ISLAMIC MOVEMENTS AND THE POLITICAL
ECONOMY IN AFRICA: AN OVERVIEW OF
SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA - 6

[The Concept ]    [The Context ]   [Contemporary Islamic Movement ]   [African Political Economy ]   [Further Evidence ]   [Description to Prescription ]   [The Human Factor ]          [Role of Movements ]   [Conclusion ]  From Description to Prescription All these happened not for lack of efforts but rather in spite of several and spirited efforts. Scholars have been trying to make sense of the mess. One analysis after another, from the left, right and center, strategic and policy studies as well as reports from leading consultants have not done the magic and things only worsen by the day. Many scholars have urged a shift from the capital centered conception of development to a richer and more humane concept.[23] The left, both old and new, have insisted that nothing short of complete disengagement with world capitalist economic system, in their words, 'De-linking', will do the trick.[24] The right had been blaming the absence of democracy and free market.[25] Some in the center have been emphasizing the need for transfer of technology.[26] The consultants have had their eyes on capital arranging for more loans, what someone called "relieving debt by increasing it". When the debt got the better of the economy the consultants arrange rescheduling and swaps and such palliatives that only postpone but not stop the misery. When a country find itself on the brink it goes hands up in surrender to the IMF and the World Bank who then set conditionalities foremost among which is Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP). It is beyond the scope of this paper to assess these prescriptions, this should be left in the capable hands of the experts. [27] But it may be necessary to raise a few issues in this regard. The inequities of the international economic system have never been in doubt and as far back as 1973 the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), meeting in Algiers felt that something must be done. NAM managed to get the matter discussed at a special session of the UN General Assembly and this led to the Brandt Commission the story of which is too well known to warrant recounting here. Ten years later the situation only worsened with many countries deep in to the debt crisis, transfer of technology proving ever more elusive and the same few industrialized countries dominating the world economic system. This prompted some of the leaders of the Third World to begin another effort to redress this alarming trend. In 1986 the Third World Foundation for Social Economic studies along with the Malaysian Institute of Strategic and International Studies organised an international conference in Malaysia to address this issue. This conference gave birth to South Commission which came to be chaired by Mwalimu Julius Nyerere and endorsed by the NAM meeting in Zimbabwe in the same year. It is now nearly another ten years since the inauguration of the South Commission, yet the situation, far from improving, has plummeted to an unprecedented abyss with hundreds of millions of people in poverty and starvation, with scores of countries suffocating from the debt burden and with hardly any ray of hope in this dark tunnel of deprivation, desperation and despondency. Two years ago the NAM meeting in Jakarta Indonesia addressed this issue and resolved to create an ad hoc committee of experts, under the chairmanship of Gamani Corea, to examine the issue and advise the best way out of this seemingly intractable crisis. In its report, out just this August, the ad hoc committee noted, among others, that "the extent of debt service problem, in terms of the number of countries affected and its impact on their growth and welfare, is by any reckoning serious and demands urgent attention". In respect of Africa, for example, the report noted that by 1992, 38 of 51 African countries have arrears in excess of 20% of scheduled debt service, 35 have in excess of 40% , 32 have in excess of 50% and 11 have in excess of well over 90%. The report concluded, among others, that the problem can only be solved "through decisive reductions of the stock of debt and debt service".[29] This of course requires the goodwill of the creditors and in its absence, perhaps the "badwill" of the debtors.[30] While it is clearly too early to say what the effect of the ad hoc committee would be, there are enough reasons to doubt if much could come out of any effort that seems to relay on the goodwill of the industrialized countries in general, then G-7 but now G8 in particular - if only for the simple reason that they have never been known for their goodwill. To do otherwise is to ignore the exploitative relationship that has always characterized the three major phases of relationship between Africa, as indeed the rest of the Third World and the West. From the period of the slave trade, through colonialism and neo-colonialism the West has consistently sought to dominate and exploit Africa. The first two phases of slavery and colonization needed brute force, but in the third and current phase this has been obviated by the economic, political and military structures they established, founded as they are on an educational system that evokes subservience to the West. An overwhelming majority of African leadership both civilian and military come to power and remain in power by leave of one Western government or institution. So while in power, rather understandably, they seek to protect primarily the interest of the West. We all know what happened to those who either refused or failed to conform. John Pilger, the British journalist, perhaps more than anybody, captured the spirit of this phase when he titled his recent television documentary on the exploitative nature of the IMF and the World Bank, War by Other Means.