The reconstruction of Africa

The big story of the past fortnight it is not really a story of the moment at all. People have been dying as a result of the AIDS pandemic in Africa for many years now. It is a deep and, so far, intractable and worsening problem. But over the last week, there has been a flurry of debate, set off by the UN development conference in Dublin, and some of the statements that have been issued around it, not least by two well known Irishmen, with whom Hot Press has a more than passing acquaintance, Bono and Bob Geldof.

In his contribution, Bono threatened that he would lead his activist friends onto the streets to engage in a louder form of protest. Having spent the last couple of years attempting to appeal to the better instincts of the big shot politicians, the tenor of Bono’s latest remarks suggests that he is beginning to feel that it has been a futile exercise. There are more than a few people out there who will tell him that they knew it all along, but fuck that. You do what you can, and at the very least the U2 frontman has put his heart and soul into trying to make a difference.

Bob Geldof also weighed in with an impassioned article that was run in the Irish Times. While a lot of what was said in the piece might have been open to debate, it came down to a simple suggestion that undoubtedly has merit. In the wake of the 2nd World War, Geldof pointed out, in 1946 the Marshall Plan was conceived to enable the reconstruction of Europe. To support the plan, the United States committed an enormous 1% of its GDP per annum. A similar plan was required now, and a similar type of commitment, to make possible both the reconstruction of Africa against the tide of the ravages of AIDS, poverty and famine and its liberation from decades of misrule.

On the face of it, that’s a challenging notion. It is easy to dismiss any form of short term strategising on an issue of this kind. Yes, the problem is a fundamental one, to do with imbalances in the world which are deeply ingrained and essentially political. Yes, the only proper way to address it fully is to see it in the context of the need to redistribute wealth by taking from the rich. And yes, it is a convenient indulgence, to avoid discussing the political forces which are currently at work and which need to be addressed to enable that redistribution to take place. But for all of that it is too blase and self serving to suggest that any solution to the rising death count, and the spread of AIDS, in Africa must wait for the perfect political conditions to emerge.

Of the responses which have been advanced, Geldof’s has the best ring of radicalism and practicality, and as such deserves the consideration of even those who are opposed to the political systems which have fostered the inequalities which are at the root of Africa’s contemporary dilemma.

And then George Bush has to go and spoil it all by saying something stupid, like ‘I love you, Africa’. Well, he didn’t quite, but what he did do was just as calculated to make the skin crawl.

Bush went to Africa last week, ostensibly to tour the five nations which had made the most progress in the move towards representative government and financial respectability. So far so good, you might say. But a report in the New York Times revealed the real intent behind the President’s visit.

What the US wants now in Africa is a foothold. The Pentagon, the report stated, aims to secure aircraft refuelling agreements in Uganda and Senegal. There is also talk of ‘strengthening ties’ with Morocco and Tunisia. You don’t have to be paranoid to know that this is code for establishing bases that will allow for satellite surveillance and other forms of intelligence gathering. US military are already active in Africa, training soldiers from four North African nations, while almost 2,000 troops have been established in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa, to be deployed in counter-terrorism operations.

There should be no ambiguity about where all of this is heading. Africa is about to be re-colonised – only this time by the US, in the cause of international capital. What this means, of course, is that the United States will exact a very specific price for any support that it provides in the battle against AIDS. That price will amount to subjugation.

There is an argument that anything would be better than the complex of maladies which currently afflicts Africa as a whole, and various parts of Africa to different degrees of intensity. Millions are dying from a cocktail of lethal problems, but AIDS is the biggest threat of all, in that it is sentencing children from birth. It must be tackled as a matter of extreme urgency, or its spread will continue like a bush-fire out of control.

Africa is on its knees. Is it right that the aid that is so desperately needed there should be paid for by allowing the US to take effective economic control? Is it moral to take advantage of the plight of a continent to establish military and intelligence power bases? The answer is no – but that is what is going to happen, and for as little as can possibly be offered in response.

Any other assumption is naive, misleading, wrong. Any solution that saves lives and that combats AIDS may be better than none – but there is no good solution in the kind of world we live in, with a single super-power exercising effective control. Maybe it was ever thus. But with the cadre in office in Washington now, the lines they are drawn more forcefully than ever, and the curse it is cast more bitterly.

Irrespective of what Bono hopes or Bob Geldof argues, they will only play if they get the highest possible price. As the fella said – I didn’t mean to bug ya...