Assertions are not usually very helpful on a discussion list, but having just listened to an admirably articulate African from Sierra Leone, with a 'perfect' English accent, suggesting through politely gritted teeth, that the Live 8 events in London today are an opportunity for a pleasant party but are a bit irrelevant to Africans, allow me to assert ...
that all the talk of forgiving debts and of promoting employment, good governance, and sound business practices, is an endlessly patronising and virtually racist snub to a very large continent, teaming with intelligent men and women, twice the cradle of the human race, who flaked exquisitely beautiful lozenge-shaped axes half a million years ago, and who never knew unemployment before the era of capitalism. They need and want no condescending saviours. But unless intellectual hegemony is somehow won in global economics for a perspective influenced by Marxist thinking about the uneven accumulation of exchange value as capital, all talk of cancelling debts, and ensuring "fair trade" will reproduce this patronising outlook. Chris Burford London most of whose forebears left Africa 3,000 generations ago.
