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Africa must stand up to bullying west

desperation : African migrants make desperate gestures as a Libyan official give them water at a detention centre in the capital Tripoli last week. The migrants were arrested in different locations in Tripoli as they sought to board rickety boats to reach Europe. The writer blames the plight of these Africans on the politics of western nations Photo: MAHMUD TURKIA/AFP PHOTO
desperation : African migrants make desperate gestures as a Libyan official give them water at a detention centre in the capital Tripoli last week. The migrants were arrested in different locations in Tripoli as they sought to board rickety boats to reach Europe. The writer blames the plight of these Africans on the politics of western nations Photo: MAHMUD TURKIA/AFP PHOTO

A recent United Nations study predicts rising global unemployment due to slower growth, inequality and economic turbulence.

This gloomy prediction is compounded by the International Labour Organisation's report titled The World Employment and Social Outlook that in the next four years the total number of people out of work worldwide will climb from the current 201million to 212million.

The report further revealed that more than 61million jobs have been lost since the start of the global crisis in 2008.

Young workers between the ages of 15 and 24 years are particularly hit by the crisis, with the global youth unemployment rate at 13% in 2014 with a further increase expected in the coming years.

Inequality is rising and is predicted to continue to rise, with the world's richest 10% earning 30% to 40% of total income and the poorest 10% earning between just 2% and 7%. This has eroded trust in governments and kept the risk of social unrest high.

This scenario is indicative of the class conflict and weak position of workers. But what is more important is what members of the world's ruling classes are doing to the poorest of the poor.

It is because of the actions of the ruling class that the poor have been thrust into the situation they find themselves in. This global ruling class condemn Hitler but emulate him. Hitler and the Nazis referred to other people as "useless eaters" who must be killed.

The West's ruling classes refer to poor people as excess population because they no longer have use for them, hence the talk about the problem of population growth.

In the past, imperialists and colonialists needed cheap labour and goods. In modern times there is no need for the excess cheap labour.

In his article titledTechno-Financial Capital and Genocide of the Poorest of the Poor, James Petras writes: "The Euro-American and Japanese ruling classes as well as their collaborators in the Afro-Asian and Latin American countries have accumulated vast profit.

"Besides all the forms of brutal exploitation and dispossession, which enrich the Euro-US ruling classes, by far the most sinister and threatening to humanity is the concerted worldwide effort to literally exterminate the poorest-of-the poor, the hundreds of millions of people no longer essential for the accumulation and concentration of imperial capital today."

Libya was bombed by Nato (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) countries about four years ago, leading to the collapse of law and order in that country.

Libya is now used by human smugglers to ferry those fleeing to Europe via Italy.

A boat capsized recently, killing scores of Africans. Those who survive boat accidents are captured and returned to their devastated countries.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, images of Haitians fleeing Haiti for the US being blocked and sent back to their devastated country are still vivid in our minds. Haiti was first invaded by the US in the 1800s and the last invasion of Haiti by the US was in 1932.

Somalia, Chad and Mali were invaded and occupied by Western forces. Chad and Mali were invaded and occupied after the fall of Libya. Somalis are some of the African people who fled to many parts of the world - including South Africa.

In Asia, Afghanistan was also devastated by externally generated wars. In the late 1970s, the US and then Soviet Union slugged it out for control of that country. Today, neither the US nor Russia controls Afghanistan. The country is now characterised by endless wars between various groups.

Iraq has also gone to the dogs, thanks to the US-led invasion under the guise of looking for weapons of mass destruction when in fact the US used the media and public relations firms as weapons of mass deception.

Whether or not the resentment of people perceived to be different from locals is characterised as a phobia of one sort or another, the fact remains that there is a migration trajectory fuelled by internal and mainly external factors which need to be addressed by developing African economies.

Africa can only begin addressing this migration challenge by standing up to the West's bullying tactics.

Ditshego is a fellow at the Pan Africanist Research Institute and writes in his personal capacity

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