At last, you might say, the debate about Africa is in full swing. It was one of the featured items on Questions and Answers the other night and the question was an interesting one. Why did it take rock stars like Bob Geldof and Bono to force Africa and the appalling level of poverty, sickness, brutality and death prevalent there onto the international agenda? Or words to that effect…

The Make Poverty History campaign has certainly succeeded in getting the ball rolling. After a period of intensive lobbying, in which Bono was directly involved, a decision was made to forgive debts owed to the World Bank by certain African states. Geldof, meanwhile, has put together the Live 8 series of gigs, designed to increase the pressure on G8 countries, on the run-up to their summit in Gleneagles, not just to ratify dropping the debt but to begin to address the key issues relating to both Aid and Trade that impact negatively on Africa.
You could say that we’ve been down this road before, or one like it at least. Bob Geldof himself admitted that nothing had changed after Live Aid. So what’s the difference now – and will the current campaign really have an impact?
Geldof was fired by a genuine sense of outrage at the time of the original Live Aid. How come, when we in the West have so much, are there people dying needlessly of starvation on an adjacent continent? The question has shifted only marginally in 2005. It is stupid, in our technologically advanced world, Bono has been quoted as saying, that so many people are dying of diseases that are either preventable or treatable. When there is so much ingenuity about, how come we have been unable to deal effectively with something so straightforward as the wanton loss of human life?
I know both Geldof and Bono well enough to say that they are people of genuine principle and commitment. They share a passionate conviction that it is well within our scope collectively – and by that I mean within the scope of the affluent west – to bring an end to the triple devastation wrought by malaria, AIDS and starvation. They believe that if the related issues of Aid, Trade and Debt can be addressed comprehensively, a process of liberation can begin that will ultimately see the carnage in Africa being effectively stemmed.
It is churlish to suggest that they are motivated in this by anything other than plain ordinary decency and the desire to make a difference. But are they asking the right questions? And is the solution they are propounding – and on which they now seem to be working alongside Tony Blair and Gordon Brown – enough?
It is better to see some action rather than none and lives will doubtless be saved or prolonged as a result of the Make Poverty History initiative. That’s good. But I am not convinced that the cocktail of remedies being put forward at the moment addresses the fundamental issues in the way that is necessary to secure long term justice for the people of Africa, and especially those living under the most despotic regimes there.
To ask a different question: while publicly stating a commitment to aid and debt relief suggests laudable intentions, how deep do these intentions run?
In terms of mineral wealth and resources, Africa is one of the world’s most richly endowed continents; we have known this for well over a hundred years. Joseph Conrad described the colonisation of Africa as the vilest scramble for loot that ever disfigured the history of human conscience. It involved the systematic – and frequently violent – carving up of the continent between the various European powers, with Britain controlling 30%, France 15% and Germany, Portugal, Spain, Italy and Belgium all in there as well, doing their worst.
European nations engaged in wholesale slaughter and theft in Africa. The Portugese traded first in human flesh, selling slaves to the Americas, making sure that the unfortunate victims of their brutality were baptised at the port of departure to underline the assumption that a Catholic God was indeed on their side. The rest got on with the grisly business of stealing the gold, diamonds, platinum, iron, nickel, copper and tin that was to be found in abundance beneath African soil. More than 50% of the gold that has ever been mined came out of the ground within 200 miles of Johannesburg. The diamond mines were equally abundant and still deliver massive yields to this day.
So let’s get this straight for a start. Europe owes Africa. Fuck notions of post-colonial guilt. Europe owes money – and lots of it. So any impression that Britain is being magnanimous in offering to broker the forgiving of certain debts is grossly misplaced. Britain’s riches, like those of France and Belgium and the rest, were forged to a considerable extent out of African blood. It is only marginally a simplification to say that the debts are only there because of the pillage that took place in the first instance.
Well, the scramble is being repeated in a different context now, and this time for black gold – for oil. The US expects to import 25% of its oil needs from Africa within 10 years. In Angola, as a result of the discovery of oil, the economy is expanding at the rate of 15% per annum – yet it is the worst place in the world to bring up a child.
In the late 1980s, Chad was one of the five poorest countries on earth. Then they discovered oil. Exon/Mobil moved in and installed a 700 mile long oil pipeline running to the coast, where tankers wait to ship the crude to the US. Two years ago, the oil began to flow. The Gross Domestic Product of Chad is up by 40%. A similar increase is expected next year. Yet 7 million of the 9 million people living there still exist on a dollar a day or less. The first cheque for the sale of the oil rights, for 4.5 million dollars, was spent by President Idriss Deby on arms.
To understand the context, between 2000 and 2004, it is estimated that there was up to £1 billion worth of arms sold by Britain into Africa. In 2004 alone, arms sales to South Africa amounted to £114 million. Arms sales to the highly repressive regime in Nigeria were £53 million. Arms were sold by Britain to Angola, Malawi, Zambia, Uganda, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and a host of other African countries.
Some of these are what has been described as genocide-states. People who are working towards democracy and who oppose the existing ruling elites, are brutally treated, murdered, imprisoned and tortured. The guns that the British are selling are used to crush those who want to bring about change – and millions have died as a result.
Here is a dissenting view of the issues: the single biggest factor in keeping Africa locked in its present cycle of poverty and abuse is not AIDS. It is not malaria. It is not crop failure. It is not corruption per se. It is the power that the supply of Western guns gives to the corrupt ruling elites to destroy all opposition.
There is a British embargo in place to prevent the sale of arms to conflict regions, like Liberia. But this is entirely inadequate in the circumstances. What is needed – and is needed now – is a complete embargo on the sale of arms to Africa. And if Tony Blair is serious about making a contribution, this is where he should start. But he hasn’t introduced this, preferring to allow the commission junkies of the UK arms industry have their days of good fortune at the expense of African citizens.
The danger is that, the good intentions of the Make Poverty History campaign notwithstanding, we’re into another sticking plaster routine, which is what, in Bob Geldof’s own estimation, Live Aid became. There is much talk at the moment about the need for good governance in Africa and there is little doubt that corruption is a factor. But good governance is needed in Britain and the US too – and that means preventing the exploitation of African wealth by both the oil hunters and the arms pushers alike.
Enough riches are being generated in Africa already to make poverty history. The problem is what is being done with those riches.
After Live 8, the debate must shift to address that fundamental problem. We’ll see if there are any takers…