Martin Wandera
16 October 2008
opinion
In the wake of the United States and now global financial crisis, there have been insinuations that this signifies the end of the USA as the world economic leader.
Further suggestions have been made that the global economic leadership is likely to be taken over by one of the Far East economic powers.
However, I find such debates on whether USA is falling or not least relevant to Africa because they are analogous to poor and unemployed young persons arguing on whether James Mulwana's economic empire is in crisis or he is likely to be surpassed by Gordon Wavamunno.
The economic collapse or rise of Mulwana or Wavamunno can never put money in any one's pockets just on account of gossip!
While leadership in global capitalism has been changing, its character and position on Africa has remained unchanged. Before US became the world's super power in 1945, Britain, Holland, France and the Romans had ruled the world at different times. The ceding of global economic power by the US to China, for example, will therefore not change the structure of the global capitalist economy.
The global trading system will remain skewed in favour of the rich nations. The new economic leader is and will be a beneficiary of the unfair international trading arrangements and will have no incentive to change the status quo.
It has been argued that if China assumes leadership, global capitalism might adopt a human face. Indeed a number of deals signed between China and many African countries have had a semblance of a human face. However, no one should be fooled; pledges and seemingly altruist actions by countries trying to gain dominant positions in the world economy are as brittle as a lover's oath.
The American turnaround from a defender of the rights of the poor countries is a good case in point. In 1941 when Sir Winston Church Hill and Franklin Roosevelt met at a battleship off the coast of Newfoundland to discuss the entry of the USA into the Second World War, Roosevelt vented his "frustration" over the "historical injustice" of the English economic policy.
He said then that arrival at stable peace must involve the development of backward countries and he condemned economic policies that took raw materials out of the colonies but returned nothing.
This talk was merely part of the American plan to take over British hegemony. Because as soon as the USA assumed global leadership, she also started playing the role played by Britain in the colonial era!
Africa's focus therefore should be two fold. First, it should be accepted that there is a global crisis and measures to mitigate its economic and social costs should be devised.
While the IMF says the crisis is very deep and widespread requiring excellent coordination among nations, President Museveni was quoted in one of the dailies, saying that Uganda's economy is immunised against the current crisis because our financial sector is regulated.
To narrow the impact of this crisis to Uganda's financial sector is very scaring. The crisis has dire consequences for the well being of our people. Africa's economies are dependent on exports of primary products, capital flows, foreign aid and remittances from abroad.
The crisis is likely to affect Africa through the decline in export earnings, decline in remittances due to rising unemployment in Europe and USA, diversion of aid towards rescue packages and reduced investment due to increased risk averseness of the western banks. Secondly, Africa's focus should be on fighting for our "second independence."
While legendaries like Nkrumah, Lumumba, Nyerere etc fought for the independence of Africa, the current African leaders have sold Africa in the same way chiefs like Lobengula of Matebeleland did in the 1880s, by signing unfair WTO trade agreements, and recently, the Economic Partnership Agreements with the EU.
Mr Wandera is FDC's secretary for labour
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 The Monitor. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
