Bello Saulawa

Every time an African country elects a government that tries to keep more of its own resources, Western media discovers a "democracy deficit." Every time an Asian nation builds technology that competes with Western products, Western governments discover a "security threat." Every time a Latin American country charts an economic path outside the Washington Consensus, Western financial institutions discover a "stability risk." The pattern is precise and it has been precise for two centuries. The West is not afraid of authoritarian governments. It has funded dozens of them. The West is not afraid of economic mismanagement. It has imposed structural adjustment programs that produced exactly that. What produces the alarm, the specific, urgent, editorial-board-meeting alarm, is independence. A poor country making its own choices with its own resources for its own people without asking permission. That is the danger. That has always been the danger. Everything else is the vocabulary chosen to describe it in ways that don’t require honesty.