An exclusive interview with Anna Bono for Gefira
Guest author: Daniel Moscardi

GEFIRA asked in an exclusive interview the opinion of an expert on Africa about the current situation in Italy, about the “asylum seekers” coming mostly from sub-Saharan countries. Professor Anna Bono recently made headlines in Italy with a book that completely debunks the ongoing narrative of “poor Africans” running away from starvation and knocking on wealthy Europe’s doors through Sicily or other ports of southern Italy.

Prof. Anna Bono has been a researcher in African history and institutions at the University of Turin until 2015 after living many years in Africa. She has collaborated as an expert on Africa with a number of Universities and Institutions, including the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and written over 1600 articles, essays and books on topics such as international relations and cooperation with Africa, as well as demographics and migrations.

GEFIRA: Can we identify one of the more specific events as the beginning of the ongoing biblical numbers arriving in Italy?
ANNA BONO: It all started with the removal of Qaddafi. Qaddafi, bound by the 2008 treaty of cooperation with Italy, implemented an effective control of Libyan coasts, thus preventing the departure of migrants from other African countries. The numbers of arrivals of Africans to Italy prior to Qaddafi’s overthrow were manageable; moreover, they were not organized as they are today. It is important to remind Europeans that Libya prior to 2011 was a relatively wealthy and stable country, hosting approximately 1 million foreign workers mostly from sub-Saharan Africa. When the civil war broke out, some of these foreign workers went home, but the majority started to look for ways of crossing over to Italy.

G: Could we define the current demographic growth of Africa as “unsustainable”?
AB: Not necessarily. Africa, remains, after all, the least populated of all continents. The bottom line is all about Africa’s resources. The way these huge natural resources continue to be mismanaged – to say the least – is at the core of every possible discussion about the continent. The economic policies of most African governments fall short of any real accomplishment, with the result that only a fraction of the population receives any benefit, with corruption, deeply ingrained in most African countries, remaining as the chief obstacle to a serious and harmonized growth. Thanks to institutionalized corruption, Africans are literally squandering away their resources. One example: Africa exports oil in huge quantities, but then lacks refineries, and therefore imports refined fuel.

G: Most corrupted countries? Continue reading →

Another world war is looming large. China’s technology is advancing rapidly, while Russia is rich in resources, and the United States is still a world power. Who will win is uncertain. Future combat will verify the military might of the warring parties. The first world war started in Bosnia and Herzegovina; the second in Poland; will the third one start in the Far East?

Geopolitics and geostrategy deal with social and political processes and are preoccupied with the problem of the security of states relative to their location on the globe. Jacek Bartosiak, the advocate, doctor of social sciences, author of “Pacific and Eurasia. About War”, co-founder of the National Center for Strategic Studies, is a Polish expert in this field.

His views are worth discussing as they touch on the key global problems. He presents timeless rules governing politics and deriving from history, the mother of all knowledge. He analyzes the current political situation and draws conclusions for the future. His point of view differs from the one presented in most of the current studies and draws on the original theory of 1904 developed by British geographer and politician Halford Mackinder, which according to Jacek Bartosiak is still valid despite the development of technology.

For all practical purposes the globe contains one continent, Eurasia, and the rest are just islands. He who rules this continent rules the world. Eurasia can be divided into two zones: heartland (centre) and rimland (edge). The heartland has limited access to the sea, which hinders its participation in world trade and thus contributes to its economic weakness. So, in order to be able to play a role in the world, heartland countries, like Russia, tend to have strong armies and governments.

Rimland in turn is a coastal area which can benefit from cheap maritime transport while trading with the world and so is generally better developed. Profitable location favours capital accumulation. Rimland countries, like those of Western Europe, tend to fall under the dominance of a player with the strongest fleet. Heartland and rimland are separated by a crush zone where tensions accumulate and wars break out. Poland, and Ukraine, to give an example, lie in such a zone. Continue reading →

President Putin is the world’s master of Trojan horses. According to the Western press he can handle them all over the globe, whether it is the White House or the Turkish military industry.

The Trojan horse, one of the myths and symbols handed down to us from antiquity, has always had a political application, also at present. Recently, this term has been frequently used by the Polish opinion-forming political news outlets in reference to a number of countries. Gazeta Wyborcza poses the question whether Turkey is Russia’s Trojan horse within the NATO.The question seems to be well-grounded especially when we think of the rapprochement between Ankara and Moscow and the purchase by the former of the Russian anti-missile defence system S-400.

The na:Temat portal ran a text entitled “Bulgaria: the Trojan horse of the European Union?” in which among others it informed the readership that 49% Bulgarians did not approve of the sanctions imposed against Russia by the UE. Continue reading →

What would happen to Spain in case of Catalonia’s secession? In terms of the debt sustainability parameters laid down by the Treaty of Maastricht, it’d be the Eurozone debt crisis 2.0. As Spain now maintains the second year of 3% GDP growth, an even bigger, immediate fiscal threat is looming. After multiple ineffective referendums in the previous years, this time the Catalan government is likely to finally assert independence. What will it look like against the background of the Maastricht financial requirements?

Debt to GDP ratio

The Treaty of Maastricht says it should be 60%. Spain’s debt to GDP ratio was 39% in 2007, but after the financial crisis it gradually rose to 99.4% today. Should Catalonia leave, there are two possible scenarios:

• Catalonia agrees to take a share of the Spanish total debt, as a “divorce bill”, because after all it benefited from the government spending in Catalonia itself;

or

• Catalonia leaves without taking any share of the total Spanish debt.

In the first case, nothing would change, assuming Catalonia would agree to take the share of Spanish debt equal to its share in Spain’s total GDP. In that case, Catalonia accounts roughly for 20% of the Spanish GDP, which means it would take 20% of the Spanish debt. Given that the Spanish debt is right now almost the same size as the Spanish GDP, calculations are rather simple. Continue reading →

The Economist ran a couple of articles promoting migration as good for the global economy. Professor Bryan Caplan argued that labour is the world’s most valuable commodity and its value depends on location. If borders were open, a world of free movement would be $78 trillion richer. Mexican labourers can expect to earn 150% more in the West. Unskilled Nigerians make even 1,000% more in Germany than in Africa. The value of an unskilled worker is so much higher in Europe that a Nigerian can make 10 times as much in Germany, adding 1000 times more to global GDP. Because Western societies are more structured and organised than the Mexican or Nigerian, the unskilled worker can be more productive in a factory in Germany or a farm in the USA than in Africa. A taxi ride in Berlin is much more expensive and thus valued much higher than a taxi ride in Lagos, while the amount of work, driving a car for a while, is the same. Continue reading →

Aristotle was the first to point out how a thriving middle class is a condition sine qua non for a functioning democracy: “A constitution based on the middle class is the mean between the extremes of the rule by the rich and the rule by the poor.” That the middle [constitution] is best is evident, for it is the freest from faction: where the middle class is numerous, there least occur factions and divisions among citizens” – For those who possess the goods of fortune in moderation find it “easiest to obey the rule of reason”. . When we speak of the middle class we therefore mean the median group of society, the one representing the largest group of people by income. To clarify with a simple example, in a population of 2000 people, if 500 earn 1000€ a month, 1400 people earn 2000€ a month and 100 earn 10000€ a month, then the 1400 people are the ”middle class”. Continue reading →

The decline of the social, economic and political situation in the United States will accelerate under Donald Trump’s term. The mainstream media are portraying his administration as a disaster and accusing him of destroying America’s standing in the world by moves such as withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement. The truth is that Trump’s presidency and the attendant political turmoil are the symptoms of a decaying nation rather than the cause, it merely proves that the American people have had enough of the Washington government and it shows their deep distrust of the American mainstream media. Donald Trump too, is a part of the establishment, so it came as no surprise that Steve Bannon and his “populist” platform (that won him the presidency) was removed from the White House and the President embraced the military complex (that nobody voted for) represented by the likes of John Kelly, H.R. McMaster and John Mattis. His base starts to crack as they burn the “Let’s Make America Great Again“ cap as a symbol of protest on Twitter and high profile supporters such as Ann Coulter turn against his policy. With the removal of Steve Bannon the US will continue its usual policy, which means that its public debt will increase indefinitely. The fight between the media and the White House is a distraction from the real problems: Trump’s budget can only work if tax revenue is twice as much as it is now, a doubling of social security spending while military spending increases, to wit 50%. The US will try to continue its so called “preponderance” military strategy as we will explain. Even if the Trump administration is able to build a wall between Mexico and the US, mass-migration has to continue to create 5% economic growth.

Gefira #16 is available for only 25 euros. Gefira researchers expect that the downfall of the West will start in 2020. The financial and political planners should only worry about the demographics. In 2015 the European populations began to shrink, which is why the economy will never fully recover, the financial markets will crumble, and the maintenance of large armies will not be possible. Gefira #16: The US Endgame. 

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