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IOL News
4 days ago
- Politics
- IOL News
Unfinished Freedom: Africa's Long Walk Beyond the 1884 Berlin Conference:
Mphumzi Mdekazi is CEO of Walter and Albertina Sisulu for Social Justice, he writes in his personal capacity. Image: Supplied By Mphumzi Mdekazi On June 12, 2025, we gathered at Vaal University of Technology (VUT) not just to honour the towering legacy of Walter Sisulu, whose birthday was on May 18, 1912– a revolutionary, a father of our democracy, and a quiet architect of freedom—but the day was also used to reflect on the deeper, historical roots of the struggles that continue to shape our continent. Walter Sisulu believed, above all else, in the unity, dignity, and potential of African people, and he understood that true liberation would not come with the lowering of colonial flags, but with the dismantling of colonial logic—embedded in institutions, economies, and minds. It is for that reason that, partially, the fulcrum of his inaugural memorial lecture looked back—not to dwell—but to understand, so that we may act differently going forward. I would assume that, as we have gathered in the Vaal, we all knew that our problems as the African continent are located at the Berlin Conference of 1884. In 1884–85, in cold, chandelier-lit halls of imperial Europe, 14 European powers convened what is now known as the Berlin Conference—also called the Congo Conference. Not a single African was present. Yet the lives of millions would be irrevocably changed. There, the continent was carved up like a pie. Arbitrary borders drawn across ethnic groups, kingdoms, ecological zones and ancient trade routes. Entire civilizations dismembered. Africa was not seen as a place of peoples, cultures, or sovereignty, but as territory to be occupied, extracted, and exploited. This process was legitimized by the so-called principle of 'effective occupation,' which required European powers to demonstrate control over African territories to claim them. In truth, it was a license for conquest, enslavement, and cultural erasure. As Frantz Fanon warned us: 'Imperialism leaves behind germs of rot which we must clinically detect and remove not only from our land but from our minds as well.' The mid-20th century brought political decolonization. Flags were changed, anthems composed, and parliaments erected. But what did we really inherit? We inherited a map not made by us. States that were, in many cases, artificially constructed with no national consensus. We inherited economies wired to feed Europe's factories, not Africa's people, and tragically, we inherited elite classes—many of whom became, in the words of Amílcar Cabral, 'the transmission belt of foreign interests.' Yes, we achieved formal independence, which some were celebrating recently. But the substance of freedom remains unfinished. The promise of decolonization has produced mixed results. We have seen moments of triumph and excellence, indigenous innovation, Pan-African solidarity, democratic progress, but also the painful betrayal of liberation ideals, especially here at home in South Africa. The post-colonial African states have too often been caught between external manipulation and internal misleadership. Between structural adjustment and military coups. Between IMF dictates and elite capture. Today, we see new waves of defiance. The people of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, nations in the Sahel, are attempting to reimagine sovereignty in a world still structured against African independence. Their struggle is fraught. Attempts to build new political and economic models are met with sanctions, destabilization, and even covert efforts at regime change. Often, external forces act not alone but in collaboration with internal elites who fear change. I call these collaborators 'committed and helpless or hopeless slaves, who mistakenly believe that Africa's total liberation will come from a coloniser and our former oppressors'. The Sahel defiance is inspiring the youth, the majority of our continent, understandably so because these young Sahel leaders represent our real African liberation aspirations. These young people, born in the ashes of neoliberal broken promises, are reclaiming the right to shape their future. As Thomas Sankara once declared: 'We must dare to invent the future.' Our Continent needs economic Justice, not Charity or IMF Loans. Africa is not poor; it is impoverished. Through stolen resources, unjust trade, climate injustice, and debt traps, weare made to kneel before the same powers that once colonized us, a case in point is the recent oval meeting in the US, where voluntarily our rare earth minerals as a country were offered and donated without a request, with an apologetic anatomical posture to the Groot Baas. Today, African countries spend more on repaying interest than on investing in education or healthcare. As Julius Nyerere warned decades ago: 'They made us believe that development meant becoming more like them. But development should mean becoming more like ourselves.' We must now demand not aid, but restitution. Not charity, but economic justice in memory of Walter Sisulu. Walter Sisulu understood that liberation is a process, not a moment. He lived through a century of struggle, from the pass laws to the Robben Island cell, from exile to the birth of democracy, leading his family, which conservatively accounts for 59 years in prison combined, for committing no crime, but to demand equality and justice. Such a sacrifice must not be sacrificed for immediacy and silver or short-term myopic pliability. His life teaches us that freedom requires integrity, vigilance, sacrifice, and above all, solidarity across borders, ideologies, and generations. This calls for ethical leadership. As the Foundation that bears his and Mama Albertina's names, we recommit ourselves today to that Pan-African vision, a continent of self-reliant nations, accountable, ethical leadership, educated citizens, and just economies. We invite African thinkers, students, workers, women, elders, the downtrodden and especially the youth to carry forward this (Walter Sisulu's) legacy. To free the continent not only from external domination, but from internal betrayal, as this is a serious hazard towards the gains of our liberation. Let us look beyond Berlin, towards African Rebirth and Reawakening. Let Walter Sisulu serve as more than remembrance. Let it be a moment of reckoning and renewal. Once again, we must look beyond Berlin, beyond the maps we did not draw, beyond the narratives we did not write. It is time for a new African imagination. It is time to complete the freedom that Walter Sisulu and his generation began. As Africans, let us rise. Let us remember. Let us rebuild. Mphumzi Mdekazi is CEO of Walter & Albertina Sisulu for Social Justice, and he writes in his personal capacity.
Libya Observer
19-06-2025
- Politics
- Libya Observer
Mufti: Berlin Conference is a deception by Libya's enemies
Libya's Mufti, Sheikh Al-Sadiq Al-Gharyani, said that the third Berlin Conference, is part of the ongoing deception orchestrated by Libya's enemies. Speaking on Tanasuh TV on Wednesday, the Mufti said the countries meeting in Berlin are Western powers that control Libya's fate. He blamed participants of the Skhirat Agreement for Libya's past and present suffering. "All the evil inflicted on the Libyan people—aggression, plundering of wealth and resources, stripping of freedoms and sovereignty, prisons, arbitrary arrests, and standing with the enemy—as happened recently with the blockade of the convoy aiming to aid our brothers in Palestine—its burden lies with the figures of Skhirat who committed their act and then disowned it." He said. He questioned the outcome of the Berlin meeting, saying: "They will present us with the same production… the same figures will reappear in a new form, just like with Sarraj and the transitional governments." He asserted that 'Western countries know the right solution for Libya, but they deliberately seek to prolong the suffering and occupation.' "There is no enmity between the Americans and Russians, nor among Europeans—all of them are united in exploiting us. We face a Russian invasion brought by Haftar, Aguila Saleh, and the agents of the Zionists. We also face infiltration by regional countries through their intelligence services—all because of Berlin." The Mufti added. The Mufti called on the Libyan people to take to the streets in massive numbers to denounce what he described as a conspiracy. His remarks coincided with the third Berlin Conference, held under UN auspices and involving key international and regional players in the Libyan file, including Egypt, the UAE, the United States, Russia, Germany, France, Italy, and the African Union. The conference is not merely consultative—it is seen as an attempt to impose a new transitional roadmap, following the failure of all domestic Libyan initiatives to reach consensus on a constitutional basis and the continued deadlock in UN-led efforts to organize long-overdue elections. Tags: Libya's Grand Mufti Sheikh Al-Sadiq Al-Gharyani Berlin conference
IOL News
15-06-2025
- Business
- IOL News
South Africa: the World Bank's fattened lamb for slaughter
The hubris of dividing Africa along borders drawn on lunch break napkins, for no other reason than to cannibalise it, seemed eerily similar to the ways of the World Bank and the IMF today. Image: Yuri Gripas/Reuters/File LEE Camp of the programme Unredacted makes incisive observations about the dark manoeuvres of the 1884 Berlin Conference. The hubris of dividing Africa along borders drawn on lunch break napkins, for no other reason than to cannibalise it, seemed eerily similar to the ways of the World Bank and the IMF today. From the same actors, continuing with the same insidious plans of plundering the vast mineral resources of the African continent, these Bretton Woods contraptions, with innocuously sounding names, became the latter-day agents of the Berlin Conference conspirators. If wild hogs, for whatever sinister reason, were to conference on the neighbour's corn yard, Lee calls it the Orgy of Pillaging. In the Mandela and Mbeki successive administrations, the clarity of the vision and the determination of the resolve were unequivocal. It was to square the apartheid debts, grow the economy and bolster the fiscus, a strategy that yielded an average of 4.2% growth year on year. The way to trivialise the success of this strategy, notwithstanding its weaknesses in reducing joblessness, was to claim that the prices of commodities were favourably high. Were this trivialisation rooted in political sentiment only, it would be understandable. But it has no bearing on scientific fact or economic reality. And the Zuma administration was heralded into office with a bountiful surplus. And for purposes of context, commodity prices have been way higher since 2009, or at least the prices of those commodities on which the 'favourably high' claim is predicated. Yet to the collective shock of all citizens, they have helplessly witnessed a diminishing economic growth, recording a few recessions along the way. To date, the country has borrowed oodles of money, eye-watering and mouth-dropping amounts! The gross loan debt has increased from R2.5 trillion in 2017 to R4.3trln in 2021. This means the government has borrowed an additional R1.8trln from both domestic and international investors. The debt has been so heavy on the country's purse, so much so that the Treasury honchos have to borrow an estimated R2 billion every day to service the interest on capital borrowed and to keep the failing heart of their ICU patient ticking. The Government of National Unity (GNU) is determined to borrow as much money as it can possibly sustain their mind-numbing vaudeville. It would have been entertaining if it were not so tragic. The chronology of events is disturbing. First, the exchequer announced that the taxman had over-collected taxes in 2025, to great applause. Then the sequence of events and their timelines get blurred and indistinguishable. Either before that announcement or contemporaneous to it, the geniuses at the Treasury went to Washington DC to apply for a loan of R26bn. Or how does the Minister account for the speed of approval of this amount shortly after the Constitutional Court ruled against a planned VAT increase? But someone or something had to keep the masses entertained. And the famous stage is our Tower of Babel, the parliament of the people. And the captivating showdown of all, between the two main endearing partners of the GNU, is guaranteed front row television viewership. The masses were entertained with a VAT increase imbroglio. It was rejected. And the World Bank approved the loan, all in great effort to avoid imposing the beneficiation tax on a sliding scale. John Perkins, renowned author of Confessions of an Economic Hitman, has an insider articulation acuity. The World Bank and the IMF are frontline agents in the early stages of a regime change strategy. Beyond that stage, the creditors will take over the decision-making capabilities of the country or some government will be couped or someone will be swiftly murdered. For a country that boasts of the best constitution in the world, how does it account for the fact that its eminent provisions determining the powers of different branches of government are silent about the most egregious executive abuse of power? This is when the executive branch contracts into foreign debt on behalf of the state secretly, pledging the entire sovereignty of the people as collateral? It is not even helped by the fact that the preeminent conditionality for loans with the World Bank and the IMF is secrecy. Not even the representatives of the people convened in Parliament can know. It is very secret, they say. According to the late Minister of Public Enterprises, parliamentarians have to sign non-disclosure agreements. So much for voting. At least we now know what the term 'ruling elite' means. It refers to those people who have been given privileged sight of the loan terms of the World Bank and the IMF. Thomas Jefferson, from the vantage of his political heights, addressing his countrymen and countrywomen, once observed that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. And for a country led by the ANC, a political party with a long and profound history, spanning over a century of various political and economic stages of the forging of this country's nationhood, its incumbent leaders are determined not to learn anything about money or debt or even the mastery of their predecessors. It is a fairly documented epic of South Africa's complex historic narrative that the straw that broke the apartheid camel's back wasn't a straw. It was a crushing debt, and an irate mob of creditors beating at Darius Fourie's and Chris Stals' doors, Finance Minister and Reserve Bank Governor, respectively, who were at the service of the apartheid ignominy.
Boston Globe
10-06-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
What would the world be like with three superpowers?
Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up It's an idea that could lead to greater stability. Three stern bosses would govern their own regions, slapping down challengers and troublemakers. They would make major decisions together, or at least with respect for one another's security. Advertisement Their rule would also sharply limit the sovereignty of lesser powers that are near one of the three big ones. Canada, Ukraine, and Taiwan would have to follow orders from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing. Advertisement Orwell did not invent the idea of dividing vast regions into 'spheres of influence' for great powers. It emerged from the Berlin Conference of 1884, at which European powers divided Africa among themselves. Underlying it is the age-old principle that the strong do what they can while the weak suffer what they must. Trump might relish the vision of sitting down to divide the world with two other autocrats, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. It would be a global version of the 1945 Yalta Conference, at which World War II victors decided the fate of European nations. In the modern age, though, it may not be practical. Nationalism and decolonization have shaped the current generation of leaders in much of the world. That makes it unlikely that smaller countries would now accept guidance from larger ones. Upstarts like Eritrea and Burkina Faso, not to mention middle powers like South Africa and Saudi Arabia, have already shown their willingness to challenge the global titans. Attempts to control them more tightly could lead them to rebel even more forcefully. Then there is the question of which countries would be the Big Three. In the 1980s, when Russia was tottering and China had not yet reached great-power status, the three forces that came closest to ruling the world were the United States, Japan, and Europe. Today it is clear that the United States and China belong in the top tier. Russia would be the most likely third member. All three of these countries, however, face serious domestic and foreign challenges. They may be top dogs today, but their positions are hardly unassailable. Upheaval in today's world is in part a result of their inability to control unruly disruptors. Advertisement An Asia ruled by India might someday be an alternative to the ruthlessness of the Russian and Chinese regimes. North and South America under Brazilian oversight might be more peaceful and socially just than they are under the wing of the United States. As for Europe, it is in the throes of an epochal identity crisis and no longer projects power as it did in past centuries. The greatest benefit of a tripartite division of the world is that it might lessen the threat of global destruction through nuclear war. Agreement among powerful nations could calm fears that might propel them toward apocalyptic decisions. Given the urgent reality of this threat, anything that lessens it is instantly appealing. Obstacles to the three-great-powers vision, though, are easy to identify. Today the United States considers most of the world to be its 'sphere of influence.' Drawing new lines would inevitably mean a shrinking of the American domain, something Washington is unlikely to accept. Then there is the question of where those lines would be. Imagining a new world map may be an amusing fantasy project. In real life establishing one would be all but impossible. Perhaps the greatest obstacle to a new division of the world is the highly developed sensitivity of countries that have been victims of imperialism. The United States, Russia, and China were created by seizing land from others. All three have expanded their power at the expense of weaker countries. Those countries, some of them gathered in the BRICS bloc, sense a common threat. Persuading them to accept a return to obedient servitude would require a far better deal than the United States, Russia, or China is prepared to offer. Advertisement Stephen Kinzer is a senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University.
Boston Globe
26-05-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Trump's vision: One world, three powers?
'We all want to make deals,' Trump said in a recent interview with Time magazine. 'But I am this giant store. It's a giant, beautiful store, and everybody wants to go shopping there.' Trump may have something even bigger in mind involving Russia and China, and it would be the ultimate deal. His actions and statements suggest he might be envisioning a world in which each of the three so-called great powers — the United States, China, and Russia — dominates its part of the globe, some foreign policy analysts say. It would be a throwback to a 19th-century style of imperial rule. Advertisement Trump has said he wants to take Greenland from Denmark, annex Canada, and reestablish US control of the Panama Canal. Those bids to extend US dominance in the Western Hemisphere are the clearest signs yet of his desire to create a sphere of influence in the nation's backyard. He has criticized allies and talked about withdrawing US troops from around the globe. That could benefit Russia and China, which seek to diminish the US security presence in Europe and Asia. Trump often praises President Vladimir Putin of Russia and Xi Jinping, China's leader, as strong and smart men who are his close friends. Advertisement To that end, Trump has been trying to formalize Russian control of some Ukrainian territory — and US access to Ukraine's minerals — as part of a potential peace deal that critics say would effectively carve up Ukraine, similar to what great powers did in the age of empires. Trump and Putin spoke about Ukraine in a two-hour phone call last week. 'The tone and spirit of the conversation were excellent,' Trump wrote on social media. Monica Duffy Toft, a professor of international politics at Tufts University's Fletcher School, said that the leaders of the United States, Russia, and China are all striving for 'an imaginary past that was freer and more glorious.' 'Commanding and extending spheres of influence appears to restore a fading sense of grandeur,' she wrote in a new essay in Foreign Affairs magazine. The term 'spheres of influence' originated at the Berlin Conference of 1884-85, in which European powers adopted a formal plan to carve up Africa. Some close observers of Trump, including officials from his first administration, caution against thinking his actions and statements are strategic. While Trump might have strong, long-held attitudes about a handful of issues, notably immigration and trade, he does not have a vision of a world order, they argue. Yet there are signs that Trump and perhaps some of his aides are thinking in the manner that emperors once did when they conceived of spheres of influence. 'The best evidence is Trump's desire to expand America's overt sphere of influence in the Western Hemisphere,' said Stephen Wertheim, a historian of US foreign policy at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Advertisement But setting up a sphere of influence in the post-imperial age is not easy, even for a superpower. Last month, Canadians elected an anti-Trump prime minister, Mark Carney, whose Liberal Party appeared destined to lose the election until Trump talked aggressively about Canada. Leaders of Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, have rejected the idea of US control. Chinese officials are threatening to stop a Hong Kong company from selling its business running two ports in the Panama Canal to US investors. 'China will not give up its stakes in the Western Hemisphere so easily without a fight,' said Yun Sun, a China analyst at the Stimson Center in Washington. Even so, Trump and his aides persist in trying to exert greater US influence from the Arctic Circle to South America's Patagonia region. When Carney told Trump this month in the Oval Office that Canada was 'not for sale,' Trump replied: 'Never say never.' In March, Vice President JD Vance visited a US military base in Greenland to reiterate Trump's desire to take the territory. And it is no coincidence that Secretary of State Marco Rubio's two most substantial trips since taking office have been to Latin America and the Caribbean. In El Salvador, Rubio negotiated with Nayib Bukele, the strongman leader, to have the nation imprison immigrants deported by the US government, setting up what is effectively a US penal colony. Rubio also pressed Panama on its ports. On a late March visit to Suriname, Rubio was asked by a reporter whether administration officials had discussed setting up spheres of influence, which would entail negotiating limits on each superpower's footprint, including in Asia. Advertisement Rubio, who has more conventional foreign policy views than Trump, asserted that the United States would maintain its military alliances in Asia. Those alliances allow it to base troops across the region. 'We don't talk about spheres of influence,' he said. 'The United States is an Indo-Pacific nation. We have relationships with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines. We're going to continue those relationships.' Some analysts say Trump's approach to the war in Ukraine is consistent with the concept of spheres of influence. The United States is talking to another large power — Russia — about how to define the borders of a smaller country and is itself trying to control natural resources. Trump has proposed terms of a settlement that would mostly benefit Russia, including US recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea and acknowledgment of Russian occupation of large swaths of eastern Ukraine. Last week, Trump even seemed to back off his demand that Russia agree to an immediate cease-fire with Ukraine. Earlier, he got Ukraine to sign an agreement to give US companies access to the country's minerals. Supporters of Trump's settlement proposal say it reflects the reality on the ground, as Ukraine struggles to oust the Russian occupiers. But Trump's praise of Putin and of Russia, and his persistent skepticism of America's role in NATO, has inflamed anxieties among European nations over a potentially waning US presence in their geographic sphere. The same is true of Taiwan and Asian security. Trump has voiced enough criticism of the island over the years, and showered enough accolades on Xi, that Taiwanese and US officials wonder whether he would waver on US arms support for Taiwan, which is mandated by a congressional act. Advertisement Trump says he wants to reach a deal with China. Whether that would go beyond tariffs to address issues such as Taiwan and the US military presence in Asia is an open question. 'Beijing would love to have a grand bargain with the US on spheres of influence,' said Sun, the China analyst, and 'its first and foremost focus will be on Taiwan.' This article originally appeared in
