Foreign Exchange 

By Kalamu ya Salaam

Part of what PANAFEST wanted to do was encourage capital investment in Ghana by people in the diaspora. A number of Ghanaian officials were focusing in this direction rather than on raw tourism. Part of the reason is conditions: Ghana does not have a tourism infrastructure in place. In Cape Coast there was not one hotel which could offer the two hundred or so rooms required to house most of the colloquium participants and performers in one place. The new hotel complex which was scheduled to be completed and which would have been large enough to accommodate the participants, unfortunately was not ready.

Ghana recognizes they need serious development. Fortunately, they also are proud of their own culture and social traditions. They are not looking for "fast food" development.

At the newly opened theatre/cultural center in Cape Coast, there was a Taco Bell restaurant. It was toward the rear of the building. I sought it out because I wanted to see how Ghana was handling multinational corporate participation in the national developmental process. There was nothing Taco Bell about the restaurant. There was no quick anything. The food was Ghanaian for the most part. There was not one "Tex-Mex" item on the menu. No Taco Bell napkins, imprinted paper products, or the like. In fact, if a small sign on the door didn't say Taco Bell, there would have been absolutely no way to know that this was a Taco Bell. And then, maybe it wasn't a Taco Bell. Maybe somebody just decided to call the place Taco Bell.

Throughout Accra and the Cape Coast area there are few Western fast food restaurants. I don't personally remember seeing any, although I'm sure some do exist. In fact, I saw more computer billboards and businesses than burger or chicken advertisements and businesses. Coca-cola, of course, is there but Ghana has an indigenous product which favorably competes. "Citro" is a lemon/lime beverage which I liked better than either "Sprite" or "7Up".

In any case, rather than rely solely on a large influx of multinational franchises, Ghana is hoping to attract capital investment from the African diaspora. Ghana has all kinds of developmental opportunities for those with modest (by diaspora standards) amounts of capital who are willing to work at long term development. Opportunities abound in a numerous areas, from agriculture to retailing, medicine to tourism, transportation to compact disc manufacturing. Ghana has both the need and the desire to involve diaspora Africans.

Which brings us back to shopping. Nia and I bought quite a few items in Ghana which were far more substantial than tourist trinkets and souvenirs. Ghanaian textiles, particularly the kente cloth, has significant retailing potential. Unlike other examples of  "African print material", kente is actually manufactured in Ghana rather than merely designed by and for Africans but manufactured somewhere in Europe or Asia. Moreover, Africans in the diaspora are predisposed to wearing the material as both a fashion statement and an expression of ethnic pride. Finally, kente is part of the traditional Ghanaian culture. Although tourist oriented kente (with Greek fraternity/sorority slogans, Christian quotes, and the like) abound in the marketplace, kente was not originally created to sell to tourists.

The potential of cultural tourism will never bear fruit as long as the emphasis is on "selling" entertainment to tourists. Selling entertainment invariably leads to decadence and hedonism. Ideally, like some of the emerging industrialized Asian nations, we would also like for African countries to be in the business of exporting technical equipment, such as computers. But, at the moment, that's an unrealistic dream. What is within our grasp is the encouragement of capital linkages between continental and diaspora Africans.

For a number of reasons, ranging from the negatives of our deteriorating social conditions where we live to the positives of ethnic pride in our motherland, Africans in the diaspora will increase our interaction with the continent. Moreover, when we go to Africa, we will also want to bring Africa back with us. As more and more of us go, that pool of those who have returned and immersed ourselves into Africa's reality will produce individuals and opportunities which will result in serious capital investment.

As I travel around the United States, whether traveling by car via interstate, or especially when flying through various airports, two characteristics strike me: one, the enormous size and level of development of the United States, and, two, the fact that America is in no way willing, prepared or even minimally inclined to share the resources and material development built up in the 20th century.

Look at a small town like Baton Rouge, the capital of Louisiana, which doesn't even register as a major city by U.S. standards. In terms of physical infrastructure, Baton Rouge is light years ahead of Accra, the capital of Ghana. There are literally thousands of American cities the size of Baton Rouge with fully functioning airports, higher educational institutions, health and sanitation, communications and other industrial infrastructure. Although this density of development would be extraordinary in any other country in the world, most of we African Americans are blissfully unaware of the immensity and import of America's industrial infrastructure.

In many, many ways, because all we really know about industrialism is consumerism, African Americans are unaware of what industrial development entails. We don't think about heavy machinery manufacturing, transportation concerns, sanitation, general utilities, medical services, and on and on. I remember reading one of the Sandinista writers who talked about the bewildering process of administering newly liberated Nicaragua.

The mettle of any revolution is most severely tested not in the armed struggle phase, but rather in the reconstruction phase. This is where Africa needs the most help, and this is precisely where the bulk of we African Americans are deficient simply because we have not been in management and skilled labor but rather traditionally we have been relegated to being the brawn and brute strength of the American economy.

On the level of material standard of living, we are, of course, very aware of being "better off" than most people in the world, and especially "better off" than Africa. Yet our "better off-ness" is both relative and solely material rather than absolute and social. As citizens of the U.S.A. we have some (depending on our particular financial wherewithal) access to the "good life" and some enjoyment of the material trappings of a modern industrial society manifested as a so-called high standard of living. Yet our relationships to the wealth and means of production, the infrastructure that makes all this possible, is tenuous at best. Whatever access we have is generally one of proximity or of being a "servant of the system" (whether as Joint Chief of Staff or Supreme Court Justice does nothing to change the ultimate reality that our participation in the affairs of the ruling class is to serve at their pleasure and to do their bidding).

There is a big difference between being close to power or serving the interests of power and actually sharing power. Indeed, when looked at in detail and on an economic basis, those of us who live poor and Black in the inner cities of America have a standard of living (in terms of health care, life expectancy and other measures of social well-being) which is amazingly similar to our brothers and sisters in major cities throughout sub-Sahara Africa. We neither control nor produce, and therefore are dependents in relationship to America's industrial standard of living.

Finally, to whatever degree we are better off, it is only in possession of material things. In terms of social well-being, in terms of individual and collective sanity, in terms of mental health and community, morals and ethics, well, let's just say things ain't what they used to be for African Americans at the end of the 20th century. Confronted by Africa's underdevelopment in an industrial sense combined with our own penchant for the material trappings of the so-called good life, Africa quickly teaches the diaspora that African Americans in general are the "whitest" Africans in the world. Our up side is that we have greater access to "things". Our downside is that our proximity to American power and mores has bleached us spiritually and socially.

My critique of African Americans allegedly being better off than continental Africans focuses not only on our relationship to U.S. industrial development and our adoption of an American consciousness, but also we should focus on and question the cost of that development -- the whole world has suffered so that those of us in America can live as we do, even those of us who have limited access to and share very little of the wealth and power of America.

The recent rise of the Republican party in America is further reinforcement that there will be no sharing of this wealth. From coast to coast, border to border, I go into what is left of the "Black community" and I am saddened. While we were never in a position to compete, at least, during the first half of the 20th century, we African Americans were building an internal economic infrastructure. Today, with far more political freedom, we have regressed into a state of near peonage, into an economic serfdom which is most accurately measured by noting deficiencies and lacks.

Those of us who try to start businesses find ourselves severely outclassed and hampered not just by a lack of expertise and capital, but also hampered by having to compete with fully developed multinationals who are becoming increasingly adroit at employing niche marketing schemes designed to sew up the African American market. If we are to develop and compete as a people, it just seems that there is so very little room for growth available to us in the United States. People talk about opportunity, but what kind of opportunity do we have when we are first generation business people going up against the major, minor and even bush leagues of Wall Street corporations? Africa is a much more sensible and level playing field in terms of competition and also in terms of need.

In African developmental terms, a $50,000 project is serious and significant. In the USA, that amount barely qualifies as venture capital in business development. African Americans who want to develop businesses and make serious money, stand a much better chance at competing and succeeding in Ghana than they do in the home of the brave and the land of the free.

While they are not discouraging nor overlooking the tourist dollar, at this historical moment, Ghana is seeking African Americans to make venture capital, developmental investments in Ghana. There is both a genuine need and a genuine desire for an infusion of diaspora African skills and capital. When it comes to foreign exchange, the Pan African potential is enormous.

Some suggest that South Africa will be the new "promised land". My particular reading is that South Africa will see blood shed and rough times before it sees a real improvement in the lives of African people. The White controlled, industrial infrastructure which makes South Africa so attractive to investors, is also the major obstacle for indigenous African development. Although I am not a prophet, the clash of Black expectations for a significant increase in their standard of living versus White determination to hold on to wealth and economic power is an obvious and unavoidable obstacle in the path of South African national development.

Although Ghana is certainly not the only African country which is desirous of and could benefit from an infusion of diaspora capital and skills, psychologically, Ghana is the most prepared to make use of the unique diaspora configuration of foreign exchange. Some refer to this as the "Israel" model.

The basic foundation of a large diaspora able to offer capital and political support is a point we and Jews have in common, there are also significant differences, not the least of which is the fact that Israel is one state, while Africa is a continent made up of many states. More important than logistical questions is the fact that the Jews as a people have never had a serious inferiority complex about themselves nor have they, as a people, been brainwashed into believing that the White man's ice is colder, the White man's businesses are better, and the White man's brains are smarter. While individual Jews have displayed feelings of guilt and inadequacy, Jews as a people always cast themselves as "the chosen" ones. Yes, they might suffer disproportionately to others, but they never considered themselves the cursed tribe of "Ham."

This was the underlying point of the movie "Schindler's List". In terms of business acumen, the movie portrayed Schindler as a figurehead whose business was actually run by a Jewish accountant. Moreover, throughout the movie, every time a specific skill was needed a "persecuted Jew" was presented who, when given the chance, competently and admirably fulfilled the job.

In fact, even when not given the chance, the Jews were portrayed as "more skilled" than their German persecutors. This was the point of the concentration camp scene in which a young Jewish woman steps forward to offer her architectural expertise. She speaks up to correct the construction methods used in erecting a building. The German commander listens to her, weighs her advice, cold-bloodedly shoots her dead, and then directs the soldiers and prisoners to follow the advice of the  murdered architect. The point of the scene was not just the capricious cruelty of the German military officer, but also to portray the intelligence of the Jewish victim. Thus, "Schindler's List" reinforces the intelligence and skills of Jews and fights against any suggestion of Jewish inferiority.

We Africans, both continental and diaspora, have a much tougher battle to fight. By Western industrialized standards of education and skills, we are not only generally underdeveloped, we also have serious and deep-seated feelings of intrinsic inferiority. In short, we believe ourselves not just ignorant but fundamentally stupid. In this regard, the attraction of the diasporan African is our access to and possession of Western education and capital.

Regardless of how inadequate we in the diaspora may feel within the nations of our birth, the fact is, in terms of education and skills, the diaspora is the advanced sector of the African world. We are both an emotional and a material asset to African development. This is obvious. However, we are also a problem for African development because, to date, the continent has not fully faced the history nor traumatic effects of the slave trade on all of Africa. Underlying every exchange at PANAFEST was a groping with the difficulty of settling the issue of diaspora reintegration into the African family.

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Ghana is beginning to face the full ramifications of the horror and trauma of the slave trade's devastating historic disruption, and through facing the truth, is beginning to welcome the return of the diaspora. The fact that Ghana is actively courting the diaspora is a major league statement in and of itself.

When President Rawlings extends a hand of welcome, and when people on the street spontaneously do the same, the point is driven home in ways which are difficult to explain in rational terms but which are emotionally overwhelming.

When we Africans need serious help, most of us seldom think of each other. In the midst of Ghanaian economic development deliberations, the push to expand Pan Africanism from romantic cultural concepts and nation bound political expressions to encompass international economic development is a bold move.

The "feeling of self worth" that results from Black people struggling to live and work with each other across "tribal" lines is an unbelievably potent tonic. This invigorating brew gives a higher and healthier meaning to the phrase "foreign exchange.

Source: Kalamu ya Salaam. Tarzan Can Not Return to Africa, But I Can -- PanaFest 1994

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update 2 November 2007