african-american Archives – Page 3 of 7

The Contract Buyers League.
The Atlantic. April 1972

 

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The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) is a nonreciprocal trade preference program that provides duty-free treatment to U.S. imports of certain products from eligible sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. Congress first authorized AGOA in 2000 to encourage export-led growth and economic development in SSA and improve U.S. economic relations with the region. Its current authorization expires on September 30, 2015.

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4. DC Summit. Part III. AGOA and AfricaContents Introduction The Sahara Desert: natural barrier, artificial frontier Maghreb:…

Contents

1. Introduction
2. The Sahara Desert: natural barrier, artificial frontier
3. Maghreb: unity, infighting and panafricanism
4. Porous Saharan borders
5. The flip side: prejudice
6. AGOA. Close-up and the fine print
7. AGOA Covered Products
8. Trade Capacity Building (TCB)
9. Performance record

Introduction

AGOA was a main item on the agenda of the USA-Africa Summit (Washington, DC August 4-6, 2014).

The AGOA acronym stands for African Growth and Opportunity Act. Even if the label is not a misnomer, the initials do not match the  definition of the program, which reads as follows:

The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) was signed into law by President Clinton in May 2000 with the objective of expanding U.S. trade and investment with sub-Saharan Africa, to stimulate economic growth, to encourage economic integration, and to facilitate Sub-Saharan Africa’s integration into the global economy. The Act establishes the annual U.S.-sub-Saharan Africa Economic Cooperation Forum (known as the AGOA Forum) to promote a high-level dialogue on trade and investment-related issues. At the center of AGOA are substantial trade preferences that, along with those under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), allow virtually all marketable goods produced in AGOA-eligible countries to enter the U.S. market duty-free.

Based on this statement, it would be more adequate to call the program SS-AGOA, instead of AGOA.

Still, the north-south divide of the Sahara Desert is as much a geographical reality and a political creation.
It stems from the European Rush to Africa, the map-making schemes of the 1884-85 Berlin Conference, and subsequent ideological rivalries and economic strategies.
Nevertheless, historically and culturally, the Sahara has not been — and is not — a barren region or a no-man’s land.

The Sahara Desert: natural barrier, artificial frontier

Although it current name comes from Arabic, the Sahara’s geological and prehistoric records indicate that it did not always stand as “the largest subtropical hot desert and third largest desert after Antarctica and the Arctic.” (Wikipedia). On the contrary, back then it was a fertile land, filled with rivers, lush vegetation and wildlife. It was home to some of the most ancient peoples on earth.

Peoples from the north and south of the Sahara have shared history trough prehistory, antiquity, the Middle Age, slavery, Islam, colonization, and post-colonization. And in today’s global warming climate and globalization changes, they ever more partake a common destiny.

In what follows, I look as far back as possible, before touching on more recent data and current events.

Let’s begin with the Fulɓe “Archipelago” or “Planet.”
Before the Berbers, Fulɓe  practiced nomadic  civilization of the the region. Titled “Au Sahara il y a 5000 ans … une civilization de pasteurs de boeufs,” Henri Lhote’s article summarized his and other archeologists’  fieldwork in the Sahara. The paper exposed vestiges of prehistoric cattle herders, hunters, agriculturalists . Actually, sociocultural life in the region dates more than 10000 years B.C., i.e. when  proto-Fulɓe and contemporary groups domesticated the bovine
Written in “Les fresques d’époque bovidienne du Tassili n’Ajjer et les traditions des Peul: hypotheses,” (The Geographical Review. 435, page 6.) Dieterlen’s analysis concurred with Lhote’s approach.
The work of Lhote,  Dieterlen and others  resulted in a Rock art exhibit at Musée de l’Homme in Paris in the 19601. A mentor of Professor Djibril Tamsir Niane, Dieterlen went on to co-edit Kumen with Amadou Hampâté Bâ. The text of Kumen had been transmitted orally to Hampâté by Fulbe pastoralists from Senegal’s Ferlo region . Critics welcomed Kumen. Among them H. Deschamp compared its hybrid style of prose and poetry as well as its content to salient literary passages of the Bible. Indeed, Kumen is filled with esoteric and beautiful metaphors.
Dieterlen and Lhote invited Amadou Hampâté to see the rock art specimen found in the mountain caves Tassili n’Ajjer (Algeria). When he saw artifacts, Hampâté simply declared: “My ancestors have been here.”
As the Sahara dried up, cattle herders and agriculturalists moved out. And camel-riding Nomads settled in around oases and water holes. Using their keen knowledge of the harsh environment, the Berbers, precisely the Imuhagh (Tuareg, “People of the Veil”, “Blue People”) developed a well-adapted and dynamic culture in the Desert. From those ancient times to today, they link routinely the northern Maghreb to the Sahel southern limits.

I remember visiting Niamey as Guinea’s delegate to an OAU-sponsored seminar on livestock-rearing communities (Fulɓe, Tuareg, Koyam, etc.) in Niger’s capital city, back in 1979. Touring the town, I was awestruck at the sight of freshly arrived —or Sahara-bound— caravans of camels. The scene was a striking reminder of age-old economic and cultural contacts.

The lanes crisscrossing the Sahara date before the 7th century. It was then that Islam landed in North Africa. Combining the word with the sword Arab priest-warriors connected with indigenous peoples (Berbers, Fulɓe, Tubu, etc.) to consolidate their power.

Historian Djibril Tamsir Niane writes: « In the eleventh century the Almoravids, setting out from the Senegal estuary with armies which included large forces of Negroes from Takruur, conquered parts of the Maghrib and of the Iberian peninsula and restored sunna, a strict Muslim orthodoxy, throughout western Islam. » (General History of Africa. Volume II. Ancient civilizations of Africa. “Introduction.” UNESCO. 1984.)

Intellectual, spiritual and cultural ties continue to develop between the north and the south sides of the Sahara. That explains the presence of the same tarikh (ways) and/or suufi brotherhoods (Qadriya, Shazzaliyya, Tijaniyya) in North and West Africa.
Already in 1790, Tierno Muhammadu Samba Mombeya from Fuuta-Jalon introduced his milestone poem Oogirde Malal (The Lode of Eternal Bliss) as follows:

Ndee ɠasidaare ajamiyaa ko Muhammadu mo Saiidu Seeleyanke
Wallifanii yimɓe Maqribi
(Translation: This work in ajamiyya  is dedicated to People of the Maghreb
by Muhammadu son of Sa’idu of the Seele lineage).
Historically, the Arabic word maghreb designates the countries west of Misra (Egypt), not simply North Africa. Mashriq, east, is the opposite noun.

Decades later, in the mid-1800, pioneer colonialist Louis-Léon Faidherbe  drew from his previous Maghreb experience in building the French West Africa Empire.

Maghreb: unity, infighting and panafricanism

In the aftermath of the Second World War, Maghreb leaders and movements supported each other politically and militarily. That solidarity held on in the first decades of independence.

Furthermore, in the 1960s, at the height of the Cold War, the newly independent states ignored the North-South Sahara line. Consequently, the Casablanca Group integrated countries from North (Algeria, Morocco), East (Egypt), and West (Ghana, Guinea, Mali) Africa.

First Conference African Casablanca Group, Rabat, Jan. 1961. From left to right:
Prince Moulay Hassan (futur Hassan II, (Morocco), Gamal Abdel Nasser (Egypt), Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana, head only, behind Nasser), Ferhat Abbas (Algeria, next to Nkrumah), Sékou Touré (Guinea), Modibo Keita (Mali), King Mohamed V (Morocco)

Algeria is the only African country to host two continental —and Diaspora— cultural events. Thirty-years apart, the Festival panafricain d’Alger of 1969 and 2009 are superseded only by the memorable Festac 77 (Lagos-Kaduna, 1977)

Under Sékou Touré‘s dictatorship, Algeria’s ambassador to Conakry, Messaoudi Zitouni, was routinely asked to attend the government’s sessions, as full member.

Telli Diallo and Zitouni were diplomatic colleagues — and allegedly longtime “friends”. However, neither him, nor the Algerian government sought apparently to prevent or reacted Telli’s arbitrary arrest, torture and murder by starvation and thirst at Camp Boiro in 1976, on Sékou Touré’s order.

However, in recent decades, North Africa has nearly splintered about  the Western Sahara issue. Hostility and isolationism now prevail. Thus, for the past twenty years, the Morocco/Algerian border has remained closed.
The current issue of Jeune Afrique tells about two villages distant by less than two miles apart on opposite sides of the Algeria/Morocco frontier. But relatives and neighbors can visit each other only if they go through Spain!

Jeune Afrique, Special Algerie-Maroc. La déchirure

Morocco left the defunct Organization of African Unity in 1984 to protest the institution’s support for the Polisario movement of Western Sahara. Today, it is still a non-member of the African Union.
Yet, in recent years, however, Morocco has conducted diplomatic charm offensive and business contacts, from Senegal all the way down to Gabon and South Africa.

Porous Saharan borders

The borders inherited from the Berlin Conference are so porous in the Sahara as to be non-existent in the field. Following the millennia-old trade routes, modern transport vehicles facilitate contacts in the region, for all sakes. Hence, in September 2011, in the aftermath of his father’s downfall, flamboyant playboy Al-Saadi Gaddafi drove straight to Niamey with his entourage. There he lived in asylum until his extradition to Tripoli by the government of Niger, last March.

Al-Saadi Gaddafi

In 2013, the Malian state faced obliteration from groups heavily armed with the Gaddafi’s looted weapons and ammunition depots.
Last, but not the least, Boko Haram gets its supply of arms, ammunitions, and logistics from two sources:

• Equipment (armored vehicles, trucks, even tanks) from ransacked Nigerian military barracks
• Contraband stockpiles from Libya through the Sahara.

The flip side: prejudice

From the above, we know that the Sahara’s environment does not prevent or deter deep ties between the North and the South. Yet, misconceptions, prejudice, and conflicting interests persist. Examples:

1. Black communities have lived in North Africa for centuries. Nevertheless, they —and recently arrived migrants— face deep-seated racial prejudices that sometimes lead to violence. Read the article “Racisme : au Maghreb les Noirs sont-ils des citoyens comme les autres ?” in Jeune Afrique.
2. Racism is entrenched in the Maghreb, Mauritania and Sudan, where Arab domination persists. Since independence in 1960, Mauritania has faced the legacy of slavery and discrimination. There is ample evidence of deep-seated racial polarization. And conflicts between Arabs and non-Arabs are recurrent.
   Farther east, following decades of civil war, Sudan was forced to recognize an independent South Sudan in 2011.
3. Oriental hegemony was violently overthrown in 1964 in Zanzibar, a former slave colony of the Sultanate of Oman in the Arabian Peninsula. Soon after the Black majority in the Atlantic Ocean island chose to form with the mainland Tanganyika the United Republic of Tanzania.
4. Gaddafi often criticized and distanced himself from other Arab countries. He frequently claimed a pro-Sub-Saharan Africa. Unfortunately, in Libya non-Arab minorities, in general, and Black Africans suffered discrimination under Gaddafi. The plight of the Tubu of southern Libya became a notorious case of collective human rights violations.

Conversely, some Sub-Saharan tend to exclude the Maghreb.
For instance, in the early preparatory phase of FESTAC’77 a dispute broke out between Nigeria and Senegal around whether Maghreb countries should participate in the Symposium —they were part of the planned shows. Senegal argued that only Black countries should be members. Nigeria disagreed and declared that all African countries were entitled to full participation in FESTAC’77.
Being the host and the main bankroller of the event, the Nigerian Federal government revoked the credentials of the director of the Symposium (Sénégal’s Alioune Diop or Pathé Diagne, I’m not sure). Next, playing on the Sékou Touré vs. Senghor rivalry regarding négritude, Lagos (at that time the capital-city) asked Guinea to head the Symposium in lieu of Senegal. Conakry appointed a colleague of mine, the late Madigbè Kourouma,  —philosophy professor and dean of the Department of Social Sciences of Conakry— as its representative. He was granted a leave of absence and he headed for Lagos, where I and other faculty joined him months later as Guinea delegates to the Symposium. In my case, I attended as individual member and as vice-president of the commission on language and literature. My boss was cabinet minister Sikhé Camara. He oversaw my efforts  to prepare Guinea’s immaterial cultural items to be presented at Festac. Sending diligent missions throughout the country, we were able to gather specimen of Pular Ajamiyaa, Kpèlèwö (Guerzé) and Lomaghöy (Toma) indigenous alphabets, etc.

Yet, despite the above reminders, the Sahara is perceived as a strict limit. That view is reflected at the U.S. State Department or in academia.
Hence, the Near Eastern Affairs Bureau  groups together the Maghreb (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya) with countries on the Asian continent (Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Bahrain, Oman, Palestinian Territories, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates, Yemen).
And Middle-East research and studies departments reflect this model at American academic institutions.
USAID’s programs covers 42 African countries. The Maghreb is not included.
The Obama Administration upheld that tradition in a document named the U.S. Strategy toward Sub-Saharan Africa
Therefore, it’s no surprise that the AGOA sessions at the USA-Africa Summit didn’t include the Maghreb.  It was diplomatically excused —actually it was barred legally — from the talks.  What a paradox for an event meant to bring the U.S and Africa closer together?

Bucking that approach, and contrary to civilian agencies, the Pentagon goes for a continental approach. Its United States Africa Command (Africom) plan encompasses all five African regions: northern, southern, eastern, western and central.

Summing it up, like any other place on earth, Africa swings between push and pull, attraction and rejection, fission and fusion, cooperation and conflict, centrifugal and centripetal forces. …
In the memorable words of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., “The world is all messed up.” (I’ve Been to the Mountaintop speech, Memphis, TN, 3 April 1968 speech). In these trying times —as in past ones, including slavery and colonization— Africa holds the perennial standing as the world’s economic and technological laggard. In today’s globalization, the ranking wreaks havoc in the Cradle of humankind in the form of alienation, marginalization, brain drain, … Arbitrary bureaucratic boundaries, mindless political dissensions and external compartmentalization compound the continent’s challenges. They hurt its struggle for revival, re-affirmation, relevancy, growth and development. The road to freedom and self-reliance is blocked by greed-dominated  and technology-driven forces —internal and external—, amidst relentless inequities, oppression, corruption, impunity, poverty and terrorism. In that regard, the Machiavellian “Divide and rule” precept may benefit the so-called “elites” of failed and non-viable African states.  But it is utterly detrimental to the peoples and the land…
The North-South Saharan line  is drawn in the sand (no pun intended!). It is more artificial than real. It seems to overlook deep historical and political bonds as well as current economic and cultural inter-dependencies.
Worse, Sub-Saharan Africa is a euphemism for previous derogatory names: Black Africa, Dark Continent, land of savages, etc.
I just wish that the makers of AGOA had, without ambiguity, called it  SS-AGOA. Because the program actually deals only with one part —not the whole— of Africa.
And how does it do it? What mechanisms drive AGOA? How does it work?

AGOA. Close-up and the fine print

Last July, on the eve of the USA-Africa Summit, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) published a report entitled “African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA): Background and Reauthorization”. The paper compiles AGOA’s results and ponders over its future.
Drawing from reliable data, authoritative sources, the document offers an assessment of the program. It sheds light on AGOA’s objectives, complexity and contradictions.

Created 14 years ago, AGOA is a “nonreciprocal and unilateral” trade preference initiative. It targets Sub-Saharan African countries and covers U.S. imports at the exclusion of exports, “so reauthorization only requires action by the U.S. government.”
AGOA is a “one-way” preference accorded to those countries “with the goal of enhancing export-led economic growth.”
Above all, it excludes “items that may be considered import sensitive.”
It should not be confused with “other U.S. trade liberalization efforts such as free trade agreements (FTAs) or multilateral agreements through the World Trade Organization (WTO), which reduce and/or eliminate tariffs for both U.S. imports and exports.”
Although it involves more than 50 countries, the program was domestically conceived, unilaterally designed and Congress-authorized.
I previously suggested that the USA-Africa Summit is a lopsided partnership of the richest and the poorest of the face of the planet Earth.
Obviously, the designers of AGOA factored in the structural (economic) imbalance between the two parties. But, what is the proportion between altruism and self-serving objectives?
The CRS paper highlights some restrictive measures that, in essence, grant advantage to the USA. That’s hardly surprising, given that AGOA is neither a charitable endeavor nor an aid program. It’s a business and trade pact.
So, what mechanisms actually drive AGOA? How does it work? My own take on the CRS report is twofold:

AGOA Covered Products

The program covers 5,200 tariff lines for duty-free access on U.S. imports. None of those include “politically sensitive” products: dairy, beef, fish, cereals, etc. Also, most AGOA members can’t meet the tough “U.S. food safety standards”. Does the US do something to bring its partners up to modern quality production levels?

Trade Capacity Building (TCB)

The CRS report notes that AGOA member countries face “poor infrastructure, inadequate access to electricity, and skilled labor shortages.”
That’s not new. Therefor, AGOA should have integrated a germane approach and adequate resources to help address such predicaments, which are characteristic of under-development, in general.
As the report indicates, the US has spent $4 billion since 2001 to enhance AGOA countries trading capabilities. “Administered through different agencies, particularly USAID”, those funds are far from matching the daunting of AGOA partners. It’s the sign of a troubled relationship.

Capacity building is one way of designating the process of training the productive forces or creating skilled human resources, which constitute the prime capital and the engine driving projects and policies, particularly in business. Perhaps, the planners of AGOA overlook this key aspect of the project. And now it’s coming home to roost.
Also, it validates  the viewpoint I outlined in the blog Democracy and literacy. Building a trained workforce is the responsibility of African governments. Foreign partners ought to be able to hire qualified or easily trainable workers.
At the onset of the country’s industrial awakening, the late Den Xiaoping did not focus on the size of China’s domestic market to attract foreign investors. Instead, he drew their attention to the availability of huge and cheap pools of literate workers. It was an appealing invitation that prompted capitalists to invest. At the same time, China was investing heavily in higher education and in research lab. In so doing, the Communist leadership accelerated China’s rise as an economic super-power.
Likewise, African states must give priority to literacy and education. Otherwise, the continent’s role in the world economy will lack incentive for outside financing. It will stagnate and shrink in the globalization era.
For instance, the CRS report indicates that in 2012 “TCB funding in AGOA countries dropped to $95 million from an average of $629 million over the previous five years.”

TCB funding in AGOA countries (in millions US$)
during the period 2006-2011 and in 2012 respectively

Should this declining trend continue, the partnership risks to gradually weaken and loose support and/or purpose.

Performance record

Clearly, the CRS report indicates that AGOA is an under-performer. So much so that its re-authorization is subject to debate. Had it been a success story, its renewal would have been almost automatic.
Alas, some countries do not participate at all. They probably fail to meet AGOA’s basic economic criteria. Among such states gigantic is the vast and potentially rich D.R. Congo.

Imports for consumption basis. Energy products defined as HTS chapter 27. Stars represent preferential treatment on over 75% of total exports to the United States, including energy products. Map only includes countries eligible for AGOA benefits in 2013.
Source: Analysis by CRS. Data from U.S. ITC.

Also, the Nigerian giant ranks below Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. Why? Is it because of the oil mirage that has so profoundly undermined the Federation’s social fabric and economy? It was at the roots of the Biafra secession in 1966, and the following civil war that claimed millions of lives and caused inhuman suffering. The successive military regimes failed the country. They generated violent insurgencies: first the MENDE in the Niger Delta (Southeast). Boko Haram took the bloody relay around 2000, in the Northeast. Long time in denial, Federal Government must at present look itself in the mirror. The picture is ugly: incompetence, corruption and gross violations everywhere. Desperate, Abuja is now dialing SOS worldwide.  Is it too late for a failed nation-state to repair decades of misrule?
African countries perform poorly in AGOA, compared to Asia. Even the top-five countries trailed badly the results achieved between the U.S. and its Asian trade partners.

 U.S. Imports of Apparel Products by Country
(millions of U.S. dollars, 2013)

AGOA and Non-AGOA US imports (Chart – Tierno S. Bah)

I would be remiss if I don’t mention the Guinean. Although smaller, Guinea had the potential to achieve food security and good earnings from staple crops exports. Amazed that the major rivers spring out of the mountain region of Fuuta-Jalon, geographers gave nicknamed it “Waterhouse” or “Switzerland” of West Africa. Unfortunately, since independence in 1958, the country has known only dictatorships, civilian and military. The cycle was supposed to end in 2010. Unfortunately, the presidential election was rigged and violent. And its unexpected outcome has further dimmed Guinea’s prospects for democracy and development. Despite its mineral resources; rather, because of them!

In the end, AGOA may have come too late, too little. The program started in 2000, i.e. more than thirty years after natural disasters and political calamities seriously altered the physical environment and the social climate in most African countries.
Will new strategies emerge to stop the decline and usher in peace, stability, and prosperity?
Can trickle-down theory be part of the solution? Let’s see.

Next, Trickle-down economics and philanthropy

Tierno S. Bah

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Democracy

In his previous quoted opinion-piece “Africa on the Rise” Nicholas Kristof writes: “All in all, though, Africa is becoming more democratic…”
But the author gives no evidence to back his statement. In such case, as the saying goes, he is entitled to his opinions, not to the facts.  And regarding democracy, in devil is in the details, not in broad proclamations, especially in Africa, .
Let’s survey briefly the continent’s political landscape.

Among other things, democracy means alternation and change in leadership. But we notice that the US-Africa Summit included several presidents  who have ruled their countries since last century, i.e., when Barack Obama was in college. The list includes:

• Equatorial Guinea, 1979
• Cameroon, 1982
• Uganda, 1986
• Burkina Faso, 1987
• Sudan, 1993
• Rwanda, 1994
• Gambia, 1996
• Congo, 1997
• Algeria, 1999

Presidents Barack Obama, Teodoro Obiang Nguema and First Lady, Michelle Obama

Other countries (DRC, Gabon, Togo) experience the hereditary presidency phenomenon. Others barely escaped it (Guinea, Senegal, Libya). Elsewhere  (Congo, Cameroon, Uganda), presidential sons —not the daughters, by the way— are being groomed to succeed their father.
In Kenya, Barack Obama’s ancestral home, President Uhuru Kenyatta is on trial at the International Criminal Court for his alleged role in the post-election violence that left 1,200 dead and displaced 600,000 people.

Cameroon’s President Paul  and First Lady Chantal Biya

In Burkina Faso and in Uganda, the Constitution is likely to be tweaked to allow another run and win by the sitting presidents.
Thus, having preceded Barack Obama in the presidential function, MM. Yoweri Museveni and Blaise Compaoré will probably be still in office in 2016, after their US counterpart has returned to private life.
That’s unthinkable in America. Popular or unpopular, successful or not, occupants of the White House come and go after a four or eight-year mandate. And life goes on in the U.S.A.
Strong institutions are better than strong men, Obama reminded wisely, in 2011, the visiting Presidents of Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, and Niger.

Presidents Barack Obama and Yoweri Museweni, First Lady Michelle Obama

All that said, many African states hold scheduled polls and enjoy regular and peaceful changes at the helm of the state.
But, how many rotten apples does it take to spoil the barrel?

Notwithstanding the exceptions, post-colonial Africa has been, overall, under the spell of a misguided leadership.

Two-tiered societies

Africa’s current ruling minorities took over at the end of the colonial system beginning in the late 1950s and ending with the release of Nelson Mandela from prison in 1990.
Post-colonial leaders have been unable or unwilling to steer the continent toward genuine development. Actually, their very existence means that African societies are two-layered systems. On top, one finds westernized groups (politicians, administrators, professional categories, business groups, health care specialists, educators, etc.). Fluent in the language of the former colonizer, this layer is in power. At the bottom, there are rural majorities, who speak no European languages, and who hold onto the native languages. In general, they do not read or write in their own idioms.

Presidents Barack Obama, Yayhya & Zeinab Jammeh, First Lady Michelle

Note that even in regions more homogeneous, such as the Maghreb, the above divide persists, sometimes for worse. Hence, the Algerian Civil War (1991-2002) killed hundreds of thousands of peoples. It pitted traditional Islamist groups against the civilian and military elite, more open to Western governmental principles and methods. Likewise, in Egypt, a secularist military officers and the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood have been fighting each other since the aftermath of Gamal A. Nasser’s coup in 1954. Although it has known short periods of compromises, the intense rivalry has gone unabated since then. Its milestones include the hanging of the Brotherhood main theoretician, Sayyid Qutb (1966), the lethal assault on President Anwar Sadat (1981), the bloody crackdown against Morsi’s supporters (2013).

Based on the preceding, we can safely say that there are two Africa.

The USA-Africa Washington DC Summit dealt with the official and top one.
Unfortunately, this powerful group has so far answered the question “Am I my brothers/sisters keeper?” negatively.
Specifically, it has failed to eradicate illiteracy as a means of enfranchisement of the majority of citizens across Africa. …

Contrary to Kristof’s statement, Africa will become democratic only when each state has fulfilled its obligation to spread social, functional literacy among citizens.

Literacy

Whether oral or written, true knowledge is valuable. But the written word has an edge over verbal communication. It gives actual meaning to the motto: knowledge is power. …

Alone, literacy is not a sufficient proof of democracy. However, it sustains the creation of open channels of communication between leaders and citizens. That, in turn, may result in productive social dialog and participatory politics.

Unfortunately, in Africa poverty and illiteracy thwart and impede the emergence of democratic societies.

In politics, literacy reduces the citizens’ dependency on official propaganda and party demagoguery. It empowers them to access diverse sources and dissenting opinions.

Oppressive regimes and systems discourage the emergence of literate citizenry.

During the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, slaves were prohibited from learning to read and write.

In the aftermath of the Abolition of slavery, the Jim Crow laws and the Literacy Tests prevented Blacks from acquiring literacy. They established tricky tests aimed at voiding the registration and/or ballot of African-Americans.

In Africa, illiteracy has been the breeding ground for poverty, ignorance and authoritarian rule and dictatorship.

Voters depend on false oral information, rumors, and ethnic affinities in casting their ballot.
Politicians play on ethnic sensibilities to win votes and hang on to power.

Political campaigns are not necessarily based on elaborate programs and relevant socioeconomic projects. On the contrary, they consist in ephemeral tours and rallies, which set the stage for empty promises and stale speeches.

Once the electoral campaign over, the country goes back to business as usual, i.e. the neglect of the vital needs of the peasantry.

This is not new. Back in the 1960s, in his landmark Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon, accurately characterized and predicted the failures of the African petite-bourgeoisie in the chapter “National Consciousness”.

His scathing but accurate portrayal fits the Republic Guinea, then and now, like hand and glove.

Insincere and opportunistic, the regime of President Ahmed Sékou Touré (1958-1984), run successively, but unsuccessfully, two literacy campaigns. The Shah of Iran financed the first operation in 1964. It led to a dead-end. In 1968, Sekou Toure ordered the substitution of French by the local languages in schools, without any preparation whatsoever. Never mind the confusion and chaos created but the abrupt measure in the minds of parents and students. It was fine as long as it allowed him to score a fictional political victory against imperialism.
From 1968 to his death at the Cleveland Heart Clinic in 1984, compilations of Sekou Toure’s ideological speeches replaced literary and philosophy books and manuals in high-school and in university curricula.

Presidents Barack Obama, Alpha & Fanta Kaba Conde, First Lady Michelle

Meanwhile, personality cult, nepotism, corruption, impunity, human rights violations, torture and death at the Boiro Concentration Camp, did the rest to ruin Guinea.

At his inauguration in 2010, President Alpha Condé —Sekou Touré’s fourth successor— promised the revival of literacy campaigns and support for literacy in the indigenous Mande Nko writing system.

During the first two of his five-year term, Alpha Condé ignored the country’s hinterland. He visited it only on the eve of the legislative elections. People made the connection between his presence and the scheduled poll. Disappointed, some youth booed and heckled him in his electoral stronghold of Kankan. True to his impulsive temperament, he lost control.  Responding angrily, he awkwardly taunted back his challengers.
If President Condé showed reluctance to touch base with the Guinean populations, he was, on the contrary, eager to jet around the world.  In the 2010-2012 period,  he made dozens of trips abroad.
In July 2013, violent ethnic confrontations erupted in the Forest region. More than a hundred people died. Many more sustained serious injuries amid widespread property destruction. Instead of rushing to stop the conflict, comfort mourning families and visit the wounded, he flew to an ECOWAS Summit in Abuja, Nigeria.
Finally, despite the ongoing Ebola crisis in Guinea, he opted for  travelling to Washington, DC. His peers from Liberia and Sierra Leone stayed at home to monitor the epidemic. Yet, it is commonly known and scientifically established that Southeastern Guinea is the epicenter of the virus in West Africa.
Under Mr. Conde’s administration the living standards of the populations have  declined.
Meanwhile, a series of dubious financial dealings have come to light. They include revelations about the licensing schemes for the Simandou’s rich  iron ore deposits. The scandal originated with the late dictator, General Lansana Conté and his fourth wife, Mamadie Touré. But it is still unfolding and it may not spar Guinea’s sitting president.
Bottom line, since 2010, Guineans have learned that they can expect little from (a) M. Condé’s casual and derelict attitude toward them  and, among other things, their unmet literacy needs  (b) his obsession with mining in the land of the so-called “geological scandal.”

Next, AGOA and Africa. Trickle-down economics. Business and philanthropy

Tierno S. Bah

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