The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
Phenomenal Overview, Timely, the One Book to Buy If…
Two Books in One, Opens Door to New Era but More is Needed,
This book (Africa Unchained) is really two books in one, and as I conclude this summative review, will suggest to the author a third book needed now to complete the trilogy.
BOOK ONE: Chapters 2-7 focus on the problems of the past and are less interesting to me than the author's clear rejection of all tendencies to blame the past, the West, the banks, or anyone other than Africans themselves, for the failure to develop. These chapters merit careful reading if one is to be fully engaged in Africa, but here I sum them up as “four strikes and out” in the author's own words:
Strike One: State control model never worked
Strike Two: Rush to modernize industry while neglecting agriculture (where 65% of African live and die in largely subsistence mode)
Strike Three: Aped (sic) alien systems and ignored–demeaned indigenous political and economic systems that had worked for centuries
Strike Four: All the above required massive external investments and dependencies
BOOK TWO is the Chapter 1 and Chapters 8-11. It opens with a dedication by name and circumstance to investigative journalists and publishers who were killed for seeking and sharing the truth. The recurring theme within this book as well as the other three I experienced this week is that Africa's biggest problem is ignorance among the 80% that are dirt poor, and Africa's potential “great leap forward” could be fueled by inexpensive locally-oriented Information Operations (IO), my term for a diversity of examples the author puts forward in the last chapter.
While published in 2005, I sense this book remains a best in class effort. Three short quotes from the Prologue:
“They [the cheetah generation] understand and stress transparency, accountability, human rights, and good governance.”
“They have vowed to work tirelessly to expose the crimes committed by African despots and to block the grant of political asylum to any such despot.”
“They teach petty traders, hawkers, small artisans, market women, and those in the informal and traditional sectors about simple accounting techniques, how to secure microfinance, how to secure a job, and how to improve the productivity of their businesses, among other things, so as to make these self-employed artisans self-sufficient.”
Other “IO” elements about this book that truly inspired me:
+ South African music legend Bonginkosi Thuthukani Dlamini and his isi-camtho kwaito “wicked cool talk” could be used by South Africa to carry the message of bottom-up self-sufficiency and hope across the continent.
+ The intellectual in Africa have betrayed the public as much as the corrupt despots, they have become “intellectual prostitutes” to those in power.
+ Indigenous knowledge, including centuries of self-governance and participatory democracy as well as valued medicine men and women combined with majimbo–a Swahili word for local initiative and trust in traditional wisdom, is still there.
+ West does not understand Africa and has been “feckless and impotent” across all fronts (government aid, corporate exploitation). I take this to mean that there is a need for Africans to educate the West and the varied parties seeking to engage Africa for whatever reason, at the same time that all Africans must be educated to understand that the aid is being stolen at the top and should be refused.
The over-all thrust of BOOK TWO is that only Africans can save Africa, and more specifically, only the poorest of Africans–the 65% engaged in subsistence farming–can save Africa by creating agricultural productivity and self-sufficiency.
The author observes the insanity of receiving $18.6 billion a year in aid while paying the same amount to import food to a continent that is rich in resources, is NOT over-populated, and is also enjoying the emergence of women with common sense as key players in community leadership.
Chapter 8 outlines why the state system fails even if corruption is eliminated; Chapter 9 is for me very important, a discussion of the indigenous economic system (more aptly, localized political-economic-social-cultural system). Chapters 10 and 11 are the heart of BOOK TWO and full of specifics.
On page 327 “how Africa loses money” lists $148B to corruption, $20B to capital flight, $15B to military, $15B to civil war damages, $18B to food imports, and $216B to all other leakages.
The author concludes that Africa has all it needs to invest in itself, less the vanquishing of the corrupt leaders across the region, a “challenge” the author never addresses, other than stating his view that the African Union (AU) is hopeless. I'm not so sure, between Brotherly Leader Al-Gathafi and President Zuma in ZA, there are some possibilities.
Among the author's recommendations:
+ Leverage the 3rd industrial revolution (communications and information technologies).
+ Move away from high-end aid projects and instead focus on bottom-up assistance at a level of a goat that gives milk, a foot-pump to move water, a donkey for transport, micro-credits, and so on. From page 392 there are numerous ideas, all relevant.
+ Return to the African model of peace making, a four-party model in which the two belligerents are not brought together by the UN so they can agree to a “joint plunder” deal, but rather use trained facilitators and add the civil society–the victims and residents being plundered–to the mix for a longer-term settlement achieved by holistic consensus.
The author focuses on the village development model (Cf. p 369) and discusses how “African solutions are less expensive, and further, reform that is internally generated endures.” (Cf. 417).
The bibliography is extraordinary, a lifetime of reflections by others that the author has integrated.
BOOK THREE is needed, perhaps with Wangari Maathai, actually providing both a handbook that is short and easily translated into AUDIO TAPES in all languages and dialects, and an online “Regional Range of Needs Table.”
Other books I recommend:
Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025
Deliver Us from Evil: Peacekeepers, Warlords and a World of Endless Conflict
Faith- Based Diplomacy Trumping Realpolitik
A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility–Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
All Rise: Somebodies, Nobodies, and the Politics of Dignity (BK Currents (Hardcover))
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A Gift–Properly Priced, Presented, and MOST Rewarding,
Tomorrow I will plow through Africa Unchained: The Blueprint for Africa's Future and post a review.
The author, a Nobel Peace laureate for the Green Belt Movement, delivers a very straight-forward, practical “woman's voice” account of both the past troubles, present tribulations, and future potential of Africa. This book is replete with “street-level” common sense as well as a real sense of nobility.
Early on the author addresses the reality that uninformed subsistence farming, what 65% of all Africans do, is destroying the commons. I find that ignorance–and the need to educate and inform in their own local language (no easy task when speaking of thousands of local languages)–is a recurring theme in this book. I see *enormous* potential for the application of what the Swedish military calls M4IS2 (multinational, multiagency, multidisciplinary, multidomain information-sharing and sense-making).
The author provides an ample tour of the horizon of aid, trade, and debt imbalances, of the dangers of culture and confidence of decline, of the need to restore cultural and environmental diversity, and of the need to reprioritize agricultural, education, and environmental services instead of bleeding each country to pay for the military and internal security (and of course corruption).
CORE POINT: The *individual* African is the center of gravity, and only Africans can save Africa–blaming colonialism is *over*. The author's vision for a revolution in leadership calls for integrity at the top, and activism at the bottom, along with a resurgence of civil society and a demand that governments embrace civil society as a full partner.
CORE POINT: The environment must be central to all development decisions, both for foster preservation and permit exploitation without degradation. Later in the book the author returns to this theme in speaking of the Congo forests, pointing out that only equity for all those who are local will allow all those who are foreign to exploit AND preserve.
I am fascinated by the author's expected discussion of the ills of colonialism including the Berlin division, the elevation of elites, arbitrary confiscations of lands, and proxy wars, what I was NOT expecting was a profound yet practical discussion of how the church in combination with colonialism was a double-whammy on the collective community culture of Africa.
The author observes that any move away from aid, which has been an enabler of massive corruption at the top, and toward capitalization and bonds [as the author of Dead Aid proposes in part] will be just as likely to lead to corruption absent a regional awakening of integrity.
The author discusses China, observing that China has used its Security Council veto to protect African interests, and the author observes that the West continues to destroy Africa with arms sales, France and Russia especially, followed by China, with the US a low fourth.
I learn that patronage and the need for protection are the other side of corruption as a deep-seated rationalization for keeping power, and I learn that pensions in Africa are so fragile that retirement is fraught with risk, another reason to seek long-term power holding. I am inspired to think of a regional pension fund guaranteed by Brotherly Leader Muuamar Al-Gathafi.
On a hopeful note the author praises the election of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf as leader of Liberia, and sees real promise in the AU leadership summits that she attends.
CORE IDEA: Leadership training at all levels must keep pace with the changes in technology and the complexity of Africa's engagements. Civil Society in particular must be understood and embraced by government leaders at all levels.
The author spends time around page 134 discussing her pilot project to create local empowerment, devolving decision-making to create a multi-layered structure that establishes priorities while also providing accountability and transparency, minimizing corruption. Using a trained facilitator, the author brought together around 40 fifteen-person committees to create a strategic plan, and that is now useful as a map regardless of turn-over.
On page 158 the author briefly discusses ECOSOC (Economic, Social, and Cultural Council of the African Union) founded in 2005 to bring the voices of the people into the AU deliberations; to educate the peoples of Africa on all aspects of African affairs; and to encourage civil society throughout Africa.
My reaction: ECOSOCC is a center of gravity and could be the lever needed to create a regional M4IS2 network that substitutes information for violence, capital, time, and space. A harmonization of investments to address regional cell phone access (Nokia ambient energy devices), regional radio stations using solar power; and a regional public information program on the basics of mosquito control and other key public health topics, all call out for action in partnership with ECOSOCC.
Later in the book the author equates misinformation with alcohol and drugs. Ignorance is a recurring theme.
The conclusion of the book is full of deep wisdom on re-imagining community, restoring family by returning the men, stopping the brain drain, and making it easier for remittances to return; of the need to create micro-nation forums within each macro-nation; of the need to create local radio stations in each of the local languages and dialects; of the need to address energy shortfalls while stopping the march of the desert; and finally, of the need to address the pressing twin issues of land ownership and tourism management so as to restore the primacy of African interests.
The book ends on a hugely positive note calling for Africans to reclaim their land; reclaim their culture; and reclaim themselves.
Other books I consider relevant to respecting Africa:
Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025
Deliver Us from Evil: Peacekeepers, Warlords and a World of Endless Conflict
A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility–Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change
The leadership of civilization building: Administrative and civilization theory, symbolic dialogue, and citizen skills for the 21st century
How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Updated Edition
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (Wharton School Publishing Paperbacks)
Infinite Wealth: A New World of Collaboration and Abundance in the Knowledge Era
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Goldman Sachs Pitch Dressed in Don's Robes,
Dambisa Moyo
I bought this book cognizant of the negative reviews, and I break with them in giving this book four stars instead of one, two, or three stars.
This book is worth reading, and it makes points that I summarize below that are in my view meritorious.
Continue reading “Review: Dead Aid–Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa”
Credible, Pointed, Relevant, Useful, Essential,
The corruption of the leaders and the complacency of the West in accepting that corruption is a recurring theme. If the USA does not stop supporting dictators and embracing corruption as part of the “status quo” then no amount of good will or aid will suffice.
Continue reading “Review: The Trouble with Africa–Why Foreign Aid Isn't Working”
Absolutely Vital, June 8, 2008
Saree Makdisi
FINAL REVIEW of 15 June 2008
I was moved and outraged by the cancellation of the author's appearance at the Politics & Prose bookstore, which shall never–in consequence–receive my custom. However, the benefit is that the author received space in the Washington Post, and the idiocyof the Politics & Prose management may well have done more good than bad as a result.
I have one word that summarizes my feelings after reading this book:
FURY
The other word, now in vogue in Egypt, is
ENOUGH
The author, an American with both Lebanese and Palestinian heritages, is a scholar of English literature. His book is NOT a polemic. His book is an elegant essay on reality, perhaps the finest work I have ever been privileged to read on this topic, with notes, maps, and statistics of the first order.
The author does NOT seek to damn the Israelis, only to demonstrate, in calm reasoned well-documented language, that the Israelis have become the Nazis of our era, and that their ghettoization of Palestine, with gates, roadblocks, checkpoints, and walls, has become the atrocity of all atrocities in our time.
The opening insight grabs me: like Gandhi, the author sees that Palestine and Israel are one in spirit. He nails the Israeli objective: to occupy as much sacred land as possible, without regard to other peoples, religions, historic rights, or common perceptions of justice.
Gandhi had it right in the first place: the English were idiots to divide India. Similarly, Palestine is a Holy Land for all of us, and if the Israeli's cannot accept Gandhi's vision, then it is time we imposed it on them–there could be no better expenditure of $250 billion a year than in occupying Palestine, knocking down the fascist walls, and restoring the nature of that land to green and goodness, while making Jerusalem an international city similar to the Vatican, but open to all faiths.
I am completely fed up with ideological zealots, both left and right. Israel is clearly the enemy of peace in the Middle East, and an obstacle to progress there. I support the author's view, that a single holy state is needed, one that does not allow the Israelis to be the Gestapo of our time. More to the point, I agree with the author with respect to the inhumanity, immorality, indignity, and fiscally fatal inconvenience being imposed by the Israelis on the Palestinians.
This is where the book shines brightly: it is a meticulou8sly documented, ably presented catalogue of the day to day atrocities committed by the Israeli “police state” against individual Palestinians, families, and small businesses. Kafka could not have done better, but in this case, the author is not making it up. It is real, and it is a genocidal crime against humanity, day after day after day.
I have read many books, and a number on the Middle East, and I can only conclude that this book is totally extraordinary for the following reasons:
1) Multicultural perspective
2) Pragmatic review of the consequences of Israeli Gestapo tactics
3) Fullsome use of statistics to demonstrate Israeli atrocities against “day to day” Palestinian life and families
4) Timely–the era of state terror is over. It is time for We the People, including Palestinians and Jews, to rise up and dismember governments that cheat us, steal from us, and misrepresent us.
For perspectives that completely support the author's views as described in his article (I have posted a summary review of each):
A Power Governments Cannot Suppress
The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People
The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Vintage)
Web of Deceit: The History of Western complicity in Iraq, from Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush
The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (American Empire Project)
Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy
Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism
All Rise: Somebodies, Nobodies, and the Politics of Dignity (BK Currents)
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
The Health of Nations: Society and Law beyond the State
I have also published (free online, in superb low-cost hardback on Amazon), COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace, the first in a series from Earth Intelligence Network.
The bottom line of all of the above books is that governments are dysfunctional, corrupt, and cannot deal with complexity and adversity. We the People need to revitalize participatory democracy and stop waging war. Peace and prosperity for all seven billion can be achieved for one third the price we pay now for war. A strategy of peace is a strategy that will create infinite wealth.
It's time for America the Beautiful to be honest and open again. I totally embrace the idea of an international occupation of the Holy Land, with Jerusalem as an international city, the Israeli's stuffed back in their box, and a 50-year occupation that fully integrates Palestine and Israel and Lebanon, while providing both an international and a regional guarantee of dignity and justice for all in this sacred land.
The Israelis have dishonored God, dishonored man, and dishonored faith. They have become a modern holocaust unto themselves. For this they are damned by this author's bearing witness, as a people, absent a public uprising or international intervention.
Best of Intentions (and Marketing), Light Reading, June 5, 2009
Chesa Boudin
I bought this book at the same time that I bought Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent–the latter the book Hugo Chavez is reported to have given to Barack Obama.
It has been brilliantly marketed, and I applaud the initiative and the integrity of the self-made author, but in the larger scheme of things this is very light reading, in no way comparable to any of the works of Robert Kaplan or Robert Young Pelton, to take the two who are best in class in this particular writing domain. I list books I recommend instead of this one at the end of the review.
A few details that stayed with me:
Of the ten chapters, three are on Venezuela, with one each on Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Equador, and Guatemala. He visited but has left for another book Cuba, Mexico, and Nicaragua.
Hugo Chavez certainly comes out of this book looking very well, and I wonder somewhat unkindly if the Cuban intelligence service had anything to do with the crafting of the book. They are wonderfully subtle, as is this book. I do, however, share the author's views on Venezuela and Chavez and the need for an alternative model for Latin America, so I endorse and praise his take on the situation, including:
+ Chavez is now ten years in power, early on he slammed those who wrote about the end of history, the triumph of neoliberalism, and the Washington Consensus. See Confessions of an Economic Hit Man for more substance.
+ Media is in and out of Venezuela, they get it wrong and communicate a false picture of Venezuela.
+ Winning the election is only the beginning, then there is a very long fight to change the “system” that is deeply entrenched.
He corssed 25 borders and spent over 150 hours on bus rides.
In Colombia he found human rights being trampled by global economic imperatives, with massive internal displaced persons (see the genocide chapter in The New Craft of Intelligence: Personal, Public, & Political–Citizen's Action Handbook for Fighting Terrorism, Genocide, Disease, Toxic Bombs, & Corruption
He is by nature an anti-imperialist progressive, and speak of shame in seeing the impact of US policies and CIA interventions up close, but in the single most valuable sentence that I found in the entire book, he observes that indigenous corruption at the local level is what really hurts those at the bottom of the pyramid, they do not see or even feel the direct effects from CIA interventions or predatory capitalism at the national level. I share Lawrence Lessig's view that corruption is the scourge of all, and I also beleive that the sooner We the People can follow ALL of the money and reveal all “true costs,” the sooner we can demand and receive honest government at all levels.
This is a very fast read, especially if you have lived in Latin America, this is a wonderful book for those who wish to read lightly about the fine combination of a young man making a great deal of himself from very austere beginnings, and one person's perceptions on Latin America over the same period, but at root, this is a travelogue, not an analysis.
Other books to consider:
Robert Young Pelton's The World's Most Dangerous Places: 5th Edition (Robert Young Pelton the World's Most Dangerous Places)
The Hunter, The Hammer, and Heaven: Journeys to Three Worlds Gone Mad
The Ends of the Earth: From Togo to Turkmenistan, from Iran to Cambodia–A Journey to the Frontiers of Anarchy
The Coming Anarchy: Shattering the Dreams of the Post Cold War
Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy
High Noon 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them
A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility–Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change
