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On Yao Graham's commentary in the Guardian

This is just a brief and painfully unanimated introduction to an opinion piece by Yao Graham in the Guardian.
17 March 2005 - J. M. and Yao Graham
Source: AFRICAFILES - www.africafiles.org

In reaction to the recently released report of the Blair-inspired Commission on Africa, Dr.Yao Graham mused resignedly on it in an opinion piece published in the Guardian on March 12th. Dr. Graham pensively cast his eyes at the beathtaking imagery of untramelled market forces and tried to reconcile that rough-and-tumble imagery with the sobrely benign poetry of the Commission's recommendations and Dr. Graham fitfully awakened from a sleepwalking experience.

Yes, the Commission passionately addresses the malign outcomes of barely humane SAP conditionalities (Ah! Is that the sound of our collective palms cheerfully slamming into each other?) but where has that codicil to the new Cotonou agreement, that tactfully spells out that acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by any ACP country is a negative trade condition, come from? And how exactly does that codicil tally with the robust world of politically untainted trade?

What about the propitiatory rites, embodied in the faith of untrammelled markets, unyieldingly adhered to in the Bretton Woods temple? Can these rituals yield pride of place to the Commission of sins of official sympathy?

Dr. Graham wistfully conjures up imagery of an abrupt yet needful awakening from ideological somnambulism and the application of a new institutional brake on the untrammelled grasping for the main chance that has been glorified into inviolable institutional sanctity by the modern economic priesthood.

Notes: AFRICAFILES - www.africafiles.org
is a network of volunteers relaying African perspectives and alternative analyses for viable human development in the interest of justice and human rights.

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