Everyone's talking about Africa
The African Union summit is underway in Sirte, Libya, hosted by the colourful Muammar Gaddafi, quoted at the summit as saying: "We are a single nation ... we should establish a borderless continent with an African common market, one passport and a single currency..."
Now a certain level of idealism is expected and beneficial at such gatherings, but by referring to Africans as a single nation when countries like Sudan, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), Zimbabwe and more are in the middle of civil strife in one form or another between tribes, races and religions where millions of people have lost their lives, Gaddafi has really outdone himself this time.
Moving on, Salman sends this seemingly angrily written piece from the New Statesman, June 27 2005. Along with the usual anti-corporation rhetoric that is expected from the left , the writer John Pilger attacks the recently announced G8 plan to write off all the poorest African nations' debt, saying:
'The G8 communique announcing the "victory for millions" is unequivocal. Under the section headline "G8 proposals for HIPC debt cancellation", it says that debt relief will be granted to poor countries only if they are shown to be "adjusting their gross assistance flows by the amount given": in other words, their aid will be reduced by the same amount as the debt relief. So they gain nothing. Paragraph two states that "it is essential" that poor countries "boost private sector development" and ensure "the elimination of impediments to private investment, both domestic and foreign".'
So it appears the plan to cancel all debt is not what it seems at first glance and there are some significant strings attached to the debt relief promised. Should we be suprised? Not really - it sounded too good to be true to begin with.
But from another point of view, this might not be really as bad as Pilger makes it sound. The level of corruption in the governments and bureaucracies of African nations is the stuff of legends. A simple, no questions asked, overnight debt cancellation would probably only encourage African governments to continue borrowing and channeling more of the aid into pockets of corrupt officials and rulers. A debt relief plan that forces these governments to spend their aid more wisely so that they have to seek less in the future is not necessarily a bad thing.
The G8 has agreed to double aid to Africa, but countries like the US have made it clear that this is contingent on African countries tackling corruption. Some might not like this condition, but I find it hard to blame donors for wanting their aid to be used for the right purposes. Not that I'm being pollyannaish and thinking the G8 have finally developed a conscience or something.
I don't disagree with the likes of John Pilger, I just find their left wing rants a little annoying sometimes.
10 comments:
pollyannaish
adj : pleasantly (even unrealistically) optimistic [syn: cheerful, upbeat]
Don't worry, I've never mistaken you for being that.
Phew... I was worried there for a bit.
Everyone is talking about Africa and it's high time they did. For too long now, the African continent has been relegated as the world's servant quarters. A lot of people on the European and American continents still think of Africa as steamy jungles and cannibals with bones through their noses. The notion of independent states with their own political systems, irrespective of how defective they are, hasn't yet occurred to us. There is no empathy for the African.
It's fantastic that the world is waking up to poverty in Africa and I hope something good does come out of all these concerts and political summits. But then again one thinks of Rwanda and those facetious debates on how to define a genocide while thousands while being slaughtered in the streets. And what about Darfur now?
Is it a racist world? It could be. Even we in Pakistan have been rallying fervently for decades for the cause of the Kashmiris while three generations of Biharis are rotting in shanties. Are goray Mussalmaan better than kaalay Mussalmaan?
Interesting comments from abomynous. On the theme of why certain conflicts get more play in the Muslim imagination than others, which Ali touched on in his post as well, it may well be just subconscious racism, but my feeling is that there's something more to it.
Whenever you hear about the "ills of the Muslim world", the countries mentioned are always the usual suspects: Palestine, Iraq, now Afghanistan and occasionally Kashmir (though not often). What all of these conflicts have in common is that they are perceived by Muslims (whether rightly or wrongly) to be continuations of the European colonial experiment (the Indian thing in the Kashmir case is also thought to be a violation of state sovereignty -- though obviously not an European encroachment, hence the relatively weak response from the Muslim diaspora). And so there's a visceral response dictating that we should do everything in our power in defence of "our people" against "them" (read: Americans).
Unfortunately, and to our shame, the dynamics of African poverty don't seem to hold the same urgency for us -- although I think a good case can be made that Western nations owe a lot to Africa for the ravaging of their continent.
And so I think, as I often do, that the problem really returns to us. What is it about the modern Muslim psyche that elicits such a myopic vision of the world and the ummah? My tentative response is that we define what it means to be Muslim vis-a-vis "those terrible Americans/Westerners." Our identity seems to be a function of what we're not. And so we get riled up when we are thought to be under the hegemonic control of those dirty kafirs who we are so much better than. Meanwhile, African children (many, many of them Muslims) dying of AIDS, hunger, and civil war slip under the radar.
My depressing 2 cents.
Junaid, make these 2 cents into a full dollar and you should be good to take part in the conference I talk about in my latest post.
But seriously, going back to what you said, I think a lot of it has to do with a widespread inferiority complex in the Muslim world vis-a-vis the West (perhaps a legacy of the colonial era) which manifests itself in many ways including nationalism, reverence for Western culture - clothes, music, the Big Mac etc., and as you said, defining the Muslim identity in terms of anti-Westernism. The latter is I guess another kind of nationalism, where we perceive ourselves as superior to the other 'nation' i.e. the West.
Superiority complexes are often the result of inferiority complexes, though I suppose whether this applies to entire nations and communities just as it does to individuals could be challenged.
Usually 2 cents is all I can muster on any given topic. Well on my way to becoming a cocktail-party academic...
King Abdullah's comments are interesting. It seems we've now gone from the five schools of orthoxy in Shaltut's fatwa to now eight legitimate madhabs according to Abdullah.
Seems like we're casting a big tent, which while commendable for its toleration, feels unsatisfactory, both because it seems devoid of any coherent theory undergirding it, and because (in my opinion) the solution seems to be off the mark in solving the problems which people seem to cite as constituting the malaise of the umma. (Not to say, I have a problem with anything that deters fanatics from killing people they deem apostates.)
(Not to say, I have a problem with anything that deters fanatics from killing people they deem apostates.)
Err... just to be perfectly clear, the comma in that sentence shouldn't be there.
They added two more 'schools' to those eight when I was reading other stuff related to the conference proceedings - mainstream Sufism, and Salafism (although these overlap with the four Sunni schools I suppose).
wo00hoo these posts were deep ;-)
junaid hows your thesis going?
Post a Comment