Funding the future?
Firstly,
thank you very much to the Innovations department for hosting an actually
thought provoking innovation! To Lisa, thank you for sharing that very
insightful documentary - everyone should have come to watch it. (Considering
that we funded Suez, that was very brave and necessary thing for you to
do!)
I
believe that this film put into perspective, the lulled state of consciousness
that infects many corporate world people. It seems like everyone is caught up in
a stupid and dangerous rat race to have the biggest car, the largest patch of
land and the shiniest gold chains (ignorant slaves!), and no one can see that in
their incensed pursuit of material imprisonment, people are actually dying and
children are starving!
I
like to think of myself and my consciousness as distinct, simply because I am
still deeply rooted and connected to the struggles of ordinary people. I am not
delusional about where I stand in the global scheme, as a black person, as a
woman and as a resident of Gauteng. I have no misconceptions about the fact that
I will forever be discriminated against and biased on the basis of those three
categorizations; if I don’t vehemently fight against those hell-bent on
unleashing this discrimination against me and all those like me.
That
is why I am not confused about how it can be that now, at a time when the world
is at its richest, that there is more poverty now than there ever was before.
Why I understand why it is that over half a million tons of food is discarded
annually, when 8mn South African children go to bed hungry every night! I am
very aware of the fact that the world is a classist institution, driven by the
greed and mindlessness of bankers and corporatocracies.
Why
do we then have things called DEVELOPMENT institutions, when they knowingly fuel
the poverty and under-development of our continent? How many ordinary people on
the street, have DFI’s changed the lives of? I am not convinced it’s a lot!
Instead, I think that DFI’s have their own special clientele who are conversant
in the World Bank and IMF language of economic imperialism.
That
certainly explains why people who come to DFI’s with real world solutions to
concrete problems, get turned away, because they are illiterate to the language
of projections and off-take agreements and inexplicable insurance and lending
terms! Small wonder that these DFI’s keep the same groups of clients to finance,
because these are the people who have the same narrow capitalist economic
/imperialist interests that they promote!
The
IDC funded SUEZ, the very same mnc that is causing so much strife and poverty
for millions throughout the developing world.
If
you look at their pipelines, its horrifying how much DFI’s perpetuate the
continued abuse of cheap labour, how they unashamedly encourage callous
capitalist competitive behavior at the expense of real, tangible and necessary
development on our continent.
It
really begs the question – Who does their Social and Environmental Impact
Assessment studies? The short answer to that is this; ‘firms of people who have
nothing but anthropological anecdotes to go on when surmising about the African
situation’. It is really not that hard to see why so many projects get the go
ahead, despite the gross human and social consequences that they bring! But then
again, who ever heard of a wolf going to check on the interests of the sheep and
reporting back objectively!
80%
of the clients businesses that are funded by DFI’s, end up under the control and
management of white males; and the black firms that get funded, almost always,
need to be watered down with non-black partners to get some crumbs off of the
funding cake!
How
if I may ask, is that transformative or developmental of the SA economy, more
specifically in the context of our past? Why are we not aggressively developing
any industries that are authentic and local? Why are we not generating and
cultivating indigenous ideas and practical (non-profitable) solutions to our
problems? DFI’s still fund agricultural concerns that are predominantly geared
towards the export market when we could be using the land used for planting, to
benefit more generically South African concerns! This is probably the reason why
87% of the arable land in South Africa is owned by less than 7% of the
population (no prizes for guessing what race group that 7% is!) How is this any
different to the colonialists plantations?
Are
DFI’s merely conduits of these globalization policies and life devastating
practices? Are DFI’s also just that brand of institutions that are agents of
capital and not real change? Is that why their moral compasses would permit
them, under the pretentious guises of ‘development’, to bring about the lack of
human basic needs to millions of people in third world countries through their
assisting of greedy privatizers?
If
there is any innovation necessary at DFI's, particularly the IDC, its in direct
relation with the institutions mandates! If we want to make a real difference
and actually develop Africa and empower her people, we need to stop being silly
about our priorities and be brave enough to deal with our real problems! Why are
we afraid to build better lives for our people? Why does capital intimidate us
so much, when the value of capital is based on OUR gold and diamond reserves!?
This is our continent and we should be the ones making the rules about what we
want and what we don’t want, what land we can share and what land we wont
compromise on, what our education systems should be and what sort of healthcare
we will accept and which sort we reject!
In
my view, the DFI’s of Africa, should be brazenly pushing an Africanist agenda,
aggressively pursuing African interests and actively making sure that any
existing and future enterprises on the continent, should be for the furtherance
and engendering of a proud, sustainable and African Africa; rather than the
current scenario of African DFI’s promoting and violently propagating western
capitalist imperialism!
In
closing I 'd like to share the provocative words of Bantu Biko"the most potent
weapon at the hands of the oppressor, is the mind of the opressed"
Let
us take back control of our minds and our senses, as that is the only key to the
restoration of human dignity. Our dignity is not contingent on any paycheck,
lets live like that! It only takes one conscious decision to change the
world!
Let
us wake up, Aluta Continua!!!
