A complicated divide-and-rule gambit here, but it's clear our old anti-apartheid comrade wants a new line-up of Blair, Mbeki and Bono/Pettifor. In London on 13 Feb and Washington/NY on 27-28 Feb, I'll be doing this talk at various lefty locations, so let me know off-list if you're around and want details...
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Thabo Mbeki and Nepad:
Breaking or Shining the Chains of Global Apartheid?
by Patrick Bond
1. Introduction
This essay considers Thabo Mbeki's analysis of globalisation, strategy and demands for global-scale and continental socio-economic progress, and preferred alliances. These topics arise because of his stated intention, in the October 2001 New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad), to establish a `new framework of interaction with the rest of the world, including the industrialised countries and multilateral organisations'--one that is sufficiently `radical' to lift African GDP growth to 7% per annum.
It will be clear, both in excerpts from his speeches considered below and from the New Partnership for African Development (Nepad), that Mbeki's approach is consistent with the broader problem of compradorism. As Mbeki himself warned, `Our own intelligentsia faces the challenge, perhaps to overcome the class limitations which [Walter] Rodney speaks of, and ensure that it does not become an obstacle to the further development of our own revolution.' I will instead arrive at the pessimistic conclusion that the challenge has already been lost, judging by Nepad and related international reform efforts. Mbeki and his main allies have already succumbed to the class (not necessarily personalistic) limitations of post-Independence African nationalism, namely acting in close collaboration with hostile transnational corporate and multilateral forces whose interests stand directly opposed to Mbeki's South African and African constituencies.
In addition to Rodney, this premonition was recorded explicitly by Frantz Fanon, in his chapter on `The Pitfalls of National Consciousness,' in The Wretched of the Earth:
The national middle class discovers its historic mission: that of intermediary. Seen through its eyes, its mission has nothing to do with transforming the nation; it consists, prosaically, of being the transmission line between the nation and a capitalism, rampant though camouflaged, which today puts on the mask of neocolonialism. The national bourgeoisie will be quite content with the role of the Western bourgeoisie's business agent, and it will play its part without any complexes in a most dignified manner. But this same lucrative role, this cheap-Jack's function, this meanness of outlook and this absence of all ambition symbolise the incapability of the middle class to fulfill its historic role of bourgeoisie. Here, the dynamic, pioneer aspect, the characteristics of the inventor and of the discoverer of new worlds which are found in all national bourgeoisies are lamentably absent. In the colonial countries, the spirit of indulgence is dominant at the core of the bourgeoisie; and this is because the national bourgeoisie identifies itself with the Western bourgeoisie, from whom it has learnt its lessons...
In its beginnings, the national bourgeoisie of the colonial country identifies itself with the decadence of the bourgeoisie of the West. We need not think that it is jumping ahead; it is in fact beginning at the end. It is already senile before it has come to know the petulance, the fearlessness, or the will to succeed of youth.
But Mbeki and his internationally-oriented cabinet colleagues--especially finance minister Trevor Manuel, trade and industry minister Alec Erwin and their staffs--would no doubt object. They locate not only their own (national) ambition but also the continent's potential transformation not in lucrative personal accomplishments or Western-style bourgeois decadence, but rather in the further integration of Africa into a world economy, they would also concede, that is itself in need of better regulation and fairer economic rules. The project, therefore, is to reform interstate relations and the embryonic world-state system. As Nepad explains,
While globalisation has increased the cost of Africa's ability to compete, we hold that the advantages of an effectively managed integration present the best prospects for future economic prosperity and poverty reduction... The case for the role of national authorities and private institutions in guiding the globalisation agenda along a sustainable path and, therefore, one in which its benefits are more equally spread, remains strong... Africa, impoverished by slavery, corruption and economic mismanagement is taking off in a difficult situation. However, if her enormous natural and human resources are properly harnessed and utilised, it could lead to equitable and sustainable growth of the continent as well as enhance its rapid integration into the world economy.
But to the contrary, the evidence thus far is that `equitable and sustainable growth' and Africa's `rapid integration into the world economy' are mutually exclusive. Although Africa's share of world trade declined during the 1980s-90s, the volume of exports increased, while the value of sub-Saharan exports was cut in half relative to the value of imports from the North. Such marginalisation occurred not because of lack of integration, but because of too much, of the wrong sort. For while integrating more rapidly into the world economy via `export-led growth,' as demanded by Washington, Africa's ability to grow--either equitably and sustainably, or even inequitably--actually declined, in comparison to the period prior to structural adjustment.
Thus, I argue below, the reform strategy will fail, although not because of Pretoria's lack of positionality and international credibility to carry out Nepad and win vague endorsements from global elites. After all, since 1994, extremely talented politicians and officials from Pretoria have presided over the board of governors of the IMF and World Bank, the Non-Aligned Movement, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the Commonwealth, the Organisation of African Unity, the Southern African Development Community, the World Commission on Dams and a host of other important international and continental bodies.
Instead, the failure is already emanating from the very project of global-reformism itself, namely, its underlying philosophy and incorrect analysis (Section 2), ineffectual practical strategies (Section 3), uncreative and inappropriate demands (Section 4) and counterproductive alliances (Section 5). Instead of leading the world, Mbeki and his Pretoria colleagues run a different danger: treading a well-known, dusty path: a post-colonial, neoliberal cul-de-sac of predictable direction and duration. Moreover, notwithstanding mixed rhetorical signals, Mbeki and Nepad for all effective purposes exclude (indeed, most often reject) alliances with international social, labour and environmental movements who, in their struggles for socio-environmental and economic justice, are the main agents of progressive global change.
Thus South Africa's post-apartheid government leadership will not achieve its own limited objectives, much less the further-reaching transformation required under current excruciating global conditions, and in the process will continue alienating the poor and working-class base of Mbeki's African National Congress (ANC). In concluding that Thabo Mbeki cannot establish a new framework of interaction with the rest of the world, but can instead merely front for a slightly modified residual version of `global apartheid,' more hopeful analyses, strategies, demands, and alliances necessarily arise as alternatives.
(Full paper available on request at pbond at wn.apc.org)