I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to blame
African governments for wasting precious resources through friends-politics
where their followers are rewarded through favours.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to judge
corrupt governments as bad governments and place the bulk of why their
countries cannot find their way out of poverty, on corrupt leaders and
officials.
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to
realise that from an African historic and cultural perspective,
neopatrimonialism – where a patron
takes care of its clients through sharing ‘his’
wealth – is socially accepted, because a leader is expected to use his/her
access to resources to support his/her followers.
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to
realise that African leaders will do anything to remain in power, including
using public resources to award favours to significant and influential
individuals of the population in order to retain support – because government
positions are the easiest way to attain some degree of wealth in those
countries, where, if they don’t remain in power, they are very likely to go
back to a life of
absolute poverty.
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to
realise that if I were in the same position, where the only way to escape
absolute poverty was to buy support from the population in order to remain in
power, I would probably do just that.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to expect
that simply by implementing Western institutional models in a country that has
not walked the same path as the actual Western countries, the attitudes of the
African population would simply adjust and that these same governing models
would work in the exact same way in Africa.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to delude
myself into thinking that African leaders are capable of concerning themselves
with the ‘public good’ when they are in a constant state of fear of loss and where
the threat of having to go back to a life of poverty inhibits them from seeing
past their individual interests.
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to
realise that corruption and greed are merely an outflow and manifestation of
fear of loss and therefore, if I have any form of fear of loss existent within
me, I cannot say that I am better than corrupt African officials and I cannot
be
trusted more with such power than them.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself of expect
of African countries that they undergo political reforms to limit the size of
the government in order to eradicate or at least limit corruption
opportunities, without realising that corruption is the only thing that allows
them to maintains a form of social and political stability in those countries –
and that to take away this tool of African leaders means to send the country
into internal chaos and conflict.
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to
realise that if I demand of African countries to reduce the size of their
government, it will mean that many government-owned enterprises will be
privatised and hundreds of thousands of people will lose their job.
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to
realise that unless everyone has a secure income,
corruption will always exist.
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to
realise that rich nations are
responsible for the state in which African countries
are struggling since they, through exploiting them in colonisation and
continuing to take advantage of them through the current economic
power-relations, have completely incapacitated them, left them with nothing but
crumbs with which to make meets end.
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to
realise the hypocrisy and disgrace in demanding lower-developed countries to
open up their markets to the world and extensively limit their government
intervention – while Western countries protect their vital industries from
cheaper competition with vigour.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to demand
of African countries that they focus their efforts on exports to increase the
country’s wealth and living standards, while obviously, if all lower-developed
countries start increasing their exports of primary goods, the price of primary
goods will drop on the world market and any increase of income generated from
such exports will be insignificant – leaving on the rich nations better off,
who can now buy primary goods for a real good price.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to
criticise African countries for utilising corrupt methods for personal
interests, without making mention of how the United States has continuously
used foreign aid as a strategy to influence the international political scene
in order to preserve and protect itself – not realising that the successive
shifts in emphasis in terms of providing aid from South Asia to Southeast Asia,
to Latin America to the Middle East and back to Southeast Asia, to then go
toward Africa and the Persian Gulf, the Caribbean and Central America and after
that, the Russian Federation, Bosnia, Ukraine, Asia and the Middle East reflect
changes in US strategic, political and economic interests, more than changing
evaluations of economic need – using the exact same
‘friends politics’ as
corrupt officials and leaders do in order to avert conflict and the undermining
of power.
I commit myself to
expose the
unequal power relations in the global economy that condemn billions
of people to absolute poverty.
I commit myself to investigating the motives of politicians
within corrupt behaviour to see and understand the fundamental problems that
perpetuate this behaviour in order to correct these fundamental problems in
such a way that allows all to live as equals with equal consideration for all.
I commit myself to stop fear of loss within myself and find
practical solutions so that none have to live with fear of loss and fear of
death – but can instead share themselves and their world unconditionally.
I commit myself to eradicate poverty through the designing
and implementing of an
Equal Money System where dignified life is the ultimate
value.
