ISLAMIC MOVEMENTS AND THE POLITICAL
ECONOMY IN AFRICA: AN OVERVIEW OF
SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA - 4

[The Concept ]    [The Context ]   [Contemporary Islamic Movement ]   [African Political Economy ]   [Further Evidence ]   [Description to Prescription ]   [The Human Factor ]          [Role of Movements ]   [Conclusion ]  The African Political Economy The mere mention of Africa today conjures an image of abject poverty, starvation, refugees, coups, civil wars and recently ethnic conflict. In economic terms Africa is underdeveloped, with very low GNP and per capita income, has problems with balance of payments and crippling debt burden and all this in the face of a worsening negative growth rate. Put in comparative terms, a good majority of the poorest nations in the world are in Africa. Over a quarter of the world refugees are from Africa. It has a crippling debt burden with majority of the countries having arrears in excess of 50% of scheduled debt service. But this is the result and not the cause of Africa's misfortune, and it is rarely realised that this grim pictures says more about the mischief of a global economy dominated and run by the economic North than the misfortune of Africa. For the contemporary African political economy is a mere extension of the colonial economy in almost everything but name. First the slave trade, spanning some five centuries, which snatched from Africa millions of its best human resources took them to the new found land to develop what has come to be the most powerful nation today and to feed the economy of western Europe. So after all Fanon was right when he said that "Europe ... is the creation of the Third World". Then came colonialism which in less than a century plundered all known material resources and gave permanence to this exploitative relationship by creating the socio-economics, political and above all the mental and intellectual condition for its continuity. Thus the post independent period more appropriately called the neo-colonial period saw a further plundering of the African economy to serve and benefit the ever growing economy of Europe and America, particularly the G-7. The military, political and educational institutions of many African countries have been unable to do more than rhetoric not only because they are poor copies of the western models but because they have been designed from inception to facilitate and perpetuate this relationship. [14] The twin Bretton Woods institutions, the IMF and the World Bank were created exactly fifty years ago ostensibly to salvage the war battered economy of Europe. But today they have become the de facto continental ministers of finance with the African economy virtually at their mercy. A very familiar argument of course, but that is no reason why it should not be restated. This is not to find someone to blame for Africa's misfortune or to absolve Africans themselves but to put our discussion in context. Indeed a lot of this mess came about through fiscal irresponsibility and political corruption of African leadership, but it will be unfair to ignore the accomplice factor of the West who clearly are the only beneficiaries in this game of exploitation. They provide the loans to these regimes, they prop them up and protect them, they keep custody of their loot and give sanctuary to the culprits, whenever it serves their interests.