Are Reparations Necessary or Possible?
Introduction
The economic hardship that is being witnessed across the world seems to have intensified the debate on the wealth inequality between the richest and poorest countries. In the last 30 years, according to the article posted on OXFAM International, the world has witnessed a significant increase in the gap between rich and other countries elsewhere. The statistics show that the poorest half of the world population only managed to get 1% of the increase in world wealth, whereas the richest 1% managed to gain 50%. While many countries around the world experience a remarkable increase in wealth inequality, China and Mexico are said to have more than 25 times those of the poorest even though they started experiencing a dropped. Economic growth is adversely affected by the growing wealth inequality and worsens health, among many other variables (“Reducing inequality: Oxfam International,” n.d.). While the problem of wealth inequality has been a major concern even to countries such as Brazil, Belgium, and African countries, the focus has been majorly placed on African countries. Africa is one of the continents that are believed to be the richest in the world, yet countries in Africa are struggling to feed their citizens. The continent is known to be the home of several valuable minerals and the host of gold. The difficulties that Africa is going through are blamed on the continent’s colonial masters that were drawn by the rich natural resources. By the time the countries in Africa were getting independence, they were worse than they were found, and most are yet to regain from the effect of colonialism. However, according to Shepard (2019), Africans have become the fastest urbanization part of the world, with a significant increase in rural to urban migration. International Monetary Fund (IMF) declared Africa as the second faster-growing region in the world, and this explains why attention seems to be drifting to Africa once again. China remains to be the central player in the push for African urbanization by giving out loans for infrastructure. However, there is fear that the increased attention to Africa by China through its loans is making Africa poorer as most of these loans majorly target countries with natural resources. The loans are debt-trap as they are issued to countries that are unable to repay the huge sum of loans (“Why Is China Investing Billions in Africa?” 2019). Coupled with the effect that was caused by the colonials, this paper, therefore, demonstrates that colonial rulers such as British and French colonies caused and continues to cause more harm to the Third World Countries. The suffering and loss under colonial rule cannot be measured in monetary terms, and therefore there repatriation cannot be achieved. Don't use plagiarised sources.Get your custom essay just from $11/page
Wealth Inequality gap
The level of economic hardship is felt across the world, and the level of poverty has since grown. However, the growing level of poverty is not uniform due to the huge wealth inequality gap witnessed between rich and poor countries. The richest 1% was able to receive 50% since 2001, while the poorest half of the population received 1% of the world’s increased wealth (“Reducing inequality: Oxfam International,” n.d.). Extreme inequality has worsened the state of poverty in the world, and more billionaires have been witnessed in the recent past, which has seen the world poorest got even poorer. The greatest concern is that many governments fuel the growing level of wealth inequality in the world. For instance, most of the corporations in the third world countries tend to under tax wealthy people and corporations while at the same time underfunding vital public services. However, that is not the main reason as to why there is growing wealth inequality in Africa countries. The African region is known to be the least developed and with the higher wealth inequality levels when compared to countries such as China, which are nearly 25 times richer. This is quite ironical because Africa is known to have the most valuable minerals and other natural resources. The history of poor Africa dates back to the period of colonial rule when African countries were subjected to harsh conditions and their wealth stolen and transport to European countries and the United States.
Taking Resources from Third World Countries
According to Sayeh (2013), International Monetary Fund ranks Sub-Saharan Africa as the second-fastest-growing region in the globe after Asia. One the other hand, Europe is struggling while the United States is mending slowly. The region managed an average output growth of 5% based on the strong investment and commodity prices. However, the African region is the one that is experiencing high cases of poverty when it is in Africa that the gold reserve is found. The main reason is linked to the colonization of the African countries by European and western countries. The colonizers went to Africa and grabbed their wealth, leaving the people and governments vulnerable. British are accused of creating landlessness, and poverty is not only African countries but also India. It is through the colonizers that the natural resources of the third world countries were overly exploited, and many people enslaved and exiled from the countries. According to Bart-Williams(2015), British conquered countries that were wealthy across the world and reduced then into poor countries that they are today. For instance, India formed 23% of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP) in the 18th century, but when they left, the country’s economy was barely 3 percent. India that never had the problem of land when the British took over was left with 90 percent of its population being under the poverty line. African countries equally went through the same problem as India when the region was being colonized, as reported by Bart-Williams (2015) in the TED talk show. According to her, colonizers systematically destabilized and continue to destabilize the wealthiest African nations as well as their systems, and through the huge public relations coverage, the entire world is left with the impression that Africa is poor and only survives on donations.
European and the United States are said to have made the Third World Countries poorer yet claims to be their best friends through loans and donations. These western countries are not doing well economically, yet they claim to be donating goods to countries with vast natural resources. Most of these rich countries simply give their donations under what Bart-Williams (2015) refers to as “under the flashing lights of cameras, the other takes, in the shadow.” The fear that these western countries have had is that when Africa gets to be wealthy and striving, it will not disperse its resources as cheaply and freely as possible. Instead, the countries with natural resources such as gold and oil will be able to sell their products at the world market prices, which would destabilize western economies.
African countries and others such as India are unable to show their level of growth despite the reports by IMF that Sub-Saharan African has managed to maintain output growth of 5 percent on average in 2012. Bart-Williams (2015) believe such remarkable growth cannot be noticeable because the French treasury receives nearly 500 billion dollars yearly in foreign exchange reserves from these already poor nations as a payment for the colonial debt. She goes ahead to cite former French president Jacques Chirac who said, when being interviewed, that big junk of money in their banks is from the exploitation of the African continent. The president confirmed in the same interview that was it not for the African countries, France would have already gone down in the rank of a Third World power.
Some people see lasting benefits that British rule brought to countries where they colonized, such as the establishment of the rule of law, political unity, democracy, the building of railways, and the English language. According to Tharoor (2016), each of these benefits being mentioned was meant to serve the interest of the British and that India would only benefit incidentally.
It is notable that the suffering that Indians went through, and other African countries cannot be quantified and paid in dollars or any monetary measure. The damage is too much, and that is the reason repatriation is not the solution to the troubling third world countries. British and other colonizers, such as French and United States, need to consider making a public apology on the injustices that were meted in these countries. They equally need to teach their children about history so that they get to understand why a wide wealth inequality exists between rich and poor countries; the future generation may work towards bridging the gap.
China’s Presence in African Countries
As already demonstrated, most of the third world countries have suffered so much because of the colonial masters from European countries and the United States, and the sufferings are still evidenced by the growing level of poverty. The recent report by IMF that African is the second-best region in terms of development in the world, the interest has since been drawn to Africa again, and many countries from both west and east are running to the African region. The country that has the greatest presence in Africa is the Chinese government. An interview that was conducted in one of the East African Broadcasting Channel Kenya Television Network (KTN) in a program called Morning Express Press exposed the Chinese presence in Africa. According to Kamau Thuge, National Treasury Principal Secretary, who was one of the people being interviewed based on the live recording interview, said that the government would be able to create an environment that provides room for private investors. According to the government, private investors are expected to put up huge investments by building, operating, and transferring structure. These private investors will own assets such as roads for quite some time as they charge users with the aim of recouping the investment.
China is being blamed for issuing huge loans to most of the African countries with natural resources or assets that they can use to recoup their loan when it has defaulted. The Chinese loan is putting African countries in a debt-trap express as most of these nations are unable to pay these loans. China has given out loans to build railways, airports, highways, and many other infrastructures, and the loans are considered unsustainable. Kenya is the country where China has massively loaned to help in building a standard gauge railway (SGR), and in 2018, the debt stock of the country had already surpassed Kenya shillings 1 trillion, and more was still underway. The country is expected to take several years servicing Chinese loans, and China is expected to gain immensely from the interest.
Many other countries in Africa are getting poorer because the wealth is being transferred from Africa to already rich countries such as China. For instance, Angola is struggling to pay its $25 billion debt to China, and the nation is forced to use its precious resource, which is crude oil, to repay the loan. According to the interview on “How Chinese loans are making Africa poorer | Morning Express Press Review,” Angola remains to be the second-largest exporter of crude oil to China. Angola is only second to Russia, which is the primary supplier of oil to China. Angola and other countries have made China the largest crude oil importer in the entire world at 8.4 million barrels per day. Many African countries such as South Sudan and Ethiopia are facing the debt challenge as China continues to give its loans with the sole purpose of improving infrastructure that will connect it with Africa, Europe, Asia, and beyond. It only shows how determined China is to transport wealth from poor countries, which will definitely widen the already wide wealth inequality in the world.
China is determined to use a subtle force to gain control in African countries through its unending desire to issue infrastructural loans. Over a third of the oil in China comes from Africa, and more than 20% of its Cotton comes from Africa (Shepard, 2019). It is known that Africa has the most valuable minerals that most western countries and Chinese governments may want to control, and that is why there is increasing interest in Africa. The region is known to own about half the world’s stock of manganese, which is a crucial ingredient in steel production. The Democratic Republic of Congo is known to own half the world’s cobalt, and many other valuable natural resources such as Oil in Angola have been the center of attraction yet the African countries seem not to be benefiting going by the current trend of these resources being shipped to countries like China. The effect is more than what can be valued from a monetary perspective, and therefore repatriation could not be the solution.
Conclusion
The level of inequality being witnessed across the world has an adverse effect on economic growth. Even though it is something that can be addressed, inequality has significantly increased over the last 30 years because it is fueled by powerful and rich economies. The entry of China seems to be widening the gap even farther from where the colonizers left due to the debt trap that it continues to set for the African countries. Third world countries are suffering today because of the historical injustices that their colonizers did and what they are continuing to do. Repatriation debate may be justifiable, but the sufferings are worth more than any monetary value, and therefore, an apology by these countries would be better. The world and, more particularly, the new generation of colonizers and the third world countries about the need to work on bridging the inequality and shun donations and loans given in pretense to lure Africans into a debt trap as a way of tapping their natural resources. Repatriation would have been a good way to compensate for the damage, but no amount would match the damage caused, and therefore, an apology will be more viable.
References
Bart-Williams, M. (2015). Change your channel [Video]. Berlin: TEDx Talk. Retrieved 25 November 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfnruW7yERA
Hardin, G. (1974). Lifeboat Ethics: the Case Against Helping the Poor. Retrieved 26 November 2019, from https://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_lifeboat_ethics_case_against_helping_poor.html
How Chinese loans are making Africa poorer | Morning Express Press Review. (2019). Retrieved 26 November 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGv_RigOwpg&feature=share
Reducing inequality: what is your country doing to tackle the gap between rich and poor? | Oxfam International. Retrieved 25 November 2019, from https://www.oxfam.org/en/reducing-inequality-what-your-country-doing-tackle-gap-between-rich-and-poor
Sayeh, A. (2013). Africa: Second Fastest-Growing Region in the World. Retrieved 25 November 2019, from https://blogs.imf.org/2013/06/10/africa-second-fastest-growing-region-in-the-world/
Shepard, W. (2019). What China Is Really Up To In Africa. Retrieved 25 November 2019, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2019/10/03/what-china-is-really-up-to-in-africa/#69cb92715930
Why Is China Investing Billions in Africa? | NowThis World. (2019). Retrieved 26 November 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HwxDxrKzMk