Tajudeen: Blair-Bush Good Cop/Bad Cop Debt Hustle to Recolonize Africa

[Jahness]

Tajudeen: Blair-Bush Good Cop/Bad
Cop Debt Hustle to Recolonize Africa


TAJUDEEN'S COLUMN 9 JUNE 2005

Britain has adopted Africa as a centrepiece of its Foreign Policy this year.
In his usual missionary approach the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair,
has re-branded himself from being the Secretary of State for America into
Prime Minister for Africa. It was in this Africa mode that he went to America,
earlier this week, to try to exact some concessions from his bully buddy, Bush.

Blair's mission was to persuade Bush to buy into his three-pronged Africa
programme: More Aid, Debt Cancellation and International Trade reforms.
He arrived in Britain on Wednesday with a few million dollars in pledges
from the Americans towards drought relief in the Horn of Africa. There was
also a promise to consider 100% debt cancellation for some 32 countries
in Africa.

British NGOs and anti-poverty campaigners have already condemned Bush's
crumbs to Blair as miserly and far below the multi- billion aid begging bowl
Blair is expecting the rest of the richer countries to contribute to before their
rich men's club meeting in Gleneagles next month. Bush defended himself by
drawing attention to the fact that he had trebled aid to Africa already and given
15 billion dollars towards HIV/Aids in Africa. Of course what he did not say is
that even more dubious than under the cold war, American aid is now more tied
to compliant regimes in Africa no matter how unpopular they are with their
peoples for as long as they are on the side of his war without end in the name of international terrorism. And before countries with oil (especially now that the
Americans are trying to find alternative to their dependence and vulnerability to
Arab oil supplies) get a huge discount on other conditionalities slapped against
regimes currently unfavoured in Washington.

Also most of his AIDS money will actually be beneficial to American pharmaceutical companies and their very expensive medicines because the Americans are opposed to cheaper derivative drugs from India, Brazil, China or South Africa. Also the administration believes only in abstinence campaigns and it is prisoner to faith-based (meaning Christian fundamentalist) groups and lobbies. This means that what Bush gives with one hand is immediately taken with the other through his big business and religious sponsors.

As a Bush-Blair cynic I am not really surprised at the games being played by these global con men but unfortunately there are still too many people both in Britain and outside who still believe that Tony means well and somehow he can persuade Bush and the rest of the world to do right by Africa. My position is that instead of Blair preaching to the rest of the worldabout Africa, let the British government challenge other Western
and richer countries by showing a good example through confession and remorse and then tangible, concrete action that shows that it has its mouth in tandem with its pocket.

Even if he has now succeeded in getting Bush to use nearly the same language as him on debt cancellation this is where it stops. The devil as they say is in the details. The Bush people want debt cancellation to be paid for by the lending multilateral institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank. This may mean that money pledged for relief of poverty will be diverted to debt cancellation. In plain language: No new monies on the table just
a recycling of what is already available. In biblical terms it means robbing Peter to pay Paul. So where does this leave Blair and his big plans for Africa? Nowhere really.

While he has put high premiums on persuading his American bosses, the truth is that other G8 countries are not really singing their hymns from the same book as him. Germany, France and Japan have their own priorities and would not be lectured to by a British Prime Minister on his way out of No 10 Downing Street. Blair may be seeking his international legacy via Africa but both the German Chancellor and the French President are also seeking their own legacies too, and Africa may not play big in their calculations.

Also this premium on Washington ignores other multilateral creditors to Africa such as the Africa Development Bank which in many cases, is a bigger lender of development loans to many African countries. African countries still hold a majority stake in the bank. Why is Blair not canvassing them for support on his debt right off? It must be his patronising assumption that once Europe and America agrees, which African dares oppose?

Two weeks ago Blair’s people made a big play on the EU countries agreeing to double Aid to Africa as yet another major breakthrough. This will be done by 2008. But the same EU was already committed to making AID 0.7% of GNP for thirty years and renewed this pledge 5 years ago through the Millennium development goals of the UN. Are we to celebrate their promising to reach 0.50% when they promised 0.70% 30 years ago?

My concern is that this Blair focus on Africa is goingto be yet another Shakespearean tale, “told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.� Africans must stop looking outside for our progress. Our salvation is within us. We are our own liberators. Does that mean there is nothing outsiders can do to help us? No, there is a role for others but we cannot adequately take advantage of other peoples’ help if we have not decided what we want to do for ourselves and how we want to go about it.


When Bob Geldof was challenged why he is organising a concert for Africa 21 years after his first one and there are no African Musicians apart from Yousof N’dour. The pathetic response from one of his spokespersons was that he did not have African Musicians in his address book. This from a man who is regarded as Mr Africa globally merely shows how Westerners regard Africans as objects of their sympathy rather than agents of changing their own situation.

We have to summon the courage to stand up to these new missionaries in Africa represented by western humanitarian NGOs and politicians like Blair and Globatricians like Bob Geldof. Their “good� intentions must match our aspirations. WE should do it together where possible, do it alone where necessary, but at every stage we should have the veto, not them. We cannot outsource our progress and development. To borrow a phrase recently used by my Good Ndugu, FirozeManji, Editor of PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Nothing About Us Without Us.

Tajudeen28@yahoo.com or
thurdaypostcard@justiceafrica.org

"Forward ever , backward never".....Kwame Nkrumah (1909 - 1972)

DON'T AGONISE!....ORGANISE!

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