Global Policy Forum

Globalisation

There is a lot of talk floating around regarding some catch words: New International Order, Globalisation, Global village etc. All these ebullient self-gratifying positions are, apparently, due to the end of the Cold War between Western countries and the former Soviet Union. Of course, the end of the dangerous and misguided rivalry between communism and capitalism is welcome and has indeed opened some new opportunities, if fully utilised by all concerned.

However, it must be pointed out unequivocally that many of the problems in the world today predate the Cold War; they predate the onset of communism in Russia in 1917. Slave trade started in the 1440s along the West African Coast. A shift from bleeding Africa through slavery to resident colonialism was ordained in Berlin in 1884. This was long before communism took over in Russia. Therefore, the Cold War could not have been responsible for these mistakes and for the complications they created, many of which we are still grappling with up to today, especially in Africa.

Therefore, the euphoria is not wholly justified. The song about globalisation, as I have pointed out repeatedly, is not a new tune at all. Since the 1440s, the Africans were globalised as slaves all over the world. My Christian name is Joel, a Jewish name. I am therefore already globalised! Many of my countrymen have got Arab names like Aziz, Musa because they are Moslems. We were globalised long ago. Unfortunately, though, that Globalisation Movement was parasitic, it was not symbiotic.

Therefore, the only new question we can legitimately and usefully ask is: Will the new phase of globalisation be less parasitic and more symbiotic or not? Will it be globalisation for everybody's mutual benefit, or the old story of parasitism on a global scale?

The parasitism in the world is not the sole responsibility of those who benefit from the inequality. Even the victims have always contributed to their marginalisation by their own wrong aims and methods before colonisation, during colonisation and, even after colonisation. African myopic chiefs were the main facilitators of the slave trade. Until very recently, the Europeans did not possess the technological means to subdue the African Continent as far as transport means (railway, weapons, or medicine (quinine) were concerned.

Without the fratricidal wars fomented by the African chiefs, neither slave trade nor colonialism would have been possible. We would have defeated the colonialists and forced them, right from the beginning, to co-operate with us for everybody's mutual benefit. Weakness on the side of the potential victim always tempts the aggressor. Even today, however, the authorship of the inequality among peoples is still a joint responsibility of the victims (Africans, Arabs and other marginalised peoples) of the parasitic globalisation movement that is now 500 years old on the one hand, and the beneficiaries of this, hitherto, unequal and, in the past, evil movement on the other. The beneficiaries of the hitherto parasitic globalisation movement have been the North Americans, the Europeans and the Japanese. On account of a variety of reasons, some of the formally colonised peoples (the Indians, the Indonesians, the Pakistanis, the South East Asians and Latin Americans) and the formerly semi-colonised peoples (such as the Chinese) have made significant upward movements that are helping to slowly but surely, even out the balance of power in the world.

Some of the other peoples, however, on account of a number of endogenous and exogenous factors are still living as the wretched of the earth. Many of the Africans and some of the Arabs fall into this category of the still unredeemed of the earth. As I have said, the unredeemed are still so categorised partly on account of their own internal mistakes (sectarianism, xenophobia, unprincipled conflicts, strangulation of free enterprise, political balkanisation of their regions, strangulation of political freedom, etc) and, partly, on account of the still very unfavourable exogenous factors. The most unfavourable exogenous actor is lack of access to markets in North America, EU, Japan, China, India and Russia.

Trade

The song about aid is meaningless without access to markets. All protectionism, especially in the OECD countries, must end.

Subsidies to farmers of Europe must end if we are talking of a "global village" of symbiosis and not parasitism. I commend the American Government and the President, Mr. George Bush, for the AGOA (African Growth and Opportunity Act) initiative. Although Uganda has not yet benefited from AGOA on account of our indigenous weaknesses accentuated by the blurred views of our multi-lateral institution partners, other African countries have started benefiting: Kenya, Madagascar, Lesotho and Nigeria.

This is good. The Americans are, at last, beginning to address their image as non-parasitic global villagers. The Europeans must catch up with the Americans in rubbing off this uncomplimentary label. Although they have talked about "everything but guns" going into Europe from Africa, they are still giving subsidies to artificial farmers in Europe. This distorts the trade in agricultural products.

As a consequence, out of US$ 1.2 trillion that is the value of the global trade in agricultural products, Africa gets only about US$20 billion (if you include the results of AGOA recently), which is about 2% of the total! At the same time, the OECD countries are spending US$361bn subsidising artificial farmers of those countries. Yet these are the countries that evangelise in the name of free trade! The preachers of free trade are practising incredibly expensive protectionism. What an unfortunate paradox. These double standards must end.

Africa has now removed some of the old impediments (endogenous factors) to private investment. The sanctity of private property is now almost a universal concept in Africa (nationalisation of private enterprises is no more); some of the African countries have got a consistently stable macro-economic framework (inflation in Uganda is now -0.3%); the African currencies are now convertible; a large part of Africa is very peaceful; infrastructure is reasonable; and democracy is widely practiced in Africa today.

We are even addressing the issue of excessive political balkanisation of the continent (with 53 states compared to three in North America) in a variety of ways, including economic blocks like SADC in Southern Africa, COMESA in East and Central Africa and ECOWAS in Western Africa. The world, therefore, needs to encourage these positive trends in Africa by opening up their markets on a quota-free, tarrif-tree basis. This will, ipso facto, force the multi-national investors to rush to Africa to invest there. They are already doing so on account of AGOA.

With more civilised aims and methods, balanced world development is possible and desirable for everybody, including the OECD citizens who are forced to eat inferior foods and are taxed to protect those poor quality foods against better foods from Africa. Whenever I travel abroad, I pack my own Ugandan foods (milk, millet-flour, fruits, legumes, chicken, honey and plantain bananas (matooke).

The other day my pineapple stocks ran out and my staff bought pineapples from a super market in UK, I just took one slice and terminated the whole exercise at once. First of all, the pineapple is hard; it is less sweet, and had got an ammonia-like pungent taste. I had had the same experience in Washington. Why must the citizens of the world endure these deprivations on account of policies designed to serve narrow interest? I will not eat pineapple again until I go back to Uganda.

Terrorism

The oppressors, the colonialists and those who sought to control the destiny of others, used barbaric methods: Genocide, forced labour, ethnocide, etc. It is amazing, therefore, that some of those who claim to be fighting for the liberation of the oppressed peoples also use barbaric means such as terrorism.

In the on-going debate about terrorism, I have not heard anybody bothering to define the difference between a freedom fighter and a terrorist. Mzee Nelson Mandela has been a freedom fighter until recently. Did you hear of him hijacking a plane; or planting a bomb in a restaurant? But Mr Mandela was a freedom fighter. Was he a terrorist? Not at all. The difference lies in the fact that, while a freedom fighter, sometimes, may be forced to use violence, he cannot use indiscriminate violence. I was forced to use violence against Idi Amin, but I never hijacked a plane or planted a bomb in a bar! In bars people just go to make merry; if you kill such people, what sort of revolutionary are you?

The one who uses indiscriminate violence is a terrorist, does not discriminate between combatants and non-combatants; between civilians and servicemen; between armed servicemen and unarmed servicemen.

Even if someone is a soldier, if he is off duty you should not attack him if you say you are a freedom fighter- this is against the laws of war. The terrorists fight a war without declaring one, that is why they hijack planes, plant bombs in populated centres, etc. We normally get technical aid from other parts of the world: From Europe and other countries. I would like to give you technical aid on freedom fighting because we have done that very well. In Africa, since 1961, we fought wars of liberation in Mozambique, Angola, Guinea - Bissau (against the Portuguese), Zimbabwe, South Africa, Namibia (against minority whites), Uganda against Idi Amin, etc. We, however, never used terrorism -this is on record. We were always fighting combatant to combatant. Quite a number of times our comrades were using mass action-strikes, demonstrations, petitions, diplomatic struggle, etc. Not a single plane was hijacked by African freedom fighters although there were anti-colonial wars in all these countries. The actions by terrorists are misguided, criminal, and must be opposed by all as a matter of principle. Africa was beginning to benefit from AGOA. Business has, however, now somewhat slumped in America. Therefore the terrorists, who claim to be fighting for the Palestinian cause, are objectively hurting the interests of Africa who have always been the allies of the Palestinians. This is counter-productive. Terrorists try to polarise the world on a wrong basis: Moslems vs Christians, etc. Exploitation does not know the boundary of race or religion.

Exploiters are found in all religions or races. The Arabs had to oppose Turkish imperialism. Yet both the Arabs and the Turks were Moslems. One of the 'monsters' of the last Century, Idi Amin, was a Moslem. We had to get rid of him to liberate everybody, including the Moslems. War has been going on in the Sudan for decades. Elements that have been claiming to act in the name of Islam have been the ones taking a wrong position in this conflict - a position of seeking hegemonism among the people of God. I, therefore, this time, support the position of USA as we did in the Gulf-War in fighting and defeating these reactionaries profaning the name of freedom fighters. If necessary, all countries of the World opposed to terrorism should contribute troops and finish this job quickly. The coalition against terrorism should be regarded in the same way as the coalition against fascism in the 1930s and 1940s.

Nevertheless, the just aspirations of the Palestinian peoples and of other oppressed peoples like the people of Southern Sudan must be supported so that we get peaceful resolutions of these conflicts. I salute freedom and equality of all peoples of the World. Anybody with ambitions to dominate other human beings or exploit them has got illegitimate ambitions. We now have the chance to build a just World. Apart from ensuring the free will of all peoples, the most important instrument of emancipation is free trade, giving quota-free, tariff free access of African goods to the markets of the OECD countries and vice versa.

Africa is beginning to tame its conflicts. The conflict in Lesotho was resolved by an African mechanism. Recently, the Arusha Accord ended the conflict in Burundi. It is possible to resolve our age-old problems and, finally, become part of the "New World Order" and not just spectators of the process.

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