(TALKZIMBABWE) Africa needs own institutions

Africa needs own institutions
By: Frank Banda
Posted: Sunday, April 11, 2010 3:04 pm

AFRICANS need to establish big media organisations and other institutions that are controlled by Africans if the true story of the continent is to be told. Many of the media organisations on the continent are still very much controlled from the west, although they are fronted by black faces.

The decolonisation of Africa has threatened many western business interests on the continent, and these interests have been relentless in making sure that Africans remain subdued and not claim ownership of the means of production.

The story is different in other continents like Asia and Latin America, where the means of production have been completely transferred. India and China have developed indigenous organisations that compete with many western ones, and today these two countries have fielded over half the billionaires in the world.

The mushrooming of non-governmental organisations on the continent, and their claim to represent the wishes of the majority Africans, is not surprising. Most of these NGOs are funded by, or represent the interests of, big corporations with an interest on the continent. The number of NGOs in Africa has increased from a few hundred to over 25,000 in about fifty years and their work goes beyond humanitarian aid. The last fifty years coincides with decolonisation.

One would be hard pressed to distiguish between the interests of a humanitarian organisation and the foreign policy of the country from which that organisation comes. For instance, there is no major difference between the objectives of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the foreign policy of the US. Infact, USAID is used to advance the interests of the US. The UK's Department for International Development (DfID) also advances the foreign policy interests of that country.

Most of these NGOs are actively involved in the politics of the country and, in certain instances, have been used as covers for regime change. Almost every country in Africa has, at one point or another, clashed with a western-based NGO.

If Africa is to chart its own development path, it will have to come up with institutions and corporations that are African-oriented. They have to be one-hundred percent owned and controlled by Africans, and not run from London, Paris, Washington or Brussels.

Civil society institutions in Africa are also mainly funded by the west. In Zimbabwe, for example, every institution including the Law Society and other so-called human rights defenders (Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, Zimbabwe Doctors for Human Rights, etc) are funded by the west. Other civil society institutions like Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA), Zimbabwe Crisis Coalition, Zimbabwe Election Support Network, Zimbabwe Peace Project, and many other organisations under the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum.

These organisations have become big employers as well. Post-colonial governments have battled with soci-economic policies as, unlike the minority governments that preceded them, have adopted costly projects for the majority of the population. In the case of Zimbabwe, the problem has been exacerbated by decade long illegal sanctions imposed by the west.

Investment in the media is also heavily controlled by western countries and many of the continent's big media players are fronts of big corporations or big western businesses.

Even opposition political parties are funded by the west; and most of them represent the interests of their funders.

Africans have to ask themselves why countries like the UK and the US are interested in the advancement of human rights in certain African countries and not others. They have to ask themselves why there is so much interest on the African continent and why so many so-called 'human rights defenders' have been awarded prizes and accolades by these two countries, especially.

The US, UK and other western countries have been responsible for human rights violations in Iraq and Afghanistan. They have defied the wishes of their own people and engaged in illegal wars around the world. Many of the wars that we have seen in the world have either been started or fuelled by these countries. The Arab-Israeli conflict was fuelled by the west, so was the India-Pakistan conflict. Almost every major conflict in the world has involved these two countries. Even apartheid was necessitated and 'supported' by the west.

Unless our so-called best journalists and best human rights defenders begin to understand what exactly is at play, Africans will remain subjugated and the continent controlled by the west. Africans have to develop and run their own institutions and not be content with merely becoming 'top officials' in western-controlled institutions.