Who’s Afraid of African Democracy?

We reproduce a short piece by Helen Epstein (author of "The invisible Cure" on the fight against AIDS in Africa) in the New York Review of Books  reviewing Adam Branch and Zachariah Mampilly’s Africa Uprising: Popular Protest and Political Change  and simultaneously addressing the latest episodes of social and political unrest in the African continent (notably Burundi but also Burkina and the DRC with mentions to Senegal and Uganda) within a larger framework of Western support to autocratic and seemingly perpetual regimes in the region. A backing rooted in the adjustment programs dictated by the IMF and World Bank and renewed with the so-called War on Terror. We have added hyperlinks and some context material at the end.

Ndabashinze Renovat/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images Security forces facing off with protesters in Bujumbura, Burundi, May 20, 2015

Who’s Afraid of African Democracy? Helen Epstein New York Review of Books  May 21, 2015

Poor Burundi. Landlocked, tiny, and known mainly for ethnic conflict, it was for years the subject of one of the most intense international peace-building efforts in history. By the time the Arusha Peace Agreement was finally signed in 2003, 300,000 Burundians had died in a civil war rivaling in ferocity that of its neighbor Rwanda. Huge sums had been invested in grassroots workshops, high-level meetings and summits to end the fighting. According to Burundi specialist Peter Uvin, taxi drivers in the capital Bujumbura joke that the per diems received during these protracted negotiations built the poshest neighborhood in the city. Now, a decade after the peace process came to what seemed a successful conclusion, and despite billions of dollars in humanitarian aid, the country appears to be falling apart again.

Philanthrocapitalism. Self-servicing charity on the name of the impoverished

In recent years a new trend is increasingly gaining hold in international cooperation circles: philanthrocapitalism or the use of market rules and tools to advance such goals as education, public health or water sanitation by individuals like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and other corporate magnates.

 However, there is a growing sense of  concern regarding the potential conflict of interests and moral dilemmas posed by transnational corporations replacing non-for-profit  entities and intergovernmental organizations in alleviating misery and poverty in many cases caused  by the very same economic model where they thrive and profit.

We have selected a piece by Niamh Hayes & Richard Seymour in The Jacobin Magazine on an aspect in some ways linked to the philanthrocapitalism which is celebrity activism. Which agenda is serving this kind of activism and who ultimately benefits are some of the issues forcefully tackled by this piece. We have added hyperlinks and context material at the end. 

 

Bono rocking it at the World Economic Forum  in 2007 /Copyright World Economic Forum (www.weforum.org)
swiss-image.ch/Photo by Remy Steinegger

Philanthropic poverty. Bono and other philanthropic capitalists push charity to defend property by Niamh Hayes & Richard Seymour The Jacobin Magazine 

When there is a problem in Africa, who are you going to call? Bob Geldof and Bono repeatedly nominate themselves. But why should anyone’s fate be entrusted to the delusional, creepy, self-parodying rock-star messianism of this pair of rich tax dodgers? What do they have to offer?

The short answer is, they offer us a spectacle. And a spectacle, as Guy Debord argued, is not just a collection of images. It is a social relationship mediated by images. Those who participate in the spectacle get to experience this social relationship in a special way by consuming the images.

The spectacle of Band Aid — a “charity supergroup” responsible for the 1984 festival Live Aid and its hit single, “Do They Know It’s Christmas,” and subsequent events including the 2005 debt campaign Live 8 — is rooted in a colonial relationship to Africa in which, as the political scientist Graham Harrison has shown, “Britishness” is traditionally constructed through campaigns to “save” the continent from blights and disasters. The “feel good” factor derives from the spectacle-positioning of Britain as “doing good” in the world.

War on Democracy. 2007 John Pilger's documentary on US foreign policy in the Americas

A good documentary (in high definition)  by Australian filmmaker John Pilger on Americas recent history. Focuses on developments in Guatemala, El Salvador, Venezuela, Bolivia and Chile.

Pilger interviews several ex-CIA agents who purportedly took part in secret campaigns against democratic countries . Establishes the role and responsibility of the US-based School of the Americas in training and providing guidance for military forces in such countries as El Salvador, Guatemala, Colombia, Chile and Argentina.