{UAH} The Servitude to Foreign Aid and the Increasing National Debt.
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The Servitude to Foreign Aid and the Increasing National Debt.
By Lumumba Amin
24/7/2018
There are two kinds of aid. One that helps people help themselves (the proverbial fishing rod), and the other that people "eat" and then sit and wait for the next hand-out. I am particularly sad that when there is aid for example to support African innovation (I supported a Science, Technology and Innovation Transform Fund from Saudi Arabia recently, an innovation funding initiative which ends this 31st July 2018, I wish the usual European donors could do something similar for African youths. See link below), the response was actually quite telling. Many Africans would rather rush to be given the fish than dash for the free fishing rod that perpetually empowers them to catch far more fish whenever they want. We also tend to not care about how to make our own proverbial fishing rod ourselves. African governments and our education systems are doing a poor job in explaining to our people the dangers and intricacies of dependence on Foreign aid. So let me attempt another contribution on this subject from a brief historical perspective. In the old centuries, European Empires embarked on vast conquests of far-off lands to control the people, their lands and their resources using mainly their superior military force. They would then establish their political and administrative authority over indigenous territories while exploiting everything they could. Today war is not necessary. The former colonial masters simply destabilize a country's internal politics and especially its economy. The strategy mostly involves making the country poorer. It can be through dubious austerity policies or through economic sanctions, embargoes and even outright political and economic sabotage. History shows that sometimes it involves covert action aiming at regime change and even covert facilitation of internal civil unrest. The ultimate goal is to secretly get the leaders of the country to request for help from the rich countries and their global financial institutions. And for every assistance that is given, they gain control over the African country's economy, policies, and resources. Constant interference is part of an elaborate neo-colonialist strategy of maintaining control, and being seen as the socio-economic benefactor. That is why when poor countries started calling for "Trade. Not Aid", the famous economic slogan in the late 1990's, it was actually the rich countries that torpedoed these calls for more direct trade. Incredibly, they did so in no lesser a global platform than during the Free Trade talks of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The very talks designed to foster increased trade between countries. Today nobody hears that important slogan anymore, anywhere. The rich European countries have instead increased the number of insurmountable trade barriers to our export products. They have therefore put blocks to our economic development while wanting us to freely accept their products. What lessons can we the poor countries learn from that in regards to the true intent of rich countries towards us? It is not equality or our prosperity that they seek, neither are they interested in our industrialization and economic development. Their politics towards Africa is always underpinned by their own enrichment at our expense. So when the rich countries provide foreign aid, it is not for free. They gain control over the policies of African countries. And once they achieve that, they have effectively colonized that country and its resources. The country becomes part of what they today call "their zone of influence". Its the new term that is code for the word "colony". Essentially despite over 50 years of independence on paper, most former colonial masters have still been seeing developing countries in Africa as their colonies. And todays African people think that they are independent. And let us be aware that while we celebrated our independence in the 1960's and 70's, the colonialists grew extremely bitter for summarily loosing all the costly infrastructure, their livelihoods, their investment, and the entire cities that they had built all around our countries. That is one of the reasons independence was repeatedly delayed and never came cheap for us. But when it happened, they never really swallowed the huge loss. They tried to mitigate it through maintaining the economic part of colonialism. Under their sheep skin, they were extremely disgruntled at our independence. And after the losses they incurred at African independence, they now had an even bigger ill motive to embark on even more exploitaion using more subtle and more intelligent underhanded means while maintaining a straght face of benefactor. Even after such a simple explanation, most of us still can't comprehend why corrupt African leaders have always been the First world's best friend. They maintain our corrupt leaders because that is the easiest way for them to indirectly control/buy our countries and indirectly recoup the huge losses they made once we gained political independence. What changed is that they had to pay to colonize us. That is why in regard to Foreign aid, we have to learn that nothing is for free. While Foreign Aid and debt are astutely packaged as "Vital assistance to help uplift our people from poverty and disease", in reality Foreign aid and debt are mostly the new colonization, the purchase of our countries, the emasculation of our leaders, and the enslavement of our once resilient people through the propagation of the dependence syndrome that has turned African nations into cry babies waiting for European hand-outs while increasingly projecting the idea of being unable to get ourselves out of poverty by our own sheer efforts like others have done elsewhere in Asia and the Middle East in the last 50 years since independence.
(Call for Applications for The Science, Technology and Innovation Transform Fund from Saudi Arabia: https://www.afterschoolafrica.com/29970/islamic-development-bank-science-technology-innovation-transform-fund/ )
--
Hussein Juruga Lumumba Amin
Kampala, Uganda
-- By Lumumba Amin
24/7/2018
There are two kinds of aid. One that helps people help themselves (the proverbial fishing rod), and the other that people "eat" and then sit and wait for the next hand-out. I am particularly sad that when there is aid for example to support African innovation (I supported a Science, Technology and Innovation Transform Fund from Saudi Arabia recently, an innovation funding initiative which ends this 31st July 2018, I wish the usual European donors could do something similar for African youths. See link below), the response was actually quite telling. Many Africans would rather rush to be given the fish than dash for the free fishing rod that perpetually empowers them to catch far more fish whenever they want. We also tend to not care about how to make our own proverbial fishing rod ourselves. African governments and our education systems are doing a poor job in explaining to our people the dangers and intricacies of dependence on Foreign aid. So let me attempt another contribution on this subject from a brief historical perspective. In the old centuries, European Empires embarked on vast conquests of far-off lands to control the people, their lands and their resources using mainly their superior military force. They would then establish their political and administrative authority over indigenous territories while exploiting everything they could. Today war is not necessary. The former colonial masters simply destabilize a country's internal politics and especially its economy. The strategy mostly involves making the country poorer. It can be through dubious austerity policies or through economic sanctions, embargoes and even outright political and economic sabotage. History shows that sometimes it involves covert action aiming at regime change and even covert facilitation of internal civil unrest. The ultimate goal is to secretly get the leaders of the country to request for help from the rich countries and their global financial institutions. And for every assistance that is given, they gain control over the African country's economy, policies, and resources. Constant interference is part of an elaborate neo-colonialist strategy of maintaining control, and being seen as the socio-economic benefactor. That is why when poor countries started calling for "Trade. Not Aid", the famous economic slogan in the late 1990's, it was actually the rich countries that torpedoed these calls for more direct trade. Incredibly, they did so in no lesser a global platform than during the Free Trade talks of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The very talks designed to foster increased trade between countries. Today nobody hears that important slogan anymore, anywhere. The rich European countries have instead increased the number of insurmountable trade barriers to our export products. They have therefore put blocks to our economic development while wanting us to freely accept their products. What lessons can we the poor countries learn from that in regards to the true intent of rich countries towards us? It is not equality or our prosperity that they seek, neither are they interested in our industrialization and economic development. Their politics towards Africa is always underpinned by their own enrichment at our expense. So when the rich countries provide foreign aid, it is not for free. They gain control over the policies of African countries. And once they achieve that, they have effectively colonized that country and its resources. The country becomes part of what they today call "their zone of influence". Its the new term that is code for the word "colony". Essentially despite over 50 years of independence on paper, most former colonial masters have still been seeing developing countries in Africa as their colonies. And todays African people think that they are independent. And let us be aware that while we celebrated our independence in the 1960's and 70's, the colonialists grew extremely bitter for summarily loosing all the costly infrastructure, their livelihoods, their investment, and the entire cities that they had built all around our countries. That is one of the reasons independence was repeatedly delayed and never came cheap for us. But when it happened, they never really swallowed the huge loss. They tried to mitigate it through maintaining the economic part of colonialism. Under their sheep skin, they were extremely disgruntled at our independence. And after the losses they incurred at African independence, they now had an even bigger ill motive to embark on even more exploitaion using more subtle and more intelligent underhanded means while maintaining a straght face of benefactor. Even after such a simple explanation, most of us still can't comprehend why corrupt African leaders have always been the First world's best friend. They maintain our corrupt leaders because that is the easiest way for them to indirectly control/buy our countries and indirectly recoup the huge losses they made once we gained political independence. What changed is that they had to pay to colonize us. That is why in regard to Foreign aid, we have to learn that nothing is for free. While Foreign Aid and debt are astutely packaged as "Vital assistance to help uplift our people from poverty and disease", in reality Foreign aid and debt are mostly the new colonization, the purchase of our countries, the emasculation of our leaders, and the enslavement of our once resilient people through the propagation of the dependence syndrome that has turned African nations into cry babies waiting for European hand-outs while increasingly projecting the idea of being unable to get ourselves out of poverty by our own sheer efforts like others have done elsewhere in Asia and the Middle East in the last 50 years since independence.
(Call for Applications for The Science, Technology and Innovation Transform Fund from Saudi Arabia: https://www.afterschoolafrica.com/29970/islamic-development-bank-science-technology-innovation-transform-fund/ )
--
Hussein Juruga Lumumba Amin
Kampala, Uganda
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