Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev with the late Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi. PHOTO/Wikimedia Commons.
By MORRIS ODHIAMBO
This week I was involved in discussions about the “New Scramble” for Africa’s resources. The “New Scramble” paradigm is an evolving phenomenon in the study of international relations and Africa’s agency. However, it forms part of the historical continuum of slavery, colonialism, neo-colonialism, imperialism and neo-liberal globalisation.
These paradigms hold common assumptions. For example, they are based on the reality of the exploitation of not just the continents wealth, but also its labour force for the development of the so-called developed world. The historical role that Africa has played as a provider of raw materials and market for finished products, fits snugly into the equation.
The historical relationship between Africa and the rest of the world, has contributed to the situation the African continent finds itself in today; with limited agency in international affairs as eloquently discussed by Ronald Chipaike and Matarutse Knowledge in their authoritative 2018 paper titled “The question of African agency in international relations.”
The two authors characterise African agency as “African actors’ ability to negotiate and bargain with external actors in a manner that benefits Africans. It incorporates actions taken by Africans to improve their socio-economic well-being and in projecting a posture of power and self-help in international engagements… In short, it is self-reflective and self-benefiting social action.”
But Africa’s agency as a transformative paradigm does not operate in a vacuum. It operates within the context of global political economy. In reality, therefore, African agency is trapped in the assumptions of a realist self-help world and Africa’s historical and destructive collision with slavery, colonialism, neo-colonialism as well as imperialism and its current manifestation – neo-liberal globalisation.
From Kwame Nkrumah to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, any African leader who made serious attempts to shift the reality of the African continent from its “Manifest Destiny” of being a supplier of raw materials to the “centers of capital accumulation” abroad, and a market for manufactured goods, found themselves at the mercy of the agents of exploitation and were eliminated.
And where exactly is the continent today? To answer this simple, yet complicated question, I want to repeat here one of my posts that went viral this week, and elicited both excitement and conversation:
“Sobering facts about Africa: Africa’s contribution to global trade is less than 3%! Out of this tiny proportion, primary commodities (raw materials) account for almost 70% of Africa’s exports. That really means there is almost zero manufacturing. Almost 90% of African countries are referred to as “commodity-dependent,” meaning there is next to zero value addition…”
To further characterise the situation, I visit the writings of Professor Claude Ake, one of Africa’s eminent scholars. In 1996, in his book, “Democracy and development in Africa,” he said the following, “African economies have been stagnating or regressing. For most Africans, real incomes are lower than they were two decades ago, health prospects are poorer, malnourishment is widespread and infrastructure is breaking down, so also are some social institutions.”
Professor Claude Ake wrote the above words at the same critical time when a good number of scholars were beginning to grapple with the reality of the New Scramble.
Different authors characterise the New Scramble for Africa differently emphasising different aspects. However, there are common denominators in their postulations. In his work, “The New Scramble for Africa’s Resources: Implications for its Development”, Nigerian scholar, Alfred Charles, connects the old and new scrambles for Africa’s resources. He notes as follows,
“The first major scramble for Africa and her wealth essentially started between the official end of the slave trade, which cost the continent more than 20 million mostly able-bodied young men and women, and the beginning of the colonisation of the continent. While the slave trade lasted for more than 300 years, the continent was colonised for about a century.”
He goes on to state that the scramble for the continent is an ongoing phenomenon. He cites new ways through which Africa’s labour force has been taken away to develop other countries, giving the example of the United States Diversified Visa Lottery Programme, which encourages brain drain and is “being used to circuitously scramble for the well-educated and able-bodied human resources of Africa.”
MAP/ Wikimedia Commons.
There are a number of new actors involved in the New Scramble. In their study “The BRICs and the new scramble for Africa”, Kimenyi and Lewis postulate that Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRICs) have literally invaded the African continent, but not with arms. Instead, they have invaded Africa with money, goods, ideas, and drilling and mining equipment.
Largely absent just a few years ago, the BRICs are now slowly but surely edging out Western countries in Africa in the areas of trade and investment, and to some degree development aid.”
Many observers on the African continent will find the views expressed by Kimenyi and Lewis in regard to the BRICs formation controversial. Many have staked their hopes on the BRICs as an alternative to Western imperialism.
Many have argued that the schism between the BRICs and Western countries led by the US creates an opportunity for Africa’s take-off. Unfortunately, the empirical and historical basis for this assertion are rather thin.
In “Winner Takes All: China’s Race for Resources and What it Means for Us”, Dambisa Moyo tackles the competition between China and the West in acquiring resources (land, water, oil, gas, minerals, etc) globally and in Africa in particular. She states, “Increasingly, countries like Japan, South Korea, and others across the Middle East have embarked on their own commodity campaigns – particularly with regard to Africa’s arable land – but China’s size, cash, and unyielding determination mean, for now, it’s mostly all about China.”
But what really brings home the nature of the scramble for African resources from a realist perspective are Ronald Chipaike’s views on the nexus between the Libyan crisis and the New Scramble.
His critical perspectives touch on the actors involved, the role played by the United Nations Security Council, the “militarisation of the New Scramble” and the complete lack of agency on the part of the African Union when the crisis was unfolding. He notes partly as follows:
“By passing Resolution (1973), the UNSC gave NATO-deliberately or unwittingly – the right to aid rebels in their fight against Gaddafi under the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) facade.
However, the real ambitions of NATO were not simply protecting civilians from Gaddafi but to lay their hands on Libya’s oil, which they have already done, and to get profitable reconstruction contracts.
Implicit in all this supposed benevolence is disaster capitalism spreading its tentacles to Africa and a militarisation of the New Scramble for Africa’s resources.”
The “militarisation” angle is of particular interest to me as a scholar and activist. I have argued before that Africa cannot build its agency it if continues to outsource its security to Western countries.
In fact, the growing number of foreign military bases on Africa’s soil is in itself a key feature of the New Scramble. I state, for the umpteenth time, that those military bases are not coffee shops!
In my view, the attack on Libya, the assassination of Colonel Gaddafi by the Obama regime and NATO, and the take over of its oil resources, can only be compared, on the diplomatic front, to the recent undemocratic, unconstitutional and immoral designation of Kenya as a Major Non-Nato Ally (MNNA) by the US.
In my view, the Kenya and Libya situations signify that the New Scramble is being waged both diplomatically and through military means, while deploying the UN Security Council and other so-called international institutions for leverage.
What is the solution for Africa?
