Get ready for the African revolution, says Mbeki

Africa's masses had to be mobilised for a revolution to improve the continent's political, economic and social situation, President Thabo Mbeki said on Friday.

Writing in his weekly online column, ANC Today, Mbeki said that duty would fall on the Pan African Parliament (PAP) and the African Union's (AU) Economic, Social and Cultural Council (Ecosocc).

"The call to achieve Africa's renaissance is therefore necessarily a call to the African masses to rise up in struggle to defeat poverty and underdevelopment, to end Africa's marginalisation and to restore the dignity of Africans everywhere," wrote Mbeki.

There was a need for a "veritable revolution that must lead to the eradication of poverty and underdevelopment on our continent, the restoration of the dignity of the African people and victory in the struggle to end the global marginalisation of Africa and Africans".

However, to achieve this Africans must fully understand the impact that slavery, colonialism and racism has had on them.

"There are some in our country and the rest of the world who demand that we should view and treat these phenomena merely as a matter of historical record, with no relevance to our contemporary struggles for Africa's rebirth.

"We see this clearly in our own country, where some insist that apartheid is a thing of the past, and that all references to the continuing impact of that past constitute an attempt to 'play the race card'".

He said it was important the impact of that past was understood so that Africans were empowered to deal with the present.

"Our purposes are not informed by any desire to blame those historically responsible for the most terrible crimes against humanity, but to design the policies and programmes that must help us to achieve Africa's renaissance."

Mbeki said the genuine democratisation of African politics and the empowerment of Africans to be their own liberators was critical.

"It is our responsibility, acting together with all other patriotic forces in Africa and the African Diaspora, to ensure that we mobilise the masses of the people to act as their own liberators."

He called on African academics to inform people about the consequences of slavery on the continent.

"It has a duty to educate us about the emergence and impact of racism on the societies that were the victims of slavery, colonialism and neo-colonialism."

Mbeki said the establishment of PAP emphasised the need for the empowerment of Africans to play a role in changing their lives. – Sapa

There are structural problems in the way of any real renaissance in Africa.

For one thing, if you want different results, you have to do things differently.

Sadly, Africa as a whole continually pleads either for their own governments or for foreign governments to save them from themselves. That dog won't hunt. That's "begging for the King's alms", a strategy that even when successful merely gets you through another day with food in your belly.

Africans can form bureaucracies with the best of them. The new PAP. The new African Union (modeled after the EU). They love the UN. They love to hate the WTO (doesn't give 'em enough, etc.).

But what bureaucracy ever led a renaissance?!

Africa has cheap labor (to hear some tell it, cheap labor is the end all and be all of economic growth) and vast natural resources. But the continent with 1/6th of the world's population produces less than 1% of the world's GDP.

So something besides cheap labor and vast natural resources is holding the continent back.

Secondly, one such thing holding the continent back is blaming the past, and past "oppressors", for current failures.

Even though the NAZIs demonstrated that manufacturing an enemy can unite a population, the current African fad of excusing all modern failings on Colonialists who haven't ruled in Africa for more than a generation is doing little more than enslaving modern Africa to the worst of its past.

Third, Africa isn't investing in their future. New brainpower isn't being attracted to the continent, and new brainpower isn't being well-educated domestically, either. Worse, existing brainpower is being driven away. Zimbabwe is chasing away its best farmers, and South Africa starts its land reform (read: confiscation) program next year. Soaring crime also runs off the best and brightest (who can actually find jobs in foreign countries). How do you improve your lot if you don't invest in your future?!

Fourth, Africans are terrible stewards of their land. As described so perfectly by "The Tragedy of the Commons," when you don't have private property, the incentive on everyone is to take as much as possible as soon as possible from the land, with no incentive at all being given to anyone for managing the land for the long-term.

Three tribes sharing the same grazing pasture will pack as many animals as possible into the pasture, knowing that whatever they don't use will be taken by their competing tribes. Of course, this eats up all of the available grass, forcing all three tribes to move on, where the whole tragedy is repeated anew.

In contrast, a rancher who owns his own private property will seldom act so rashly as to overgraze his own land. That would make his property worth less, decreasing his personal wealth. Rather than decrase his personal wealth, the property owner will ensure that no more animals graze his own land than what can be managed for the long-term. Because of that self-restraint, his land will be good forever and he won't have to move on to new land (which he would have to buy).

Fifth, Africa can't have a renaissance so long as its governments continue to permit or allow excessive confiscation of property from the few African success stories (either via force of arms or via taxes). Who wants to build a new mine if they know that it will be confiscated if they strike riches?! What bank would lend money for such a venture?!

Sixth, Africa has to tame its lawlessnes. Enough said.

Seventh, Africans will actually have to want progress. While we in the West take it for granted that everyone wants to be richer and have modern things, there is a subset in Africa that is quite content to chew Khat and have sex all day long. Why work if stupid foreigners show up in their helicopter, ships, and truck convoys each day delivering to you all of the food, water, and medicine that you may need...while in the meantime you get to sleep around with every cute girl who crosses your path each day?! So you kick back, enjoy the weather, screw everything that moves, and then have "rich" foreigners serve you breakfast in bed each day (hyperbole is my friend). So what if the foreigners call such room service "handouts"?! Breakfast in bed is still breakfast in bed, so who wants to go "work" and give all of that up?!

The irony, of course, is that it doesn't have to be this way. Africa has the labor pool and the natural resources to join the modern world in a single generation.

But it won't happen from the top down via bureaucrats and governments. Socialism won't save them. Foreign aid won't save them.

No, Africans would actually have to want to work to change their own lot in life...and thereagain, those who want to work and have the real skills for what can improve Africa...are the most likely to go to foreign countries where their skills can make them rich without smashing their heads up against the brick walls of trying to change an entire continent.

So faced with that Catch-22, plus the above-mentioned ills, plus the ever-constant African tribal wars, the smart money is betting that Africa simply punts and cries either for more foreign aid or to be re-colonized.

But until Africans decide en masse to save themselves from having foreigners serve them breakfast in bed everyday, which they have the capability of doing, it just won't happen. The solution is internal. Africans have to save themselves.

Moreover, the solution is in the present, not tied to remembering the wrongs that have been done to them in the past.

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