The Importance of Africa to The World System After 9/11 Attacks: War on Terrorism or Integration for Sustainable Development

4.5 What have we learnt and which way forward?

4.5.1 Our investigation found out that, maintaining and reinforcing the income gains achieved since the devaluation of the CFA francs in 1994 remains a key challenge. Given that oil resources as a major source of revenue, is in a state of depletion in Cameroon, Gabon, Nigeria, focus and attention need to be paid to the development objectives with increase spending on physical and social infrastructures, which requires the authorities of these countries to mobilize non oil revenue which in itself requires further liberalization of their economy. A case in point is Cameroon that joins the IMF in 1963 with its exclusive use of the IMF financing with some success.

The logic of the market economy as an inherently expanding global system collide with the logic of modern welfare state. While solving the problem of a closed economy, the welfare state transfer has only transfer the problem of the market economy and its survivability to the international level, resulting in a system where states compete on the international division of economic activities by using and creating their comparative advantage and by attracting production into their countries. The domestic welfare legitimacy makes states more nationalists than before where only a hegemon can impose a liberal order in a competitive environment , provide the necessary public goods to allow the compromise of embedded liberalism, that is to run multilateral system by allowing autonomous national economic policies(Gilpin 2001)

The UN Commission on sustainable development , announced the publication of the new Bahai statement also titled ‘’rethinking prosperity: Forging Alternatives to a Culture of Consumerism’’ at a time when oil spews forth uncontrolled in the Gulf of Mexico, we feel both the immediacy and urgency to rethink what fair and just progress is, he said ‘’we have been rethinking what true prosperity looks like’’ what is needed Mr. Hanks said, is public discourse on the nature and purpose of human development, along with the recognition that each individual has a contribution to make in building a more just and peaceful social order. Professor Jackson agreed. Saying ‘’we need a better concept of prosperity, a lasting prosperity, a prosperity built around the concept of people’s capacity to flourish, within the confine of a finite planet’’ he said⁶¹ simply put, we should not spend money we do not have, buying for what we do not need, and paying for what we do not care about. Recognize our essential oneness Sticking to values of spirituality and to identify patterns and processes of development in society Miss Thoresen of the Norwegian Partnership for Education and research about responsible living said, there has been a shift in focus in the international scene, from IR to IPE, firstly of the global order, with the dead of the old world order of bipolar hegemony rivalry between the US and the USSR, to multi-polarity including new emerging states and recording even more pressure from the world orders.

Another finding is the shift in focus of the unit of analysis in IR from states to markets that is the shift from the US government to a more including global governance and regulation in IPE . The US hegemony is been contested more than ever by emerging states like China, India, Brazil and the EU and the world orders. A case in point is the US Senate overhaul of financial regulatory system inline with the white house regulatory reform legislation and the Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner meeting with Michel Barnier, internal market commissioner for the EU, to discuss global rules proposed by the Basel Committee on Banking supervision and other regulatory changes for the financial industry⁶², while the EU Parliament is meeting to vote for transparency rules for hedge funds operating in the Eurozone, strongly opposed by Britain and the US.

Africa Gulf of Guinea countries that had the same level of development for example Ghana as some countries in the north such as South Korea, Malasia, do not anymore support her development and rank amongst the HIPC countries and dependent on the WB, and IMF programs for structural adjustment such as the PRSP and the PRGS. All because of reconnection and interconnectedness that has further intensified domination of the great and super powers in exploitation of the natural and human resources of this region.

That the civil wars, conflicts and flux of migration of people from Africa Gulf of Guinea has made the region to become under populated especially with the introduction of family planning methods which seems to be eroding from the GG countries. This touches on the sentiments of the Africans who have responded to these syndromes by delivering many children to increase population, despite the prevalence of poverty and diseases.

That Africa GG like China grows in population and migration while the US and EU countries grows in demography, this has help to destabilised the region never to meet up in development, and the ever increasing population has remain a pressure on the government for the most part weak. The economy of the countries of the GG no longer support itself and are heavily indebted, and largely depend on subvention as international aid and subvention long term loans from the IMF and WB most often tied with strings as it is money to be paid back with interests over a long period of time.

The GG countries are mostly surrounded by ocean and are not a marine power, she could have counted with the air force, but it is a thing lacking due to lack of substantial knowledge and technical know-how of military build up capabilities, which is highly developed in the great and super power countries of the north.

Beside this weakness, the regain of importance of the Gulf of Guinea is an indication that the world powers and former colonial masters are bent to repossess this region in all it form, to brain-drain the energetic men and women, the natural resources of all kinds, the control of the sub region, the geo-strategic and geopolitical installation of the American naval base in Sao Tome and Principe and a joint US and EU paramilitary AFRICOM/EUCOM of the region, is evident with the new codification of the continent for example, the British council is moving from Yaoundé to Ghana, the US Embassy is based in Yaoundé and although the Danish Embassy is located in Yaoundé, Cameroonians travelling to Denmark and Britain needs to obtain visas, which requires them to go to the Danish Consulate in Cotonou Benin, and or Accra Ghana. This requires additional expenditure for transport and entry visas for both Benin and Ghana.

It is the same continuity, the same tradition, and the same manifestation to keep Africa as an object. With the end of the cold war, and the failure of economic rivalry over strategic importance of China with the open door policy, they now resorted for a common enemy, the ‘’clash of religion’’ (Huntington 1993) Christianity versus Islam and the Muslim religion that lead to the birth of terrorism, have only fuelled further turbulence that has made Africa an object in IR and her resources a curse.

Like Heru El-Salim inspirational work on the African Diasporas, Africans has no identity, collective world view or oneness in presenting their demands of security from health care through education, political or economic future. Like the 1992 Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, where John Hope Bryant founded the HOPE Foundation to fight the sufferings and struggling of many Americans mostly African-American community, said, ‘’ at twenty six I had everything but I wasn’t a happy man, until I came to understand that happiness comes when we stop focusing on me and start focusing on we.’’ With the dilemma of not having an African agenda or consensus.

Poor quality of invisible leadership chosen for African people as collaborators of the matrix, European Caucasian domination, like Marx saw it, the bourgeoisie of the centre are teaming up with their puppet bourgeoisie of the periphery to smash the common man grappling on with survival for existence. This has made Africa an object in IR and security a curse to the countries of the sub region to the interests of the world powers.

Environmental Pollution, Climate Change and Global Warming is fast encroaching, putting the depletion, ecology and ecosystem in catastrophic danger and environmentally unfriendly to man security, depending on its environment for survival.

A more strategically mobile and competitive framework is emerging because of the evolving discovery and exploitation of hydrocarbon deposits in the region. Many of the old boundary issues, as well as the prospect for the movement of societies as a result of wealth opportunities not evenly distributed, means that stability can no longer be guaranteed. Furthermore there is the emergence of a more competitive regional environment in which very tangible economic resources such as hydrocarbon deposits are at stake, and demanding new kind of increasing reliance on technological solutions to security challenges.