An Evening With Danny Glover: Part 3

The last topic that I picked up during the Danny Glover session was the African debt crisis.  Honestly, I don’t remember what he was saying when he mentioned it.   I was taking so many other notes; I just scribbled this on the cover of my program and decided to look into it later.  Well now is later.

The debt of Third World countries has been a problem since the 1970s when the World Bank classified 60 countries as having $25 billion in debt.  Just over $11 billion of that came from countries in Africa.  In the 1990s, the US claimed that the Third World debt crisis was over because of the change in macro-economic criteria and the debt indicators of Latin America.  But what about Africa?  Many feel Africa’s debt is insignificant because their economies are smaller and most of their loans are not from western banks.  Instead African countries are heavily indebted to the World Bank and IMF. 

What does Africa’s debt mean?  With high debt levels come high poverty levels and, of course, poverty means poor healthcare and nutrition for children which lead to early death.  Noam Chomsky said, “Debt is a social and ideological construct, not a simple economic fact. Furthermore, as understood long ago, liberalization of capital flow serves as a powerful weapon against social justice and democracy. Recent policy decisions are choices by the powerful, based on perceived self-interest, not mysterious “economic laws.”  So why hasn’t more been done to teach these nations to fish instead of just handing it to them?

Some believe focusing on agriculture is the ticket to relieving the debt.  Increased agriculture productivity would develop the economy and all but eliminate the need for food imports.  This would free up funds for other essential investments.  Others push for an international bankruptcy court which will bring stability to the global economy and empower poor countries struggling to pay their debts.

What does this have to do with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr?  I tried googling him with “African debt” in the search engine which turned up nothing.  Quite frankly, this topic came up near the end of the session with Danny Glover and, after two hours, I had begun to tune the conversation out.  But it did grab my attention enough to research the topic and I’ve learned a lot.  I hope this post will educate someone and/or implore them to do their own research then seek out ways to Do Justice.