Africa's Future?

The tortured situation in Africa is a direct product of its tortured past, but men should learn from their history, not continue to be burdened by it. The World Socialist Movement are of the view that the economic factor plays a major role in determining political, intellectual and religious whims of a given society. Our message to the workers, peasants and students in Africa remain that capitalism cannot offer a permanent solution to social, political and economic crises. Voting for another set of recycled politicians into parliament is not a solution. The workers must utilise the limited political freedom granted it through the medium of the vote to vote capitalism out of the world. Vote for socialism– the alternative to capitalism. In Africa, unfortunately, the word ‘socialism’ has been associated with single-party political dictatorships and as such remains resented.

In a continent racked by civil war and droughts where the majority of men and women exist in dire poverty, its leaders see their interests served by spending vast sums on armaments. Capitalism once again proves itself to be a system which accords the majority slave status and then expects them to die for their masters' interests. The only solution to war and to the miseries of capitalism in Africa, as in the rest of the world, is for the working class to organise for common ownership and democratic control, a society where the root cause of war in the economic and strategic rivalry of a minority owning class is removed and the production and distribution of wealth conducted in the interests of the whole community—Socialism. It is now time the working class struggled for its own interests.

It is now no utopian fantasy – but a practical, revolutionary proposition – to suggest we can live in a world without waste or want or war, in which each person has free access to the benefits of civilisation. That much is assured. We certainly have the science, the technology and the know-how. All that is missing is the will – the global desire for change that can make that next great historical advance possible; a belief in ourselves as masters of our own destiny; a belief that it is possible to free production from the artificial constraints of profit and to fashion a World in our own interests. And how soon this happens depends upon us all – each and every one of us.

Wealth and power under capitalism can only be realised through legalised exploitation of some people by others. This is a complete contradiction of socialism that envisages a future society in which economic and political privileges will not exist because goods will be produced for consumption and not or sale – while racial and ethnic taboos will not prevail because there wouldn’t be political leaders nor class interests to defend. A class-free, money-free and state-free society will end the ethnic, racial and sectarian antagonisms. The struggle before you remains the same – a class struggle on an international scale. It's time for the people of Africa to discover the truth, that they need to unite and fight for socialism. Bourgeois leaders are after nothing but power. They are not really concerned about the Aids pandemic; looming drought; brutality; violence; rife sexual abuses; the unemployment crisis; shortage of food, clean water and shelter – issues that are affecting ordinary people. All they are after is their own self-aggrandisement. It is also common knowledge that the political leadership in Africa have, to a large extent, the same tastes and lifestyles as the ruling elite of the former colonialists. The two groups share the same consciousness. Both work towards the preservation of the status quo – the exploitative relations of production – as it is the guarantor of their luxurious, albeit parasitic, lifestyle.

Of course, there are exceptions. Julius Nyerere, President of Tanzania from independence in 1961 till 1985, for one. Nyerere comes across as sincere and principled, as genuinely wanting a society of social equality, democracy and without exploitation, and unlike nearly all the other historic African independence leaders power did not go to his head. However, the fact that he was sincere and incorruptible shows that the problem in Africa (and elsewhere) is not bad leaders but capitalism. Not even a saint can make capitalism - which African countries are currently obliged to accept – work in the interest of all.