*** Beyond Orwell: The Electronic Police State, 2010
By Tom Burghardt

*** Beyond Orwell: The Electronic Police State, 2010
By Tom Burghardt

**** Billionaires and Mega-Corporations Behind Immense Land Grab in Africa

By John Vidal, Mail & Guardian

Posted on March 10, 2010, Printed on March 13, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/145970/

Awassa, Ethiopia -- We turned off the main road to Awassa, talked our way past security guards and drove a mile across empty land before we found what will soon be Ethiopia's largest greenhouse. Nestling below an escarpment of the Rift Valley, the development is far from finished, but the plastic and steel structure already stretches over 50 acres* -- the size of 20 soccer fields.

The farm manager shows us millions of tomatoes, peppers and other vegetables being grown in 1,500 foot rows in computer controlled conditions. Spanish engineers are building the steel structure, Dutch technology minimises water use from two bore-holes and 1,000 women pick and pack 50 tons of food a day. Within 24 hours, it has been driven 200 miles to Addis Ababa and flown 1,000 miles to the shops and restaurants of Dubai, Jeddah and elsewhere in the Middle East.

Ethiopia is one of the hungriest countries in the world with more than 13-million people needing food aid, but paradoxically the government is offering at least 7.5 million acres of its most fertile land to rich countries and some of the world's most wealthy individuals to export food for their own populations.

The 2,500 acres of land which contain the Awassa greenhouses are leased for 99 years to a Saudi billionaire businessman, Ethiopian-born Sheikh Mohammed al-Amoudi, one of the 50 richest men in the world. His Saudi Star company plans to spend up to $2-billion acquiring and developing 1.25 million acres of land in Ethiopia in the next few years. So far, it has bought four farms and is already growing wheat, rice, vegetables and flowers for the Saudi market. It expects eventually to employ more than 10,000 people.

But Ethiopia is only one of 20 or more African countries where land is being bought or leased for intensive agriculture on an immense scale in what may be the greatest change of ownership since the colonial era.

Land rush

An Observer investigation estimates that up to 125 million acres of land -- an area more than double the size of the UK -- has been acquired in the last few years or is in the process of being negotiated by governments and wealthy investors working with state subsidies. The data used was collected by Grain, the International Institute for Environment and Development, the International Land Coalition, ActionAid and other non-governmental groups.

The land rush, which is still accelerating, has been triggered by the worldwide food shortages which followed the sharp oil price rises in 2008, growing water shortages and the European Union's insistence that 10% of all transport fuel must come from plant-based biofuels by 2015.

In many areas the deals have led to evictions, civil unrest and complaints of "land grabbing".

The experience of Nyikaw Ochalla, an indigenous Anuak from the Gambella region of Ethiopia now living in Britain but who is in regular contact with farmers in his region, is typical. He said: "All of the land in the Gambella region is utilised. Each community has and looks after its own territory and the rivers and farmlands within it. It is a myth propagated by the government and investors to say that there is waste land or land that is not utilised in Gambella.

"The foreign companies are arriving in large numbers, depriving people of land they have used for centuries. There is no consultation with the indigenous population. The deals are done secretly. The only thing the local people see is people coming with lots of tractors to invade their lands.

"All the land round my family village of Illia has been taken over and is being cleared. People now have to work for an Indian company. Their land has been compulsorily taken and they have been given no compensation. People cannot believe what is happening. Thousands of people will be affected and people will go hungry."

It is not known if the acquisitions will improve or worsen food security in Africa, or if they will stimulate separatist conflicts, but a major World Bank report due to be published this month is expected to warn of both the potential benefits and the immense dangers they represent to people and nature.

Leading the rush are international agribusinesses, investment banks, hedge funds, commodity traders, sovereign wealth funds as well as UK pension funds, foundations and individuals attracted by some of the world's cheapest land.

Together they are scouring Sudan, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Malawi, Ethiopia, Congo, Zambia, Uganda, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Mali, Sierra Leone, Ghana and elsewhere. Ethiopia alone has approved 815 foreign-financed agricultural projects since 2007. Any land there, which investors have not been able to buy, is being leased for approximately $1 per year per 2.5 acres.

Saudi Arabia, along with other Middle Eastern emirate states such as Qatar, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi, is thought to be the biggest buyer. In 2008 the Saudi government, which was one of the Middle East's largest wheat-growers, announced it was to reduce its domestic cereal production by 12% a year to conserve its water. It earmarked $5-billion to provide loans at preferential rates to Saudi companies which wanted to invest in countries with strong agricultural potential .

Meanwhile, the Saudi investment company Foras, backed by the Islamic Development Bank and wealthy Saudi investors, plans to spend $1-billion buying land and growing seven million tonnes of rice for the Saudi market within seven years. The company says it is investigating buying land in Mali, Senegal, Sudan and Uganda. By turning to Africa to grow its staple crops, Saudi Arabia is not just acquiring Africa's land but is securing itself the equivalent of hundreds of millions of gallons of scarce water a year. Water, says the UN, will be the defining resource of the next 100 years.

Huge deals
Since 2008 Saudi investors have bought heavily in Sudan, Egypt, Ethiopia and Kenya. Last year the first sacks of wheat grown in Ethiopia for the Saudi market were presented by al-Amoudi to King Abdullah.

Some of the African deals lined up are eye-wateringly large: China has signed a contract with the Democratic Republic of Congo to grow 7-million acres of palm oil for biofuels. Before it fell apart after riots, a proposed 3 million acres deal between Madagascar and the South Korean company Daewoo would have included nearly half of the country's arable land.

Land to grow biofuel crops is also in demand. "European biofuel companies have acquired or requested about 10 million acres in Africa. This has led to displacement of people, lack of consultation and compensation, broken promises about wages and job opportunities," said Tim Rice, author of an ActionAid report which estimates that the EU needs to grow crops on 43 million acres, well over half the size of Italy, if it is to meet its 10% biofuel target by 2015.

"The biofuel land grab in Africa is already displacing farmers and food production. The number of people going hungry will increase," he said. British firms have secured tracts of land in Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Nigeria and Tanzania to grow flowers and vegetables.

Indian companies, backed by government loans, have bought or leased hundreds of thousands of acres in Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Senegal and Mozambique, where they are growing rice, sugar cane, maize and lentils to feed their domestic market.

Nowhere is now out of bounds. Sudan, emerging from civil war and mostly bereft of development for a generation, is one of the new hot spots. South Korean companies last year bought 1.75 million acres of northern Sudan for wheat cultivation; the United Arab Emirates have acquired 1.875 million acres and Saudi Arabia last month concluded a 100,000 acre deal in Nile province.

The government of southern Sudan says many companies are now trying to acquire land. "We have had many requests from many developers. Negotiations are going on," said Peter Chooli, director of water resources and irrigation, in Juba last week. "A Danish group is in discussions with the state and another wants to use land near the Nile."

In one of the most extraordinary deals, buccaneering New York investment firm Jarch Capital, run by a former commodities trader, Philip Heilberg, has leased 2 million acres in southern Sudan near Darfur. Heilberg has promised not only to create jobs but also to put 10% or more of his profits back into the local community. But he has been accused by Sudanese of "grabbing" communal land and leading an American attempt to fragment Sudan and exploit its resources.

New colonialism
Devlin Kuyek, a Montreal-based researcher with Grain, said investing in Africa was now seen as a new food supply strategy by many governments. "Rich countries are eyeing Africa not just for a healthy return on capital, but also as an insurance policy. Food shortages and riots in 28 countries in 2008, declining water supplies, climate change and huge population growth have together made land attractive. Africa has the most land and, compared with other continents, is cheap," he said.

"Farmland in sub-Saharan Africa is giving 25% returns a year and new technology can treble crop yields in short time frames," said Susan Payne, chief executive of Emergent Asset Management, a UK investment fund seeking to spend $50-million on African land, which, she said, was attracting governments, corporations, multinationals and other investors. "Agricultural development is not only sustainable, it is our future. If we do not pay great care and attention now to increase food production by over 50% before 2050, we will face serious food shortages globally," she said.

But many of the deals are widely condemned by both Western non-government groups and nationals as "new colonialism", driving people off the land and taking scarce resources away from people.

We met Tegenu Morku, a land agent, in a roadside cafe on his way to the region of Oromia in Ethiopia to find 1,250 acresof land for a group of Egyptian investors. They planned to fatten cattle, grow cereals and spices and export as much as possible to Egypt. There had to be water available and he expected the price to be about 15 birr (about $1) per 2.5 acres per year -- less than a quarter of the cost of land in Egypt and a tenth of the price of land in Asia.

"The land and labor is cheap and the climate is good here. Everyone -- Saudis, Turks, Chinese, Egyptians -- is looking. The farmers do not like it because they get displaced, but they can find land elsewhere and, besides, they get compensation, equivalent to about 10 years' crop yield," he said.

Man-made famine
Oromia is one of the centers of the African land rush. Haile Hirpa, president of the Oromia studies' association, said last week in a letter of protest to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that India had acquired 2.5 million acres, Djibouti 2,500 acres, Saudi Arabia 250,000 and that Egyptian, South Korean, Chinese, Nigerian and other Arab investors were all active in the state.

"This is the new, 21st-century colonization. The Saudis are enjoying the rice harvest, while the Oromos are dying from man-made famine as we speak," he said.

The Ethiopian government denied the deals were causing hunger and said that the land deals were attracting hundreds of millions of dollars of foreign investments and tens of thousands of jobs. A spokesperson said: "Ethiopia has [187 million acres] of fertile land, of which only 15% is currently in use -- mainly by subsistence farmers. Of the remaining land, only a small percentage -- 3 to 4% -- is offered to foreign investors. Investors are never given land that belongs to Ethiopian farmers. The government also encourages Ethiopians in the diaspora to invest in their homeland. They bring badly needed technology, they offer jobs and training to Ethiopians, they operate in areas where there is suitable land and access to water."

The reality on the ground is different, according to Michael Taylor, a policy specialist at the International Land Coalition. "If land in Africa hasn't been planted, it's probably for a reason. Maybe it's used to graze livestock or deliberately left fallow to prevent nutrient depletion and erosion. Anybody who has seen these areas identified as unused understands that there is no land in Ethiopia that has no owners and users."

Development experts are divided on the benefits of large-scale, intensive farming. Indian ecologist Vandana Shiva said in London last week that large-scale industrial agriculture not only threw people off the land but also required chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, intensive water use, and large-scale transport, storage and distribution which together turned landscapes into enormous mono-cultural plantations.

"We are seeing dispossession on a massive scale. It means less food is available and local people will have less. There will be more conflict and political instability and cultures will be uprooted. The small farmers of Africa are the basis of food security. The food availability of the planet will decline," she says. But Rodney Cooke, director at the UN's International Fund for Agricultural Development, sees potential benefits. "I would avoid the blanket term 'land-grabbing'. Done the right way, these deals can bring benefits for all parties and be a tool for development."

Lorenzo Cotula, senior researcher with the International Institute for Environment and Development, who co-authored a report on African land exchanges with the UN fund last year, found that well-structured deals could guarantee employment, better infrastructures and better crop yields. But badly handled they could cause great harm, especially if local people were excluded from decisions about allocating land and if their land rights were not protected.

Water is also controversial. Local government officers in Ethiopia told the Observer that foreign companies that set up flower farms and other large intensive farms were not being charged for water. "We would like to, but the deal is made by central government," said one. In Awassa, the al-Amouni farm uses as much water a year as 100,000 Ethiopians.

*Measurements in the article have been adapted from metric system.

© 2010 Mail & Guardian All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/145970/

“Ex Africa semper aliquid novi” Gaius Plinius Secundus (23 - 79) “Si el pueblo estadounidense supiera lo que hemos hecho, nos colgaría de los postes de luz”. George H. W. Bush (Padre) 2/07/06 Un artículo que he escrito hace media década y que fue publicado por VHeadline el 3 de abril de 2005, “Kwame Nkrumah: La cara oscura de la Revolución Bolivariana” ha dado lugar a debates intensos durante los últimos años, en relación con el futuro de los recursos naturales y sociales de los continentes africano y americano, con sus respectivos pueblos y por ello con la humanidad entera. (Véase: http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=29251) Actualmente, las relaciones entre Venezuela y África, entre Sur y Sur están mejorando como nunca antes, pero también están en auge las relaciones chinas y estadounidenses en África. La cuestión multimillonaria sigue siendo: ¿A dónde conduce este gran amor repentino para África? Recordemos algunos hechos y procesos históricos que han conducido directamente a la situación africana actual. ¿Por qué las bases militares estadounidenses en Colombia no sólo apuntan a Venezuela sino también a África? Con relación a este hecho es realmente fascinante observar, que algunas de las principales medidas revolucionarias que el Presidente Kwame Nkrumah de Ghana había fomentado en África durante los años sesenta, es decir, hace medio siglo ya, ahora el presidente Hugo Chávez Frías de Venezuela también las está tratando de tomar en Venezuela en el siglo 21. Además los ataques imperialistas contra Chávez también tienen su contraparte histórica en el feroz sabotaje económico y la estrategia de la Gran Mentira contra Nkrumah: hasta hoy, muchos africanos, incluso Ghaneses, todavía creen que Nkrumah fue un gran dictador. Cum grano salis, el fracaso o la imposibilidad de la materialización de los brillantes esfuerzos revolucionarios de Nkrumah (y de otros valientes combatientes africanos, como Frantz Fanon, Amilcar Cabral, Walter Rodney o Patrice Lumumba) es una de las principales razones políticas por las que el África está perdiendo progresivamente su “camino revolucionario” (Nkrumah), su objetivo emancipatorio a largo plazo y su quo vadis transhistórico. Hacia el final del segundo milenio, otra de las razones económicas para el fracaso actual fue la subasta total de muchos estados africanos, especialmente de la Revolución sudafricana, de sus recursos vitales humanos y naturales, a la globalización corporativa, al fascismo orwelliano americano-europeo, que en la actualidad se está extendiendo como un incendio silvestre en el Medio Oriente. Si la revolución sudafricana hubiese cumplido con sus verdaderas tareas radicales y anti-capitalistas, y no hubiese negociado con el enemigo en Lusaka, ni hecho grandes promesas para las sufridas masas u organizado “diálogos” y “comisiones de la verdad”, con excepción de algunas migajas, que de paso no han traído casi nada para los pobres de África; con toda su experiencia sangrienta de siglos de resistencia colonial y de la lucha de clases moderna ... incluso de la praxis y la teoría socialista, alentada personalmente por León Trotsky, quien escribió la introducción del “Manifiesto del Partido Comunista”, publicado en afrikáans ... tal vez en el siglo 21 se hubiesen abierto otras perspectivas emancipatorias que aún hoy serían impensables para una mentalidad esclavista adoctrinada y estarían más allá de la comprensión intelectual, religiosa e ideológica de una mente pequeño-burguesa demasiado manipulada. Con su sólida base industrial y tecnológica, incluida su posesión de bombas atómicas, Sudáfrica (siendo el país más avanzado del Sur en los años sesenta), junto con Zimbabwe, Angola, Mozambique (e incluso Cuba) podría haber dado a todo el continente africano un nuevo impulso para desempeñar un papel central en lo que a los temas de la emancipación se refiere. El mundo corporativo, el complejo militar e industrial global saben muy bien, cuál es la diferencia entre el “anti-imperialismo” contra el “Imperio”, y el anti-capitalismo. Un siglo después, hasta hoy, la gran mayoría de los nacionalistas africanos todavía no han entendido que el anti-imperialismo es sólo una etapa superior de un anti-capitalismo radical, y que la anti-globalización es una forma aún más alta del anti-capitalismo, en otras palabras, es la detonación total del “capitalismo tardío” (Ernest Mandel). Como resultado de los cambios estructurales en el imperialismo mundial, el cual se enrrumbó hacia la crisis económica actual, hace dos décadas, finalmente, el imperialismo corporativo aniquiló la emancipación sudafricana y con ella la de todo el África. Africom tiene la intención de preservar este status quo con un ‘humanismo militar’, del estilo que ya se practica en Irak, Afganistán y Gaza. Ahora, lo que está ocurriendo en la “nación del arco iris” en la era post-apartheid, veinte años después de la salida del ex presidente Nelson Mandela de la cárcel de Robben Island, quien por desgracia ahora parece estar sufriendo la enfermedad de Alzheimer, no es precisamente lo que él estaba soñando durante casi tres décadas de prisión. Su ex esposa, Winnie Mandela afirmó esto en los siguientes términos: “¡Este no es el Sudáfrica para el que he arruinado mi vida!” Ahora, no se trata de “arruinarse la vida”, sino más bien de la erradicación del fascismo del apartheid, que está aniquilando las esperanzas de más de 40 millones de trabajadores sudafricanos, cuyas vidas sí están siendo “arruinadas” por el apartheid capitalista en África. Es evidente que la ideología y la mitología de una guerra de “razas” en Sudáfrica se desvanecieron en el aire, sin embargo, las que quedaron son la explotación y la miseria, y ahora la lucha de clases, para los nacionalistas africanos pro-capitalistas modernos, se está convirtiendo en la pesadilla del patrimonio de Mandela. Y en Venezuela, ¿la Revolución Bolivariana o una posible “Quinta Internacional” realmente tendrán éxito en realizar las urgentes tareas anti-capitalistas, anti-imperialistas y anti-globalistas? ¿Será que una Unión Africana, un NEPAD, un Africom, las “asociaciones económicas” o los ‘joint ventures’ imperialistas nos ayudan a enrrumbarnos hacia un nuevo quo vadis? ¿Hay alguna esperanza para millones de africanos dentro de este modo capitalista de la auto-destrucción global? En mi artículo antes mencionado se indica que África se ha convertido en una “bola de cristal” histórica para Venezuela y para las Américas. El “continente oscuro” no sólo es la cuna de la Humanidad, es más, bajo la realidad internacional contemporánea, a saber, bajo la amenaza global de la gran depresión y de las venideras guerras orwellianas en “Eurasia”, el África empobrecida ya se está convirtiendo en una premonición apocalíptica, un cruel espejismo de lo peor por llegar: un infierno que tienen en mente las clases dominantes globalizadas y el cual ya fue iniciado para miles de millones de “condenados de la tierra” (Fanon). Todo esto, el “dominio de pleno espectro” y el “humanismo militar”, vienen sólo para obtener otro arrendamiento parasitario de la agonía corporativa militar-industrial. El crimen capital más brutal que se cometió frente a un continente entero era el comercio transatlántico de esclavos. Después de las millones de “vacas locas” que se incineraron en Gran Bretaña en los años noventa, cualquier cosa pudo pasar con millones de trabajadores considerados “ganado loco”, mercancía inútil o “carga del hombre blanco”. En todos los continentes se almacenaron hasta los cielos los arsenales de armas de destrucción masiva, que con toda probabilidad serán utilizados en las próximas décadas o algo más tarde. Todo depende de la fuerza internacional devastadora de la explosión económica actual de la “Gran Bancarrota”. Después de las caídas económicas mundiales vienen terribles guerras del fascismo. La guerra mundial mayor de todas ya ha comenzado en el Medio Oriente, se extiende desde Irak y Afganistán, a Irán, Pakistán y la India, a Rusia y China. Si esto llegase a ocurrir, entonces realmente tendríamos un gran problema, porque entonces podemos decirles adiós tanto al amo como al esclavo, a capitalistas y trabajadores. Irónicamente, si la revolución mundial terminaría en la emancipación humana, precisamente esto irá a pasar también. Una posibilidad es la barbarie, la otra es el socialismo, ambos terminan con la relación amo-esclavo. Por lo tanto, tenemos que “aventurarnos más allá” (Bloch). Tenemos que salir del capitalismo y también salir de su propia negación, que es parte de sí mismo, por lo tanto, también salir del socialismo, hacia el éxodo de este valle de lágrimas capitalista. En otras palabras, la evolución y la revolución tienen que ser superadas por la “exvolución”, hacia lo auténtico nuevo, incluso hacia el homo novum, tanto en África, como en América y en otros lugares. Si esto aún podría ser nuestro quo vadis en África, entonces realmente debemos darnos prisa, porque el espacio y el tiempo capitalistas, en el micro, meso y macro cosmos se están agotando a la velocidad de las ondas escalares. Si nuestros objetivos a largo plazo están vinculados con el “desarrollo” capitalista, entonces, en zulú o xhosa sólo podemos decir “Hamba Kahle”, anda lento, buen viaje, pero “¡Descansa en paz!” La historia que contamos aquí es la historia de todos nosotros. Para nutrir y fomentar los estudios de África en Venezuela, especialmente en nuestro Centro de Investigación de África y Asia, de la Facultad de Humanidades de la Universidad de Los Andes en Mérida, estamos estudiando, recordando y volviendo a visitar ad hoc, los hitos de la época colonial e imperialista que han truncado la fecundación de la emancipación africana, para la cual a través de los siglos fueron sacrificadas tantas vidas inestimables de niños, mujeres y hombres africanos. En comentarios futuros vamos a escribir más acerca de las relaciones entre Venezuela y África. Sí, como podemos ver, “¿Quo vadis, África?” es una pregunta filosófica científica seria, es una pregunta que responde y una respuesta que pregunta. Presupone un “¿De dónde vienes?” dialéctico histórico y un “¿Adónde vas?” creativo. Lecciones revolucionarias en África y en las Américas, nos han enseñado que hacer la revolución social en cualquier lugar es pensarla. Pensar la Revolución Bolivariana es hacerla. En este punto Marx, Fanon y Ché Guevara estaban en consonancia total. Para hacer una revolución democrático-burguesa, deben ser dadas todas las condiciones para su materialización; para crear la emancipación mundial del proletariado, deben estar disponibles todos los factores para su creatividad trascendente y deben existir al menos en embrión. En caso de que falte alguna conditio sine qua non, en ambos casos, el proceso se degenerará, perderá su quo vadis y se corromperá. Como Ernst Bloch nos enseñó, la esperanza proletaria contemporánea no es un seguro de vida, ni es confianza, porque puede ser frustrada fácilmente. La revolución burgués-democrático-capitalista fue victoriosa, pero las revoluciones africanas del siglo 20 fueron frustradas. Con el debido respeto, honor y amor hacia nuestros líderes revolucionarios, todas estas “revoluciones” sociales, salvo algunas chispas, terminaron en un callejón continental sin salida y en las garras de la globalización neo-colonial. ¿Por qué? Como ya se indicó anteriormente, la respuesta es muy simple y directa: el nacionalismo africano, el pan-africanismo y el socialismo africano simplemente no fueron fundamental y radicalmente anti-capitalistas, querían resolver sus problemas sociales desde dentro, dentro del sistema capitalista, dentro del modo de destrucción imperialista. La mayoría de nosotros no pensábamos ni actuábamos el socialismo, el marxismo. El capitalismo le infundió un miedo diabólico al África con el fantasma del pagano Marx. Lo peor fue (y sigue siendo) ser ateo, explicar el mundo cósmica, científica y filosóficamente desde sí mismo y resolver problemas creados por el hombre, por el hombre mismo. Hace mil años, África ya sabía esto, y fue precisamente lo que Avicena y Averroes fueron haciendo y diciendo en el “continente negro”, mientras que en el Viejo Mundo, Europa estaba practicando el exorcismo, implementando el catolicismo romano cristiano, la Iglesia, el Orden Dominicano y la Inquisición Española. Esta última se estaba preparando para quemar a científicos, filósofos y mujeres inocentes en la hoguera. Hoy su equivalente moderno está lanzando bombas de fósforo blanco a los árabes en todas partes del Medio Oriente. Lo que desvió peligrosamente gran parte del destino de África fue el hecho de que tragábamos por completo el Cristianismo, que es una religión alienante y ajena, el “opio del pueblo” (canónigo británico Charles Kingsley, contemporáneo de Marx), con todo y anzuelo. Nuestros propios sentimientos y creencias nativos, nuestra natura natura y natura naturans, nuestra naturaleza creada y creadora, terminó en el altar colonial del Holocausto Mental. En su libro, “El nacionalismo africano”, el ministro metodista, el reverendo Ndabaningi Sithole de Zimbabwe describió este problema con una claridad bien pintoresca: El hombre blanco vino de lejos sobre el mar, nos dijo que cerráramos nuestros ojos y nuestros cerebros, que abriéramos nuestras manos, y nos enseñó a orar. Cuando todo esto terminó, abrimos los ojos y encontramos la Santa Biblia en nuestras manos. Miramos hacia el horizonte y vimos que nuestros hijos, nuestras esposas, nuestras tierras y nuestro ganado se habían ido”. Aquí no queremos ofender a nadie, sin embargo, es hora de llamar a las cosas por su nombre; en el capitalismo, el que quiere saber la verdad siempre sale lesionado. No obstante, si no podemos aguantar demasiado calor revolucionario africano, solamente deberíamos dar unos pasos hacia atrás, lejos de la cocina transgénica de la granja de ‘MacDonald’s’. Con toda su riqueza en minerales, metales, agua, gas y petróleo, el África es uno de los continentes más pobres del planeta. Solamente las ganancias anuales de las giga-corporaciones como Exxon-Mobil, Chevron-Texaco, Repsol, Mitsubishi o Microsoft, que se orgullecen por hacer ganancias de mil millones de dólares semanales, son muy superiores al presupuesto de todo el continente africano. El África está desapareciendo del mapa económico mundial, porque como se indicó antes, nuestros “grandes” líderes han “subastado” una mayor parte de África a las corporaciones multinacionales. Además, esto está sucediendo en todo el Sur por medio de las llamadas “empresas conjuntas” o “nuevas alianzas económicas” entre las giga-corporaciones, las cuales, entre otras cosas, financian también el “humanismo militar” en África; otros, como Chevron, financian tanto a los demócratas como a los republicanos estadounidenses y apoyan a campañas de desestabilización en África y las Américas. Como científicos y filósofos cum ira et studio tenemos que enfrentar la horrible verdad. No sólo África, sino la humanidad misma se encuentra en un cruce de carreteras, ya está cruzando el Rubicón y nuestro quo vadis no es precisamente un viaje gratis al cielo o al socialismo. En todas partes la barbarie infernal está haciendo estragos. Tal vez, necesitamos con urgencia la claridad científica y filosófica acerca de nuestra situación apocalíptica a fin de despertar y dejar este Moloch del trabajo y del capital. Marx lo dijo en “El Capital”: El capitalismo nació en la suciedad, chorreando la sangre de pies a cabeza. Hoy esto sigue siendo así, y en África perecerá de manera igual. Chernobyl, Pearl Harbor, las Torres Gemelas, Katrina, Haití, Chile, todos los experimentos de HAARP a escala global, todas las inundaciones, sequías, tsunamis, terremotos y las pandemias ya no son “naturales”. Son accidentes, efectos secundarios, son los resultados directos o indirectos de experimentos militares. ¿Quién sabe lo que los EE.UU. y sus aliados están preparando en este momento para África, Venezuela, el Medio Oriente, Irán, Rusia y China? Una gran depresión capitalista significa grandes negocios económicos y grandes guerras. Los grandes competidores por una futura hegemonía mundial, es decir, los EE.UU. y China, en Addis Abeba, Etiopía, están cortejando al África en sus inexorables batallas económicas y militares por venir. Esto no es nuevo. Entre otras cosas, para empezar, ¿Qué podría ser nuevo para África y el Sur en general? Bueno, para poner a prueba nuestra verdadera soberanía, * el África no debe cambiar un amo por otro, * es decir, debería construir para su defensa su propia Organización del Tratado del Atlántico Sur, además * un Banco Común del Sur, * una moneda propia y * un nuevo sistema anti-capitalista; * debería prohibir todas las bases militares, * prohibir todos los vuelos militares de agresión extranjera en el espacio aéreo continental, * prohibir las organizaciones y embajadas conspiradoras en África, * cerrar sus fronteras para el paramilitarismo terrorista y, finalmente, * crear una Comunidad de Naciones africanas y del Sur. En caso de que lo anterior no fuese posible, bueno, entonces sería mejor dejar de hablar de la liberación y la libertad, y no haría falta correr de una cumbre internacional a la otra. Todos nosotros, todos los 7 mil millones de trabajadores en este planeta deberíamos permanecer en casa durante sólo una semana, hacer el amor, y no la guerra, y esperar a ver qué pasaría. Tanto en Venezuela como en África, un proletariado con conciencia de clase tendrá la última palabra en la gigantesca batalla del capital versus el trabajo. Tal como hemos mencionado antes, el resultado de esta lucha de clases internacional sólo puede ser uno: todos los amos y los esclavos tienen que desaparecer y después será el nuevo hombre, el homo novum el que marcará el comienzo de la victoria emancipatoria del experimento hombre y del experimentum mundi. La alternativa sería la eterna barbarie capitalista y fascista, la continuación de lo antiguo y de lo obsoleto. http://www.aporrea.org/tiburon/a96636.html franzjutta@cantv.net ******* Quo Vadis, Africa? Some historic Reflections about a truncated Future Print article Refer to a friend University of Los Andes (ULA) political sciences professor, Dr. Franz J. T. Lee 2010-03-08 12:54:04 - An article I wrote half a decade ago and which was published by VHeadline on April 3, 2005, "Kwame Nkrumah: The dark face of the Bolivarian Revolution" has, over the years, brought about vivid discussions, with reference to the future of the natural and social resources of the African and American continents, to their respective peoples and therewith to humanity as a whole. "Ex Africa semper aliquid novi" (Gaius Plinius Secundus (23 - 79) "If the American people knew what we have done, they would string us up from the lamp posts." George H. W. Bush (Daddy Bush) 2/07/06 VHeadline commentarist, University of Los Andes (ULA) political sciences professor, Dr. Franz J. T. Lee writes: Currently, Venezuela-Africa South-South relations are improving as never before but also the Chinese and United States relations in Africa are booming. The billion dollar question remains: where does it lead this sudden great love for Africa? Let us remember some historic facts and processes which directly have led to the current African situation. Why do the United States military bases in Colombia not only point at Venezuela but also at Africa? Related to this, it is really fascinating to notice that some of the major revolutionary measures which President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana were fostering in Africa in the sixties, half a century ago, now President Hugo Chavez Frias of Venezuela is trying to take very similar revolutionary steps in America in the 21st century. Also the imperialist attacks against Chavez find their historical counterpart in the fierce economic sabotage and Big Lie strategy against Nkrumah: till today, many Africans, even Ghanains, still believe that Nkrumah was a great dictator. With reference to Venezuela something similar is happening here. The powerful global corporate interests do not allow micro-democratic reform anymore. US President Barack Obamaa already instructed the Pentagon, 'Comando Sur' and Africom to watch Chavez' steps on a world scale very closely. Cum grano salis, the failure or impossibility to materialize the brilliant revolutionary measures suggested by Nkrumah (and by other valiant African fighters like Frantz Fanon, Amilcar Cabral, Walter Rodney and Patrice Lumumba) is one of the main political reasons why Africa is losing progressively its 'revolutionary path' (Nkrumah); its emancipatory long term objective and transhistoric anti-capitalist quo vadis are being truncated. Towards the end of the second millennium, another economic reason for the current fiasco was the complete 'sell-out' of many African States, especially of the South African Revolution, of its vital human and natural resources, to corporate globalization, to American-European Orwellian world fascism, which is already spreading like a wild bush fire in the Mideast. Instead of bargaining with the class enemy in Lusaka, of big promises to the suffering masses, of organizing 'dialogues' and 'truth commissions,' (except a few quantitative crumbs, which qualitatively have brought next to nothing for the African poor), if only some of our 'great leaders' of the South African Revolution would have completed their real, radical, anti-capitalist, proletarian, historic tasks, then the 21st century would have opened emancipatory vistas for mankind that today still would have been unimaginable for anyone with an indoctrinated slave mentality, been beyond intellectual grasping for a religious, ideologically manipulated petit-bourgeois mind. With its mighty industrial and technological base (in the sixties the most advanced country of the South, south of Italy), including its possession of atomic bombs, Southern Africa, together with Zimbabwe, Angola and Mozambique, etc. (and even Cuba, and today even Venezuela and Bolivia) could have given Africa a new impetus to play a central role in world emancipatory affairs. The corporate world, the global military and industrial complex, its elitist mafia knows very well what is the difference between 'anti-imperialism,' the 'Empire' and anti-capitalism. From 1912 till today, it seems that many African nationalists have not yet understood that anti-imperialism is just a higher stage of radical anti-capitalism, and that anti-globalization is a still higher form of anti-capitalism, it is the total detonation of 'late capitalism' (Ernest Mandel). In globalization the age of capitalist nationalism is gone forever. As a result of structural changes in world imperialism, which was heading towards the current economic crash, two decades ago, finally, corporate imperialism nipped the South African and therewith a possible African socialism in the bud. Africom intends to preserve this status quo with 'military humanism,' as it is being practiced in Iraq, Afghanistan and Gaza already. Now, twenty years after ex-President Nelson Mandela left jail on Robben Island (and unfortunately is probably now suffering from Alzheimer's disease), what is now happening in the post-apartheid era, in the 'rainbow nation,' is not precisely what he was daydreaming about during nearly three decades of imprisonment. His ex-wife, Winnie Mandela stated it in these terms: "This is not the South Africa for which I have ruined my life!" It is not a matter of 'ruining any life,' it concerns the eradication of apartheid fascism which is annihilating the hopes of over 40 million South African toiling workers whose lives are still being 'ruined' by capitalist apartheid in Africa. Obviously the ideology and mythology about a "race war" in South Africa vanished into thin air, the exploitation and misery remain, now the class struggle is becoming the nightmare of Mandel's heritage, for modern pro-capitalist African nationalists. * In Venezuela, will the Bolivarian Revolution or a possible 'Fifth International' truly succeed to realize the urgent anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist and anti-globalist global tasks? * Will a real 'African Union,' NEPAD, Africom, imperialist 'economic partnerships' or 'joint ventures' really help us towards a new creative and creating quo vadis? * Is there any hope for a billion Africans within the reigning global capitalist mode of self-destruction? My article mentioned before indicated that Africa has become a historic anticipatory 'crystal ball' for Venezuela, for America; the 'Dark Continent' is not only the 'Cradle of Humanity'; under the contemporary international reality, namely, under the global threat of the current great depression and the coming Orwellian wars in 'Eurasia,' impoverished Africa is already becoming an apocalyptic premonition, a cruel fata morgana of the worst still to come: an inferno which the global and globalized ruling classes have in mind, have already launched for billions of "condemned of the earth" (Fanon); all these, 'full spectrum dominance' (Rumsfeld) and 'military humanism' are coming to pass just to gain a new parasitic lease of corporate military-industrial agony. The transatlantic slave trade was the most brutal cardinal and capital crime commented against a whole continent. After the million 'mad cows' incinerated in Great Britain, anything could happen with millions of useless 'mad cattle,' with 'truculent Kaffirs and monkeys' (Sydney Welch), with useless 'wares' and with 'the white man's burden' (Kipling). On all continents, the arsenals of arms of mass destruction are being stockpiled to the heavens; in all probability to be used en masse within the next decades or somewhat later. It all depends on the international, devastating, devouring force of the current economic explosion of the 'Big Crash.' After global economic slumps come terrible fascist wars, the destruction of infrastructures, buildings, cities, capital, socialists, Marxists and millions of obsolete and troublesome workers. The biggest world war of them all has already begun in the Middle East, spreading from Iraq and Afghanistan, to Iran, Pakistan and India, to Russia and China. If this global possible military conflagration ever would come to pass, then really we would have a huge immediate problem, because thereafter we could say good-bye to all masters and servants, to capitalists and workers., to culture and civilization, to life and death. Ironically enough, if world revolution would end in human emancipation, precisely something similar would happen also. The one possibility is barbarism (Nothing), the other is socialism (Everything, including Nothing), both would end master - slave relations. Hence, we have 'to venture beyond' (Bloch). We have to get out of capitalism, also out of its very own negation, which is part of itself, hence, also out of socialism, towards the exit of the formal logical closed system, towards the new, the exodus from this capitalist vale of tears, from the 'flesh pots' of Egypt. In other words, evolution and revolution have to be surpassed by 'exvolution,' towards the authentic new ... even towards 'homo afri,' homo novum in Africa, America and elsewhere. If this ever could be our quo vadis in Africa, then really we should hurry up, capitalist space and time, in the micro-, meso- and macro-cosmic worlds and spheres are running out at the velocity of scalar waves. If our long term objectives are bound up with capitalist 'development,' then in Zulu or Xhosa we can just say: Africa, "Hamba Kahle!," go slow, bon voyage, 'Rest in Peace!' The story related here is the story of all of us. To nurture and encourage African studies in Venezuela, especially in our Africa and Asia Investigation Center of the Faculty of Humanities, at the University of The Andes, Merida, we ad hoc are studying, recollecting and revisiting the colonial and imperialist milestones and own millstones which have truncated the fertile fecundation of African emancipation, for which across the ages so many invaluable African peoples, valiant children, women and men have sacrificed their very lives. In future commentaries we will write more about these topics, of the Venezuela-African relations. The bourgeois democratic capitalist revolution was victorious; the African revolutions of the 20th century were foiled; with due respect, honor and love for our great leaders, except a few sparks, these social 'revolutions' ended up in a continental cul de sac, in the neo-colonial claws of globalization. Why? As indicated above already, the answer is very simple and straightforward: African nationalism, Pan-Africanism and even African Socialism were simply not fundamentally and radically anti-capitalist, they wanted to resolve their social problems from within, from within the capitalist system, within the imperialist mode of destruction. Most of us did not think and act socialism, Marxism; capitalism scared the devil out of Africa with the pagan phantom 'Marx.' The worst was (and still is) to be an atheist, to explain the world cosmically, scientifically and philosophically out of itself and to solve man made problems by man himself. A thousand years ago, Africa knew this already, this was precisely what the 'Arab camel drivers in the Sahara Desert' Avicenna and Averroes were doing and saying on the 'Dark Continent,' while in the Old World, Europe was practicing exorcism, adoring Christian Roman Catholicism, the Church, the Dominican Order and the Spanish Inquisition. The latter was preparing itself to burn scientists, philosophers, innocent women at the stake. Its modern counterpart is dropping white phosphorous bombs on Arabs all over in the Mideast. What dangerously deviated a great part of Africa's telos was that many of us swallowed Christianity, an alien alienating religion, the 'opium of the people' (British Canon Charles Kingsley, a contemporary of Marx), fish, bait, hook and sinker. Our own, native sentiments, feelings and beliefs ... our 'natura naturata and natura naturans,' that is, our creating and created nature ... landed on the colonial altar of the Mental Holocaust. In his book, "African Nationalism," the Methodist minister, Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole of Zimbabwe described this problem with picturesque clarity: The white man came from far away over the sea, he told us to shut our eyes, our brains, to open our hands, and taught us how to pray. When all this was over, we opened our eyes, found the Holy Bible in our hands. We looked towards the horizon and saw that our children, our wives, our land and live stock were all gone.' We do not want to offend anybody, however, it is time to call a spade a spade. Who wants to know the truth always gets hurt in capitalism. Nonetheless, if we cannot stand too much African revolutionary heat, we should just take a few steps backwards, away from the transgenic, radioactive kitchen of 'MacDonald's Farm,' and try to get the African 'Humpty Dumpty' off his feudal wall. With all its mineral, metal, water, gas and oil wealth, Africa is one of the poorest continents. However, the annual profits of giant corporations ... like Exxon-Mobil, Chevron-Texaco, Repsol, Mitsubishi or Microsoft, which proudly 'make a billion dollars profit a week,' ... by far surpass the total budget of the whole African continent. Africa is disappearing from the global economic map; as indicated before, a great part of Africa our 'great' leaders have 'sold out' to the multinational corporations. Also, this is happening all over the South by means of so-called 'joint ventures' or "new economic partnership" with giant corporations. which, inter alia, finance "military humanism" in Africa; others, like Chevron, finance both US Democrats and Republicans and support destabilization campaigns in Africa and America. As scientists and philosophers cum ira et studio we have to face the horrendous truth. Not only Africa, humanity itself is at the cross roads, is already crossing the Rubicon, and our quo vadis is not precisely a free trip to heaven or socialism. All over hellish barbarism is raging. Perhaps, we urgently need scientific and philosophic clarity about our apocalyptic situation in order to wake up and leave this labor and capital Moloch, this sinking Titanic. Marx said it in a footnote of "Capital": 'Capitalism was born into this world, dripping with filth and blood from head to toe.' Chernobyl, Pearl Harbor, Twin Towers, Katrina, Haiti, Chile all the experiments of HAARP on a global scale, all the floods, droughts, tsunamis, earthquakes and pandemics are not 'natural' anymore; they are accidental, side effects, direct or indirect results of military experiments. Who knows what the USA and its allies are preparing for Africa, for Venezuela, for the Middle East, for Iran, for Russia and China at this moment. Big capitalist depression is Big economic Business, is Big Military War. The great contenders for future global hegemony, the USA and China, in Addis Abeba, Ethiopia, are wooing Africa into their inexorable economic and military battles to come. This is not new. Inter alia, for a start, what could be new in Africa, in the South? Well, to test our real sovereignty, * that Africa does not exchange one master for the other, * that is, it should construct for its defense a South Atlantic Treaty Organization, * a common South-South Bank, * an own currency, * a new anti-capitalist system, * ban all military bases, * forbid all foreign aggressive military flights over the continental air space and * prohibit conspiring organizations and embassies in Africa, * to close its Africa's borders to terrorist paramilitary intruders, and, finally, * create an African, a South-South Commonwealth. If the above should be impossible, well, then we better stop talking about liberation and freedom; we need not run from one international summit to the other anymore. All of us, all seven billion workers should buy food and drink to last for a few weeks, then stay at home for a week or so, play with their kids, make love not war, and wait to see what would happen in world democracy and world peace. If the above ever would be possible, we need not do it anymore, because then we have a unified, international, proletarian conscious working class, organized in a New International. Also in Venezuela, also in Africa, a class conscious proletariat will have the final word with reference to the experiment Man, of experimentum mundi. The alternative would be eternal, global, capitalist, fascist barbarism, the continuation of the old, of the obsolete, of decay. Franz J. T. Lee franz.lee@vheadline.com ww.vheadline.com/lee http://www.pr-inside.com/quo-vadis-africa-some-historic-reflections-r1760759.htm

Why is this so?

"We have used the Bible as if it were a mere special constable's hand book, an opium dose for keeping beasts of burden patient while they were being overloaded, a mere book to keep the poor in order."  (3)

 This reveals the objective and subjective relation between word and deed. Marx warned that isolated theory or even political sweet talk do not exist, that ivory tower ideology is senseless, but he also warned that blind activism is useless.

He stated:
"It is not sufficient that thought pushes itself to objective reality, reality itself must approximate thought."

In other words, it is extremely difficult, if not well-nigh impossible, to create a revolutionary workers' class consciousness in an aggressive, capitalist environment, in a capitalist State, based in Big Business and which is penetrated by bourgeois capitalist structures and institutions. This is why Leon Trotsky, who signed the foundation of the Third and Fourth Internationals, negated Stalinism; like Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, he was against a local 'socialism' sui generis, the building of socialism on an island, in one country and in a single bloc of states. This is why he advocated permanent, global, socialist revolution, creative human emancipation. This is the point of departure of the foundation of a New International.