Patrick Bond

In Fortaleza, BRICS became co-dependent upon eco-financial imperialism

South Africa: 20 years on, ‘very good story’ of ANC ‘social democracy’ needs tough questioning

Nigeria: Africa’s number one economy -- for wealth evaporation

Klassenapartheid: Die Wirtschaftspolitik der Mandela-Ära war geprägt von Zugeständnissen an das »big business«

Nelson Mandela’s years in power: Was he pushed or did he jump?

Extreme weather, more extreme greenhouse gas emissions beckon urgent activism

Obama in South Africa: Washington tells Pretoria how to ‘play the game’ in Africa

Ordinary Brazilians foot the FIFA bill -- some lessons from South Africa

South Africa’s ‘sub-imperial’ seductions

BRICS: ‘Anti-imperialist’ or ‘sub-imperialist’?

South Africa: Inauspicious start to the ANC’s year; COSATU needs to get back to first principles

Africa’s ‘rising’ or overdue uprising?

By Patrick Bond

January 1, 2013 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal

Either:
1) Africa owes its takeoff to a variety of accelerators, nearly all of them external and occurring in the past 10 years:
billions of dollars in aid, especially to fight HIV/AIDS and malaria;
tens of billions of dollars in foreign-debt cancellations;
a concurrent interest in Africa’s natural resources, led by China; and
the rapid spread of mobile phones, from a few million in 2000 to more than 750 million today.
Business increasingly dominates foreign interest in Africa. Investment first outpaced aid in 2006 and now doubles it.
Or: