Essence of our theme
There are at least two interrelated issues which our mind should immediately conjure –and if need be forced to our consciousness- with the mere invocation of this theme- the issues are: independence and sovereignty, two concepts that give the false appearance of being literal synonyms but which in reality are not. In an article, ”Decolonization without national sovereignty” by Nandita Sharrma,-for an entirely different purpose to our own here- dated September 12, 2021, in reaction to a review of a book s/he authored, the importance of appreciating the distinction between independence and sovereignty was registered-the central submission being that political independence may not be anything close to sovereignty in the sense in which a country is fully in charge of its destiny.
For the avoidance of confusion, this subtle distinction is the kernel of the concern over the challenge of neocolonialism, a subject on which the late President of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, laboured to expose with its dangers; I am, of course, referring to the Osagyefo’s Neocolonialism- The Last Stage of Imperialism (published in 1965)-being a creative and valid extension of the earlier work by the Russian revolutionary, V.I. Lenin, entitled: Imperialism,-The Highest Phase of Capitalism (published in 1916). What makes these issues register in prominence is, in particular, the growing reality and impact of globalization which has brought nations so close to one another now that we refer to the entire world as a global village.
The Magazine, MR Online, of June 3, 2022, provides a concise overview on the essence of neocolonialism, as it notes:
The very definition of neo-colonialism in operation is a system where the human and material resources of the exploited country/people are set up to be the main conduit for the benefit of the outside colonizing power. A primary example of this is cocoa production in Ghana. In 2022, chocolate products produced from Ghanaian cocoa account for 75% of all chocolate products consumed within the U.S. The benefactors of this system are the multinational corporate entities that dominate cocoa production in Ghana. From Cargill International to Hershey, Nestle, and Godiva, these companies hold complete control over cocoa production all throughout Ghana. Receiving slave wages to produce cocoa, the overwhelming majority of Ghanaian cocoa workers, who toil for 10 to 12 hours daily, seven days per week, will never themselves generate enough cash flow to afford to enjoy even one Nestle chocolate bar in their entire lifetime.
Nothing needs to be added to this insightful submission on the practical negation of national self-reliance except, perhaps, to insert Nigeria or any other relevant country and product as applicable. In terms of its effects, the outlet paints the correct picture of the mechanism of neocolonialism, with the assertion that: “This is the simple and irrefutable explanation for why Africa is poor and the Western capitalist world holds all of the wealth. And this all results from the mechanisms of control that were established by the colonial systems hundreds of years ago and the subsequent establishment of neo-colonial gatekeeping to ensure capitalism continues to reign supreme at the end of the day while Africa and her children continue to suffer”. This would understandably provoke the shout: ‘smash neocolonialism’-from progressive youths of any nation concerned.
Origins of self-reliance concept
In the beginning, the notion of self-reliance was conceived purely in application to individual persons. To be specific, Ralph Waldo Emerson, the famous psychology philosopher is the name most popularly associated with the concept as entailing the need for each individual to avoid conformity and false consistency but follow his or her own instinct and ideas. Even though Ralph Waldo Emerson may not have introduced the concept, it was he who brought it to the general public with his 1841 essay Self-Reliance. Interestingly, there’s no single sentence that really captures all the aspects of self-reliance in one click. Thus, Merriam Webster which defines self-reliance simply as ‘reliance on one’s own efforts and abilities’, does not quite do the concept much justice, either. In general application, however, it is perceived as a reliance on internal resources to provide life with coherence, meaning, and fulfillment. It is the ability to take control over your life, being motivated from within and being able to take care of yourself.
Now, increasingly the idea of self-reliance is more at the national level, especially since the struggle for political independence gained momentum, implying self-determination i.e. a nation must ensure that its decision are not influenced externally, to focus on what it feels appropriate not minding the opinion of others, so long as such is in line with its fundamental principle and interests. In essence, therefore, it refers to the ability of a country to plan, finance and implement solutions to solve its own development challenges. There is the popular standpoint that national self-reliance rests on two key factors: commitment and capacity
Debates around self-reliance
The first potential source of confusion over the essence of national self-reliance is its conflation with the concept of autarky which refers to a nation isolating itself from the rest of the world and therefore depending exclusively on internal means for all that it needs-thus ruling out international trade. Of course, the unrealism and irrelevance of this conceptual projection should be obvious especially with the growing reality of globalization.
In a June 1973 Report prepared for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, “In Search of Self-Reliance: U. S. Security Assistance to the Third World under the Nixon Doctrine”, published by the Rand Corporation, there are interesting insights into the mindset of the authors concerning self-reliance. While the focus of the Report is on Defense, the logic of its overall submission serves to underscore the primacy of self-reliance-citing country experiences, as it states:
A self-reliant nation is one possessing a national will to depend as little as possible on external assistance in matters of national defense and internal security. Its government will make a realistic effort to mobilize the population to defend itself, utilizing a variety of means ranging from local militias to standing reserves of the regular army. It will adopt a corresponding military doctrine and defense strategy. Doctrines of self-reliance developed in Indonesia and Yugoslavia are relevant to other parts of the Third World. In both countries, the military establishments have refined concepts of defensive warfare using strong deterrent forces that rely on large numbers of lightly armed combatants. The intent is not to hold territory in the initial stages of an invasion but ultimately to bog down an invader by making continued occupation of the country too costly to be worthwhile.
The fundamental issue of debate is around how a nation can make the best of its status among the comity of nations considering its strengths and weaknesses vis-à-vis the various sectors or spheres of life of the nation. This kind of decision challenge applies especially to the developing countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean-in varying degrees of relationships between a country on one hand and the rest of the world on the other. The degree to which respective sectors of the local economy are subject to the influence of external forces mirrors its level of independence and sovereignty and hence the overall picture of the country’s self-reliance status.
The health sector of developing countries is one obvious area where the dangers of the absence of self-reliance especially in times of emergency stares the face most uncomfortably and there have been that acknowledgement and reactions from diverse quarters. For example, Julio Frenk, Professor of the Practice of Public Health Leadership, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, United States and Muhammad Ali Pate- a former Nigerian Minister of State for Health and Executive Director, National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), have made recommendations on how to reshape African health systems towards autonomy and self-reliance, and develop strategies and equal partnerships accordingly. The key lesson and message from the expressed worry and analyses is that Africa is largely dependent on the global community for vaccine delivery brought out boldly during the COVID-19 pandemic, reflecting a fragile health security system. Meanwhile, health security has been identified as critical in ensuring a nation’s socio-economic and political stability. This is because, as experts have noted, health insecurity can affect economic security as demonstrated during pandemic that crippled the world even as it started as a health problem, but suddenly even those who didn’t have the disease were affected by its consequences. In other words, health security must be a very key part of the self-reliance development agenda of any reasonable society.
As the former minister referenced above lamented, there are infectious diseases that affect our children, young ones, women and adults every day; they include things like measles, pneumonia, tuberculosis, hepatitis and meningitis, all capable of causing death. Of course, the diseases are preventable with immunization; sadly, however, the requisite systems to deliver those vaccines and immunization services are lacking. This is why there is growing consensus -- in Africa and beyond -- that the continent must greatly expand its capacity to manufacture the variety of medical products, including pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, and consumables, that are required to meet both urgent and routine health needs. The World Bank had actually tweeted, half-heartedly though it would appear, that:
Self-reliance in medical supplies is no longer an aspiration, it’s an imperative. COVID-19 has spurred progress in vaccine production in Africa but becoming self-reliant will require African companies to focus on producing generic medications
From this tweet, one issue invites suspicion: its meaning and preference for ‘companies’ Our curiosity is justified with the rider by the global body that: “Generics production offers a tremendous opportunity for the private sector to focus investments and build capacity” [emphasis added-AM]-as articulated by Subir Basak on May 26, 2022 under the caption: "As Africa seeks pharma self-reliance, think generics”. Our take away: the global institution is interested more in the promotion of private economic interests than enhancing the medical welfare of Africans. This comes clear from a section of the posting devoted specifically to “business opportunities”. This seemingly innocuous point is being highlighted against the backdrop of Cuba’s approach to the COVID-19 challenge, as an example-where the public sector is leading and succeeding in healthcare delivery. The following excerpt shows how the seriousness that a country’s leadership attaches to knowledge especially in the health sector can assume the level of nothing less than historic and heroic:
Castro in 1981 learned about research in Texas on interferon, a new drug that showed promise in treating certain types of cancer and also viral infections. Two Cuba researchers soon were studying interferon in Houston. Within months six more had gone to Finland, where interferon had been developed. They learned about production methods. In a short time, the Cubans were manufacturing the drug, treating patients, and marketing interferon abroad. The ChangHeber company, a Chinese-Cuban joint venture for which Cuba provides scientific support, has been producing Interferon and other drug products since 2007. As the COVID-19 epidemic progressed in China, Cuba’s government made special administrative arrangements and sent experts to China so that ChangHeber might be able to serve China’s needs.
Apart from the health sector and associated production of medicines, the imperative of self-reliance registers as well in other spheres of life-including infrastructure, technology and trade-all of which are mutually reinforcing. Thus, resulting from weak technological base, African countries are forced into raw material production for exports the prices of which are typically unstable; this fuels foreign reserve fragility leading to debt accumulation of dire consequences on which the radical view of the late Burkina Faso leader, Thomas Sankara echoes-as he saw and alerted, that:
The debt in its present form is a cleverly organized reconquest of Africa under which our growth and development are regulated by stages and norms totally alien to us. It is a reconquest that turns each of us into a financial slave—or just plain slave—of those who had the opportunity, the craftiness, the deceitfulness to invest funds in our countries that we are obliged to repay.
Various empirical studies have shown that debt servicing constitutes a drag on the economic growth of debtor economies, thereby compounding their crisis of development and undermining self-reliance. At a later date, the argument about whether China should be lumped with the accused over the perpetration of neocolonialism in Africa will be discussed.
Impediments to national Self-Reliance Initiatives
Recently, I had the privilege of a WhatsApp-shared video carrying the instructive inscription: “An educative perspective on neocolonialism”, that fits perfectly into our discourse here and justifies an extraction from the TV question and answer conversation with an American Professor of Economics, Michael Hudson:
Question from the audience: What’s the difference between the U.S.’ debt and the debts that African countries owe-because the U.S debt doesn’t keep the U.S. from being one of the leading powers of the world but African countries can’t make it because of the debts they owe?
Michael Hudson’s Answer: America is never going to pay its debts; it doesn’t have to pay. It can simply print it. Africa has to earn U.S. dollars; the only way it can earn US dollars is not to be assassinated for growing its own food and becoming independent and do what the U.S. doesn’t like. The principle underlying the foundation of the IMF and the World Bank is that no country should grow its own food. Africa and the third world countries should only grow export crops in order to have an over-supply of cocoa and other tropical raw materials to keep down the prices.
The above excerpt is so loaded that series of clarifications will have to be made in future outings on this platform in order to do needed unpacking of the message on the mechanism of domination under neocolonialism.
Becoming truly Self-Reliant
The planning objective of self-reliance is that a developing nation-such as Nigeria-has to promote economic growth and overall development with its own resources. In other words, an economy has to reduce its dependence on foreign countries for the import of food items, technology, capital goods, etc. The broad strategic framework that promises sustainability in a poor country development context is that the government should be at the driving seat. The starting point along this line is a long-term investment in people as change makers; this translates to “prioritizing the development of an educated, digitally literate and skilled workforce”. I come in peace, please.
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