamed the country’s exploitation under settler colonialism for the unabated social disparities. Indeed, the transfer of political power left, as part of a negotiated settlement, the existing socio-economic structures largely untouched. The inequalities were endorsed as status quo in terms of constitutionally protected ownership and property rights. Limited social changes had to be induced inside this legally binding framework guided by a policy of 'national reconciliation' and 'affirmative action'. As a result, the privileged segment of society became racially less exclusive.

But according to the empirical evidence presented by the annual Human Development Reports of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Namibia remains among the most unequal societies in the world – despite an average per capita income ranking it as lower middle-income country. A World Bank commissioned report alerted in 2005 that these inequalities 'represent a threat to national cohesion, peace, and political stability'. A UN country assessment warned of an unfolding humanitarian crisis due to the combination of HIV/Aids, food insecurity and the ineffective delivery of critical social services to the most vulnerable groups.

Despite such concerns, the government has refused to introduce a Basic Income Grant (BIG) - demanded for years by a broad church-based alliance - as not feasible in terms of its fiscal constraints. But more than a billion Namibian dollars was spent on a luxurious new high security state house complex. Nonetheless in April 2007 it was justified as a 'pro-poor' measure during the budgetary debate in parliament. A SWAPO MP demanded in all seriousness that posh cars should be exempted from the speed limit on Namibia’s roads.

Power, privilege and poverty
Black economic empowerment (BEE) has so far served the interests of a new political-bureaucratic elite from the ranks of the erstwhile liberation movement. Those who liberated mainly themselves profitably cashed their access to the country’s resources through their political and public service offices.

Corruption and misappropriation of funds nourished a parasitic minority. This had been spectacularly confirmed by several high calibre cases of fraud and self-enrichment schemes looting pension funds and other public finances. Shady business practices illustrated in a textbook way the infamous 'fat-cat syndrome' prevailing. Prime Minister Nahas Angula called the abuse of several hundred million Namibian dollars from the state administered pension funds on get-rich-quick schemes masquerading as BEE 'just asset-stripping'.

In a revelation of self-enrichment schemes, described by the locally published Insight magazine in March 2006 as 'the mother of all empowerment deals'. Since mid-2006 another 'horde of black economic empowerment groups' have come under increased scrutiny. The deal set up between the South African oil giant Sasol and a conglomerate of locally created pseudo-firms without any proper offices, named a former trade union leader and several high-ranking government officials operating within an intricate web of pseudo-enterprises, as its main Namibian beneficiaries. As the former trade unionist declared in defence of the deal, the shareholders were 'just black entrepreneurs who needed the money and took advantage of a given situation'.

A popular school of thought within critical poverty research holds the view that it is the concentration of economic and political power in the hands of narrow privileged groups that creates and perpetuates inequalities. According to such an understanding, the analysis of power is fundamental to any examination of poverty. Privatisation of public resources results in political-administrative power as personalised power; in politics as a kind of business enterprise; and in vertical clientele relationships of a neo-patrimonial nature. The result is an increasingly authoritarian and incompetent state that rarely responds to public pressure.

The (class) struggle continues
Since independence, Namibia has produced a crypto-capitalist, petty-minded self-enriching new black elite, which spends its energy exploiting the public purse. There is an absence of a meaningful, profit-generating industrial sector, where capital would be additionally accumulated through surplus production based on the exploitation of value adding labour - which implies at least employment for a majority of people. The creation of individual wealth relies on the privatisation of natural resources (mainly in the sectors of fishing, mining, agriculture and tourism) or benefits linked to privileges in the public sector and state owned enterprises. Public procurement and other outsourcing activities by those occupying the commanding heights of the state agencies turn 'affirmative action' and BEE into self-rewarding schemes among loyal members of the erstwhile liberation movement.

Such co-optation into the ruling segments within an already existing socio-economic system is far from social transformation. BEE continues to cultivate human and natural exploitation for the benefits of few at the expenses of far too many. It turns de-colonisation largely into a private business for self-enrichment. A result of such kleptocracy is the gradual loss of legitimacy. Zimbabwe-type decay is the writing at the wall. De-colonisation of such kind is not about redistribution of (relative) wealth for the ordinary people. It is self-enrichment for a new elite and business as usual.

* Dr Henning Melber is executive director of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation in Uppsala, Sweden where he was research director at The Nordic Africa Institute, 2000-2006. A son of German immigrants, he joined SWAPO in 1974. Hw was director of The Namibian Economic Policy Research Unit (NEPRU) in Windhoek, Namibia between 1992 and 2000.

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/303/41299.jpgAfrican people continue to remain as the have-nots at the bottom of the world’s pyramid. Even if ‘their’ leaders bath in abundant wealth and privileges. It is fair to conclude that so far neither Nepad, nor its support from the G8 and others who claim to be concerned, have managed to contribute substantive change.

From the beginning of this century, the G8 started cultivating a special intimate relationship with representatives of a ‘new Africa’, in response to their courting.

It is not by accident that the German chancellor Angela Merkel has announced that the further expansion of this link into ‘reform partnerships’ would officially rank among the priorities on the agenda at the forthcoming summit in Heiligendamm on the Baltic Sea.

This however does not necessarily mean that it will actually happen. We have already seen the originally announced focus on Africa be overshadowed by other matters in Kananaskis, where the events in the Middle East replaced Africa as the priority, and in Gleneagles, after the bomb attacks in London; and the African representatives having once again to play second fiddle.

This time, it seems that climate change will once again push Africa out of the limelight- though its people might be among the biggest victims of the effects of unabated environmental pollution; relegating its leaders to the back benches.

But even so, the favoured African heads of state seem to feel somehow comfortable with enjoying the marginal trade-offs from sitting around the dining table with the powerful. After all, since Genoa, lunch was the minimum they got from each G8 summit. Even when that, together with a group photo, was at times the only recognition granted.

Merkel used her speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos to declare that during the German presidencies of the G8 and the EU, emphasis would be on how Africa could be better integrated into the global economy.

Her personal representative at the G8, Bernd Pfaffenbach, confirmed, during a panel debate on Africa at the same Swiss Alpine ski resort, that the summer camp at the Baltic Sea in Heiligendamm would seek to enhance a partnership between the G8 and African leaders.

These declared intentions for the agenda by this year’s hosts should not appear comforting. Rather they should sound warning bells. The two priorities of further integration into the global economy and closer partnership with African leaders in the planned interaction merit the question being raised: where do the interests of the people of the continent lie?

After all, neither globalisation since the days of the slave trade, nor African leaders’ collaboration with the powerful elsewhere, whatever their political or ideological persuasion, have provided meaningful and lasting benefits for the majorities on the continent who struggle daily for survival.

Further integration of African societies and economies into the world market, a process which since colonialism was in any case much more advanced than in most other regions of the world, suggests, in contrast, even more systematic exploitation of the continent’s natural resources, and intensified expansion into local markets.

Under the current ‘liberalisation’ schemes promoted and regulated by the WTO, access for external capital to provide privatised public goods and services, as well as control over so-called intellectual property, add further to the reduction of state autonomy and local capacities to act in the interest of the people.

Privatisation does not bode well for some of the core tasks of a functioning state: namely to provide basic services in the public interest, including that of the poor; and to protect the weakest - not that the people in Africa have ever seen or experienced much of this.

Since 2001, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) became the African trademark for the kind of collaboration that the G8 and other OECD countries favour and support.

In the pipeline as a blueprint since the late 1990s, Nepad emerged as a result of a fundamentally new constellation on the continent. After South Africa – from the mid-1990s, and Nigeria -since the end of the 1990s, the two regional economic powerhouses, had left behind their pariah status. While apartheid, in the one case, and the military dictatorships, in the other case, limited the operational spheres of African regimes earlier on, the new governments represented politically acceptable - if not always praised - success stories that democratisation works.

Considered strategic regional ‘anchor countries’ for the West, these two economies make up some two thirds of the total GDP of all countries of so-called sub-Saharan Africa. Leaving aside the resource-based economies, which through oil, strategically relevant minerals and other natural assets, such as diamonds, stimulate desire for entering deals with local culprits and oligarchies, they are the most attractive potential partners to the outside world.

The South African and Nigerian heads of state Thabo Mbeki and Olusegun Obasanjo were the two main architects of Nepad, together with the Senegalese autocrat Abdoulaye Wade, and the support of Egypt and Algeria. As a matter of fact, all three African leaders in the triumvirate have missed only one of the six G8 summits since Genoa 2001.

But for many critical observers, including within Africa, Nepad mainly symbolises the emperor’s new clothes. It boils down to a recycling of the old conditionality-story, only now under African ownership.

Perceived as a policy of neo-liberal orientation imposed from above, it is questioned and challenged from below as a technocratic approach by elites. Or else as a local version of the Washington consensus.

According to this view, structural deficiencies and imbalances are legitimised, but not questioned. It reflects a coalition between those on the continent and abroad who benefit most from export-oriented market economies, under a trade regime, which is foremost outwardly oriented.

This might add to the relative advantages of a small local elite and the biggest among the junior players on the continent. In particular expanding South African capital, which is successfully penetrating many other African economies. But it offers little to nothing to ordinary people. They remain once again excluded from business. They are unemployed and continue to live in abject poverty.

While some of the rather more harsh critics mutter about dubious conspiracy theories, which may be unfair, or, at least, not the true intentions of some of the new African leaders, it is difficult to dismiss such analysis lock, stock and barrel.

The lack of meaningful material offers little comfort of G8 support for Nepad, which would need to match the almost euphoric welcoming statements ever since the African leaders knocked at their doors in Genoa.

In the midst of the Italian havoc, the G8 heads of state appointed individual ‘sherpas’ to team up and prepare an Africa Action Plan. Its adoption a year later, mid-2002, in the Canadian mountains at Kananaskis, was celebrated as a major break through. Although it was (dis-)qualified by moderate critics such as the then director for justice and peace at the South African Catholic Bishops’ Conference as ‘hot air’ or ‘recycled peanuts’.

In contrast to such sobering conclusions, the South African president returned triumphantly with the message that Kananaskis marked a decisive moment in the birth of a fairer and more balanced system of international relations. In historical context, Kananaskis represented for him the end of the colonial and neo-colonial era. To classify this kind of daring interpretation as ‘wishful thinking’ would seem a mild understatement.

Based on such self-proclaimed ‘success stories’, African leaders used the transformation of the Organisation for African Unity (OAU) into the African Union (AU) directly after Kananaskis at their summit in Durban to integrate Nepad as the new economic programme of the continental body.

They thereby elevated it to an official status for all. Subsequently, in September 2002, the UN General Assembly awarded Nepad the label of being the general framework for international cooperation with Africa, thus allowing Thabo Mbeki to state, unchallenged, that Nepad had emerged as the de facto political-economic point of reference in Africa’s interaction with the outside world.

Even the sobering results of the summit in the French Evian in 2003 and the humble lunch offered at the US-summit in Georgia in 2004 served as further legitimacy for the African Nepad-troika. Although Wade was becoming increasingly less enthusiastic, and in the meantime openly critical.

Their patience was at least rewarded by the personal effort of Tony Blair, who used the UK presidency to initiate his Commission for Africa. Its report, tabled to the summit in Gleneagles in 2005, claimed to present, through increased financial support and debt cancellation, a decisive input into African development. Indeed, a substantive portion of the - already long since paid - debts have since then been cancelled for the poorest among the African countries.

The moral impetus, which is due, in part, not only Tony Blair’s personal flair, but also to the document of the Africa Commission, subtitled ‘Our Common Interest’, should however not be misleading.

As a matter of fact, the fundamental premises of the recommendations rest on the assumption that it is Africans themselves, who must be held responsible for being so poor, and who need - with external assistance - to get their act together.

The suggested reforms neither name and blame the structural inequalities ensuing as a result of historical processes, during which mainly European colonialism and imperialism expanded into Africa's backyard with devastating and long lasting consequences for the societies there. Nor do they challenge the fundamental basis of the currently existing global system and its damaging effects on African economies and people.

But even if the commission – with all due reservations – was considered a major advancement for at least temporarily promoting interest in African affairs in a wider public sphere, and also by means of the celebrity culture resulting in spectacular ‘do good’ performances (which generally excluded African artists from a fair share in the publicity); the subsequent summit of the G8 in St Petersburg in 2006 did not even pretend to follow this up in a serious way.

For the first time since Okinawa in 2000, only three African heads of state were granted the privilege to play a supporting role. Except for being some kind of exotic-cosmetic feature, the summit had absolutely nothing to offer.

According to the German government, things should be different in early June at Heiligendamm. As the stocktaking exercises on progress to achieve the Millennium Development Goals suggest, much is left to be desired when it comes to the implementation of the defined targets.

African people continue to remain as the have-nots at the bottom of the world’s pyramid. Even if ‘their’ leaders – notably in cases such as the Angolan oil oligarchy or individual despots such as Mugabe – bath in abundant wealth and privileges. It is fair to conclude that so far neither Nepad, nor its support from the G8 and others who claim to be concerned, have managed to contribute substantive change.

It should however, at the same time, and despite such reservations, be acknowledged that a fair amount of collective responsibility and willingness to intervene in the matters of member states has fundamentally changed the political agenda of the African Union and its guiding principles.

Whilst, so far, this has had little impact in terms of necessary changes in the socio-economic structural impasses, and has failed to produce any decisive results in several cases – not least in Zimbabwe, also politically, it does affect socio-economic related factors such as security, political participation, transparency and accountability.

While a lot remains to be desired, one should not ignore the fundamental changes, which in terms of the abandonment of the hitherto holy principle of non-intervention was a direct result of the transformation of the OAU into the AU.

The African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) as an integral, though voluntary, part of Nepad might be more tokenism than anything else. But being on the agenda marks a new chapter in African politics. In times where revolutions are not even on the distant horizon, this still seems to be too pragmatic a view, though probably realistic.

Ironically, with the new multi-polar tendencies, and the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and in particular China) through their bilateral partners aggressively seeking to explore and exploit the African continent with little or no concerns about ‘good governance’ - whatever this means, the gains for African economies, as measured in terms of trade balances and GDP growth, are remarkable.

Of course, this does not mean that the African economies and the local people will benefit automatically. Whether and how they might get a modest share out of the new scramble for African resources remains at this stage an open question. But it is unlikely that the G8 summit in Heiligendamm will bring this challenge any closer to a solution.

* Henning Melber was director of The Namibian Economic Policy Research Unit (NEPRU) in Windhoek, Namibia from 1992-2000. He was research director at The Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala, Sweden, 2000-2006. He is currently executive director of The Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation.

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

It seems like yesterday, that I discovered Pambazuka News. Since then, I've joined the family actively, met Patrick Burnett on several occasions in Cape Town (- actually: not only at Greenmarket Square but also in the coastal 'dorpies' Muizenberg and Fish Hoek, to be exact, since this makes a hell of a difference for a Kapie!), watched his family growing and himself developing further. Now he has matured to the extent that he is leaving the electronic periodical, to which he contributed so much, to pursue his own way further. - Have a good and safe journey, Patrick, and stay on track (I'm sure you will)… At the same time Pambazuka News presents its 300th issue, and again it seems like yesterday, that this weekly turned into a regular source of information, in the meantime even in an expanded version of two separate parts. Politically spot on analyses (though luckily not always 'politically correct'), stimulating and thought provoking debate articles and viewpoints and a wealth of further links to factual information and additional opinions - what asks one more, who has the African people and their struggle for dignity and survival against all odds at his/her heart? Pambazuka News has established itself as an authoritative source of information and remains at the same time an active and central part of a social movement, which mobilizes, reinforces and promotes commitments. It is an inspiration. To Firoze and his Fahamu team my best wishes for many more rewarding years with this project, which hopefully keep them as young and enthusiastic in their hearts and minds as they are!

Henning Melber, Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, Uppsala

Henning Melber presents a “state of the continent” report and comments on the “new African order” as designed by the global power structures of the World Economic Forum.

Almost 50,000 people from social movements all over this world gathered in Nairobi during the second half of January at the World Social Forum (WSF). Originally initiated in the Brazilian city of Porto Allegre a few years ago, it is organised as a counter meeting to the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) during this time of the year in the Swiss town Davos. The WEF brings together those in command of politics and economy in this world and those “celebrities” who like to be close to them. They represent a world in which Africa remains at the receiving end of the global power structures and increasingly again the object of external interests. This article summarises and comments upon recent developments on the continent.

Old wine in new bottles

It is anything but new that the African continent’s human and other natural resources are the object of more or less systematic looting from the outside world. Who still believes that “globalisation” is a very recent phenomenon simply needs to look in an African perspective on the devastating impact of the slave trade to understand, “how Europe underdeveloped Africa” (so the title of a seminal book published by the late Walter Rodney during the early 1970s). Already Karl Marx had observed (though in a rather insensitive language) in his Critique of the Political Economy that the hunt for black skins signalled the dawn of capitalism.

Since the days of the Trans Atlantic human resource transfer various subsequent forms of brutal exploitation through colonialism and imperialism were ultimately by means of formal decolonisation processes at least modified. But the “winds of change” created sovereign African states, whose societies remain to a large extent characterised by the structural legacy of an externally oriented dependency. Beneficiaries of such limited socio-economic development are still mainly externally based, with the limited participation of – all too often parasitic – small local elites, who exploit their political control over national wealth for their own gains.

They collaborate with those operating from the outside offering them the most convenient (and unashamed) access to the small slice of the cake they are able to keep for themselves in such sell out deals. Seen in this light, some (if not most) of the recent critical accounts of the aggressive expansion of Chinese interests into African countries and societies and their collaboration with local autocratic elites and despots has a hypocritical taste or at least bears traces of amnesia. After all, the Chinese penetration only rears the ugly face of predatory capitalism, which for far too long has already abused the dependency of the majority on the continent. One therefore is tempted to wonder, if the concern expressed is actually not more about the Western interests than about the welfare of the African people, given that what we witness today is anything but new with regard to its forms and effects. While this critical observation does not exonerate the at times appallingly imperialist nature of the Chinese expansion into Africa, it does undermine the credibility of those critics, who find no similar words for the other forms of imperialism, which for far too long had (and continue to have) crucial responsibilities for contributing to the state of misery many of the African people are in.

Africa since the end of the bipolar world order

The collapse of the Soviet empire and the end of a more than forty year period of bloc confrontation was by no means “the end of history” (as suggested by Francis Fukuyama). It was the beginning of a new global order for hegemonic rule with far reaching consequences also for African governments. Gone were the days, where in midst of a Cold War some manoeuvring space for limited opportunistic bargaining existed, which allowed for a bit of strategic positioning. Not that this was necessarily to the best of the African people: all too often, this constellation encouraged and protected self-enrichment schemes for dictators and/or small local elites through forms of rent seeking or sinecure capitalism, as examples from A (like Angola) to Z (like Zaire) document. The bi-polar world order was in no ways a suitable breeding ground for development “from below”, but offered parasitic agents the opportunity to position themselves as satellites in return for their own gains within the East-West polarisation.

The consolidation of the US-American dominance during the 1990s and its impact on the global order resulted in several changes also for the African continent. A regionally inter-linked “appeasement” strategy (with the Russian retreat from Afghanistan and the Cuban withdrawal from Angola) secured in Southern Africa the final decolonisation of Namibia (1990) and paved the way for an end to Apartheid and democratic elections in South Africa (1994). During this period the economic paradigms represented by the international financial institutions (World Bank and IMF) resumed the only power of definition. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) emerged as the broker to regulate comprehensively binding the global exchange relations of goods. The most to say in these regulating processes with far reaching implications for not only “classical” trade relations but wider defined exchanges has the club of the G8 members, which defines the rather one-sided rules of “global governance”.

Towards a new African order: NEPAD and AU

Significant inner-African dynamics complemented at the beginning of this century the global re-arrangements. With the democratically elected and legitimised new governments in South Africa and Nigeria the two economic powerhouses on the continent South of the Sahara left behind their pariah status. Based on internal and international acceptance, they resumed leadership roles in international policy arenas. At the turn of the millennium presidents Thabo Mbeki and Olusegun Obasanjo emerged (with active support by Senegal, Algeria and Egypt) as new figureheads representing the collective interests of the South and in particular Africa vis-à-vis the industrialised Western countries. Originally tasked to negotiate debt cancellation arrangements in direct communication with them they moved on to seek new forms of interaction under the premises of the acknowledged socio-economic premises as defined by the WTO. As kind of junior partners in the global market they became the architects of what was finally termed the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD).

After some incubation period and assumingly intensive political negotiations behind closed doors this blue print was upgraded to the status of an official economic programme and institution of the African Union (AU). The AU itself was a parallel transformation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). In the course of its change it undertook some significant corrections to the hitherto established continental policy pillars. Most importantly it moved away from the erstwhile almost holy principle of non-intervention into internal affairs of member states.

With a lot of confidence and trust and substantive political support offered by the G8 since its 2001 summit in Genoa the NEPAD-architects could bring back home the reassuring message that the industrial West is on board and willing to support the initiative. This contributed to the acceptance both in Africa as well as by the United Nations system, which in a General Assembly resolution officially recognised NEPAD as the economic programme for Africa. While this looks like a success story, the critical policy issues were to some extent at the same time aborted or at best watered down. The good governance discourse in line with the new uni-polar world system and to some extent imposed by the Western-capitalist hegemony was after all not only cosmetic rhetoric, but in some parts indeed a meaningful deviation from past practices of unquestioned autocratic rule by African despots and oligarchies.

The AU Constitution was adopted at the same summit in Durban when NEPAD was incorporated. It introduced a collective responsibility so far absent, justifying joint intervention for specified reasons. This has in the meantime provided several results, as cases like Darfur, the DRC, the Ivory Coast, Liberia and Togo have among others shown in different ways (and varying degrees of success), all seeking to contribute to conflict reduction or enhanced legitimacy of the political systems. In contrast to this new responsibility, the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), conceptualised by NEPAD as a cornerstone for enhancing the notion of good governance, did not meet the expectations. The disappointment over non-delivery was maybe biggest when it came to the absence of any determined policy action by the NEPAD initiators in the case of Zimbabwe (where the South African president preferred his so-called silent diplomacy to any meaningful political intervention). Nonetheless, the demand for democracy, human rights and respect for constitutional principles articulated by the NEPAD blue print as a prerequisite for sustainable socio-economic development might have been a contributing factor to the new phenomenon of an increasing number of African heads of state more or less voluntarily (and peacefully) vacating their offices (which does not mean that the rotten apples have been eliminated, as Museveni, and even – though less successfully - Obasanjo as well as some others have shown in their recent efforts to extend their stay in office beyond the originally stipulated period of time).

New multi-polar tendencies and the competition for securing African resources

Systematic new efforts to access African markets and tap into the local resources became visible with the adoption of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) by the out-going Clinton administration. Through this initiative the USA openly underlined the relevance of the African dimension for its external trade relations (Africa ranks higher than Eastern Europe in the US trade balance). The break down of the AGOA trade volume, however, also discloses that with the exception of a few smaller niches (e.g. the temporary opportunities created for a locally based – though not owned – African textile industry with preferential access to the US market) the trade volume is mainly composed by exporting US-manufactured high tech goods and machinery and importing oil, strategic minerals and other natural resources for meeting demands of US-based industries.

Soon after AGOA was enacted, the trade department of the EU headquarters in Brussels initiated negotiations for a re-arrangement of its relations with the ACP countries of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific through so-called Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). The declared aim was to enter a post-Cotonou agreement phase meeting the demands for WTO compatibility. The EPA negotiations have since then entered critical stages meeting the resistance of many among the ACP countries. They are afraid of losing out on trade preferences and feel that Brussels seeks to impose a one-sided trade regime in its own interests, which also denies the declared partners the right to autonomous negotiations by re-drawing the map of regional configurations in Africa to comply with EU expectations.

Both initiatives, AGOA and the EPA negotiations, seem to reflect less so the genuine desire in fairer trade than securing access to relevant markets not least in the own interest of the USA and the EU. The competition for preferential trade agreements with South Africa (successfully negotiated by the EU during the late 1990s and currently facing an impasse with regard to the USA) are illustrating at the same time the point, that the industrialised states are anything but sharing the same interest when it comes to securing their individual links with other countries.

The new offensive pursued by China, which expands aggressively into African markets and seeks access to the fossil energy resources and other minerals and metals it urgently needs to fuel its own further rapid industrialisation process, adds to the rivalry and conflicting interests. In a matter of time, India, Brazil and Russia (as well as a number of other actors such as Malaysia and Mexico) are likely to add further pressure on the scramble for limited markets and resources. This new stage of competing forces on the continent has resulted in a plethora of recent analyses dealing mainly if not exclusively with the Chinese impact and practices. Interestingly enough, the EU and US-policies and practices seem to almost fade away from the picture. The current type of Cassandra-prophecies presents at times a rather one-sided story. Such selected narrative tends to downplay if not ignore the damaging external effects, which the existing socio-economic imbalances and power structures have created and consolidated. It appears at times, that the criticism raised towards China is more so an indicator of an increasing fear for losing own interests than for being motivated by a genuine concern for the African people.

Into more dependency or towards enhanced manoeuvring space?

The global initiatives for liberalisation under the WTO regime pose the question, if the markets and producers in the so-called developing countries are able to meet the challenges of a relatively free competition with the industrialised world or instead would require continued protection. At a closer look, it becomes obvious that this is a question wrongly posed. It had been indeed the markets and producers of the industrialised OECD countries, which were one-sided beneficiaries of state protection and distorting subsidisation policies. This turned any form of proclaimed fairness in trade and market relations into an illusion and ideological humbug.

Those advocating a liberalisation of trade relations contribute to the misperception that such steps would be identical or at least similar to a de-regulation of exchange relations with goods. As a matter of fact, the trend is quite the opposite. The so-called liberal global trade structures and networks have never before been to such an extent contractually defined and put into clauses. Numerous additional rules, such as hygienic and sanitary specifications, regulate access to markets even more so at times than tariffs. They are open to abusive control resulting in undue pressure and could turn into a tool for sanctions in cases of disagreement.

The historically-structurally disadvantaged societies should however at least be enabled to gain socio-economic strength based on own initiatives. This requires a framework, which would as a matter of principle allow for a kind of protectionist policy as legitimate survival strategy to empower local producers and foster own markets. This could create preconditions, from which in subsequent exchange relations the people in both the industrial as well as the African societies could benefit (but maybe at the expenses of unhindered profit maximisation for those who earn most).

With new rivals such as China, India, Brazil, Russia and a series of further countries at the threshold to meaningful own industrial production the competition for entering favourable relations with African countries might increase. This is in itself not negative to the interests of the African people. But it requires that the tiny elites benefiting from the currently existing unequal structures put their own interest in trans-nationally linked self-enrichment schemes behind the public interest to create investment and exchange patterns, which provide in the first place benefits for the majority of the people.

Selected Further Reading

Alden Christopher/Daniel Large/Ricardo Soares de Oliveira (eds) (2007), China Returns to Africa: The Politics of Contemporary Relations. London: Hurst
Broadman, Harry G. et. al. (2007), Africa’s Silk Road. China and India’s New Economic Frontier. Washington: World Bank
Brüntrup, Michael/Henning Melber/Ian Taylor (2006), Africa, Regional Cooperation and the World Market. Uppsala: The Nordic Africa Institute (NAI Discussion Paper; 31) (accessible for download at
China in Africa. South African Journal of International Affairs, vol. 13, no. 1, 2006
Fombad, Charles Manga/Zein Kebonang (2006), AU, NEPAD and the APRM. Democratisation Efforts Explored. Uppsala: The Nordic Africa Institute (Current African Issues; 32) (accessible for download at
Manji, Firoze/Stephen Marks (eds) (2007), African Perspectives on China in Africa. Nairobi & Oxford: Fahamu
Melber, Henning (2002), The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) – Old Wine in New Bottles? In: Forum for Development Studies, 29(1), S. 186-209
Melber, Henning (2004), The G8 and NePAD – more than an elite pact? University of Leipzig Papers on African Politics and Economics (ULPA), no. 74
Melber, Henning (ed.) (2005), Trade, Development, Cooperation. What Future for Africa? Uppsala: The Nordic Africa Institute (Current African Issues; 29) (accessible for download at
Melber, Henning (ed.) (2007), China in Africa. Uppsala: The Nordic Africa Institute (forthcoming)
Southall, Roger/Henning Melber (eds) (2006), The Legacies of Power. Leadership Transition and the Role of Former Presidents in African Politics. Cape Town: HSRC Press & Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute
Taylor, Ian (2005), NEPAD. Towards Africa’s Development or Another False Start? Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner
Taylor, Ian (2006), China and Africa. Engagement and compromise. London & New York: Routledge
Tull, Denis M. (2006), China’s engagement in Africa: scope, significance and consequences. In: Journal of Modern African Studies, 44(3), pp. 459-479

* Dr. Henning Melber is Executive Director of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation in Uppsala/Sweden. He has been Research Director of The Nordic Africa Institute (2000-2006) and Director of the Namibian Economic Policy Research Unit (NEPRU) in Windhoek (1992-2000).

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Activists from social movements all over the world flocked to the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre six years ago for the first World Social Forum (WSF). It was organized under the slogan “another world is possible” to demonstrate impressively the counter position to the neo-liberal globalization project as represented and pursued by those in political and economic power. These meet every January for the World Economic Forum at the posh Swiss skiing resort of Davos.

Often erroneously referred to as anti-global movement, the activists mobilizing for the WSF represent simply another global movement, challenging the current forms of capitalist hegemony (and, as many would claim, capitalism as such). The “another world” they believe is possible represents the desire for “a better world” – a world without exploitation, discrimination, marginalization. They treasure global social conditions, which would allow for human security and a dignified life for all (well, at least most, given that there are those class interests represented by human beings, who would object to the implementation of such alternatives). Six years down the line, the latest WSF in Nairobi showed that while it’s rather easy to have such visions, it’s more difficult to implement them.

Some wear and tear resulted in a gradually increasing WSF fatigue among some of those who originally with enthusiasm mobilized and participated. The initial euphoria over the global bonds between “the wretched of the earth” (Frantz Fanon) remained not without mixed feelings over growing internal differences on the future course. Already at the first WSF a manifest of anti-capitalist youth was signed, criticizing the event for what they perceived as a reactionary policy of “humanizing capitalism” instead of trying to defeat it. An alternative “celebrity culture” with its inherent hierarchical structure was also emerging and suspiciously observed. It cultivated an aura of authority - if not personality cult - around some of the perceived, styled (or even self-proclaimed) alternative development gurus.

While the local grass roots crowds gathering during the earlier WSFs contributed to far above a hundred thousand participants in each case, the Nairobi WSF as the first of its kind on African soil provided a markedly lower turn out with less than 50,000 estimated participants. Many locals were simply denied access originally, because they were too poor to pay the registration fee. Others from further away were unable to fork out the travel costs and local expenses. Instead, the dominance of world wide operating NGOs (including foundations of political parties, the trade unions and the churches) as well as representatives of other institutions more or less directly linked to state agencies played a visibly dominant role and illustrated the obvious dividing lines between grass root activists, scholars and other professionally concerned “do gooders” from different spheres and social backgrounds.

As divided was the scenery at the Moi Stadium at the outskirts of Nairobi, where the sessions took place from January 21 to 24. Among those mingling with parts of the crowd were at least three Namibians: Alfred Angula represented the organized workers, Rosa Namises the women’s movement, and Ian Swartz from the Rainbow coalition strengthened the coming out of gays and lesbians, who used the opportunity to courageously fight the notorious local and continental xenophobia.

The opening and closing ceremonies were at the centrally located Uhuru (Freedom) Park. Among the speakers to open was Kenneth Kaunda, and I was certainly not the only one wondering about the basis of his merits. The mere fact that he finally behaved somehow decent as an “elder statesman”, after messing up the country and people with his earlier politics, was certainly not good enough a recommendation to address those committed to “another world”. The junior minister from Italy speaking at the closing ceremony and a number of other political office bearers and aid bureaucrats documenting their commitments to the common (?) cause left as dubious a taste and showed that the dividing lines are a contested issue. – Certainly not everyone among the WSF organizers and activists is immune against the flirting with power.

There were numerous other visible contradictions during the days in and around the Moi sports stadium adding to the mixed feelings. Ironically, this was built in the 1980s by the Chinese, had its peak moment when hosting the All Africa Games and is these days mainly reserved for paid leisure activities by the urban middle class. Those hundreds of thousands of shack dwellers in the slums nearby look at it at best as an alien object, which does not relate to their daily struggle for survival.

The professional North-South and global concern entrepreneurs occupied the best spaces in the venue. A local telecommunication company under foreign ownership provided a so-called special offer to participants, which maximized the company profits by means of a monopoly over services secured. The ordinary people running their humble food vendor businesses at affordable costs for the bulk of participants were forced to operate at the margins. The best-placed catering outlets were overpriced. The minister of inner security owed one of them. During an earlier stage of his career he was among those who tortured the same victims of the Mau-Mau movement, who testified at the WSF to their ordeal in the anti-colonial struggle some fifty years ago.

“Another world is possible”, yes, maybe. But the road to get there is long. And not all among those attending the WSF in Nairobi are (or should be) on board. That might, by the way, include myself too.

* Henning Melber had joined Swapo in 1994. He was the director of NEPRU in Windhoek (1992-2000) and the research director at the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala (2000-2006), where he is now director of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation.

This article was first written for the Namibian Big Issue and is reproduced with the permission of the author.

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Scholars and intellectuals are faced with stark socio-political choices, writes Henning Melber. Do they side with those maintaining the status quo in unequal societies or do they demand the right to engage in social struggles?

This essay argues for the need for a permissive postcolonial socio-political system allowing for dissenting views, including manifestations of critical loyalty through the articulation of dissenting views, and concludes with an appeal to opt for such a socio-political commitment.

The virtues advocated are considered as ingredients in the promotion of a human-rights-focused and development-centred culture conducive to socio-political as well as economic progress of the people. This view follows the notion advocated by the Nobel laureate Amartya Sen. In the introduction to his collection of lectures on Development as Freedom he maintains: “Freedoms are not only the primary ends of development, they are also among its principal means”. He points out that freedoms of different kinds are linked with one another. They include political freedoms, social opportunities, and access to economic resources.

Political regimes in many of the African societies lack recognition of such contributing factors or even deny them. Instead, all too often, the political environment has militated against freedom of thought and expression.

Honesty and Betrayal

“Where there’s no fight for it there’s no freedom. What is it Spinoza says? If the state acts in ways that are abhorrent to human nature it’s the lesser evil to destroy it.”

These were the thoughts of Yakov Bok, the protagonist of Bernard Malamud’s novel The Fixer, while being carried to his bitterly-fought-for trial to prove his innocence after a long and excessive ordeal under torture and dehumanisation in the prisons of Czarist Russia.

As a victim of anti-Semitic hatred, he refuses to compromise with a regime that violates his human dignity and self-respect, but even more so his profound sense of justice. Malamud created his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel as a monument to civil disobedience, guided and motivated by a strong belief in humanism.

Those in control over social power have often considered the Yakov Boks of this world as a threat to their hegemonic rule, not in their individual capacity but mainly reduced to the anonymity of faceless ‘masses’ representing social movements. In contrast to this tendency towards an impersonal reduction, those considered as scholars and intellectuals are often perceived as a danger on the mere grounds of their individual capacities. They are viewed as individual ‘risks’ in the sense of being potential opinion-leaders able to contribute to, if not actively shape, public opinion and debate.

It would be a gross misunderstanding, however, to conclude that scholars and intellectuals are by nature or preference a critical counterweight to authoritarian or totalitarian rule or any other forms of abuse of power. Instead, the ‘intelligentsia’ has all too often been of strategic relevance in supporting such power structures for the sake of their own benefits.

Members of an educated elite have frequently been advocates and protagonists, if not architects and masterminds, of oppressive structures, and many more have even been among the silent supporters of such systems and their devastating results. To be educated does by no means protect one from turning into an ideologue or a perpetrator of crimes against humanity of the worst kind.

Far from being noble creatures, scholars and intellectuals are often tempted to serve political aims for their own gains. Honesty and integrity, supposed to be among the core values of intellectually ethical behaviour, are abandoned or neglected for more profane rewards than respect. Those who uphold their principles despite lack of material recognition are a rare species. Opportunism reigns. This is also true for the postcolonial era of southern African societies, some of which had to fight long and bitter wars of liberation at high costs to achieve sovereignty – only to deny their citizens the right to practise freedom in a democratically comprehensive way.

Decolonisation processes all too often displayed cases of a striking metamorphosis by individuals. Being social revolutionaries initially, claiming to represent the ‘povo’ or masses, they ended up as relatively high-profile representatives of a postcolonial establishment placing their own gains above earlier principles.

These members of a new elite have become part and parcel of a set of deep-rooted anachronistic values within a system of former liberation movements now in power. After seizing legitimate political control over the state, they turned their liberating politics of anti-colonial resistance into oppressive tools under the guise of pseudo-revolutionary slogans. Their “talk left, act right” seeks to cover the true motive of aiming to occupy the political commanding heights of society against all odds – preferably forever – at the expense of the public interest they claim to represent in the light of deteriorating socio-economic living conditions for the once colonised, now hardly liberated (and anything but emancipated) majority.

The Struggle Within the Struggle

Scholars in politics include all too often the prototype of the sell-out intellectuals already lambasted by Frantz Fanon for their role in the decolonisation processes of the late 1950s, whom he accused of joining the liberation movement only to secure a slice of the cake shared after independence among those in control of the party in power.

Almost half a century ago, the Martinique-born psychiatrist and political revolutionary, who had joined the Algerian liberation struggle, presciently described in his manifesto The Wretched of the Earth the internal contradictions and limits to emancipation in anticolonial resistance and organised liberation movements. Writing at a time when the Algerian war of liberation had not even ended, Fanon prophesied the abuse of government power after attainment of independence and in the wake of establishing a one-party state. In a chapter entitled “The Pitfalls of National Consciousness” he predicted that the state, which by its robustness and at the same time its restraint should convey trust and calm, foists itself on people in a spectacular way, makes a big show of itself, harasses and mistreats the citizens and by this means shows that they are in permanent danger.

He continues by criticising the abuse of power exercised by the party, which:

"…controls the masses, not in order to make sure that they really participate in the business of governing the nation, but in order to remind them constantly that the government expects from them obedience and discipline. The political party, instead of welcoming the expression of popular discontentment, instead of taking for its fundamental purpose the free flow of ideas from the people up to the government, forms a screen and forbids such ideas."

The growing blending of party, government and state among the liberation movements in power indicates a very similar development in the post-apartheid era. The specific constellation based on the use of force to gain liberation from undemocratic and repressive conditions like those that prevailed in the colonial societies of southern Africa was hardly favourable to the durable strengthening of humanitarian values and norms. As part of abolishing anachronistic, degrading systems of rule it created new challenges on the difficult path to establishing sound and robust egalitarian structures and institutions, and in particular to promoting democratically-minded people. But independence without true democracy is still far from being liberation.

Criticism as Loyalty

The governments of postcolonial states in former settler societies such as Namibia and South Africa are, in contrast to the previous minority regimes broadly legitimate. Hence there is no justification for a right to generalised resistance to the state authorities as implied in the arguments concerning the colonial order. Notwithstanding this necessary clarification, a similar guiding principle of legitimate dissent from the state authorities’ controlled and enforced views should be advocated for an ethically motivated civic behaviour in the postcolonial societies of today.

In the context of a political culture committed to the values and virtues of pluralism in a liberal democracy, critical voices should not automatically be associated with disloyalty to the existing system. After all, this has been one of the aims of a struggle against the totalitarian regimes previously in place – to abandon the intolerant authoritarianism shaping the colonial societies under minority rule and to allow for a variety of views. Unfortunately, this seems not to be the common and accepted understanding of many of those in control of political power in post-apartheid societies, who seem to feel mainly “accountable to themselves”, as the scholar Ken Good phrased it. He had spent most of his academic life in Southern Africa until he was - 72 years of age and after lecturing 15 years on the campus of the University of Botswana - declared a prohibited immigrant by the Head of State Festus Mogae, allegedly for his criticism of the government’s policy of forced removal imposed on the Bushmen.

While most of the existing political orders are able to claim – in contrast to the preceding minority regimes – a more or less democratic legitimacy, they often fail to recognise the difference between its formal and moral dimensions. In other words: the mere fact that one is formally entitled to take certain decisions and actions on behalf of others without further consultation on the basis of (at times dubious) election results, does not necessarily and always justify such decisions or actions from a moral or ethical point of view.

Rapid social transitions have an impact on those involved in the transformation, which affects them in a direct way. Once moving into the seats of power, the effects of being alienated from people at the grassroots whom political office bearers claim to have represented since the ‘struggle days’, should not be underestimated. It requires a high degree of (self-)critical reflection and assessment to protect oneself from not being moved further and further away from ‘the masses’.

With reference to democratic South Africa, this process has been described by a local observer quoted in an article in the Guardian (16 May 2001) thus:

“The pace of change is such that individuals cease to live in real time. Human journeys that under normal circumstances take decades, if not generations, are completed in a few years, if not months. So the prisoner becomes president; law-breakers become law-makers; armed guerillas become arms dealers. The person who slept on your floor only 10 years ago, after a wild party, is now a government minister with an entourage.”

With the change a growing degree of intolerance often emerges, which considers dissenting views as unacceptable. As a recent South African study by Gibson and Gouws on the degree of (in-)tolerance diagnosed:

“For most South Africans, the idea of putting up with their political enemies is distasteful and/or foreign. And indeed, most South Africans have political enemies they dislike a great deal, and these enemies are perceived as quite threatening. The combination of disliking a group and feeling threatened by it is a powerful source of political intolerance.”

With reference to earlier processes of transition from colonial minority rule to formal political sovereignty under African governments in other parts of the continent, the backlash which often occurred, had been described as a return to repression by Hydén and Okigbo in a chapter to a volume on Media and Democracy in Africa:

“It became clear quite early on after independence that the new nationalist governments were not comfortable with the idea of challenges to their policies. Arguing that the new nation-states could not afford bickering over what is right or wrong, these leaders did their best to suppress opinions other than those favorable to their own stance. The political leadership was ready to bar others from using the public realm, exceeding the efforts of the colonial state in this regard. Political space in this public realm could only be used at its pleasure and permission to do so could be revoked at its sole judgment. The most significant change was the transformation of the discursive realm from being civic and cosmopolitan to becoming parochial and local.”

As part of the historical legacy, those who were fighting against institutionalized discrimination and oppression under totalitarian structured societies tend to resort to similar mechanisms of control once in power themselves. They are tempted to marginalise those who beg to differ or are perceived as different from the accepted norms under the newly imposed discourse of nation building.

Choices for Commitment

African societies and the social forces operating under the given constraints imposed by state control – similar to forces within other societies the world over – face the challenge to achieve and maintain a maximum of independence of thought as a precondition for the realisation of citizenship. It is important to note that such criticism of repressive policy is shared by some of those in established and responsible positions within the currently emerging continental African bodies of relevance. In his keynote address to a conference organized mid-2004 in collaboration with the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda did not mince his words. Having worked as a legal expert on the drafting and conclusion of the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights (adopted in 1981), Jallow stated:

“Good governance is not only about majorities; it involves the protection of all, including minorities such as those in the opposition. The right to free speech and dissent rests on the existence of an independent private media – both in print and on radio, given literacy levels in Africa. The establishment of independent civil society organisations and the creation of the democratic space for them to operate effectively must be nurtured to diffuse the over-centralisation of power and authority, empower the ordinary citizen and thereby reduce the risks of abuse of centralised authority. Governments should relentlessly strive to ensure the realisation of all categories of rights and freedoms for all without distinction.”

As scholars and intellectuals we have socio-political choices to make. We have to decide if we are merely guided by our petty bourgeois class interests to enhance our relative privileges in a given power structure and social hierarchy by siding with those executing social control and maintaining economic and/or political power within the grossly unequal societies of southern Africa. Alternatively, we can opt for committing class suicide as Amilcar Cabral had suggested (and practised), although this sounds rather crude (and highly idealistic) in the era of postcolonial re-established social hierarchies.

Instead, demanding the right to engage in social struggles as academics might be a more realistic point of departure – and difficult enough to practise. Like any other members of society, scholars and intellectuals are faced with bigger choices. These are about more than how best to ensure their narrowly defined self-interest of academic freedom in cosy niches of institutions of higher learning. Academic freedom in its true, wider sense is related to and is about fundamental aspects of human rights and development. And it’s up to us, if we accept the challenge and decide to fight for such interlinked goals. The question remains: Which side are we on?

* Acknowledgement: This is a shorter version of an article based on a plenary paper presented to the 24th Biennial Conference of the Southern African Universities’ Social Sciences Conference (SAUSSC) on “Human Rights and Development” (University of Botswana, Gaborone, December 5–7, 2005) and published in the Journal of Contemporary African Studies, vol. 24, no. 2, May 2006, pp. 261-278. Please consult the original publication for the full text with detailed bibliographic references.

* Dr. Henning Melber was Director of the Namibian Economic Policy Research Unit (NEPRU) in Windhoek (1992-2000) and Research Director of The Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala/Sweden (2000-2006), where he is now the Executive Director of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation (www.dhf.uu.se).

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