While acknowledging the existence of diverse pressures which force people to reproduce capitalism daily, John Holloway argues that ‘there is no pre-existing capitalism, there is only the capitalism we make today, or do not make’ (2010, p. 254). He then challenges readers of his book, Crack capitalism, to look for and exploit weaknesses in the edifice, to create or exacerbate cracks ‘that defy the apparently unstoppable advance of capital’, and which may take any suitable and effective form of individual and group protest, opposition or rebellion (ibid., p. 8). The overall aim, he suggests, is to galvanise ordinary people to experiment with pro-active ways to stop ‘making’ or ‘creating’ capitalism instead of merely re-acting to ‘a pre-existing capitalism that dictates that we must act in certain ways’ (ibid., p. 254). Holloway himself is realistic about the limits to this vision (noting that refusing to contribute to the reproduction of capital is inherently contradictory); but is hopeful that people will take responsibility, reappropriate their lives and, in concert with a myriad others, set the agenda to break with the logic of capitalism and start creating a different world.
It is a thesis which deserves a full and fair hearing, one which is probably best reserved for a detailed book review. In the interim, and in the wake of widespread ongoing global anti-capitalist protests, there is little doubt that, in an era in which ‘capital is in its deepest crisis for many years’ (ibid., p. 250), it addresses themes which resonate in varied ways with the preoccupations of this journal, as well as of its contributors and subscribers. Indeed, the papers making up this issue can be considered as serendipitous responses to Holloway's encouragement to document examples of both pre-emptive and reactive challenges to capitalism. In particular, the papers have the advantage of documenting case studies as a ‘practical–theoretical activity’, an iterative process, which advances an understanding of the workings of capital, on the one hand, and the manifold challenges to capitalism's worst excesses, on the other.
The opening two papers deal, in very different ways, with the impact of state policy, specifically neoliberalism, on peasant society and livelihood. In their study of staple grain consumption patterns, Ousman Gajigo and Abdoulaye Saine remind us of the unfounded assumptions used to justify agricultural market liberalisation in the Gambia. Given a political economic context in which, as they make clear, the fortunes of rice (the national – but mostly imported – staple) and groundnuts (the main export crop) are closely intertwined, earnings from groundnut exports had historically funded rice imports and its purchase/consumption by farm families. Thus, privatising parastatals catering to the needs of groundnut producers without also addressing the structural impediments which state intervention was partly meant to address in the first place ran a very real risk of disrupting production and trade, and, consequently, reducing farmer earnings and disposable rural household income. And, since ‘any serious disruption to either groundnut production or marketing [was] likely to have an adverse effect on farmer ability to afford imported rice’, this left farmers with little option ‘but to turn to locally grown cereal to ensure food security’.
Gajigo and Saine thus highlight how, contrary to both prediction and expectation, market liberalisation prompted unintended local production responses which, in the context of the local political economy, were far from being entirely unpredictable. That this was not foreseen is itself a reflection of the blueprint nature of much (early) structural adjustment and its associated conditionalities. More importantly, perhaps, was the complete failure on the part of legislators and policy makers to recognise the significance of this reaction to neoliberalism on the part of peasants for what it actually was – that is, evidence that ‘policy instruments meant to stimulate agricultural production exclusively through market liberalization only exacerbated the hardships faced by farm households, even though the country was often touted as a model of success and vindication of SAP austerity measures’. Farmer response is also a useful reminder of the well-founded nature of Holloway's concern with the disciplining effects of capital on labour.
The great value of Gajigo and Saine's narrative lies, therefore, as much in its contextualisation of the region's incorporation into a global capitalist economy, as in its detailed demonstration of exactly how the contemporary adoption of orthodox neoliberal agrarian policy reform was ill-advised in the first place; and in its suggestion of why the long-term implications of the consumption shift from mostly imported rice to locally produced millet should raise concerns about both food security (increase in millet production not matched by increase in productivity of millet farming) and environmental sustainability (increased output due to expansion in area cultivated rather than intensification of production in area already under cultivation). The lasting impression is of a farce in which increases in productivity were not realised because pre-Adjustment structural bottlenecks had persisted into the era of a liberalised agricultural market. However, this ‘freed’ market had, in turn, failed to attract private sector investment to replace the state subsidy, service provision, etc., which had itself been initially ‘outlawed’ as anti-competitive and/or distortionary. One cannot but recall Cramer's (2006, p. 245) insightful observation, cited with justifiable approval by Øystein Rolandsen in the context of peace implementation in Sudan in his paper (see below), that the potential of development intervention to be translated into progressive change depends on ‘whether economic policy is a product of ideological fantasy or of a realistic acknowledgement of particular economies and historical experience’.
In the second paper devoted to the impact of neoliberalism on peasant society, Jasper Ayelazuno consciously sets out to use the research process not just to bear witness to the rapacious effects of ‘accumulation by dispossession’, but also to give voice to exploited and marginalised rural Ghanaians by ‘enabling’ the peasants in his study villages to recount their experiences of ‘continuous primitive accumulation’. He also hopes ‘to press a case for … intellectual activism’. Significantly, while Ayelazuno acknowledges the connivance of predatory political/state elites and corrupt chiefs in the processes under review, he reserves particular contempt for the legislative instruments adopted as part of market-friendly liberalisation and privatisation measures since the 1980s, which both legalise and facilitate the advance of capital. He cites Stephen Gill's (2002, p. 48) denigration of such ‘new constitutionalism’ approvingly, particularly the latter's capacity to disenfranchise ordinary citizens through ‘redefin[ing] the terrain of normal politics so as to “lock in” the power gains of capital and to “lock out” or depoliticise forces challenging these gains….’
Clearly, the metaphor of ‘enclosures’ in the mining areas favoured by Ayelazuno seems eminently apposite in highlighting the precariousness of peasant existence in the face of this particular neoliberal onslaught. And, in a political economic context in which individual protest is punished, group resistance subverted, and third-party representations ignored, it is little wonder that it is an acute sense of injustice, marginalisation and abandonment in equal measure which pervades the comments of interviewees; or, indeed, that at least one person is driven to speculate somewhat darkly about the additional possibilities for individual protest which the possession of a firearm might open up. Are there any realistic prospects for progressive change, for chipping away at existing cracks in this particular edifice of mining capital in a meaningful challenge to the status quo? The paper does not address this directly, but its references to determined continuing local resistance, allied with NGO advocacy, appear to offer some hope in this direction, as does the wider adoption of intellectual activism-as-advocacy which Ayelazuno promotes by example and which ROAPE, among others, has long championed in Ghana and the rest of the continent.
Øystein Rolandsen's careful, chronological and empirical analysis of the negotiation and implementation of the Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement (‘the cornerstone of the first mutually agreed secession in Africa’) represents a less activist but no less valuable kind of intellectualism. The CPA brought the long-running conflict between the government of Sudan (GoS) and Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) to an end, paving the way for the eventual emergence of the Republic of South Sudan, Africa's newest state. Rolandsen concentrates on the process of peacemaking rather than devoting inordinate attention to personalities and their (undoubtedly complex) motivations, or, indeed, the interests which they represented, even if these inevitably feature in the narrative. There is thus little overt or sustained reference to the workings of capital here, although there is little doubt that this was (in)directly implicated in the persistent disagreements over questions of religion, self-determination and asset/wealth-sharing which ‘represented a constant threat’ to negotiations, making compromise difficult and delaying eventual agreement. It undoubtedly featured, too, in calculations informing the political engagement of key external participants, the so-called troika (USA, Britain and Norway) and regional (neighbouring) countries, in the peace process.
It is, however, in relation to the planning/delivery of post-conflict international aid, which attracted a ‘considerable amount of attention and money’ and was largely designed and supervised by the UN, World Bank and troika countries, as Rolandsen observes, that capital comes to the fore. During the implementation of the CPA, an approach predicated on the establishment of a bureaucracy for coordinating and supervising aid to Southern Sudan was thoroughly hampered in its task by an unwieldy structure, inadequate resources and limited authority, on the one hand, and a lack of adequate supervisory oversight on the other. Add to this a variety of local and more international political economic factors which distracted attention from, and/or slowed the momentum of implementation, and very limited early progress was actually made in delivering social and economic ‘development’ to Southern Sudan via coordinated large-scale aid transfers.
Nonetheless, the conclusion that an underlying motive of the aid strategy was to promote neoliberal globalisation is inescapable. It is reflected as much in its blueprint (‘one-size-fits-all’) approach to peacebuilding, as in what Rolandsen describes as its ‘bureaucratic reporting regime combined with a neo-liberal tender system for contracting non-existent private entrepreneurs’. Indeed, there are clear echoes here of earlier Gambian experience with market liberalisation reported by Gajigo and Saine, for example. Similarly, the insistence that there was meaningful Sudanese participation in the design of the programme of international assistance even though the latter was, according to Rolandsen, ‘controlled by foreign and multinational entities’, appears to have been aimed at establishing Southern Sudanese ‘ownership’ in an approach pioneered by the now-ubiquitous Poverty Reduction Strategy interventions. In any case, there is little or no sign in either programme design or implementation of, for instance, the kind of anti-imperialist development which Ayelazuno advocates; or, indeed, of the value of empirically informed development policy which Franklin Graham calls for in his paper on the impact of securitisation on Saharan and Sahelian livelihoods (see below). Either way, we can do a lot worse than recall Holloway's lament of the pressures which force people to reproduce capitalism, particularly when, as Rolandsen acknowledges (and as the analysis of humanitarian imperialism in Issue 129 of ROAPE showed), the motivations and goals behind external intervention in peacemaking and peace implementation ought to be probed.
The Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) manifesto, Our struggle and its goals, constitutes the subject of the next paper in this issue. Judging from Simon Weldehaimanot and Emily Taylor's English translation and contextualisation of the document, it appears to set out to detail the specifics of local contexts as a basis for the elaboration of custom-made development interventions. Here was a manifesto which, while contested from the moment it first appeared at the height of a factional struggle in 1971, had clear revolutionary purpose: liberating Eritrea from Ethiopian occupation, preventing it from being partitioned into ethnic, religious and racial enclaves, and proclaiming the ideological content of the EPLF's transformative vision. Unfortunately, however, as Weldehaimanot and Taylor's explanatory note also indicates, there is increasing dissatisfaction with, and open hostility to, the lack of democratic accountability associated with de facto one-party EPLF rule. There is thus a reminder here of the contradiction which Holloway argues is inherent in revolutionary experiments. In this case, and in the hands of the EPLF regime, the seemingly laudable pursuit of national unity which appears to have become somewhat obsessive and indistinguishable from the personalisation of state power, military conscription, intrusive surveillance and brutal suppression of popular discontent. Or, put differently, a regime which owes its existence to the success of a progressive liberation movement appears to systematically deprive its citizenry of basic freedoms, transforming its national territory into one big internment camp or prison in the process (see also Dan Connell in ROAPE Issue 129).
Not surprisingly, but entirely coincidentally, this issue of ROAPE also contains a separate statement, issued in solidarity with the oppressed in/of Eritrea, protesting at precisely this widespread abuse of basic rights. Such a call for the restoration of civil liberties and political freedoms is itself a challenge to the status quo, albeit of a different order to the various, often selfless, acts of direct rebellion of opponents of the regime at home and in the diaspora. It is, however, the cumulative effect of all such challenges, what Holloway refers to as their shared resonance, which should eventually initiate the transition to a different world.
If Rolandsen's paper concentrates on the details of making and maintaining peace in a context of war, Franklin Graham focuses squarely on the wider livelihood and political economic implications of a recourse to war – the Global War on Terror (GWOT) – in the Sahel and Sahara as response to a perceived threat to Western interests from al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and other extremists. And while Rolandsen mentions the prospects for post-conflict social and economic development, Graham details the implications for regional livelihoods of ongoing securitisation of vast expanses of drylands by regional ruling classes and their Western backers, ostensibly to counter Islamist terror. He argues, very convincingly, that a political economic context dominated by a focus on fighting terrorism and protecting investments in mineral extraction disrupts traditional pastoralist, tourism-based and (clandestine or illicit) trading livelihoods, while distracting attention from underlying questions of widespread poverty, significant disparities in wealth and political marginalisation of Saharan and remote desert fringe populations. And yet, given their influence on the structural context within which livelihoods are pursued, on the one hand, and capacity to regulate access to livelihood capitals, on the other, patterns of poverty, inequality, wealth and (in)security can and do constrain the scope for livelihood diversification and sustainability. Ultimately, too, they also influence the relative de/merits and attractiveness of the abduction and kidnapping of mostly European and North American nationals for ransom as a livelihood (or income-earning) strategy.
Graham's contribution demonstrates above all else, perhaps, the value of a political economy approach allied with a livelihood perspective of the kind advocated in ROAPE Issue 109 in unravelling the complex and dynamic strands of long-term regional socio-environmental change. ‘Criminals, ideologues and other people pushed by poverty or political motivation are the culprits abducting foreigners and attacking Western targets in the Sahara and Sahel’, he argues, while contradicting the assumption, widely held in policy and press circles, that these are (all) anti-Western Islamist terrorists rather than diverse individuals and groups who collaborate uneasily, frequently opportunistically, with AQIM, among other insurgents. There is, in other words, and to use Holloway's terms, a shared resonance here in challenging actual existing capitalism and, in the case of jihadis at least, offering a different anti-capitalist world. Significantly, Franklin concludes that as the main preoccupation of the vast majority of marginalised desert and desert-edge inhabitants is a desire for greater political representation and improved socio-economic conditions rather than a war against Westerners (there is minimal overlap between insurgent interests and the aim of terrorists), GWOT policies for ending violence are more likely to succeed if they address the goals of regional inhabitants for development.
To close by returning to Holloway, these papers document, to varying degrees, both contexts and processes of ‘capitalism-making’ and/or ‘capitalism breaking’, while focusing on the livelihood struggles of ordinary (and, more rarely, not-so-ordinary) people, mostly in the interstices of capitalism. And, published as part of ROAPE's mission to encourage research on, and an understanding of African political economy, the papers resonate, too, with another of his preoccupations:
If revolution is the revolt of doing against labour, then the issue is not to bring revolutionary consciousness to the masses, but to develop the sensitivity to recognise the revolts that exist everywhere, and to find ways of touching them, resonating with them, drawing them out, ways of participating in the thawing and confluence of that which is frozen. (Holloway 2010, p. 258)
But how exactly is such sensitivity to be developed, and by whom? Arguably more importantly, how can such sensitivity be extended to recognise the inevitable attempts to co-opt and/or subvert revolts against capitalism, particularly when these are not as transparent as the reported comment, attributed to Gerald Howarth, UK Minister for International Security Strategy (presumably in the wake of the capture and killing of Libya's Muammar Al-Ghaddafi) – ‘We liberated the Iraqis from a tyrant, we liberated Libya from a tyrant, frankly I want to see UK business benefit from the liberation we've given to their people’ (Self 2011)? And, finally, once identified, how best can/should these be countered to maximise their potential to identify and expand cracks in capitalism's edifice?