Let us not be surprised when the World Economic Forum on Africa flies above the heads and hearts of most of our people, writes Victor Kgomoeswana.
English poet from the Romantic Age, William Blake, lived by the maxim: “I must create a system or be dominated by another man’s”. Rather than criticising what others were doing, which gave it more credence, he would concentrate his resources on the business of creation.
These words rang in my head during a radio discussion on the 27th edition of the World Economic Forum Africa (WEFA) in Durban this week.
Many callers bemoaned the failure or inability of the discussions like those at WEFA to “trickle down to the people on the ground”.
Why would the rulers of the world waste their time at any World Economic Forum (WEF) session, regional or in Davos, on the masses, let alone African masses?
The WEF was created in 1971 to control the world. Its stated purpose was to improve the “state of the world by engaging business, political, academic, and other leaders of society to shape global, regional, and industry agendas”.
Since then, membership of the forum predominantly comprises business empires with billions of dollars in revenues – hardly the champions of the poor Africans masses. Membership of this exclusive club costs more about $20 000 for individuals and more than $600 000 for what is called a strategic partner.
Hardly a recipe for mass participation. If we want any benefit “trickling down to us”, we must do it ourselves.
Protesting at every WEF session will not get any substantive results, either. In Durban, while the demonstrators in the streets highlighted the perennial income inequality, the delegates were ensconced in the air-conditioned meeting rooms of the International Convention Centre.
Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba toiled to explain that elusive phenomenon: radical economic transformation (RET). He conceded that we could (more like should) have done more to make our economy inclusive. Why did we not, since 1994?
Back to Blake, the system we used was not our own creation. We opted to pacify international investors, their proxies in credit rating agencies and the Bretton Woods institutions, for example the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
In the name of free market policies, these institutions force-fed us such anti-poor hobbies like privatisation, fiscal austerity, free trade and deregulation.
To comply, we relaxed exchange controls – and some of the old money fled the country. We sold off or compromised our state-owned enterprises, rushed into international trade arrangements, crippling our textile production capability and creating space for American chicken to be dumped on our limping poultry industry.
We chastise our workers when they ask for a living wage. Instead of prioritising and incentivising intra-Africa trade, African countries concluded divisive economic partnership agreements with European trading partners. We gave our Brics partners almost unfettered access to our natural resources.
In return, we were rewarded with excellent global competitiveness rankings or the promise of a good sovereign credit rating, if not threatened with a downgrade, to keep us in line.
When our masses complained that they were not experiencing the fruits of our political freedom, we labelled them ungrateful instead of thanking us for ending apartheid or colonial subjugation.
We applauded ourselves for glossy economic growth figures and celebrated the number of South Africans receiving social grants, while neglecting education.
We adopted one policy after another. RDP morphed into Gear, then Asgisa, then the NDP. Affirmative action evolved into BEE, which mutated into BBBEE and now RET. All these policies remain the dictates of others, or simply shrivel and die, still craving implementation or execution. In short, we continued to allow others to write our script. We put our best foot forward when going to WEF in Davos, rather than when we address a group of civilians participating in a service delivery protest; we dismiss such people as puppets of somebody else’s political agenda.
So let us not be surprised when WEFA flies above the heads and hearts of most of our people. It shall stay that way until we fashion our own forum and follow through on our excellent policies.