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181 CHAPTER ELEVEN MILTARIZED WORLD ORDER QUEST FOR AFRICA’S WEALTH Corporate capital has expanded its political and military power that it only grudgingly recognizes boundaries to its restless ambitions. Across its history this hegemonic ideological system has followed a path of continuous and violent expansion, colonizing whatever it could, including nations, cultures, working peoples, resources, all of nature—indeed anything that could be turned into profitable commodities. Its vast arsenal of doomsday weapons, now being refined and upgraded, has held the world at its mercy for many decades. During the last 500 years of the “European/Euro-American, capitalist/patriarchal modern/colonial world-system”, Africa went from the 16th century “convert or I shoot you,” to the 19th century “civilize or I shoot you”, to 20th century “develop or I shoot you”, to the late 20th century “neoliberalize or I shoot you”, and to the early 21st century “democratize or I shoot you”. Never has there existed any respect and recognition for Indigenous, African, Islamic or other non-European canons of ideological thought, be they economic, cultural, racial/ethnic or democratic. Wherever any such reared its “ugly” head, it was crushed by brutal force to make the world safe for corporate interests. There is no doubt about the fact that profit-seeking corporations can be a great force for good in the world, creating and providing wonderful goods and services that would be unavailable by any other means. But we also recognize that if they are unregulated, they harm the public. An unregulated corporation is like a loose elephant in any neighborhood. Who can stop it from trampling over whatever it chooses? In fact, this ideology opens the door for unregulated profit-seeking corporations to harm the African public in the following five ways: 1. NOT PAY TAXES -In order to maximize profits, they always seek to avoid or minimize their taxes. 2. ELIMINATE COMPETION -In order to maximize profits, they always seek to eliminate or control their competition. 3. CUT WAGES AND SALARIES - In order to maximize profits, they always seek to reduce their labor costs. 4. DISREGARD THE ENVIRONMENT - In order to maximize profits, they always seek to avoid all environmental restraints. 182 5. SELL DANGEROUS, HARMFUL PRODUCTS - In order to maximize profits, they are tempted to sell dangerous or harmful products. So what should we do? We need profit-seeking corporations because they are very efficient and very innovative. They are quick to provide products and services to fill needs, if the profit is there. They can do great things very quickly. But they cannot be trusted to protect the African public, if it hurts their profits to do so. And it is unreasonable to expect that they should - unless they are somehow compelled to do it. Unfortunately, the World Order ideology allows them simply to run loose, like rampaging elephants, trampling down whatever is in their path in the continent. Examples of rampaging unregulated profit-seeking corporations are in abundance. America’s muscling into “French territories” in Africa explains this fight for looting rights. For instance, France has maintained the largest foreign military presence in Africa since most countries attained sovereignty in the 1950s and 1960s. While France reduced its armed presence on the continent by two thirds at the end of the last century, it continues to intervene in a muscular and controversial fashion. For example, under a 1961 ‘mutual defence’ pact, French forces were allowed to be permanently stationed in Ivory Coast and the 500-strong 43rd Marine Infantry Battalion is still based at Port Bouet, near Abidjan international airport. When the civil war erupted in Ivory Coast in September 2002, France added a ‘stabilisation force’, now numbering some 4,000 under Operation Licorne, which was augmented in 2003 by 1,500 Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) ‘peacekeepers’ drawn from Senegal, Ghana, Benin, Togo and Nigeria. In January 2006, the United Nations extended the mandate of Operation Licorne until December 2006. Piggybacking off the French military presence in Africa, however, are a series of new foreign military and policing initiatives by the United States and the European Union. It appears that the US has devised a new ‘Monroe Doctrine’ for Africa. Under the George W. Bush regime’s War on Terror doctrine, the US has designated a swathe of territory curving across the globe from Colombia and Venezuela in South America, through Africa’s Maghreb, Sahara and Sahel regions, and into the Middle East and Central Asia as the ‘arc of...

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