We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Friday, December 26, 2014

Africa's Land Rush

Click here to access the audio link to a 55 minute interview with sociologist Fouad Makki available online from people sponsored KPFA radio in Berkeley, California.

Makki describes the appropriation of African lands and their privatization, to serve corporate and foreign state interests much like what happened in Britain driven by capitalists in the 18th century. The latter has been well described in the classic book The Great Transformation by Karl Polanyi.
In Africa, corporations and nation-states are acquiring vast amounts of land, in a move reminiscent of classical imperialism. Sociologist Fouad Makki discusses the enclosure, or privatization, of land in countries like Ethiopia, with terrible social and ecological consequences. He traces the land rush to the global financial crisis, rising food prices, and the inner dynamics of capitalism itself.