Chasing the dots ... Thick as a BRIC (+S)?
By: Chris Smith
I AM slowly getting the idea at last! Events rule the world along with having a suitable acronym. Or, more to the point, the ubiquitous event organisers who have sprung into underground power over the past years who have capitalised on the global trend of massive corporate consolidation in both productive and banking sectors together with the decreasing significance (power) of sovereign states over their own futures.
The latter are totally outbanked by the mammoth global monsters, especially when they collude. The 147 controlling 80% of world assets, the 25 controlling the major slice of world food processing and retail trade, the Morgan Stanleys, JPM, Barclays, HSBCs and few others who control the money and rising groups like Glencore increasingly controlling raw commodities and increasingly secondary outputs push sovereign decision out of the window! Equally, the once all powerful UN, IMF, WB and similar are being sidelined.
This is where the “events” arise from, as an apparent linkage and co-decision model between the global and the sovereign, or maybe just a setup to appear so? The eventers have cleverly developed a model involving fixers, junior players, favoured government players and similar who, possibly for personal gain, are willing to play “the game”. Thus environmental, gender, tourism and regional / sectoral players are steadily raising tourist occupancies in the strangest of places! Quatar for world cup football in 50-degree heat; Rio for environmental matters when they are destroying it; Beijing for Olympics when they have to close the country down to allow athletes to breathe; or Namibia for tourism and adventure in a nation that certainly has an appropriate environment but certainly, apart from a very few, has no cultural tendencies towards such purpose.
Equally the regional political and economic fora in the world are being conned into such irrelevant events, such as BRICS! Brazil is topping out on the Lula people-focused legacy. Russia is concentrating its oligarchical powers in the few based on its raw material base, it makes little itself. India progresses in its normal staggering manner from crisis to crisis. China has made incredible progress but social and property economics plus a need to invest its US$3 trillion for real returns is on a brink. South Africa is undergoing rebirth pangs as its democracy wobbles under the stress of police violence, legal strangulation, oligarchical greed and an increasingly rebellious population.
Anyone who thinks that these once emerging nations will ever form a solid consensus beyond superficial verbiage has lost their conkers! And yes they do represent 40% of the world’s people, but equally somewhere around 65% of the world really poor. Yes they may produce 20-25% of world GDP but only while commodity prices are high. Interestingly, some estimates show they also represent over 50% of world corruption and organised crime, although this is difficult to prove. No, BRICS are yet another plaything of the global players as, unfortunately, are SADC, the AU and maybe even the EU!
This is our Namibian environment. We live amongst the sharks, our friends have doubtful habits (see CAR!) and while we are small enough to stay below the radar, world events do affect us. Thus our president’s recent speech that we must do more and talk less to create a good environment within our borders is so true. Good governance is about anticipating the future, not reacting to the past. It is capitalising on our internal resources, not the crumbs that fall from the international tables.
We are not a thick (BRIC) nation, we have resources but we must do things competitively different to succeed. For instance having the ACC is not the way to stop corruption; it only stops when government and society demands an end from inside. We must use incentive to reward and minimise punishment to impose. Events are not progress. We must play our game, not theirs.
csmith@mweb.com.na