Taking Sides: Clashing Views on African Issues

Unit 1 History

YES: Paul E. Lovejoy, from “The Impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade on Africa: A Review of the Literature,” Journal of African History (1989)

NO: John Thornton, from Africa and the Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1680 (Cambridge University Press, 1992)

Paul E. Lovejoy, professor of history at York University, argues that the trans-Atlantic slave trade significantly transformed African society. It led to an absolute loss of population on the continent and a large increase in the enslaved population that was retained in Africa. The economic advantages of exporting slaves did not offset the social and political costs of participation, there were disastrous demographic impacts, and Africa’s relative position in world trade declined. John Thornton is a professor of history at Boston University. He notes that slavery was widespread and indigenous in African society. Europeans simply worked with this existing market and African merchants, who were not dominated by Europeans, responded by providing more slaves. African leaders who allowed the slave trade to continue were neither forced to do so against their will, nor did they make irrational decisions. As such, the preexisting institution of slavery in Africa is as much responsible as any external force for the development of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

YES: Duncan Clinch Heyward, from Seed from Madagascar (University of North Carolina Press, 1937)

NO: Judith Carney, from “Agroenvironments and Slave Strategies in the Diffusion of Rice Culture to the Americas,” in Karl S. Zimmerer and Thomas J. Bassett, eds., Political Ecology: An Integrative Approach to Geography and Environment-Development Studies (Guilford Press, 2003)

Duncan Clinch Heyward, a former Carolina rice planter writing in the middle of the last century, represents the mainstream view that Europeans were primarily responsible for developing South Carolina’s remarkable rice plantations in the eighteenth century. In his own accounting of the rise of rice cultivation in the Carolinas, Duncan suggests that the techniques and approaches must have been derived from those observed in China. Judith Carney, a professor of geography at UCLA, explains that slaves from rice-producing areas in West Africa have only recently been recognized for their intellectual contributions to the development of rice cultivation in the New World. Carney describes how her work, and that of others, challenged the view that slaves were mere field hands, “showing that they contributed agronomic expertise as well as skilled labor to the emergent plantation economy.”

YES: Jared Diamond, from “Why Europeans Were the Ones to Colonize Sub-Saharan Africa,” in Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (W. W. Norton & Company, 1999)

NO: Lucy Jarosz, from “A Human Geographer’s Response to Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Case of Agrarian Development and Change in Madagascar,” Antipode (2003)

Jared Diamond, professor of physiology and biogeography at UCLA, argues that Europeans were able to colonize Africa (rather than vice versa) because of the advantages of guns, widespread literacy, and political organization. These advantages stem ultimately from different historical trajectories that are linked to “differences in real estate” (or differences in physical geography). Lucy Jarosz, associate professor of geography at the University of Washington, is troubled by Diamond’s narrow conception of geography and asserts that explaining differences in wealth and power between regions must also take account of social, political, and economic connections. She focuses on the specific case of Madagascar and argues that the intentions of the colonizer are as or more important than their military power for determining the nature of the colonial relationship.

YES: Marcus Colchester, from “Slave and Enclave: Towards a Political Ecology of Equatorial Africa,” The Ecologist (September/October 1993)

NO: Robin M. Grier, from “Colonial Legacies and Economic Growth,” Public Choice (March 1999)

Marcus Colchester, director of the Forest Peoples Programme of the World Rainforest Movement, argues that rural communities in equatorial Africa are today on the point of collapse because they have been weakened by centuries of outside intervention. In Gabon, the Congo, and the Central African Republic, an enduring colonial legacy of the French are lands and forests controlled by state institutions that operate as patron-client networks to enrich indigenous elite and outside commercial interests. Robin M. Grier, assistant professor of economics at the University of Oklahoma, contends that African colonies that were held for longer periods of time tend to have performed better, on average, after independence.

Unit 2 Development

YES: Fudzai Pamacheche and Baboucarr Koma, from “Privatization in Sub-Saharan Africa—An Essential Route to Poverty Alleviation,” Africa Integration Review (2007)

NO: Thandika Mkandawire, from “The Global Economic Context.” In: B. Wisner, C. Toulmin, and R. Chitiga, eds., Towards a New Map of Africa (Earthscan, 2005)

Fudzai Pamacheche, of the Southern African Development Community Directorate on Trade, Industry, Finance, and Investment, and Baboucarr Koma, of the Private Sector Development, Investment and Resource Mobilization Division of the African Union Commission, argue that privatization is an example of a free-market policy that has benefited African people. They suggest that the privatization of public enterprises creates efficiency gains, stable and reduced prices, lower government subsidies and the redirection of scarce resources elsewhere, the payment of dividends to government, and increased employment. They further argue that privatization programs, if well designed, are crucial for poverty alleviation and economic integration regionally and globally. Thandika Mkandawire, director of the UN Research Institute for Social Development, counters that while African governments have reshaped domestic policies to make their economies more open, growth has faltered. Mkandawire assesses structural adjustment from a developmental perspective, judging its effects on economic development and the eradication of poverty. He suggests that structural adjustment policies designed to integrate Africa into the global economy have failed because “they have completely sidestepped the developmental needs of the continent and the strategic questions on the form of integration appropriate to addressing these needs.”

YES: Joseph O. Okpaku, Sr., from “Leapfrogging into the Information Economy: Harnessing Information and Communications Technologies in Botswana, Mauritania, and Tanzania,” in M. Louise Fox and Robert Liebenthal, eds., Attacking Africa’s Poverty: Experience from the Ground (World Bank, 2006)

NO: Pádraig Carmody, from “A New Socio-Economy in Africa? Thintegration and the Mobile Phone Revolution,” The Institute for International Integration Studies Discussion Papers (2009)

Joseph O. Okpaku, president and CEO of the Telecom Africa International Corporation, argues that cell phones and the Internet have fundamentally changed the lives of people and national economies in Africa by delivering needed services more efficiently. He argues that these technologies can foster sustainable economies, build on efforts to reduce poverty, and allow individuals and institutions to prosper through increased access to information. Pádraig Carmody, a senior lecturer in geography at Trinity College Dublin, questions the transformational capacity of information and communication technology (ICT) in Africa. Although he admits that ICTs can sometimes enhance welfare, their use is embedded in existing relations of social support, resource extraction, and conflict and therefore may reinforce existing power dynamics. Since Africa is still primarily a user (rather than producer or creator) of ICTs, the use of these technologies does not fund amentally alter the continent’s dependent position.

YES: Barry Sautman and Yan Hairong, from “Friends and Interests: China’s Distinctive Links With Africa,” African Studies Review (2007)

NO: Padraig R. Carmody and Francis Y. Owusu, from “Competing Hegemons? Chinese Versus American Geo-Economic Strategies in Africa,” Political Geography (2007)

Barry Sautman, associate professor of social science at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and Yan Hairong, the Department of Applied Social Science, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, argue that China’s links with Africa represent a distinctive “Chinese model” of foreign investment. They further suggest that this Chinese model represents a lesser evil than assistance offered by the West. Padraig Carmody, of Trinity College Dublin, and Francis Owusu, of Iowa State University, are less sanguine about Chinese involvement in Africa. Although they also perceive potential benefits from increasing trade with China, they describe how increasing resource flows are strengthening authoritarian states and fuelling conflict.

YES: Dambisa Moyo, from “Why Foreign Aid Is Hurting Africa,” The Wall Street Journal (March 2009)

NO: Apoorva Shah, from “Slamming Aid,” Policy Review (June/July 2009)

Dambisa Moyo, who has worked for both Goldman Sachs and the World Bank, argues that aid to Africa has made the poor poorer and economic growth slower. She further states that aid has left African countries more debt ridden, prone to inflation, vulnerable to currency markets, and unattractive to high-caliber investment. Apoorva Shah, research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, does not necessarily disagree with many of Moyo’s assertions. His concern is that Moyo is not offering anything new to the debate and that she ignores how new stakeholders are moving beyond the old debates. He discusses how the Millennium Challenge Corporation only works in countries where progress is being made on the consolidation of institutions, accountable governance, and freer peoples. He further finds it difficult to accept some of Moyo’s broader generalizations, such as a characterization of aid as “large systematic cash transfers from rich countries to African governments.”

Unit 3 Agriculture, Food, and the Environment

YES: Pradeep Kurukulasuriya et al., from “Will African Agriculture Survive Climate Change?” World Bank Economic Review (2006)

NO: Ole Mertz, Cheikh Mbow, Anette Reenberg, and Awa Diouf, from “Farmers’ Perceptions of Climate Change and Agricultural Adaptation Strategies in Rural Sahel,” Environmental Management (2009)

Pradeep Kurukulasuriya, of the United Nations Development Programme, and colleagues argue that agricultural revenues for dryland crops in Africa will fall under global warming scenarios. They suggest that irrigation is a practical adaptation to climate change in Africa. Ole Mertz and colleagues, of the Universities of Copenhagen and Dakar, suggest that farmers in Africa’s Sahelian region have always faced climate variability at annual and decadal time scales. Although households at their study site in Senegal are well aware of climate change, they attribute most changes in farming practices to economic, political, and social factors, rather than environmental ones.

YES: Michael Mortimore and Mary Tiffen, from “Population and Environment in Time Perspective: The Machakos Story,” People and Environment in Africa (John Wiley & Sons, 1995)

NO: John Murton, from “Population Growth and Poverty in Machakos District, Kenya,” The Geographical Journal (March 1999)

Michael Mortimore, a geographer, and Mary Tiffen, a historian and socio-economist, both with Drylands Research, investigate population and food production trajectories in Machakos, Kenya. They determine that increasing population density has a positive influence on environmental management and crop production. Furthermore, they found that food production kept up with population growth from 1930 to 1987. John Murton, with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the British government, uses household-level data to show that the changes in Machakos described by Mortimore and Tiffen “have been accompanied by a polarization of land holdings, differential trends in agricultural productivity, and a decline in food self-sufficiency.” As such, he argues that the “Machakos experience” of population growth and positive environmental transformation is neither homogenous nor fully unproblematic.

YES: Kofi A. Annan, from Remarks on the Launch of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa at the World Economic Forum, in Cape Town, South Africa (June 14, 2007)

NO: Carol B. Thompson, from “Africa: Green Revolution or Rainbow Revolution?” Foreign Policy in Focus (July 17, 2007)

Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary General, deplores the fact that sub-Saharan Africa is the only region where per capita food production has declined. Annan is now l...