Profit or Life

A glimpse of the struggle between North and South, between profit and life in the global summits on sustainable development. Wahu Kaara, Co-ordinator of the Kenya Debt Relief Network, travels from Rio to Jo’burg.

Control and domination of Africa has been the strategy for the West from slavery till today and self-determination the goal of Africans’ resistance since their first interaction with the West. This is and had always been the foundation of the power struggle between Africa and the West no matter whether the market economy ravaged Africa through conquest or the co-option of the African agency e.g. the local chiefs.

With the collapse of Communism in the late 80s and early 90s, a world order established after the Second World War went with it. With no Soviet Union, the US had no one to compete, share and balance its power with. A remarkable loss of interest in Africa – and the redistribution of global resources - followed and the Cold War between the two parties was replaced by the present instability in the balance of power.

The RIO+2 summit recognized this imbalance as an integral part of the environment and called for its redefinition. Planet earth was threatened and calls for sustainable development i.e. a consensus on how the resources of the world should be used further reaffirmed the imbalance of power between developing and developed countries.

At the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD also known as RIO+10) late last year the imbalance between the Western affluence and the poverty and minimum subsistence living in Africa was made an issue. Not only the WSSD preparatory conferences but also the international conference on financing for development acknowledged the need to restructure the world’s financial architecture i.e. to harmonize poverty and prosperity. In particular the millennium goals were explicit and specific that poverty be addressed and perhaps by 2015, the balance of power would be guaranteed. That is in the sense that poverty would be reduced to a level that would not be threatening consumerism, which is the kingpin of Western prosperity.

The WSSD conference in Johannesburg, Aug – September succeeded in assuming it was a fair deal for delivering itself to the interest of the West and turning a blind eye and deaf ear to the interest of Africa. It was the triumph of the neo-liberal paradigm as prescribed by the Washington consensus, which has no real framework for poverty eradication. The NEPAD has continued to safe guard the interest of the West in spite of its elaborate statement of an African position because WTO and other institutions that continued to dominate and control Africa continue to chart and dictate what Africa’s development should be and not be.

The neo-liberal paradigm – advocating the market economy’s uncontrolled rage, sustained by the Washington consensus continues to worsen the power relations between Africa and the West. In this scenario, multinational corporations just continue to become richer while the hungry turn starving.

The social movements emerging around the world rallying around the injustices of the world are rooted and draw their inspiration from the disparities and imbalance in power relations between the West and Africa. The social forums both internationally, regionally and nationally are committed to another Africa. Another Africa demands a redefinition of the world order between the West, their multinational corporations, and the people of developing countries. All parties should take responsibility for feeding people. Enforcing the world’s respect for people’s right to life and its sustenance is the only way to challenge the power relations between Africa and the West. "Zero Starvation", the Brazilian President says. He is doing it. And so should governments and market actors of developed and developing countries.

Like Hamlet’s famous existential reflection: "To be or not to be, that is the question…", this is a question of profit or life because life makes profit but profit does not make life.

Another world is possible