If I were the Chief Domestic/Foreign Policy Advisor and Public Policy Analyst to the President-Elect: An Exegesis of the Practicality of Impracticalities in a World where Sanity is Insanity

If I were the Chief Domestic/Foreign Policy Advisor and Public Policy Analyst to the President-Elect: An Exegesis of the Practicality of Impracticalities in a World where Sanity is Insanity[1]


Ambakisye-Okang Olatunde Dukuzumurenyi, Ph.D. Public Policy Analysis

13 April 2015

 

 

Map: Afrikan Orientation of the Globe

“You see things; and you say ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say ‘Why not?’” [George Bernard Shaw]

If I were the Chief Domestic/Foreign Policy Advisor and Public Policy Analyst of the President-Elect of any Afrikan nation that need not be named, I would undoubtedly, in order to have attained the positon, have had a long and most likely warm, relaxed and confidential professional relationship with the President-Elect and thus would have garnered a high level of trust on both the personal and professional level.

 

In such a congenial situation in which we were comrades on both the professional and socio-political economic ideological levels, on the eve of her/his ascendancy to the highest office of state to take her/his mandated place as the first public servant of the people, I would have reminded the President-Elect in whose confidence I rested that given her/his campaign winning strategy on a platform of just change, the eradication of policies of impoverishment, transparency, accountability and egalitarianism s/he should ever keep in mind the salient dictum proffered by the esteemed Italian political theoretician, philosopher and strategist Niccolo Machiavelli in which he stated:

“And let it be noted that there is no more delicate matter to take in hand, nor more dangerous to conduct, nor more doubtful in its success, than to set up as a leader in the  introduction of changes.  For he who innovates will have for his enemies all those who are well off under the existing order of things, and only lukewarm supporters in those who might be better off under the new.  This lukewarm temper arises partly from the fear of adversaries who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who will never admit the merit of anything new, until they have seen it proved by the event.  The result, however, is that whenever the enemies of change make an attack, they do so with all the zeal of partisans, while the others defend themselves so feebly as to endanger both themselves and their cause.”[2]

 I would then bring up and passionately restate those compulsory regulations which must be implemented and maintained and those that are an absolute necessity if the long awaited campaign pledges are to be kept and in so doing we are to thereby retain the sacred trust of the people through circumspectly fulfilling our honor, duty and obligations to the nation as ministers and thus servants as the elevated title suggests.

I would remind her/him that to change the deep sense of cultural malaise, economic degradation, political corruption and national insecurity that prevails we must fully engage in the continuing redevelopment of national political-economic power, setting an example for the development of continental Afrikan power, through progressive populist social, political and economic engagement in our rural and urban communities. Righting the wrongs that resulted from conquest, colonization, subjugation and cultural mis-orientation.

Fundamental Public Policy Initiatives

The type of substantive progressive public policies which must be enacted to begin this process of transformative socio-political economic change in the institutional structural basis of the nation include:

1) Active Afrikan socio-political economic action through strategic delinking from the current international political economy and the forming of regionally and sub-Saharan integrated closed domestic economies secured politically and militarily by a sub-Saharan political economic confederation and shielded by protectionist political economic public policies, along with resource nationalization and a substantive rewriting of the current laws of conducting business throughout sub-Saharan Afrika by removing so-called tax break incentives for foreign developed multinational corporations doing business in Afrika, which are in reality nothing more than a means of passing the burden of doing business away from the multinational corporation and onto the grassroots Afrikan populations, who are in theory supposed to be benefiting from this example of Foreign Direct Investment and resource development. There also must be a removal of public policy hindrances to worker unionization, the elevation of craft and trade unions to government ministries and the subsidized elevation of worker pay to life sustaining levels;

 

2) The implementation of egalitarian measures such as progressive graduated taxation on the wealthy Afrikan neo-colonial comprador class and the revocation of all tax credits on foreign multinational corporations, justified by considerations on the nature and methods by which that wealth was acquired, over centuries namely through murder and the exploitation of Afrikan labor, lands and resources in a political economic system which privileges Eurasians [3] over Afrikans even in Afrikan lands; after all to finish first in a rat race still makes you a rat;

3) A policy of extensive government investment in rural health and education, along with the subsidization of rural small farmer agriculture through programs aimed at women farmers working through formal and informal local women cooperative organizations, and the establishment of a guaranteed income;

4) The immortalization of the ‘Rights of Nature’ through the setting down in stone in the manner of the Wahenga na Wahenguzi [Kiswahili: Glorious Ancestors] and the placement throughout the nation of granite-markers commemorating the enactment of communal laws enshrining the ‘Rights of Nature’ and the protection and expansion of indigenous forestation;

5) The enactment of laws protecting the sustainable, holistic use of the land, respecting the sanctity of the earth and, forbidding non-Afrikan land ownership and land use as well as enshrining Afrikan communal land ownership and social land guardianship in honor of the Creator, in remembrance of the Wahenga na Wahenguzi and on behalf of the Beautyful Ones Not Yet Born; [4]

6) Extensive national and local coordinated infrastructure development, infrastructure maintenance and infrastructure rehabilitation utilizing Afrikan technical expertise and local labor only;

7) National and local coordinated industrial policy centered on inter-Afrikan manufacture, inter-Afrikan trade and mutual inter-Afrikan reconstruction and development and the subsidization of industries such as artisan and textile manufacturing;

8) The limitation or severe constraining of capital export and a revaluation of Afrikan currency theory and the foundations of exchange rates along with the creation of a gold backed sub-Saharan wide currency minted from Afrikan gold and used in all transactions involving Afrikan nationalized natural resources and all other socio-political economic exchanges and serving as the reserve currency of all Afrikan and Afrikan Diaspora peoples. Such an Afrikan currency will shift the balance of global power to sub-Saharan Afrika as under such a currency the wealth of a nation would center on gold reserves as opposed to the current system which determines wealth based on the total amount of U.S. Dollars exchanged, as the U.S. Dollar along with the European Union Euro is in high demand with the U.S. Dollar being the current reserve currency globally;

9) The setting and enforcement of maximum import levels to protect local industries;

 
10) The unified invalidation, nullification and repudiation by the new government in conjunction with the grassroots representative organizations of the Afrikan neo-colonial comprador initiated foreign debt, which is a tool of neo-colonialist control of Afrikan resources through the subtle methodology of western centered international finance and imperialist controlled international trade. For Debt is as Mhenga Thomas Sankara informed us:

“We think that debt has to be seen from the standpoint of its origins. Debt’s origins come from colonialism’s origins. Those who lend us money are those who had colonized us before. They are those who used to manage our states and economies. Colonizers are those who indebted Africa through their brothers and cousins who were the lenders. We had no connections with this debt. Therefore we cannot pay for it. Debt is neo-colonialism, in which colonizers transformed themselves into “technical assistants”. We should better say “technical assassins”. They present us with financing, with financial backers. As if someone’s back could create development. We have been advised to go to these lenders. We have been proposed with nice financial set-ups. We have been indebted for fifty, sixty years and even more. That means we have been led to compromise our people for fifty years and more. Under its current form, that is imperialism controlled, debt is a cleverly managed re-conquest of Africa, aiming at subjugating its growth and development through foreign rules. Thus, each one of us becomes the financial slave, which is to say a true slave, of those who had been treacherous enough to put money in our countries with obligations for us to repay. We are told to repay, but it is not a moral issue. It is not about this so-called honour of repaying or not… Debt cannot be repaid, first because if we don’t repay, lenders will not die. That is for sure. But if we repay, we are going to die. That is also for sure.”[5]

11) The total rejection and complete abandonment of all imperialist foreign aid and expulsion of all non-governmental organizations.

 

 

Thomas Sankara [1949-1987]

 

 

Fallacy of the ‘Free Market’

 

These public polices recognize that the nation must follow a course of action which leads to the extrication of Afrikan socio-political economics from the fallacy of so-called 'Free Market' discipline, while advocating and implementing high levels of domestic market protectionism.  Putting the nation on a sound path of self-reliance and ensuring the sovereign autonomy of the domestic economy from the vagaries associated with the Global economy.

 

The colonially imported, militarily imposed, Afrikan neo-colonial comprador managed, Eurasian doctrine of ‘Free Trade’ and ‘Open Market Economics’ is centered on the economic fallacy that consumption is the basis of national prosperity.  This idea is a fallacy with regards to neo-colonies, which have had their internal socio-political economic structures destroyed or coercively altered from the doctrine of national self-sustaining, self-sufficiency to that of imperial economic dependency. 

 

In point of fact, socio-political economic consumption is intimately connected with socio-political economic production and socio-political economic production is the actual basis of national socio-political economic prosperity. When a government, for example a so-called developing country government, centers its socio-political economic public policy on the theory of consumption, that government is automatically focusing the socio-political economic well-being of the grassroots of the nation on the current, present consumption of currently existing commodities, goods and services of which it has few to none.

 

In a neo-colony or developing country which has an socio-political economic infrastructure designed to export raw resources to former colonial and now neo-colonial imperial masters there is either an unprotected small scale industrial sector, such as textiles for example or no existing internal small or large scale industrial structure with a supporting social system thus all or the vast majority of existing commodities, goods and services are of foreign origin. 

As all socio-political economic public policies in the neo-colonial setting are designed to support ‘Free Trade,’ which means that there are no socio-political economic barriers in place to protect local enterprises from the well-developed multi-national government subsidized corporate enterprises of North America, Europe, Asia and increasingly South America, the local Afrikan socio-political economy becomes a dumping zone for cheaply produced foreign goods, which are also of a poor quality when compared to locally made Afrikan handicrafts. 

On the other hand, a socio-political economic public policy designed around socio-political economic production is future oriented.  Such a public policy gives careful consideration to both the details of the production of commodities, goods and services as well as to the circumstances under which commodities, goods and services can be sustainably produced in a continuous fashion at unvarying intervals and are therefore conveniently accessible for Afrikan grassroots consumption in the long term.

A long term socio-political economic public policy centered on production also gives careful thought to the rate of consumption of commodities, goods and services over time by the Afrikan grassroots as it is interdependent on the rate of production of commodities, goods and services, to the average rate of growth of the Afrikan grassroots population, to long term procurability of commodities, goods and services by the Afrikan grassroots or the distribution of such items among them, as well as to resource availability in the event of the probability of natural and man-made disasters, which can severely cripple or totally annihilate the resource base and industrial productive capabilities of a nation.

Hence natural prosperity and the well-being of the Afrikan grassroots is dependent on the state of development of productive capacities and its related industries, those that feed into the industrial system and those that depend on the product as the basis of their business activities and not on a socio-political economic public policy of consumption. 

‘Free Trade’ is an imperialist public policy best adapted and applied only with regards to the internal trading relations of the Afrikan grassroots of a socio-political economic community and not to external trading relations among nations, especially amongst nations that have imperfectly developed internal socio-political economic structures.

As a socio-political economy is the outgrowth of a culture, any culture that seeks to utilize a particular socio-political economy must adapt it to fit the mores, norms and values of their culture.  ‘Free Trade’ is born of an expansionary hegemonic Eurasian culture and is a belief under the larger theory of Savage Capitalism, i.e. the Eurasian ideology of socio-political economic catastrophe.  For so-called ‘Free Trade Capitalism’ to be used by Afrikan societies it must be adjusted to fit the cultural norms of traditional Afrikan communities.

 

The importance of Afrikan culture in the national project cannot be overstated and therefore is best captured here in the words of Mhenga Amilcar Cabral:

 

 

 

“Culture, whatever the ideological or idealist characteristics of its expression, is thus an essential element of the history of a people. Culture is, perhaps, the resultant of this history just as the flower is the resultant of a plant. Like history, or because it is history, culture has as its material base the level of the productive forces and the mode of production. Culture plunges its roots into the humus of the material reality of the environment in which it develops, and it reflects the organic nature of the society, which may be more or less influenced by external factors. History enables us to know the nature and extent of the imbalances and the conflicts (economic, political and social) that characterize the evolution of a society. Culture enables us to know what dynamic syntheses have been formed and set by social awareness in order to resolve these conflicts at each stage of evolution of that society, in the search for survival and progress. Just as occurs with the flower in a plant, the capacity (or responsibility) for forming and fertilizing the germ which ensures the continuity of history lies in culture, and the germ simultaneously ensures the prospects for evolution and progress of the society in question. Thus it is understood that imperialist domination, denying to the dominated people their own historical process, necessarily denies their cultural process. It is further understood why the exercise of imperialist domination, like all other foreign domination, for its own security requires cultural oppression and the attempt at direct or indirect destruction of the essential elements of the culture of the dominated people. Study of the history of liberation struggles shows that they have generally been preceded by an upsurge of cultural manifestations, which progressively harden into an attempt, successful or not, to assert the cultural personality of the dominated people by an act of denial of the culture of the oppressor. Whatever the conditions of subjection of a people to foreign domination and the influence of economic, political and social factors in the exercise of this domination, it is generally within the cultural factor that we find the germ of challenge which leads to the structuring and development of the liberation movement. In our view, the foundation of national liberation lies in the inalienable right of every people to have their own history, whatever the formulations adopted in international law. The aim of national liberation is therefore to regain this right, usurped by imperialist domination, namely: the liberation of the process of development of the national productive forces. So national liberation exists when, and only when the national productive forces have been completely freed from all kinds of foreign domination. The liberation of productive forces and consequently of the ability freely to determine the mode of production most appropriate to the evolution of the liberated people, necessarily opens up new prospects for the cultural process of the society in question, by returning to it all its capacity to create progress. A people who free themselves from foreign domination will not be culturally free unless, without underestimating the importance of positive contributions from the oppressor’s culture and other cultures, they return to the upwards paths of their own culture. The latter is nourished by the living reality of the environment and rejects harmful influences as much as any kind of subjection to foreign cultures. We see therefore that, if imperialist domination has the vital need to practise cultural oppression, national liberation is necessarily an act of culture.”[6]

 

 

Amilcar Cabral [1924-1973]

Social and Civil Rights Public Policy Initiatives

Additionally, the protectionist socio-political economic public policies advocated will enshrine into contemporary Afrikan Law:

1) The customary sacred rights of life of Afrikan communal societies designed to ensure the right of each member of each extended Afrikan family to a self-reliant, socially oriented, psychologically and spiritually remunerative community-enhancing profession in the industries, crafts, trades , agricultural arts or national mines of whichever Afrikan nation they reside without prejudicial regard to ethnicity, religion or gender;

2) The customary sacred rights of life of Afrikan communal societies brought forth to guarantee the opportunity of each member of each extended Afrikan family to produce or earn enough to provide optimally adequate food, clothing, and shelter;

3) The customary sacred rights of life of Afrikan communal societies established with the intentionality of protecting the right of every Afrikan farmer to raise enough food to feed the extended family and to provide a surplus for the community and nation as a means of making certain that Afrikan society consistently maintains a state of food security, with the farmer being able to sell his surplus products at a government subsidized price, which will provide the extended Afrikan family with a dignified living;

4) The customary sacred rights of life of Afrikan communal societies evolved by the Wahenga na Wahenguzi to secure the inviolable right of every Afrikan socio-political economic entrepreneur, both those of large scale and small scale enterprises, to trade in an communal atmosphere of Uhuru [Kiswahili: Freedom], which is devoid of government corruption, unharmonious competition and domination by local or foreign monopolies with local monopolies being restricted in size and foreign monopolies being totally excluded from Afrikan market participation;

5) The customary sacred rights of life of Afrikan communal societies founded by the Creator to assure the sacrosanct right of every extend Afrikan family to an accommodating, environmentally sound family-compound/home;

6) The customary sacred rights of life of Afrikan communal societies protected by the Creator and Wahenga na Wahenguzi and confirming the right to optimal medical care and the right to nutritious foods, which make certain the achievement and enjoyment of quality optimal health;

 

7) The customary sacred rights of life of Afrikan communal societies existing since the beginning of autochthonous Afrikans and guaranteeing the right to a free, quality optimal Utamaduni Mkubwa ya Mwafrika SBЗ/Seba and vocational schooling.

What we are implementing is an Afrikan oriented national program designed to provide a self-sufficient, sustainable livelihood, standard of living to all Afrikans by redistributing the common-wealth of the Afrikan nation among all of the people throughout all segments of Afrikan society. We are replacing the current oligarchic structure of Elite direct democracy with popular grassroots direct democracy.  The ethics of such a program stems from the moral reprehensibility of an Afrikan government allowing any of its citizens to be reduced to a status of impoverishment, i.e., to be forced to be without optimally adequate food, clothing and shelter even while the country is a net exporter of food and clothing is abundant, but priced out of their ability to pay and optimal housing is unavailable as a result of a lack of income.  Allowing this simply drives the grassroots into the escapist institutions of narcotics sales and use with utilization leading to addiction and swelling the ranks of broken families and neatly mandating prison construction and crowding.

All of these symptoms stemming from a violent socio-political economic system of structurally induced institutional genocide born of Eurasian domination and exploitation. To facilitate domination the current neoliberal educational, political, economic and religious regimes were implanted with the purpose of inflicting structural violence through the neoliberal political-economic privatization of every aspect of society. This is a socio-political economic system that transgresses customary Afrikan law which is based on sacred concepts of honor and obligation. It violates the sacred nature of life a value common to all Afrikan peoples. 

Most importantly such a system of socio-political economics upsets the natural order and harmony of life; dispossessing that which is right in favor of that which is unjust.  The current socio-political economic system of Eurasian domination and exploitation is an extremely destructive force sparing no one, crushing woman and man, girl, boy and infant, young and old and the Beautiful Ones Not Yet Born.  The established Eurasian socioeconomic and socio-political structures murder Afrikan people by the millions.

 

The enslavement and colonization of Afrikans and the enslavement of women and children for forced labor and sexual trafficking today are socioeconomic institutions which are tacitly supported by socio-political institutions and murder millions through political and economic violence. The socio-political economic public policies, supported by political violence or the threat thereof, which allow the ruthless exploitation and murder of billions across the world by market-oriented multinational corporations and Afrikan neo-colonial comprador collaborators in all countries is yet another example of how the legal structures of Eurasian domination can be and generally are sadistically violent. As Jacques Ellul stated:
  “Unjust economic systems can be as violent as rampaging armies: “All kinds of violence are the same ...the violence of the soldier who kills, the revolutionary who assassinates; it is true also of economic violence-the violence of the privileged corporate owner against his workers, of the 'haves' against the 'haves-not'; the violence done in international economic relations between Western Nations and those of the developing world; the violence done through powerful corporations which exploit the resources of a country that is unable to defend itself.”[7]

The affluence of the Eurasian Nations depends on unjust socio-political economic structures that make the West rich and Afrika, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and internal Afrikan colonies within the Western Nations, for example, American Afrikans in the United States, diseased, hungry and impoverished. Land throughout these areas is used to grow export crops to sell to the Western Nations. That their affluence is based on such crimogenic institutions makes them unfit to serve as models of development and socialization.

That land ought to be used to feed the grassroots in those countries, but it isn't given that the masses cannot pay and the Western imperialists can. By their consumption based lifestyles, the socio-political economic structures they blindly participate in which support those lifestyles and the political system that they maintain by participating in system preservationist symbolic politics, i.e., voting, the citizens of the Eurasian countries participate in murder. 

 

The socio-political economic straits, in which Afrikan nations find themselves due to the voluntary participation of the Afrikan neo-colonial comprador class, also results in the skewed distribution of resources within Afrikan society.  Afrikan countries and communities have a wide disparity between the small neo-colonial comprador elite and the grassroots. Socio-political economic reconstruction of Afrikan society is a near economic and political impossibility as long as between 80-95% of the nation’s wealth is concentrated in the possession of between 1-15% of the population.

To obtain the goal of providing a self-sufficient, sustainable livelihood, standard of living to all Afrikans a ceiling will be set for annual income, net worth and inheritable wealth by the design and implementation of a progressive graduated income and inheritance tax. Furthermore, the nationalization of natural resources and the tax on the revenues generated there from will be an additional source of revenue to finance the social programs. 

Social Welfare and Infrastructure Public Policy Initiatives

The taxes generated will be used for:

1) Public works infrastructure development and maintenance such as of dams, roads and bridge construction;

 

2) Providing Wazee [Kiswahili: Elders] over a certain age with a superannuation fund;

3) Providing Afrikan families which have an income below a set income floor with a guaranteed family income stipend that will allow for the provision of certain communally determined life necessities on an annual basis;

4) State subsidized primary, secondary and university education and vocation schooling and employment programs;

 

5) Military service veterans and national service stipends;

 

6) Creation and maintenance of state subsidized network of free public hospitals, free health clinics and immunizations programs for the impoverished; and,

 

7) The setting of a price ceiling on public utilities such as electricity and water, and the regulation of enterprises which provide other fundamental goods and services such as commodity production.

This course of action will transform the Afrikan citizen’s perception of the role of the government and of their role as government officials and as citizens. It places the government into the role of a servant, provider and protector of themselves as in a communal society the people and the government are one and the same. These programs when implemented will substantively reduce the cost of living for Afrikan people especially the impoverished majority.

 

For Afrikan citizens will no longer be required to pay for certain life necessities, such as quality system and optimal healthcare, which the majority cannot afford and therefore do without thus dramatically increasing future impoverishment, disease and death.[8] In the final analysis:

 “In the contemporary world of affluence and poverty, where man's major crime is murder by privilege, revolution against the established order is the criterion of a living faith...Truly I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me [Matt. 25:45]. The murder of the Christ continues. Great societies build on dying men.” [James Douglass] [9]

Thus there is both an egalitarian and moral rationale that underlies the necessity of Afrikan socio-political economic grassroots development through an authentically Afrikan social system.

 

Our nation to a great extent must lead the way for all Afrikan nations and become a closed socio-political economy which means that it should compellingly delink from the Eurasian contrived and controlled global economy through a redefinition of their current role as raw material exporters; a complete rejection of free market discipline and other capitalist principles. These are necessities as the actions of Eurasian countries are nothing short of hypocrisy.  Consider the following statement by President Yahya Jammeh of the Republic of the Gambia:


“The West has only been ungrateful. Abject poverty drove Europeans to Africa. And they exploited her for four hundred years. In those years there has never been any elections. They were no parliamentary systems. After four hundred years of looting Africa, some of us had to take up arms to kick them out. Now they have come around to give us lectures about democracy and human rights. When in their own countries there’s no democracy. Where’s the democracy for Blacks in the UK or Blacks anywhere in Europe? The so-called skin heads or neo-Nazi or the Far right, if they were in Africa or in the Gulf States they would be called terrorist organizations. Why are they not being called terrorist organization and being dealt with? …They are all anti-human. They hate humanity. But why are they not called terrorists and being bombed…like the Islamic extremists? The KKK in the United States are called Far Right or white supremacist. White supremacist against who? I am not anti-West. I am anti their hypocrisy and their racism…The British never built a high school in this country in four hundred years…Democracy is respecting the will of the people…Who do they think they are that they have to teach Africans democracy when we’ve never colonized anybody? The Western democracy is a fallacy. It doesn’t exists.”[10]


Further actions should focus on implementing protectionist socio-political economic and cultural public policies, which greatly reduce capital export and product imports; and redesigning socio-political institutions along authentic Afrikan democratic and egalitarian traditions. One key area here is in the implementation of policies of political economic coordination of industrial and infrastructure reconstruction.  Finally, there should be massive socio-political investment in health and education.[11]


The national education system is especially important for this is the key socio-political economic institution which will take the lead with competent personnel in the awakening of the critical and creative consciousness of the people.  This is the socio-political economic institution which by being centered in the Afrikan socio-historical cultural experience and focused on the key power constants can develop the type of spiritual, cognitive, affective and psycho-motor physiologically aware Afrikans necessary to carry out a program of Afrikan socio-political economic reconstruction through disengagement from Eurasian institutions and thereby exemplifying true liberatory Afrikan Agency.

Transitional Public Policy Initiatives

Having on the eve of political economic power reiterated all of the previous I would then turn again to Niccolo Machiavelli and quote:  “But to get a clearer understanding of this part of our subject, we must look whether these innovators can stand alone, or whether they depend for aid upon others; in other words, whether to carry out their ends they must resort to entreaty, or can prevail by force. In the former case they always fare badly and bring nothing to a successful issue; but when they depend upon their own resources and can employ force, they seldom fail. Hence it comes that all armed Prophets have been victorious, and all unarmed Prophets have been destroyed.”[12]


As we are now, under the leadership of the President-Elect, about to assume the high offices of the national civil administration we must come into the office with the zeal of the prepared armed Prophet.

We shall inherit all of the pressing problems of the previous administrations which must be satisfactorily solved forthwith.  These have to do with the pertinent issues of internal and external security of the women and children of the nation in the face of foreign funded and backed internal terrorist organizations determined to undermine the stability and functionality of the nation. Of equal importance is xenophobic behavior in the populace growing out of cultural mis-orientation and manipulated and perpetuated by Afrikan colonial comprador class.

 

These xenophobic terrorist groups are peopled in the main by impressionable, disgruntled youth who are disillusioned at the lack of substantive change in society, thus our immediate public policies must focus on the causes of increased recruitment e.g., extreme poverty, traditional Afrikan cultural deterioration and political-economic corruption.  These causes requires that we must enhance the domestic economy through textile, agricultural and residential construction initiatives and must forego free market myths and protect agriculture and its forward and backward linkages.

Furthermore, we must aggressively and with extreme prejudice pursue an anti-corruption agenda with severe penalties against the guilty such as confiscation and redistribution of all of their material wealth and where necessary, such as in cases of theft from the government and by inference from the commonwealth as a whole, public execution.

Additionally we must immediately reinstate African communal land rights and other associated institutions in a national policy of land reform. To fund these initiatives we must heavily tax the extractive economy industries of oil, gas, precious stones, minerals etc. and must further redress and compensate victims of government sanctioned acts of state terrorism and political-economic negligence.

It will be necessary to carry forth a policy of the democratization of the commanding height of the economy, of the government, of organized religion and of the University to reverse the pernicious effects of their present embourgeoisment by the bourgeois and petty bourgeois.  In the democratization of the University and secondary education there must be the eradication of class-oriented processes and procedures for the curtailing of the eligibility of large segments of the society for admittance, such as archaic imperialist entrance examinations, and exorbitant fees for registration and books.  Each of these are techniques born from the commodification of education and the reduction of the university to the preserve of first the settler colonialists and now Afrikan comprador neoliberal technocratic specialists. 

 

We must also maintain strict surveillance of business and military elites that are currently vested in the old order and who are thus internal weak points and in some cases are voluntarily willing to serve as proxies for external elements desirous of overthrowing our populist regime and maintaining the current imperialist backed regime ideology of public enterprise privatization and the continued revocation of social welfare and labor union public policies.  All in an effort to perpetuate the sub-integration of the national economy into the neo-liberal global economy.  These internal oligarchic subversives will callously utilize strategies of political violence and military coups, social propaganda through all forms of media and mis-information. All of their acts being freely financed by imperialist powers who in conjunction place economic sanctions on the international sector of the national economy and therefore attacking through the multiple defective stress points of the economic infrastructure also engage in the external financing of counter-revolutionary electoral opposition groups.

These public policies must be conducted simultaneously with a strong, strategic and determined military offensive against the separatist elements carried out in the field of battle, politically, economically and spiritually.  The standing military being supported by the arming of the people in the sense of the Paris Communes.[13]  Concomitant with this military policy is the capture, adjudication and where required execution of all perpetrators of the vile, anti-social acts of kidnapping and rape.

Epilogue

Some may read all of these policy proposals and call them unrealistic, impractical or lacking in pragmatism and you would be correct given your point of view in a neo-colonized existence and the social, political and economic experiences that you have undergone as a result.

But lest we forget that all reality is socially constructed and reified in the cognitive culture and lived experiences of the people.

Even more important though is an obvious ignorance of contemporary reality that such a perspective reveals for many of the policy proposals recommended herein have been and are being successfully implemented in the face of relentless pressure from Western Imperialists by nation’s intent on carving out a self-reliant existence. 

And they stay the necessary course even in the face of economic sabotage by Western government’s intelligence agencies and in the lethal downturn in the Global neo-liberal economic system.  Those nations are the Republic of Cuba, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, the Plurinational State of Bolivia the State of Eritrea.  The Republic of Cuba has a health and education system[14]that is second to none in the world, while the Plurinational State of Bolivia along with the Republic of Ecuador have become the first nations in the contemporary age to enshrine into law the rights of nature and that the Plurinational State of Bolivia has taken the lead in creation of a defensive mechanism against Western Imperialist machinations led by the arch-imperialist regime of the United States [15] and let it be remember that the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has over the past fifteen years begun a transformation of a highly stratified nation opening opportunities for many who were under previous American dominated administrations economically and educationally marginalized and exploited, if this nation has had any failures it is in the slow nature of diversifying the national economy so that it is not so overly reliant on the energy sector and its chief export of oil.[16]

Now more than likely many will hold that these nations are pariahs and failed states in the international arena.  This inaccurate opinion is derived from biased propaganda which passes as news from corporate sources and is intended to shape and control public opinion.  As Edward Bernay’s wrote in 1928:

 
“THE conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. Our invisible governors are, in many cases, unaware of the identity of their fellow members in the inner cabinet. They govern us by their qualities of natural leadership, their ability to supply needed ideas and by their key position in the social structure. Whatever attitude one chooses to take toward this condition, it remains a fact that in almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons—a trifling fraction of our hundred and twenty million—who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world.  It is not usually realized how necessary these invisible governors are to the orderly functioning of our group life. In theory, every citizen may vote for whom he pleases. Our Constitution does not envisage political parties as part of the mechanism of government, and its framers seem not to have pictured to themselves the existence in our national politics of anything like the modern political machine. But the American voters soon found that without organization and direction their individual votes, cast, perhaps, for dozens or hundreds of candidates, would produce nothing but confusion. Invisible government, in the shape of rudimentary political parties, arose almost overnight. Ever since then we have agreed, for the sake of simplicity and practicality, that party machines should narrow down the field of choice to two candidates, or at most three or four.   In theory, every citizen makes up his mind on public questions and matters of private conduct. In practice, if all men had to study for themselves the abstruse economic, political, and ethical data involved in every question, they would find it impossible to come to a conclusion about anything. We have voluntarily agreed to let an invisible government sift the data and high-spot the outstanding issues so that our field of choice shall be narrowed to practical proportions. From our leaders and the media they use to reach the public, we accept the evidence and the demarcation of issues bearing upon public questions; from some ethical teacher, be it a minister, a favorite essayist, or merely prevailing opinion, we accept a standardized code of social conduct to which we conform most of the time.  In theory, everybody buys the best and cheapest commodities offered him on the market. In practice, if everyone went around pricing, and chemically testing before purchasing, the dozens of soaps or fabrics or brands of bread which are for sale, economic life would become hopelessly jammed. To avoid such confusion, society consents to have its choice narrowed to ideas and objects brought to its attention through propaganda of all kinds. There is consequently a vast and continuous effort going on to capture our minds in the interest of some policy or commodity or idea.   It might be better to have, instead of propaganda and special pleading, committees of wise men who would choose our rulers, dictate our conduct, private and public, and decide upon the best types of clothes for us to wear and the best kinds of food for us to eat. But we have chosen the opposite method, that of open competition. We must find a way to make free competition function with reasonable smoothness. To achieve this society has consented to permit free competition to be organized by leadership and propaganda.  Some of the phenomena of this process are criticized—the manipulation of news, the inflation of personality, and the general ballyhoo by which politicians and commercial products and social ideas are brought to the consciousness of the masses. The instruments by which public opinion is organized and focused may be misused. But such organization and focusing are necessary to orderly life.  As civilization has become more complex, and as the need for invisible government has been increasingly demonstrated, the technical means have been invented and developed by which opinion may be regimented.”[17]

Incidentally, Edward Bernays is a part of the required reading for college students at those global Universities where women and men are being prepared to rule the world, as opposed to the fact that he is nearly unheard of at those Universities where women and men are being prepared to be ruled. This has a most negative impact for Global Afrikan peoples and thus and most importantly for continental Afrika and the future of Pan-Afrikanism, for such corporatized information keeps truth about the Afrikan nation, the State of Eritrea, highly distorted.

 

Eritrea: The Quintessential Afrikan Model

 

 
Of the State of Eritrea the honored Mhenga, Pan-Afrikanist and Zanzibar Marxist revolutionary Abdul Rahman Mohamed Babu in 1985 stated:


“Living, working and eating with these staunch revolutionaries I am tempted to echo the famous quote: “I have seen the future of Africa and it works.” This is not an easy statement to make after so many political, social and economic shocks that we went through in the post-independence Africa. Who can be enthusiastic in the midst of the political chaos of military coups and counter-coups and the economic pains of bankrupted and heavily indebted nations? Of the humiliating and degrading experience of dependence on the very imperialism that cost Africa’s lives and hardships to be rid of? Of the pathetic call of despair for a dream-world of failed politicians known as the New International Economic order? But experiences with liberated Eritreans give you confidence in the capacity of the African masses to take history in their own hands during the challenging journey from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom. Where in Africa today would you see doctors, engineers, mechanics, technicians, all of world standards, inspired enough to flock back home enthusiastically from foreign universities and institutions of learning to serve their country without pay? Where in Africa would you see mature community minus the pompous party functionaries, insensitive bureaucrats and overindulged diplomats? In short, it is a unique experience of the absence of the exploited or exploiter, of the true equality between man and woman, experience of witnessing normal human beings free from hang-ups, engaged in an honourable struggle to liberate the rest of the country on the basis of self-reliance and independent of external power.”[18]

And today this same Afrikan nation, after having waged a thirty year war of national liberation and now in the face of unjust international economic sanctions instigated by the Western Imperialist governments led by the arch-imperialist regime in the United States and while having nearly 20% of its sovereign land illegally occupied by its formal colonial power in staunch disregard of internationally arbitrated treaties to the contrary, continues on the path of self-reliance. The peoples and leaders of the State of Eritrea have chosen to pursue a self-determined course of self-directed development in the face of massive odds that may be summed up in the popular phrase Hizbawi Mekhete [Kitigrinya: Popular Resistance]

Of the self-reliant State of Eritrea today in the year 2015 it has been reported that:

 

1) “Eritrea registered success, substantial achievements, in what the United Nations defines as ‘Millennium Development Goals’, in particular ensuring primary education for all, free-of-charge; ensuring women’s emancipation and equality of women in all fields. In healthcare – it achieved a dramatic reduction of infant mortality, as well as the reduction of maternal mortality. In this regard, Eritrea is considered exemplary in Africa; few other countries have attained that much. So, despite all the obstacles that the country faces, the picture is positive.”

2) “Eritrea continues on the national independent path. It has progressive view in building national unity. Eritrea is a multi-ethnic, multi-religious society. It has 9 ethnic groups, and two major religions: Christianity and Islam. Two religions co-exist harmoniously, and this is mainly due to the tolerant culture, that the society has built. There is no conflict or animosity between the ethnic groups or religious groups. The government and the people are keen to maintain this national unity.”

3) “Eritrea is not a neo-colonial state. Eritrea is an independent state. Eritrea does not host any military bases, any external forces. Eritrea has the vision, and not only for Eritrea, but also for the region. It is also promoting self-reliance and regional integration. It is also built on the ideal: ‘let us use our own resources, and let us build our independence. It means elevating the life of Eritrean people, particularly those in the rural areas. This approach was considered in the West, as Chomsky said, as ‘a rotten apple’.”

 

4) “Big powers do not want the Eritrean example to be replicated in Africa. I say again, Africa has huge natural resources. Big powers are now trying to grab these resources. What will happen if other governments in Africa were to try to follow Eritrea’s example? It would definitely not be beneficial to great powers.”[19]

5) “In Eritrea, the cardinal principle governing mineral resources is that they unquestionably remain the property of all Eritreans – both present and future generations. While numerous developing countries have seen their resource revenues disproportionately repatriated by foreign firms, Eritrea’s progressive mining legislation policies aim to ensure that Eritrea itself is the prime beneficiary of its own resources. Quite impressively, Eritrean mining laws stipulate that for all mining activities and projects, Eritrea may attain upwards of a 40% equity. Also, unlike many other countries that have witnessed a flood of cheap foreign workers taking local jobs, infrastructure and mining projects in Eritrea are almost exclusively manned by Eritreans. For example, in its 2013-14 report, Nevsun Resources Ltd. notes that Eritreans make up over 90% of the employees and represent nearly half of the management positions at the Bisha mine (other projects boast similar figures).”[20]

 

 

Furthermore, the President of the State of Eritrea, the Honorable Isaias Afwerki has stated unequivocally that:

“Anyone who takes aid is crippled. Aid is meant to cripple people… Governments in Africa and elsewhere are not allowed to write their own programs. And when it comes to implementing programs, it deprives you of building institutions and the capacity to implement your programs…We need to write our own programs in the first place. We need to articulate on the projects we write. We need to have a comprehensive strategy, plans on how to implement those programs…Unless we do that on our own, we can’t possibly imagine that we are achieving any of the goals – millennium or non-millennium…”[21]

His sentiments on foreign aid echo those of the illustrious Mhenga Thomas Sankara, the assassinated former President of the west Afrikan nation of Burkina Faso:


“We represented a wondrous condensation, the epitome of all the calamities that have ever befallen the so-called developing countries. The example of foreign aid, presented as a panacea and often heralded without rhyme or reason, bears eloquent witness to this fact. Very few countries have been inundated like mine with all kinds of aid. Theoretically, this aid is supposed to work in the interests of our development. In the case of what was formerly Upper Volta, one searches in vain for a sign of anything having to do with development. The men in power, either out of naiveté or class selfishness, could not or would not take control of this influx from abroad, understand its significance, or raise demands in the interests of our people. In his book, Le Sahel demain [The Sahel of tomorrow], Jacques Giri, with a good deal of common sense, analyzes a table published in 1983 by the Sahel Club, and draws the conclusion that because of its nature and the mechanisms in place, aid to the Sahel helps only with bare survival. Thirty percent of this aid, he stresses, serves simply to keep the Sahel alive. According to Jacques Giri, the only goal of this foreign aid is to continue developing nonproductive sectors, saddling our meager budgets with unbearably heavy expenditures, disorganizing our countryside, widening our balance of trade deficit, and accelerating our indebtedness… The diagnosis was clearly somber. The root of the disease was political. The treatment could only be political. Of course, we encourage aid that aids us in doing away with aid. But in general, welfare and aid policies have only ended up disorganizing us, subjugating us, and robbing us of a sense of responsibility for our own economic, political, and cultural affairs. We chose to risk new paths to achieve greater well-being. We chose to apply new techniques. We chose to look for forms of organization better suited to our civilization, flatly and definitively rejecting all forms of outside diktats, in order to lay the foundations for achieving a level of dignity equal to our ambitions. Refusing to accept a state of survival, easing the pressures, liberating our countryside from medieval stagnation or even regression, democratizing our society, opening minds to a world of collective responsibility in order to dare to invent the future. Shattering the administrative apparatus, then rebuilding it with a new kind of government employee, immersing our army in the people through productive labor and reminding it constantly that without patriotic political education, a soldier is only a potential criminal. Such is our political program.  On the level of economic management, we’re learning to live modestly, to accept and impose austerity on ourselves in order to be able to carry out ambitious projects.”[22]


On another occasion President Isaias Afwerki in an interview gave the following responses on the State of Eritrea’s chosen path:

Interviewer: Eritrea has become increasingly isolated over the past 10 years. Why?

President: Isaias Afwerki: It's a perception of those who would like to see Eritrea isolated. Facts on the ground will tell you that we are more and more joining the region and friends all over the world.

Interviewer: But there's very little foreign trade or importing/exporting. Diplomatic relations are strained with several countries. Many foreign aid groups have left or been kicked out.

 

President: Isaias Afwerki: It's a matter of how you see it. This is a very young country. You can go and see the social services we offer, the quality of life, the improvements that have occurred in the past 10-15 years, and objectively compare that to older countries who have not achieved what we have [in] a very short time. If you take that as a measure, it definitely tells you that we are not isolated. We believe we are part of a regional and global economy and would like to survive and strive within that process by developing an economy that can grow and be sustained. But to be part of it, we have to be able to produce something and sell something, so we can buy something. We need to do things that enable this country to stand on its two feet and do business with other countries. We have to be able to produce enough to feed ourselves and then go beyond that to sell in the market. Do we live on food aid? Do we live on handouts?

 

Interviewer: Eritrea in recent years has rejected hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid. Why?

 

President: Isaias Afwerki: It's not a matter of rejecting support from outside. It has to be seen in light of what I mentioned. How can we buy and sell in the marketplace if we depend on food aid? Isn't it wise for people to think they need to produce what they are eating? What's wrong with that? To be part of the region and trade with others, we need to work hard and produce, and depend upon our toil. . . . Self-reliance is perceived as isolationist. But self-reliance is a means, not an end. It's a means of taking you to the bigger market and the biggest markets. How can I do that with handouts?[23]  

 

So the practicality of the impracticalities is quite pragmatic and necessarily sane in a world defined by insanity!

 

In the final analysis there does come a time when we must cease asking why and instead pursue with determination the path of why not. It is a matter of divine duty that as Afrikans we take our destiny into our own hands others be damned as necessary!

 

Only the neo-colonized slave thinks otherwise!

 

“Each generation must discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it, in relative opacity.” [Dr. Frantz Fanon]

 

“Some men see things as they are and say, why; I dream things that never were and say, why not.” [Senator Robert F. Kennedy]

 

Ambakisye-Okang Olatunde Dukuzumurenyi, Ph.D. is a citizen of the United States of America and expatriate resident of the United Republic of Tanzania.  Dr. Dukuzumurenyi is a graduate of Grambling State University, in Grambling, Louisiana, USA with a Bachelors of Arts in History and Masters of Public Administration in Public Administration with emphasis in Health Service Administration and of Southern University A & M College Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA with an earned Doctorate of Philosophy in Public Policy Analysis from the Nelson Mandela School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs. He is an Afrikan-centered educator, public policy analyst, public administration scholar, political scientist, and public lecturer on Afrikan education, Nation-building, history, economics, politics and spirituality emphasizing systems design and strategic planning in the development of Afrikan political, military, social and economic agency.  Additionally, he has served the Afrikan community as an Afrikan American Studies, Geography and Economics teacher in the East Baton Rouge Parish School System of the United States for nine years, as an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at Southern University A & M College in Baton Rouge, Louisiana for one year and as Associate Director of Research and Publication, Editor of the Journal of East Afrikan Research and Lecturer on the Faculties of Education, Cultural Anthropology and Tourism, Business and Development Studies at the University of Iringa in the United Republic of Tanzania, East Afrika for two plus years. He is also the founder and director of the University of New Timbuktu System SBЗ/Seba Press.  The guiding influences for Dr. Dukuzumurenyi have been the works of Dr. Amos N. Wilson, Dr. Asa Hilliard, Dr. John Henrik Clarke, Dr. Yosef Ben-Jochanan, Dr. Marimba Ani, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, Minister Malcolm X, Stephen Biko, Shaka Zulu, Mangaliso Sobukwe & Ptahhotep to name only a select few.

 

Contact: ambakisye.dukuzumurenyi.iuco@gmail.com

 

 

 

Notes

 

 

[1] Portions of this article are taken from: Ambakisye-Okang Olatunde Dukuzumurenyi, Revolution: A People’s Methodology of Regime Change Essays on a Theory of Afrikan Socio-Political Economic Liberation with an Exposition on the first Black War of National Liberation: Kushite KMT/Kemet & the Expulsion of the Kushite Kanaanite Hyksos c. 2681-2706 KC [c. 1560-1535 BCE] [Iringa, Tanzania: University of New Timbuktu System SBЗ/Seba Press, 2014]

 

[2] Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1994) pp. 20-21.

 

[3] Here the term Eurasian is used to include all Europeans from Western and Easter Europe and their descendants in the former European colonies throughout the world, such as in North America, New Zealand and Australia.

It also includes Asian peoples such as the Japanese, Chinese and Indians.  For example, if you would know what the Chinese International Political Economic intentions are NOW take a look back at the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979. During this war China made a decisive foreign relations and ideological break with the Communist Block Countries and all other Socialist and non-socialist countries of the Non-aligned movement and in the developing world in general and began its economic transformation and interaction with countries such as the United States. It may NOW look as if China and the United States are battling for control of Afrikan resources, but as always LOOKS CAN BE DECIEVING!

 

[4] The name is derived from: Ayi Kwei Armah, The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (Johannesburg, South Africa: Heinemann Publishers Ltd., 1968)

 

[5] Thomas Sankara, Speech delivered before the General Assembly the Organisation of African Unity, July 1987.

 

[6] Amilcar Cabral, “National Liberation and Culture,” Speech delivered at Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York, 20 February 1970 [http://historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/cabralnlac.html]

 

[7] “Poverty: A hellish state to be in. It is no virtue. It is a crime.  To be poor, is to be hungry without possible hope of food; to be sick without hope of medicine; to be tired and sleepy without a place to lay one's head; to be naked without the hope of clothing; to be despised and comfortless. To be poor is to be a fit subject for crime and hell.  The hungry man steals bread and thereby breaks the eighth commandment; by his state he breaks all the laws of God and man and becomes an outcast. In thought and deed he covets his neighbor's goods; comfortless as he is he seeks his neighbor's wife; to him there is no other course but sin and death. That is the way of poverty. No one wants to be poor.” From: Marcus Garvey, The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey Ed. Amy Jaques-Garvey (New York City: UNIA, 1923)

 

[8] James W. Douglass, The Non-Violent Cross: A Theology of Revolution and Peace (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 1968)

[9] Ezili Danto, “U.S. NGOs Kicked Out of Eritrea: Foreign Aid Is Meant To Cripple People,” 5 April 2015 [http://www.globalresearch.ca/u-s-ngos-kicked-out-of-eritrea-foreign-aid-is-meant-to-cripple-people/5441367]

 

[10] Peter R. Mitchell and John Schoeffel, Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky (New York: The New Press, 2002)

[11] Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1994) pp. 21.

 

[12] Karl Marx, The Paris Commune, (New York: New York Labor’s Company, 1871)

 

[13] Martin Carnoy, Cuba’s Academic Advantage: Why Student’s in Cuba Do Better in School (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007)

 

[14] Richard Fidler, “Bolivia’s cogent responses to recent provocations from the Empire,” October 2013 [http://lifeonleft.blogspot.com/2013/09/bolivias-cogent-responses-to-recent.html]

[15] James Petras, “US and Venezuela: Decades of Destabilization and Defeat,” March 2015 [https://libya360.wordpress.com/2015/03/04/us-and-venezuela-decades-of-defeats-and-destabilization/]

 

[16] Edward Bernays, Propaganda (New York: Horace Liveright, 1928) pp. 9-11.

[17] Abdul Rahman Mohamed Babu, “Eritrea: Its Present is the Remote Future of Others,” African Events 10 October 1985

[18] Andre Vltchek, “Eritrea: An African Ideological Ebola for Imperialists,” 12 December 2014 [http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/12/12/african-ideological-ebola-for-imperialists/]

[19] Merhawie, “Challenging African Dogma:  Eritrea’s Path to Economic Independence,” [http://www.myth2014.com/2014/05/14/challenging-african-dogma-eritreas-path-to-economic-independence/]

[20] Ezili Danto, “U.S. NGOs Kicked Out of Eritrea: Foreign Aid Is Meant To Cripple People,” 5 April 2015 [http://www.globalresearch.ca/u-s-ngos-kicked-out-of-eritrea-foreign-aid-is-meant-to-cripple-people/5441367]

[21] Thomas Sankara, We Are Heirs of the World’s Revolution, (New York: Pathfinder Press, 2002)

 

[22] Edmund Sanders, “Q & A with President Isaias Afwerki,” Los Angeles Times October 2007 [http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-eritreaweb2oct02-story.html#page=1]