Pfirst African associate of history at the Sorbonne, alternative Nobel Prize for his research on original models of development, historian and Burkinabé politician.
Joseph Ki Zerbo was very early involved in the struggle for independence and the African union. In the interviews he has just published, this man of action who declares “to prefer combat to careerism” claims to be a socialism “forged from African realities”
What is your view of young people and their relationship to the Western model?
What I see is that the image of Western youth presented by cinema or television arouses new desires and dreams in Africa, and influences the relationship with consumption. By affecting the imagination, by inducing a mimetic desire, these Western images generate needs that are out of step with local solvent demand. From this gap is born a frustration, even a certain schizophrenia, and from this frustration is born a frantic search for money, which has become the supreme value. So much so that today people are ready to be corrupted. This frantic quest for money can be observed even among peasants, who hasten, for example, to sell the cotton harvested to obtain the money which will allow them to access other goods. This dream of the West sometimes leads us to scenes of the greatest absurdity: in Burkina Faso, one of the poorest countries in the world, it is not uncommon to encounter Mercedes traffic jams!
You just published When will Africa be? Who is this question for?
To the West as well as to young Africans. In the West, I mean: we are not fools. The Africa you talk about every day is not yet our Africa. What we are offered is to survive, not to live. The element of happiness is missing. To young Africans, I appeal to a start. I urge them to stand up, to fight. I also appeal to African heads of state. We need leaders with strong political will, leaders who do not give in to corruption, who value their own cultures, rather than Western values, and who promote endogenous development.
How do you see the impact of development policies on the African continent?
Every day I see the damage caused by the structural adjustment programs imposed by the World Bank - particularly in the areas of health and education, which have been greatly affected by the rise in privatization. It is clear that the world of single thought and neoliberalism, the culmination of Western capitalism, does not favor our continent. We need a new theory of North-South relations that takes into account the rampant pauperization and allows us to evolve towards a less unequal exchange. Before, we had humanist thinkers like Nkrumah, Nasser, Fanon… Today, there is a slump, filled only with the proposals of the World Bank, which in no way meet local needs.
Where do you locate the resistance forces?
Partly in the bonds of social solidarity which characterize African traditions. A solidarity that we see for example expressed in reaction to the privatization of the health sector. Unfortunately, this solidarity is declining, in contact with other Western values. I also believe a lot in women, who assume almost all the informal economy and in artists, especially musicians. The works of some of our artists, such as Youssou Ndour and Alpha Blondy, are exported very well. Carrying an added value and a cultural message, they make it possible to envisage a less unequal relationship with the North.
What is the success of the anti-globalization speech in Africa?
People are internalizing it because they feel more and more on a daily basis the harmful effects of decisions imposed on us from the outside. Little by little, people realize that we do not control the decisive parameters, whether it is the price of the raw materials produced on our soil, or the value of our currency. They realize that we have no negotiating power. Just think back to how the devaluation of the CFA franc unfolded. A devaluation which, by penalizing imports, had dramatic consequences, of which everyone felt the repercussions in their daily lives. All of this generated a dangerous feeling of alienation - linked to the feeling of no longer in control of one's own destiny and, at the same time, uncertainty about the future. This feeling is not unrelated to the development of sects.
Christine Sitchet interview with Joseph Ki-Zerbo, Paris, 2003
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as of April 22, 2024 2:55 pm
Language | Français |
Publication Date | 2008T |