comments expresses the writer’s opinions.
Tanzania, on the east coast of Africa, has been Norway’s source of aid. Hardly any country in the world has been so inundated with Norwegian aid workers and monetary donations.
Since 1962, Tanzania has received almost NOK 30 billion from Norway.
In Norway, we have wanted this aid to create a better society for the citizens. Both when it comes to living standards and good governance. The results have been meager. Tanzania is still one of the world’s poorest country, and the board of directors is not much to brag about either.
Since independence in 1961, one party has ruled the country. Formally, several parties are allowed, but the increasingly authoritarian ruling party CCM (Chama Cha Mapinduzi – Revolutionary Party) is accused of extensive electoral fraud and won the last presidential election in 2020 with 84 percent of the vote.
Now the CCM will cement the one-party government. With help from China.
China’s Communist Party has teamed up with the ruling parties of six southern African countries to teach how to best run a dictatorship.
Anders Magnus
Anders Magnus has been a journalist for over 40 years, and has, among other things, been a foreign correspondent for NRK on three continents: Africa, Asia and America. His last assignment was Washington DC, where he covered most of Donald Trump’s reign – and the start of Jo Biden’s.
Magnus has also been a journalist in Bergens Tidende and in TV2 – where he led the programs PS and M.
Dictatorship school
At the Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Leadership School in Tanzania, the Chinese Communists gather politicians from the ruling parties of Angola, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Tanzania.
The Danish newspaper Politiken, in collaboration with the American website Axios, has visited the school, and says how Chinese teachers are sent from Beijing to train the African politicians: The ruling party must always be superior to both the state and the courts – as in China – and party discipline is central.
“The most important thing about this model is to imbue these revolutionary parties with the idea that they will be governing parties forever, and to teach them how to achieve that,” says Richard McGregor to Axios/Politiken.
He was previously a journalist and correspondent in China, and now works at a university in Australia. He knows China’s Communist Party very well, and has written the book “The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers”.
All the six countries that have joined this party school to teach dictatorship have two things in common: They are or have been countries to which Norway has given a lot of aid.
And they have governing parties that have been in power for many decades, despite being formally multi-party democracies.
Now they will learn how to become a proper one-party dictatorship.
The curriculum at the school suggests that the Chinese Communist Party is now “experimenting with exporting parts of its model (for state governance)”, says McGregor.
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Aid – the road to hell
In Norway, Professor Indra de Soysa at NTNU already warned 11 years ago that Norwegian aid funds do not have the desired effect. Rather the opposite. In an interview with forskning.no tells he about his research on the impact aid has on peace and human rights in the recipient countries:
“Despite the fact that Norway gives the most, Norwegian aid has no effect for more peace and better human rights,” says de Soysa, who is convinced that Norwegian aid funds in Africa are used to buy rifles and grenades.
When a bad regime gets aid money to build hospitals and schools, the same regime can use money from other budget lines to buy weapons.
The internationally recognized aid researcher Paul Collier suggests that at least 40 percent of African military expenditure is financed by aid money. Norwegian aid is not an exception to this reality, claims de Soysa.
He says many researchers see aid as the road to hell, because the money helps dictators retain power, and because the money does not lead to the desired economic development.
Now the Norwegian aid agencies in Africa are also getting help from China to be able to become proper dictatorships.
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2023-08-30 19:46:58
#Africa #learning #dictatorship
