Page 484 - Volume 2_CHANGES_merged_with links

Changes!

Commentary

land-locked country with a deep-water port. A five-fold increase in universities combined

with secondment of Ethiopian faculty to international universities so that they could gain a

wider level of professional experience & expertise. The construction of a major
hydroelectric dam what would make Ethiopia more than self-sufficient in electric power as

well as providing a substantial source of income for the country. And much more.

But at the same time, he also delivered a better level of income at a local level.

Notably, he made changes that created better access to markets for livestock farmers and

making it much easier for them to sell their leather products. Ethiopia is remembered for
its famines. But if you visit in certain seasons, you will see a green countryside almost

everywhere. Farming is a major activity and involves very large numbers of livestock. And
so by improving the incomes of livestock farmers nationwide, Meles Zenawi also

generated more buoyant local economies at the village level throughout Ethiopia.

Anyone who scans the numerous non-academic reports which describe the impact of

BWI structural adjustments and conditionalities across Africa will see a constant theme of

how these policies undermined and in many ways destroyed different ‘small business’
sectors in individual African countries.

*****
The USA approach to Africa in the decades following African independence was also
shaped by its super-power struggle with the USSR, an almost paranoia about communism
and a failure to understand African communitarianism.

"We, in Africa, have no more need of being 'converted' to socialism than we have of being
'taught' democracy. Both are rooted in our past -- in the traditional society which

produced us."

Julius Nyerere as quoted in "Conflicts in Africa--Introduction."

*****
The decade leading upto the year of African independence had seen a nationwide paranoia

in the USA about communism. This peaked between 1950 and 1954, a time that saw

McCarthyism produce a 20 century form of the 17 century Salem witch trials. An
th
th
atmosphere where it was possible to define any action or inaction as proof of an
allegiance to communism. The decades following African independence saw global
matters dominated by the USA v USSR superpower rivalry. This can only have continued, if