Engler masterfully lays out the ways in which Canada participated in the exploitation of Africa during slavery, through colonialism, via Canadian mining companies that operate in Africa and through aid and Structural Adjustment Programs, and through implementing global neoliberal policies.

How did Oscar Pistorius get away with a slap on the wrist for killing another human being? The answer lies in the fact that Pistorius killed a white woman and subsequently, in his defence, appealed to white angst about crime, using mental images of the proverbial "native bogeyman".

Cuba’s contribution to the development of post-independent Africa has always been based on solidarity, liberty and anti-white supremacy. By this principled stand, Cuba builds on and sustains the spirit of the Haitian revolution.

The current Ebola crisis reinforces the prevailing narrative that black Africans living in Western countries are the diseased ‘other’ who pose a threat to the health of whites

The US-Africa leaders summit is a public relations exercise in pomp, ceremony and ritual meant to disguise the militarised foreign policy represented by AFRICOM. It is also aimed at countering the Chinese presence on the African continent

A colonial mindset still pervades some intellectual critiques of social movements in post-apartheid South Africa.

‘The Mozambique food riots of 2010 and the recent mass protests in Nigeria show that people are capable of forcing governments to back down from enforcing policies that have a negative impact on their lives.’

‘South Africa became the regional economic powerhouse that it is today partly on the backs of immigrant labourers from the SADC who helped build the country’s economy. Is it unreasonable for people to want to share in the fruits of what they helped create?’ asks Mandisi Majavu.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/500/10_500.gifPambazuka News distinguishes itself by exploring the issues the continent faces ‘without reinforcing stereotypes about Africans’, writes Mandisi Majavu, challenging ‘the way we understand African politics’ and the way in which ‘African politics are presented in the mainstream media’.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/305/41566_Fanon.jpgMandisi Majavu draws on Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth to encourage an exploration of the interconnections between psychology and society in Africa.

Derek Hook (2004) argues that Frantz Fanon’s greatest source of originality as a postcolonial theorist lay in the fact that he combined psychology and politics in his analysis of colonial problems, national liberation and social revolution.

For Fanon, psychopathology in the colonial society, or any other oppressive society for that matter, can be characterised as a ‘pathology of liberty’. This means that for a psychological intervention to be sincere and relevant, the psychological services offered would have to play their part in restoring freedom in some meaningful capacity to the sufferer (Hooks 2004).

According to Bulhan (1985), for Fanon, oppression in the practice and institutionalisation of violence by the colonial state is not only motivated and perpetuated by economic motives, but also by psychological and cultural interests. The revolutionary response of the oppressed to such violence generates a new language, people and humanity. Such a response has the potential to produce a liberated society (Bulhan 1985).

Concerning violence
Fanon argues that decolonisation is always a violent phenomenon: 'The naked truth of decolonization evokes for us the searing bullets and bloodstained knives which emanate from it.' Accordingly, decolonisation is a programme of 'complete disorder' which aims to change the social order of the colonial world. It is a meeting of two forces, opposed to each other by their very nature: '[their] first encounter was marked by violence and their existence together – that is to say the exploitation of the native by the settler – was carried on by dint of a great array of bayonets and cannon'. Colonial society by its very nature is violent.

It does not, however, necessarily follow that decolonisation as a revolutionary programme is violent in nature. It might be true that most countries that have been colonised have achieved freedom through a violent struggle. However, that says more about the arrogance of colonial power than it says about the decolonisation programme itself.

This misconception of decolonisation as violent in nature characterises the false assumptions that underlie Fanon’s thinking about where the decolonisation process ought to begin. Fanon’s understanding of the colonial world is profound. However, some of his assumptions regarding decolonisation hinder how we might relate sensibly to the possibilities of moving forward, beyond pathology, to the liberated, decolonised society.

We could conceive of decolonisation as a fundamental, societal radical change in both the economy, and in social relations such as race and class relations; and that through such a programme, colonised people find their freedom; and not, as Fanon claims, through violence.

Fanon argues that violence for the colonised is therapeutic, a 'cleansing force'. But as Albert (2004) points out, 'violence has horrible effects on its perpetrators, more often than not causing them to devalue human life'. Colonial societies serve as evidence to support this view. There is no evidence to make us believe that violence perpetrated by the other side will not have the same effects.

Fanon argues that violence frees 'the native from his inferiority complex and from his despair and inaction...[and] restores his self-respect'. He does not provide evidence to support this perspective, nor does he explain his assumption regarding the ‘native inferiority complex’. He seems to assume that simply because blacks in the colony are subjected to all sorts of racist humiliation, this automatically results in an inferiority complex and self-hatred in blacks (Owusu-Bempah & Howitt 2000).

In his book Shades of Black, William Cross (1991) argues that there are at least four factors that explain why the mental health of blacks, including any propensity toward self-hatred, are not and have never been easily predicted by measures of racial identity:

- the limited generalisability of results of results of racial-preference studies conducted with three and four year old children
- the effects of black biculturalism, acculturation, and assimilation on black monoracial preference trends in racial identity experiments
- the problem of interpreting the meaning and salience of racial preference and racial identity for black adults operating with a multiple reference group orientation
- the historical failure of students and scholars of racial identity to differentiate between concepts and measures of ascriptive RGO [Reference Group Orientation] and concepts and measures of self-defined RGO.

Some of Fanon’s assumptions vis-à-vis the representation of decolonisation - the motivation that inspires natives to violently rebel against a colonial regime and the supposedly rampant inferiority complex - are unfounded. If we are concerned with building a sound postcolonial theory, then that theory ought at least to be based on sound assumptions. A postcolonial theory is needed that explains social events and psychological and political trends and phenomena sufficiently for us to situate ourselves, explain to others and understand the way things are.

The pitfalls of national consciousness
Fanon discusses how the new government of the liberated postcolonial state can betray the revolution. He argues that the middle class of the new postcolonial state is underdeveloped because it is reduced in numbers, has no capital, and is opposed to the revolutionary path. Eventually it falls into deplorable stagnation. For this middle class, nationalisation of the economy simply means the transfer into native hands of those unfair advantages which are a legacy of the colonial period. The middle class 'will be quite content with the role of the Western bourgeoise’s business agent'.

Fanon refers to this middle class as the 'bourgeois dictatorship'. He argues that they are not real bourgeoisie in the true sense of the word, but rather a 'sort of little greedy caste, avid and voracious, with the mind of a huckster, only too glad to accept the dividends that the former colonial power hands out to it'. Accordingly, after independence this middle class does not hesitate to invest the money it makes out of its native soil in foreign banks.

According to Fanon, the reason it is corrupt is because it has a permanent wish to identify with former colonisers. Consequently, it adopts with enthusiasm their characteristic ways of thinking. It is incapable of generating great ideas to manage and develop the economy, for it remembers what it has read in European textbooks.

The logic that underlies Fanon’s analysis is that the postcolonial government and its new middle class betray the revolution because, among other things, they want to be white, or to occupy the position formerly occupied by the coloniser. For example, he writes that before independence the 'look that the native turns on the settler’s town is a look of lust, a look of envy; it expresses his dreams of possessions – all manner of possession: to sit at the settler’s table, to sleep in the settler’s bed, with his wife if possible'.

History teaches us, as for example Howard Zinn argues in his People’s History of the United States, that when people are oppressed, they always rebel sooner or later. Furthermore, they do not rebel because of lust or envy, but because they believe in justice, equity and freedom.

In most cases, the revolution is betrayed due to a combination of a lack of vision for the new institutions for a democratic society, and a mixture of internal and external forces such as self-interest and the global economy.

Postcolonial politics from this standpoint is revealing and enables us not only to explain but to predict political and social phenomena. A theory based on flawed assumptions, that compels us to focus on lust, envy and desires to be white, forces us to chase psychologically reductionist dead-ends.

On national culture
Fanon’s basic premise is that native intellectuals respond to colonialism and the cultural hegemony that goes with it by rejecting Western culture and embracing a pre-colonial history and way of life. To escape from the hegemony of the Western culture, Fanon argues that the native intellectual feels the need to turn backwards towards his unknown roots, and as a result, sets a high value on the African customs and traditions: 'The sari becomes sacred, and shoes that come from Paris or Italy are left off in favour of pampooties, while suddenly the language of the ruling power is felt to burn your lips.'

The appreciation of certain Western ideas and the fact that certain postcolonial writers are influenced by Western writers and write in European languages should not be presented as a failure to create an authentic postcolonial cultural work, as Fanon presents it.

To write in an African language, or to quote only African writers, does not necessarily translate into originality. A radical postcolonial vision on culture ought not to be opposed to diverse cultures, including Western cultures, or a reduction diverse cultures to a least common denominator. The point is to enjoy their benefits while transcending prior debits.

As Albert (2006) points out the only real cultural salvation lies in eliminating racist institutions, dispelling colonialist ideologies and changing the colonial environment within which historical communities relate, so that they might maintain and celebrate difference without violating solidarity. A radical post-colonial theory would encourage individuals to choose 'cultural communities they prefer rather than have elders or others of any description define their choice for them' (Albert 2006: 47).

Conclusion
What is needed is a liberated society that is not characterised by cultural hierarchies and the one-way community assault common throughout the colonial history. Liberation postcolonial theory ought to provide us with concepts to describe and explain what it would take to build such a society and what such a society would constitute.

This essay is based on the premise that to have a growth-oriented attitude about one’s ideas, rather than a stability-oriented attitude, is healthy and the antithesis of sectarianism: 'Sectarianism is defensive and preservationist and often obscurantist and unconcerned with truth. We need instead to be self-critical and growth-oriented, and to strive for clarity and seek truth as best we can' (Albert 2004: 190).

References:

Albert, M., 2004, Realising hope: Life beyond capitalism, Canada: Fernwood Publishing.

Albert, M., 2004,. Thought dreams: Radical theory for the 21st century, Canada: Arbeiter Ring Publishing.

Bulhan, H.A., 1985, Frantz Fanon and the psychology of oppression, New York: Plenum Press.

Cross, W.E., 1991, Shades of Black: Diversity in African-American identity, Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Fanon, F., 1990, The Wretched of the Earth, London: Penguin Books.

Hook, D., 2004, 'Steve Biko, psychopolitics and critical psychology', in Hook, D., ed., Critical psychology, Cape Town: UCT Press, pp. 84-114.

Owusu-Bempah, K. & Howitt, D., 2000, Psychology beyond western perspectives, UK: British Psychological Society Books.

* Mandisi Majavu, a Stephen Bantu Biko fellow, is currently working on his masters in psychology at the University of Cape Town. [email][email protected]

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

According to the Africa Aerospace & Defence newsletter, the AAD 2006 “… is Africa’s showcase event for general and commercial aviation, aerospace and military land, sea and air technology and services.” However, anti-war groups argue that the AAD 2006 will exhibit the largest and greatest in machinery designed for only one purpose - the killing of human beings. This is the harsh truth behind arms expos; they supply arms for countries to go to war.

In Africa, a continent that has been devastated by civil wars, a continent where military weapons have brought nothing but misery and destruction, the last thing one would expect is a weapons fair. Dubbed “Africa Aerospace & Defence 2006”, AAD 2006 is the largest weapons exhibition that has ever been organised in this continent.

As if referring to a flea market, the AAD 2006 websites states that: “Air Force Base Ysterplaat [Cape Town, South Africa], against the backdrop of Table Mountain, will provide the setting for the only exposition of its sort in Africa and will feature more than 400 exhibitors from at least 25 countries.”

The AAD website further informs readers that by taking part in this affair, “trade visitors and the media have the unique opportunity to get in on the ground floor, experiencing and participating in the renaissance of the African aerospace and defence industry.” We are expected to believe that the same military weapons that have perpetuated civil wars in the DRC, Uganda and Liberia are in actual fact what constitute the African renaissance. This would be funny if this were not a matter of life and death.

Commenting on the exhibition, the Ceasefire and Umzabalazo we Jubilee campaigns wrote: “These arms companies will exhibit the largest and greatest in machinery designed for only one purpose, the killing of human beings. Husband, fathers, son, daughter and infants will all die because of this machinery. This is the harsh truth behind arms expos; they supply arms for countries to go to war with other countries and against their own citizens.”

The Cape Town Anti-War Coalition claims that: “Many of the arms companies ‘exhibiting’ at the weapons fair are allegedly involved in dealing weapons through third party front companies with extremely poor human rights records, like America, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, Angola, Eritrea, Sudan and Nigeria. This method involves direct purchases by the foreign aid recipient from a government weapons manufacturer contractor, without directly government involvement in the process. Others are involved in further impoverishing poor countries like Malawi who have no need for military equipment but who are forced by the World Bank into taking out loans to buy weapons in exchange for aid.”

According to the Small Arms Survey 2006, “Applying the doctrinal distinctions outlined…to 166 countries (all countries with a population over 400 000 that have military) permits global estimation of the number of firearms controlled by the state-sponsored armed forces of the world. Combined with formally declared military inventories, this analysis concludes that the world harbours at least 200 million official military firearms. When distributed to compensate for a statistical margin of error (plus or minus 25 percent), the range of global military firearms appears to be between 150 million and 250 million. The estimating used here for People’s War militaries are conservative, which suggest that actual global totals are more likely to be closer to the upper parameter.”

Addressing specifically the issue of small arms, the Global Policy Forum (www.globalpolicy.org) states that: “Small arms and light weapons fuel civil wars and other conflicts, causing harm to millions of people, particularly in Africa. These small weapons are only part of a larger trade that includes heavier and more lethal weaponry, but light arms are often especially baneful because they are cheap, easy to transport and can be handled by ill-trained rebel soldiers and even children. Recent UN reports show how these weapons are illicitly exported, transported with connivance of government officials in many countries and smuggled into war zones.”

To fully understand what the AAD 2006 means for ordinary Africans, one has to take into consideration the role of small arms in African civil wars. As the Global Policy Forum points out, small weapons are a part of a larger trade, like the AAD 2006.

The Small Arms Survey 2006 (SAS 2006) reports that the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) depended on small arms to keep the civil war going in Northern Uganda for the past 20 years. As a result, this led to high levels of armament among the civilian population in the region, levels exacerbated by government and military policies of arming sections of society against the LRA and other armed groups.

“The LRA’s primary weapons are Kalashnikov derivatives, and most commonly, the Chinese Type 56 assault rifle. However, the Ugandan military uses a number of weapons, and the same types are also used by the LRA. The most numerous after the Chinese Type 56 are Polish and Romanian AKM assault rifles and AK-47 assault rifles from the former Soviet Union. Some observers claim that NATO weapons, such as the Belgian FN FAL and the German G3, are also in service with some rebels, having formerly been in the arsenals of the Ugandan and Sudanese governments.” (SAS 2006)

Even with perfect case studies, such as Uganda, which illustrate that in the world today, military firearms serve one purpose and that is to terrorise and kill innocent civilians, AAD 2006 is unconvinced. The AAD 2006 newsletter claims that: “The conventional and terrorist threats to security together with increased demands for peace-support operations is prompting many African countries to revisit their defence requirement and to re-evaluate their investments in research and development and procurements.”

However, the Cape Town Anti-War Coalition points out that most of the companies who are exhibiting weapons are “responsible for the deaths of millions of civilians across Africa and the Middle Eats.” For example, Truvelo, one of the companies exhibiting weapons at the fair is “manufacturing a new assault rifle. This company is expert in manufacturing sniper guns.” Eurocipter, another exhibitor, makes 14 different military helicopters, including the “Tiger” which they supply to Israel, among other repressive regimes.

The sad reality is that the manufacturing of arms (instead of building homes for the homeless and feeding the hungry for instance) is not likely to change for a very long time. The projections by the Small Arms Survey 2006 show a world obsessed with military firearms. The SAS 2005 predicts that:

- The world’s militaries procure around 50 million small arms and light weapons over a 50-year period, or around 1 million units annually.
- Not all of this acquisition is of new stocks.
-Global production of military small arms and light weapons over a 50-year period range between 36 and 46 million weapons and averages 0.7 – 0.9 million annually.
- Production is not constant but cyclical and responds to the demands of the world’s wealthier states.
- The world’s poorer states often rely on surplus stocks displayed by wealthy state procurement programmes.
- This trade and transfer of surplus stocks to militaries across the globe could number up to 14 million units over a 50-year period.
- Some of the world’s largest procurers will launch major procurement programmes in the next 10 – 15 years.
- Global military production periodically peaks and id projected to do so in the coming 20 years as wealthy states modernise their small arms.
- Unless measures are taken to remove weapons from circulation, this peak is likely to displace yet more surplus stock to the world’s poorer states.

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

The history and the present life of the San, indigenous people of the southern Africa, is a sad story of a people who after surviving genocide at the hands of other African ethnic groups and European colonialists had to endure slavery and oppression, while in the process losing their land, language, culture, and traditional way of life.

In Botswana, where there is a population of about 60,000 San people, the government refuses to recognise the San as indigenous, claiming that every Motswana is indigenous in Botswana. This self-serving argument is presented to anyone who argues that historical and archaeological evidence has proved that the San people have lived and hunted in the southern Africa for over 35,000 years.

There is no official recognition of the San people as a distinct ethnic group in Botswana, and they are excluded in the country’s house of chiefs (1). A name used to refer to the San is “Basarwa” - a demeaning word suggesting servitude. They are among the poorest, totally marginalised and landless. Title deeds and the 1968 Tribal Land Act which aimed to regulate land allocation and rights (2) left the San people with no land to call their own.

In the name of development - meaning game lodges and safari companies which results in tourists and profits for the wealthy few, the San people have been, since 1997, subjected to forced removal from The Central Kalahari Game Reserve. The game reserve was set up in 1961 while Botswana was still a British Protectorate. The idea was to put all that belonged in the bush in a game reserve; you will remember that the colonialists referred to the San as “Bushmen”.

Before 1997, there were about 3,000 San people who lived in the 52,000 square km reserve (3) and in total there were six villages (4), but today there are only about 500 San people who still live in the reserve (5). A reason given by the government for the removal of the San people is that the game reserve is not for humans rather to preserve wildlife; furthermore, the government claims that it has become too expensive to bring basic services for the San people living in the reserve, hence it is moving them to a better site 60 km away from the reserve.

When the government came up with the idea to remove the San people in 1997, it stressed the point that those who were being removed would be given a “new and modern life”, replete with better clinics, schools, financial assistance for businesses, farm plots and livestock.

The real reason behind the removal of the San people is to create a tourism industry in that country while diversifying the country’s economy at the same time. The International Monetary Fund made it clear to the Botswana government that it must pursue the diversification of its economy and move away from dependence on diamond revenues, continued government spending and expansion of the civil service (6). Diamonds account for three quarters of Botswana export earnings, one third of its GDP and 50 percent of government revenues (7). This is generated by Debswana - a company jointly owned by the government and De Beers, and is the world’s biggest uncut diamond producer in value terms.

Survival International believes that the main reason for the government to remove the San people is that the game reserve which they once considered barren houses one of the world’s richest diamond fields. And according to the United Nations news agency, IRIN, test drilling has already taken place at Gope - a location within the reserve. Clifford Maribe, assistant director of the research and information division in the Government Foreign Affairs Ministry, has been quoted as saying: “The government has made no secret that there is general exploration for minerals throughout the country, including Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR). However, at this point in time, nothing other than the Gope deposit has been found in the CKGR” (8).

Moreover, according to the Survival International, the International Finance Corporation, part of the World Bank, has given credibility to the exploration by providing Kalahari Diamonds (part owned by Billiton - an Anglo-Australian multinational) with $ 2-million.

In their struggle to exist, the San’s traditional knowledge is also under threat. The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research of South Africa (CSIR) patented in 1997 a plant that the San used to eat to ward off hunger and thirst on long hunting trips. According to tradition, the San did not eat while hunting and the plant helped suppress appetite. The CSIR then licensed the UK- based Phytopharm, which in turn licensed the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer to develop the Hoodia cactus into a “miracle slimming drug”. It is reported that Pfizer hopes to have the “dieter’s dream” treatment in pill form by 2007. As for the San, royalties are coming their way; the mainstream media is quick to point out.

Perhaps the most revealing story of the day-to-day struggle of the San people in Botswana is an extract below, taken from a story by Saikuta, a storyteller from old Xade district that used to be in the game reserve.

“Just before the time of the year you call Christmas I went hunting and shot a gemsbok. The same day the Game Warden came around, took my hunting license, and said: don’t you see that this has expired a long time ago? And I said: but you know I can’t read. Never mind, this one is expired. So where is the animal? So I go with the Game Warden, show him the animal, and he takes it all, skin, bones, meat, horn. He takes it to feed his own family. He tells me that this time he will not fine me.

Every time I see him I ask for my new license. Take it easy, this is not the time for hunting. And I say: But this is the time when we San people go hunting. This is when the game is around. Nonsense, old man, you must wait until I tell you. This is the government game, and we decide when you are allowed to hunt.

Many, many days passed and we nearly died from hunger. My son was nearly dying from hunger. I know well enough, he belongs to the government. The government owns all of us, and we own nothing. So it was difficult for me to make this decision: should I leave the government’s son to die, or should I shoot one of the government’s elands. Which of the two had to die? So I went hunting. I shot an eland, butchered it, and went home, but the Game Warden was already there waiting for me: You shot an eland, now you must go to jail. They took me and the eland to Ghanzi district, and once we were there they started to sell the meat. And I asked: is it the meat of the eland that I shot that you are now selling? You are not allowed to sell game meat, that much I know. Now you watch yourself or you will stay in jail for so long that no one will recognize you when you come out.

So I was silent.

Then I came before the magistrate, and I told him the story as I have told you now. You are too old to hunt. You are supposed to live from the mealie meal that the government gives you, the magistrate told me. But I never received any mealie meal. Yes, your name is in the book. Go home and wait, and you will get a bag every month; the magistrate told me. Then he gave me six months suspended sentence. Now it is May, and the mealie meal has been distributed five times already, but my name is not in the book.

So now I again am faced with the same dilemma. Who should die, the eland or the son of the government.” (9)

* This article was first published on
Reprinted with kind permission of the author.

* Please send comments on this editorial - and other events in Africa -
to [email protected]

References:
1.United Nations news agency, IRIN.
2.The Inconvenient Indigenous, by Sidsel Saugestad
3.UN news agency, IRIN
4.The Inconvenient Indigenous, by Sidsel Saugestad
5.African Eye News Service
6.Business Day 25/11/99
7.Financial Times
8.UN news agency, IRIN
9.The Inconvenient Indigenous, by Sidsel Saugestad