THE NEW SCRAMBLE FOR Africa (LEE wengraf)

LEE WENGRAF EXTRACTING PROFIT

THE NEW SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICA

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‘’ Trade by force dating back centuries; slavery that uprooted and dispossessed around 12 million Africans; precious metals spirited away; the 19th century emergence of racist ideologies to justify colonialism; the … carve-up?Of?Africa into dysfunctional territories in?a Berlin?negotiating room; the construction of settler-colonial and extractive?colonial systems—of which apartheid, the German occupation ?of?Namibia, the Portuguese colonies and King Leopold’s Belgian Congo were perhaps only the most blatant; … Cold War battlegrounds—proxies for US/USSR conflicts—filled with millions of corpses; other wars catalyzed by mineral searches and offshoot violence such as witnessed in blood diamonds and coltan; poacher-stripped swathes of East, Central and Southern Africa; … societies used as guinea pigs in the latest corporate pharmaceutical test; and the list could continue.’’

????- Patrick Bond, Looting Africa: The Economics of Exploitation

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The scramble for Africa’s wealth has a long and sordid history. From the era?of?slavery through?colonialism and post-independence, the exploitation of?the continent by?the West has been accompanied by economic stagnation,poverty, war, and disease for millions. As Walter Rodney famously described?in?How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972), from its earliest days, the?slave trade, colonial “encounter,” industrial boom, and?the?rise of imperialism?have combined to produce exploitation and inequality on a mass scale. “The?operation of the imperialist system,” Rodney wrote, “bears major responsibility for African economic?retardation?by?draining African wealth?and?by?making it impossible to develop more rapidly the resources?of the continent.”

?The exploitation of Africa has continued into the recent neoliberal era. By neoliberalism, I mean the period of global?capitalist?restructuring launched?by?Western ruling classes as an attempt to restore?corporate profitability following the economic crisis of the 1970s. Beginning?under US President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret?Thatcher, neoliberalism is marked?by dismantling barriers to corporate?globalization and accumulation, such as imposing free-trade agreements,?austerity, and attacks on unions. Likewise, the current phase of imperialism?has its roots in past eras;

By?imperialism, I mean the tendency for economic?competition between nations to produce conflicts across borders—both?economically, such as trade wars, as well as outright military conflict. Yet?while the influences of?this history continue to be?felt on “Africa’s economic?retardation,” as Rodney put it, the past likewise does not merely repeat?itself. The current phase of imperialism—with critical roles played by both?China and the United States—has a different dynamic than the colonial,post?independence, or Cold War eras. To summarize briefly here, the division of Africa’s “spoils” by?colonial powers at the Berlin conference of 1885 formalized carving?up?virtually the entire continent. Whether through direct or indirect rule,?African economies and societies were transformed?to?expand profits and?markets for Western capitalism. These chains were finally broken three?quarters of a century after Berlin: the postwar struggles for independence?saw European powers driven from the continent in revolutionary upheavals?beginning in the 1950s and extending up until the 1970s. The promise of?these movements and the birth of new nations?in?Africa brought a new?generation of African rulers?to?power at the hands?of?mass movements of?African workers, peasants, and students, who inspired and contributed to?movements for liberation across the globe.

In the immediate post-independence era, African states became weak

Pawns?in?the world economy—subject?to?Cold War rivalries, their path

To?development largely blocked by a debilitating colonial past and an

unfortunate set?of?largely external economic circumstances. The era of

neoliberalism was birthed in the global recession of?the?1970s, when many?so-called “Third World” nations, including those in Africa, were compelled?to turn to loans from Western financial institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.?An?onerous debt regime forced many nations to pay more?in?interest?on?debts to the World Bank and the IMF than on health care, education, infrastructure, and other vital services combined. Debt repayment was accompanied?by?The imposition of structural adjustment “reforms”: privatization, deregulation, and the removal?of?trade barriers to foreign investors. Harsh austerity and deindustrialization produced a sharp decline in living conditions, while new?nations were saddled with insurmountable levels of debt.

Much has been written about the past decade’s so-called boom in Africa—one characterized by high primary commodity prices that have driven?unprecedented growth rates in the new millennium, even (relatively speaking) during the 2008–2009 recession. Today, Western multinationals?and African elites have accumulated vast profits from their investments.?The value of fuel and mineral exports from Africa has reached into the?hundreds of billions, exceeding the aid that flows into the continent.?Surplus appropriation—that is, the value accruing to capitalists via the?exploitation of labor and natural resources—reverberates across Africa,producing huge wealth while millions live in the worst poverty found On?earth. The business press has championed the most recent “scramble,” from?oil and mining to massive land grabs for agribusiness development.Yet there is nothing new about a scramble for Africa’s natural resources.

This twenty-first-century boom has appropriately been described as a “new?scramble” for Africa in the media and academic accounts alike. This?reference evokes the remarkably similar nineteenth-century scramble for?Africa—typically understood as the period from the partitioning at Berlin?to?World War I—and the colonial rush at breakneck speed to claim the?continent’s raw materials. The so-called new scramble, over a century on, is?similarly an era of competition and a drive to profit from the exploitation of?Africa’s valuable oil and minerals.

Case studies such as Where Vultures Feast: Shell, Human Rights and Oil (2003)by?Ike Okonta and Oronto Douglas have documented the current plunder.Academic studies such as Padraig Carmody’s The?New

Scramble for Africa(2011) and Roger Southall and Henning Melber’s A New Scramble for Africa?Imperialism, Investment and Development (2009) provide important analyses ofthe resource issuesin?Africa today. Geographer Michael Watts has produced?numerous invaluable works on the long history and dirty politics of Africa’s?resource wars and today’s “oil insurgency,” along with a damning?indictment of flawed notions of a “resource curse.” Journalistic accounts?such as those from John Ghazvinian (2007), Nicholas Shaxson (2008), Celeste?Hicks (2015), and Tom Burgis (2015) have explored similar terrain, with

first-hand reporting from the frontlines of the new economy. Finally, the

environmental advocacy and writings?of?activists like Nnimmo Bassey—as in?his brilliant To Cook a Continent: Destructive Extraction and the Climate Crisis in?Africa (2012)—elaborate on the challenges posed for

The?left in confronting?multinational-driven devastation. Meanwhile, investigators such as Khadija?Sharife and the Tax Justice Network Africa have shone a much-needed?spotlight on the machinations and illegal practices that have facilitated the accumulation of profits in the extractive industries to soaring new heights.

China’s key role in Africa has evolved rapidly since the turn of the?millennium. The boom in China’s economy has spurred a drive for new

sources of energy as well as new markets, and a host?ofAfrican nations have?emerged as allies. Now Africa’s largest trading partner, China has a

footprint that can be found across large swaths?of?the continent. Important

reports such as African Perspectives on China in Africa (Fahamu Books and?Pambazuka Press, 2007) anticipated the growing closeness between theChinese government and various African nations, including the?major?

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oil?producers on the continent, such as Angola, and those with large deposits of?valuable minerals, such as Zambia. More recent accounts, such as HowardFrench’s China’s Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building a New?Empire in Africa (2014),9 along with writings by Deborah Brautigam,10 have?painted the picture of the transformed relationship between these regions?and the dramatic changes for ordinary Africans with new Chinese?immigration and investment.

China’s expanded presence in Africa highlights its global rivalry with the

United States and has accentuated imperial competition between the major?powers. As the US Department of Defense states

In?a critical strategy

document:

In order to credibly deter potential adversaries and to prevent them from

achieving their objectives, the United States must maintain its ability to

project power in areas in which our access and freedom to operate are

challenged…. States such as China … will continue to pursue asymmetric

means to counter our power projection capabilities.11

Twenty-first century wars and military expansion thus characterize a new imperial phase of economic volatility and political instability.?Heightened competition—with China, above all, but also with the European?Union and “emerging” nations—over control of resources, especially oil,?along with the drive for “energy security,” have produced a wider global?militarization that now encompasses sub-Saharan Africa. The United States?has approached this environment of heightened competition with an eye?toward protecting its strategic interests, deploying military might alongside?aggressive economic and trade policy?to?do so. Former US President George W. Bush created the African military command known as AFRICOM in 2007?as means of containing its competitors and projecting US power on the?continent .

A decade later, military “involvement” on the continent shows?no?signs

Of?abating. The Obama administration widened these activities?to

Include?new military outposts, drone warfare, logistics infrastructure, and a?heightened “war on terror.” Intrepid investigative reporting by US

journalists Nick Turse, Jeremy Scahill, and the Washington Post’s Craig

Whitlock have made key contributions to our understanding of a vastly

more militarized continent in the age of AFRICOM. As Turse has written, the?US military now has a presence?in?virtually every country on the

continent.12 By the midpoint of the 2010s, a sharp downward turn of the

Chinese economy, along with a crash in commodities prices, has once again?subjected African—and global—economies?to?the “boom and bust”

vacillations of capitalism. Today’s intensified militarism

In?Africa only?raises the prospects for economic crises to take a military form, where?capitalists increasingly turn to the armed power of “their” states to secure?access to markets, territories, and control of natural resources, especially?oil. The deep crisis?in?the neighboring Middle East poses dangers for?imperial powers with the spread of that instability into Africa. In addition,that increased instability undermines the geostrategic “usefulness” of the?African continent for the United States, in particular to project its power?into the Middle East. All told, imperial expansion and its contradictions?have made Africa—and the world—a vastly more dangerous place.?Finally, militarization, neoliberal structural adjustment, and the boom?in?investment and extraction—accompanied by an increase in productivity and?exploitation—have been met?by?resistance across the continent. From the?explosive strikes and protests against debt crisis created?by?the IMF and?World Bank in the 1980s to pro-democracy struggles and mobilizations?against cuts?tosocial services in urban areas and land grabs in the rural?countryside, the organizing?of

workers and ordinary people across the?continent has indicated that the new African boom will not unfold without?challenges from below. As Firoze Manji and Sokari Ekine describe in African

Awakening: The Emerging Revolutions (2011), the processes of rebellion and

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revolution in North Africa and the Middle East during the Arab Spring were?by?no means separate from the dynamics of struggle throughout the rest ofAfrica, and?in?fact were accompanied by struggle throughout the continent.?And as Leo Zeilig, Trevor Ngwame, Peter Dwyer, and others have described,The long history of trade union struggle and social movements have?produced critical lessons and important continuities for resistance today.