South Africa's president held his ground in his visit to Donald Trump, but the real issue is forging a Global South, and African identity, free from local white anxieties and Western preoccupations.
Between KARON & JACOBS the pertinent issues were raised - particularly this:
“The broader and more enduring challenge lies with South Africa: to disentangle itself from an exploitative relationship with the West, particularly the United States, and to harness its growing influence within the Global South. This means deepening economic alliances and building political solidarity with countries like Brazil, Mexico, Malaysia, and key members of BRICS. It’s a chance to imagine a future beyond the decaying legacy of white nationalism, increasingly visible in both the US and parts of Europe.
But this is hard work, and it’s unclear whether Ramaphosa has the stomach for it—this is his final term—or the mandate, given that the ANC now governs in coalition with an alphabet soup of rightwing parties whose worldview is firmly anchored in the West. Nor is it clear whether the electorate—often reactionary and parochial—will offer the support needed to take that leap.”
The problem of the South African economy is its productive structure that renders growth impossible: it is the colonial structure of the British that they established in 1909 to “disown” Black South Africans and their 1913 Land Act to dispossess Black South Africans creating a vast pool of cheap Black surplus labour for the mines. This in turn was built on the long period of slavery of the Dutch, British, French and Portuguese colonists - in other words of the West.
This exploitative structure persists and has been reproduced by co-opting a few Black South Africans and hence the economy of the export of commodities and raw materials continues…the result is underdevelopment and uncompetitiveness which causes poverty, joblessness and inequality. The faulty paradigm was evidenced again in RAMAPHOSA begging TRUMP to exploit our gas, our commodities, our rare earths as though this will solve the problem…it will simply accelerate underdevelopment…the cause of the problem (namely colonialism, apartheid and imperialism - the latter as LENIN and the PATNAIK’s have argued cogently, aims to keep some underdeveloped and poor precisely to exploit their resources and prevent development) must be addressed and the Global South is the best path towards this goal…especially now that China has moved rapidly towards labourless robo-manufacturing. This represents a totally new developmental challenge.
The lack of real economic transformation - of developing a new Black-lead productive structure in order to create national and not corporate wealth - remains hampered by the narrative of “Black empowerment” which obscures the fact that it is all about cooptation and accommodation - of ensure the stability and reproduction of the colonial-apartheid productive structure. If the cause of the problem is slavery, colonialism, apartheid and imperialism, then the lack of transformation belongs to the ruling but dwindling ANC…the narrative that Africa is helpless and needs rescue from its erstwhile colonisers lies at the root of the revolt against France in West Africa…and this meeting unfortunately and unintentionally reinforced it. The South African delegation was naive and poorly prepared …
Between KARON & JACOBS the pertinent issues were raised - particularly this:
“The broader and more enduring challenge lies with South Africa: to disentangle itself from an exploitative relationship with the West, particularly the United States, and to harness its growing influence within the Global South. This means deepening economic alliances and building political solidarity with countries like Brazil, Mexico, Malaysia, and key members of BRICS. It’s a chance to imagine a future beyond the decaying legacy of white nationalism, increasingly visible in both the US and parts of Europe.
But this is hard work, and it’s unclear whether Ramaphosa has the stomach for it—this is his final term—or the mandate, given that the ANC now governs in coalition with an alphabet soup of rightwing parties whose worldview is firmly anchored in the West. Nor is it clear whether the electorate—often reactionary and parochial—will offer the support needed to take that leap.”
The problem of the South African economy is its productive structure that renders growth impossible: it is the colonial structure of the British that they established in 1909 to “disown” Black South Africans and their 1913 Land Act to dispossess Black South Africans creating a vast pool of cheap Black surplus labour for the mines. This in turn was built on the long period of slavery of the Dutch, British, French and Portuguese colonists - in other words of the West.
This exploitative structure persists and has been reproduced by co-opting a few Black South Africans and hence the economy of the export of commodities and raw materials continues…the result is underdevelopment and uncompetitiveness which causes poverty, joblessness and inequality. The faulty paradigm was evidenced again in RAMAPHOSA begging TRUMP to exploit our gas, our commodities, our rare earths as though this will solve the problem…it will simply accelerate underdevelopment…the cause of the problem (namely colonialism, apartheid and imperialism - the latter as LENIN and the PATNAIK’s have argued cogently, aims to keep some underdeveloped and poor precisely to exploit their resources and prevent development) must be addressed and the Global South is the best path towards this goal…especially now that China has moved rapidly towards labourless robo-manufacturing. This represents a totally new developmental challenge.
The lack of real economic transformation - of developing a new Black-lead productive structure in order to create national and not corporate wealth - remains hampered by the narrative of “Black empowerment” which obscures the fact that it is all about cooptation and accommodation - of ensure the stability and reproduction of the colonial-apartheid productive structure. If the cause of the problem is slavery, colonialism, apartheid and imperialism, then the lack of transformation belongs to the ruling but dwindling ANC…the narrative that Africa is helpless and needs rescue from its erstwhile colonisers lies at the root of the revolt against France in West Africa…and this meeting unfortunately and unintentionally reinforced it. The South African delegation was naive and poorly prepared …
I agree. This and Tony Karon's points on the "meeting. Thank you.
This is the best analysis so far. The last two paragraphs are particularly on point.