365... Tech

A quote from the former Zimbabwean leader of the opposition to the Smith government  and then freedom fighter against apartheid Rhodesia in his book Holistic Resource Management, sums up the cycle of African politics. Holistic Resource Management, Allan Savory. Island Press, 1988 ISBN 0-933280-61-0 Introduction, chapter 2 pages13-15 Does this not sum up Kenya?  People of all political persuasions should read this (and find some common ground hopefully).  Written in 1988 but the scenario is relevant nonetheless. BEGIN ...... One particularly dismal scenario that illustrates why politicians and economists must learn new ways to address such problems almost routinely characterizes foreign aid programs emanating from nations or international agencies of all political persuasions.  It begins when a highly industrialized nation, ALPHA, for some reason - altruistic or otherwise - decides to assist a poor undeveloped nation, BETA. Alpha people realise from past failures that education is better than outright gifts and material assistance.  Funds are made available for Beta’s young people to come to Alpha for higher education and for improving lower level schools in Beta. People in Beta respond well and many young people earn degrees in Alpha.  They do this in a variety of fields associated with their poverty problems - health, agriculture, economics, administration, and so on.  They return with their new knowledge and great respect.  (The power and respect granted to a Ph.D. back home in many undeveloped countries has to be seen to be believed.) The new knowledge is applied.  Better health services lead to increased population growth with little effort.  What of the other resources?  Beta does not have the capability to extract its own nonrenewable resources, so Alpha offers to do this in various ways. Alpha has a very high consumption of resources and energy and thus benefits from this side of the aid, even if done very fairly.  Even if Beta finds that this provides much employment, brings people into centers for better health treatment and education, and brings in much foreign currency, Beta still loses it’s non renewable resources without any sustainable benefit to the country.  Meanwhile the population rises fast. What of the renewable resources?  Obviously, increased pressure is being placed on these, and newly returned graduates are hard at work doing their best to improve things by modernizing agriculture.  Crops that used to be sown by hand in small mixed fields are now monocultures in large fields of neat rows so that expensive machinery (bought from Alpha on credit) can help the people. Insect damage increases and so insecticides are introduced and the damage begins to accelerate.  Rivers that once ran clear start to silt up.  Droughts increase in frequency and severity.  As the population rises, more food is required and so with Alpha’s know-how, fertilisers are applied with dramatic results. Unfortunately, this leads to ever rising costs and dependency on non-renewable resources while seriously damaging the basic land resource (as we will discuss later).  As each thing begins to go wrong another quick fix from Alpha is applied.  Beta however has to pay for this level of assistance which is now material as well as educational, and so it is lent money for which interest must be paid.  Interest compounds. Beta, with all that education and assistance of the early days, gradually has transformed itself into a so-called friendly government molded on the beliefs of Alpha.  If Alpha happens to be a democracy, there will be elections, but Beta may lack some of the ingredients of a democratic society, a key one bieng a general belief that a loyal opposition can exist.  Beta people aren’t convinced that losers will get a fair shake, so elections get a little rowdy and quite a bit of skull bashing occurs.  Almost imperceptibly at first, Alpha begins to back it’s man because as unrest increases it sees the need to protect its investments. If Alpha purveys an authoritarian ideology it will simply arrive at this point more quickly. The poor land syndrome is now well on it’s way.  As the population continues to rise and the land continues to deteriorate and the costs continue to grow, so the rest follows.  Young men leave the land and go to seek work in the urban centers.  Social problems increase as families are split and urban drift accelerates.  It is only a matter of time before there is rising discontent with the new way of life and demand for change.  The government is percieved to be the evil and the government is controlled by Alpha’s man.  Alpha’s man begins to silence the opposition in various ways.  The opposition, however, only gets stronger and goes underground, where it seeks outside assistance from Alpha’s enemies. Alpha provides arms to support its man and Alpha’s banks lend the money, together with the sting in the tail of the scorpion -compound interest.  Arms are used to suppress the people but do not produce anything with which to repay the loans.  Alpha’s man increasingly depends on Alpha.  The opposition seeks arms and starts to use them on soft and emotionally sensitive targets as the easiest way to induce overreaction by the government.  Alpha’s man then overreacts against his people and is on his way to destruction as governments do not win guerilla wars, only the people do. Alpha’s politicians and bankers, who have never understood interconectedness, now appeal to their own population to support military involvement to help their man who is threatened by communist takeover (or capitalist imperialist takeover).  People die, resources go up in smoke, the opposition wins, and a new government, hostile to Alpha, takes over a country rendered immeasurably poorer and more vulnerable by the whole affair. Unfortunately, neither the new government nor its backers has any better ideas about resource management, and so man’s weary destructive progress proceeds. END K.H. von Kaufmann, Richmond,Surrey, London, UK. This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it