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Saudi Arabia vs United Arab Emirates. A geopolitical and economic competition.

For more than two decades, the Gulf monarchies have found themselves at the centre of countless geopolitical, economic, and strategic challenges at the regional level.

Among these, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have emerged as pivotal actors in the climate of strong transformations taking place in the whole MENA area.This trend has often led them to act and move in coordination but has also sometimes caused noisy and unthinkable misalignments.

One of the most remarkable occurred in July during the summit of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which was also extended to include international players who are not part of the world energy cartel.
The reason for tension concerned the proposal – mainly supported by Saudi Arabia and Russia – to increase oil production to 400,000 barrels a day from August, combined with the idea of extending the agreement on production cuts (signed in April 2020) until the end of 2022.

These two solutions would avoid large fluctuations in crude oil prices and keep them relatively high for the coming year, but they have been firmly rejected by the UAE.
Indeed, Abu Dhabi is less dependent on oil revenues than its Saudi counterpart – the sector accounts for 42% of Riyadh’s gross domestic product (GDP), compared to 30% of Abu Dhabi’s GDP – and intends to use the discussion to achieve better terms within OPEC+.

These frictions appeared as unprecedented within the energy consensus, immediately driving up the price of oil to $81.13 a barrel (because the war in Ukraine in now at $100)  and prompting its members to quickly seek a compromise. Most importantly, the dispute also revealed different visions between the two major Gulf monarchies. Contrary to popular opinion over the years, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have not always pursued similar objectives, both within OPEC+ and at the local and regional diplomatic levels.

Conversely, the two monarchies have often found themselves in dissonance and competition, which have caused difficulties in finding common solutions to shared problems. While initially, these distinctions stood out above all on a historical-political level – with repercussions on the geopolitical strategies pursued in the regional chessboard – the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has strongly sharpened the economic problems of the two Countries, unravelling their rivalry, especially on this aspect. Consequently, it is important to understand which are the major elements of discontinuity and economic-energy tension between the two Gulf monarchies, to analyse the repercussions and resonances also on the other countries of the region.

The arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic has left indelible furrows for the economic setup of Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Looking at today’s data, Saudi GDP has fallen to $677 billion from $708 billion in 2019, an aspect that is also reflected in a loss of outbound foreign direct investment (FDI) of $7,722 million, as well as the unemployment rate, to date at 12.2% (for a population of almost 36 million).

The UAE’s current economic figures are also less than comforting, with GDP dropping to $354 billion (compared to $373 billion in 2019), a loss of inward FDI of $1,764 million, and an unemployment rate stuck at 2.6% (still a considerable figure considering the small Emirati population, which reaches only 10 million inhabitants). Furthermore, the general constraints imposed by the pandemic on a global scale – above all the halt to international trade and the strict imposition of lockdowns – have strongly highlighted the economic-structural problems already partly existing in the two Arab Monarchies, such as the need to free themselves from dependence on oil.

The collapse in crude oil prices, accompanied by the changes that the two countries have had to undertake in the domestic labour market, have forced Riyadh and Abu Dhabi to strengthen the ambitious programs of structural reforms already launched in recent years, so as to diversify their economies in the shortest possible time and adapt them to a future less dependent on hydrocarbons (the peak of the oil demand is
looming around 2030).

These adjustments will lead the two countries to find themselves increasingly in competition, having to reconfigure an entire labor market by competing for a scarce resource. A first sign of change emerged last February 16, when Saudi Arabia asked its companies to relocate regional headquarters within the Kingdom’s territory, a move to reduce the UAE’s dominance as a commercial and tertiary hub within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.

The Saudi goal is to attract up to 500 multinationals to its territory within a decade, thus attempting to rival the UAE, which holds the record on a regional scale by hosting around 140 companies. Despite the short time, the effects of this measure are beginning to be seen – twenty-four large international companies have already announced their intention to transfer their regional offices to Riyadh – and they are not the only wake-up call for the UAE.

In fact, last July, Saudi authorities announced their intention to end preferential tariffs for Gulf states which purchase products in the region’s free zones, stating that all goods manufactured in those areas would no longer be considered as locally produced. Given their significant fiscal advantages, free zones abound on Emirati territories (to date, there are about fifty, the main ones being Ajman, Dubai, Ras al-Khaimah, and Sharjah) and are one of the drivers of the UAE’s economy, as evidenced by the case of Dubai, where these areas contributed 31.9% of the emirate’s GDP in 2018 (according to the Dubai Free Zones Council). Moreover, these areas have helped the Emirates become Saudi Arabia’s second-largest trading partner after China in terms of imports, a position that is now, however, severely compromised by Riyadh’s
new trade policy.

The assertiveness of the new Saudi measures thus seems to bring concrete risks to the UAE’s economic superiority, prompting them to respond immediately with several policies benefiting foreign companies. Prominent among these is the UAE’s intention to reduce taxes by up to 94% for companies wishing to open an office in the Federation and invest there, proving how the UAE wants to focus on facilitation in the investment sector in order not to lose the comparative advantage it has held so far over its Saudi counterpart.

To make itself attractive to global investment, up to now the Emirates have put an effort above all on guaranteeing a solid and coordinated supply of essential services for major centres, excellent communication systems, and a financial sector that is well structured and almost free from currency exchange constraints.

Today, however, the government of Abu Dhabi wants to go further, aiming at the development of the real estate and infrastructural sectors – above all transport – in a sustainable manner (this aim clearly emerges with Expo 2020, through which Dubai aims to project a technological and sustainable image of itself). At the same time, also Saudi Arabia considers the attraction of international investors as a priority. However, Riyadh is still far behind Abu Dhabi, given that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman announced the ambitious plan “Vision 2030” – which includes a willingness to boost the global investment market and an economic diversification strategy – in 2016 only. Nevertheless, Saudi authorities hope to catch up with the delay soon, also planning to implement new legal reforms based on credit structures.

At the same time, several other sectors could be subjected to the KSA-UAE economic competition. The first one is the touristic sector, where Saudi Arabia hopes to strategically insert itself. With its skyscrapers and luxury resorts, Dubai holds the regional record in the tourism industry (especially in the luxury sector), but many of the Emirate’s main attractions are beginning to be outdated, requiring costly renovations that would also involve foreign capital.

Consequently, Riyadh would like to take advantage of this aspect to “steal” tourists from the UAE, also aiming at non-religious forms of tourism. Even though the Hajj and the Umrah, the famous pilgrimages to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, continue to be a preferential channel for Riyadh (attracting in the per-Covid period up to 19 million pilgrims each year for a value of 12 billion dollars, 7% of the Kingdom’s GDP) the country has many natural sites in which to potentially invest and adapt to mass tourism.

Many of these are located in the Aseer region, on the Saudi Red Sea coast, where the Kingdom has already started implementing high-profile financial infrastructure plans. Specifically, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) has already launched a $3 billion investment project in February 2020, aiming to build 2,700 hotel rooms, 1,300 residential units, and 30 commercial and entertainment attractions in the region by 2030.

In addition, on September 28, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman declared his intention to expand this project by injecting liquidity into the local market of up to 12 trillion riyals (approximately $3 trillion). Not to mention that, if the construction of the Jeddah Tower is completed in the short term, Saudi Arabia will possess the tallest tower in the world, a clear sign of its ambitions to become competitive in the luxury tourism sector as well.

In this regard, another remarkable example can be found by looking at the case of al-Ula, a city in the northwest of the Kingdom. With more than 27,000 archaeological sites dating back to the Nabatean era, this city carved in stone was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008. That is why, to increase its notoriety, Riyad is planning to build a luxury tourist resort within the site itself by 2024, with forty suites, three villas, a conference centre, and fourteen private pavilions.

Furthermore, the defense system constitutes another sector Saudi Arabia wants to invest in, modernizing the Saudi Arabian Military Industries (SAMI) to compete with the Emirates Defense Industries Company (EDIC). Certainly, this sector has huge potential for the kingdom, but the UAE may still have a comparative advantage in it thanks to the Abraham agreements, which could give them the possibility to use Israeli military technologies that Saudi Arabia may not have direct access to.

Finally, it is impossible to omit the rising rivalry in attracting highly skilled foreign labour, needed by both countries to fill domestic labour and skill gaps. Indeed, the Gulf countries have always heavily relied on migrant labour to drive their economic systems forward. These migrants mostly come from the Middle East region (Egypt and Jordan mostly), South Asia (Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, and Sri Lanka), and Southeast Asia (Indonesia and the Philippines above all) but constitute essentially low-cost and low-skilled labour.

In contrast, the ambitious economic diversification programs to which the petro-monarchies now aspire require cutting-edge skills, an aspect that compels both countries to seek strategies to attract qualified professionals with high skills. To date, both the UAE and Saudi Arabia have already issued special visas to this specific category of workers, and the Emirates have even considered offering them citizenship, a very rare concession in all GCC countries. These two decisions suggest that both Gulf Monarchies may continue to introduce such measures to facilitate the entry of foreign workers and advance their development models.

In conclusion, the highly evolving climate experienced in the Gulf area is spurring Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to undertake increasingly autonomous paths at an economic level. These discontinuities have been further accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic, which has inaugurated an unprecedented climate of economic rivalry between the two main Arab members of OPEC+.

The new commercial competition touches multiple sectors (tax system, business locations, investments, tourism, defence, labour) and seems destined to last, given the need for the two monarchies to readjust their economies to a post-hydrocarbon future. In this scenario, it is therefore foreseeable that the two countries will continue to undertake increasingly assertive economic strategies, which will also affect a growing number of labour and production sectors. Thus, all these elements could bring significant changes to the commercial and financial balance that the two Arab Monarchies have held so far, with repercussions throughout the entire Gulf region. (Open Photo: Aerial view oil storage tank with oil refinery factory industrial. ©artitcom/123RF.COM)

Angela Ziccardi/ISPI

Colombia. Afro Centre. A Place of Sharing.

In Tumaco, Colombia, a decade ago, the Afro Youth Centre was established to enable young people to work for social transformation using art, culture, group work and a communitarian experience
of faith.

Tumaco is located in the extreme southwest of Colombia, in the Pacific region bordering Ecuador, far from the political and economic centres of the country. The city has reached only a very low level of development with regard to health, education and quality of life, and at the same time occupies one of the first positions in national statistics regarding violence and drug trafficking. The murder rate is extremely high and most of the victims are young people with more than half of the people murdered in the city aged between 15 and 29.
Of the 217,000 inhabitants of Tumaco, 45% are under the age of 20.  School and work opportunities are scarce. Only six out of ten young people finish secondary school and of these, few manage to enter university or get a decent job. The unemployment rate is 88%.

To respond especially to the needs of young people, the Comboni missionaries present in Tumaco since 2014, along with their other activities, decided to open an Afro Centre, bearing in mind that the majority of the population was of Afro origin. Since its inception, the Afro Centre has seen the growth of various groups for children and the youth, including art and sports groups.
Once a week, the Descuádrate youth group meets to discuss different topics and social activities.
On the basis of an embodied faith and with an open and critical spirit, the members analyse the reality of the city and the country and organize days of cleaning, help to the needy, symbolic acts of resistance, as well as recreational activities with other young people.
In addition to its youth groups, the Afro Centre promotes art as a tool for social transformation. More than 40 girls form the Naidí group, which is dedicated to traditional and contemporary dance. Thanks to a very disciplined education, they have achieved a high artistic level and also a deep sense of belonging to their Afro-Colombian roots. In addition, their collective bodily work has a wonderful healing power, which strengthens them against the many painful realities of their lives.

Six years ago, the rap music group AfroMiTu was born. Its critical sense and the vigour of its songs are impressive. Young people compose their own music and write the lyrics in a collective process based on their experiences and life realities. Under the motto ‘Generating awareness’, their songs are dedicated to the defence of human rights, the promotion of non-violence and peace, respect for women, and care for nature.  Last year, the musicians took advantage of their Covid-19 lockdown to build their own recording studio, which attracts new young people and is used to produce podcasts and radio programs on the pedagogy of peace.
The Afro Centre also uses different circus acts as a pedagogical strategy to get teenagers to use their energy and leisure time for creative fun and teamwork. The Talento Renaciente group began with stilts, something that requires courage, agility, and physical endurance from the children. Today, there is no peace march in Tumaco that is not led by the marchers of the Afro Centre. They have also learned juggling, basic acrobatic techniques, how to ride unicycles, and even fire shows.

In addition to the different groups of children and young people, the Afro Centre also has a library equipped with an internet room.  There is also a group of women who meet weekly at the Afro Centre to spend time happily together making bags, handbags, earrings and, of course, weaving bonds of trust. In the absence of a community hall in the neighbourhood, the Afro Centre also hosts many meetings of the Community Action Board, the Neighbourhood Health Committee, Community Mothers, and other initiatives.
It is because of this open attitude, as well as its ongoing commitment to peace and its neutrality towards controversial issues that the Afro Centre has earned the respect and trust of many organizations.
All the work of the Afro Centre is based on the skills and human resources of the children and young people themselves. They are the ones who keep the place clean, collect rubbish, paint the walls, and help maintain equipment. It’s their home, so they have to take care of it. It is not a service-providing institution, but rather a large family whose members walk hand in hand.

This way of working makes the process a little slower than other better-equipped projects, but at the same time, it is taking decisive and lasting steps. Each member contributes their time, knowledge, and resources; in this way, a truly community process is being built up.
A particularly interesting effort in view of the sustainability of the Centre is a small business organized by the young people themselves under the name of Piqueteadero Centro Afro. Every afternoon, young people prepare cakes, hot dogs, kebabs, and sandwiches that are sold at affordable prices for the neighbourhood and generate funds for the basic expenses of the youth centre.
Finally, what binds and sustains this whole collective process is a deep missionary spirituality.
This means walking in an organized way, sharing dreams and sorrows, recognizing the abilities of others, and learning from each other, forgiving each other, and building a true community of faith.
At the Centre, during the week, the young people of the confirmation catechesis group and the large group of Missionary Childhood meet.
On Sundays, the Centre is transformed into a chapel, both for First Communion catechesis and for the celebration of the community Eucharist.

Ulrike Purrer

 

 

Mission. Life is a gift.

Three young Comboni Sisters talk about their missionary experience.

My name is Sr. Carla Mora from Costa Rica. I have been in Mozambique for almost fifteen years.  I have to say that embracing the missionary life has not been easy, because it implies renunciation, adherence, fidelity and, above all, much faith in the One who has called you.

Today I live my vocation in total availability to Jesus Christ, despite my frailties and weaknesses, letting myself be guided by what he wants from me.It is an inner strength that is difficult to explain, but that helps me, every day, to give myself generously with joy and love.

The fulfillment of my vocation as a Comboni Missionary in Mozambique has been marked by several moments, some good, some not so good. I currently work at Mangunde Hospital, in the centre of the country, not far from the coastal city of Beira. I also collaborate in the parish, accompanying the young students of a college.

I am a nurse and a trained midwife.  Through my profession, I can go where I never imagined going and do things, I never thought I could do. Helping other people makes me happy, especially the patients I meet every day. In them, I see the hope and resilience of these people.

Every day, I discover how great and wonderful Mozambicans are. I admire their strength, their tenacity and their ability to face life, which in these lands is not easy, and I recognize in them the presence of God. The work I do focuses, in most cases, on accompanying women during pregnancy and, above all, during childbirth, so that their babies can be born in the best possible conditions.

Sometimes we witness real miracles! In our hospital, we do not have the medical facilities to help all the children and their mothers and sometimes the situations become dramatic.

Because of the coronavirus, in the last two years, we have been busy with all the Covid patients coming here to the hospital but also with conducting a vast hygiene awareness campaign that involved visiting a number of villages.

That was an impressive experience and I must say that seeing so many women whom I had helped to give birth at the hospital and their children growing up healthy, gives a new meaning to my missionary life. Life is beautiful and it is worth living it helping the poorest and most abandoned.

There was still something missing
I am Sr. Anita C. Concepcion from Binmaley, Pangasinan in the Philippines. I believe God began to form me and slowly plant in my heart the seeds of the religious life long before I was aware of it.
From primary school, I was attracted by the beauty of the church and the singing of the choirs. I joined the Children of Mary, then the Legion of Mary in my Parish.

After I became a midwife, I applied for work in the United Arab Emirates in 1989, first in Abu Dhabi, then in Ras Al Khaimah. The latter is about 115 km. from Dubai where the community of Comboni Missionary Sisters is located. I was happy working abroad and helping my family but I felt something was still missing in my life.

A friend who wanted to become a Comboni Sister invited me to accompany her to the convent of the Comboni Missionary Sisters.
I cannot forget the peace and joy I felt the moment I entered the convent for the first time.

While I was waiting for my friend, a Sister gave me a book about the experiences of the Comboni Sisters in Sudan during the Islamic Fundamentalist Mahdi uprising.
I was touched by the fidelity of the Sisters in that difficult situation. The book also inspired me to learn more about God’s merciful love and the desire to dedicate my life to the mission.

After my experience of discernment, I left my work as a midwife. I was sent to Jerusalem to do my first year of religious formation then to Rome for the second year. I continued my Novitiate for two years in Brescia (Italy) and made my first religious profession on 14th September 2003.

My first mission was in Amman (Jordan) after which I went to Virginia (USA) and then to Uganda, Africa from 2008 to February 2021. I worked as a Health Tutor at the Matany School of Nursing and Midwifery in Karamoja (Uganda). I felt fortunate to be training future optimal health care staff.  Through these years, I have come to believe that my call to religious life is a gift that calls me to be more open to the mission.

Saying “yes” to God is not always easy but with His Grace everything is possible. With this awareness, I look towards the future with a willing spirit, believing that God will always be with me especially in my new assignment as I go back to the Middle East.

To find what is truly necessary.
My name is Sr Beatriz Galán Domingo from Spain. I have been living in Talawakelle in the Central Province of Sri Lanka for five years.  The majority of our population depend on the tea industry, either for harvesting or further processing.

Behind every cup enjoyed in the Western world are the lives of thousands of women. Sunburned and anaemic, women bear the brunt of the tea plantation work under the scorching sun. Humidity favours the presence of animals. Simply out of greed for profit, the tea industry pays three Euros at best for twelve kilos of tea leaves.

With eyes wide open to that reality in which life, especially that of women, is exploited, our mission unfolds. We share the joy of working in a diocesan school where Christians and Hindus (students and teachers) try to form good people and honest citizens.

Education is the most powerful tool to break the cycle of poverty and the stigma of slavery. In addition, it is the appropriate place to discover that ethnic and religious differences, rather than being a threat, can be a mirror of the wealth and plurality of the country.

The other pillar of our presence is the parish. More than 1,500 Christian families spread over 60 communities belong to the parish of St. Patrick. There is a variety of groups: more than 300 kids in catechesis; the Legion of Mary; the Divine Mercy group; the group of San José Vaz; and a group of youngsters.

We work in collaboration with two diocesan priests of our parish, and with the Sisters of the Holy Family of Bordeaux. Our Christian community looks like a mustard seed.
Despite being the smallest of the religious presences in the country, it has within itself the vocation and the strength to become a tree capable of providing shelter and bearing good fruit.

I thank God and our people. The constant prayer of Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, and Christians has strengthened my prayer life. The priority accorded to the family in Sri Lankan society has made me value my own even more. The simplicity and poverty with which my neighbours live have led me to try to find what is truly necessary.

The solemnity of some celebrations, the symbolism, the colours, and the smells have made me understand infinite Beauty. The serene joy of seeing the shyness that quickly turns to confidence and many chats with a thousand questions have taught me to appreciate the importance of stopping and talking with people. The life of suffering endured by these people who were once slaves reinforces the promise of Christ: “I have come so that they may have life, and have it in abundance.”

The unshakeable faith of a minority, sometimes persecuted or even massacred, confirms that the Church is mother and body; that she is called to come out of the temples and break the barriers of fear and privilege; that even if it is persecuted, is called to be the announcement of the fullness of  Life in Christ. (C.C.)

Food Security and Advocacy. Ubuntu Project.

The food crisis exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic has opened new ways towards sustainability and self-reliance through vegetable gardens in the less-privileged communities of Johannesburg.

In February 2020, Seed Community’s Green Business College (GBC) in partnership with Tim Nectare Farms launched the Ubuntu Project (www.ubuntuproject. africa) aimed at providing fresh food boxes and setting up food gardens amongst the most vulnerable in the Gauteng communities in South Africa. Ubuntu means ‘I am because you are’. It can also mean ‘We are because the earth is.’ It speaks of our shared humanity and our place on this earth.

Food security is a growing challenge in South Africa and in many parts of Africa and food gardens are a real solution, which contribute to mitigating the effects of climate change that will continue to pose a threat during the post-COVID-19 era. They provide a way for communities to produce their own fresh vegetables and generate some extra income. As households collect and replant their seeds, the extra seedlings and excess produce can be sold.

This initiative came as a result of the unprecedented global crisis of the pandemic which saw a lot of families starving, while small-scale producers were stuck with their produce, unable to sell it in the markets.

Working together with local agro-ecology farmers in the greater Johannesburg, the initiative provided boxes of fresh vegetables and managed to establish food gardens among the more disadvantaged in the communities. It did not only provide the communities with organic produce, feeding needy families, but offered them tools
to grow their own vegetables.

The initiative started with organic farmers in the Orange Farm area. Ubuntu Project supported these farmers as they supplied needy families with food parcels of organic vegetables, seeds, seedlings, compost and, more importantly, training and support – a special component usually lacking in a lot of small gardening projects where beneficiaries are given seeds and then abandoned to continue on their own.

The veggie boxes displayed the true spirit of Ubuntu, which is about empathy, community, and recognising that none can survive without the most vulnerable.
This became such an attractive initiative in the social media that it received a lot of attention from people in affluent areas of Johannesburg. They started purchasing the veggie boxes for their own consumption.

In June 2020, the Ubuntu Veggie Box delivery service was launched. People had the opportunity to order boxes, which were delivered to them. Every box purchased enabled the customer to donate a vegetable garden starter kit – comprised of 30 seedlings and 10 kg of compost – to resource – constraints communities who were keen to grow their own veggies. Customers were also connected to the beneficiary families.

Through the Ubuntu Project, Betty Nkoana and the members of the Thoughtful Path (TP) Non-Profit Community organization, received various forms of support. These included seedlings and seeds for their community allotment gardens in the old township of Munsieville, West Rand, Johannesburg.

Betty is a real champion in the community, as together with the TP members, provides a range of services, which include aftercare for orphans and underprivileged children, and health care services for teenagers and women.

Betty, through a training that she and her colleagues received from the GBC in 2018, developed a passion and love for farming. In 2019, she and other members of TP, were offered a piece of land next to an informal settlement in Johannesburg’s oldest township.

They were able to set up farming allotments for various families and community groups. The Ubuntu Project donated the seedlings and seeds for the allotments and Tim Abba, who was a trainer at the GBC, spent two days providing Betty and her team with technical support
to set up the gardens.

In August 2020, Betty, 20 members of TP and some of the young people and women from Munsieville Township, attended the Ubuntu Project Agri-business course facilitated by the Ubuntu Project. They learned about product pricing, marketing and value-addition and how to turn their small farming project into a profitable business.

They started to farm with determination in September 2020 on their small plot and they implemented what they had learned from both the organic farming training and the business course to set up their agri-business. They also received a second instalment of the donated Ubuntu Project seedlings to augment the production capacity of the plot.

The TP team have been harvesting pumpkins, mealies, spinach, chillies, tomatoes, onions, rosemary, mint and lettuce and have been supplying Ubuntu Veggie Boxes. This team started processing some of their produce to make their unique Chilli-Sauce which they are selling in their community.All of their produce was sold and they were able to buy another set of seedlings and seeds to replant.
This has been a truly transformational story of how to create resilient communities which secure their livelihoods.

This project contributed to assist communities of per urban Johannesburg South through emergency food parcels relief. The contents of the parcels of fresh and locally processed products were made to be flexible, based on the needs and resources of each area and linked to small-scale farmers.

Local small-scale farmers in Johannesburg South collaborated and formed partnerships to supply the needed volumes and a variety of fresh nutritious vegetables, which offered flexibility in the procurement of the goods. The small- scale farmer partnership has the potential for expansion, to supply other food relief efforts and services
to local markets.

During the COVID-19 food relief effort, the Ubuntu Project managed to inspire small and local distribution networks including small logistics enterprises in and around Orange Farm.
These can flexibly procure from their network of small-scale farmers, fresh produce, dry goods assembled into agreed packages, and deliver food relief parcels should it be needed.

Setting up of 150 households and 11 communal food gardens in the communities with supplies of compost and seedlings has been very important to enable households to plant their small food gardens and to small-scale farmers to continue producing. This has been an essential contribution to the community and to the household resilience in these trying times. Some of these are small homesteads, backyard gardens, others are farmers producing on bigger areas.

Over five months – May to September 2020 – the Ubuntu Project assessed the input needs and delivered tailored input packages as required. These have potential to scale up depending on further needs assessments.

This emergency food relief response has shown its potential to catalyse a more enduring production and distribution network, co-ordinated with the demand, to produce more localised food economies. Food sovereignty means much more than putting food on the table. It touches the core of human dignity and enables people to become producers within their own communities.

Dorah Marema

 

 

 

 

Chad. A Mortgaged Country.

The interests of multinationals often coincide with those of the leaders of some countries. Chad and Glencore, among the largest commodity trading companies in the world, could be an example.
The agreement of the government of N’Djamena with the multinational only served to further empty the meagre coffers of the African country.

On the death of President Idriss Déby killed last April on the battlefield leading the army troops against a rebel group, his son Mahamat Idriss Déby assumed power. After taking power, his first trip abroad was to Qatar. An investment fund of this absolute monarchy, rich in gas and hydrocarbons, is the main shareholder – 9% of the ownership – of Glencore, an Anglo-Swiss company based in Baar, Zug, Switzerland and leader in the trading of raw materials. Glencore is now Chad’s creditor, after a manoeuver by the previous president.

Glencore company headquarters building in Zug, Switzerland.

Idriss Déby wanted to fight his Islamist enemies in 2013, which is why he needed to buy weapons but lacked liquidity. With the taps of the banks and large international institutions closed, the Chadian president decided to use the high oil prices to get into debt: Chad would repay the money thanks to the future sale of those barrels of crude oil. When Glencore gave him the loan, the oil was over $100 a barrel; a few years later the price had dropped to $ 26. The result: Chad would have to deliver more barrels of oil to meet its debt to the company. The book ‘The World for Sale’, by Javier Blas and Jack Farchy, tells how the austerity measures to pay for Glencore were so severe that even the International Monetary Fund (IMF) considered them ‘dramatic’.
Glencore stipulated that the money must be used for social purposes, but this condition was purely cosmetic: with the budget freed up by the Glencore loan, Chad was able to buy more weapons to fight the various rebel factions.

General Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno.

According to the Chadian journalist exiled to Paris Makaila Nguebla, Déby’s trip to Qatar was not only for economic reasons: in this small territory of the Persian Gulf, there lives one of the great political figures of Chad, Timane Erdimi, grandson of Idriss Déby, and one of the leaders of a rebel group that does not recognize the authority of N’Djamena. Erdimi lives under surveillance in Qatar, and Nguebla thinks one of the new military junta’s goals is Erdimi’s return to Chad, where he was sentenced to death. Erdimi has lived in Qatar for ten years and has no plans to return to his country at the moment. Since last November, the military junta has been in talks with the various Chadian political actors. The meetings were held in Doha, Cairo and Paris. Erdimi, in a recent interview, stated that he does not intend to return to N’Djamena until there are real negotiations with the regime of Mahamat Idriss Déby.
The growth or decline of the Chadian economy depends almost exclusively on the price of oil. When it is high, the economy grows. When it goes down, many bills go unpaid and Chad has to borrow money from international creditors to meet its most basic expenses. With a very dry climate – and increasingly affected by climate change – agricultural productivity is very low, a fact that prevents food self-sufficiency. Like its other Sahel neighbours, rising food prices are a major source of discontent among the population.
The increase in the price of petrol and transport, coupled with the fact that it is a landlocked country, makes it difficult to bring food to Chad. The country depends on the speed of the ports of neighbouring countries – such as Nigeria – and on the precarious infrastructure for transporting food in rural areas.

Timane Erdimi, leader of a rebel group that does not recognize the authority of N’Djamena.

The main consequence is that traders have to pay more for bags of beans and this cost affects the consumer’s purchasing power. The Chadian press, last August, obtained the testimony of a trader, Ahmat Abdoulaye, who said that the price per bag was already close to 2,000 CFA francs, just over three euros. For many mobile food vendors, the solution is simple: keep prices low and serve smaller portions. Beans are a great source of protein and vitamins for the inhabitants of the capital. The increase in the price of gasoline and transport, coupled with the fact that it is a landlocked country, makes it difficult to bring food to Chad. The country depends on the speed of the ports of neighbouring countries – such as Nigeria – and on the precarious infrastructure for transporting food in rural areas. The main consequence is that traders have to pay more for bean bags and this cost affects the consumer’s purchasing power. The Chadian press, last August, collected the testimony of a trader, Ahmat Abdoulaye, who said that the price per bag was already close to 2,000 CFA francs, just over three euros. For many mobile food vendors, the solution is simple: keep prices low and serve smaller portions. The bean is a great source of protein and vitamins for the inhabitants of the capital.

The history of Glencore is linked to the figure of Marc Rich, its founder. This American businessman made his fortune doing business where no one else dared to go: from apartheid South Africa to Jamaica to post-Berlin Wall Russia. Rich and his commodity speculators are characterized by granting long-term loans to countries in a desperate situation, without alternative sources of financing; once commodity prices were contractually fixed, the company benefited from the price difference at the time of the crisis.
Once it was over, they went back up. In the case of Jamaica, according to Farchy and Blas, this type of move allowed Glencore to obtain bauxite – a basis for producing aluminium – ‘at half its market price’.
The terms of the agreement with Chad are so abusive that even the late President Déby later acknowledged that the loan was a mistake.

Glencore owns 79.5% in the Glencore-Merafe Chrome Venture in South Africa. (Photo: Pixabay/Diego Trujillo)

Now Chad owes 15% of its GDP to this Swiss company. Marc Rich, in the early 1990s, saw how his partners took over the company after his problems with the law: Rich had done business with Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iran, sanctioned by the United States. However, the founder of Glencore has always had friends at the top: Bill Clinton’s last decision, days before leaving the White House, was to grant the businessman a presidential pardon.
The Glencore footprint is present in many countries of the African continent: from the copper mines of Zambia to the national debt of Chad, passing through the platinum mines of South Africa, the oil of Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea or the Republic of Congo. The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange and its market capitalization exceeds $40,000 million, four times the economy of Chad. In other words: a company with 135,000 employees carries more weight economically than a country with 16 million people. And the Chadians, in the next few years, will suffer austerity measures in order to pay them with the little money left.

Jaume Portell Cano

 

The Great Federation.

The Emirate Federation, created in 1971 out of the union of the six monarchies (seven since 1972), is unique in the Arab world since it is made up of absolute hereditary monarchies headed by a sheikh who functions as an absolute sovereign within his own state.

In virtue of its constitution, the Emirates enjoy autonomy from the political, juridical, and economic points of view and their internal dynamics are by nature oligarchic.
Decisions are taken within the Federal Supreme Council which is made up of the hereditary ruling Sheikhs of the country.
Ever since their foundation, Abu Dhabi, the capital since 1996, and Dubai have exerted a predominating influence economically and demographically. This dominance has determined the regular reconfirmation of their respective Emirs, within the Supreme Council, in the posts of president and prime minister of the Federation: Emir Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyān (succeeded in 2004 by his son Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyān) and Rashid bin Said al-Maktoum (replaced in 1990 by his son Maktoum bin Rashid al-Maktoum).

Abu Dhabi City Gate at sunset. ©saiko3p/123RF.COM

One of the tasks of the prime minister is to select the members of the government who are then approved by the President and the Supreme Council of the UAE. Following the economic crisis of 2008, in particular, which hit Dubai most of all and was averted by a plan involving 20 billion dollars advanced by Abu Dhabi, it is the Abu Dhabi that governs the UAE internally as well as in the elaboration of foreign policy and security.
The economic and demographic differences that exist among the smaller Emirates do not lead to their penalisation. The smaller Emirates, instead, are considerably advantaged by the Federation outside of which they would have survived only with difficulty.
The single Emirates adopt economic policies that reflect the differences between the respective economic structures of those belonging to the Federation within which there is a regime of free exchange but also a shrewd redistribution of the income from petroleum, the results of which are to be seen mostly in terms of social welfare.

The Federal National Council (FNC) in Abu Dhabi.

In terms of institutional politics, 1971 also saw the creation of the Federal National Council which functions mainly as a consultative organ even though in recent years it has extended its functions in response to the growing attention to social and economic questions (education, health, small businesses) and to feminine empowerment. The organ has a single house and is composed of forty members (with a percentage of women) of which only half, since 2006, are directly elected while the rest are nominated by the individual Emirs.
Since 2006 there has also been a broadening of the electoral base which, from 6,500 voters showed an increase to 337,000 voters in the 2019 elections when, nevertheless, only 35% of the few existing voters actually went to the polls (there being no universal suffrage).

People visit the Gold Souk in Dubai. The Federation is multi-ethnic and has about 10 million inhabitants of whom only one million are from the country. ©Tupungato/123RF.COM

From the social point of view, the Federation is multi-ethnic and has about 10 million inhabitants of whom only one million are from the country while the rest, about 88.5%, are all expatriates (of whom 2.6 million are Indians, 1.2 million Pakistan, 700,000 Bangladeshi, 525,000 Filipinos, 450,000 Iranians, 400,000 Egyptians, 300,000 Nepalese, 300,000 Sinhalese, 200,000 Chinese) who represent 90% of the workforce in the private sector, the petroleum sector so necessary for the standard of development of the Federation. This heterogeneousness is the result of the economic and construction boom of recent decades that has attracted large numbers of migrant foreign workers, mostly adherents of the Muslim faith from poor areas of South East Asia who have increased the population by a factor of five.
According to reports issued by some humanitarian organisations, working conditions are inhuman and the pandemic has left the workers in an even worse condition since they find themselves with no social security or money to send home to their families. Another important migratory phenomenon is that of the Western community located in Dubai which shows a high rate of increase of 6.3% per annum. This varied ethnic mosaic is a cause for concern partly due to the growing tensions that are developing between the poor social classes also due to the recession caused by the pandemic.
In fact, there has been a worrying increase in aggressive behaviour in the work camps and in the dormitory residences, especially those occupied by the poorer classes within the so-called Kafala work system which shows no particular care for the workers but, on the contrary, imposes inhuman working conditions on them.

The Grand Sheikh Zayed Mosque in Abu Dhab. ©kasto/123RF.COM

It must also be noted that the Indian community, due to its high numbers, plays an important role both within the Federation and in Dubai, the location of some Indian billionaires engaged in the jewellery industry. From the point of view of religious affiliation, 85% of the population are Sunnis, 15% are Shiites, 9% are Christians and 15% profess other religions, mainly Hinduism and Buddhism. Unlike many other countries in the region, there is respect for religious freedom and cult and it was probably not by accident that the Pope started to dialogue with Islam here when he signed, in 2019 and together with Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, a document encouraging interreligious dialogue. (Open Photo: 123RF.COM.). F.R.

Mexico. Towards a New Phase of Militarization.

Three years after the establishment of the Guardia Nacional, created for the ‘prevention and fight against crime’, it has not produced the desired results. Violence on the increase.  Journalists the first
in the firing line.

Under the presidency of López Obrador, the Guardia Nacional project eventually came into being. The new body was formed by a special presidential executive decree, signed on May 11, 2019, which provided in detail for the resources and personnel necessary to equip the new departments that would be formed. 50,000 men have thus passed from the armed forces and the Policia Federal and the project plans to reach at least 100,000 members of the Guardia Nacional.
The establishment of the Guardia Nacional was presented by the Mexican president as a tool to increase security for ‘the prevention and fight against crime’. In addition, the decree declares that after ‘2024 the armed forces will not deal with public security’.
But in the meantime, the reality is very different from the expected formation of a civil-led public security corps. It happened that the men of the Policia Federal, who passed through the Guardia Nacional, were fewer in number than those of the army.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador at the inauguration of the National Guard, on June 30, 2019 in Mexico City. (Photo : Mexico government)

And it is precisely the composition of the Guardia Nacional that has brought loud protests from civil society, NGOs, and the independent press since it is, in fact, a military and not a civilian police force. The over-criticized dissolved Policia Federal had, however, taken important steps to improve its functioning and counter the problems of corruption, the violation of human rights, and inefficiency. The tasks assigned to the new security force are very many, with dispersive results as compared to the objectives and resources provided for by the presidential decree, weakening also, in this sense, its impact on the increasingly precarious levels of security in Mexico. One of the first missions/operations was to send a large contingent of the Guardia Nacional to the US-Mexico border to block migrants from Central America, according to agreements made with the administration of Donald Trump. Agreements that were reconfirmed with the Biden administration, under the slogan ‘stay at home’ coined specifically to identify this type of migration policy.

The National Guard’s strength currently stands at about 100,000 troops. (Photo : Mexico government)

In 2021, a similar operation was conducted, by the army this time, on the southern border of Mexico. Along the border with Guatemala, 10,000 soldiers were deployed. As if the toll of daily killings and disappearances were not enough, the Guardia Nacional was also given the task of protecting ports and airports and controlling many road junctions of great importance, expanding their range of action. To date, there has been no improvement in security levels. The modest results show that nothing has changed, but rather worsened. Therefore, observers and analysts agree that the institution has (only) represented a phase of escalation in the process of the militarisation of Mexico. A truly unexpected move with a left-wing presidency, so much desired in the country, a move that shocked public opinion. To Mexican and foreign observers, it represents a de facto militarisation of Mexican states; Lopez Obrador is, therefore, the subject of strong criticism for ceding further room for influence to the armed forces, a level of influence that began to grow with the ominous declaration of the start of the ‘war on drugs’ in 2006. Organised crime and narco-gangs are spreading more and more. The big narco-cartels continue their perennial struggle for control of the plazas; they have infiltrated almost all aspects of the economy and are present in the trade of the famous avocados, the theft of gasoline from pipelines, and in public procurement.

The narcotics militias are organised in hyper-armed paramilitary formations, with self-built armoured vehicles, heavy weapons, and drones capable of launching explosives. The flow of weapons coming from the United States is incessant. Clashes with the military and between rival cartels have reached quasi-civil war levels in recent years. But it is not only the narco-cartels that destroy the lives of Mexicans: the fragmentation generated by these criminal formations has increased their numbers, generating countless criminal gangs dedicated to extortion and kidnapping. The devastating levels of violence are frightening and a dangerous sign that Mexican society seems to have almost become ‘accustomed’ to these constant brutalities, a very serious indicator of social cohesion that is falling apart. The murders are hardly counted and, likewise, the disappearances that are largely equivalent to further brutal murders. A heavy contribution is made by the immobility of justice. Over 90% of crimes are not prosecuted, fuelling distrust of institutions. Complaints of human rights violations are increasing every month, as human rights watch explains in its reports. Civil society resists and tries not to bend to this constant violence. One very important factor is connivance between many of the governors, with their powerful state apparatus behind them, and the drug cartels. Corruption and connivance in these areas represent an enormous problem for Mexico.

Most of guard troops, and all of the top officers, come from the army. (Photo : Mexico government)

Several former governors were later discovered to be instigators of murders, especially of journalists. But in essence, judicial investigations remain unmoved by the many tragic murders of journalists. Last January, 5 journalists were murdered, and one was very seriously injured as further proof of the disarray in the management of security in many Mexican states. Mexican journalists are forced to have armed escorts that are numerically insufficient for the purpose, and forced to put up posters saying ‘Prensa no disparen’ (we are journalists; do not shoot us) thus demonstrating clearly the extreme gravity of the situation. Of the many murders of Mexican journalists, only 5% were prosecuted by the police and judiciary. To date, about 1500 journalists come under the protection program, with an escort assigned to them. However, the ruthless hitmen have no scruples and thousands of information professionals are still without protection.

Marco Leofrigio

 

 

African Alphabets. A Great Cultural Heritage.

Africa is probably the place in the world where oral tradition has had the greatest influence on the preservation and transmission of knowledge. The continent has a long tradition of writing which, in some places, has led its inhabitants to develop complex alphabets and ideograms, some of which have been created in recent times.

Egyptian hieroglyphs, called medu neter (words of God), are undoubtedly the best-known African writing system. It is an elaborate set of pictograms that combines logographic and alphabetic elements which the ancient Egyptians used to represent both meanings and consonant sounds. Hieroglyphs emerged from the preliterate artistic traditions of Egypt; they were used for the decoration and sacralization of sarcophagi and temples.  Around 800 hieroglyphs are known to date back
to the pharaonic period. By the Greco-Roman period,
there were more than 5,000.

For many years, the earliest known hieroglyphic inscription was the Narmer Palette, found during excavations in the ancient city of Hierakonpolis in the 1890s, which has been dated to c.3200 B.C. The inscription was essential for the interpretation and translation of this ancient Egyptian writing.
The Meroitic was a script used during the ancient kingdom of Meroe, in present-day Sudan. It was developed in the Napatan period (about 700 – 300 B.C.), and first appears in the 2nd century B.C. To date, although it is known that it was originally derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs, it is poorly understood, owing to the scarcity of bilingual texts. The Meroitic alphabet continued to be used during the Nubian kingdoms, which rose after the collapse of the kingdom of Meroe, until it was definitively superseded by the Coptic alphabet with the introduction of Christianity into Nubia in the 6th century A.D.

The Somali language writing system
The Osmanya alphabet is a writing script created to transcribe the Somali language writing system invented between 1920 and 1922 by Osman Yusuf Kenadid, brother of the Sultan of Hobyo. Kenadid devised the script at the start of the national campaign to settle on a standard orthography for Somali. Although it enjoyed considerable popularity, it faced strong competition from the Latin and Arabic scripts.

©fotovlad/123RF.COM

In the sultanate’s local schools, news of the Osmanya alphabet’s creation spread rapidly, so much so that the Italian authorities, fearing it might spark anti-colonial revolts, arrested and imprisoned Kenadid in Mogadishu. His arrest marked the decline and fall into disuse of this script for the following 25 years. However, after World War II, when nationalist sentiments grew among Somali people, who created the Somali Youth League, and led to Somalia’s independence from Italian and British rule, there was a revived interest in the Osmanya script.
Later, in the 1960s, Shire-Jama-Ahmed, a Somali linguist devised a unique Latin script for transcribing the Somali language and presented it before the Somali Language Committee, an organization in charge of settling Somalia’s outstanding language issue and so, in October 1972, the government of President Mohamed Siad Barre decided to exclusively adopt the Latin alphabet. Despite this institutional attack, the Osmanya continued to be rather popular among the Somali population and some magazines and books written in this alphabet were even published.

The Ge’ez and the Beria scripts
Ethiopic is Africa’s oldest and most developed living alphabet. The Ge’ez or Ethiopic script was used during the times of the ancient Aksum empire, which between the 1st and 7th centuries A.D.  exercised its hegemony in the Horn of Africa and southern Arabia. Later, the Ge’ez script was adapted to write other, mostly Semitic, languages, particularly Amharic and Tigrin. Several royal stelae with inscriptions in this Ethiopian alphabet have been preserved.

Ge’ez was at its height between the 5th and 6th centuries, when the Bible was translated, despite the fact that Tigrin began to replace it as the everyday language in the 9th century. The prestige of the Ge’ez alphabet survived and was maintained thanks to its use as a liturgical and court language. Thus, today it is still used in the rituals of the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Churches.
In the 1950s, a new alphabet called beria was proposed for the Zaghawa language spoken in Darfur and Chad, by Adam Tajir, a Sudanese school teacher, who based this indigenous alphabet on the brands used on camels and other livestock by the Zaghawa people; that is why the beria alphabet is also known as the ‘camel alphabet’.  Although the Zaghawas live in one of the poorest areas in the world, some of them created a YouTube channel in 2012 with the purpose of teaching and spreading their language. They currently also advocate the Beria Keyboard Project, an initiative to bring the Beria Zaghawa language into the digital world, to allow Zaghawa speakers to write in their native language online, and to promote the preservation and growth of their language and culture.

Cameroon, Nigeria, and Guinea
Named after its first four letters, A-KA-U-KU, the Bamum script was invented in the late 19th century by King Ibrahim Njoya, the 17th king of the Bamum of western region Cameroon. This script was made with the intention to preserve and transmit the history of the king’s people, since back then the only method of transmission was oral. King Ibrahim Njoya realised the inherent risk of misinforming, thus during his reign, he ensured that all levels of his government and educational institutions learned and taught this script. In its initial form, the Bamum script consisted of 465 characters, but the final version was reduced to 70 characters and 10 numbers.

The sultan, Ibrahim Mbombo-Njoya. CC BY 4.0/Photokadaffi

Due to tensions between the French government and King Ibrahim Njoya, leading to his subsequent exile, the script fell into disuse and replaced by the French language. As a result of this, most Bamum have forgotten it. The current sultan, Ibrahim Mbombo-Njoya, promoted the creation of the Bamum Scripts and Archives Project in 2005, and converted his palace into a school where students are taught the alphabet created by his grandfather.
Nsibidi is an ideographic system developed in what is now southeastern Nigeria. It is mainly used by the Ekoi people. The first symbols appeared on ceramic fragments dated between 400 and 1400 A.D. Since then, more than 500 have been registered.
Knowledge of nsibidi came in 1904 when T.D. Maxwell wrote down the symbols and made them known to the scientific community. Before the British colonization of the area, the nsibidi was divided into a sacred version, forbidden to women, and a public version, for common use.  Aspects of colonisation such as western education and Christian doctrine drastically reduced the number of nsibidi-literate people, leaving the secret society members as some of the last literate in the symbols. Nsibidi was, and still is, a means of transmitting
Ekpe symbolism.

 West and North Africa
The adinkra code is a rich set of symbols developed over 400 years ago by the Akan people of Ghana. It is used to represent concepts and aphorisms. Symbols were stamped on textiles and ceramics to reinforce the oral transmission of a complex set of practices and beliefs.
The N’ko alphabet was invented by Guinean writer and inventor Souleymane Kante in 1947. It began to be used in the city of Kankan, as a script for the Mandinka language. From there, its use spread to the neighbouring countries and was quickly adopted to write West African languages ​​belonging to the Mandinka group such as Bambara or Dyula. The script has a few similarities to the Arabic script, its direction (right-to-left) and the letters which are connected at the base. N’ko is currently considered a key element in the development of African indigenous historiography. The first works written by Kante, on topics as diverse as history, religion, economics, or astrology, are digitally preserved in the ICRA-N’KO Association. Mande Afro-descendants living in the United States established the N’ko Institute of America to teach reading and writing in this language and spread Mande culture and history through this alphabet.

The Tifinagh alphabet is still used to write Berber languages ​​such as Tamazight or Tamashek in several areas of Sahara. Its oldest form dates back to the 3rd century B.C. and was used throughout North Africa until the end of Roman times. In 1965, young Berbers eager to promote their culture created a cultural association whose goal was to revive this native script in order to use it to transcribe all the variants of Berber languages which, until then, were usually written in Arabic or Latin characters.
There are currently two versions of this alphabet: the traditional Tifinagh, linked to the Tamashek language, and the Neotifinagh, a slightly modified version of the traditional script, which is used to write Tamazigh and which was recognized as one of Morocco’s official languages in 2003.  The recognition was perceived as a revenge of the ancient Berber culture of North Africa against the Arab culture. Since then, the neotifinagh script has been introduced in Moroccan public schools while publications, although still scarce, continue to be produced in this alphabet.
In general terms, and despite having been subjected to persecutions in the past, the majority of native African scripts are experiencing a renaissance. This is due to the identification that the different peoples feel towards their languages ​​and alphabets, which have therefore become banners of their identity claims. This trend encourages optimism regarding the preservation and continuity of Africa’s cultural heritage.

Carlos Micó Tonda

 

Colombia. A Left Turn.

On May 29, the first round of presidential elections takes place in Colombia, the third-largest electorate in Latin America in terms of population.

It is a country that has been ruled for more than six decades by centre-right forces, following an agreement between them after a long period of political instability, dictatorships and violence, in which guerrilla organizations such as the M- 19 first and then the FARC, with drug cartels and paramilitary groups exercising violence outside the control of the state, were central players.

This decreased after the FARC disarmament agreement signed by former President Juan Manuel Santos in November 1996. But the continuation of the armed struggle by dissident sectors of the FARC, the ELN guerrilla group and new organizations that have arisen to control the illegal exploitation of mines, maintain a situation of violence, especially in the border area between Colombia and Venezuela, where the political strategy of President Nicolás Maduro plays a role in influencing
these groups.

The now former Colombian president Álvaro Uribe has been the central figure of the Colombian right so far into the 21st century. He was the “political godfather” of his two successors, first Santos and the current president, Iván Duque. The current Colombian constitution allows for re-election and then one can no longer become president. Uribe and Santos had two mandates, but Duque did not.

The party system in place until the beginning of the 21st century had its roots in the 20th century, and there were conservatives and liberals. They had shared power since the 1960s, achieving quite exceptional political-institutional stability for Latin America in the last decades of the 20th century, but coexisting with a high level of violence. This system began to break down under the leadership of Álvaro Uribe, who formed his own political force as a dissident of the Liberal Party, while the Conservative Party gradually lost votes and structure.

The last president of the Conservative Party was Andrés Pastrana, Uribe’s predecessor. The left lacked electoral strength during the twentieth century, in a context in which public opinion rejected the violence of the guerrillas. But social discontent has grown in the 21st century and, since 2019, there have been wide-ranging violent protests that have highlighted the questioning of the political and social system and the demand for greater equality.

As an alternative, the left was gaining strength and in the last presidential elections, a candidate of this orientation, Gustavo Petro, who was mayor of Bogota, the country’s capital, competed in the second round with current president Iván Duque, who won. So it was, that a competition between a centre-left and a centre-right coalition took place in a country that began to have an ideological and not just a political polarization, like that of the liberals and conservatives during the second half of the last century.

Since the protests began in 2019, Gustavo Petro has begun to lead the polls for the 2022 presidential election. His election seems logical while the region is turning left, whether it radicalises with the consolidation of regimes in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, or towards a moderate version represented by Lula in Brazil, Boric in Chile and Petro in Colombia, among others.

The Colombian candidate has differed greatly from the former in recent weeks, trying to capture the country’s moderate vote. The centre-right struggled to unify. The most prominent candidate of this force in the polls is Federico Gutiérrez, but his arrival in the second round still requires capturing the votes of other centre-right expressions.

But a centre has also emerged, represented by the candidacy of Sergio Fajardo. The difficulties of unification of the centre-right highlight the weakening of Uribe in this sector of Colombian politics.
The centre and the centre-right have so far failed to achieve electoral unification of their respective areas, as has Petro, who will undoubtedly be in the second round.

With just a few days to go before the elections, all the polls show Gustavo Petro as the winner. A poll conducted by the Guarumo polling agency and published on March 6 shows that the centre-left coalition of Gustavo Petro (Pacto Histórico) would get 36.6 per cent of the votes in the first round, split between Petro (32.7 per cent), France Márquez (2.5 per cent) and three other candidates (1.4 per cent).

In second place would be Equipo por Colombia, the centre-right coalition, with 19.3 per cent of the vote, split between Federico Gutiérrez (7.7 per cent), Alejandro Char (6.4 per cent) and three others. centre-right candidates (5.2 per cent).

In third place, the centre coalition (Centro Esperanza) would get 18.6% of the votes, split between Sergio Fajardo (9.1%), who would be the second most individually voted candidate after Gustavo Petro, and four other candidates (9. 5%).

Finally, outside these coalitions, the pro-government candidate Oscar Iván Zuloaga would get 5.3% of the vote and the independent candidate Rodolfo Hernández 8.2%. For his part, the polling agency Invamer has released its latest poll with several run-off scenarios – to be held on June 19 – in which Petro wins by a large margin against any candidate.

The closest scenario for the Pacto Histórico candidate would be a runoff against Sergio Fajardo, with 55.8% for the former and 40.2% for the latter. Against the independent candidate Rodolfo Hernández, the difference in a hypothetical ballot is 56.6% in favour of Petro against 39.4% for the candidate of the League of Anti-Corruption Rulers; against Juan Manuel Galán, the centrist candidate, Petro would win 55.6% to 39%, and the same would be true for Federico Gutiérrez of the centre-right coalition Equipo por Colombia (58.8% to 36.3%), pro-government Óscar Iván Zuluaga (59.5% to 34.4%) or Alejandro Gaviria (61% to 33.4%), also from Centro Esperanza, in addition to Fajardo and Galán.

In conclusion, the centre-left leader, Gustavo Petro, leads the polls for the presidential elections of 2022; finally, the polls show three forces, one centre-left, one centre-right and one centre, but Petro wins in the first round against any other candidate, by an appreciable margin. (Photo: ©123RF.COM)

Rosendo Fraga/Nueva Mayoria

 

 

 

Jordan. A Hospital in the Land of Moab.

Since 1935, at Karak, in the poorest province of the country, the Comboni Sisters have been running a hospital for the poorest people, especially refugees.

Karak is an ancient city located on the top of the mountains that flank the road of the Kings: an ancient through road that ends in the Valley of Moab. It is mentioned in the Bible as Qir Moab and during the Iron Age, it was one of the most important Moabite cities for travel and trade.
It is the land of Ruth and Noemi: their life is a biblical message of cultural integration, openness, and care for life. The city of Karak is 140 km from Amman and is located in the south of the country, on the edge of the desert that extends to the borders with Saudi Arabia. It is the poorest province in Jordan, with a population of 300,000.

Right here, where the heavy economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic is compounded by the effects of an unprecedented water crisis, there is a hospital where since 1935 the Comboni Missionaries Sisters have been taking care of the poorest people, including the ethnic minorities who inhabit the region: the Bedouins of the desert, shepherds and goatherds, some of whom still lead a nomadic life, and also the Ghorans, descendants of African slaves deported centuries ago to the Coast of the Dead Sea and who still suffer different forms of discrimination.
Then we have the immigrants – Egyptians and Libyans, Kurds, Sri Lankans, and Pakistanis – and refugees who, in a country of ten million inhabitants, number more than a million. “Jordan is traditionally welcoming”, says Sister Adele Brambilla, manager of the hospital.

Sister Adele arrived in Amman in 1984, “in the incandescent climate that led to the outbreak of the intifada”, she explained. “In successive waves, from Palestine, with which until 1967 the kingdom formed a single entity, the refugees came: in ’48, when the State of Israel was born, then twenty years later, following the Six-Day War and again during the popular uprising of the eighties. Then, in 1991, it was then the turn of the Iraqis, at the time of the first Gulf War, and since 2011 hundreds of thousands of Syrians fleeing the conflict have begun to cross the border”. Thousands of people from geographically differing countries but all of them with similar stories of being uprooted and left in poverty.  “To all of these, this country has opened its doors, but the available resources are limited – the Italian religious Sister explains. Refugees are among the patients treated daily at Karak hospital”.

Although Jordan suffers from the instability of the area and its borders are permeable to the influence of fundamentalisms that, from Syria to Iraq, have flared up in recent years, the condition of the Christian minority is still quite peaceful. “This is a Holy Land not only because of its biblical roots: further downstream, on the banks of the Jordan, Jesus was baptised by John the Baptist and the first Christians who fled from Jerusalem found refuge here. There is plentiful evidence of their presence in Petra where there are several archaeological sites and some ancient churches have been discovered,” Sister Adele adds.  “In this area, where Christians are a minority (3%), made up of Latins, Greek Orthodox, Melkites and Protestants, the hospital was the first and for many decades the only one present”, she recalls. Today we have fifty beds: we have a department of medicine and general surgery and a maternity department as well as an emergency room, radiology, and a paediatric unit with five incubators. Only recently we opened several specialized clinics – urology, neurology, ophthalmology … to meet the needs of the poorer population who would otherwise have to go as far as Amman for treatment. Every year we have more than 30,000 patients”.

One of the commitments of the Comboni Sisters is to promote interreligious dialogue, based upon the common ground of service to the needy: “Our collaborators, numbering about eighty people including doctors, nurses, technical and administrative staff, are almost all Muslims. Working together, we seek to transmit Gospel values, beginning with the absolute dignity of human life”, says Sr. Adele.
The drama of the Covid-19 pandemic: “The country is experiencing a serious economic crisis which has also affected our work. On the one hand, the hospital has had to face extra expenses for prevention and protection from infection and, on the other, available funding has decreased: many NGOs have left the territory and those who remain have no funds to help us. In spite of everything, every day we witness gestures of generosity and solidarity that encourage us to carry on – tiny signs of hope but precious drops of water in the arid desert”. (Open Photo: View to the city of Karak from Al Karak hill. ©dchulov/123RF.COM)
Chiara Zappa/MM

 

 

Africa-Europe. The EU offers an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Confronted with China’s growing influence in Africa, at the last AU-EU summit, the Europeans have come up with their own initiative: the Global Gateway Africa. But will it deliver?

The main conclusion of the AU-EU summit which took place in Brussels on the 17 and 18 February was the announcement by the EU of the EUR 150 billion EU-Africa ‘Global Gateway’ investment package of grants and loans to be spent over the next six years to develop infrastructures in Africa, such as fiber  optic cables, 5G networks, railways, highways ports and airports, in order to promote a strong, inclusive, green and digital growth.  The ambitious EU plan aims at accelerating the green transition by promoting across Africa a 300 GW deployment of renewable energy and clean hydrogen production by 2030. To that effect, the Investment Package will also support market integration and sector reforms. According to this plan, the Investment Package will also promote the sustainable use of natural resources, biodiversity protection and nature-based solutions as the basis of a green recovery, including support to the protection of ecosystems. The expectation is to improve the livelihood of 65 million people, by capturing carbon, stabilising 3 million km² of land and ensuring water. Another aim is to increase food security by supporting agri-food systems and creating a conducive and transparent policy environment for private investments.

The 6th European Union-African Union Summit in Brussels. (European Union Media)

In the context of Africa’s high vulnerability to extreme impacts of climate change, the EU also plans to contribute to building climate resilience by supporting climate change adaptation and enhancing disaster preparedness for effective response.
At the same time, the EU will finance projects in submarine and terrestrial fibre-optic cables, as well as cloud and data infrastructures to accelerate universal access for all to internet, while supporting regulatory frameworks promoting a digital transition.
In order to accelerate sustainable growth and job creation, the EU will increase investments to boost regional and continental economic integration, namely the African Continental Free Trade Area. Special emphasis will be made on the need to facilitate mobility and trade within Africa and between Africa and Europe through strategic corridors, by developing transport infrastructure.

Chairperson of the African Union Commission Moussa Faki Mahamat.

The EU package also ambitions to accelerate Africa’s industrial development by enabling partner countries to integrate their raw materials and resources into sustainable global value chains. The EU will also step-up cooperation with African countries to improve capacities in science, technology and innovation. Another important dimension of the future cooperation is the strengthening of education and of the health systems, with the aim of improving vaccination coverage by 2030, providing Africa with manufacturing capacities to meet local needs and demand.
To meet such objectives, the EU will seek to support African countries in scaling up their green bond markets, thereby helping them to attract greater financing from the international capital markets and institutional  investors. In addition, substantial re- channelling of part of the EU’s Special Drawing Rights to Africa is envisaged.
This Global Gateway Africa Initiative is part of the wider Global Gateway plan to support infrastructure development worldwide announced in December which plans to mobilise €300 billion between 2021-2027 for projects, in the digital, climate and energy, transport, health, education and research sectors.
The ambition is to provide an alternative to the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative launched in 2013 to develop infrastructure development to secure access to natural resources and raw materials and export processed products which has already financed over EUR 1,000 billion in infrastructure and industrial projects around the world. The Global Gateway is composed of EUR 135 billion in investments from the European Fund for Sustainable Development, EUR 18 billion in grants under other EU external assistance programmes and EUR 145 billion in planned investments by EU countries development finance institutions.

European Council President Charles Michel.

Such European initiative could enhance virtuous competition between China and Europe and thereby help drive down the cost of projects and provide African countries with better borrowing deals, says Kenyan trade policy expert Patrick Anam. But for some other experts, the Global Gateway looks like a ‘Paper Tiger’.
Europe can hardly compete with China in terms of investment quantity but claims to provide more quality and transparency. Ironically, the former colonial powers claim to offer an alternative to Chinese finance, which it criticized for saddling governments with unsustainable debt, while portraying the EU as ‘forging links’ instead of ‘creating dependencies.’ EU officials quote the case of Malaysia which has recently been forced to cancel three Chinese projects include a railway line of several billion dollars
Development experts coincide however that the Global Gateway is a mere packaging exercise of funds that have already been programmed by European Development Finance institutions. For Simone Tagliapietra, senior fellow at the Bruegel think tank, this view misses the point since the EU and its 27 member states are already the world’s leading providers of official development assistance with a total of EUR 66.8 billion in 2020. What Europe really needs is not new resources, but to use them more efficiently.
The main challenge the EU must face is the fragmentation of its action into countless initiatives, undertaken at both EU and national levels, which leads to overlaps and inefficiencies, says Tagliapietra. Accordingly, the real question is how well coordination between EU member states and institutions will work.

Caculo Cabaça Dam on the Kwanza River in Angola. (photo: Xinhua)

Because of this fragmentation and of the pressure of environmentalist groups which turned the European Parliament against large dams, the EU has marginalized itself from huge hydropower projects, including Grand Inga on the Congo River (40 GW), the Grand Ethiopia Renaissance Dam on the Nile River (6 GW) and Caculo Cabaça on the Kwanza  River in Angola (2.5 GW) which are being financed by other resources including domestic, Chinese and Brazilian ones. “Sadly, Europe misses the point, in the energy field, it lacks vision. Can one imagine to develop plans which exclude Africa’s main clean energy asset, Grand Inga?”, asks former Belgian Cooperation Agency AGCD boss, Paul Frix.
Then, the EU attaches lots of conditions to its aid, including the adhesion to the rule of law, the respect of human rights and the respect for international standards of intellectual property while it also refuses to fund projects including the use of fossil fuels. The EU claims it wants a ‘partnership between equals’ but obviously, the hand of the one that gives is above the other.

Big ship in port of Dakar in Senegal. Africa. ©123mn/123RF.COM

This attitude does not fit necessarily with African expectations. Some African experts stress that whereas China has built roads, bridges and dams over the last 20 years, the EU has come up with a lot of red tape.  Many EU aid projects include specific amounts to train African administrations in order to enable them to adapt to the bureaucratic procedures of the European Commission. Some African intellectuals resent the EU’s attitude of lecturing its partners.
Yet, many questions remained unanswered. How will the Global Gateway be managed and implemented? “At the moment, nobody really knows how it will work”, comments Paul Frix. One thing is for sure. The EU’s Global Gateway Africa initiative is also very much about Europe’s self-interest. During her State of the Union speech in September 2021, the EU Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen made clear that the EU wouldn’t finance any project at any cost. “It does not make sense for Europe to build a perfect road between a Chinese-owned copper mine and a Chinese-owned harbour”, she warned. Such statement reflects namely EU’s rising interest for Africa’s critical minerals resource such as rare earths elements used for the batteries of electric cars whose market is booming. (Open Photo: © Can Stock Photo / michaklootwijk)

François Misser

 

Kirill I, The African.

There are over one hundred priests serving on the African continent who have left the Patriarchate of Alexandria (Egypt) to move to that of Moscow. The Russian Patriarch Kirill I, very loyal to Putin, was responsible for the manoeuvre, in opposition to Tawadros II of Alexandria.

There are one hundred and two priests serving in 8 African countries who have moved from the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria to that of Russia. With this change, the Russian Patriarchate officially created its own Exarchate in Africa. Twelve countries in the two dioceses of northern and southern Africa: Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, Chad, Cameroon, Nigeria, Libya, Central Africa, and Seychelles.

Archbishop Leonid of Yerevan and Armenia.

The Moscow Synod appointed Archbishop Leonid of Yerevan and Armenia as ‘Metropolitan Klinsky and Patriarchal Exarch for Africa’ with instructions to administer the Metropolis of North Africa and to temporarily administrate the Exarchate of South Africa.
With a single move, the architect of this manoeuvre, the Patriarch of Moscow Kirill I, has achieved two objectives. He appropriated international support for the autocephalous Church of Ukraine, the result of the Orthodox schism of 2018 (triggered in 2014 by the Russian occupation of Crimea) and recognized by the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I, and dealt a severe blow to the authority in Africa of the Patriarch of Alexandria, Tawadros II, who last August, on the Turkish island of Imbros, had extended his hand to the autocephalous metropolitan Epiphany of Kyiv, marking the definitive breaking-point with the Russian Church, already matured in 2019.

The Patriarch of the Kremlin
Previously, fellow students at the Soviet University of Odessa, Kirill I and Tawadros II are therefore now at loggerheads. In his conversion campaign in Africa, the Patriarch of Moscow knows he can count on the unconditional support of the Kremlin. Kirill I is, in fact, part of the circle of those most faithful to Russian President Vladimir Putin. He has very close relationships with oligarchs and managers of the country’s most influential companies, including the oil giant Gazprom.

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill I with President Vladimir Putin.

This loyalty has been recognized by the government, which in 2019 paid out about 43 million dollars to renovate his residence in the former imperial palace in St. Petersburg. The Moscow Church has been cultivating contacts in Africa for years. The latest conquered lands, as reported in an Africa Intelligence report, are Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, and South Africa. Among the parishes in Alexandria, there is that of Sergius of Radonež in Johannesburg (South Africa), led by Archpriest Daniel Lugovoy. Another hot front is Madagascar, where the Russian ambassador Andrey Andreev is raising funds to entrust a new church to priests linked to Moscow.

Great Lakes disputed
The 102 refugees are the result of diplomatic pressure ordered on the occasion of a previous synod held in Moscow on 23 and 24 September last. Since then, Kirill I’s choice in Africa, Bishop Leonid – chosen not by chance for this role after representing the Russian patriarchate in Alexandria between 2004 and 2013 – has never stopped. In mid-November, he was in Dar es Salaam, where he met Metropolitans Dimitrios of Irinoupolis, the reference person for eastern Tanzania, and Jeronymos of Mwanza, for western Tanzania. During his visit, he was accompanied by the Russian ambassador to Tanzania, Yuri Popov, who in this country, particularly promotes the interests of the state company Rosatom in the local uranium fields. Leonid’s blitz had been anticipated, a few weeks earlier, by a tour of visits by Tawadros II, who had first flown to Kampala (Uganda) for a meeting with President Yoweri Museveni, then to Tanzania together with the Egyptian ambassador Mohamed Gaber Abulwafa and the Greek honorary consul William Ferentinos, and finally to Johannesburg for an interview with the South African president Cyril Ramaphosa.

The Russian Orthodox Church in Johannesburg. Photo: Raskolam.net

The Great Lakes region is the chessboard where the stakes between the two churches are highest. Between late July and early September, the deaths first of Metropolitan Nikoforos of Kinshasa and then of his counterpart from Kampala Jonah Lwanga, opened a delicate game for their succession. Those who manage to grab those comfortable chairs will, in fact, have access to one of the largest concentrations of Orthodox faithful in the entire continent. Moscow is very much interested. The governments of Rwanda and Uganda are among the main African buyers of Russian-made weapons, while the Alrosa group, specialized in diamond mining, is increasingly active in DR Congo. These are fast-growing businesses that the Kremlin wants to protect by guaranteeing religious leadership in the region.

The Central African front
While, in southern Africa, Zimbabwe, Angola and Mozambique remain under the control of the Patriarchate of Alexandria, which in this area depends on the Cypriot Archbishop Seraphim, the contest is still open in the Central African Republic. The small Orthodox community of the country has come under the Russian sphere of influence. And in the capital Bangui, the seventh Russian centre for science and culture is under construction, under the watchful eye of the private security company Wagner. This is also a sign that the current campaign is not just religious.

War in Ukraine

Patriarch Kirill has sent his strongest signal to justify his country’s invasion of Ukraine describing the conflict as part of a struggle against sin.  In his sermon recent he referred to gay pride parades organised in the west as part of the reason for the war.
On 12 March, Rev Prof Dr Ioan Sauca from the World Council of Churches wrote to Patriarch Kirill, appealing for him to mediate in order to help end the war. The Patriarch did not respond to this request, but in his reply spoke of a “large-scale geopolitical strategy aimed, first and foremost, at weakening Russia”. Meanwhile, Saint Nicholas of Myra church in Amsterdam is the first Russian Orthodox Church to break with Moscow. On 9 May, 280 Russian Orthodox priests from around the world signed a letter appealing for an end to the war and reconciliation.

 Rocco Bellantone

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