Open World Conference of Workers
In Defense of Trade Union Independence & Democratic Rights
Special Session Concerning Tragic Developments In Cote D'Ivoire And West Africa
(JANUARY 26th, 2001)
STATEMENT BY CONNIE WHITE
"The African Continent and African-Americans: Continuity in Heritage"
Madame and Monsieur. I bring you greetings from Los Angeles, California, USA.
A large percentage of African Americans in the United States consider Africa "home." When we think of the African continent, we remember that it was the triangular trade and deportation of African men, women and children that snatched millions from the African continent to send them to the Americas and the Caribbean islands. The wealth of the North American continent was established with the slave labor of millions stolen from Africa. Africa was plundered of its resources and wealth, and many of Africa's human population were brought to North America to establish North American wealth and to end up brutalized in American slave society.
In the USA, considered one of the strongest economic and political powers in the world, Black people suffer economic exploitation as well as continue to experience political and racial oppression. Blacks in America are discriminated against in the Courts and represent a large percentage of those imprisoned and/or brutalized in the prison system, as well as represent a large percentage of those killed by way of legal murder by the American state apparatus, referred to as capital punishment. Many Blacks are on death row because they are poor and working class, as well as due to racial oppression of Blacks in America.
At the Los Angeles Tribunal in February 2000, a Black woman activist, teacher, and trade unionist gave testimony to the effect that: "At the end of the civil war in 1865, the four million slaves in the United States were officially emancipated. Today, there are four million people who are either in prison, or waiting for trial, or under judicial supervision or enlisted in the armed forces. Hundreds of thousands of African Americans are in prison in the United States. Today, one of the fastest growing sectors is the creation and development of prisons in America."
Just as is said of Africans, the skin color of African-Americans, related to their racial origin, is somehow blamed for African-American oppression and conditions of poverty. The same is often said of Blacks in America as is said of Africans - that they are responsible for their conditions of poverty, and that being Black should somehow be the reason for their oppression. Just as is said of Africans -in a continent torn to pieces, a continent which is crumbling -- that is that the official "image" given this situation is that the continent is populated by Blacks. As if the fact that Africans are Black should compel them to live in misery, illness and with wars, as well as incapable of governing and destined to such degrading situations. This same justification is perpetuated in America -- that Black skin color is the reason for oppression of a race of people. Through the present evolution of Africa, through the false and lying depictions of it which are circulating in the official media, one can witness the emergence once more of all the features which were used in the past to justify the discrimination and oppression against the Blacks in America as in Africa.
The history of racial oppression in America is well documented in the race justification for slavery. America hypocritically prides itself on being established as a Christian nation. But, its brutal treatment of Black slaves defied so-called Christian values. In order to justify brutalizing and oppressing the Black slave, the philosophical justification reached back to Plato syllogism and said that if all slaves are black and all slaves are considered animals -chattel -then all Blacks are animals -that is, chattel property. Since the American slave system was based in property ownership and property relations, the class of slave was seen as property, and Black slaves were equated to animals. From this justification, the American, so-called Christian slave owners no longer had any limits on their treatment of Blacks -they did not have to be treated or seen as human for they were property to be bought, sold and worked to the economic benefit of the slave economy and the individual slave owner.
The socialization of American men, women and children in this philosophical justification for slavery permeated every aspect of American society and even today, after years of American civil rights struggles, Black Americans are often oppressed because they are Black. This philosophical justification for the brutality of slavery - as well as for the human plunder of the African continent - permeates the way that America's government deals with people of color around the world.
U.S. foreign policy toward Africa can best be termed as exploiting African countries and plundering Africa's wealth. In Cote d'Ivoire, for example, the decomposition of Cote d'Ivoire's economy is clearly due to privatizations, followed by loss of jobs and the plunder and overuse of agricultural lands. Concessions in Cote d'Ivoire to multinationals -especially U.S. companies in conjunction with Canadian multinationals -has economically plundered off-shore oil and diamond interests. Even though the imperialist media will promote the idea that the decomposition of Cote d'Ivoire and other African nations is due to ethnic and religious rivalries and conflicts, the real face of ethnic rivalries in Africa is Chevron, Exxon, Shell and other multinational corporations plundering African wealth and killing its people.
The Africa Growth and Opportunities Act is but one example of America's African foreign policy. As passed, this Act will make all trade and aid from the U.S. conditional to the U.S. President granting a "certificate of eligibility for trade and aid." Thus, the U.S. President can use waivers to cut ear-marked aid instantly, and cause African States to become servile to U.S. foreign policy. This means that while African governments might be elected on the basis of a program, once elected African governments would be bound to the U.S. President's program for Africa in order to qualify for trade and aid from the U.S. In effect, this constitutes a new form of colonization of African independent sovereign states, and makes a mockery of the "free trade" that U.S. representatives are continually asking African governments to commit themselves.
The AGOA was presented in the U.S. as in the interests of African peoples, but African-Americans condemn the conditions to U.S. trade and aid, which are imposed by the
AGOA, as contrary to the interests of Africa and its people. African- Americans are opposed to the U.S.'s insistence that African states fully comply with obligations to the
IMF, WTO and World Bank. It has been widely proved that IMF and World Bank structural adjustment plans have had disastrous impact on African people's lives. All social, economic and democratic rights won by African people through struggles against colonization and slavery are now being eliminated by the unjust structural adjustment programs of the IMF and World Bank. Restoration of the African continent and survival for African people depends on African States being able to ensure universal access to basic economic and social services, to public infrastructure, access to land, to protection of collective agriculture heritage and control of seeds on the one hand and animal genetic material on the other, as well as access to secure employment and to the right to a living wage. African States have a right to ensure basic necessities, such as food, education, health, employment, housing, or potable water for its people. The whole panoply of
IMF, WTO and World Bank structural adjustment programs threatens basic
human rights, and are now being questioned in Africa and in most of the Third World, because they have been responsible for economic and social catastrophes.
African-Americans are specifically concerned that the AGOA will mean that African States will have to:
** Ensure protection of "intellectual property rights," which includes the private ownership -- often by U.S. companies -- of African seeds and animal genetic material through patents under WTO Trade Related Intellectual Property agreements;
** Give guarantees to multinationals that their property in Africa will not be expropriated, which means destruction of collectively-owned property;
** Reduce African nation government's budget expenditures on social services and infrastructures, referred to in AGOA as controlling government "consumption";
** Reduce corporate taxes -- we understand that corporate taxing by many African States takes from the rich to re-distribute to the people, as well as to finance social programs in government budgets;
** Encourage the selling of African collective property through privatization of public-owned enterprises; and
** Strictly comply with obligations to the IMF and WTO in order to be eligible for U.S. trade and aid.
Blacks in America see the American imperialist foreign policy, such as the
AGOA, as central to the theft of African resources, the devastation of the African continent, and in promoting ethnic conflicts which have resulted in millions of African deaths. Therefore, America should be charged as responsible for the conditions devastating the African continent today.
[Connie White is a member of the Labor Party USA, a National Council member of the Black Radical Congress in the USA and on the editorial staff of BRC Today, the Black Radical Congress Newsletter]