HomeOld_PostsBill Gates, land reform or revolution in Southern Africa? — Part Two

Bill Gates, land reform or revolution in Southern Africa? — Part Two

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BILL GATES is a man whose fame and fortune are not only based on his personal achievements in software development and his subsequent accumulation of billions of dollars, but also in his philanthropic activities all over the world.
It is because of the extensive activities of his foundation that he recently found himself reviewing Joe Studwell’s book, How Asia Works.
Gates confesses in his review that Studwell’s observations have persuaded him to pay more attention to how land is owned in countries where his foundation funds work because equitable distribution of modest plots to majority of farmers leads to better agricultural yields which, in turn, create a surplus that primes demand for goods and services.
Then Gates cites Studwell’s three step formula to the development success story of Asia as follows:
a) Create conditions for small farmers to thrive.
b) Use the proceeds from agricultural proceeds to build a manufacturing base that is tooled from the start to produce exports.
c) Nurture both these sectors-small farming and export oriented manufacturing- with financial institutions closely controlled by the government.
Judging from both the focus and tone of the review one is almost persuaded to believe that Bill Gates is genuinely searching for a way out of the mess for those millions of people who remain the wretched of the earth in the so-called Third World countries.
The hidden missionary of sorts in Bill Gates comes out and across in the same review when he asks whether “Studwell’s three-step formula is applicable to Africa as it is to Asia.
“The big question for me is: can African countries become successful export-oriented manufacturing hubs?”
There is no doubt at all that the question he is raising is well meant!
However, his question is in fact a version of the same question which has been raised by many development economists from the early 1960s right up to the present.
And the downside of the same question is: do Africans have the capacity and culture to develop in the same way other countries in the West and in Asia have?
Could it be that the gene pool which defines the African race has a missing link somewhere which we can call, for want of a better term, a development gene; could it be that this gene tumbled out of the common gene pool and went awol? In brief the speculative question surrounding Africa’s inherent capacities or lack of them raised by Bill Gates turn out to be part of an archetypal question shaping the mind of development economists from the West for long!
A number of explanations are in order here:
First: Gates is correct when he refers to land tenure and land use in poor countries as being affected by feudal land policies!
However, to talk about feudalism is to be partially correct without being adequate in revealing key aspects impeding Africa’s progress.
To talk about Africa’s development or lack of it while avoiding the framing context fundamental to our understanding of what has gone wrong for a long time is to be unhelpful.
Four centuries of uninterrupted European slave trade with Africa starting from mid-fifteenth century caused unprecedented havoc which continues to haunt the continent up to this day!
This shameful trade in human cargo and the value of labour it generated for long provided the capital which subsequently fuelled industrialisation in both Britain and America at Africa’s expense.
No economic historian worth his salt can deny this!
No other continent under the sun has ever been subjected to such a predatory nightmare as Africa has been!
Compounding the unprecedented slave horror unleashed upon Africa is the colonisation of Africa which followed for nearly a century, again by the same Europe!
There is no other continent on earth other than Africa whose labour and resources has been looted wholesale for long, again by the same Europe!
And the response of the same Western world has been astounding: no apology, no compensation, no gratitude but contempt, no reference to slavery at all in all discussions about Africa, no respect, none, whatsoever!
Instead Africa has been left alone to nurse itself back to health, back to independence and back to freedom- against all odds, again created by the same West.
In other words when Westerners speak about under development in Africa what they studiously avoid mentioning like the plague is how deeply implicated they are in that under development!
Second: It is no longer a secret that most of the economic policies of post-colonial Africa have been dictated by the West.
One can mention the infamous Economic Structural Adjustment programmes which Europe and the USA foisted upon our continent; these programmes de-industrialised Africa, threw millions out of their jobs and made Africa more vulnerable economically and more dependent on the same West.
The same West has not acknowledged any responsibility for the economic devastation which their doctrinaire policies have caused in Africa.
Instead Westerners find it easier to raise existential questions about Africans as if they are a genetically flawed race which cannot do without assistance from its senior white brother!
Whenever any African country tries to come up with its economic policies the IMF and the World Bank step in and read the riot act.
These two institutions are the day to day supervisors who ensure that Africa does not adopt economic policies not in sync with Western interests!
Lack of space for independent policy formulation in the economic sector has been a major hurdle to Africa’s progress.
Today Zimbabwe stands isolated and vilified by the West for trying to do precisely what Bill Gates is admiring in the Asian narrative.
Today South Africa and Namibia dare not incur the wrath of the West by distributing land to the black majority as common sense dictates!
No change will take place either until the West says so or until bloody revolutions erupt in both countries!
Third: The Asian economic miracle which Studwell has written so well about has to be understood in its historical context.
And this is not to take away anything from Asian efforts!
Western capital flows into South Korea, Japan, Taiwan etc soon after the Second world war as part of a systemic Western programme to contain the so called spread of communism!
This flow of capital helped immensely in creating an irresistible economic momentum in the region, something that Africa has been denied all along.
China, which by then was isolated and vilified by the West, saw everything going on and forgot nothing at all!
Later it adopted some aspects of that unfolding Asian narrative and adapted to its own situation accordingly — making maximum use of its population numbers. The rest is history.
Accordingly, while no one doubts the good
intentions of Bill Gates as he tries to use his considerable sums of money to make a difference in the lives of the poor, it is obvious that most, not all, of the hurdles
that Africa is facing vis-a-vis development, come from West!

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