“The international financial press has trotted out the usual boilerplate in its attempt to explain this instability, asserting that African countries cannot manage their own affairs and that Western institutions must swoop in to rescue them. Once again, as the refrain goes, it’s a question of the West’s benevolence in contrast to Africa’s violence and corruption.”
“ Political crises in Africa are always an opportunity for Western capitalist economies to set the conditions for more free market measures, more free movement of capital, and more privatization.”
“Every new government finds itself with a list of policies that must be implemented in order to receive the benefit of the IMF, the World Bank, and bilateral aid.”
“The scene is the same no matter which government is in power. Even if a regime falls, the neocolonial extractive model doesn’t.”
“Because they’re detached from the real needs of their populations, elites in Africa are facilitating this precarity and poverty and increasing the possibility of crisis.”
“We have to understand how to navigate this new global order. How could we benefit? What alliances can be made? For example, today in Tunisia the debate is about where we should turn if we don’t pay our debts or if the IMF won’t give us new loans.“
An interview with Maha Ben Gadha
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