Day 4: The Logic of Political Corruption in Africa

For context, see the article by Diana Cammack – “The Logic of African Neopatrimonialism: What Role for Donors?” http://www.uio.no/studier/emner/sv/statsvitenskap/STV4347B/v10/Cammack%202007.pdf

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to blame African governments for wasting precious resources through friends-politics where their followers are rewarded through favours.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to judge corrupt governments as bad governments and place the bulk of why their countries cannot find their way out of poverty, on corrupt leaders and officials.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise that from an African historic and cultural perspective, neopatrimonialism – where a patron takes care of its clients through sharing ‘his’ wealth – is socially accepted, because a leader is expected to use his/her access to resources to support his/her followers.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise that African leaders will do anything to remain in power, including using public resources to award favours to significant and influential individuals of the population in order to retain support – because government positions are the easiest way to attain some degree of wealth in those countries, where, if they don’t remain in power, they are very likely to go back to a life of absolute poverty.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise that if I were in the same position, where the only way to escape absolute poverty was to buy support from the population in order to remain in power, I would probably do just that.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to expect that simply by implementing Western institutional models in a country that has not walked the same path as the actual Western countries, the attitudes of the African population would simply adjust and that these same governing models would work in the exact same way in Africa.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to delude myself into thinking that African leaders are capable of concerning themselves with the ‘public good’ when they are in a constant state of fear of loss and where the threat of having to go back to a life of poverty inhibits them from seeing past their individual interests.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise that corruption and greed are merely an outflow and manifestation of fear of loss and therefore, if I have any form of fear of loss existent within me, I cannot say that I am better than corrupt African officials and I cannot be trusted more with such power than them.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself of expect of African countries that they undergo political reforms to limit the size of the government in order to eradicate or at least limit corruption opportunities, without realising that corruption is the only thing that allows them to maintains a form of social and political stability in those countries – and that to take away this tool of African leaders means to send the country into internal chaos and conflict.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise that if I demand of African countries to reduce the size of their government, it will mean that many government-owned enterprises will be privatised and hundreds of thousands of people will lose their job.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise that unless everyone has a secure income, corruption will always exist.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise that rich nations are responsible for the state in which African countries are struggling since they, through exploiting them in colonisation and continuing to take advantage of them through the current economic power-relations, have completely incapacitated them, left them with nothing but crumbs with which to make meets end.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise the hypocrisy and disgrace in demanding lower-developed countries to open up their markets to the world and extensively limit their government intervention – while Western countries protect their vital industries from cheaper competition with vigour.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to demand of African countries that they focus their efforts on exports to increase the country’s wealth and living standards, while obviously, if all lower-developed countries start increasing their exports of primary goods, the price of primary goods will drop on the world market and any increase of income generated from such exports will be insignificant – leaving on the rich nations better off, who can now buy primary goods for a real good price.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to criticise African countries for utilising corrupt methods for personal interests, without making mention of how the United States has continuously used foreign aid as a strategy to influence the international political scene in order to preserve and protect itself – not realising that the successive shifts in emphasis in terms of providing aid from South Asia to Southeast Asia, to Latin America to the Middle East and back to Southeast Asia, to then go toward Africa and the Persian Gulf, the Caribbean and Central America and after that, the Russian Federation, Bosnia, Ukraine, Asia and the Middle East reflect changes in US strategic, political and economic interests, more than changing evaluations of economic need – using the exact same ‘friends politics’ as corrupt officials and leaders do in order to avert conflict and the undermining of power.

 I commit myself to expose the unequal power relations in the global economy that condemn billions of people to absolute poverty.

I commit myself to investigating the motives of politicians within corrupt behaviour to see and understand the fundamental problems that perpetuate this behaviour in order to correct these fundamental problems in such a way that allows all to live as equals with equal consideration for all.

I commit myself to stop fear of loss within myself and find practical solutions so that none have to live with fear of loss and fear of death – but can instead share themselves and their world unconditionally.

I commit myself to eradicate poverty through the designing and implementing of an Equal Money System where dignified life is the ultimate value.