The 10 Commandments For African Intellectuals
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1)   Never Forget Your Roots
Africa's traditions, institutions, and customs are integral part of your heritage. This heritage includes participatory democracy based on consensus, free village markets, free enterprise and free trade. You cannot reject this heritage and remain African.
2)   Seek Ye First the Economic Kingdom in the Private Sector
There is nothing wrong in wanting to be rich, but nobody became rich working for a wage/salary, unless he was prepared to steal or embezzle, like the African kleptocrats. But that does not pay in the long run. Earn your wealth in the private sector by actually producing something, even charcoal. If capital is a problem, do as the illiterates do by pooling savings as in the revolving credit schemes.
The executive editor of The Ghanaian Chronicle called on graduating students of the Manifold Tutorial College in Kumasi "to be wary of the group of educated people who are sometimes referred to as `intellectual collaborators.' He said `these people give succor and cover to illiterate and semi-illiterate despots who adorn the continent of Africa. He said education in itself does not confer respectability on an individual, it is rather the personal effort of the individual that counts. He advised that since nobody make money working forever for someone else, the graduates should develop an entrepreneurial spirit and strike out on their own so that they can provide jobs for others" (The Ghanaian Chronicle, 2-4 September 1996, 7).
3)   Privatize the Universities
Africa's universities should be privatized. They may be given a fixed annual government subvention and then allowed to raise their own revenue and manage their own affairs. This way, they can uphold academic freedom, which is currently not possible with the head of state, often a military imbecile, as the chancellor.
4)   Demand and Defend Freedom of statement/Media
Recall that the first critical step in problem resolution is the exposure of the problem. Without freedom of statement this is nearly impossible. At a 6 November 1996 symposium, organized by the Pan African Writers Association in Accra, the president of the Senegal Writers Association, Mr. Alione Badara Beye, said that "African governments are responsible for the underdevelopment of African literature. Among the four main problems inhibiting the development of African literature is the expulsion of prominent African writers . . . the absence of African writers in international debates, absence of integrative policies and lack of publishing infrastructure" (The Ghanaian Chronicle, 11-12 November 1996, 7). All African intellectuals must demand the right to free speech and defend the rights of others for the freedom to speak, publish and write. If you don't defend the right of others, who will defend you when your rights are taken away? Kweisi Mfume, President of NAACP said: "Free speech in a democratic society must be fought for whether we like what we hear or not, because one day someone will come to silence us, and then who will speak for us?" (The Washington Post, 16 January 1997, D2).
5)   Practice Intellectual Solidarity
Respect and assist members of your own profession, regardless of differences of opinion. If one is under siege, all wherever they may be --- in or out of government, in or out of the country -- must go his or her aid. You may need group assistance yourself in the future. And extend this solidarity to other groups fighting the same cause as well. For example, when a coalition of civic groups, church leaders, students and politicians marched through Nairobi on 7 June 1997 to demand constitutional reforms, police fire on and clubbed eleven people to death. But they kept up the pressure. The result? "The ruling Kenya African National Union party proposed the repeal or amendment of 11 controversial laws that an opposition-backed alliance demands should be repealed. `They [the opposition] asked for constitutional reforms. We have not only agreed to these, but have also proposed that comprehensive reforms be examined,' said NEC member Nicholas Biwott, a government minister of state" (The Washington Times, 18 July 1997, A15). By contrast, when Nigeria's oil-workers went on strike in 1993 to protest the annulment of the presidential election results, no other group or profession joined them. Had the civil servants, professors, students, and even taxi-drivers joined them, the "Butcher of Abuja" would have long been history.
6)   Demand National Conferences
When a national crisis erupts, demand that a national dialogue or conference be set up to resolve it, as is done in African villages. The national conference must be sovereign and its decisions binding on all parties, including the government. No African intellectual should accept a national conference that is packed by government appointees, such as General Abacha's 1995 Constitutional Conference in Nigeria. Nor should any transition to democratic rule process be accepted that is manipulated and controlled by the government in power.
7)   Disband the Military or Cut It in Half
No African intellectual with an iota of intelligence and a modicum of Pan-Africanist spirit would support, much less serve, a barbarous military regime. Ever! All those African countries that imploded were ruined by the military.
8)   Pan-Africanism
Pan-Africanism, originating from the belief that African countries share common problems, common solutions, and common destinies will remain a dream unless you learn more about African countries other than your own.
9)  Set Up a Rival OAU The time has come for the useless OAU to be disbanded or for a rival body, the Organization of Free African States to be set up. It should be made up of strictly democratic countries. OFAS can be set up under the aegis of President Nelson Mandela of South Africa.
10)   Selectively Repudiate Foreign Debt
Insist that foreign aid be given only to democratic African countries. Time and again, foreign loans are taken by corrupt, illegitimate and repressive African regimes without the approval of the people.
And time and again, after the loans have been squandered, it is the brutalized and traumatized citizens who are asked to pay them back. End this scandalous outrage. At the global marketplace, one is free to spend and invest one's money as one pleases. If one invests in a company that subsequently fails, one must be prepared to accept the loss. In the same vein, Western governments and donor agencies are free to spend and throw away their money in Africa as they wish. They may hand as much money as they wish to autocratic, brutally repressive African regimes. But they must be prepared to take the risks that come along with such a policy. They should not ask the African people to pay for its folly. Loans contracted without the approval of the African people are not repayable.
The obvious wisdom in these injunctions was imported into Ghana's 1992 Constitution, which includes a clause stating that the Government of Ghana cannot contract a foreign loan without the approval of parliament. Thus, parliamentary approval --- if parliament is truly representative of the people --- legitimizes the transaction or loan. But then the P/NDC, like a typical African regime, tried to undermine that very constitutional check. In April 1996 the P/NDC sought an exemption for "small foreign loans." Since the ruling P/NDC held the overwhelming majority in parliament (the opposition boycotted the 1992 parliamentary elections), it rushed through parliament a huge number of such "small loans."
In this way Ghana's foreign debt mushroomed from $1 billion in 1981 to $5.4 billion in 1996. The World Bank bragged that it had provided Ghana with more than $3 billion in loans and credits. But when did the people of Ghana ask the World Bank or any foreign entity for a loan?
The maddening part of this blatant outrage is that the regime that preached "accountability" and contracted huge loans on behalf of the people without their consent adamantly refused to account for the loans. In fact, it indemnified itself by the inserting clauses 33, 34 and 36 into the constitution. Obviously, the people of Ghana should also indemnify themselves against illegitimate loans taken without their approval.
Even more outrageous was the case of Zaire (now Congo). When Mobutu Sese Seko fled Zaire in May 1997, he left behind a $14 billion national debt. Among those who trudged to Goma -- the then temporary rebel capital -- in April 1997 to see rebel leader Laurent Kabila, were World Bank officials. They had gone discuss with him repayment of Zaire's debt to the World Bank. Kabila should have told bank officials to take a hike. The money was loaned to Zaire, not the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Zaire is no more. This was exactly what Fidel Castro told Russia in 1996, refusing to repay loans to Moscow, insisting that Cuba's debt is owed to the Soviet Union, "a country that no longer exists" (The Washington Times, April 19, 2001; p.A17).
The people of Congo now have to start from scratch -- 32 years of their sovereign existence gone down to the drain. And they must be saddled with a debt from which they derived no benefit -- none whatsoever? And, by the way, when did they ask the World Bank for a loan?
The looting of the country's resources by Mobutu was known around the world. Yet, foreign creditors continued to loan him money. While Zairians -- among the poorest in the world -- were struggling to meet their basic needs, Mobutu, who himself bragged to be among the richest -- built mansions and hotels in France, Spain, South Africa, Morocco, Senegal, Togo, Ivory Coast and stashed billions of dollars in the Swiss bank. In his 32 years in power, he run Zaire like his personal fiefdom, without any regard whatsoever for the 45 million citizens of the country.
Switzerland announced that it would block any sale of a luxury villa owned by Mobutu near Lausanne and help recover some of Mobutu's loot. But how much of the Nazi stolen gold did the Swiss really find? "Swiss banks are world champions in building empires for crooks and then protecting them behind smoke screens," said Jean Ziegler, a socialist member of parliament and longtime critic of Swiss banking secrecy (The Washington Post, 26 May 1997, A21).
Zaire's $14 billion national debt should be treated as Mobutu's personal debt. Foreign creditors should hold Mobutu personally liable and go after his assets. The Congolese did not benefit from those foreign loans. Neither did they give Mobutu any authorization to contract any foreign loan on their behalf. What Julius Nyerere, ex-head of state of Tanzania, had to say on Zaire's debt in an October 9, 1997 speech at the University of Edinburgh, was revealing:
The new Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly ZAIRE, has inherited an external Debt of $14 billion. That country is totally dilapidated. That money did almost nothing for the people of the Congo. It was stolen by Mobutu and his close friends with the assistance or connivance of his American and European Allies. We all know where that money is; not in the Congo, but in Europe, in the form of cash or property. It is being used in Europe, to make money in Europe. Is it not IMMORAL to ask the poor people of the Congo to pay that Debt?
What is being applied here is an international legal instrument known as the "doctrine of odious debts." Odious Debts is about a tax revolt. "Third World's debts were accumulated without public knowledge and consent, with most people benefiting not one whit. Having paid once with their environment as the loans financed destructive development projects -- among them hydro dams flooding rainforests and irrigation schemes destroying farmland -- the Third World populace finds odious the proposition that it pays one more" (Adams, 1991, inside flap). As Patricia Adams of Probe International, a Toronto-based environmental group, charged: *In most cases, Western governments knew that substantial portions of their loans * up to 30 percent, says the World Bank * went directly into the pockets of corrupt officials, for their personal use* (Financial Post, May 10, 1999).
This doctrine originated in 1898 when the Americans captured Cuba from Spain in 1898, the Spanish demanded that the U.S. repay Cuba's debts. The US refused, arguing that the debt had been "imposed upon the people of Cuba without their consent and by force of arms . . . The creditors, from the beginning, took the chance of the investment" (New Internationalist, May 1999; p.23). The proceeds of the debt prevented the Cuban people from revolting against Spanish domination. *They are debts created by the Government of Spain, for its own purposes and through its own agents, in whose creation Cubans had no voice,* the U.S. said (Financial Post, May 10, 1999).
*************** George Ayittey, |
