You can take any country in Africa, from Cairo to the Cape, from Cameroon to Kenya, and the reality is going to be the same. Mass poverty, a lack of infrastructure, corruption, and sharp class oppression, particularly against women. These sober realities are systematically true for one clear reason; as it relates to imperialism, Africa is capitalism's endless supply of cheap human and material resources.
For those people with good intentions, your vision of creating opportunities for African people through capitalist ventures like small businesses, and other capital accumulating practices, will never be the solution to the collective oppression of African people. Even the seemingly harmless action of investing money to produce money, for any well meaning and sincere goal - even something as genuine as building a school for example - would still objectively be exploitative against our people and the rest of humanity. How? Whether you invest through a certificate of deposit, individual retirement account, savings account, money market, etc., all of those approaches are designed to take your money and buy stocks in other investments, companies, and projects that are producing surplus so as to create a financial return on your investment. So, if your certificate of deposit is invested in oil per say, then the return from that oil is what grows your portfolio and makes you money. The problem is of course that oil is a commodity that is exploitative in terms of how the oil reserves are located, how the oil is drilled for, and the refining process to produce the product that ends up in your car, and/or heating mechanisms. In other words, in order to insure there is a profit to provide to you for your investment, which is essential to make sure the model works (because if it isn't profitable, people won't invest in it right?), the refining process has to be set up to insure its as efficient as possible. That means less people, more work. That means less oversight and more injuries and death. That means less pay and harder exploitation. This is the same process for any investment you can think of. None of them fall outside the parameters of this exploitative system so when you invest, you are essentially saying you accept and agree that it is ok to make money off of a process that systematically kills and destroys Africa and her people.
Some Africans and other people in America, having shortsighted vision, view the investment process as one of them sending their money into a black hole (that they have no idea what happens once the money goes there). Their only insight into the process is of course the return on investment and so that's their focus. This was the same shortsightedness and ignorance that led people to invest in the chattel slave system. As you should know by now, this process led to the industrialization of the Western world and the development of capitalism e.g. mechanized production of products and the profit of producing their products off the backs of workers and peasants. There is absolutely no way around this reality. To make money through the capitalist system, you have to exploit Africa. Investing in gold exploits Africa. Investing in diamonds does. Uranium, columbite tantilite, zinc, iron, manganese, bauxite, rubber, oil, phosphates. All of these materials, and any industry related to them, makes you an accomplice to oppression if you invest in it. Plus, the other side of that equation is because the current (capitalist) system in place is structured in the type of oppression being described here, this is the central reason that Africa remains poor while a few entities are acquiring the wealth, off the backs of our people's suffering.
So, investment within capitalism will produce a few African millionaires, but it won't solve the mass poverty and oppression that our people face and it won't do anything to contribute towards ending oppression across the planet. The only way to make this real type of contribution is to build a mass movement that is dedicated to eradicating the oppressive system and replacing it with a system that prioritizes people's needs over profit. The key here is mass because it is only the masses of people who make history, not individuals. The ability to transform this oppressive system is going to require the masses of people being involved, not just in discussing oppression, but involved in organizing work to change society. That means we have to get as many people as we can active in participating in the process to organize society to make change. The problem now is so many people are taking up so much energy and space without committing to working collectively to solve the problem. This is such an essential piece because the only way you can understand how to move people forward is by participating in that work. You will never understand it just by going to events other people organize and just taking up space during those events because by just doing that, you will never learn how to see the real work. That real work doesn't come from the events, it comes from the follow up after the event. The reaching out to the people who attended or didn't attend. The offer to meet them for coffee/tea. The effort to sit down with them and explain your ideals and aspirations as an organization and the process to get them to commit to dedicate their time to helping achieve the mission. Then, its the process to work with them to understand that mission and to work through all of the frustrations and problems that will be there to prevent us from achieving our objectives. The ability to create capacity to respond to adversity and work through it. The process of building trust and a high standard of commitment and integrity in the work. Learning the ability to self reflect and to not center our egos and dysfunctional vision of the world in the work, but to learn how to challenge ourselves to grow past all of those shortcomings so we can effectively make progress. All of these critical elements of the work most people are missing simply because they are not involved beyond just talking about it and engaging in individual actions that don't produce the type of accountability required to address all of the aspects of the work described above.
In truth, the primary reason so many people still stick to the capitalist model as their solution to suffering is also the result of the individualistic interpretation of the world. If a collective interpretation is dominant, there is no way we could just see our space in making money without also having to see the impact it has on our family in Africa and across the world. There is no way we could ignore the suffering of our people who dig out the columbite tantilite mineral ore by hand while getting sick and dying just so you can buy an iPhone. There is no way you couldn't see that a collective (socialist) production of that iPhone would give you a much better product than even the one you have now because your product would be made with the collective energy and commitment of the masses of workers because that product would be designed to serve humanity. This would be a step above the current scenario where your iPhone is built as quickly as possible by exploited workers where corners are cut to get as many of them out as fast as can be to increase profits.
The solutions to our problems lie in collective interpretations and approaches to solving those problems. The concept of the rugged individual (usually man) who will save the day is a long ago discredited model that is reaped in patriarchy, idealism, and not reality. In no way form or fashion can capitalism save the day for us on any level and there is no way anyone can even feasibly show how this can be the case. And anyone still hanging onto that vision is either highly confused, or running game to muddle their efforts to use our collective advancement as a smoke screen to create wealth for themselves, of course, at the expense of the masses of people because capitalism and exploitation is like the beat to music. You cannot have one without the other.
For those people with good intentions, your vision of creating opportunities for African people through capitalist ventures like small businesses, and other capital accumulating practices, will never be the solution to the collective oppression of African people. Even the seemingly harmless action of investing money to produce money, for any well meaning and sincere goal - even something as genuine as building a school for example - would still objectively be exploitative against our people and the rest of humanity. How? Whether you invest through a certificate of deposit, individual retirement account, savings account, money market, etc., all of those approaches are designed to take your money and buy stocks in other investments, companies, and projects that are producing surplus so as to create a financial return on your investment. So, if your certificate of deposit is invested in oil per say, then the return from that oil is what grows your portfolio and makes you money. The problem is of course that oil is a commodity that is exploitative in terms of how the oil reserves are located, how the oil is drilled for, and the refining process to produce the product that ends up in your car, and/or heating mechanisms. In other words, in order to insure there is a profit to provide to you for your investment, which is essential to make sure the model works (because if it isn't profitable, people won't invest in it right?), the refining process has to be set up to insure its as efficient as possible. That means less people, more work. That means less oversight and more injuries and death. That means less pay and harder exploitation. This is the same process for any investment you can think of. None of them fall outside the parameters of this exploitative system so when you invest, you are essentially saying you accept and agree that it is ok to make money off of a process that systematically kills and destroys Africa and her people.
Some Africans and other people in America, having shortsighted vision, view the investment process as one of them sending their money into a black hole (that they have no idea what happens once the money goes there). Their only insight into the process is of course the return on investment and so that's their focus. This was the same shortsightedness and ignorance that led people to invest in the chattel slave system. As you should know by now, this process led to the industrialization of the Western world and the development of capitalism e.g. mechanized production of products and the profit of producing their products off the backs of workers and peasants. There is absolutely no way around this reality. To make money through the capitalist system, you have to exploit Africa. Investing in gold exploits Africa. Investing in diamonds does. Uranium, columbite tantilite, zinc, iron, manganese, bauxite, rubber, oil, phosphates. All of these materials, and any industry related to them, makes you an accomplice to oppression if you invest in it. Plus, the other side of that equation is because the current (capitalist) system in place is structured in the type of oppression being described here, this is the central reason that Africa remains poor while a few entities are acquiring the wealth, off the backs of our people's suffering.
So, investment within capitalism will produce a few African millionaires, but it won't solve the mass poverty and oppression that our people face and it won't do anything to contribute towards ending oppression across the planet. The only way to make this real type of contribution is to build a mass movement that is dedicated to eradicating the oppressive system and replacing it with a system that prioritizes people's needs over profit. The key here is mass because it is only the masses of people who make history, not individuals. The ability to transform this oppressive system is going to require the masses of people being involved, not just in discussing oppression, but involved in organizing work to change society. That means we have to get as many people as we can active in participating in the process to organize society to make change. The problem now is so many people are taking up so much energy and space without committing to working collectively to solve the problem. This is such an essential piece because the only way you can understand how to move people forward is by participating in that work. You will never understand it just by going to events other people organize and just taking up space during those events because by just doing that, you will never learn how to see the real work. That real work doesn't come from the events, it comes from the follow up after the event. The reaching out to the people who attended or didn't attend. The offer to meet them for coffee/tea. The effort to sit down with them and explain your ideals and aspirations as an organization and the process to get them to commit to dedicate their time to helping achieve the mission. Then, its the process to work with them to understand that mission and to work through all of the frustrations and problems that will be there to prevent us from achieving our objectives. The ability to create capacity to respond to adversity and work through it. The process of building trust and a high standard of commitment and integrity in the work. Learning the ability to self reflect and to not center our egos and dysfunctional vision of the world in the work, but to learn how to challenge ourselves to grow past all of those shortcomings so we can effectively make progress. All of these critical elements of the work most people are missing simply because they are not involved beyond just talking about it and engaging in individual actions that don't produce the type of accountability required to address all of the aspects of the work described above.
In truth, the primary reason so many people still stick to the capitalist model as their solution to suffering is also the result of the individualistic interpretation of the world. If a collective interpretation is dominant, there is no way we could just see our space in making money without also having to see the impact it has on our family in Africa and across the world. There is no way we could ignore the suffering of our people who dig out the columbite tantilite mineral ore by hand while getting sick and dying just so you can buy an iPhone. There is no way you couldn't see that a collective (socialist) production of that iPhone would give you a much better product than even the one you have now because your product would be made with the collective energy and commitment of the masses of workers because that product would be designed to serve humanity. This would be a step above the current scenario where your iPhone is built as quickly as possible by exploited workers where corners are cut to get as many of them out as fast as can be to increase profits.
The solutions to our problems lie in collective interpretations and approaches to solving those problems. The concept of the rugged individual (usually man) who will save the day is a long ago discredited model that is reaped in patriarchy, idealism, and not reality. In no way form or fashion can capitalism save the day for us on any level and there is no way anyone can even feasibly show how this can be the case. And anyone still hanging onto that vision is either highly confused, or running game to muddle their efforts to use our collective advancement as a smoke screen to create wealth for themselves, of course, at the expense of the masses of people because capitalism and exploitation is like the beat to music. You cannot have one without the other.
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