Forget Live8 - does Africa need a Caliph8?

Saw this posted on another forum, I'm not yet sure of the source, but it's an interesting take on the problem of making poverty history in Africa:

"In the midst of this comes ‘Live 8’, a music concert organised by Bob Geldof and Bono, campaigning to ‘make poverty history’. Their agenda only offers legitimacy to the corruption of the Bush-Blair agenda. Commenting on the debt relief package of 11 June Geldof praised it as "a victory for the millions of people in the campaigns around the world" and Bono called it "a little piece of history". They have ignored the enforced liberalisation and privatisation conditions attached that have historically and will in future create more misery for the people of Africa. Their campaign to ‘make poverty history’ makes a superficial call for debt cancellation but ignores the systemic drive to privatise industry, open markets, and dominate Africa through capitalism. As such it can never solve the serious political and economic crisis in Africa. It colludes with the G8 governments who have simply replaced the old fashioned human slavery with modern day economic slavery. The free market has killed more people in Africa than wars have ever done, and the ‘make poverty history’ campaign mostly ignores the free market, instead focussing people on the superficial aspects of debt relief and modifications to trade rules. Socialists, who do attack capitalism, have no long term constructive solutions to offer from their godless philosophy and offer no hope for the people.

The hope for Africa and elsewhere lies in the Islamic Khilafah or Caliphate. The heritage of Africa with respect to Islam and Khilafah dates back over 1400 years. The famous Islamic historian Ibn Khaldun says that the name Ifriqiya was derived from Irfiqos bin Qais bin Saifi, a ruler of Yemen. Muslims first went as refugees to the land of al Najashi in the time of the Messenger [SAW]. Africa under Islam was not the disaster it is now.

Islam has a unique way of looking at the economy that means that wealth does not accumulate in the hands of the greedy few, and yet it does not discourage enterprise and trade. For example its company law does not allow the existence corporate monopolies that dominate and eat up smaller competitors. Trade flourished in Africa under the Khilafah and could do so again. The proof of this is that places like Zanzibar made their names as famous centres of trade during that era. Furthermore, Islam totally forbids loans with interest hence making it impossible to exploit the people through it; something that has lead to the deaths and misery of millions of innocent people. The Islamic system positively encourages wealth circulation and forbids hoarding in the hands of greedy individuals and corporations.

These things show a fundamental difference between the Islamic solution for Africa’s poverty and that of the west. The most optimistic solutions of the west to ‘make poverty history’ may cancel some debt but global capitalism will remain inherently greedy for Africa’s wealth and resources and will always concentrate it in the hands of a few. Reliance on the voluntary generosity of the few in the hope that the wealth trickle down to the masses will, as ever, fail. Islam has a system that encourages business and enterprise but obliges the state to undertake specific measures that ensure poverty is solved by distributing the wealth widely"
 

henrymiller

Well-known member
Islam has a unique way of looking at the economy that means that wealth does not accumulate in the hands of the greedy few, and yet it does not discourage enterprise and trade. For example its company law does not allow the existence corporate monopolies that dominate and eat up smaller competitors.

i guess this is a case of looking for 'actually existing islam', isn't it? saudi arabia, for example, doesn't really bear this out.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
The reason why Africa is in such a bad state is kleptocracies and juntas and their patrons and allies who have, between them, raped and looted countries like DR Congo and Angola wholesale.

Live 8 did nothing to solve or even highlight this fact...it obscured it. If anything, it absolves the dictators and militias and amoral Western companies of both responsibility and culpability.

The Sachs-Make Poverty History critique is wrong.
 

sufi

lala
Jesus H Christ - Mark 14.7 said:
the poor are always with us
i tink what's controversial about the c&p above is the idea of imposing khilafa on the whole continent ispose...

the current system of nation states in africa is widely held to be problematic & inappropriate, tho the OAU insists on maintaining colonial borders as a founding principle,
the khilafa worked on a totally different basis, and in this respect could offer a big improvement on the current western imposed model, especially if the whole jihad on the unbeleivers issue could be resolved.
Nasser tried to establish a kind of secular arab superstate, a couple of times i think, uniting syria egypt and libya i reckon- (who needs territorial integrity if you got socialist panarabism?) the idea still has plenty of currency in the middle east.

i have long proposed a sort of multinational somali/habashastan across the horn of africa, (capital city: harar) the suggestion has been met with utter ridicule from all sides!

harar.jpg
 

sufi

lala
did i forget to mention:
live8: total fucking waste of time
madonna: 'i'm so passionate about africa' - make me sick :mad:
 
oliver craner said:
That's an even worse idea than Bono.

Only from the point of view of someone enjoying, thriving within a Western hegemony. Historical precedent seems to suggest that it would work out fine, that Africa-Arabia is one of the worlds natural trading blocs, studded with port cities, laced with trade routes, encrusted with natural resources. As usual, the mass-organised hypocrisy of Christianity united with capital fucked it up for them, just like in S. America.
 

Pearsall

Prodigal Son
a batshit insane idea.

was the person who wrote that some kind of Islamist?

jesus fuck, read some history, and not the drippy multiculturalist revisionist kind where Islam has always been about holding hands and placing flowers in each others' hair (with only those rascally Westerners stopping 'the religion of peace' from extending its message of love).

fuck, I mean really. you want to have the kind of conflict that makes the Congolese War look like a few scallies having it out outside the chippy, then by all means try to force a fucking Caliphate on to Africa, a continent that is 40% Christian.

Christ, we're still dealing with the fallout from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

lunacy, absolute lunacy.
 

Pearsall

Prodigal Son
the biggest of Africa's problems is the current state model, which derives from the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885, which created these ludicrous boundaries with no respect to the various nations that were already there. in a few places (Ghana, Botswana, Senegal) the state has managed to mean something, but elsewhere the loyalty to older ethnic ideas has meant that these artificial states have enjoyed little legitimacy, with the end result that statecraft has become a zero-sum game of grabbing what you can for yourself/your family/your people. Can Nigeria ever function?
 

fldsfslmn

excremental futurism
Pearsall said:
jesus fuck, read some history, and not the drippy multiculturalist revisionist kind where Islam has always been about holding hands and placing flowers in each others' hair (with only those rascally Westerners stopping 'the religion of peace' from extending its message of love).

There were sizeable communities of Christians and Jews living unassimilated and unmolested under the purview of the Ottoman Empire. Not sayin' the Ottoman Empire was all roses, but still ...
 

Pearsall

Prodigal Son
up to a point.

the jizya?

the devshirme?

an enormous list of massacres?

the Armenian Genocide?

the Ottomans had a much better record in regards to Jews than the various European Christian powers, though.

Anyways, this is somewhat irrelevant to the topic at hand; the person quoted in the first post on the thread is arguing that Africa needs a revival of the Caliphate. Yet Islam has only ever been in parts of Africa: the north (obviously), the Horn (with the exception of strongholds of Orthodox Christianity like the Amhara) down to about Mombasa, and the Sahel.

And in the areas in which it was present, it is a gross oversimplification to say that it was always peaceful and quiescent. In some areas, it was. Others, well...Ahmad Al-Ghazi's jihad against the Christians of Ethiopia? A millennium of the trans-Saharan slave trade? The Sokoto jihad and subsequent establishment of the Sokoto Caliphate were not exactly peaceful (and it plays a role in why, to this day in Nigeria, the Yoruba and the Igbo don't trust the Hausa). Hell, the numbers of slaves owned in the Sokoto Caliphate in the mid-19th century were certainly comparable to anywhere in the western hemisphere. And so on and so forth.

Especially ridiculous is this 'Islamic economics' stuff, an incoherent mishmash if ever there was one. Free market capitalism is riddled with flaws, but, as an adaptable entity, it certainly is a lot more functionally useful than 'our economic system is the best because, er, Allah has laid it all out for us'.

Africa needs trade more than anything else. Cutting up the Common Agricultural Policy would be more positive for Africa than any amount of aid (which hasn't helped at all in the four decades since the end of the various colonial regimes), or Islamist pipe dreams.
 

fldsfslmn

excremental futurism
Pearsall said:
Free market capitalism is riddled with flaws, but, as an adaptable entity, it certainly is a lot more functionally useful than 'our economic system is the best because, er, Allah has laid it all out for us'.

Free market capitalism says "our economic system is the best because, er, Jesus has laid it all out for us," so I'm not what the distinction is.
 

Pearsall

Prodigal Son
fldsfslmn said:
Free market capitalism says "our economic system is the best because, er, Jesus has laid it all out for us," so I'm not what the distinction is.

If this is so, why has the Catholic Church never really reconciled itself to liberal capitalism?

If liberal free market capitalism is to do with Christianity, then why have so many of its major thinkers been Jews?

The modern American Religious Right may say that free market capitalism is a gift of God, but from Adam Smith to Milton Friedman, in between and beyond, Christian religiosity has played little role in the development of liberal economic theory.
 
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I hope some actual Africans are on this board

and are contributing otherwise.....

anyway I am so I'll contribute later but this bomb blast stuff is freaking me out...cant get in touch with family..... :(
 

MBM

Well-known member
I have to say the idea of an Africa governed by Sharia is a wonderful idea. Finally, African states might reach the development levels of a Pakistan, an Iran or a Saudi Arabia which lead the world in... oh, hang on.

No, it's bloody atrocious isn't it?
 

Mr H

Active member
Pearsall said:
If this is so, why has the Catholic Church never really reconciled itself to liberal capitalism?

If liberal free market capitalism is to do with Christianity, then why have so many of its major thinkers been Jews?

The modern American Religious Right may say that free market capitalism is a gift of God, but from Adam Smith to Milton Friedman, in between and beyond, Christian religiosity has played little role in the development of liberal economic theory.

agree with your point about the catholic church and its opposition to the excesses of the free market.

protestantism has played a rather large role in the development of capitalism though I think.

i haven't read it but isn't this what Max Weber's book about the protestant work ethic is all about?
 

Pearsall

Prodigal Son
sorry, didn't get back to you before.

Mr H said:
protestantism has played a rather large role in the development of capitalism though I think.

i haven't read it but isn't this what Max Weber's book about the protestant work ethic is all about?

To a degree, but for the most part theoretical capitalism is an outgrowth of the Enlightenment, as opposed to the Reformation. Adam Smith's concept of 'the guiding hand' wasn't a reference to God, but a short-hand way of talking about the natural efficiency of the market (Adam Smith was a religious man, but essentially believed that religious ethics should inform the application of capitalism, not the theory itself).

The relationship between capitalism and Protestantism is a complex one, but they've never been a precise fit. The origins of the 'Protestant work ethic' seem to lie in the Calvinist doctrine of predestination ie that everyone's fate in relation to whether or not they will be saved is already sealed by the time they are born, and that (unlike in Catholicism) there is nothing that you can do to save yourself, but if you work hard and play by the rules that is a sign that you are on the right track and will be saved, that you are one of the chosen. This was the case under pre-capitalist economic systems as well as capitalism itself, though.

At various points, though, evangelical Protestantism has been heavily opposed to capitalism (for instance, the Populist movement of the late 19th century US). Even now there are internal fissures in the Republican Party between the Christian movement and the corporate sector, because they often have clashing desires (for instance two years ago the evangelical governor of Alabama tried to put through a package of tax increases so that the state could better pay for services to the poor).
 
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