What should Obama say in Ghana?
Charles Abugre
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As US President Barack Obama heads to
Accra, Ghana, Charles Abugre hopes a new "wind for change" is blowing.
Coming from a "son of Africa" held with pride and esteem by Africans
across the continent, Obama's speech will have major influence on the
way the world regards Africa as well as reflect his attitude towards the
continent.
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That there is a carnival spirit in Accra, Ghana, ahead of Barack
Obama's visit to this small West African country is to be expected. I
recall the excitement on the streets of Accra in October 1994, when
Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam led 2,000 blacks from
America to Accra for the Nation of Islam's first International Saviours'
Day. Crowds poured out on the streets to greet them. He came to preach
awakening and redemption.
In March 1998, amidst low approval ratings and sex scandals, the
Clintons took Accra by storm. Bill Clinton was mobbed - much like a rock
star - and later draped in colourful Ghanaian kente. He preached hope
for Africa, offered aid but also apologised for America's standing by as
hundreds of thousands were slaughtered in the Rwandan genocide.
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US President Barack Obama |
Significance
A decade later, President George W. Bush, suffering the lowest
approval rating of any US president and the villain of an illegal and
murderous war in Iraq, rolled into town. He was received as a hero, a
saviour of Africa from diseases. He danced and was fettered. He preached
freedom and democracy and promised to increase aid for HIV/AIDS and
malaria, whilst denying an aggressive American agenda to militarise the
continent in order to secure strategic access to petroleum resources.
So what is new about Obama's visit? The trip to Ghana will be his
second trip to Africa in a month, only seven months into his presidency.
He went first to Cairo, Egypt, early in June.
This is a record and signifies that Africa is more than of passing
interest. Second, there has never been an American president with roots
in Africa, making his visit something of a homecoming, whether he sees
it that way or not. Being a "son of Africa" carries more meaning to
Africans - not least pride, dignity and hope - than anything he might
say or do.
Yet the significance of what he says about Africa on this trip will
carry significantly more meaning for this same reason. Third, Obama
means more to the world than a mere US politician. He has become a
brand, for which, like all brands, there is a massive contestation of
the values and meanings underpinning it. He means hope, a "wind of
change", the triumph of common humanity, equality of peoples and
cultures and many more. But he also means pragmatism, a manifestation of
American power, responsibility and interests.
President Obama is scheduled to make a major speech in Ghana. He will
address Africans through a Ghanaian audience. What he says will
influence the way the world sees Africa and Africa's place in the world.
What he says will reveal his attitude towards a continent much preached
to and done to, and whose history is often discarded. He will address
the Ghanaian parliament and by extension African lawmakers. He will
visit the slaveholding castles in the west of Ghana, and by that act,
reach out to the history of slavery, the civil rights movement and the
history of colonisation that followed slavery.
What will be a good speech for Africa which breaks from the
paternalism of his predecessors and yet lays grounds for America's
better interests based on Africa's progress? First, there should be an
acknowledgement of history - how the current is shaped by the past. His
Cairo speech, believed to be directed largely at the "Muslim" world, is
an excellent parallel.
Coexistence
There he acknowledged that today's realities are rooted in centuries
of coexistence as well as in conflicts and wars. A new beginning will
need to acknowledge this history and be built on mutual respect, mutual
interest and mutual listening. He talked about what Islamic culture had
given to the world - timeless poetry, cherished music, elegant
calligraphy, for example.
He talked about the unbreakable bond with Israel because it is based
on cultural and historical ties. He acknowledged America's wrongs
against Iran, especially the role the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency)
played in the overthrow of a democratically elected government.
The parallels with Africa are stark. Nowhere else can one better
acknowledge humanity's collective debt in relation to culture, music and
calligraphy (at least in the case of Ethiopia), multiculturalism and the
history of the coexistence of diverse cultures than Africa.
If anyone will acknowledge what Africa offers to the rest of the
world other than mineral resources, it has to be a "son of Africa". It
will be good to hear that Africa doesn't only export poverty and
conflict. There is much more in the history between Africa and America
to make the bonds "unbreakable".
100th anniversary
Obama's visit to Ghana coincides with the 100th anniversary of the
birth of its founding father Kwame Nkrumah. He will be arriving at an
airport built by Nkrumah, speaking in a parliament building constructed
by Nkrumah and enjoying electricity which is the product of Nkrumah's
investments.
All these projects were once touted in the West as "white elephants",
including the expansion of the port, harbours and trunk roads. He will
be speaking to an educated elite, most of whom will have had their
foundations in Nkrumah's relentless investments in education.
When he lauds Ghana's relative peace, he will be minded to note that
this has its roots in the pursuit of equitable development strategies of
the 1960s that have spread opportunities to all ethnic groups. That the
state means something to Ghanaians - well worth risking to promote
democratic governance - is rooted in a culture of essential service
provisioning by the state, began in the 1960s.
When Obama reflects on these he may be minded to apologise for the
CIA's role in overthrowing the democratically elected government of
Kwame Nkrumah to satisfy Cold War strategic interests.
In doing so, he may also be minded to extend this apology for the
role the CIA played in Patrice Lumumba's removal from power and the
resulting mess that is today's Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Military coups in Africa - the biggest threat to democracy and good
governance - were introduced by the CIA and other Western intelligence.
Not to acknowledge that in a speech focused on good governance is to
trivialise Africa's history of struggle for democracy.
A good son of Africa couldn't possibly do that.
In his focus on good governance, President Obama may be minded to
note that the experience that Africans have of the military is not of
protectors but of instruments of destructive interests - whether these
are domestic or foreign. Militarisation portends interference in
democratic processes. The experience of foreign military build-ups
portend external intervention to prop up dictators, or mess up the
electoral process, for the protection of strategic foreign interests.
If Obama is serious about democratic and accountable governance
taking root in Africa, he will be minded to dispel the fear (and the
rumour) that the United States is actively militarising the Gulf of
Guinea through increased in the activities of US naval forces. He should
signal loud and clear that he respects the African Union's reluctance to
extend the US military footprint in Africa, whether by providing landing
facilities or hosting an AFRICOM (United States African Command)
facility.
He should dispel the rumour circulating in Ghana, when he speaks to
the Ghanaian parliament, to the effect that Ghana's former president
John Kufuor had done a deal allowing US forces on Ghanaian soil.
Good governance
Democracy and good governance are hard to sustain in a peaceful
atmosphere when the mass of the population do not have an education and
jobs - the latter being a source of taxation to sustain the institutions
of democracy. When public institutions are funded either by foreign aid
or indirectly by foreign companies, rather than the tax system,
government accountability tends to de facto be externally focused.
Not all types of jobs are conducive to democracy. Jobs that are
concentrated in rural primary production tend not to produce the
critical mass of activism and awareness necessary to hold governments to
account, compared with jobs in manufacturing and value-added services.
The value-added production of goods and services as well as taxation, in
my view, are the most potent instruments for democratisation.
This is the sense in which one cannot separate the economy from
democracy.
Obama's speech could helpfully draw on these parallels. More than
that, he can do something about it in two main ways: by extending his
crusade against tax-dodging in Africa and reviewing current US economic
relations with Africa.
The issue of taxation applies to the capacity to collect tax, the
sharing of natural-resource rents between Africans and foreign mining
companies - many of which are American or trade on US stock markets -
and tax-dodging through the use of tax havens. It will be wonderful if
Obama were to call upon the Newmonts of this world and other
multinational companies to publish their accounts on a
country-by-country basis, including the profits they make and how the
profit is shared or reinvested.
It will be sufficient even to note the harmful nature of tax-dodging
by multinational companies. Similarly, it will be helpful if Obama were
to state that in accordance with the UN Convention on Corruption, the
United States will prosecute American or African companies or
individuals operating in American markets who are suspected of bribery,
tax-evasion or aggressive tax-avoidance. This will send a wonderful
deterrence signal. Addressing the tax problem can put no less than US$50
billion into the African economy annually.
An associated issue of resource outflow is the renewed debt problem.
The limited debt relief delivered by the multilateral debt relief
initiative has been all but reversed by the combined effects of the food
and financial crisis. Two things need to happen. Obama should support
the UN's call for a debt servicing moratorium using the US bankruptcy
legislation as a guide.
This is only fair and will signify that Obama is listening to the UN
when it comes to economic matters. Secondly, there is a crying need for
a structural solution. This should be in the form of an independent
debt-arbitration panel operating under the auspices of the UN to mediate
between debtors and creditors, rather the current system in which
debtors are totally at the mercy of creditors. This is not only fair,
but it is also necessary for a stable international system benefitting
rich and poor alike.
In relation to value-added production, Obama is already one step in
the right direction by pushing for agricultural productivity to be up on
the international agenda. But first a few cautions. A focus on
agricultural productivity should not become a cover for foreign private
companies to grab land or impose expensive, input-intensive methods in
the name of modernisation. The issue of land-grabbing is particularly
worrying.
A recent study by the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation) of five
African countries, including Ghana, showed that 2.5 million hectares of
land of sizes exceeding 1,000 hectares has been acquired, all in the
name of promoting foreign direct investment. Single acquisitions have
been as large as 450,000 hectares (Madagascar) and 400,000 (Ghana), most
of which has been directed at biofuel production. Total investment
commitments for land acquisitions of over 1,000 hectares exceed US$1
billion to date. The myth that Africa is a continent of abundant land
with no claimants is dangerous for both future peace and social equity.
Positive note
On a more positive note, Obama has an opportunity in the form of the
African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and the Millennium Challenge
fund to demonstrate his support for a focus on productivity. To do so
however will require a radical review of both instruments. As they
currently stand, they achieve the opposite goals. The eligibility
criteria discourages and undermines Africa's capacity to produce by
imposing US intellectual property, imposing privatisation and insisting
as a precondition that governments are not directly engaged in economic
activities.
It also discourages them from using industrial policies to move out
of commodity dependence and by using technical assistance as a means to
cajole governments to implement trade liberalisation policies which
directly undermine the goal of diversifying their economies. The view
that liberalisation-at-all-costs is good for the economy has now been
shown to be false.
This is even more so with African countries. If Obama really does
mean to promote value-added production in Africa he should indicate that
the era of the extremes of economic ideology is over, that Africans are
unlikely to ever break out of primary commodity production and
joblessness without an active but balanced role of the state in
investments, manufacturing and in enhancing their share of the value
chain.
Such a strategy already exists in Africa. In 2004, the African Union,
the African Ministers of Industry, and NEPAD (New Partnership for
Africa's Development) adopted an African Productivity Capacity
Initiative (ACPI) aimed precisely at a wise use of industrial policy and
public-private investments aimed at value-added production.
Such a strategy cannot succeed without targeted and time-bound infant
industry protection, including more pragmatic use of trade policy. Obama
should indicate support for such approaches and align his strategy for
agriculture with this African-driven initiative. Such a support, even
with modest financial means, will be invaluable politically and in terms
of policy space. He should indicate to the IMF (International Monetary
Fund) and the World Bank that the neoliberal development model they work
with is rendered out-of-date.
Obama must continue to emphasise the personal responsibility of
African leaders and African people. He should ask them to do more with
what they have, mobilise more resources from within, stamp out
corruption and live less lavishly. He should commend Professor John Atta
Mills for the small size of his motorcade and for not moving into the
ridiculously luxurious new presidential palace built with huge loans (as
people hungered).
Above all he should remind himself and us all that the wind of change
that began in Accra in 1957 and swept across the African continent only
to be suppressed for several decades may well be on the rise again. Who
better to understand this than Barrack Hussein Obama.
- Third World Network |