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martedì 23 maggio 2017

Congo: democrazia bene di lusso

Democracy in the new Congo? - Nothing is Sacred: Economic Ideas for the New Millennium by Robert J. Barro
Cambio della guardia in Congo. La democrazia trionferà?…
… The overthrow of Zaire's (now the Democratic Republic of Congo's) long-time dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, had barely been accomplished in 1997 when the victor, Laurent Kabila, heard the standard Western clamor for democracy…
Stesso copione in Afghanistan
… Interestingly, we are now hearing similar ideas expressed for the post-conflict Afghanistan…
Difficile pensarlo: la democrazia non premia i meritevoli.
Un uomo coraggioso si batte per far fuori un dittatore sanguinario mettendo a rischio la sua vita e poi che fa? Passa la mano lasciando che siano altri a realizzare i loro progetti per la sua terra? Difficile pensarlo…
… The push for instant democracy in 1997 in the new Congo somehow seemed unfair… What then was the reward for leading a risky revolution that eliminated the person who had led his country to more than thirty years of negative average economic growth?…
Ma pesa un altro fatto: la democrazia è un bene di lusso.
Dove c’è povertà non puo’ esserci democrazia…
… History makes clear that democratic institutions have little chance of survival when the standard of living is this low…
Democrazia in Africa? Meglio negli anni sessanta che oggi…
… One also has to recall that the prospects for democracy in Africa looked better in the 1960s than they do now. However, the optimistic outlook in the 1960s was never realistic…
La democrazia non arricchisce il popolo, non esiste infatti un legame tra democrazia e crescita economica. Forse per questo non interessa i poveri
… Democracy, in the sense of political rights and civil liberties, is, in any case, not the characteristic of institutions that matters most for economic performance…
E i dittatori spingono la crescita economica? A volte sì, anche se i problemi sono tanti…
… although some dictators have delivered good economic results-Pinochet in Chile, Lee in Singapore, Fujimori for awhile in Peru, Park in South Korea, and the shah in Iran-the list of economic failures among dictators is larger: Marcos in the Philippines, Mao in China, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Duvalier in Haiti, and a cast of despots in sub-Saharan Africa….
Le democrazia iniziano sempre bene, prima di impantanarsi
… The favorable economic effects from democracy seem, however, to disappear once a country attains a moderate degree of liberalization, such as that characteristic through the 1990s in places such as Malaysia, Mexico, and Turkey. Further expansions of democratic freedoms toward the Western ideal seem to come at the expense of economic growth…
Perché la democrazia s’impantana regolarmente? Perché sfocia nello stato sociale, una creatura costosa e inefficiente…
… Such a system tends to favor redistributions from rich to poor and, more specifically, the expansions of social welfare programs…
Cosa giovaallora  al progresso economico? E qui parte il solito elenco (che non comprende il voto democratico)…
… maintenance of secure property rights, promotion of the rule of law, fostering of free markets domestically and for international trade, macroeconomic stability, and investments in education, health, and some forms of infrastructure
Dittature virtuose
… Singapore, Chile, Peru, China, South Korea, Taiwan,…
Quanto detto non esclude che la prosperità porti alla democrazia, anzi…
… there is a good deal of evidence that economic prosperity leads eventually to sustainable expansions of democracy…
La Cina sarà un bel banco di prova per questa tesi.
Il miglior consiglio che si doveva dare a Kabila, nuovo uomo forte del Congo: non puntare sulla democrazia ma sul benessere del paese…
… The best advice that outsiders could have offered Kabila, before he was assassinated in 2001 and then succeeded by his son, was not to focus on elections and power sharing but rather to emphasize the growth-promoting policies…
Un consiglio che vale anche per noi: non esportiamo democrazia ma benessere.

lunedì 22 maggio 2017

3 Democracy in the new Congo? - Nothing is Sacred: Economic Ideas for the New Millennium by Robert J. Barro

3§§§§§§§§§§§§§ Edit
The overthrow of Zaire's (now the Democratic Republic of Congo's) long-time dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, had barely been accomplished in 1997 when the victor, Laurent Kabila, heard the standard Western clamor for democracy.Read more at location 946
Note: CONGO. CAMBIO DELLA GUARDIA. BDA VKABILA CI SI ATENDE DEMOCR Edit
Interestingly, we are now hearing similar ideas expressed for the post-conflict Afghanistan. Read more at location 948
Note: STESSO COPIONE AFGH Edit
The push for instant democracy in 1997 in the new Congo somehow seemed unfair.Read more at location 948
Note: LA RICHIESTA DI DEMO INGIUSTA: NESSUN PREMIO X I MERITEVOLI Edit
What then was the reward for leading a risky revolution that eliminated the person who had led his country to more than thirty years of negative average economic growth?Read more at location 950
Note: c Edit
History makes clear that democratic institutions have little chance of survival when the standard of living is this low.Read more at location 954
Note: POVERTÀ... DEMO NSOSTWNIBILE. LA DEMO BENE DI LUSSO Edit
One also has to recall that the prospects for democracy in Africa looked better in the 1960s than they do now. However, the optimistic outlook in the 1960s was never realistic;Read more at location 959
Note: DEM IN AFRICA. MEGLIO NEI 60 Edit
Democracy, in the sense of political rights and civil liberties, is, in any case, not the characteristic of institutions that matters most for economic performance.Read more at location 961
Note: DEMO E CRESCITA. NESSUN VINCOLO Edit
although some dictators have delivered good economic results-Pinochet in Chile, Lee in Singapore, Fujimori for awhile in Peru, Park in South Korea, and the shah in Iran-the list of economic failures among dictators is larger: Marcos in the Philippines, Mao in China, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Duvalier in Haiti, and a cast of despots in sub-Saharan Africa.Read more at location 963
Note: DOTTATORI E CRESCOTA. PROBLEMI Edit
The favorable economic effects from democracy seem, however, to disappear once a country attains a moderate degree of liberalization, such as that characteristic through the 1990s in places such as Malaysia, Mexico, and Turkey. Further expansions of democratic freedoms toward the Western ideal seem to come at the expense of economic growth. Read more at location 965
Note: IL BENE DELLA DEMO SPARISCE SUBOTO Edit
Such a system tends to favor redistributions from rich to poor and, more specifically, the expansions of social welfare programsRead more at location 967
Note: PERCHÈ DEMO IMPOVERISCE? WELFARE Edit
maintenance of secure property rights, promotion of the rule of law, fostering of free markets domestically and for international trade, macroeconomic stability, and investments in education, health, and some forms of infrastructure.Read more at location 969
Note: COSA GIOVA ALLA CRESITA. SOLITO ELENCO Edit
Singapore, Chile, Peru, China, South Korea, Taiwan,Read more at location 971
Note: DITRATIRE VORTUOSE Edit
there is a good deal of evidence that economic prosperity leads eventually to sustainable expansions of democracy.Read more at location 971
Note: PROSPEROTÀ SPINGE DEMO Edit
The best advice that outsiders could have offered Kabila, before he was assassinated in 2001 and then succeeded by his son, was not to focus on elections and power sharing but rather to emphasize the growth-promoting policiesRead more at location 972
Note: IL MIGLIOR CONSOGLIO X KABILA. PUNTA SULLA CRESCITA NN SULLA DEMO Edit

martedì 8 novembre 2016

Le ragioni del terzomondismo

Il motto del terzomondista è "loro sono poveri perchè noi siamo ricchi", dacchè segue condanna del nostro modello "sfruttatore".
In realtà il modello di economia liberale arricchisce tutti sul lungo periodo, ciò non toglie che nella storia l'Occidente abbia in molte occasioni sfruttato i paesi poveri con ripercussioni severe per il loro sviluppo successivo, ma questo perché sono stati esclusi dal mercato, non perché ne sono stati vittime. 
Un vivido resoconto delle nostre colpe si ha leggendo REVERSING DEVELOPMENT SPICE AND GENOCIDE di Daron Acemoglu e James A. Robinson che partono con il caso emblematico delle isole Molucche nel sud-est asiatico...
... the Moluccas were then central to world trade as the only producers of the valuable spices cloves, mace, and nutmeg. Of these, nutmeg and mace grew only in the Banda Islands. Inhabitants of these islands produced and exported these rare spices in exchange for food and manufactured goods coming from the island of Java, from the entrepôt of Melaka on the Malaysian Peninsula, and from India, China, and Arabia...
Poi arrivarono i portoghesi per commerciare le spezie: in precedenza venivano spedite dal Medio Oriente e dalla Turchia. Il primo a doppiare il Capo di Buona Speranza fu Bartolomeo Diaz nel 1488, a seguire Vasco de Gama giunse nelle Indie dieci anni dopo.
I portoghesi presero Melaka  nel 1511, ora gli europei avevano la loro via autonoma per le spezie. Ecco la testimonianza del mercante Tomé Pires...
.... "The trade and commerce between the different nations for a thousand leagues on every hand must come to Melaka . . . Whoever is lord of Melaka has his hands at the throat of Venice"...
Il tentativo di stabilire un monopolio fallì per la vitalità della concorrenza locale...
... City-states such as Aceh, Banten, Melaka, Makassar, Pegu, and Brunei expanded rapidly, producing and exporting spices along with other products such as hardwoods...
Ma la musica cambiò con l' arrivo degli olandesi nel 1600 che operarono facendosi firmare delle esclusive, era il metodo abituale della Compagnie delle Indie Olandesi...
... It was also the second company that had its own army and the power to wage war and colonize foreign lands. With the military power of the company now brought to bear, the Dutch proceeded to eliminate all potential interlopers to enforce their treaty with the ruler of Ambon. They captured a key fort held by the Portuguese in 1605 and forcibly removed all other traders...
Nelle Molucche, il metodo dell'esclusiva trovò facile applicazione ad Ambon, dove c'era un capo assoluto con il controllo del territorio. Ma nell'arcipelago delle isole Banda la situazione politica era frammentata e non esisteva un interlocutore designato...
... The Dutch also took control of the Banda Islands, intending this time to monopolize mace and nutmeg. But the Banda Islands were organized very differently from Ambon. They were made up of many small autonomous city-states, and there was no hierarchical social or political structure. These small states, in reality no more than small towns, were run by village meetings of citizens. There was no central authority whom the Dutch could coerce into signing a monopoly... At first this meant that the Dutch had to compete with English, Portuguese, Indian, and Chinese merchants...
A fronte del fallimento, Jan Pieterszoon Coen - governatore di Batavia - tentò un piano alternativo: il massacro e la deportazione della popolazione in modo che rimanesse disponibile solo una forza di schiavi....
... In 1621 he sailed to Banda with a fleet and proceeded to massacre almost the entire population of the islands, probably about fifteen thousand people. All their leaders were executed along with the rest, and only a few were left alive, enough to preserve the know-how necessary for mace and nutmeg production. After this genocide was complete, Coen then proceeded to create the political and economic structure necessary for his plan: a plantation society...
Quindicimila vittime. La tabula rasa riguardò anche le sofisticate istituzioni, fu una condanna al sottosviluppo della regione. La successiva produzione di spezie di fatto collassò del 60%.
Ma gli olandesi si reputarono soddisfatti ed esportarono la strategia della "soluzione finale" anche ad altre regioni del sud-est asiatico. La costante espansione commerciale di questi stati fu stroncata e molti di loro per non subire le "attenzioni" degli olandesi abbandonarono o ridussero le loro culture: l'autoarchia era più sicura.
Baenten, sull'isola di Java, per esempio, si tagliarono in massa le piante del pepe.
Testimonianza di un mercante olandese nelle filippine:
… “Nutmeg and cloves can be grown here, just as in Malaku. They are not there now because the old Raja had all of them ruined before his death. He was afraid the Dutch Company would come to fight with them about it.”…
Altre piaghe: de-urbanizzazione e declino della popolazione.
Tanto per dire: la capitale della Birmania fu trasferita dalla costa all’entroterra.
Insomma, la colonizzazione olandese fu disastrosa per il sud est asiatico…
… The people in Southeast Asia stopped trading, turned inward, and became more absolutist…
In queste condizioni è facile capire che nessuno di questi popoli trasse vantaggio dalle innovazioni della rivoluzione industriale
… In Southeast Asia the spread of European naval and commercial power in the early modern period curtailed a promising period of economic expansion and institutional change…
Intanto in Africa si verificava un fenomeno molto differente legato alla tratta degli schiavi.
Negli USA ci si riferiva alla schiavitù come all’ “istituzione peculiare” ma lo storico Moses Finland ci rende edotti del fatto che la schiavitù non è affatto “peculiare” ma è presente in tutte le società umane: era endemica già nell’antica Roma che si procurava i suoi schiavi dalle regioni slave e nordiche.
Nel 1400 gli europei smisero di schiavizzarsi a vicenda ma l’Africa non conobbe il passaggio dalla schiavitù al servaggio, il commercio degli schiavi, specie verso la penisola araba, rimase molto fiorente…
… medieval West African states of Mali, Ghana, and Songhai made heavy use of slaves… adopting organizational models from the Muslim North African…
Nel ‘700 le colonie caraibiche cominciarono la coltivazione della canna da zucchero che richiedeva molta manodopera non specializzata. Cominciò il traffico internazionale di schiavi e l’Africa, da sempre in prima linea in questi commerci, fu subissata di richieste alle quali cercò di rispondere. Qualche numero:
… In the sixteenth century, probably about 300,000 slaves were traded in the Atlantic. They came mostly from Central Africa, with heavy involvement of Kongo and the Portuguese based farther south in Luanda, now the capital of Angola. During this time, the trans-Saharan slave trade was still larger, with probably about 550,000 Africans moving north as slaves. In the seventeenth century, the situation reversed. About 1,350,000 Africans were sold as slaves in the Atlantic trade, the majority now being shipped to the Americas… The eighteenth century saw another dramatic increase, with about 6,000,000 slaves being shipped across the Atlantic… Adding the figures up over periods and parts of Africa, well over 10,000,000 Africans were shipped out…
La poderosa domanda europea ebbe un impatto forte sulle società africane. Gli affari garantiti trasformarono molti stati africani in stati produttori di schiavi, ovvero in stati guerrieri visto che gli schiavi erano per lo più prigionieri di guerra. “Cattura e vendi”, questo l’imperativo che arricchì molti popoli locali.
Lo stato guerriero era uno stato assoluto con un capo plenipotenziario che esercitava un controllo totale sulla popolazione. Prima, le società africane erano molto più decentralizzate, alla stregua di quelle del medioevo europeo. Tutta questa articolazione andò in malora.
La trasformazione del sistema giudiziario fu esemplare, esisteva una sola punizione: la schiavitù! Il destino del famoso oracolo Arochukwa spiega molto…
… One example is the famous oracle at Arochukwa, in eastern Nigeria. The oracle was widely believed to speak for a prominent deity in the region respected by the major local ethnic groups, the Ijaw, the Ibibio, and the Igbo. The oracle was approached to settle disputes and adjudicate on disagreements. Plaintiffs who traveled to Arochukwa to face the oracle had to descend from the town into a gorge of the Cross River, where the oracle was housed in a tall cave, the front of which was lined with human skulls. The priests of the oracle, in league with the Aro slavers and merchants, would dispense the decision of the oracle. Often this involved people being “swallowed” by the oracle, which actually meant that once they had passed through the cave, they were led away down the Cross River and to the waiting ships of the Europeans. This process in which all laws and customs were distorted and broken to capture slaves and more slaves had devastating effects on political centralization, though in some places it did lead to the rise of powerful states whose main raison d’être was raiding and slaving…
Il regno del Congo si trasformò in uno stato schiavista. Un altro tipico stato schiavista e conquistatore fu quello degli Oyo in Nigeria…
… As Oyo expanded south toward the coast, it crushed the intervening polities and sold many of their inhabitants for slaves. In the period between 1690 and 1740, Oyo established its monopoly in the interior of what came to be known as the Slave Coast…
Si realizzò una drammatica miscela di schiavizzazione e guerre. Un esempio canonico è quello di Asante
… Asante expanded from the interior, in much the same way as Oyo had previously. During the first half of the eighteenth century, this expansion triggered the so-called Akan Wars, as Asante defeated one independent state after another. The last, Gyaman, was conquered in 1747. The preponderance of the 375,000 slaves exported from the Gold Coast between 1700 and 1750 were captives taken in these wars…
Lo sfruttamento dell’uomo sull’uomo causò anche ripercussioni demografiche delle quali si è occupato lo storico Patrick Manning… 
… population of this region in 1850 ought to have been at least forty-six to fifty-three million. In fact, it was about one-half of this… million people being exported as slaves… millions likely killed by continual internal warfare aimed at capturing slaves…
Persino istituzioni ben radicate come quella matrimoniale davano segni di disgregazione.
A fine 700 cominciò a farsi sentire in Europa il movimento anti schiavista con a capo  William Wilberforce. Nel 1807 la schiavitù era illegale.
Fu un durissimo colpo per le economie africane ormai organizzate intorno a questo commercio.
Si cerco di virare verso i cosiddetti commerci legittimi: olio di palma, noccioline, avori, gomma… Ma che fare dell’eccesso di schiavi e dell’apparato costruito per “produrli”? Semplice, furono utilizzati in loco nella cultura dei prodotti legittimi da esportare. L’esempio di Asante…
… the Asante political elite reorganized their economy. However, slaving and slavery did not end. Rather, slaves were settled on large plantations, initially around the capital city of Kumase, but later spread throughout the empire (corresponding to most of the interior of Ghana). They were employed in the production of gold and kola nuts for export, but also grew large quantities of food and were intensively used as porters, since Asante did not use wheeled transportation…
L’abolizione della schiavitù nel mondo occidentale fece sì che l’economia africana crescesse con al centro l’utilizzo degli schiavi. Le guerre continue necessarie alla loro produzione continuarono inalterate. Si diffuse a macchia d’olio anche la pratica dei rapimenti.
… Kidnapping was such a problem in some parts of Nigeria that parents would not let their children play outside…
L’800 africano vide un’espansione della schiavitù anziché una contrazione, com’era logico attendersi dopo l’abolizione in Europa…
… More accurate data exist from early French colonial records for the western Sudan, a large swath of western Africa, stretching from Senegal, via Mali and Burkina Faso, to Niger and Chad. In this region 30 percent of the population was enslaved in 1900…
Persino la colonizzazione europea del XIX secolo non riuscì a stroncare un’istituzione ormai consolidata. Ci sono casi paradossali come quello della Sierra Leone e della Liberia
… In Sierra Leone, for example, it was only in 1928 that slavery was finally abolished, even though the capital city of Freetown was originally established in the late eighteenth century as a haven for slaves repatriated from the Americas. It then became an important base for the British antislavery squadron and a new home for freed slaves rescued from slave ships captured by the British navy…Liberia, just south of Sierra Leone, was likewise founded for freed American slaves in the 1840s. Yet there, too, slavery lingered into the twentieth century; as late as the 1960s, it was estimated that one-quarter of the labor force were coerced, living and working in conditions close to slavery…
Naturalmente, schiavitù diffusa e guerre non creano l’ambiente ideale per recepire e mettere a frutto le grandi novità della rivoluzione industriale, da qui il perenne sottosviluppo dell’ Africa sub-sahariana.
Ma c’è anche un’ Africa che non conobbe la schiavitù: il Sudafrica. Vediamo allora come andarono le cose da questa parte del mondo.
Sir Artur Lewis – pioniere dell’economia dello sviluppo – propose il modello dell’economia duale per spiegare l’arretratezza di certi paesi…
… According to Lewis, many less-developed or underdeveloped economies have a dual structure and are divided into a modern sector and a traditional sector. The modern sector, which corresponds to the more developed part of the economy, is associated with urban life, modern industry, and the use of advanced technologies. The traditional sector is associated with rural life, agriculture, and “backward” institutions and technologies. Backward agricultural institutions include the communal ownership of land, which implies the absence of private property rights on land. Labor was used so inefficiently in the traditional sector, according to Lewis, that it could be reallocated to the modern sector without reducing the amount the rural sector could produce…
La soluzione era semplice: spostare persone dai settori poveri a quelli ricchi e più produttivi.
Per decenni il paradigma di Lewis fu adottato da tutti. Il Sudafrica illustra però il suo lato debole…
… South Africa was one of the clearest examples, split into a traditional sector that was backward and poor and a modern one that was vibrant and prosperous… Across the river, it is as if it were a different time and a different country… By now you will not be surprised that these differences are linked with major differences in economic institutions between the two sides of the river…
A est, nel Natal, troviamo proprietà privata, agricoltura commerciale, industria e prosperità. A ovest, nel Transkei, abbiamo tribalismo, beni comuni e scarsa produttività. Tutti i neri vivevano in questo territorio governato da istituzioni pre-moderno.
Il paradigma di Lewis descrive bene la fotografia della situazione ma non ci fa capire la storia che c’è dietro. Il dualismo così ben visibile non era un portato della storia ma un fenomeno recente…
… It was created by the South African white elites in order to produce a reservoir of cheap labor…and reduce competition from black Africans…
Partiamo dall’inizio. Per clima e salubrità il Sudafrica è sempre stato appetibile per gli europei, l’espansione all’interno da parte degli olandesi cominciò subito dopo la presa degli inglesi del capo di Buona Speranza. Erano le terre degli Xhosa (Bantù), un popolo immune da ogni forma di schiavismo…
… The penetration into the South African interior was intensified in 1835, when the remaining Europeans of Dutch descent, who would become known as Afrikaners or Boers, started their famous mass migration known as the Great Trek away from the British control of the coast and the Cape Town area. The Afrikaners subsequently founded two independent states in the interior of Africa, the Orange Free State and the Transvaal…
Altro evento capitale fu la scoperta dei diamanti a Kimberley nel 1867 e dell’oro a Johannesburg nel 1886. Una simile ricchezza indusse gli inglesi a controllare più strettamente questi territori…
… The resistance of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal led to the famous Boer Wars in 1880–1881 and 1899–1902… After initial unexpected defeat, the British managed to merge the Afrikaner states with the Cape Province and Natal…
Lo sviluppo portato dalle miniere e la forte domanda alimentare fece prosperare l’intera economia africana circostante, in particolare talune culture agricole.
Lo storico Colin Bundy descrive bene il dinamismo economico della regione. La testimonianza di un missionario…
… “To obtain these objects, they look . . . to get money by the labour of their hands, and purchase clothes, spades, ploughs, wagons and other useful articles.”… he was struck with the very great advancement made by the Fingoes in a few years . . . Wherever I went I found substantial huts and brick or stone tenements. In many cases, substantial brick houses had been erected . . . and fruit trees had been planted; wherever a stream of water could be made available it had been led out and the soil cultivated as far as it could be irrigated; the slopes of the hills and even the summits of the mountains were cultivated wherever a plough could be introduced. The extent of the land turned over surprised me; I have not seen such a large area of cultivated land for years…
L’aratro, una tecnologia nuova, fu prontamente adottato senza difficoltà. Ma furono approntati anche canali d’irrigazione. Le classiche istituzioni tribali cominciavano a svanire, la proprietà privata prendeva piede e l’agricoltura fioriva. Testimonianza del magistrato di Umzimkulu of Griqualand…
… “the growing desire of the part of natives to become proprietors of land—they have purchased 38,000 acres.”…
Un vero cambiamento era in atto. Un caso di successo fu quello dell’imprenditore Stephen Sonjica
… self-made farmer from a poor background. In an address in 1911, Sonjica noted how when he first expressed to his father his desire to buy land, his father had responded: “Buy land? How can you want to buy land? Don’t you know that all land is God’s, and he gave it to the chiefs only?” Sonjica’s father’s reaction was understandable. But Sonjica was not deterred. He got a job in King William’s Town…
Testimonianza del missionario metodista W.J. Davis…
… he recorded with pleasure that he had collected forty-six pounds in cash “for the Lancashire Cotton Relief Fund.”…
Tuttavia, questa evoluzione dispiaceva comprensibilmente ai capi tradizionali che si opposero a molte riforme agrarie. Una testimonianza:
… “some of the chiefs . . . objected, but most of the people were pleased... the chiefs see that the granting of individual titles will destroy their influence among the headmen.”…
Si opposero ferocemente anche allo scavo dei canali per l’irrigazione e all’introduzione di una proprietà privata sempre più estesa.
Nel periodo 1890-1913 il corso delle degli eventi si invertì e il tempo volse al brutto.
Dapprima lo sviluppo africano trovò un ostacolo nell’opposizione degli agricoltori bianchi. E’ chiaro che una concorrenza così feroce li disturbava.
In secondo luogo, le miniere chiedevano manodopera a basso costo e la presenza di attività economiche alternative era un ostacolo. George Albu, il direttore delle miniere, in uno scambio con la commissione governativa:
… Commission: Suppose the kaffirs [black Africans] retire back to their kraal [cattle pen]? Would you be in favor of asking the Government to enforce labour? Albu: Certainly . . . I would make it compulsory . . . Why should a nigger be allowed to do nothing? I think a kaffir should be compelled to work in order to earn his living. Commission: If a man can live without work, how can you force him to work? Albu: Tax him, then . . . Commission: Then you would not allow the kaffir to hold land in the country, but he must work for the white man to enrich him? Albu: He must do his part of the work of helping his neighbours …
Nel 1913 si varò la “Legge sui Nativi” che divideva il Sudafrica in due parti confinando gli africani in riserve minuscole, era l’inizio dell’ Apartheid. Molti diritti economici e politici venivano riservati alla minoranza bianca. Gli africani non potevano essere “proprietari” e con loro si potevano stipulare solo contratti di servizio: l’agricoltura dei nativi, così promettente, si dissolse.
Un economista in visita negli anni 50 avrebbe visto una nazione divisa in due: da una parte gli europei istruiti e sviluppati, dall’altra gli africani poveri e arretrati. Il dualismo di Lewis perfettamente confermato ma tutt’altro che naturale, bensì imposto con la forza dalla minoranza privilegiata. Un portato del colonialismo europeo, un frutto amaro di leggi governative discriminatorie per creare manodopera economica in vista dell’impiego nelle miniere, oppure per proteggere gli agricoltori bianchi da una concorrenza agguerrita.
In condizioni del genere tornarono i capi tradizionali, gli stregoni e le istituzioni di un tempo. La terra torno ad essere “bene comune”, e quindi sterile.
Nel 1951 fu varato il “Bantù Act”. Nelle parole dello storico Findlay…
… Tribal tenure is a guarantee that the land will never properly be worked and will never really belong to the natives. Cheap labour must have a cheap breeding place, and so it is furnished to the Africans at their own expense…
L’evidenza portata alla luce dallo storico Francis Wilson dimostra il contraccolpo nel tenore di vita dei neri e il declino della loro economia…
… miners’ wages fell by 30 percent between 1911 and 1921… in 1961… 12 percent lower than they had been in 1911…No African was allowed to own property or start a business in the European part…87 percent of the land…
Da notare che anche nel settore del lavoro subordinato, già dal 1904, una quota dei posti era sempre riservata ai bianchi….
… No African was allowed to be an amalgamator, an assayer, a banksman, a blacksmith, a boiler maker, a brass finisher, a brassmolder, a bricklayer . . . and the list went on and on, all the way to woodworking machinist. At a stroke, Africans were banned from occupying any skilled job in the mining sector. This was the first incarnation of the famous “colour bar,” one of the several racist inventions of South Africa’s regime…
Negli anni 50 Hendrik Verwoerd varò il “Bantù Edication Act”…
… The Bantu must be guided to serve his own community in all respects. There is no place for him in the European community above the level of certain forms of labour... For that reason it is to no avail to him to receive a training which has as its aim absorption in the European community while he cannot and will not be absorbed there…
Con istituzioni sfruttatrici di questo tipo l’economia ne risentì anche nel suo complesso, gli anni 70 segnarono il primo forte rallentamento…
… At the time of the foundation of the Union of South Africa in 1910, the Afrikaner polities of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal had explicit racial franchises, barring blacks completely from political participation. Natal and the Cape Colony allowed blacks to vote if they had sufficient property, which typically they did not. The status quo of Natal and the Cape Colony was kept in 1910, but by the 1930s, blacks had been explicitly disenfranchised everywhere in South Africa. The dual economy of South Africa did come to an end in 1994…
Il resto è storia recente.
Un piccolo riassunto della tesi di fondo:
…World inequality today exists because during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries some nations were able to take advantage of the Industrial Revolution and the technologies and methods of organization that it brought while others were unable to do so…
Ecco, nei casi descritti il terzomondista ha ben ragione nel dire: “loro sono ricchi perché noi siamo poveri”. Ma la colpa non è del “modello occidentale” bensì dell’esclusione dal “modello occidentale”. E’ un certo modello coloniale, piuttosto, a dover essere messo sotto accusa.
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