SEPTEMBER 20, 2007 will remain etched in Zimbabwe’s unfolding history as a historic day in which the people of Zimbabwe through their parliament put in legislative motion forces for which there may be no turning back.
Although the significance of the day in defining the fate of Zimbabwe has not been fully digested, it is a moment pregnant with implications for the country and marks a significant and decisive turning point.
On this day, the Constitution of Zimbabwe Bill Number 18 was unanimously passed by both Zanu PF and MDC legislators and yet barely a year ago, such a development would have been unthinkable.
The harmonisation project mooted and authored by President Mugabe last year was condemned even by the same people who now embrace it. However, the object of my article is not to dwell on the past but to fully unmask the nature, content and context of the secretive deal that SADC through President Mbeki has brokered in the quest for a lasting solution to the Zimbabwean crisis.
The bill that was passed unanimously by 111 members of Parliament who were present or 74% of the House seeks to harmonise next year’s presidential, parliamentary and local government elections. No-one, including Tsholotsho MP Professor Moyo (Indep) who was not part of the Mbeki negotiations voted against the bill.
As the country and the world at large tries to digest this development, it is instructive that no such deal could be realised without a resolution of the fate of President Mugabe.
In the absence of a formal confirmation about what has been agreed between the parties, the subtext of the deal is instructive and there was no better person to expose to the nation that President Mugabe’s days are numbered and an agreement has been reached that he will step down as President of Zanu PF in December 2007, the same month as a new President of ANC is to be elected, than Vice President Joseph Msika who in the excitement of the moment gave a clue to the fate of not only him but President Mugabe.
This is what Vice President Msika was reported to have said amid resounding applause: "May we keep it like that. Never ever should we fail to love our nation! We should put the love of our people first. This is the legacy I want to leave with you. As you know, I have come a long way; it’s time for me to depart. Work together as a nation."
When a person of Vice President Msika’s age (older than Mugabe) talks of leaving a legacy and for the first time announcing that it is time for him to depart then you know that a Tsugabe has taken place. Vice President Msika is on record having said that he will not leave President Mugabe in the trenches and would rather die in office than surrender before the successful completion of what he describes as the national democratic revolution. If Vice President Msika is retiring, then it is evident that President Mugabe is also retiring which explains why the MDC formations would in their collective minds choose to align themselves with a project that eliminates Mugabe from the scene while providing a roadmap to elections presided over by someone other than Mugabe.
To the extent that the SADC leadership was satisfied about the progress reported by President Mbeki at the Lusaka summit, it follows that the forthcoming Extraordinary Congress of Zanu PF will be tasked with choosing the new leadership of the party. If Mugabe and Msika had not accepted to step down, there would have been no need to convert a Zanu PF Conference into an extraordinary Congress in December.
Mugabe and Msika’s terms as party President and Vice President, respectively, were due to expire in 2009, creating a problem if the presidential and parliamentary elections were not harmonised and hence the proposal by Mugabe to have a transitional process that would have extended the Presidential term to 2010 to allow Zanu PF to elect its leadership in 2009 who would have led the party in the elections. This is now history and it is evident that Mugabe and Msika will not seek to renew their terms in December.
Under this construction, Zanu PF will choose a new president and two vice presidents in December assuming that the framework of the ZANU and ZAPU unity accord is still in place. It is expected that Vice President Mujuru whose mandate in the party was also due to expire in 2009, will offer herself as a candidate for the presidency, leaving the party to elect two other individuals for the presidential posts.
With respect to the national leadership question, President Mugabe and Vice President Msika will finish their terms in March 2008 and will not seek to renew their terms. Although Zanu PF would have wanted the elections to be held in March, it appears that an agreement has been reached to have a transitional six-month period after the exit of Mugabe to prepare for the harmonised elections.
The U-turn by MDC on the harmonisation project and Professor Moyo’s active support of the constitutional changes exposes the fact that Mugabe has agreed not to be a candidate in the 2008 elections otherwise the outcome would have been as predictable as night comes after daylight.
It is no longer debatable whether Mugabe is a factor or not, it is clear that the MDC has taken the gamble that with Mugabe out, the chances of unseating Zanu PF through an electoral process are higher. Informed by this belief, MDC leaders were prepared to ditch their NCA colleagues who have not appreciated that the real objective of making noises on the constitution was to remove Mugabe. Now that this has been achieved through the efforts of SADC, the NCA and other non-state actors including their external supporters have been left guessing about the way forward.
President Mbeki appears to have understood the Zimbabwean political quagmire to allow him to persuade President Mugabe to step down without him feeling that he has been pushed out. To the opposition, their acceptance of the deal exposes the narrowness of their agenda. It appears that all that was required was for president Mugabe to agree to step down without reversing any of the policies that have combined to exacerbate the economic meltdown.
It is clear that MDC has accepted that the land reform is irreversible and the only way in which compensation for the dispossessed white farmers will be realised is through the intervention of the British government. Equally, the allegations of human and property rights violations did not feature in the deal structure.
What is evident is that the MDC has accepted the position of the government of Zimbabwe that sanctions are the root cause of the crisis and Mugabe will only step down on condition that sanctions are lifted and the indigenisation and economic empowerment program as envisaged in the bill before Parliament is implemented.
It is clear that President Mugabe has succeeded in writing the agenda for his successors. To the extent that the removal of Mugabe was the primary preoccupation of the UK and USA governments, African heads of state and government are united in asking for the lifting of sanctions and in the reopening of dialogue between Zimbabwe and the UK on the unresolved land question. By brokering the Mugabe exit deal, President Mbeki and his African colleagues will naturally be angered if new conditions like restoration of the rule of law, democracy and respect for property and human rights were to be asked for.
By agreeing to this deal, the MDC faces a great risk of alienating its traditional supporters who were hoping for a radical change in economic and political direction. The proposed constitutional changes may not guarantee the demise of Zanu PF as an institution because the deal brokered by President Mbeki presents Zanu PF with an important propaganda weapon.
For the first time, Zanu PF can say that it has been vindicated after more than eight years of what they classify as extended moments of infantile disorder instigated by imperialist and neo-colonialist forces. To the extent that the MDC has been convinced to accept the leadership of African heads of state in resolving the crisis, it no longer has any legitimacy as a force to negotiate with Mugabe’s outspoken critics in the West.
My prediction is that Vice President Mujuru will emerge as the president of Zanu PF in December in as much as ANC is looking for a female successor to President Mbeki. It is likely that one of the vice presidents will come from the former ZAPU and the other from possibly Manicaland.
Under this deal, Mugabe is expected to manage the transition in the party and government under the guise that the national democratic revolution requires revolutionary and committed leaders and the country cannot be trusted to elect such leaders without guidance. It is instructive that the ANC faces the same challenges as Zanu PF for different reasons. December will certainly be an interesting month for Zimbabwe and South Africa.
Time will tell whether President Mugabe will disappear in the political twilight and honour the deal brokered by President Mbeki and now accepted by MDC or will find an excuse for changing the goal posts. This may explain why President Mbeki has asked all the players to decide the future of the country in camera by relegating citizens to spectators in the unfolding political drama that will continue to make news headlines.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Monday, September 17, 2007
Black Economic Empowerment gone awry
SOUTH Africa at 13 is the youngest African child whose destiny has important ramifications for the development of the continent’s brand. The country inherited a sophisticated economic base and hosts the largest white tribe of Africa.
The decolonisation project that started with Sudan in 1956 was an African project and the colonial system was largely oblivious to national boundaries in so far as the tentacles of business were concerned.
Africa is well endowed with natural resources and hence its attraction to imperialism and colonialism. The natives of Africa were not organised to offer any resistance to colonial penetration and control and have been less organised in the post colonial era in defining what they stand for, and what strategies and tactics ought to inform the pan-African democratic revolution.
Colonialism recognised race and the economic model that underpinned the colonial experience was a race-based capitalist system that had a zero tolerance for black capital formation.
The political kingdom is now firmly under the control of natives and after 50 years of independence, it is evident that a new movement is required to change the agenda for transformation and growth in Africa. Natives have taken over the control of political institutions while the economic mainstream is still controlled by non-natives.
The dual economic structures that Africa’s post colonial states inherited were an integral part of the colonial construction that saw in black labour a convenient and cheap source of capital to use in the productive processes. The challenge for Africa is not only to look back at what colonialism did or did not do but to look forward and create a new dispensation that is informed by the interests of all and not just the minority.
In developing a post-colonial empowerment strategy, it is evident that the South African settler community, out of fear, has responded with a framework that has now been adopted by the government to enable historically disadvantaged persons to fast track their entry into the capitalist system. A new vocabulary has now been introduced and accepted as a moral initiative under the name “black economic empowerment” (BEE) designed to redress the wrongs of the apartheid system.
In the decades before South Africa achieved democracy in 1994, the apartheid government systematically excluded African, Indian and coloured people - collectively known as "black people" - from meaningful participation in the country's economy. However, a myopic and self serving definition of black has been adopted as if to suggest that apartheid did not have non-South African black victims.
The role of South African-based companies in exploiting human and natural resources in the continent and feeding the apartheid system is well known and acknowledged and yet it has now been accepted by even blacks that a policy that seeks to divide African victims by place of birth and domicile of capital is in the interests of building a new African identity.
The pan-African brand ambassadors during the colonial era are no different from the contemporary ambassadors. For example, Cecil Rhodes was born in England and immigrated to South Africa but used the South African address to extend the tentacles of the British Empire. No one can argue that South Africa did not benefit from the exploits of Rhodes and his fellow settlers. If this is the case and can be proved empirically, then on what basis can BEE be exclusive to South African blacks?
On the BEE front there is no initiative at the pan-African stage to come up with a policy framework for the creation of business models that transcend national boundaries. The settlers who built Africa’s first economy as a preserve for whites were clear on who to exclude and made no exception as long as the person was not white. Under this framework, all whites were eligible to participate in the loot and yet when it comes to BEE, not all blacks are invited to the party.
South Africa is playing a critical role in the economic renaissance of Africa and yet the value system that informs its empowerment model is not portable in Africa. The distribution rights of most original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are being allocated to South Africans to cover the whole continent.
The beneficiaries of such rights are largely white business groups who have no interest in accommodating blacks as shareholders outside the context of a national BEE policy framework. The democratisation of South Africa has also opened the window for South African settler capital to use its apartheid generated advantage to colonize the rest of the continent with little or no accommodation for natives in the host countries.
The dangers of a BEE policy that is nation-based are obvious and frightening. Being black is no longer sufficient to be African but a new requirement is that you must have been born before 1994 and should fit into a straight jacket created to allay the fears of white South Africans rather than promote the oneness of Africa.
Africa requires an economic model that can meet the needs of its entire economic citizens - its people and their enterprises - in a sustainable manner. This will only be possible if the economic model builds on the full potential of all persons and communities across the length and breadth of this continent.
Despite the 50 years of uhuru, Africa’s rich minerals continue to be exploited by non-natives with the exception of South Africa where natives are being accommodated largely as passengers in white economic vehicles. Minerals rights in South Africa now vests in the state and accessing the rights is now being used to redress the economic legacies of apartheid and yet if a small African country attempted to use mineral rights for empowerment, that would be classified as nationalistion.
The same South African mining houses who see no problem with BEE policies in the context of South Africa are often the champions of free enterprise in the continent. If Tokyo Setwale is good as a partner for Anglo why would President Kaunda for instance not be good in the Zambian copperbelt?
A prospect exists where South African so-called empowered blacks will be used as fronts to take advantage of poor African countries’ resources in the same manner Rhodes did thereby exacerbating the inequalities between South Africa and other African countries on the one hand and between rich and poor. Such inequalities will certainly have profound implications on Africa’s political stability. Africa needs pan-African brand ambassadors rather than nation specific ambassadors.
It is a truism that societies characterized by entrenched gender inequality or racially or ethnically defined wealth disparities are not likely to be socially and politically stable, particularly as economic growth can easily exacerbate these inequalities. No society or family can grow by excluding any part of its people or members, and equally an economy that is not growing cannot integrate all of its citizens in a meaningful way. In this vein, if BEE is good for South Africa it should be also good for the continent without favor or prejudice. For Africa to grow, develop and create its own brand ambassadors, a new BEE strategy is required.
There is a danger, recognised by all progressive Africans that the current BEE framework poses a strategic threat to the integration of Africa and the establishment of a common development protocol that can seamlessly be applied throughout the continent. We have to agree that black Africans have no other continent where they can dominate economically in as much as Asians and Europeans are relevant in their home countries as well as in host countries.
I am not confident that in my lifetime a black African investor will for example be welcome in China in as much as Africans welcome Chinese investors. If I have to do business in China, it is obvious that I will need a Chinese partner even though there may not be an explicit Chinese Economic Empowerment policy framework in form of legislation.
The South African BEE policy has the inherent danger of simply replacing the old elite with a new black one, leaving fundamental inequalities intact. Empowered blacks are being integrated on white terms and on white capital exposing them to white control and blackmail.
It should be our collective task to promote policies that attempt to situate black economic empowerment within the context of broader pan-African empowerment strategies that focus on creating a new African personality operating on a democratic and non-racial economic space.
We have no choice but to focus on ownership issues. We have to begin to ask critical questions about who owns and drives the African economic agenda. African governments that are supposedly owned by citizens have a role to play not only in terms of legislation but in terms of procurement policies.In the pre-colonial era, Africans were not allowed to supply to the colonial governments and yet post-colonial African governments have yet to come up with a protocol that is not only sensitive on paper but that actually enhances the contracting capability of the historically disadvantaged persons.
The law of gravity should ordinarily apply in the case of Africa in terms of positioning natives in the value chain of opportunities and yet it is the majority who need to be affirmed through empowerment policies. Why would any majority need legislative protection from the minority? It appears that our literacy levels on money and power is not as developed as it should be.
The Chinese and Indians have demonstrated that it is possible to have a development strategy that is global in outlook but anchored in local values and brands. When are we going to have our own Oppenheimers and Rhodes? Colonialism was underpinned by an Anglo-Saxon value system and an economic model that had champions. In Africa, we seem to have many political champions who have taken it upon themselves to thwart the progress of African entrepreneurship unlike the attitude of the colonial masters to European capitalist adventurism.
In trying to develop a new Africa not blinded by the past but challenged by the future, we need to locate the future of the continent in the hands of our generation so that through our actions today we can define and shape tomorrow. We have the power but lack the organisation. We do not need to look further than the actions of the colonial ambassadors and the kind of issues and interests that informed their choices to become African without losing their European heritage.
The decolonisation project that started with Sudan in 1956 was an African project and the colonial system was largely oblivious to national boundaries in so far as the tentacles of business were concerned.
Africa is well endowed with natural resources and hence its attraction to imperialism and colonialism. The natives of Africa were not organised to offer any resistance to colonial penetration and control and have been less organised in the post colonial era in defining what they stand for, and what strategies and tactics ought to inform the pan-African democratic revolution.
Colonialism recognised race and the economic model that underpinned the colonial experience was a race-based capitalist system that had a zero tolerance for black capital formation.
The political kingdom is now firmly under the control of natives and after 50 years of independence, it is evident that a new movement is required to change the agenda for transformation and growth in Africa. Natives have taken over the control of political institutions while the economic mainstream is still controlled by non-natives.
The dual economic structures that Africa’s post colonial states inherited were an integral part of the colonial construction that saw in black labour a convenient and cheap source of capital to use in the productive processes. The challenge for Africa is not only to look back at what colonialism did or did not do but to look forward and create a new dispensation that is informed by the interests of all and not just the minority.
In developing a post-colonial empowerment strategy, it is evident that the South African settler community, out of fear, has responded with a framework that has now been adopted by the government to enable historically disadvantaged persons to fast track their entry into the capitalist system. A new vocabulary has now been introduced and accepted as a moral initiative under the name “black economic empowerment” (BEE) designed to redress the wrongs of the apartheid system.
In the decades before South Africa achieved democracy in 1994, the apartheid government systematically excluded African, Indian and coloured people - collectively known as "black people" - from meaningful participation in the country's economy. However, a myopic and self serving definition of black has been adopted as if to suggest that apartheid did not have non-South African black victims.
The role of South African-based companies in exploiting human and natural resources in the continent and feeding the apartheid system is well known and acknowledged and yet it has now been accepted by even blacks that a policy that seeks to divide African victims by place of birth and domicile of capital is in the interests of building a new African identity.
The pan-African brand ambassadors during the colonial era are no different from the contemporary ambassadors. For example, Cecil Rhodes was born in England and immigrated to South Africa but used the South African address to extend the tentacles of the British Empire. No one can argue that South Africa did not benefit from the exploits of Rhodes and his fellow settlers. If this is the case and can be proved empirically, then on what basis can BEE be exclusive to South African blacks?
On the BEE front there is no initiative at the pan-African stage to come up with a policy framework for the creation of business models that transcend national boundaries. The settlers who built Africa’s first economy as a preserve for whites were clear on who to exclude and made no exception as long as the person was not white. Under this framework, all whites were eligible to participate in the loot and yet when it comes to BEE, not all blacks are invited to the party.
South Africa is playing a critical role in the economic renaissance of Africa and yet the value system that informs its empowerment model is not portable in Africa. The distribution rights of most original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are being allocated to South Africans to cover the whole continent.
The beneficiaries of such rights are largely white business groups who have no interest in accommodating blacks as shareholders outside the context of a national BEE policy framework. The democratisation of South Africa has also opened the window for South African settler capital to use its apartheid generated advantage to colonize the rest of the continent with little or no accommodation for natives in the host countries.
The dangers of a BEE policy that is nation-based are obvious and frightening. Being black is no longer sufficient to be African but a new requirement is that you must have been born before 1994 and should fit into a straight jacket created to allay the fears of white South Africans rather than promote the oneness of Africa.
Africa requires an economic model that can meet the needs of its entire economic citizens - its people and their enterprises - in a sustainable manner. This will only be possible if the economic model builds on the full potential of all persons and communities across the length and breadth of this continent.
Despite the 50 years of uhuru, Africa’s rich minerals continue to be exploited by non-natives with the exception of South Africa where natives are being accommodated largely as passengers in white economic vehicles. Minerals rights in South Africa now vests in the state and accessing the rights is now being used to redress the economic legacies of apartheid and yet if a small African country attempted to use mineral rights for empowerment, that would be classified as nationalistion.
The same South African mining houses who see no problem with BEE policies in the context of South Africa are often the champions of free enterprise in the continent. If Tokyo Setwale is good as a partner for Anglo why would President Kaunda for instance not be good in the Zambian copperbelt?
A prospect exists where South African so-called empowered blacks will be used as fronts to take advantage of poor African countries’ resources in the same manner Rhodes did thereby exacerbating the inequalities between South Africa and other African countries on the one hand and between rich and poor. Such inequalities will certainly have profound implications on Africa’s political stability. Africa needs pan-African brand ambassadors rather than nation specific ambassadors.
It is a truism that societies characterized by entrenched gender inequality or racially or ethnically defined wealth disparities are not likely to be socially and politically stable, particularly as economic growth can easily exacerbate these inequalities. No society or family can grow by excluding any part of its people or members, and equally an economy that is not growing cannot integrate all of its citizens in a meaningful way. In this vein, if BEE is good for South Africa it should be also good for the continent without favor or prejudice. For Africa to grow, develop and create its own brand ambassadors, a new BEE strategy is required.
There is a danger, recognised by all progressive Africans that the current BEE framework poses a strategic threat to the integration of Africa and the establishment of a common development protocol that can seamlessly be applied throughout the continent. We have to agree that black Africans have no other continent where they can dominate economically in as much as Asians and Europeans are relevant in their home countries as well as in host countries.
I am not confident that in my lifetime a black African investor will for example be welcome in China in as much as Africans welcome Chinese investors. If I have to do business in China, it is obvious that I will need a Chinese partner even though there may not be an explicit Chinese Economic Empowerment policy framework in form of legislation.
The South African BEE policy has the inherent danger of simply replacing the old elite with a new black one, leaving fundamental inequalities intact. Empowered blacks are being integrated on white terms and on white capital exposing them to white control and blackmail.
It should be our collective task to promote policies that attempt to situate black economic empowerment within the context of broader pan-African empowerment strategies that focus on creating a new African personality operating on a democratic and non-racial economic space.
We have no choice but to focus on ownership issues. We have to begin to ask critical questions about who owns and drives the African economic agenda. African governments that are supposedly owned by citizens have a role to play not only in terms of legislation but in terms of procurement policies.In the pre-colonial era, Africans were not allowed to supply to the colonial governments and yet post-colonial African governments have yet to come up with a protocol that is not only sensitive on paper but that actually enhances the contracting capability of the historically disadvantaged persons.
The law of gravity should ordinarily apply in the case of Africa in terms of positioning natives in the value chain of opportunities and yet it is the majority who need to be affirmed through empowerment policies. Why would any majority need legislative protection from the minority? It appears that our literacy levels on money and power is not as developed as it should be.
The Chinese and Indians have demonstrated that it is possible to have a development strategy that is global in outlook but anchored in local values and brands. When are we going to have our own Oppenheimers and Rhodes? Colonialism was underpinned by an Anglo-Saxon value system and an economic model that had champions. In Africa, we seem to have many political champions who have taken it upon themselves to thwart the progress of African entrepreneurship unlike the attitude of the colonial masters to European capitalist adventurism.
In trying to develop a new Africa not blinded by the past but challenged by the future, we need to locate the future of the continent in the hands of our generation so that through our actions today we can define and shape tomorrow. We have the power but lack the organisation. We do not need to look further than the actions of the colonial ambassadors and the kind of issues and interests that informed their choices to become African without losing their European heritage.
Monday, September 3, 2007
Africa's real brand ambassadors
SEPTEMBER is officially regarded as the Africa Heritage Month in South Africa. South Africa is the youngest and most developed African state whose heritage needs to be understood and appreciated by anyone who claims to have an African identity. This month provides us with an opportunity to reflect on what it means to be African, to address the question of who is an African, and what, if any, is Africa’s heritage.
As we celebrate the heritage month we are acutely aware that South Africa inherited a dualistic economy characterised by a developed economy that is comparable to many developed economies co-existing with a second economy in which the majority of South Africans eke a living often in abject poverty.
After 13 years of uhuru, the two economies still co-exist and it is widely accepted that the challenge of bridging the divide between the two worlds is beyond the scope of any government.
In fact, President Mbeki only last week called for the formation of a new movement to address the challenges facing the country and his call is equally valid to all Africans to take ownership of the future of the continent.
This is what President Mbeki had to say: "This leadership of the people of South Africa, in all of its echelons, faces exactly the same challenge: to say what is it that we need to do together to make a success of the country. Why don’t we come together again to address what is common and national challenges?"
To the extent that South Africa has the most sophisticated and developed industrial, financial, mining, tourism, and agricultural infrastructure that white South African can claim to be a direct consequence of their contribution in terms of financing and entrepreneurship, it is important that we appreciate the development model that underpinned the transformation of the country and has resulted in the creation of enduring brand ambassadors for the continent who are not representative of the demographics of the country.
The idea of Africa heritage month as a form of cultural empowerment and emancipation is important if it is buttressed by financial literacy particularly in respect of the construction of a functioning and progressive Africa matching the first economy of the colonial state. It is common cause that Anglo-Saxons were responsible for investing in the intellectual property that has informed the development of South Africa’s first economy with blacks playing a supporting but critical role without any real benefits accruing to them.
We need to begin by defining the term heritage in the context of South Africa’s development in order to better understand the complexity of the African challenge. Heritage refers to property that is or can be inherited i.e. something that is passed down from preceding generations with the status acquired by a person through birth. What South Africa inherited in 1994 in terms of institutions and values principally reflects the investment made by Anglo-Saxons who considered their way of life superior to that of the natives. The construction of the state was based on a notion that Africans were not capable to self-govern let alone exploit the abundant resources endowed to them by God.
The brand ambassadors that are now confidently flying the South African flag trace their origin to the entrepreneurs who controlled the diamond and gold mining industries of South Africa in its pioneer phase from the 1870s up to World War I. This class of entrepreneurs is normally referred to as the Randlords.
A small number of European adventurers and financiers, largely of the same generation, gained control of the diamond industry at Kimberely, Northern Cape. They set up an infrastructure and industrial consolidation which they applied to exploit the discoveries of gold from 1886 in Transvaal at Witwatersrand. Many of these Randlords received baronetcies from Queen Victoria in recognition of their contributions to the advancement of the English heritage. Nothing much has changed in terms of the hegemony by the same club of entrepreneurs and their successors over Africa’s resources.
It is important to note that no single African has been so honoured by the English royal family for contributing to the assertion of African heritage in so far as the ownership and control over its resources. Only last week, I was a guest at a gala dinner hosted by the Department of Mineral and Energy Affairs in Johannesburg to honour women in mining. The dinner was sponsored by Anglo American Corporation one of the products of the Randlords and it is not surprising that the country has not been able to produce its own brand champions to sponsor such important nation building projects.
As the first generation of Randlords died or retired, the next generation concentrated on the process of consolidation and corporatisation -- developing the mining companies into integrated quoted companies that are now globally recognisable and respected. However, it must be noted that underpinning all these global companies are African resources that were alienated from the natives using non-market forces. Out of Africa, many Europeans became super rich and none of their indigenous African brothers and sisters can claim the same.
One individual who stands out in the exploitation and subjugation of Africa’s resources and extending the tentacles of the British Empire is the British-born South African businessman, mining magnate, and politician, Cecil John Rhodes. He was the founder of the diamond company De Beers which is still alive today and controls about 40% of the world diamond industry.
Although Rhodes is buried in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, his legacy still lives on. Anyone who buys a diamond today is in a sense celebrating and promoting what Rhodes stood for. No African government has managed to break the umbilical cord connecting Rhodes and all what he stood for from the heritage of Africa.
Rhodes was an ardent believer in colonialism and was the private coloniser of Rhodesia which was named after him. No private person can boast of the same achievement to have a country named after him and for such a country to carry his legacy and name for about 90 years.
Rhodes, like many of the Randlords, profited greatly by exploiting Southern Africa’s natural resources, proceeds of which founded the Rhodes Scholarship (now Rhodes-Mandela Scholarship) upon his death. Rhodes is famous for having declared: “All of these stars… these vast worlds that remain out of reach. If I could, I would annex other planets.”
Cecil Rhodes’ first round of diamond mine consolidation with De Beers Consolidated Mines was continued by Sir Ernest Oppenheimer (1880-1957) who created his own dynasty that is now in its fourth generation. Oppenheimer was a German-born industrialist, financier, and one of the most successful leaders in the mining industry (not in Europe) in South Africa and Rhodesia. He formed Anglo American mining company in 1917 that many Africans today are proud to be its brand ambassadors but would not be prepared to invest in new brands. Anglo’s gold interests are now held by AngloGold Ashanti.
Other Johannesburg mining houses formed on the basis of other corporate mining giants include Prges & Eckstein’s “Corner House” that is now known as Randgold; Rhodes’ Consolidated Gold Fields that is now Gold Fields Limited; George and Leopold Albu’s General Mining and Finance Corporation that became Gencor and is now part of BHP Billiton, Barney Barnato’s Johannesburg Investment Company or Johnnies became JCI Limited and has now been unbundled as part of a failed BEE transaction.
The Randlords came largely from humble European backgrounds and many used their fortunes generated in Africa to enhance their position not only in Africa but globally. Many of them were knighted on the back of African blood and sweat. They managed to gain entry to the English establishment and without Africa’s contribution; such men would never have been recognised by the Royal family.
The architectural patronage of the Randlords has left a legacy across South Africa and England. The successors of this unique breed of entrepreneurs are now more African than many indigenous people and have become recognised as the spokesmen for the continent. Even fifty years after independence, the gold and diamond ambassadors for Africa are still not indigenous.
The real ambassadors for Africa were created by individuals whose perspectives on Africans may not be any different from the architects of apartheid and those who continue to argue that natives cannot be trusted to be custodians of their own resources. A new term has been invented in South Africa for assimilating natives in the mainstream economy as black economic empowerment partners. Rhodes never saw the need for sharing the loot but many progressive Africans still believe that transformation can occur through a trickle down mechanism controlled by successors of the Randlords.
Listed below are some of the notable Randlords whose efforts have defined the African story that needs to be told to all Africans in the hope that one day they will rise up and take ownership of their resources in the same manner that Arabs and Asians have done in the last 60 years. For how long can Africa celebrate the heritage month without its own ambassadors? Maybe in our lifetime, African pioneers in the construction of capital will be celebrated by their own people.
The future of Africa can only be as secure as we make decision today that help define who we are and what we stand for. The investment by the Randlords has paid off in Africa a million times and their successors continue to dominate the economic space long after the political democratisation of Africa.
Over the last fifty years, Africa has failed to produce its own Randlords with a feeling of duty to believe in the African cause, to make a stand, to support and defend it. Our appetites are still fed by people who despise us and yet we have not seen the wisdom of using our enormous spent to create our own institutions and our own brand ambassadors.
1. Sir George Albu, 1st Bt (1857-1935)
2. Leopold Albu (1861-1938)
3. Sir Abraham Bailey (1864-1940)
4. Barney Barnato (1852-1897)
5. Sir Alfred Beit (1853-1906)
6. Sir Otto Beit, 1st Bt (1865-1930)
7. Hermann Luwig Eckstein (1847-1893)
8. Friedrich Gustav Jonathan Eckstein (1857-1930)
9. Sir George Herbert Farrar (1859-1915)
10. Adolf Goerz (1857-1931)
11. John Hays Hammond (1855-1936)
12. Sir David Harris (1852-1942)
13. Solomon Joel (1865-1931)
14. Woolf Joel (1863-1898)
15. John Dale Lace (1859-1937)
16. Isaac Lewis (1849-1927)
17. Samuel Marks (1843-1920)
18. Sir Carl Meyer
19. Maximilian Michealis (1852-1932)
20. Sigismund Neumann (1857-1916)
21. Sir Lionel Phillips, 1st Bt (1855-1936)
22. Jules Porges (1838-1921)
23. Cecil John Rhodes (1853-1902)
24. Sir Joseph Benjamin Robinson, 1st Bt (1840-1929)
25. Charles Ernest Rube (1852-1914)
26. Charles Dunell Rudd (1844-1916)
27. Ji, B Taylor28. Sir Julius Wernher, 1st Bt (1850-1912)
As we celebrate the heritage month we are acutely aware that South Africa inherited a dualistic economy characterised by a developed economy that is comparable to many developed economies co-existing with a second economy in which the majority of South Africans eke a living often in abject poverty.
After 13 years of uhuru, the two economies still co-exist and it is widely accepted that the challenge of bridging the divide between the two worlds is beyond the scope of any government.
In fact, President Mbeki only last week called for the formation of a new movement to address the challenges facing the country and his call is equally valid to all Africans to take ownership of the future of the continent.
This is what President Mbeki had to say: "This leadership of the people of South Africa, in all of its echelons, faces exactly the same challenge: to say what is it that we need to do together to make a success of the country. Why don’t we come together again to address what is common and national challenges?"
To the extent that South Africa has the most sophisticated and developed industrial, financial, mining, tourism, and agricultural infrastructure that white South African can claim to be a direct consequence of their contribution in terms of financing and entrepreneurship, it is important that we appreciate the development model that underpinned the transformation of the country and has resulted in the creation of enduring brand ambassadors for the continent who are not representative of the demographics of the country.
The idea of Africa heritage month as a form of cultural empowerment and emancipation is important if it is buttressed by financial literacy particularly in respect of the construction of a functioning and progressive Africa matching the first economy of the colonial state. It is common cause that Anglo-Saxons were responsible for investing in the intellectual property that has informed the development of South Africa’s first economy with blacks playing a supporting but critical role without any real benefits accruing to them.
We need to begin by defining the term heritage in the context of South Africa’s development in order to better understand the complexity of the African challenge. Heritage refers to property that is or can be inherited i.e. something that is passed down from preceding generations with the status acquired by a person through birth. What South Africa inherited in 1994 in terms of institutions and values principally reflects the investment made by Anglo-Saxons who considered their way of life superior to that of the natives. The construction of the state was based on a notion that Africans were not capable to self-govern let alone exploit the abundant resources endowed to them by God.
The brand ambassadors that are now confidently flying the South African flag trace their origin to the entrepreneurs who controlled the diamond and gold mining industries of South Africa in its pioneer phase from the 1870s up to World War I. This class of entrepreneurs is normally referred to as the Randlords.
A small number of European adventurers and financiers, largely of the same generation, gained control of the diamond industry at Kimberely, Northern Cape. They set up an infrastructure and industrial consolidation which they applied to exploit the discoveries of gold from 1886 in Transvaal at Witwatersrand. Many of these Randlords received baronetcies from Queen Victoria in recognition of their contributions to the advancement of the English heritage. Nothing much has changed in terms of the hegemony by the same club of entrepreneurs and their successors over Africa’s resources.
It is important to note that no single African has been so honoured by the English royal family for contributing to the assertion of African heritage in so far as the ownership and control over its resources. Only last week, I was a guest at a gala dinner hosted by the Department of Mineral and Energy Affairs in Johannesburg to honour women in mining. The dinner was sponsored by Anglo American Corporation one of the products of the Randlords and it is not surprising that the country has not been able to produce its own brand champions to sponsor such important nation building projects.
As the first generation of Randlords died or retired, the next generation concentrated on the process of consolidation and corporatisation -- developing the mining companies into integrated quoted companies that are now globally recognisable and respected. However, it must be noted that underpinning all these global companies are African resources that were alienated from the natives using non-market forces. Out of Africa, many Europeans became super rich and none of their indigenous African brothers and sisters can claim the same.
One individual who stands out in the exploitation and subjugation of Africa’s resources and extending the tentacles of the British Empire is the British-born South African businessman, mining magnate, and politician, Cecil John Rhodes. He was the founder of the diamond company De Beers which is still alive today and controls about 40% of the world diamond industry.
Although Rhodes is buried in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, his legacy still lives on. Anyone who buys a diamond today is in a sense celebrating and promoting what Rhodes stood for. No African government has managed to break the umbilical cord connecting Rhodes and all what he stood for from the heritage of Africa.
Rhodes was an ardent believer in colonialism and was the private coloniser of Rhodesia which was named after him. No private person can boast of the same achievement to have a country named after him and for such a country to carry his legacy and name for about 90 years.
Rhodes, like many of the Randlords, profited greatly by exploiting Southern Africa’s natural resources, proceeds of which founded the Rhodes Scholarship (now Rhodes-Mandela Scholarship) upon his death. Rhodes is famous for having declared: “All of these stars… these vast worlds that remain out of reach. If I could, I would annex other planets.”
Cecil Rhodes’ first round of diamond mine consolidation with De Beers Consolidated Mines was continued by Sir Ernest Oppenheimer (1880-1957) who created his own dynasty that is now in its fourth generation. Oppenheimer was a German-born industrialist, financier, and one of the most successful leaders in the mining industry (not in Europe) in South Africa and Rhodesia. He formed Anglo American mining company in 1917 that many Africans today are proud to be its brand ambassadors but would not be prepared to invest in new brands. Anglo’s gold interests are now held by AngloGold Ashanti.
Other Johannesburg mining houses formed on the basis of other corporate mining giants include Prges & Eckstein’s “Corner House” that is now known as Randgold; Rhodes’ Consolidated Gold Fields that is now Gold Fields Limited; George and Leopold Albu’s General Mining and Finance Corporation that became Gencor and is now part of BHP Billiton, Barney Barnato’s Johannesburg Investment Company or Johnnies became JCI Limited and has now been unbundled as part of a failed BEE transaction.
The Randlords came largely from humble European backgrounds and many used their fortunes generated in Africa to enhance their position not only in Africa but globally. Many of them were knighted on the back of African blood and sweat. They managed to gain entry to the English establishment and without Africa’s contribution; such men would never have been recognised by the Royal family.
The architectural patronage of the Randlords has left a legacy across South Africa and England. The successors of this unique breed of entrepreneurs are now more African than many indigenous people and have become recognised as the spokesmen for the continent. Even fifty years after independence, the gold and diamond ambassadors for Africa are still not indigenous.
The real ambassadors for Africa were created by individuals whose perspectives on Africans may not be any different from the architects of apartheid and those who continue to argue that natives cannot be trusted to be custodians of their own resources. A new term has been invented in South Africa for assimilating natives in the mainstream economy as black economic empowerment partners. Rhodes never saw the need for sharing the loot but many progressive Africans still believe that transformation can occur through a trickle down mechanism controlled by successors of the Randlords.
Listed below are some of the notable Randlords whose efforts have defined the African story that needs to be told to all Africans in the hope that one day they will rise up and take ownership of their resources in the same manner that Arabs and Asians have done in the last 60 years. For how long can Africa celebrate the heritage month without its own ambassadors? Maybe in our lifetime, African pioneers in the construction of capital will be celebrated by their own people.
The future of Africa can only be as secure as we make decision today that help define who we are and what we stand for. The investment by the Randlords has paid off in Africa a million times and their successors continue to dominate the economic space long after the political democratisation of Africa.
Over the last fifty years, Africa has failed to produce its own Randlords with a feeling of duty to believe in the African cause, to make a stand, to support and defend it. Our appetites are still fed by people who despise us and yet we have not seen the wisdom of using our enormous spent to create our own institutions and our own brand ambassadors.
1. Sir George Albu, 1st Bt (1857-1935)
2. Leopold Albu (1861-1938)
3. Sir Abraham Bailey (1864-1940)
4. Barney Barnato (1852-1897)
5. Sir Alfred Beit (1853-1906)
6. Sir Otto Beit, 1st Bt (1865-1930)
7. Hermann Luwig Eckstein (1847-1893)
8. Friedrich Gustav Jonathan Eckstein (1857-1930)
9. Sir George Herbert Farrar (1859-1915)
10. Adolf Goerz (1857-1931)
11. John Hays Hammond (1855-1936)
12. Sir David Harris (1852-1942)
13. Solomon Joel (1865-1931)
14. Woolf Joel (1863-1898)
15. John Dale Lace (1859-1937)
16. Isaac Lewis (1849-1927)
17. Samuel Marks (1843-1920)
18. Sir Carl Meyer
19. Maximilian Michealis (1852-1932)
20. Sigismund Neumann (1857-1916)
21. Sir Lionel Phillips, 1st Bt (1855-1936)
22. Jules Porges (1838-1921)
23. Cecil John Rhodes (1853-1902)
24. Sir Joseph Benjamin Robinson, 1st Bt (1840-1929)
25. Charles Ernest Rube (1852-1914)
26. Charles Dunell Rudd (1844-1916)
27. Ji, B Taylor28. Sir Julius Wernher, 1st Bt (1850-1912)
Saturday, September 1, 2007
Africa's bitter harvest
ON OCTOBER 1, 2007, Nigeria -- the most populous African nation -- will turn 47. Like Sudan and Ghana before it, Nigeria’s independence from colonial rule was a consequence of a struggle to shed off the political, economic and social obstacles created during the colonial era.
Now that the entire continent is liberated, it is incumbent upon every African to reflect on whether in fact the continent has moved along the trajectory that its liberators and citizens intended it to move. Any farmer that sows a seed only does so in anticipation of a harvest leading us to question the nature and content of the African harvest.
The nationalist struggle was spurred by a desire to assert the rights of the majority in determining their political and economic destiny informed by a democratic constitutional order. Democracy’s universal character is that those who exercise political authority in society must do so with the explicit consent and genuine mandate expressed at regular intervals by the governed in an open, free and fair electoral process.
The colonial state was founded on the premise that natives were uncivilised and, therefore, would need to be civilised before they could make their own independent and sovereign choices.
The architects of the national democratic revolution can be likened to farmers who had the task to transform a seed into a crop. The success or failure of any farmer is reflected not on how much he sweats but on the quality of the crop harvested.
The civil rights movement was informed by the frustrations experienced by African farmers who were alienated from their land and graduates or products of the colonial system i.e. African intellectuals who were denied access to privilege on race-based grounds. Democracy was the rallying cry of all nationalists and yet 50 years later many Africans are asking whether the harvest was worth the effort.
Colonialism was at its core an economic project motivated less by an interest in empowering natives to make their own choices but in spreading a Eurocentric civilisation and way of life. The colonial architects sought to make Africa a little Europe and this was achieved.
It was clear from the outset that democracy as described above was incompatible with colonialism and in fact it was argued that the natives had no interest in being part of a system whose values and norms were foreign. Many settlers observed that natives did not have the institutional framework to inform any democratic order making it expensive to create a government in which people with no vested interests in a progressive society are given a say.
It was argued that if someone has no say it is counter productive to give him a say because he will not exercise his purported right. Accordingly, the decolonisation project was inspired by revolutionaries who argued that democracy should underpin any progressive constitutional order and citizens are endowed with inalienable rights that can never be compromised by their social or economic status. In other words, a rich person has the same vote as a poor person.
With that construction, independence brought with it black hope and white fear. Blacks were expecting a bumper harvest and whites were expecting a bitter harvest.
However, the status of blacks and whites in Africa after 50 years of uhuru confirms that black hopes have not been realised in as much as white fear has also not been realised making any rational African to begin to ask what mind informed the decolonisation project. Was it about the right to vote? Was it about musical chairs i.e. replacing a white oppressor with a more lethal black oppressor? Was it about elevating the standard of living of the majority? What was the struggle all about?
If the struggle was about asserting the right of the majority to determine their destinies through a democratic system, then no-one can argue that the majority of Africans in 2007 boast of such a right. Equally if the struggle was about democratising the economic space, then surely it is evident that less was achieved on this front than expected. The colonial system was good to its promoters and sponsors and the post colonial system seems to have been a good project to a few and not the majority as anticipated.
Bitter refers to an emotion similar to resentment. Many Africans are bitter and rightly so that they were misled by a few that the national democratic revolution was about their collective interests and yet in reality the majority were used as pawns to legitimise tyranny.
In many African states, institutions exist to regulate competition – many known as Competition Commissions -- and yet in the political sphere the process is monopolised by a few with no checks and balances in place to ensure that any citizen who wants to be a President is afforded the opportunity to do so without being intimidated or being asked for a college certificate or a title deed as was expected in a colonial state.
Yes we have the right to vote and yet exercising such a right has its own perils in Africa. Many Africans have lost hope in the power of the vote to change governments they don’t like. The colonial administrations had argued that only responsible governments would advance the interests of Africa and we thought otherwise, naively expecting better things from the post-colonial experience.
African resources are still being harvested by non-Africans. African decisions where it matters i.e. the economy, are still made outside Africa and yet we seem to have no plan to nurture our own seed to fruition and harvest.
In conclusion, we need a new paradigm informed by strategies and tactics of a wise farmer. A bitter harvest is only possible because Africa’s liberators lacked the maturity and the mind of a good farmer. You can never expect to have an outcome that you have not invested in.
How many of us have invested in a working and functional Africa? Any harvest is a function of effort, resources and management. The colonialists were not many but they behaved like good farmers and managed to make Africa a home from home with enduring legacies. We now know better and can do better.
Now that the entire continent is liberated, it is incumbent upon every African to reflect on whether in fact the continent has moved along the trajectory that its liberators and citizens intended it to move. Any farmer that sows a seed only does so in anticipation of a harvest leading us to question the nature and content of the African harvest.
The nationalist struggle was spurred by a desire to assert the rights of the majority in determining their political and economic destiny informed by a democratic constitutional order. Democracy’s universal character is that those who exercise political authority in society must do so with the explicit consent and genuine mandate expressed at regular intervals by the governed in an open, free and fair electoral process.
The colonial state was founded on the premise that natives were uncivilised and, therefore, would need to be civilised before they could make their own independent and sovereign choices.
The architects of the national democratic revolution can be likened to farmers who had the task to transform a seed into a crop. The success or failure of any farmer is reflected not on how much he sweats but on the quality of the crop harvested.
The civil rights movement was informed by the frustrations experienced by African farmers who were alienated from their land and graduates or products of the colonial system i.e. African intellectuals who were denied access to privilege on race-based grounds. Democracy was the rallying cry of all nationalists and yet 50 years later many Africans are asking whether the harvest was worth the effort.
Colonialism was at its core an economic project motivated less by an interest in empowering natives to make their own choices but in spreading a Eurocentric civilisation and way of life. The colonial architects sought to make Africa a little Europe and this was achieved.
It was clear from the outset that democracy as described above was incompatible with colonialism and in fact it was argued that the natives had no interest in being part of a system whose values and norms were foreign. Many settlers observed that natives did not have the institutional framework to inform any democratic order making it expensive to create a government in which people with no vested interests in a progressive society are given a say.
It was argued that if someone has no say it is counter productive to give him a say because he will not exercise his purported right. Accordingly, the decolonisation project was inspired by revolutionaries who argued that democracy should underpin any progressive constitutional order and citizens are endowed with inalienable rights that can never be compromised by their social or economic status. In other words, a rich person has the same vote as a poor person.
With that construction, independence brought with it black hope and white fear. Blacks were expecting a bumper harvest and whites were expecting a bitter harvest.
However, the status of blacks and whites in Africa after 50 years of uhuru confirms that black hopes have not been realised in as much as white fear has also not been realised making any rational African to begin to ask what mind informed the decolonisation project. Was it about the right to vote? Was it about musical chairs i.e. replacing a white oppressor with a more lethal black oppressor? Was it about elevating the standard of living of the majority? What was the struggle all about?
If the struggle was about asserting the right of the majority to determine their destinies through a democratic system, then no-one can argue that the majority of Africans in 2007 boast of such a right. Equally if the struggle was about democratising the economic space, then surely it is evident that less was achieved on this front than expected. The colonial system was good to its promoters and sponsors and the post colonial system seems to have been a good project to a few and not the majority as anticipated.
Bitter refers to an emotion similar to resentment. Many Africans are bitter and rightly so that they were misled by a few that the national democratic revolution was about their collective interests and yet in reality the majority were used as pawns to legitimise tyranny.
In many African states, institutions exist to regulate competition – many known as Competition Commissions -- and yet in the political sphere the process is monopolised by a few with no checks and balances in place to ensure that any citizen who wants to be a President is afforded the opportunity to do so without being intimidated or being asked for a college certificate or a title deed as was expected in a colonial state.
Yes we have the right to vote and yet exercising such a right has its own perils in Africa. Many Africans have lost hope in the power of the vote to change governments they don’t like. The colonial administrations had argued that only responsible governments would advance the interests of Africa and we thought otherwise, naively expecting better things from the post-colonial experience.
African resources are still being harvested by non-Africans. African decisions where it matters i.e. the economy, are still made outside Africa and yet we seem to have no plan to nurture our own seed to fruition and harvest.
In conclusion, we need a new paradigm informed by strategies and tactics of a wise farmer. A bitter harvest is only possible because Africa’s liberators lacked the maturity and the mind of a good farmer. You can never expect to have an outcome that you have not invested in.
How many of us have invested in a working and functional Africa? Any harvest is a function of effort, resources and management. The colonialists were not many but they behaved like good farmers and managed to make Africa a home from home with enduring legacies. We now know better and can do better.
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