13 - 19 September 2001
Issue No.551
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 13 - 19 September 2001 Issue No.551 |
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Playing it cool
Having admitted historical guilt over the slave trade and colonialism, the EU still finessed its way around paying reparations, writes Faiza Rady
If the World Conference against Racism (WCAR) in Durban, South Africa, proved anything, it proved that racism is still alive, kicking and rearing its ugly head. Manifested in the deep divide between the North and the South along the traditional "colour bar" of bygone colonial days, the conference agenda pitted rich white nations against the Third World.
Given the unequal match, the outcome of the conference -- as spelled out in the final declaration -- confirmed that the former European imperialist powers, as well as the United States, never had any serious intentions of facing their own racism beyond dabbling with semantics and appearances. Ultimately, the US and the European Union (EU) adamantly refused to redress the devastation resulting from old and more recent sins.
Throughout the conference, the Bush administration and the EU maintained their stalwart refusal to denounce Israel as a colonial settler state or to define Zionism as racism. Likewise, they opposed the call to compensate African nations for the slave trade and the plunder of their natural resources under colonialism.
In the wake of the US's and Israel's melodramatic twin walk-out over the definition of Zionism and the ostensible sabotage of the WCAR's agenda by "Arab and Islamic extremist elements", the Europeans immediately threatened to follow suit -- should things get out of hand. Left to fend for themselves against the growing coalition of Third World "saboteurs" basking in the success of the Durban NGO forum, European nations threw their political weight about -- deploying the full arsenal of their lobbying power to limit the damage and censure the "extremists". And censure they did.
Any direct reference to Israel was deleted from the final declaration, which cautiously expressed "concern about the plight of the Palestinian people under foreign occupation". European censorship carried things to the extreme of omitting a designation of the occupying power. Thus the Europeans won the day on the Zionism front. They whitewashed Israel's status, laundered its record and officially de-linked it from references to apartheid and racism.
The EU was equally successful on the vexing issues of slavery and colonialism. Wary about facing class action suits for the devastation of the slave trade and unwilling to pay reparations to African nations, the EU masterminded a text that branded slavery and the slave trade as a "crime against humanity", while manoeuvring around the question of direct reparation payments. Instead, the text refers to the blanket "moral obligation" of rich nations, who should provide compensation in the form of debt relief, the opening of markets and poverty eradication drives.
Far from fuelling African growth, the formula consists of a recycled version of the pre-packaged Northern "aid" kit, designed to replenish military hardware budgets and deliver piecemeal patch- ups in lieu of real development projects. African observers are also sceptical about European pledges of debt relief. Given the North's record, promises of debt relief will be relegated to the dustbins of history once the dust settles over Durban and its turmoil.
Over and above refurbished "aid" formulas and pledges of debt relief, the more ominous question of reparations had to be settled. Intent on dismissing any lingering and misguided African claims to reparations, the EU was quick to spell out the limitations of Durban. "The declaration and the programme of action are political, not legal documents. These documents cannot impose obligations or liability or a right to compensation on anyone. Nor are they intended to do so," the EU said in a statement.
Notwithstanding a few interspersed expressions of victory lauding the final declaration, African delegations acknowledged that they did not get what they had bargained for. "We have an agreement on a document that is far from satisfactory -- is terribly imperfect -- but that provides a basis to build on," said Amina Mohamed, the Kenyan mediator in the talks. Denied reparations at Durban, African nations failed in their attempt to even slightly redress the imbalance of power and recoup what would have amounted to a fraction of their losses over roughly 400 years of slavery and 200 years of colonialism.
From the end of the 15th century until the 19th century, the slave trade depleted Africa of its human resources. Following the slave trade, the plunder of African and Southern nations expanded and further consolidated under colonialism and neo-colonialism in the 19th and 20th centuries. The legacy of the slave trade and colonialism is a legacy of dire poverty and underdevelopment that continues to plague the South, and the African continent in particular. It is no coincidence that African nations were unable to pull themselves up by the proverbial bootstraps after independence. The Europeans saw to it that the continent remained fragmented, divided and weakened by warfare.
Among the former imperialist powers, France in particular deftly managed to maintain its control over francophone Africa following independence. In 1958, French President Charles de Gaulle moved to establish the Franco-African Community -- a French version of the Commonwealth, with a common defence programme, shared diplomacy and a common currency, tying African economies to the French franc.
Submitted to a referendum, De Gaulle's initiative was endorsed by a number of moderate francophone leaders, but rejected by more radical ones like Guinea's Sekou Touré, and Mali's Modibo Keita, who regarded the Community as thinly-veiled colonial rule.
Although short-lived -- it formally fizzled out in 1961 -- the Community provided France with a convenient springboard into African affairs. It also served to create division within African ranks, in particular between so-called moderate and radical nations, pitting African nationalists -- those who shared Kwame Nkrumah's pan-African vision -- against supporters of the West. On the route to "Balkanisation" and division, francophone Africa only needed a slight push to fall into the French (and Western) orbit. The US provided the fatal impetus in 1966, by engineering and financing a coup in Ghana to topple Nkrumah and put an end to any militant pan-African ventures. In 1968, it was Modibo Keita's turn to go. A socialist and an ally of the Soviet Union, Mali's leader threatened to divert other African countries from the Western camp.
Besides supporting US efforts to crush pan- Africanism and topple socialist regimes, France supported African dictatorships over progressive opposition movements continent-wide. Among its most notorious allies in the '60s and '70s was South Africa, which France continued to supply with arms even after the UN-initiated universal boycott of the apartheid regime.
Acting as destabilising agents since the early days of African independence, France -- along with other European countries -- actively contributed to the continent's division and continued to control the economies of their former colonies. Paying reparations for slavery and colonialism would mean reversing the trend and relinquishing control. Given the stakes, it is not surprising that European nations finessed their way around the issue of reparations at Durban.
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