By Prof Artwell Nhemachena
ONE big problem in some African coun- tries and with many Africans is that they have a tendency to wait forever even in the face of serious problems that call for urgent solutions.
The problem is often one of perpetual wait-hood, ironically on a continent that has so many problems to solve – the majority of which are a legacy of colonial- ism.
When Zimbabweans embarked on the historic land reform programme in 2000, scores in other African countries con- demned the fact that it was ‘fast-tracked’. They obviously desired to see a more slow-paced programme in Zimbabwe, in spite of the urgency to redistribute land which was central to the liberation struggle.
Of course, Western imperialists seek to always see Africa in slow motion, and even frozen in a state of wait-hood, in various domains including economic,
political and technological, among others. And this is why Britain inserted clauses in the Lancaster House Constitution to slow down land redistribution – and, by extension, to put the realisation of Zimbabwe’s economic sovereignty on hold and in in- definite wait-hood.
Part of the Western strategy to freeze African economic sovereignty is to prom- ise Africans development aid, much of which does not materialise as promised.
With a lot of inflated zeal, the West is never tired of prodigiously promising development aid – indeed, the West has deployed countless development NGOs on the continent of Africa – but they have sadly failed to cause development and economic sovereignty on the continent.
Africans must learn from the ongoing trade wars between the US and China.
What is needed is autarkic development in order to realise economic sovereignty. No country in the world is interested in being overtaken, in economic terms, by another country – and when countries feel threatened by the economic development of their competitors, they launch trade and economic wars on them.
Genuine development and economic sovereignty can only come from within, spearheaded by African citizens much like what happened when Zimbabweans took over their land from the descendants of colonialists.
Westerners have induced many Africa states to believe that they can develop without recovering their natural resources which were stolen by colonialists. The West provides, to African countries, the so-called development aid which is ironically considered to be incompatible with the redistribution of natural resources, including land. Why the so-called development aid is regarded as incompatible with the redistribution of land is mind-boggling – particularly when one is mindful of the fact that, to develop, Africans do not only need the development aid but also the land on which to develop Africa.
Yet, if an African state becomes courageous enough to redistribute land to the majority of Africans, the West imposes sanctions, abating the so-called development aid. In other words, the so-called development aid constitutes what other thinkers have called cruel optimism – wherein Africans are kept perpetually hoping that eventually they will somehow achieve development and economic sovereignty within the architectures dictated by the West.
The so-called development aid is, in fact, a variant of trade wars or economic wars insofar as it is calculated to induce wait-hood among those Africans who lack
the faculties to appreciate the fact that to develop and to have economic sover- eignty, they need ownership and control
of their natural resources – which should not be treated as inconsistent with devel- opment aid.
The so-called development aid is noth- ing to celebrate in Africa when African recipients are prohibited from recovering their stolen land as a condition of benefaction. It is the allure of this so-called development aid that explains why many African countries are frozen in states of wait-hood in respect of recovering their stolen natural resources.
They do not realise that the development aid is an apparatus of an economic war against the redistribution of land among the African majorities.
When the West promises the so-called development aid, it is not necessarily interested in the genuine development of Africa but it is interested in inducing states of wait-hood, in respect of the redistribution of natural resources, among Africans.
It is, therefore, not surprising that in the 21st century, many Western scholars, institutions, NGOs and CSOs are beginning to talk about post-develoment, post-sovereignty, post-growth, degrowth and so on wherein they come out of hiding to show that they actually oppose development, economic growth and economic sovereignty in Africa and by Africans.
Indeed, Western transnational corporations and ‘investors’ made Africans to believe that they were coming to the continent to generate jobs for Africans. Yet, now it is clear that the jobs are going not to Africans but to the industrial and service robots which the same Western corporations are producing and deploying to replace humans.
Such ideologies have infected many African states with the virus of wait-hood – waiting for development aid from the West; waiting for investors from the West while remaining oblivious to the lessons in the trade and economic wars. West- ern states and providers of the so-called development aid are more interested in retaining leading economic positions
in the world than in assisting African countries to develop and have economic sovereignty.
Western states would not assist Africans to develop and to have economic sovereignty because, at some point, Africa will become an economic threat to the global economic hegemony of the West. Western promises to assist Africa develop are merely handy weapons to keep Africans frozen in states of wait-hood. There is what I call a global political economy of wait-hood wherein some regions of the world are forced to wait while other regions forge ahead.
If the West is afraid of the economic growth of China which threatens Western global economic hegemony, who says
the West is not similarly afraid that if it genuinely assists Africa to develop, Africa would similarly threaten Western eco- nomic hegemony in the world?
Africans should not be fooled.
It is time to unapologetically assert their economic sovereignty on the conti- nent. If the West cannot assist Africans with recovering their stolen land (stolen by their kith and kin in the first place), how can the same West genuinely assist Africans in development efforts? It is
a question of cruel optimism in some African states that remain beholden to Western ‘masters’ who, in the past, have used the bait of civilisation to generate cruel optimism among Africans they were dispossessing and exploiting.
