The Sunday Mail
Ambassador Mwana Nanga Mwanapanga
In August 2014, President Mugabe assumed the Chairmanship of the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) and in January 2015, he ascended to the helm of the African Union. Today, we introduce “Africa Desk” to bring to our readers issues that confront the continent’s leadership and its development strategies. In this first article, we publish the DRC’s Chief Diplomat in Zimbabwe and the Dean of African Ambassadors, Ambassador Mwana Nanga Mwanapanga’s views on economic integration, afrophobia and African resource control.
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The Sadc Extraordinary Summit taking place in Harare this week was proposed by the Chair and approved by his peers at the last Ordinary Summit in Victoria Falls in August 2014.
This summit is about the Sadc region’s industrialisation and regional integration. It is critical because after securing political self-determination, Africa is still searching for economic self-sufficiency.
No African country can do it on its own; not Nigeria, South Africa, Algeria, or even the DRC, which has so much potential.
We can only do it as a continent.
In order to achieve Africa’s economic integration, we first have to integrate regional economic groupings — the building blocks of the continent.
And these building blocks are Sadc, Ecowas, Eccas, Igad and the North African region.
First integrate each region and then the entire continent can be integrated.
Expediting integration
The challenges are many because this struggle started over 500 years ago with the slave trade. They came and took millions of our able-bodied sons and daughters to help build the United States which has just recently been overtaken by China in being the strongest economy.
Our people are the ones who had to build those economies and that is where the whole thing started.
The idea was to wipe out the black race just like they did with the American Indians and the Aborigines in Australia.
Unfortunately it failed.
We are so resilient that we are still there and kicking.
So, this is not something that can be done overnight. In fact, we have to applaud ourselves for having resisted this onslaught. We should applaud ourselves because even today, the most powerful state is headed by an African.
I say this because Obama is an African, his father is from Kenya.
But in their initial design when they came here with the slave trade, they had planned to wipe us out.
The struggle is not a picnic, but we are sure we will make it.
The media have to stop pointing fingers at our leaders. Our leaders have done more than what they have to do to move the continent forward regarding integration.
An example comes to mind.
The Zimbabwe and the DRC leadership decided that there will be free movement of people between our two countries. However, very few Zimbabweans go to look for economic opportunities in the DRC.
Our people want to look for opportunities where they will be bashed. They want to go to Europe instead of next door where they can have all the land and resources to do their own things.
I think it’s time to educate the people that the founding fathers fought to set us free.
In spite of that, there are Africans who still want to sell themselves as slaves of the 21st Century to the very same countries that were colonising us.
The challenge should be put in the corner of the youth (in particular) and everyone else.
Because that is what the leaders have been preaching — a continent that is integrated where we should work hard to build our economies.
It pains me, at times, to realise that some media practitioners do not recognise that Zimbabwe is under economic sanctions. Western countries poach our professionals and nobody raises a red flag.
It is always about blaming the leadership.
Take, for instance, Mr Mo Ibrahim. He has built this telecoms giant — Airtel — and made so much money.
Now he has this prize similar to the Nobel Peace Prize, and he says he has not found a single African leader to give that prize to in the last three/four years.
That is ridiculous because the people he put on the panel are Westerners who cannot appreciate African leadership.
People like Strive Masiyiwa can do a lot for this country.
He is making a lot of money from here. He could build institutions that help promote entrepreneurship so that young Zimbabweans and Africans emulate him.
But what do they do?
They take all this money and put it up in Western banks, instead of investing back into the continent.
So, yes, the leadership has a lot to do, but the leaders have done a lot, which our people can take and build a stronger Africa.
Taking back our resources
Even though it is a very good idea, its time has long passed and is extremely difficult to implement for two reasons.
The first reason is that you may have those resources, but economic theory tells you that you need three things: labour (which we have in abundance); land (which we also have in abundance) and capital.
Capital is the limiting factor.
In order to get those resources, you need the help of those who have capital to develop those resources.
Without capital, the resources will always be buried in the ground.
We need to balance the two; the need to own our resources and attracting capital.
The idea is brilliant, but we have to organise ourselves.
There are some African countries that may have excess resource like the oil-producing nations; I will name Algeria, Nigeria, Angola and Equatorial Guinea.
Now, there is need to create a marriage between those countries with extra cash and countries like Zimbabwe, the DRC or Zambia with mineral wealth.
We need to work together and develop these resources and enjoy them ourselves.
Unfortunately, however, our enemies are busy dividing us and that is why you see these xenophobic attacks in South Africa.
Those who run the media are telling the South Africans that you don’t have a job because someone has crossed from Mozambique or Zimbabwe to take your job. But most of those of the continent who went to South Africa are filling a gap.
The apartheid regime did not train enough professionals.
Funding African programmes
There are two ways of explaining this. If the Africa Union gets money from our former colonisers, it is simply because they are the ones calling the shots.
Do you know that one kilogramme of tobacco is sold here in Zimbabwe for about US$3 and when BAT takes that tobacco and manufactures it in Britain, they make at least US$30, which is 10 times more?
They take our resources — coffee, tobacco, cotton — and make so much money out of them, then fund our governments and the AU.
So, that is one explanation.
But the other explanation is that we, as Africans, need to do more. We need to make sure we do not let our talent go and work for them.
It amazes me that an African doctor who has been trained by the taxes of poor African people would go there and not treat his countrymen back home who made it possible for him to become a doctor in the first place!
If a doctor is here, he or she can improve the health of their own people who can, in turn, go on to be more productive. When they are productive, it means there is more wealth created for the continent and we can support our own institutions.
These issues are very deep, but we need to tackle them both by not allowing our raw materials to go unprocessed to the very countries that will come and give us handouts.
We should also not just let our talent go there. If you are a true pan-Africanist, you cannot allow yourself to be used by the West against your own continent.
That has got to stop, and if that stops, we will realise that there are enough resources in Africa to take care of our institutions and people; to fight poverty and disease.
Afrophobia
First, we have to start with education.
We have to educate our people not just in South Africa, but other parts of Africa. I have read interviews of victims of xenophobia, some who came from the DRC and East Africa saying they were fleeing rebels and looking for peace.
Before you go as far as South Africa, the DRC is as big as Western Europe.
If you have a problem with rebels, why don’t you go elsewhere in the same country where you will be free before thinking of crossing the border?
So, we need to educate migrants that there is enough to do in our own countries.
And if you cross the border, you have to go and bring something, look for something and go back. Right now, people are just bashing the South African government, but we also need to start educating migrants, even if we are in a single continent.
There is also need to educate our people that we are one as black people — in Africa, Southern Africa, Brazil, the United States, Senegal, etcetera.
We need to love each other because our enemies want us to turn against each other.
Now, when we go to South Africa, they should understand that most Africans bring something to the South African economy.
If there is one or two who do not have good skills, is that a reason for the South Africans to turn against them?
We need to preach a message of love because if there is anything Africa can teach the rest of the world it is Ubuntu, which is the respect and love for fellow human beings.
Those who started xenophobia are just a handful of thugs and criminal elements who need to be dealt with by the police force and if need be the army.
And I think the South African government has started doing that and we have to applaud them for that.
Interview and transcription by Lincoln Towindo
