The leopard does not change its spots!

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OPINION

By Kenneth David Mafabi

We are quietly bothered by what we see as a regeneration of fascist ideas and tendencies around the world today.

We should like to examine this disturbing surge of neo-fascism. To provide a background to this conversation, we share excerpts from our 2012 paper on Imperialism, Neo-Colonialism and Contemporary Globalisation.

“Throughout 2008, commentary and analysis were rife from ‘experts’ and pundits, about the health of the global economy and its lasting impact on particularly African economies.

It is easy to recall the headlines and editorials in December of that year in our local newspapers, declaring for instance, ‘Prices of services and commodities are going through the roof…’

President Yoweri Museveni had already given a clear message on the matter, i.e. the impact of the global financial crisis on our economy…

The message was that there was nothing to worry about, at least not in the short term. Then Finance Minister, Ezra Suruma, echoed that position.

Journalist Andrew Mwenda wrote about the ‘crisis’, as did elder Dani Wadada Nabudere (RIP) and his contemporary Prof. Yash Tandon.

Articles on similar concerns by Moustapha Soumare of the UNDP and by John Ssempebwa of the Private Sector Foundation were carried in the New Vision, etc.

That same December 2008, World Bank economists announced projections indicating that global trade would contract by 2.1% in 2009, the first time this would be happening since 1982, and that there would be a drop in investments between countries over the same period.

They predicted that middle-income and poor countries would consequently be hit particularly hard.

Our own modest contribution then, was to make three points: first, to underline the fact that there was absolutely nothing to worry about regarding the developments in the world economy; second, that any possible adversity that accompanied those developments, could be turned into opportunity and advantage; third, that there was no need anyway, to abandon a winning overall macroeconomic and development policy framework.

Our duty today is not to discuss how far we have come since 2008, nor indeed the specifics of the manifestation or impact of the crisis on our Ugandan economy…

Our particular point of entry… is the view making the rounds then, that the crisis was unexpected. Such a view (absolutely erroneous, of course) was an inevitable outcome of the stifling neo liberal orthodoxy, which has suffocated critical thought and reflection in the post-Cold War and ‘post-history’ world, a la Francis Fukuyama, Thomas Friedman, etc. We shall return to this.

Our purpose is to underline that the leopard does not change its spots…that there is a thread of continuity which runs through the history of the last 500 years, which reflects the consistent marginalisation and impoverishment of African people. That thread is the unequal world division of work and market, weighted against African people and their vital interests - and which records the story of imperialism, neo-colonialism and contemporary globalisation.

That thread, i.e. the unequal world division of work and market, is the story of the enslavement of African people during the era of slave trade and slavery, the story of Africa becoming a source of raw materials and a market for manufactures, the story of the colonial conquest and subjugation of Africa, the story of Africa becoming a source of cheap labour.

It is the story of the inherent production and reproduction of a debilitating poverty, of cyclical conflict and crisis - on the periphery of the world division of work and market.

By the 16th century, a merchant class had emerged in Britain, and began to loosen the markets from the restrictions of royal and feudal government. Competitive enterprise was released, and economies leapt forward, generating more productive forces in the next three centuries, than had been created in all previous millennia.

About 1600, all the peoples of the world were at virtually the same level of development of productive forces.

That year, however, signalled a massive irruption of European armies into Africa, America and Asia, which brought into its wake genocide of indigenous peoples, the slave trade, colonial conquest and occupation.

The irruption also heralded the displacement of handicraft production by factory goods, relegating what we now call the third world to the production of primary products.

This division of labour remains the case today.

In 1551, the first consignment of black slaves was sold in the West Indies. By 1600, shipments of slaves from the West African coast to the Americas, had built up to about 6,000 a year. At the peak of the slave trade in 1750, 65,000 slaves were being transported annually. By 1700, 1.3 million slaves had been transported, while by 1800, another 6 million had crossed.

The point in all this is that trade in African slaves was the basis for the so-called triangular trade, which was the foundation for Britain’s industrialisation.

On the first leg of the triangular trade, manufactured goods were exported to the West Coast, i.e. guns, pots and pans, knives tools and trinkets. These were sold to African chiefs in exchange for slaves.

On the second leg was the voyage of slave carrying ships across the Atlantic to the Caribbean colonies of Britain, Spain, France and Holland, to Brazil and to the southern states of America.

The final leg saw sugar, tobacco, cotton and other slave plantation ships being ferried across the ocean to Europe.

Mainly, British ship owners made massive profits on each leg. By the Treaty of Utrecht in 1714, Britain had a monopoly of supplying Spanish colonies with slaves.

As Britain established her industrial superiority, British traders struggling to provide markets for her manufacturers and to be a source of raw materials for her industry, opened up the whole world.

Britain’s imperial expansion was dictated by this division of labour and ensured by the British navy’s mastery of the high seas.

The British Empire was but the instrument of merchant capital, with merchants buying cheap and selling dear.

Soon, however, it involved truly productive capital, with local people being set to work to produce for the European and North American markets.” We continue next week.

The writer is a Senior Presidential Advisor/Political Affairs (Special Duties) State House kdavidmafabi1@gmail.com