By Carmia Schoeman and Rob Krause
The following article was originally published in uManyano lwaBasebenzi Issue #4 (Apr-Jun 2021)
ReconAfrica, a Canada-based company, has started exploration drilling in the Okavango region. The Namibian government has granted a licence for exploration drilling, and an application for Botswana is being processed. If successful, ReconAfrica has stated to investors they expect 36 million barrels of oil from the drilling of “100s of wells” in the river area.
Around 200 000 people call the Okavango home and have built their livelihoods, culture and identity around the land. The Kovango River is a main water source in a semi-arid area and responsible for sustaining one of the continent’s greatest concentrations of wild animal species. The area also encompassess thousands of pieces of San rock art in Botswana’s Tsodilo Hills. Despite the devastating implications of this decision for the indigenous population and the environmental and cultural values of the continent and the world, few were consulted.
While shocking in its implications for indigenous people’s rights, cultural and natural heritage, the case of oil exploration in the Okavango is unfortunately far from unique. There are many commonalities in the environmental crimes of capitalism in Southern Africa.
Imperialism and Stalinist legacies
First there is imperialism. Corporations from the traditional imperial ‘Western’ countries (UK, Canada) or rising powers (China, India) seek new markets and resources for their pursuit to maximise profits. They cultivate ties with sections of the political ruling class and local business elites in the historically colonial world in order to open the way for mineral extraction with much worse environmental impacts than they’d be able to get away with in their home countries. Other examples include projects spearheaded by Australian capitalists to extract sand on South Africa’s West Coast and titanium from the Wild Coast, which the local Xolobeni community has resisted for over 15 years at great cost, including the murder of activist Sikhosiphi ‘Bazooka’ Rhadebe. Both projects, despite strong local opposition and devastating potential impacts, are backed by coalitions of politicians, local businesses and traditional leaders.
Secondly, the arguments used to discredit local communities and environmentalists opposing the projects are very similar. Opponents are branded as ‘anti-development’ and undermining the economic sovereignty of the country, whether Namibia or South Africa. They implicitly draw on the Stalinist notion that Africa needs to follow exactly the same fossil fuel development path as so-called western countries. This idea is not accompanied by any real drive to challenge neo-colonialism globally – instead, the greatest winners of this approach are those same “western” powers. These arguments are partly opportunistic covers for those who simply want to share in the looting, but also reflective of the historical influence of Stalinism on the parties of liberation in the region. The Namibian government for example holds a 10% stake in ReconAfrica’s exploration project, which effectively gives them no decision-making powers, but forces them to downplay the potential risks in order to capitalise off this project. This directly benefits ReconAfrica, who will enjoy the much larger share of profits to come, while the natural wealth of Namibia continues to be plundered.
Natural abundance and cheap labour
Marxists point out that the two sources of wealth are labour-power and nature. In a capitalist system, the exploitation of these two elements leads to profit-making. Capitalists like ReconAfrica often use the argument of job creation to push their outdated and destructive practices towards the natural world. Of course these industries require labour – there is no other way to extract fossil fuels and minerals from our earth.
However capitalists fail to mention that it is exactly this labour they depend on to produce the profits that they reap. Profits are essentially the stolen wages of workers. And although oil extraction methods become more expensive as stores are depleted, exploitation of natural resources in the neo-colonial world remains attractive because the labour-power comes cheap (and still regularly with far fewer and more short-term jobs than flagged) .
Risk it all for short-term gain
It is estimated that the amount of oil available in the Okavango region is the same as what the USA would use in four years. When these numbers are trotted out to investors, nobody is asking whether this relatively short-term gain is worth the long-term consequences of devastating an important natural reserve and a critical ecosystem. Capitalists do not think along those lines – once they have extracted all they can from a specific natural area, they move onto the next, leaving the devastated communities and wildlife behind.
As Marxists we know that the future of humanity is directly linked to the future of the natural world that sustains us. Rosa Luxemburg argued that as capitalism became a global system, it inevitably brings with it the destruction of war, colonisation/imperialism, and the unsustainable exploitation of natural resources. We have reached the point where more is being removed from the natural world than what is being replaced or regenerated for future use. We are also at a tipping point where delaying real action will lead to climate catastrophe – and Southern Africa is one of the first regions in the world already experiencing the severe consequences. At the same time, the production of green energy – wind, solar, small-scale hydro – is becoming much more affordable.
Worker and community control for green future and decent jobs!
Unfortunately, with leaders who accept capitalism as the only possible order (made worse by the Stalinist legacy), the workers’ movement divorces the environment from working class struggles for jobs. An artificial rift is created between community struggles for land preservation, the struggle against climate change and those of workers in mining and energy sectors. This division is useful to the capitalist class, which can sow confusion and false promises of “catching up” with the rest of the world “if we just industrialise at all cost”. At the same time, renewable and more environmentally friendly energy production is pushed more into the private sector. Privatisation means profit above anything else, lack of oversight, no democratic control, and no investment in overall reduction in energy use – in short, no transition to a sustainable system.
As socialists it is important to unite community and environmental struggles with the workers’ struggles for a better future. We must campaign to end fossil fuel extraction, and for mass state investment in “green” jobs. Well-paid and meaningful jobs are not dependent on industries that destroy our planet for profit, but will come from democratically organising our society and its resources based on the needs of both humans and the natural world.
