Not a blog really. Not an essay. Maybe I’m putting it down here as a record of a creation on Malawian soil. Which will remain on Malawian soil (? indefinitely).
Not Made In China (J&A Doorgakant, October 2011) - made with china mostly and from [Made in China] materials:
• cardboard panel (broken ceiling board) [origin unsure]
• oil paint [Processed in Malawi- Chinese chemicals]
• contact adhesive [Made in India]
• broken china cups and plate [Made in China]
• broken orange glass plate [Made in China]
• paintbrush [Made in China] bristles which came out during the painting
Not Made In China came about as a bud of an idea of mine at least 4 years ago, in the heat of the Beijing Olympics. At the time I joined the massive street protests in London when the torch-bearing parade was intercepted by Free Tibet activists (under my very own stare). I was fuming in those days about the oppressive Beijing government and its abject violation of Tibetan people’s rights. I still am but my sentiment has evolved.
I always believe that one’s opinions ought to be dynamic, without this necessarily weakening the value of them- i.e. one should be entitled to hold a strong view on an issue, even if the very next week that view switches to a diametrically opposite one, held with an equal intensity. The crucial element in validating such opinion change is reason, often in the form of newly-acquired knowledge or similar knowledge acquired from a new angle. Without this, we wallow in the realm of the arbitrary without much more than personal bias informing our judgements. To expose one to maximum new knowledge is one way of ensuring continuous opinion change, the degree of which generally becomes subtler and subtler with time, i.e. tends towards refinement. It is the reasonable evolution of opinion.
One very effective way, possibly the most, in exposing one to new knowledge or angles thereof is travelling. Travelling to Malawi has opened my eyes and mind in ways I could not have anticipated 2 years ago. It has given me a new understanding of the world, challenged many pre-conceptions of mine and taken apart so many over-simplified beliefs I held with great assurance. I found myself suddenly reading different newspapers and magazine, watching news from different broadcasting corporations, talking to people with completely different views of the world to the one I’d become accustomed to hear among my group of friends back home. These views were challenging but they provided a great insight into the process of opinion making. What we think is so largely influenced by what media we are exposed to. It’s inescapable and that is the reason why governments around the world spend so much money and political leverage on media-control. What I used to see as a great all-rounded source of information on the world, The Guardian newspaper, suddenly seemed like nothing but one of the less biased but still biased papers, where the boldness to tell things as they truly are is still largely lacking. People like to read what they believe. So in the market-dominated society, even a paper like the Guardian will respond to the interests of its government (propaganda) and its audience: the ‘left’. But this concept of the Western ‘left’, which I used to view as the forward-thinking solution to many things, is what I’ve come to challenge radically since arriving in Malawi. This ‘left’ might well think very differently from the conservative ‘right’ but they’re still closer to the latter than to a balanced view of the world. A more balanced view of the world requires adequate discussion of global issues, past and present, a constant debate on how the world is governed and indeed a greater call for justice. Selective campaigning on issues that would seem to benefit oneself too (such as the attack of the western ‘left’ on China; and the one on capitalism only once the banks began to collapse and their prosperity bubble burst) may seem as nothing but mere enlightened self interest to me! If the same debates were accompanied by a true call to question of the western governance style, its economic system, while not simply dismissing the damage caused by slavery and colonialism as a regrettable mistake of past rulers, then these campaigns might seem to stem from a true aspiration for the global good. Unless one argues from this premise, one cannot expect anyone from outside to support their views. This is not to say that there aren’t good campaigns from the West. Indeed most good ones do come from there but they sadly are not enough and are too often stifled by politics.
Hence the paradigm shift when I came to executing this evolved version of ‘Not Made In China’. I might have been banging on about the evils of the Chinese government 4 years ago, but now I’ve come to realise: the evils of government are universal. Where else to analyse evils of government better than in sub-saharan Africa, I might ask? So the government of Malawi (and many others) is anti-progress and guilty of misappropriation of funds, based on the majority of sources (including lefty ones) in England. What about the UK’s role in this? What are they doing to empower poor countries they stripped off any dignity and wealth in the days of colonialism and slave trade? Maintaining trade barriers, political and military threat and a continued pressure to promote British interests while holding on to their illicitly acquired land there (hence the great attack on Mugabe even in the Guardian)??? The French are no better, with their record in Ivory Coast and West Africa and their famed colonial pact, which is literally the signing away of all economic autonomy for the sake of independence! The Germans meanwhile still pretty much own Namibia and natural resources are still largely being extracted for a pittance, hence the Belgian love for the Congo (DRC) and the Dutch one for South Africa. Inamongst all this the Americans are busy with their mission of thought control, particularly important now that China is making inroads into African development. It won’t be as easy as taking down Patrice Lumumba or dislodging Kwame Nkhruma anymore I guess. But maybe it will be, as we saw recently with the assassination of Gaddafi. This guy’s record on African development is remarkable and unprecedented. All that seems to have come out of western media about this legendary pan-Africanist (lefty sources indeed) is the fact that he is a warmonger who had no qualms on attacking his own people. I dare say that till any country gets its own house in order and truly comes clean, then the authority to interfere abroad is absolutely impermissible. As long as the US keeps on sponsoring the war on Islam through Israel and its new blank cheque, anti-terrorism, then it should have no say whatsoever on global, let alone Arab politics. This is why my rage against China has been tempered so much in the 2 years I’ve been in Malawi. China certainly has a more liberal aid programme within Africa, with hardly any of those Western strings attached. The quality of the development may be poorer but it’s also not claiming to be better than what it is. The job creation opportunities might not be the same with Chinese labour being largely imported for these contracts but the job is done. What China does not do is tell everyone how to behave or else... Because China knows it’s not in any position to pontificate on government behaviour. So why pretend? The west want to keep on pretending they have the key to global harmony through one over-simplified concept of democracy which they are intent on imposing forcefully onto all. Yet that dream is best achieved through economic empowerment and not interference. This is precisely what Africa is not getting from them...
PS: The box has finally landed (12 weeks since the order!)
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