Sean Jacobs's Blog, page 219

Singing truth to power

When Ugandan police imprisoned Bobi Wine in his own home, the singer-turned-lawmaker used the internet, music and multiple languages to craft a call for solidarity between civilians and security forces.





Image Credit Barbie Kyagulanyi via Facebook.

Yoweri Museveni, Uganda���s increasingly authoritarian president of 33 years, would like young Ugandans to stop listening to the country���s best known pop star, Bobi Wine. ���[Wine] is a singer,�����Museveni told a youth gathering��in March, ���Leadership is not about music.��� Of course, those who follow the politics of the region know that it has been quite��some time now since Wine (legal name:��Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu) could be written off as just a singer.

After��winning a by-election for the parliamentary seat of his home constituency��in April 2017, Wine began a meteoric rise through the ranks of Uganda���s political opposition.��He��became a leading voice on issues ranging from defense of the country���s��constitutional democratic safeguards, to��freedom of expression, to��government land grabbing.��Spearheading a movement of civic engagement and popular resistance��that he dubbed��People Power,��he��soon emerged as perhaps��the most formidable political threat��Museveni has faced in decades.

Though much of his activism took place on the��streets of Kampala��or on the��Parliament floor, a great deal��also��unfolded on��stage.��Wine��has��long used his songs to draw��attention to social injustices.��In the past two years, though, his lyrics have grown more overtly political, often calling on Ugandans to�����come together�����to��fight for their��political freedoms��and��alter their country���s path.

However dismissively Museveni may speak about music, he is far from ignorant of its power. Starting in��October 2017, he began banning Wine���s performances.��As political analyst Fredrick��Goloba-Mutebi��has��observed, Wine���s concerts��pose��a��threat to Museveni because��they create��a political space without expressly violating the prohibitions on early campaigning that Uganda���s ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party has historically used to hobble opposition candidates ahead of elections.��By blocking them, Museveni has sought��to cut off one of Wine���s most vibrant means of political expression. It is a��tactic he has doubled down on��in recent months, as��Wine���s��political star��has��continued to rise.

Last August,��security��forces��seized Wine after��a��political rally in the northern city of Arua.��During a subsequent two-week detention, the��musician-turned-lawmaker was so badly��brutalized��by police and military��that he emerged from their custody barely able to��walk. He was ultimately��allowed to travel��for��several weeks of��treatment abroad.��Since his return to Uganda, he has found nearly every one of his��performances��blocked.

Much to Museveni���s chagrin��though, Wine has become increasingly adept at shifting the political space��once created by his concerts��into the arena of the Internet and social media. In��late��December, when the government��blocked his annual Boxing Day concert��(a tradition that predates his parliamentary career), Wine responded by��releasing��the music video of his latest single, ���Tuliyambala��Engule�����just after��midnight on New Year���s Eve. Vividly depicting a future Uganda free of corruption and abuses by the state, the video read as a kind of exuberant policy statement ��� an outline of the issues Wine hopes to tackle in��the years to come. It immediately went viral, and sparked weeks of debate in the country.

Four months later, as Wine clashed with the regime over yet another holiday concert, he would once again turn to the Internet as a means of reaching his fans and political followers. This time, the results would be even more remarkable.

On Good Friday,��the��government-controlled��New Vision��newspaper��reported��that��Ugandan��police had��cleared��Bobi��Wine��to proceed with a concert planned for Easter Monday at��his��lakeside property,��One Love Beach��Bussabala. According to the paper, the��permission was contingent on a strict agreement between��Wine���s team and��state authorities. The very letter granting clearance also included��a��harsh��caveat.�����Police,��� it warned organizers,�����will��not hesitate to stop any of these functions at any time��[���]��if they breach any of the above guidelines.���

In the interest of accuracy, the letter should��perhaps��have specified that��police��would�����not hesitate to stop any of these functions�����prior��to the breach of any guidelines, either.��For when��Easter��Monday rolled around, authorities mobilized to��detain Wine before he could even reach his concert venue.��After intercepting��the singer and his team as they drove to One Love Beach, police��clad in riot��gear��deployed��hoses��and��teargas��to scatter��Wine���s��supporters, then��engulfed his car, shielding one another��while��an officer used his baton to shatter one of the vehicle���s rear windows.

In the ensuing chaos, as police hauled the passengers out on to the road, Wine could be heard��protesting��that��someone was��close to breaking his hand.�������You are fighting me,��� one��of the policemen��snapped��in response.�������I���m not��fighting��you, my brother!�����Bobi��Wine shouted back��over the din,�����Why are��you��grabbing��me?�����It was a statement of deep exasperation, if not outright anger���and little wonder, coming from a man who has��in the past year��suffered��severe��harassment��and��even��torture��at the hands of his country���s various security forces.

Although police returned Wine to his family��within a few hours, they��then proceeded to surround��his home. By Tuesday morning, with officers stationed at both of the compound gates, and��barricades going up along neighboring roads, it became clear that the��singer-cum-legislator��was��being held��under a strict house arrest.��Colleagues and friends began to arrive to offer encouragement, and as the day drew to a close,��Bobi��Wine��took to his��Facebook page��to��reach out to��the supporters beyond the walls of his house.

He had��no prepared��statement. Instead, Wine simply invited his nearly one million followers to join him��(through a��live stream)��on��the steps of��his veranda. ���This is how my evening is going, under House Arrest,�����read the caption of a video that would be the first of��three��such posts during the night.

Seated on the front stoop with Wine,��strumming a��dark��teal acoustic guitar, was his friend and longtime musical collaborator��known��by the stage name��Nubian Li.��For a��few minutes, the two men meandered between��song and idle talk,��before gradually turning��the conversation towards recent events.��Wine bent back his wrist and angled his arm��to show Nubian how police had wrenched it during his arrest.��Although his��dismay and resentment were still evident,��another sentiment had now also entered the mix.

His own harrowing experiences with Ugandan state forces notwithstanding, Wine has repeatedly��written��and��spoken��about��the need to��recognize��the��fundamental��humanity of his country���s security personnel.��Now, held in detention as heavily armed police encircled his own home, Wine��reflected, ���What you do with those people: you look them in the eyes. [���] When you look them in the eyes, you see the real them �����not the uniform.��� It is through such moments of connection, he explained, that civilians and police officers may eventually begin to see themselves in one another.

Then,��gesturing for��Nubian to accompany him on the guitar,��Wine��shared��the first lines of a song��that��was��beginning��to take��shape in his head. ���Afande,��sipigani��nawe,�����he��sang:��Officer, I��am not fighting you.��The words clearly echoed his own frustrated outburst from the previous day, yet what followed��marked��a profound shift in tone.�����Nakupigania,�����Wine went on:��I am fighting��for��you!

On Monday Wine had argued with police in a mixture of English and his native Luganda. Now, however, he��sang��in Swahili. It was a striking choice, given the fraught standing of this language among his compatriots.��Swahili, along with English,��is recognized as one of Uganda���s two official languages, and in��a country whose population counts��several dozen different mother tongues,��it��has in some areas come to play��the��role of��a basic lingua franca. Few Ugandans speak��Swahili��natively, though, and the one sector of society to use it as a dominant��means��of communication has historically been��Uganda���s��security forces����� so much so, that speakers of Luganda��sometimes refer to Swahili as��Luserikale, or the ���language of��law enforcement��officers.�����The officers in question, be they military or police,��carry��a��decades�����long��record��of��staggering��brutality against the very population they��are nominally tasked to protect.��To many Ugandans��then, Swahili��is,��first and foremost,��the language of state violence.

And that, Wine and Nubian��mused, was precisely why the song would take Swahili as its starting point. Just think, Wine urged, of all the��menacing��orders Ugandans have had hurled��at them in Swahili, ���Kaa��chini!��Toa��viatu!��Piga��huyu!��� he rattled off,��Get on the��ground! Take off your shoes! Beat that one!�����Panda��gari!��� Nubian added, laughing ruefully, ���Nipe��pesa!�����Get in the car! Give me money!��So often in Uganda, the sound of Swahili signals��impending abuse. Yet by beginning this��song in Swahili, the two musicians agreed, Wine could��take a language Ugandan��state forces��have��historically��used to inflict fear on��the population, and��re-appropriate it in a call for solidarity between civilians and law enforcement.

After tinkering to fit the words to the tune, Wine and Nubian added a Luganda translation��of the��message��in the next line.�����Afande,��sirwana��naawe,��nwanirira��ggwe,�����they sang, in Uganda���s most widely spoken language. And how would the��lyrics��sound in��Lusoga��they wondered?��Wine beckoned to someone off-screen��and the camera panned to take in��one of��his many visitors that evening,��lawyer and��fellow Member of��Parliament��Asuman��Basalirwa,��who represents the��Lusoga-speaking constituency of��Bugiri��Municipality.��Honourable��Basalirwa��obliged with a��Lusoga��translation of the statement, ���Officer, I am not fighting you, I am fighting for you,��� and��Wine and Nubian incorporated his words,��gradually��adapting them to the song���s existing meter.��They had their chorus.

Nearly giddy now with creative energy, the two rushed to dial their producer��Sir Dan Magic,��putting him on speaker phone��so as to sing him the first riffs of the song, and urging him to hurry over with his recording gear. Magic agreed��to��join them, and Wine smiled up at Nubian and��Basalirwa. ���I think that��this��will communicate to the police officers,��� he said,��moments before��the video cut out.

By��the time��the next��live stream��was posted��an hour and a half later, the gathering had moved indoors. Wine was seated at��the��dining room table, alternating between��chatting with guests��and reading aloud��from��The Autobiography of Malcolm X.��As Sir Dan Magic��set up��recording equipment��in the background, he��shifted back to his music, picking up the guitar and��reprising the lines he and Nubian had written out on the veranda.��After a��moment��he began to strum a new fragment of the song, singing along in cheerful gibberish��while the actual lyrics percolated in the back of his mind.��Wine���s��youngest��daughter��Suubi��darted��into the shot and barreled into her father with a gleeful squeal. When she��reached out to pluck at random strings of the guitar, he led her in a brief rendition of his own ���Tuliyambala��Engule,��� before returning to the song at hand.

The toddler traipsed off to bed, and��Wine started to��fill in new lyrics in Luganda.��Then, because he is conversational but not fluent in Swahili, he turned to��his friends��to crowd-source an ideal��translation into the so-called�����language of law enforcement officers.�����The lines reemerged in a meld of English and Swahili common��in��much of East Africa. ���Why��beati��mi,��na��mimi��sina��utofauti��nawe?��� Wine sang. ���Why��kicki��mi,��na��mimi��sina��shida��nawe?�����Why��beat me, when there is no difference between us? Why kick me, when I have no problem with you?

Amid discussion and banter, the��Swahili��lyrics grew.�����Kabla��ya��kuwa��afande,��unaweza��kuwa��mwananchi.��Kabla��ya��kuniumiza,��sikiliza��maneno��yangu,�����Wine eventually added.��Before being an officer, you could be a citizen. Before injuring me, you could listen to my words.��Later, with grammatical corrections from Sir Dan Magic, he went on, ���Shida��ziko��kwangu��pia��nazo��ziko��kwako.�����The problems I face are the same��ones��you face.

In the third��and final video of the evening,��as he was beginning to record��the song,��Wine��asked Magic to teach him��to say,�����Officer,��I am not fighting you, I am fighting for you,��� in one more language.��Magic,��who hails��from��Uganda���s��Lango��sub-region����� far from Kampala, north of the Nile �����obliged. ���Afande,��pe��atye��alweny��kedi,�����he dictated��in a variant of��Luo��understood��by numerous groups in his part of the country, ���atye��alweny��pidi!�����Wine stumbled over the unfamiliar words, yet in the��live stream���s��comments section, fans from��Uganda���s��oft-marginalized northern��districts��rejoiced all the same, elated to see a��Luganda-speaker��singing in one of the languages of their home region.

In��a��nation��long plagued by ethnic tensions Museveni has��perversely, time and again,��capitalized��on��tribal divisions��while simultaneously��using accusations of tribalism to undermine��his��political opponents. Yet Wine��asserts��that��Uganda���s youth, who form over 80% of the population, are ready to move past ethnic divides and work together to tackle��systemic injustices.��Last Tuesday evening, it was hard not to read his Facebook live stream as a metaphor for this vision.��Here was a group of��friends��representing��diverse linguistic backgrounds and far-flung parts of Uganda, coming��together��in��song.��They sang in English and Luganda, languages familiar to all of them; they sang in their own mother tongues; and they sang in a language none of them was entirely comfortable with, but whose political and historical weight all of them understood. All to convey a message��to the men and women of one of their��nation���s��most feared institutions:��to remind them��that the abuses of the country���s dictatorial government affect��all��Ugandans,��and to convince them that civilians and law enforcement have the power to stand��together��and face such injustices as allies.

People Power, Wine reflected toward the end of the last live stream of the evening,��has never been opposed to��the members of��Uganda���s police and military. The movement has always��seen them as compatriots and sought to include them in the struggle for democracy. For the most��part, however, police officers and military personnel have turned a deaf ear to Wine���s previous statements on this issue. Perhaps, Wine��observed, it was��time to reach out to them in a different��manner. ���Maybe when we tell them in words and they don���t understand,��� he��said,�����we��[should��instead]��try to sing.���

Two days later,��still under house arrest,��Wine��released��the final cut of�����Afande�����along with a��moving��music��video��(fully subtitled in English) that merged��shots of him singing while detained inside his home��with��footage of prominent opposition��figures confronting police��at protests and rallies all over the country.��Within hours, the song was��banned��from Ugandan radio for its ���controversial and political��� subject matter. Yet the video��began circulating on WhatsApp��almost instantly, was��soon��shared thousands of times on Twitter and Facebook, and��rapidly��racked up��hundreds of thousands of��views on YouTube.

As��the��writer��Michael��Mutyaba��has��demonstrated, control of��the country���s��security forces��is a key element��of Yoweri Museveni���s��ever more tenuous grasp on��power. While��the recent��political upheavals in Sudan��cannot yet be read as an ideal roadmap to democratic revolution, they must nevertheless be keeping��Uganda���s embattled president��awake��at night. If nothing else, events to the north��serve as a potent reminder��of what can become of a dictator who loses the loyalty of his military and police.

By setting out to convince Ugandan security personnel that they belong alongside their civilian compatriots in the country���s political struggles,��Bobi��Wine struck at the very heart of Museveni���s rule.��A few days later, the regime struck back.

On Monday, April 29nd,��Wine left his house to answer a formal summons for a statement on the events of last week. As he traveled to the headquarters of the Criminal Investigations Directorate, Wine was once again��apprehended by police. This time,��there would be no return to the relative safety of his home.

After a brief detention at��Naggalama��police post, Wine was brought before a judge and��charged with unlawful assembly����� not for his attempted concert last��Monday��(which at any rate had received official clearance from police), but for a protest he led in July of 2018. He was immediately��remanded to Luzira Maximum Security Prison��ahead of a��bail hearing��on May 2nd.��The message was clear. If blocking his concerts��did not deprive him of a political platform, the regime would��seek out��a new way��to cut��Bobi��Wine off from his audience.

Yet Museveni appears to have��underestimated the reach of the singer���s voice.��Mere��hours��after��his arrest,��politicians,��civil society leaders, and��former heads of state��from��around the world were calling for Wine���s release.��Within Uganda, protests��soon��broke out��in��multiple��cities.��Meanwhile, family and friends��reported��that inside the walls of Luzira itself,��the prison���s 4,000 inmates responded to Wine���s arrival with such overwhelming enthusiasm that guards��felt compelled to isolate the singer-parliamentarian in an effort to restore calm to the facility.��Undeterred, the prisoners continued their celebrations��throughout the following days, singing Wine���s songs loudly enough that he could hear them from his segregated cell.

Apparently frantic to��gain��control��over��the narrative,��the government��lashed out at media, suspending��39 journalists from 13 television and radio stations��for their coverage of the events that had unfolded since Easter Monday.��So great was the regime���s fear of��the��outpouring of support��Wine might receive if they transported��him��from Luzira to��his court hearing in Kampala, that��on May 2nd��Bobi Wine became the first defendant in Ugandan history to attend his bail proceedings��via a video conference.

Deliberations lasted more than four hours��but Wine was ultimately��granted bail, with an order to return to court on May 23rd��and refrain from any ���unlawful assembly��� in the��meantime. As the ruling came down,��the crowd assembled in the courtroom erupted into��the��opening lines of��Wine���s New Year���s hit,�����Tuliyambala��Engule.�����The song soon��spread to the streets, as well.

Far from finding a convenient pretext on which to quietly put his opponent behind bars��Museveni��seems instead to have rallied Wine���s supporters both at home and abroad.��As the action on Uganda���s political stage intensifies,��the President��may yet come to regret his��efforts��to silence the pop star.

Drawing the wrong lessons from Magufuli’s rule in Tanzania

The Tanzania government's brand of heavy-handed state intervention risks fueling skepticism about the role of the state in development.





World Bank President Jim Yong Kim meets with President John Magufuli of Tanzania. Image credit Sarah Farhat for the World Bank via Flickr (CC).

In recent weeks, Tanzania��has��(again)��featured prominently��in��the international business press,��and not in the most flattering light.

The Financial Times,��Bloomberg��and others��reported��the move by President��John��Magufuli���s��government to��block��the International Monetary Fund��(IMF)��from releasing a report critical��of government���s economic management.��The report��took aim��at ���unpredictable and interventionist policies that worsen the investment climate and could lead to meagre growth.�����Now��leaked online,��the report��projects��4-5 percent growth should the government stay its current course. That is down��from a decade-long trend of over 6 percent��growth��and well under the government���s projected 7 percent. Critical observers in Tanzania were quick to��lament��that the lower growth rate, amidst an ongoing population boom, ���is tragic for a very poor country like ours!���

This��furore came hard on the heels of another��controversy:��Parliament���s decision���at the behest of the Speaker���to suspend work with Tanzania���s��Comptroller and��Auditor General��(CAG).��The CAG had just released a��report��of his own raising serious questions about both government economic management and accountability.

Certainly, much has changed since President��Magufuli��took office in 2015.

The ���Bulldozer,��� as he is known,��came in��promising��an industrialized ���Tanzania of factories,�����declared a��war on corruption and exploitation by investors, launched a host of new infrastructure projects, and��adopted a generally��more statist policy orientation.

This change was initially��celebrated. It marked an apparent break with the status quo under��Magufuli���s��predecessor,��Jakaya��Kikwete, whose administration was criticized for its corruption and seeming lack of policy direction.��Magufuli���s��ambition also appeared in line with a general shift in ideas about development, both in Tanzania and further afield. For at least a decade, the neoliberal economic consensus of the 1980s and 1990s had been eroding, giving way to a renewed appreciation for the role of state intervention and particularly of active industrial policy in driving economic transformation.

The now��waning��enthusiasm for��Magufuli���s��approach is doubtlessly well justified. Tanzania���s economy is suffering, and the country has also taken a sharp��authoritarian��turn��under his watch.

There is, however, a danger��that we draw the wrong lessons from the��Magufuli��experience.��The government���s particular brand of heavy-handed state intervention risks fueling a general skepticism about the role of the state in development. As noted, the space to reconsider the value of statist policies reopened only recently. It would be hugely counterproductive to see it��close back down, returning us to what Malawian economist��Thandika��Mkandawire��has��denounced��as the ���Manichean discourse��� of state versus market.

What we need instead is to��analyze what��ideas��are driving the��Magufuli��government���s economic approach, the criticisms, and what an alternative might look like. Is that alternative a return to straightforward ���market principles,��� as the IMF report suggests?��Or��is it about��taking a cue from��Mkandawire��and imagining��something different?��That something could involve continued experimentation with industrial policy. It could also go��further, though, and embed��what has proved a highly unequal, inefficient and often exploitative��market economy in more democratic forms of ownership and control.

As��Tanzania���s founding President��Julius��Nyerere��once said,��we need��to keep��searching, to keep�����groping forward�����until we find a�����new synthesis,��� one that is more democratic and redistributive.

Paradigm shifts in African development

Before��delving into��the��Tanzanian��case,��it is worth reflecting��more��on what is at stake, on why we should��resist��returning to��the old ���Manichean discourse��� about African development.

Since at least the 1980s, much of the discourse, especially non-African writing about African political economy, tended to downplay the significance of ideas in shaping policy. Rather, politics and the management of state resources were supposedly governed by venal interests.

Political scientist��Nicolas van��de��Walle��wrote in his influential 2001 book,��African Economies and the Politics of Permanent Crisis:�����The absence of a developmental project is [due to] the lack of discipline, vision, and patriotism of a ruling elite that has always viewed its own material enrichment as the primary objective of political power��� (124).

Van de��Walle��conceded there was��occasional�����meaningful intellectual debate about policy,�����but he maintained��this��had a damaging statist bias, which was itself ���politically expedient��� (128 & 137-141).

This��cynicism about the motivations of African politicians and the disregard for statist ideology��was��in line with��mainstream (western) economic thinking on Africa��from the 1980s through to the 2000s, championed notably by the IMF and World Bank.

Over that time,��an��anti-statist,�����Washington Consensus�����also captured much of the African political elite. This further limited��prospects for meaningful intellectual debate, albeit not for the reasons van de��Walle��cites. Commenting on the apparent lack of ideological difference between Nigeria���s two main parties ahead of the recent elections, political analyst��Sa���eed��Husaini��concludes��that the convergence was in fact a sign of the ���depth of ideology,��� elaborating:�����A single vision of how society should be ordered is so dominant that it sways members of the political elite on both sides of the supposed divide.���

This ideological hegemony has always had its challengers, though, however marginalized.

The above-mentioned��Mkandawire, a long-standing critic of van de��Walle��(who responded in kind),��was among the prominent African intellectuals to��observe��that the statist development projects of some African governments did, in fact, succeed, at least until��the 1980s when��that success was��wiped away��amidst the debt crisis and externally imposed Structural Adjustment reforms.

It was not until the 2010s, however, that a serious conversation about the potential for more statist interventions returned to Africa, and even then, somewhat hesitantly. In 2016, Carlos Lopes of the UN Economic Commission for Africa��commented��in an interview:

[African] states need to get involved. The terms ���developmental state��� or ���interventionist state��� might be unpopular, but that is exactly what is required for African countries to lift themselves out of poverty, to achieve the kind of economic development required to tangibly improve the lives of hundreds of millions of African citizens.

Meanwhile, as economist Grieve��Chelwa��noted, the IMF issued its own ���half-hearted�����mea��culpa, a conservative apology for past misguided policy prescriptions.

More recently, the IMF��published��a����with the tantalizing title, ���The Return of the Policy that Shall Not Be Named: Principles of Industrial Policy.�����Although seemingly��an embrace of��erstwhile��economic��heterodoxy,��IMF Working Papers ���do not��necessarily��represent the views of the IMF, its Executive Board, or IMF management.��� Indeed, as��discussed below, the message in this working paper differs significantly from the prescriptions contained in the IMF���s recent��unreleased��report��on��Tanzania.

We remain in a period of ideological flux.��The idea of an African developmental state is now back on the table. But we are far from a new consensus. External pressures, and the��threat��of a��fresh��sovereign debt crisis, could easily undermine any further talk of statist intervention. The misguided policies of some governments could also feed an old narrative of African state dysfunction and political venality.

The last point is a major reason why, turning to��Tanzania, we need��to take a closer look at��Magufuli���s��government and its performance.��Again, have some interventions worked? What has gone wrong? And where do we go from here?

The��Magufuli��way

Magufuli���s��government has��taken measures that��discipline��and constrain��private sector��expansion while��seemingly��empowering the state��as a major driver of development.��A thoroughgoing review of these economic interventions is beyond the scope of this article, but I nevertheless sketch the general picture.

Regarding the private sector, Magufuli���s government has, in no particular order:��launched an��anti-corruption campaign, targeting��both��private businesses and the public sector;��increased��taxes and��ramped up enforcement; introduced new and more stringent regulations, for instance, in Tanzania���s lucrative��extractive industry;��imposed a range of��new import and export bans; cut public sector salaries, indirectly limiting private sector activity; moved government accounts from commercial banks to the Bank of Tanzania, which reduced��private��bank liquidity and lending capacity;��expropriated��privately-held land��where investors allegedly failed to develop it; and more.

The flip-side of these interventions has been more direct investment and management by state entities. The government has relied on a mix of��pension funds, state-owned banks like the Tanzania Agricultural Development Bank (TADB), and its own��procurement budget to redirect��the flow of credit,��turning��parastatals and military-owned enterprises��into privileged beneficiaries.��The government��has also intervened to��direct��private banks to participate in selected projects.��It��has��thus��empowered the State to take over from the private sector, for instance: using TADB and the military to��buy up��last year���s��entire cashew crop, thereby displacing ���middlemen��� traders; directing the��Tanzania Building Agency��and military-owned����conglomerate Suma-JKT��to��carry out��major construction projects; directing state-owned Posta Bank to��take over��from privately-owned Forex bureaus, and this after��confiscating��the bureaus�����assets; investing in��sugar,��palm oil��and��cashew processing��through the prison service and military;��using Tanzania Shipping Agency Corporation to��take over��from private operators,��which were��given less than a week���s notice,��to manage��the import and export of mineral goods;��edging out��private competitors while investing heavily in state-owned��Air Tanzania Company Ltd (ATCL); among other interventions.

There are��some��signs��of a��rebalancing��to favor private sector actors; however, as the Executive Director of the Tanzania Private Sector Foundation��commented, ���It has reached a point where the government feels happy to do business with itself instead of with the private sector.���

Where did this statist emphasis come from?

I have discussed the��politics��driving��Magufuli���s��statist turn��elsewhere, but that��alone��does not explain��its��intellectual��origins.

As mentioned,��Magufuli��took office amidst��the ongoing international re-valuation of the ���developmental state.��� There was also��ample reason to break from the status quo��in Tanzania. Under President��Kikwete��(2005-2015), what��predominated��was a ���type of primitive accumulation association with corruption in public finance,��� which ���mainly led to unequal processes of individual enrichment.��� Meanwhile, Tanzania���s poverty rate��flatlined��at around 50 percent of the population during the��Kikwete��years. Despite��GDP growth��of��seven and even eight percent, there was no��economic transformation for��Tanzania���s poor.

A minister for 20 years before becoming President,��Magufuli��also had time to develop his own��distinct��perspective. While still minister, he was caught on video��complaining��about investors ���stealing��� the country���s mineral wealth. He declared should he ever be president, investors would ���farm with their teeth,��� presumably meaning they would have to work for their profits.��Magufuli��has since��delivered��on that promise.

He has also repeatedly affirmed his belief in the efficiency and cost-cutting benefits of working through parastatals and, even more, the military. He was recently quoted��saying, ���In times of peace, with no war, we must use our military to improve infrastructure because the cost is low, yet if money goes there [to the military], it will help people.��� He added that, in favoring the military, procurement laws could be disregarded using the ���emergency��� loophole. His interpretation of ���emergency��� is apparently very broad. ���Even if you want to build a maize processing factory, call it an emergency,�����Magufuli��advised, ���If you want to build a road, call it an emergency.���

Finally,��Magufuli��is routinely labeled a ���populist��� because of his claims to fight against the corrupt and for��wanyonge��(the exploited, the down-trodden). In a characteristic statement, he��affirmed, ���We have decided to bring a new Tanzania that defends the people especially the poor so they can take part in development.���

Criticism and its discontents

There is much to criticize about the performance of��Magufuli���s��government and its statist interventions. But there are also many ways we can get this criticism wrong,��recommending��alternatives that have little to offer Tanzania apart from the same persistently high poverty rate.

Among the legitimate criticisms, there is the mainstream concern articulated in the��unreleased��IMF report that��Magufuli���s��erratic policy-making has depressed economic activity, contributing to the recent slow-down in growth.��Moreover,��the private sector squeeze does not discriminate between��large operators with potentially dubious��dealings��and a range of small business owners and vendors, who are��protesting��government policy decisions.

Erratic��may��also��be��a euphemism��amidst what��seem like��frankly rogue operations, notably in��the earlier referenced case of Tanzania���s forex bureaus.

This gets at a broader issue: lack of accountability and unlawful government activity. For instance, the recent CAG��report��notes��a��spike in the total volume of procurement being conducted without following��due��procedure.

Much of the heterodox economics��literature suggests we should��perhaps be more relaxed about poor accountability; the idea is that a degree of ���rent-seeking��� has been a central, perhaps a necessary, feature of the world���s most successful developmental states.

What is less easy to swallow, though,��are specific cases like��the government���s��decision to��shift management of��the hugely expanded budget for Air Tanzania Company Ltd (ATCL)��to��the President���s Office, which��is not audited by the CAG and can therefore, some��fear, conceal corrupt activity.��Many��observers were critical of the investment in��ATCL��from the start,��deeming it wasteful even as��Magufuli��insisted��that to not have an airline would be a national ���shame.���

There are, more generally, notable shortcomings in economic planning and industrial strategy under��Magufuli. The government���s enthusiasm for investing in mega-projects with��uncertain returns��is one concern. Another is an industrial policy that does��more to��undermine��than��to��help target sectors, although there have been some��apparent successes.

With the accumulation of mistakes and poor investments, the sustainability of the government���s current policy orientation is in doubt. Flagging growth and stagnant revenue collection is a��problem.��The state of Tanzania���s��pension funds and development banks��is another. As documented in the CAG report, these institutions��have large unpaid debts��owed��them by government��and��are��running��at a loss, and this��even as��they continue��to finance��government���s��flagship initiatives.

While there are more legitimate criticisms I could��list, one final one deserves a mention here: Magufuli���s authoritarianism. Far from an asset��for development, as sometimes claimed, efforts to centralize power and decision-making have��in this case��contributed to policy confusion and slow implementation. Controversial legislation like the Statistics Act is also��undermining access to accurate information about the economy, necessary for effective planning. And that is leaving aside the obvious normative case against authoritarianism.

If the above��points��are well-founded, though, how can we get our criticism of��Magufuli��wrong?

The blocked IMF report offers an important illustration.

It��revives the old market versus��state narrative��all while��indulging in excessive praise of what preceded��Magufuli. ���For more than a decade since the early 2000s,��� it affirms, ���Tanzania has followed policies that improved competition and fostered growth.��� Reading this, remember that��poverty levels barely declined��over the 2000s even if growth was high.

The report goes on, ���More recently, hurried policies that depart��from��best principles and interfere with markets have cast a cloud over future policies and economic prospects, highlighting the need to preserve market mechanisms [���].���

These conclusions risk throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. While��there have been major weaknesses in the��design��of industrial policy under��Magufuli, this��is��not��a case for disregarding state intervention in general. Simply returning to ���market principles������that is, to status quo ante���would likely mean, yes, a return to higher growth rates but the same grinding poverty for millions.

Take the��example��of the cashew nut sector. Magufuli���s decision to buy up the entire crop using the (it transpires) highly ill-prepared military was disastrous. But the��historical record��suggests��that��it is also highly unrealistic to expect��the IMF���s prescribed ���market mechanisms�����to expand the cashew processing��industry, improve productivity��and ensure better returns for small farmers��and workers, often exploited in a sector ridden with corrupt trading cartels.

A well calibrated industrial policy��with substantial investment in processing,��though,��could��be��an important step forward.��Once upon a time, Tanzania did have a relatively strong agro-processing sector. That was before the de-industrialization that came along with structural adjustment and privatization.

Imagining an alternative

Ultimately,��leaving aside��criticism of the��Magufuli government, we need an idea of what new development path Tanzania could explore. This means thinking beyond simple dichotomies of past versus present or state versus market.

What��then might��that path look like?��I am obviously in no position to answer that question here, but there are a few ideas worth raising.

As already implied, industrial policy���but��better��industrial policy���is��part of the answer. The��earlier-referenced��IMF����on industrial��policy��argues that�����a standard growth recipe such as improving the business environment [���], preserving macro-stability, and minimizing government intervention������precisely the recipe��outlined��in the recent IMF report on Tanzania���constitutes a ���snail crawl��� approach to development. By contrast, a ���moonshot��approach�����calls for a strong commitment to industrial policy.��This commitment��may not��always��achieve the��desired��transformation, but where there have been successes, such as the Asian ���miracles,��� these were the result of an all-out, state-orchestrated effort.

Is industrial policy enough, though?

For one, we may wonder when this hoped-for ���moonshot��� is likely to occur. Two, there is a weakness in the industrial policy literature as it currently stands. This work anticipates that industrial expansion and improved productivity, the much-vaunted economic transformation, will ultimately raise the living standards for a large majority of the population. There is thus relatively little direct attention paid to issues of labor and inequality. Yet the expected improvements in living standards take time to materialize, and this even as economic transition is itself a painful, socially dislocating process. At the very least, the persistent poverty and insufficient wages paid to industrial workers in arguably Africa���s most successful ���developmental state,��� Ethiopia,��should give us pause.

One��way to address these concerns��is to��shift��focus, to consider��not��just��how to achieve��economic change and growth but��how to reshape��patterns of ownership as well. The best elements of Tanzania���s own history and socialist intellectual tradition provide important insights here.

In his 1962 essay,��Ujamaa��or African Socialism, Tanzania���s nationalist leader and founding president, Julius��Nyerere,��wrote: ���The basic difference between a socialist society and a capitalist society does not lie in their methods of producing wealth, but in the way that wealth is distributed.��� In the absence of an industrial economy, this idea was the basis for advocating a form of agrarian socialism based around��Ujamaa��villages, which��Nyerere��initially��stipulated��should be ���socialist organizations created by the people and governed by those who lived and work in them.���

The most successful early villages, such as those belonging to the��Ruvuma Development Association, took inspiration from this message.��But over time, what historian Leander Schneider��refers��to as a ���lower-case socialism,��� which ���had room for flexibility, dispersed authority and players other than the state,��� was ���replaced by upper-case Socialism��� of a centralized and authoritarian bent.

Experiments with lower-case socialism have continued, though. We have present day examples, including��farmer networks��organizing to protect the land and livelihood of smallholders;��unionized bus drivers��denouncing��exploitative commercial bus companies and mobilizing to form��worker-owned��bus��cooperatives;��and small street vendors��devising��new, collective strategies to lend money amongst themselves.

These initiatives are, admittedly, marginal to the wider Tanzanian economy. But��with more state support,��there is scope to encourage��collective,��democratic ownership on a larger��scale. While imperfect, the record of Africa���s��cooperative sector��does offer inspiration, and could be nurtured.��In their heyday,��before they were��briefly abolished��in a moment of authoritarian folly,��Tanzania���s own cooperatives contributed to poverty reduction��and industrial expansion. Cooperatives aside, more democratic and accountable forms of public ownership could also play a role, as could��reforms to��land ownership��and��agricultural production.��Redistributive measures implemented through the delivery of improved services���something��Magufuli���s��government has invested in but with��uncertain��results���are another important consideration.

Some of Tanzania���s political elite are already exploring these ideas. In a speech delivered to mark the 50th��anniversary of��Nyerere���s��1967��Arusha Declaration, left-leaning opposition politician, Zitto Kabwe denounced existing forms of ���State Capitalism,��� advocating instead a form of�����Democratic Socialism.�����This would be a system where ���many people own parts of��the economy through their cooperative unions and associations��� and where state-owned enterprises are more accountable to their workers and the people at large.

Tanzania���s current political environment���under President��Magufuli���s��increasingly authoritarian government���does not offer fertile ground for these ideas to become reality. But as discussed earlier, neither is it proving especially hospitable to ���market mechanisms��� or effective industrial policy.

Meanwhile, ideas��must be cultivated, and this in preparation for the moment when there is a political opportunity to see them through.

A few short years before Tanzania���s independence, Nyerere��encouraged precisely this kind of imaginative exercise. As mentioned above, he proclaimed:

There is a need for a new synthesis… We do not know exactly what that will be, [but] we shall grope forward, and it may be that we shall create a new synthesis of individual liberty and the needs of man in society.

The fighters

Are the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) of Julius Malema primed for the greatest gains in South Africa���s May 8th national and provincial elections?





EFF leader, Julius Malema, speaks during a parliamentary debate in February 2018, while President Cyril Ramaphosa listens. Image GCIS via Flickr CC.

The South African national and provincial elections taking place on 8 May 2019, are set to be the most contentious in the country���s 25 years of democracy. The ruling African National Congress (ANC) under President Cyril Ramaphosa seeks to reverse the decline in public confidence and popularity that they saw amid the corruption and state capture that marked the presidency of Jacob Zuma before he stepped down in February 2018. Many new parties aim to exploit the rift between the ANC and some voters, with 48 parties competing in the elections compared to 29 in 2014. This includes new parties seeking to attract disaffected voters from the ANC���s important base in black townships. While some such as Black Land First appear to lack sufficient political structures to marshal a significant number of votes across the country, the Socialist Revolutionary Worker���s Party, started by the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa, looks to make an impact with its foundation of 370,000 union members and additional support from some in the two-year-old South African Federation of Trade Unions (that broke away from the ANC-aligned COSATU) and community organizations aligned with the United Front (an umbrella front of left social movements). Still, the SRWC is unlikely to win more than a handful of seats in the national and provincial legislatures.

Instead, the party primed for the greatest gains this election is the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) led by its Commander-in-Chief (CIC) Julius Malema, which is contesting its third set of elections after recording 6.4% in the 2014 National elections and 8.3% in the 2016 Municipal elections. It will almost assuredly surpass these results and is likely to reach double digits and play a ���kingmaker��� role in Gauteng where no party is expected to win an outright majority, as well as in the North West, Northern Cape, and Western Cape provinces where hung legislatures are a distinct possibility.

Polls indicate the EFF will equal the 11.4% vote share it received in Gauteng in 2016, while recent by-elections in North West and Limpopo suggest that they may be able to increase their tally in strongholds in those provinces where they received 15.5% and 16.7% respectively. While municipal and by-election results are not necessarily accurate predictors of voting intentions for the upcoming national elections, they are an indication of the momentum and visibility of the party in certain areas of those provinces.

At the national level, the party���s ability to reach the 10-12% range may hinge on its ability to grow in KwaZulu-Natal, where one fifth of the country���s voting population resides. After the party received a paltry 3.5% of the vote in 2016, they have invested in building stronger branch, regional, and provincial structures which were severely lacking during that election campaign. These organizational structures are essential to providing transportation and other resources at the grassroots level to register voters and bring them to the polls on election day. Adding to their impressive victories in Student Representative Council elections at universities across the country, they have also rapidly increased their presence in the province by controlling the SRCs at the Durban University of Technology (DUT), University of Zululand, Mangosuthu University of Technology, the UKZN Westville campus, and the Inanda campus of Elangeni College. These victories would have been inconceivable in 2016 and bolstered the numbers of the EFF supporters attending rallies in Durban during the current election campaign. These included Malema���s visits to Umlazi and KwaMashu townships in Durban as well as a well-attended speech by Malema at DUT, which had been a stronghold of the ANC-aligned student organization SASCO. The poor showing of the EFF in KZN in 2016 leaves significant room for growth, and the party has performed well in by-elections in 2019 where it saw significant growth in specific wards such as eThekwini ward 91 where they jumped from 1.6% to 18.4% and Newcastle ward 22 where their votes grew from 12.6% to 20.7%. These may be exceptional cases, but a reasonable province-wide increase to 7.0% for the party could give them 5 additional seats in the national legislature and help push them above 10% of the national vote.

This strengthened position in the national and provincial legislatures would come despite the EFF having its share of controversies over the past year, when an investigation found that that the EFF benefitted to the tune of R1.8 million from the VBS Mutual Bank heist, with an additional R430,000 being diverted to a luxury property where Malema himself had stayed. Two former EFF MPs have also accused Malema of misusing party resources, with one accusing him of spending the R427,000 in monthly levies taken from MPs and MPLs to throw parties for senior members, while deployed party members were forced to use their own resources for food and travel expenses to cover party duties. Nonetheless, the party has doubled down on portraying Malema as a man of the people, with election signs and billboards bearing his face and proclaiming him a ���Son of the Soil.���

Malema���s aggressive focus on black voters and criticism of the privileges of other racial groups (and ANC politicians such as Pravin Gordhan and Treasury Deputy Director Ishmael Monmoniat) has led to accusations of hate speech towards whites and Indians, although at other times he has said that Indians would be considered ���black��� if they allied with the cause of the party. There have also been instances of physical violence by high-ranking party members captured on video, with EFF Deputy President Floyd Shivambu assaulting a reporter and KZN���s leading MP Marshall Dlamini slapping a plain-clothes police officer after the 2019 State of the Nation Address. These instances of ���bad manners��� appear to be part and parcel of the EFF���s populist posturing, leading some commentators and rival politicians to accuse the EFF of being a fascist political party.

These controversies have alienated many voters but have not dampened the enthusiasm for the EFF among its base of black township voters. This depiction of the party as one of ���political thugs��� is at odds with another popular narrative of the party as one led by politicians that have demonstrated the importance of education, with National Spokesperson Mbuyuseni Ndlozi receiving a PhD and Malema pursuing a Master���s degree. The EFF has also been the most vocal party condemning xenophobic violence in South Africa (consistent with its Pan-Africanist ideology), criticizing the March 2019 attacks on foreign nationals in Durban and leading Malema to proclaim that ���Africa is a country.��� These divergent narratives have polarized public opinion of the EFF. Coming into the 2019 elections the EFF has the second-most favorable views among South Africa at 34.6%, behind the ANC at 59.9% but ahead of the official opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) at 28.0%. Showing the divisiveness of the EFF, the party still had the greatest negative views among the population at 38.6%.

The ceiling for the EFF���s support in 2019 and future elections will be defined by its ability to draw voters from outside its base of young male urban voters. The EFF has been able to capture the youth with a greater sense of identity it provides, but this is an electoral liability due to the low numbers of young people registering to vote. The party has worked hard to expand its appeal across age groups, but it is hamstrung by the tendency of older black voters (and recipients of government benefits) to remain loyal to the ruling ANC and its liberation credentials. It has shown some ability to draw rural voters in the mining belt in North West and Limpopo provinces, where its programmatic support of mineworkers has given it some traction. Further development of branch and regional structures in these regions will continue to benefit the party���s ability to maintain a visible presence in these and other rural areas across the other provinces.

On issues of gender the EFF has shown many contradictions in the way it integrates women into the party. Malema himself has admitted that his party had trouble attracting female voters, although he appeared to blame them by saying his party was ���trying to learn as to what is the problem with the female voter when it comes to the EFF.��� Malema also claimed that women do have power in the upper structures of the party, citing Gauteng Chairperson Mandisa Mashego and Deputy Secretary General Hlengiwe Mkhaliphi. Rhetorically the party has been attuned to the particular struggles of women in South Africa, exemplified by the EFF Women���s March against gender-based violence in April 2019 where it showed its ability to attract thousands of female EFF activists. Women have also been at the forefront of political organizing for the party, especially ��in ward and student branches, with the Wonderkop branch of the party showing the potential for women to play a leading role in driving the EFF���s electoral fortunes.�� Young women have put in the leg-work to spread the messages of the party during rallies and door-to-door campaigning, where they frequently outnumber their male counterparts. In terms of policy, the party has adopted a ���zebra approach��� to the party���s structures and parliamentary lists to ensure that women have equal representation. Nonetheless, there have been accusations from within the party that a toxic masculinity permeates the organization, and many female members have complained that men monopolize much of the space of the party, and that accusations of sexual violence against some male leaders has not impeded their ability to hold leadership positions within the party.

Almost 6 years after its formation, the EFF is still a party of contradictions. It has involved itself in incidents of violence yet has stood against xenophobic attacks, promoted gender parity and activism but silenced some women within the organization, and fought against ANC corruption amidst its own scandals. These contradictions are embodied in the leadership of Julius Malema, who has attempted to transform his public persona from an aggressively masculine political agitator with a lavish lifestyle to an educated ���man of the people��� seeking to promote gender-equity and lead the fight against government corruption. In a party where power is heavily centralized in his leadership the genuineness of his personal transformation will help to determine the role the EFF will play in South African politics after the May 8th elections, in which its representation and bargaining power is set to increase across the National and Provincial legislatures.

The Fighters

Are the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) of Julius Malema primed for the greatest gains in South Africa���s May 8th national and provincial elections?





EFF leader, Julius Malema, speaks during a parliamentary debate in February 2018, while President Cyril Ramaphosa listens. Image GCIS via Flickr CC.

The South African national and provincial elections taking place on 8 May 2019, are set to be the most contentious in the country���s 25 years of democracy. The ruling African National Congress (ANC) under President Cyril Ramaphosa seeks to reverse the decline in public confidence and popularity that they saw amid the corruption and state capture that marked the presidency of Jacob Zuma before he stepped down in February 2018. Many new parties aim to exploit the rift between the ANC and some voters, with 48 parties competing in the elections compared to 29 in 2014. This includes new parties seeking to attract disaffected voters from the ANC���s important base in black townships. While some such as Black Land First appear to lack sufficient political structures to marshal a significant number of votes across the country, the Socialist Revolutionary Worker���s Party, started by the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa, looks to make an impact with its foundation of 370,000 union members and additional support from some in the two-year-old South African Federation of Trade Unions (that broke away from the ANC-aligned COSATU) and community organizations aligned with the United Front (an umbrella front of left social movements). Still, the SRWC is unlikely to win more than a handful of seats in the national and provincial legislatures.

Instead, the party primed for the greatest gains this election is the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) led by its Commander-in-Chief (CIC) Julius Malema, which is contesting its third set of elections after recording 6.4% in the 2014 National elections and 8.3% in the 2016 Municipal elections. It will almost assuredly surpass these results and is likely to reach double digits and play a ���kingmaker��� role in Gauteng where no party is expected to win an outright majority, as well as in the North West, Northern Cape, and Western Cape provinces where hung legislatures are a distinct possibility.

Polls indicate the EFF will equal the 11.4% vote share it received in Gauteng in 2016, while recent by-elections in North West and Limpopo suggest that they may be able to increase their tally in strongholds in those provinces where they received 15.5% and 16.7% respectively. While municipal and by-election results are not necessarily accurate predictors of voting intentions for the upcoming national elections, they are an indication of the momentum and visibility of the party in certain areas of those provinces.

At the national level, the party���s ability to reach the 10-12% range may hinge on its ability to grow in KwaZulu-Natal, where one fifth of the country���s voting population resides. After the party received a paltry 3.5% of the vote in 2016, they have invested in building stronger branch, regional, and provincial structures which were severely lacking during that election campaign. These organizational structures are essential to providing transportation and other resources at the grassroots level to register voters and bring them to the polls on election day. Adding to their impressive victories in Student Representative Council elections at universities across the country, they have also rapidly increased their presence in the province by controlling the SRCs at the Durban University of Technology (DUT), University of Zululand, Mangosuthu University of Technology, the UKZN Westville campus, and the Inanda campus of Elangeni College. These victories would have been inconceivable in 2016 and bolstered the numbers of the EFF supporters attending rallies in Durban during the current election campaign. These included Malema���s visits to Umlazi and KwaMashu townships in Durban as well as a well-attended speech by Malema at DUT, which had been a stronghold of the ANC-aligned student organization SASCO. The poor showing of the EFF in KZN in 2016 leaves significant room for growth, and the party has performed well in by-elections in 2019 where it saw significant growth in specific wards such as eThekwini ward 91 where they jumped from 1.6% to 18.4% and Newcastle ward 22 where their votes grew from 12.6% to 20.7%. These may be exceptional cases, but a reasonable province-wide increase to 7.0% for the party could give them 5 additional seats in the national legislature and help push them above 10% of the national vote.

This strengthened position in the national and provincial legislatures would come despite the EFF having its share of controversies over the past year, when an investigation found that that the EFF benefitted to the tune of R1.8 million from the VBS Mutual Bank heist, with an additional R430,000 being diverted to a luxury property where Malema himself had stayed. Two former EFF MPs have also accused Malema of misusing party resources, with one accusing him of spending the R427,000 in monthly levies taken from MPs and MPLs to throw parties for senior members, while deployed party members were forced to use their own resources for food and travel expenses to cover party duties. Nonetheless, the party has doubled down on portraying Malema as a man of the people, with election signs and billboards bearing his face and proclaiming him a ���Son of the Soil.���

Malema���s aggressive focus on black voters and criticism of the privileges of other racial groups (and ANC politicians such as Pravin Gordhan and Treasury Deputy Director Ishmael Monmoniat) has led to accusations of hate speech towards whites and Indians, although at other times he has said that Indians would be considered ���black��� if they allied with the cause of the party. There have also been instances of physical violence by high-ranking party members captured on video, with EFF Deputy President Floyd Shivambu assaulting a reporter and KZN���s leading MP Marshall Dlamini slapping a plain-clothes police officer after the 2019 State of the Nation Address. These instances of ���bad manners��� appear to be part and parcel of the EFF���s populist posturing, leading some commentators and rival politicians to accuse the EFF of being a fascist political party.

These controversies have alienated many voters but have not dampened the enthusiasm for the EFF among its base of black township voters. This depiction of the party as one of ���political thugs��� is at odds with another popular narrative of the party as one led by politicians that have demonstrated the importance of education, with National Spokesperson Mbuyuseni Ndlozi receiving a PhD and Malema pursuing a Master���s degree. The EFF has also been the most vocal party condemning xenophobic violence in South Africa (consistent with its Pan-Africanist ideology), criticizing the March 2019 attacks on foreign nationals in Durban and leading Malema to proclaim that ���Africa is a country.��� These divergent narratives have polarized public opinion of the EFF. Coming into the 2019 elections the EFF has the second-most favorable views among South Africa at 34.6%, behind the ANC at 59.9% but ahead of the official opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) at 28.0%. Showing the divisiveness of the EFF, the party still had the greatest negative views among the population at 38.6%.

The ceiling for the EFF���s support in 2019 and future elections will be defined by its ability to draw voters form outside its base of young male urban voters. The EFF has been able to capture the youth with a greater sense of identity it provides, but this is an electoral liability due to the low numbers of young people registering to vote. The party has worked hard to expand its appeal across age groups, but it is hamstrung by the tendency of older black voters (and recipients of government benefits) to remain loyal to the ruling ANC and its liberation credentials. It has shown some ability to draw rural voters in the mining belt in North West and Limpopo provinces, where its programmatic support of mineworkers has given it some traction. Further development of branch and regional structures in these regions will continue to benefit the party���s ability to maintain a visible presence in these and other rural areas across the other provinces.

On issues of gender the EFF has shown many contradictions in the way it integrates women into the party. Malema himself has admitted that his party had trouble attracting female voters, although he appeared to blame them by saying his party was ���trying to learn as to what is the problem with the female voter when it comes to the EFF.��� Malema also claimed that women do have power in the upper structures of the party, citing Gauteng Chairperson Mandisa Mashego and Deputy Secretary General Hlengiwe Mkhaliphi. Rhetorically the party has been attuned to the particular struggles of women in South Africa, exemplified by the EFF Women���s March against gender-based violence in April 2019 where it showed its ability to attract thousands of female EFF activists. Women have also been at the forefront of political organizing for the party, especially ��in ward and student branches, with the Wonderkop branch of the party showing the potential for women to play a leading role in driving the EFF���s electoral fortunes.�� Young women are have shown themselves to put in the leg-work to spread the messages of the party during rallies and door-to-door campaigning, where they frequently outnumber their male counterparts. In terms of policy, the party has adopted a ���zebra approach��� to the party���s structures and parliamentary lists to ensure that women have equal representation. Nonetheless, there have been accusations from within the party that a toxic masculinity permeates the organization, and many female members have complained that men monopolize much of the space of the party, and that accusations of sexual violence against some male leaders has not impeded their ability to hold leadership positions within the party.

Almost 6 years after its formation, the EFF is still a party of contradictions. It has involved itself in incidents of violence yet has stood against xenophobic attacks, promoted gender parity and activism but silenced some women within the organization, and fought against ANC corruption amidst its own scandals. These contradictions are embodied in the leadership of Julius Malema, who has attempted to transform his public persona from an aggressively masculine political agitator with a lavish lifestyle to an educated ���man of the people��� seeking to promote gender-equity and lead the fight against government corruption. In a party where power is heavily centralized in his leadership the genuineness of his personal transformation will help to determine the role the EFF will play in South African politics after the May 8th elections, in which its representation and bargaining power is set to increase across the National and Provincial legislatures.

When Achieng met Ellen

Ellen DeGeneres wanted an African story. Achieng Agutu obliged. Don���t hate the player, though, hate the game.





Still from "The Ellen Show."

Achieng Agutu lit up screens on “The Ellen Show” last week.�� She was wearing a red pantsuit which popped in a gorgeous contrast with her black shoulders.�� A large cloth adorned her head and she had a fly-girl nose-ring that was twinkling in the studio lights.�� Ellen introduced the segment on her by cutting to footage of her dancing with joyous abandon on the stage.�� Then she invited Achieng down to sit opposite her.�� Ellen faded into vanilla blandness while Achieng looked like she had just arrived at a casting call for Fenty models.�� She literally stole the show.

Ellen was grinning from ear to ear, as only Ellen can.�� Her first question was straight out of the white savor playbook.�� ���I hear that you learned English from watching my show?����� The subtext was clear:�� Ellen was thrilled to know that somewhere in a dark corner of Africa she had inspired a child to learn English.�� It is one thing to touch American hearts, but quite another to change the entire life of a poor African child.

I cocked an eyebrow as Achieng detailed how she had watched the performers on Ellen���s show and written down the lyrics as a way to learn the white man���s language.

�����Eh?���

English is the medium of instruction in Kenyan schools.�� ��Even sheng ��� the nation���s Swahili-based creole, is full of English words.�� Anyway, I ignored the red flag waving in front of me as brightly as Achieng���s jumpsuit because it���s Ellen and you only watch Ellen to smile and also, to be honest, Achieng���s exuberance was as infectious as her Ellen-inspired twang.

She didn���t come across as inauthentic, or even like she was running a hustle.�� She was clearly working multiple jobs as so many of us have done in America, and who was damn excited to be in the spotlight.�� She was also ��� undoubtedly ��� a middle class child who was busting her butt was in no way impoverished.�� In other words, she just seemed like a young woman who was adding a bit of spice to her story; some salt to her nduma.�� In general though her story seemed legit.�� I don���t doubt that it is .

The problem was of course that Ellen simply could not process Achieng without imposing a narrative on her. The notion of Achieng learning English in a cyber caf�� and the idea of her parents selling everything for her to go to school — ��these are apocryphal stories, the kind of tropes that make Africans legible to white people.�� These tales adorn us like garments. Without them, we are worse than naked; we are invisible and indescribable.�� Achieng���s socio-economic equivalent in America would never have captured Ellen���s attention.�� Achieng ��� bright, bubbly middle-class kid ��� ��found herself being cast as a plucky impoverished heroine who had overcome great odds to make it to America. ��Meanwhile check out her Instagram and its clear that Achieng is living her best life. ��She���s no elite kid but she���s certainly not the villager Ellen assumed her to be.

There was nothing egregious that transpired between Ellen and Achieng ��� no gaffes, or horrible racist moments.�� Still, as Achieng sat in the chair exuding energy and vibe, Ellen looked at her the way all of us have been looked at by adoring white women who have decided to make us the main character in their story (for a minute).�� Ellen��beamed and she gasped and she grinned and cooed over Achieng.�� �����You���re just so happy,��� she said.

Ellen was really, really feeling Achieng. She looked like she loved everything about her. ��She loved the ��idea that Achieng���s parents had sold “land” to pay for her college education. ��She loved the idea that Achieng was working five jobs and hustling her African butt off.�� It was all so cute and perfect in a made-for-television kind of way and I swear I was shedding a tear too because here was a young African who embodied everything wonderful about the American dream.�� Even me, who doesn���t even believe in the American dream – I was tearing up. ��So for Ellen it was just all too much. More than anything else it seemed like Ellen loved saying ���Kenya.���

In her excitement, Ellen lost all criticality. To be fair, being critical isn���t exactly Ellen���s strong suit.�� Still, there were unanswered questions. How could Achieng���s parents have sold everything and still be blessed enough to be supporting a village?��Did the Safari browser in the internet caf�� in Kisumu operate in Swahili or in Luo?

In the end, the facts were inconsequential. What mattered was The Story. The facts were boring, and they included the reality that Achieng is part of a growing African elite for whom a US education is not completely out of reach.�� The Story on the other hand, The Story Ellen wanted to hear about, and that Achieng played along with a little, was about a village full of playful and suffering children for whom the $50,000 Achieng and her family won, which was donated by Walmart ��(which is another story about corporate greed, predatory pricing and labour-busting practices for another day) will surely make a huge difference.

In the days following the show, Kenyan media began to investigate Achieng.�� It didn���t take long for Kenyan twitter to drag Achieng for her small-small hustle.�� I can���t say I agree with their condemnation. ��Achieng certainly put some hot pepper in her jollof, but how could she have done otherwise when Ellen was clearly looking for spice?

In the end Achieng���s smartest move was choosing to go on Ellen because we all know what would have happened if she had come telling Trevor those stories.

Arabic literature and the African other

Racist, anti-black stereotypes persist in Arabic literature. It reveals a racial anxiety and othering of Africa among celebrated Arab authors.





La Maison Conference poster.

When I first migrated to the United States, I worked as research assistant to Ali Mazrui, the late Kenyan thinker and scholar. At that point of his life, Mazrui had grown hopeless of pan-African and pan-Arab prospects, instead adopting a broad Islamic identity.

In 1992, Mazrui had a proposal: ���The French once examined their special relationship to Africa and came up with the concept EURAFRICA as a basis of special cooperation. We in turn should examine the even older special relationship between Africa and the Arab World and call it AFRABIA.���

It��was��a��radically ambitious and urgent proposal. My own research uses modern Arabic literature to look��at��race and identity in the Arab Gulf, of which the history of Afro-Arabs and eastern slavery are a big part. The project of ���Afrabia,��� as I interpret,��would allow Africans to revisit a long history of the Islamic empire in Africa, its intersecting points with colonial projects subcontracted to Arab and South-Asian masters, as well as a shared history of decolonial struggles and anti-capitalist ambitions. For Arabs, it would mean a much-needed and long-overdue revision of their history,��as well as of language and artistic expression that deal with Africa, blackness, and Afro-Arabs in reactionary, racist, and apolitical terms.

Last month in Tunisia, the newly-established La Maison du Roman held its second Annual Arabic Novel Conference. The three-day summit, urged by ���the political consciousness of the young masses across the Arab World,��� was focused on the theme of������������ ������������ ����������������(Black-skin issues).��The summit was attended by tens of Arabic novelists and critics. It was strange, to say the least, how the organizers came up with such unusual description instead of say ���black issues��� or ���Afro-Arab��issues��� but I will not claim that it comes from nowhere.

Arabs, like their western teachers, when discussing anti-black racism and black issues, seem fixated on skin color, ideals of beauty, and visual representations; in a sense they express their own racial anxiety. It is as if anti-black racism has no history, trajectory, or realities beyond the stigma assigned to it, or the rhetoric surrounding it.

When I use the term ���Afro-Arab,��� it is just my American lingua, not an actual term that Arab thinkers are trying to adopt or even consider. It is the kind of term you find in US academia but not in Arabic letters or political discussions. Even on the e-margins, young��East and North Africans have been embracing their��Africanness��in opposition to��Arabness, often citing��Arab racism and exclusionary politics as reasons to depart from that historical bond.��The current Algerian and Sudanese uprisings have offered some examples.

Tunisia conference poster.

From reports on the conference, I noticed how chaotic the discussions were in mixing up race, racism, slavery, Africa, and blackness as interchangeable. The level of language and conversations was embarrassing, to say the least. The Arab writer could not summon some of��his��imagination, accuracy or sensitivity, when using the odd and problematic label of ���black-skin issues.��� The panels and press reports talk about ���the black man���s pain��� as if it���s a literary metaphor, a pain neighboring ours, a mere human rights issue, as if we have no need to critique ourselves, challenge language, dig up history, to think toward solidarity and liberation, like we used to in the good old days.

I noticed how��often��Arab writers, including those North and East African, seem at ease when othering Africa���the bordered continent is harder for them to grasp than an imaginary ���Arab World��� made up by the French, and later appropriated by Arab��nationalism. Moreover, the wildly inaccurate treatment of black experiences and cultures as��one sum;��from Zanzibar and Lagos to Havana and Detroit.

I also register,��on this occasion,��but also within Arabic literature and political thought, that the Arab-Afro encounter seems more connected to the Americas and France, than to Africa itself. The translations, references, and intertextual conversations, even by black Arabs, look toward Aime C��saire, Frantz Fanon, as well as African-American literature, and the civil rights era.

When interviewed on TV while at the conference, the Sudanese-Egyptian writer Tarik al-Tayeb said ���we��still deal with blacks in stereotypical ways, especially in film,��they��are always presented and associated with certain jobs,�����meaning��roles of servitude. It struck me how a black Arab writer chose the��we��and��they��in this sentence, or perhaps there is a small��we��within a bigger��we��in here. This is noteworthy considering the good number of black writers��in attendance, including Salwa Bakr (Egypt),��Hammor��Ziada and��Mansor��al-Suwayim��(Sudan), Haji Jabir (Eritrea), and Mahmoud��Traouri��(Saudi Arabia).

Their interventions did not seem centric, their language did not diverge from the overall rhetoric of the conference, and none of them was chosen to be the keynote speaker.��Rather, the keynote was delivered��by��the 70-year-old Elias Khoury of Lebanon. Khoury stated ���slavery did not end because we are all slaves to oppression,��� a dangerous and foolish statement��that��assumes distance from anti-black racism and eastern slavery, equating all struggles alike. The director of La Maison du Roman,��the Tunisian writer Kamal��Riahi,��also reproduced the same logic when citing the ���slave markets in Libya and Syria��� in his welcome note.

I can tell you that Black Arab writers indeed succeed when writing about black experiences or composing black narratives and characters���those mentioned above have done tremendously, especially in the past two decades. From one panel title ���Black writer, White reader,��� in a nod to Fanon,��it was clear��how the Arab fixation on black skin functions as an erasure of race, therefore assuming Arab is White. Among the many writers invited to the conference are those who have written novels with black protagonists as part of a massive trend in contemporary Arabic literature to monetize ���minor groups,��� whether��Black-Arabs, African migrants, South and East Asian migrants, women, Assyrians��and Yazidis, as well as Arab��Jews. Arab writers, in the aftermath of the Iraq war and its apolitical introduction of��identity politics into the region, have found an opportunity in writing about these groups which could get them translated and serve as primary literature for western academics and NGOs alike. Their white translators whisper to me ���oh my god, this shit is racist��� sometimes mediating in the process to clean up the language. As an Arab scholar working within black studies, I had assumed the conference would be a heated opportunity to ���call out��� these reactionary and racist representations in contemporary works, which include��Riahi���s��own novels��Gorilla��and��The Scalpel��(Tunisia), Ali��Muqri���s��Black Taste, Black Smell��(Yemen),��Samiha��Khrais���s��Pistachio Obaid��(Jordan) or Najwa Bin��Shitwan���s��Slave Pens��(Libya). Until then, it seems too early to dream of��Afrabia!

Arab literature and the African other

Racist, anti-black stereotypes persist in Arab literature. It reveals a racial anxiety and othering of Africa among celebrated Arab authors.





La Maison Conference poster.

When I first migrated to the United States, I worked as research assistant to Ali Mazrui, the late Kenyan thinker and scholar. At that point of his life, Mazrui had grown hopeless of pan-African and pan-Arab prospects, instead adopting a broad Islamic identity.

In 1992, Mazrui had a proposal: ���The French once examined their special relationship to Africa and came up with the concept EURAFRICA as a basis of special cooperation. We in turn should examine the even older special relationship between Africa and the Arab World and call it AFRABIA.���

It��was��a��radically ambitious and urgent proposal. My own research uses modern Arabic literature to look��at��race and identity in the Arab Gulf, of which the history of Afro-Arabs and eastern slavery are a big part. The project of ���Afrabia,��� as I interpret,��would allow Africans to revisit a long history of the Islamic empire in Africa, its intersecting points with colonial projects subcontracted to Arab and South-Asian masters, as well as a shared history of decolonial struggles and anti-capitalist ambitions. For Arabs, it would mean a much-needed and long-overdue revision of their history,��as well as of language and artistic expression that deal with Africa, blackness, and Afro-Arabs in reactionary, racist, and apolitical terms.

Last month in Tunisia, the newly-established La Maison du Roman held its second Annual Arabic Novel Conference. The three-day summit, urged by ���the political consciousness of the young masses across the Arab World,��� was focused on the theme of������������ ������������ ����������������(Black-skin issues).��The summit was attended by tens of Arabic novelists and critics. It was strange, to say the least, how the organizers came up with such unusual description instead of say ���black issues��� or ���Afro-Arab��issues��� but I will not claim that it comes from nowhere.

Arabs, like their western teachers, when discussing anti-black racism and black issues, seem fixated on skin color, ideals of beauty, and visual representations; in a sense they express their own racial anxiety. It is as if anti-black racism has no history, trajectory, or realities beyond the stigma assigned to it, or the rhetoric surrounding it.

When I use the term ���Afro-Arab,��� it is just my American lingua, not an actual term that Arab thinkers are trying to adopt or even consider. It is the kind of term you find in US academia but not in Arabic letters or political discussions. Even on the e-margins, young��East and North Africans have been embracing their��Africanness��in opposition to��Arabness, often citing��Arab racism and exclusionary politics as reasons to depart from that historical bond.��The current Algerian and Sudanese uprisings have offered some examples.

Tunisia conference poster.

From reports on the conference, I noticed how chaotic the discussions were in mixing up race, racism, slavery, Africa, and blackness as interchangeable. The level of language and conversations was embarrassing, to say the least. The Arab writer could not summon some of��his��imagination, accuracy or sensitivity, when using the odd and problematic label of ���black-skin issues.��� The panels and press reports talk about ���the black man���s pain��� as if it���s a literary metaphor, a pain neighboring ours, a mere human rights issue, as if we have no need to critique ourselves, challenge language, dig up history, to think toward solidarity and liberation, like we used to in the good old days.

I noticed how��often��Arab writers, including those North and East African, seem at ease when othering Africa���the bordered continent is harder for them to grasp than an imaginary ���Arab World��� made up by the French, and later appropriated by Arab��nationalism. Moreover, the wildly inaccurate treatment of black experiences and cultures as��one sum;��from Zanzibar and Lagos to Havana and Detroit.

I also register,��on this occasion,��but also within Arabic literature and political thought, that the Arab-Afro encounter seems more connected to the Americas and France, than to Africa itself. The translations, references, and intertextual conversations, even by black Arabs, look toward Aime C��saire, Frantz Fanon, as well as African-American literature, and the civil rights era.

When interviewed on TV while at the conference, the Sudanese-Egyptian writer Tarik al-Tayeb said ���we��still deal with blacks in stereotypical ways, especially in film,��they��are always presented and associated with certain jobs,�����meaning��roles of servitude. It struck me how a black Arab writer chose the��we��and��they��in this sentence, or perhaps there is a small��we��within a bigger��we��in here. This is noteworthy considering the good number of black writers��in attendance, including Salwa Bakr (Egypt),��Hammor��Ziada and��Mansor��al-Suwayim��(Sudan), Haji Jabir (Eritrea), and Mahmoud��Traouri��(Saudi Arabia).

Their interventions did not seem centric, their language did not diverge from the overall rhetoric of the conference, and none of them was chosen to be the keynote speaker.��Rather, the keynote was delivered��by��the 70-year-old Elias Khoury of Lebanon. Khoury stated ���slavery did not end because we are all slaves to oppression,��� a dangerous and foolish statement��that��assumes distance from anti-black racism and eastern slavery, equating all struggles alike. The director of La Maison du Roman,��the Tunisian writer Kamal��Riahi,��also reproduced the same logic when citing the ���slave markets in Libya and Syria��� in his welcome note.

I can tell you that Black Arab writers indeed succeed when writing about black experiences or composing black narratives and characters���those mentioned above have done tremendously, especially in the past two decades. From one panel title ���Black writer, White reader,��� in a nod to Fanon,��it was clear��how the Arab fixation on black skin functions as an erasure of race, therefore assuming Arab is White. Among the many writers invited to the conference are those who have written novels with black protagonists as part of a massive trend in contemporary Arabic literature to monetize ���minor groups,��� whether��Black-Arabs, African migrants, South and East Asian migrants, women, Assyrians��and Yazidis, as well as Arab��Jews. Arab writers, in the aftermath of the Iraq war and its apolitical introduction of��identity politics into the region, have found an opportunity in writing about these groups which could get them translated and serve as primary literature for western academics and NGOs alike. Their white translators whisper to me ���oh my god, this shit is racist��� sometimes mediating in the process to clean up the language. As an Arab scholar working within black studies, I had assumed the conference would be a heated opportunity to ���call out��� these reactionary and racist representations in contemporary works, which include��Riahi���s��own novels��Gorilla��and��The Scalpel��(Tunisia), Ali��Muqri���s��Black Taste, Black Smell��(Yemen),��Samiha��Khrais���s��Pistachio Obaid��(Jordan) or Najwa Bin��Shitwan���s��Slave Pens��(Libya). Until then, it seems too early to dream of��Afrabia!

The ruins of a mining economy

A short 'archeological project' excavating both the physical and psychic ruins of colonial mining practice in a small town in Liberia.





Still from film Uppland.

Around the 23-minute mark in the short film,��Uppland, an unidentified voice speaks over a series of historical images of��Yekepa, Liberia. Male and American, the speaker is presumably a former resident of the town. Yekepa��was a LAMCO company town in Liberia���s��Nimba��Mountains, home to hundreds of the Swedish mining conglomerate���s employees. ���Life was pretty nice there,��� the voice says.�����But you weren���t really living in a real world.���

Edward Lawrenson and Killian Doherty���s short film is conceived as an archeological project, an excavation of the physical and psychic ruins of industrial mining in West Africa.��Lawrenson, a Scottish filmmaker and writer, and��Doherty, a Northern Irish architect, set out for Liberia after Doherty comes across photographs of��Yekepa��from the 1960s and 70s. Such images are not hard to find. Iron ore mining was a central pillar of Liberia���s post-World War 2 economy. Foreign mining giants like LAMCO, backed by the Liberian governments of William Tubman and then William Tolbert, rapaciously harvested the country���s reserves until the global price crashes of the 1980s.��Today the detritus of company towns and massive iron ore pits litter northern and western Liberia.��These ruins occupy a prominent place in the lives and memories of Liberians and non-Liberians who inhabited the mines and their supporting towns. The ���pretty nice life��� that iron ore mining made possible is a complicated and important thread in the story of Liberia.��So, too, are the consequences of a political economy that so thoroughly shaped the ���real world��� of most of Liberia���s inhabitants.

Still from film Uppland.

Lawrenson narrates the film and describes the origins of both the town and the project, though fortunately he dispenses with the usual filmmakers��� journey and arrival tropes.��The visuals are primarily scenes of ruins: abandoned industrial equipment and infrastructure; housing; and the terraced hillsides and massive pits carved into the mountains.��The film���s 30-minutes are divided into four variously timed chapters.��The first,��Yekepa, is ostensibly anchored by the contemporary town. A small population still lives there, including at the gated campus of ABC University, a Bible college.��Old��Yekepa,��the brief second chapter, is framed by a visit to the abandoned village of��Yeke���pa.��The Bible college���s carpenter happens to be a community leader among the population displaced by the mining operation, and��he��leads the filmmakers back to the village���s original site.��New��Yekepa,��the third chapter, travels to the site to which the displaced were relocated.��There the residents describe the inadequacies of their compensation and tell their own version of how geologist Sandy Clarke discovered the iron ore deposit and captured the mountain���s guardian spirit.��The final chapter,��Stockholm, briefly brings the film to the apartment��of a retired couple who describe the suburban Stockholm aesthetic of��Yekepa��and the failure of the company to leave much of anything behind.

Each chapter weaves together historical still and moving images, on-camera interviews, and beautifully shot observational footage.��Given that neither Lawrenson nor Doherty are ever named or made visible in the film (Doherty is simply referred to as ���the Architect���),��Uppland��is surprisingly personal and reflexive.��Lawrenson speaks frequently in the first person and includes both narratives and visuals that make the filmmaking process an engaging subplot.��For example, the filmmakers cleverly include a few seconds of footage of Thomas, a young man assigned to keep an eye on Lawrenson, trying in vain to direct the action of people walking into and out of the camera frame.��Uppland��avoids most of the pitfalls of the narrated, exploitation documentary genre, its disembodied voice-over never becoming too authoritative, outraged, or self-indulgent���a rare achievement in this ever-expanding field.

Still from film Uppland.

The sum total of the film is nevertheless familiar.��It is a galling portrait of the harvesting of African resources and the damage done to both land and people.��The mountain that once housed the deposit is now a giant stagnant lake.��New��Yekepa��appears as a soulless, impoverished, and somewhat embittered place.��The Swedish retirees, meanwhile, are surrounded by a national museum���s worth of artifacts in their bright, comfortable looking apartment.��And everywhere there are rotting husks of metal and concrete, useless now that the mine has closed.

Both��visually and narratively,��Uppland��is too clever and interesting a film to stop at that.�����Life was pretty nice there, but you weren���t really living in a real world��� is a line that could arguably have been spoken by everyone in the film and everyone behind it.��Certainly,��this is true of the white foreigners who worked for LAMCO, who appear in their greatest numbers in swim trunks, splashing around in the company���s swimming pool.��The Swedish retirees speak of their intentions to leave a sustainable economy at��Yekepa, but ���it���s a pity��� is the best they can offer as commentary on the fact that they failed to do so.��The American professor at the Bible college certainly seems to be having a good time, but his alienation from the ���real world��� around him is absolute.��His earnest Old Testament history lesson about the disappearance of manna is deliciously apropos of the surrounding context but obviously lost on the man himself.

Still from film Uppland.

That the past was better but never real even for the Liberian residents of��Yekepa��is painfully clear in a conversation with two men named John, both former local employees of LAMCO. They fondly recall the town���s hospital, schools, and ice cream shops, all of which they claim made the residents of the town feel like they were ���living in America��� right there in the rainforests of northern Liberia. But they are unreliable narrators.��One of the Johns describes the perfect racial harmony and integration of��Yekepa, but there are no black bodies in the swimming pool images; a line of school children shows whites in the front and blacks in the back; and footage of a white Swede tending his vegetable garden is contrasted to a young Liberian houseboy stripped to the waist mowing the lawn.

The ruins of��Yekepa��make everyone look to the past and complicate their relationship to the real present.��The residents of New Yekepa implausibly claim that their lives today would be better if only they hadn���t lost the��written��resettlement contract Clarke gave them when he forced them to move. And as the film abruptly ends, audio clips of President Tubman���s 1962 speech to��LAMCO employees extol the virtues of mining, celebrating the company���s commitment to exploiting a wilderness inhabited only by spirits and bringing both wealth and civilization to Liberia���s��upplands.��The visuals, of course, are of a scarred landscape and still, rusting machinery.

In the film���s penultimate moment Lawrenson describes being approached by security guards as he filmed those ruins.��It is cutting testament to the slippery unreality of memory and hope when they ask if he is here to restart the mine.��Lawrenson smartly spins the encounter into a comment about his own position; the filmmaker��must��pack up and depart for Europe before he can engage them in meaningful dialogue, taking away the richness of his film and leaving them with their disappointment and their ruins.��But the moment is more poignant than that.��Rising world iron ore prices have led a number of multinational companies to revisit Liberia���s abandoned mine sites, and iron ore now accounts for about��30% of Liberia���s foreign export earnings.��Small enclaves of foreign workers are building new company towns that are largely off-limits to��local residents,��who continue to inhabit the ruins of the old company towns.��New mining equipment and infrastructure is being imported to do the work, much of it less dependent on human labor and therefore even less dependent on the ���real world��� of the people who live around it.

What kind of ruins this new mining economy will leave, and how they will be remembered, will no doubt be the subject of a film to��come.

What are the alternatives to neoliberal trade?

The African Continental Free Trade Area and alternatives to neoliberalism.





Dar es Salaam Port, Tanzania. Image credit Rob Beechey for the World Bank via Flickr (CC).

On the April 2, 2019,��The Gambia ratified��the agreement establishing��the Africa Continental Free Trade Area��(AfCFTA). In doing so, it joined 21 other African countries, thus helping usher the agreement into force as the threshold of 22 ratifications was reached. But what does this really mean for Africa? Temporarily ignoring the African Union���s pronounced��implementation deficit��and focusing on the limits of free trade; how far can the initiative realistically go in its effort to ���promote and attain sustainable and inclusive socio-economic development, gender equality and structural transformation of [African countries]?���

Even in its infancy,��the��AfCFTA��occupies a special place in history. The free trade area is poised to��be the world���s largest since the World Trade Organization��was established in 1995. If all 55 African��Union (AU)��Member States join, it will��create a��single market of��about��1.2 billion people with an��estimated��gross domestic product of $ 2.5 trillion.��Although��Benin, Eritrea, and Nigeria��are yet to sign the agreement���which was adopted on March 21, 2018���it��is��still��among the AU���s fastest to enter into force, trumping��treaties��like��the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa (slightly over 2 years),��African Youth Charter (about��3 years), and African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance (just over 5 years),��with a ratification speed more akin to that of the��AU���s��Constitutive Act (less than 7��months).

For some, the��AfCFTA��is the culmination of the continent���s forefathers��� and foremothers��� pan-African vision, perhaps as articulated most strongly by��Ghana���s first��Prime��Minister and��President,��Dr.��Kwame Nkrumah.�����By��creating a true political union of all the independent States of��Africa,��� he urged��in his��famous speech��at the inception of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 1963:

We can tackle hopefully every emergency, every enemy and every complexity… Unite we must. Without necessarily sacrificing our sovereignties, big��or small, we can, here and now, forge a political union based on��Defense, Foreign Affairs and Diplomacy, and a common Citizenship, an��African currency, an African Monetary Zone and an African Central��Bank. We must unite in order to achieve the full liberation of our��continent.

Along with its predecessor, the 1991��Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community��(Abuja Treaty), the��AfCFTA��is��an additional��step towards regional integration and, more specifically, towards the anticipated establishment of a continental customs union. Such bold moves carry with them the potential to orchestrate a remarkable geopolitical shift, with Africa repositioning itself on the global stage. But they also come with deep, lingering questions and concerns about whether this is the right time and move for the continent.

In rejecting Nigeria���s signing of the��AfCFTA��agreement, the National President of the Nigeria��Labour��Congress��characterized it��as an ���extremely dangerous and radioactive neoliberal policy initiative.�����Indeed, free trade advocacy is among neoliberalism���s key features. In the early 1800s,��classical economist��David Ricardo���s��appealingly logical but unempirical theory of comparative advantage provided��a basis for the idea that trade that is, at least in theory, unhampered by government regulation is universally beneficial.��Economists��later elevated��Ricardo���s theory to a ���law,�����and��in the 1990s��those with a neoliberal bent��lauded��free trade���s facilitation of��economic growth as market forces efficiently allocate labor, capital, and technological resources.

Yet, neoliberal agendas have generally not served the continent well. Economists��Thandika��Mkandawire and Charles Soludo��describe��how the structural adjustment programs (SAPs) introduced in Africa by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in the 1980s and 1990s failed to improve economic performance and made no clear contribution to poverty reduction. In fact, such programs weakened the public sector, ravaged social services, increased inequality, and had a disproportionate impact on women who were often forced to bear the burden of weakened social safety nets. In response to such damage, researcher and human rights activist��Mahfoudha��Alley Hamid made a powerful��call��during the Non-Governmental Organization Forum at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women for international financial institutions to ���realize that the SAPs are sapping us.��� Clearly, the continent cannot afford to be the perpetual testing ground for unsubstantiated economic theories or, as Ruth Castel-Branco depicted in��her recent article��on Cyclone��Idai, the overexposed playground for global capital.

While��Ricardo���s theory��revolutionized thinking, in some ways it was��a product of its time and��it��has��since��been updated to account��for��technological innovation, non-agricultural��production, and other dynamics. Nonetheless, it��has been challenged��on several��grounds��including��for its assumptions about the inability of labor and capital to cross borders��(a limitation Ricardo��himself��recognized),��its��willful��blindness��toward the role of slavery and colonialism in shaping the British Empire���s comparative advantages, and��its lack of empirical support.��All these criticisms also��weaken the case for free trade.��Among the stronger arguments against��it��are the seemingly contradictory economic trajectories of��many��countries from the global North and the Asian Tigers (i.e. Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan). Rather than ���getting out of the way��� as prescribed��to Africa��within the Washington Consensus, these states actively��protected��domestic industries��and��also��benefited from a less rigid intellectual property regime than the��one currently��imposed by the��World Trade Organization��(WTO).

Protests against the��WTO��beginning in the late 1990s��and broader debates about the limits of free trade led to the proposal of more people-centered fair trade that sought to improve livelihoods and give greater voice to those traditionally marginalized by free trade.��Even so,��adherents of free trade were not ready to let the idea go.��They further��complicated��the��debates about whether��free trade��should��be ���fair��� with��questions about whether free trade was really ���free.��� Was it truly being implemented in the manner intended by its theorists?

Despite their theoretical, empirical, and��possible��practical��deficiencies, free trade ideas have��largely��maintained their power, ignoring these deficiencies in a dogged defense often coupled with the mantra made famous by��former British Prime Minister��Margaret Thatcher: ���There Is No��Alternative.�����Indeed, drawing from��Michael Henry Davis and Dana Neacsu, one of the dangers of free trade ideology is its hegemonic��foreclosure��of alternatives.

Last month, the��United Nations Economic Commission for Africa encouraged African scholars to��conduct more research on the AfCFTA.��There is great need for��robust��intellectual engagement with��this initiative��and such��engagement��must��go far beyond the usual suspects, namely:��intra-African bodies, economists, and international trade lawyers. History, including the recent history of the United Kingdom���s referendum to leave the European Union, has shown us that trade is��far more than��a technocratic exercise involving goods and services. It is a��complex site of both��local and��global governance.

As Africa embarks on one of its most ambitious initiatives since the formation of the OAU, interdisciplinary and engaged research must unpack the��AfCFTA. Immune to assumptions about the��AfCFTA���s��necessity or even inevitability, scholarship must both seek to understand the possibilities of continental free trade and grapple with alternative pathways to the Africa we want.

Celebrating May Day: Trade unions as schools of democracy

At the heart of the protest movement in Sudan is a trade union. Proving again that democratic influence and change require collective participation and organization.





Image credit Miguel Angel G��mez via Flickr (CC).

It is telling that it was the work of a��trade union, the newly established Sudan Professionals Association (SPA),��rather than war, sanctions��or��charges��by the International Criminal Court��against President Omar al-Bashir, that ended his regime after 30 years. Proving once again that strong, mass and independent trade unions are schools of democracy and have been crucial in democracy building, from the workplace to the national level in Africa.

The��SPA, a professional association of independent trade unions, was formed in 2016. The SPA is a��reigniting the historically important role of trade unions in Sudanese politics, according to Sudanese-American journalist��Isma’il Kushkush. Sudan���s��trade union movement was crucial��in revolutions against military regimes in 1964 and 1985.��Wary of the power of��trade unions��� power, when��then-General��al-Bashir took power in 1989, he not only dissolved the government and political parties, but also the trade unions.��Then, in 1993, when Bashir introduced a nominally civilian regime, he set up his trade union federation he could control:��the��Sudanese Workers’ Trade Union Federation (SWTUF).

In its reporting of the ongoing protests in Sudan,��The New York Times��and��Al Jazeera��also emphasize the role of SPA as the leader of the protests. As the Times reports, ���Led by doctors and engineers, the [SPA] harnessed the wave of fury that erupted during a protest over the soaring price of bread in December, and shaped it into a sustained mass movement.���

The SPA is now��conducting negotiations��with the military on the transition to a civilian, democratic regime. Although the outcome is uncertain, the ongoing protests���which have lasted for four months���have already had a greater impact than previous protests for democracy in 2011, 2012 and 2013.��Those protests did show the potential for mass politics. In 2011, protests were driven by youth and student movements��led��by the middle classes, and 2012���s protests, via party youth organizations, gave protesters access to mosques.��Nevertheless, these protesters were brutally��repressed��by the regime,��followed by��arrests and torture.

This time around, the repression did not manage to quell protests. AIAC���s Caitlin Chandler��writes in Dissent Magazine��how��SPA��mobilized��people from different��backgrounds��to create a��protest movement��that is��inclusive and rooted in working-class struggles.

There are several reasons why the ongoing protests have��had��greater impact��than in the past:��Anthropologist��Nisrin Elamin and��political scientist��Zachariah Mampilly��point to��four��key��factors: First,��they have reached��outside the capital Khartoum; second,��opposition parties participate; third,��the regime was already fragmented;��and ��������Finally, there is the broader regional context. The ongoing protests are the latest in��Africa���s third wave, which has been ongoing for more than a decade now and has claimed significant victories in Senegal, Burkina Faso, Tunisia and, most recently, in neighboring Ethiopia.�����In addition: In 2018,��an��increase in bread and petrol prices added an economic dimension to democratic demands, and made ordinary people take to the streets.

National structure and democratic culture

Trade unions have helped fight colonialism, and authoritarian and racist regimes, and to deepen democracy worldwide. In Africa,��in recent decades, we have seen this from Niger and��Tunisia, to��South Africa��and Zambia. The trade union movement has characteristics that make them particularly well-placed for this role, and especially feared by authoritarian regimes.

In most African countries, the largest and most representative organizations are religious��institutions,��farmers�����organizations and trade unions.��The trade��union movement represents grassroots based��social structures for mobilization that contrast to top-down, populist parties driven by “strong men” (or big men). Trade unions have representative structures from the workplace to the national level, and across geographical, ethnic, religious and historical divisions. Teachers��� unions are��usually��the largest in all countries, and often the most radical. In Nigeria, the National Union of Teachers has representation in all Nigeria���s 36 states, from the northeast where Boko Haram ravages, the cosmopolitan democracy bastion Lagos and to the oil-rich Niger Delta characterized by resource conflicts and violence. The nation-wide structures make them well-placed organizationally to mobilize broadly, and union leaders are responsible to members through democratic structures. It does not mean that the trade union movement in Nigeria does not relate to regional and ethnic divisions, but that they have learned to find compromise and build solidarity and community across these. In Sudan, we can imagine that the SPA, which brings together teachers, doctors and lawyers, has the opportunity for broad mobilization and joins heavy and relevant expertise.

The trade union movement targets issues that concern the popular masses, combining demands for economic, civic and political rights: It fights for wages��in��workplaces��and��for��economic��and social��welfare benefits from the state, such as subsidies, education and health; Unionists exercise and claim active citizenship and the right to participate, in the form of voting and organizational rights,��and demand to be represented��in public��bodies��and at the workplace. In addition, many trade unions���from Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Ghana���have been at the forefront in the struggle against corruption, with demands for political accountability and transparency. In Africa, the trade union movement is not just about class mobilization, but trade unions are carriers of democratic and urban culture��and radical ideology in contrast to ethno-populist parties, as Nic Cheesman and Miles Larmer��have argued.

Schools of democracy and co-determination���during and outside elections��

Trade unions are at their core about co-determination and democracy between elections.��Trade union work provides knowledge and experience about rights and organization, from local elections of shop-stewards, development of common workers��� demands and of representative, collective bargaining. The opportunity to have a voice and influence of one���s own life at the workplace, is not least important when extensive privatization means that politicians have renounced���or have been deprived of direct control by ever-larger parts of the economy. Popular influence through elections is limited. This is especially true in African states that often rely on development aid. The Malawian economist,��Thandika��Mkandawire calls such states “choiceless democracies.”

The experiences of organized workers are directly transferable to the role of democratic citizens, with rights and obligations. US researcher Ann��Karreth��shows��that trade union members participate more than others in elections and other democratic processes. They contact politicians and participate in protests more often. She calls this ���participatory spillover effects.��� As an African advisor in the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO-Norway), I��have��met many union representatives in a number of African countries who told me how experiences as shop-stewards��provided them��with a political��awakening and confidence to actively participate in other forums, or even run for political��office.

The negotiation skills from the workplace, based on compromise, and the balance between rights and duties as an employee, is transferable to social relations between state and citizen.��Not surprisingly,��trade unions often act as mediators between political elites and��ordinary people, and as negotiators of political change. We have seen this in Nigeria through a series of��protests against increased petrol prices��between 1986 and 2012, and in the��Tunisian��revolution.��Now we see it in Sudan.

The trade union movement represents a unique combination of expertise and power. In Nigeria, organized academics have contributed ideological and professional expertise to the larger trade union movement, while the oil and transport workers have decisive strike power and public sector federations��can shut down governments. We can��only��imagine how the combined expertise of the SPA, which organizes, among other things, doctors, teachers and lawyers,��positions them to play a mobilizing and mediating role.

Several trade unions in Africa run voter education��programs, as the Trade Union Congress in��Ghana��does, and election observation,��in the case of��the��Nigeria Labor Congress��in Nigeria and Zimbabwe Confederation of Trade Unions (ZCTU).

There is no a clear pattern on how��African trade unions relate to party politics. Typically, in many post-independent countries, the trade union movement allied with liberation movements, such as the ANC in South Africa and ZANU-PF in Zimbabwe. While the ZCTU in Zimbabwe detached from ZANU-PF and formed the opposition party MDC in��1999, the trade union movement in South Africa is torn over its relationship with the ANC. (COSATU endorsed the ANC in the May 2019 elections��and the current President, Cyril Ramaphosa, was once general secretary of the black mineworkers��� union; some unions that broke away from COSATU, most notably metalworkers union, NUMSA, will contest the election as the Socialist Workers Revolutionary Party.) The Nigerian Labor Party was formed by the trade union movement, but has not been able to transfer popular support to the trade union movement��into votes. Problematic historical experiences with party co-operation, have led��TUC��Ghana and ZCTU Zambia, to decide not to support any party or allow its union representatives to run for political office.

International solidarity

The trade union movement must be strong, united, democratic and independent in order to play an effective democratic role, argue Jon Kraus and his co-authors in the��new��book,��Trade unions and the coming of democracy in Africa. Trade unions��� institutional capacity is weakened by neoliberal economic policy, and by limitations on democratic and labor rights. The���International Trade Union Confederation���s��annual��Global Rights Index, which surveys the worst countries for workers shows that trade unions worldwide are the first in line for attacks on their rights by governments and employers. Many countries in Africa are sadly ranked at the top of the index. Many unions are led by undemocratic union leaders, and in many��countries��unions are under government control (Mozambique, Angola, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Sudan under recently deposed al-Bashir). Nevertheless, even state-controlled unions may have some of the democratic functions mentioned above. In a number of other countries, governments are trying to manipulate trade union divisions (Uganda and Zimbabwe) to break their unity. Elsewhere, internal conflicts lead to division.

Cheesman and Larmer fear that the weakening of the trade union movement since the 1980s has created a democratic vacuum and left room for populism and demands for charismatic leaders who can give a voice to the poor. This vacuum is sometimes also filled by former trade union leaders.��My own research��suggests that deregulation, and ever-increasing use of subcontractors and contract staff in the Nigerian oil industry, has not only weakened the trade union movement, but also opened up for informal, closed and��clientelistic��employment relationships rather than the formal and merit-based employment and negotiated employment contracts promoted by unions.

Finally, this May Day let us remind ourselves that while individuals are important as a symbol��and inspiration���as the iconic ���woman in white,��� Alaa Salah���or��as leaders, democratic influence and change require collective participation and organization.