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The Role of Food Prices in the 2010-2011 African Uprisings
The much-lauded revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt dominated Western media for several months. Indeed, it was not until a massive earthquake hit Japan that Tunisia was kicked off the front page.
International news sources have highlighted the peaceful nature of these movements, protestors’ anger over governmental corruption, and the people’s push for democracy. But when the protests first began, before they became grandiose movements, before Ben Ali and Mubarak were overthrown and the events labeled as “revolutions,” food prices were named as the primary cause of the unrest.
This paper will explore the role of food and commodity prices in the 2010-2011 African unrest. It will begin with a literature review discussing the theoretical relationships between food security, violence, and unrest. The practical applications of these theoretical understandings will then be considered, using the 2010-2011 events as case studies. Possible comparisons to the African food riots of the 1970s will also be reviewed. The paper will argue that food prices played a larger role in the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions than Western media has credited. This conclusion allows for greater similarities between the politico-economic unrest in North Africa and the emerging protests and riots in sub-Saharan Africa than currently acknowledged.
Food Security and the State: Food Prices, Violence, and Stability
In the Middle East, numerous diplomats and academics (including UN Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali and journalists John Bulloch and Adel Darwish) have predicted a “Water War,” in which states will clash over water tensions. In Africa, conflicts seem to occur over food security concerns. Food and water security are inevitably bound together. Without meeting one, meeting the other becomes virtually pointless. One must be water secure to be food secure; low levels of food security put a person at greater risk for waterborne disease. Food security is not simply the meeting of a human body’s biological caloric requirement, but the freedom people have in knowing that they will at all times “have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life” . In times and places when a population is both food and water insecure and more than half their water goes to food, it often means people are deciding between giving a sick child a drink and having another meager meal.
Hungry, thirsty people are angry people. Both North and sub-Saharan Africa are regions wrought with conflict and tension. Without adequate food and water security, we create additional motivations for unrest . Food and water security is a critical part of military security and political stability. Norman Borlaug, father of the Green Revolution, asserted “You cannot have political stability based on empty stomachs and poverty. When I see food lines in developing countries, I know that those governments are under pressure and are in danger of falling.” His words were shown to be true in the 1970s as high food prices and hunger contributed to the fall of the Ethiopian, Nigerian, and Thai governments , and now again as they have helped to topple Ben Ali and Mubarak.
Though hunger may not always cause the complete collapse of governments or full-on revolutions, “Where there is hunger there is no hope. There is only desolation and pain. Hunger nurtures violence and fanaticism. A world where people starve will never be safe.” These words, spoken by Lula, a former president of Brazil, have been true for centuries. Food riots broke out in the US during the Great Depression; in the 1970s, food riots in Bangladesh and India became routine. Scholars believe that hunger will and has contributed to the rise of terrorism , in Africa and elsewhere. Amilcar Cabral, leader of Guinea-Bissau’s independence movement, said “Always bear in mind that the people are not fighting for ideas, for the things in anyone’s head. They are fighting to win material benefits, to live better and in peace, to see their lives go forward, to guarantee the future of their children…” Many terrorists are not truly fighting for ideologies but out of economic frustration. Nobel prize-winner Paul Krugman has acknowledged the role of today’s food prices in the recent violence, calling “sky-high food prices” “an important trigger for popular rage” .
But environmentalist authors Evan Fraser and Andrew Rimas argue that food riots alone are not enough. In an article exploring the psychology of food riots, they point out that violence does not inevitably occur with changing or increasing prices (indeed, food prices have skyrocketed and availability plummeted plenty of times historically without accompanying food riots). Rather, violence over food prices happens when combined with a popular sense of being cheated, of injustice . This argument can help to explain why anger over food prices combined with an ideology (be it religious or political) can produce such a violent result. The ideology becomes the vehicle through which the injustice, and thus the cause of hunger, is understood.
The food protests in Africa today have not become terrorist organizations; instead, they morphed into democratic movements. Democracy is, in its way, just as much an ideology as terrorism or fundamentalism, albeit generally a more positive one. Recent events have demonstrated that the same logic that leads food riots into becoming terrorist movements can instead create pro-democracy movements from hunger with the right political conditions and factors on the ground. Amartya Sen argues that famines do not occur in democracies as the government becomes accountable to the people for distribution . As Africans become more educated and see the control their governments have over food prices and policies, they are able to blame the government increasingly for issues of hunger, unemployment, and other economic woes. If this causal chain is seen, food protests can rationally become democratic movements rather than riots and terrorist organizations. This recently played out in North Africa, as will be demonstrated below.
The 2010-2011 African Uprisings
Organizers of civil movements in North Africa report that discussions and planning has been occurring for months, and no one will dispute that there have been quiet grumblings in select circles against corrupt leaders and strict regimes for years. But the start date generally given to the recent series of events is December 18, 2010, the day Mohamed Bouazizi, a street produce vendor, set himself on fire . The self-immolation struck a chord for many Tunisians, and the action began. On January 14, 2011, African protestors saw their first major victory as Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, one of Africa’s infamous Big Men (a term given to African dictators, most of whom have been in power since independence and were placed there and continually supported by Western powers), stepped down and fled the country .
Since Ben Ali left power, Egypt’s Muhammad Hosni Sayyid Mubarak has also been ousted . Civil unrest and “copycat” uprisings have spread across North Africa and into the Middle East and central Asia, from Iran to Mauritania. Libya has seen protests since February 15, 2011, and is now in a state of serious armed conflict, debatably termed a civil war. Major protests in Algeria began on December 28 and won the end of Algeria’s nineteen-year-old state of emergency. Minor protests have also been seen in Djibouti, Morocco, North and South Sudan, and Western Sahara. Events in these countries are often grouped as part of the “MENA region uprisings,” but protests based on similar complaints have been seen throughout most of Africa, including in Benin, Burkina Faso, the Ivory Coast, Kenya, Senegal, Swaziland, and Uganda.
“Copycat” Revolutions?
The word “copycat” was seen frequently in international media as the unrest seemed to “spread” from Tunisia across the region . And though certain techniques were borrowed or imitated (most noticeably the self-immolation, which had been proven successful in gaining great international attention), it is vital that the uprisings not be viewed as a homogenous group. For too long, Africa has been seen as a homogeneous “country,” not a continent with many heterogeneous states. The uprisings across Africa and the Middle East share some similar causes: hunger, poverty and economic woes, anger at governmental corruption and human rights abuses. But these no more make the protests in Tunisia and Djibouti identical than the American and French Revolutions. In an attempt to avoid further homogenization, several movements will be discussed independently. The paper will then turn to some conclusions that can be drawn based on the protests’ similarities and differences.
Tunisia
The basic facts of Tunisia’s revolution have already been presented. For the purposes of this paper, Tunisia and Egypt will be identified as “revolutions” because they have overthrown a specific government and institutional changes are in progress. It is important to note that this is not an uncontested term.
Several causal factors have been cited as motivations for the unrest. For Bouazizi, the most direct were unemployment and food inflation. Tunisia’s well-educated citizenry has faced a 13-15% unemployment rate for the last decade and high labor market rigidity . Unaffordable food prices drew even greater attention to the country’s extreme inequality. Bouazizi, the first self-immolator, was an educated but unemployed individual. Police confiscated his wares, fruits and vegetables, for selling without a permit. Hunger and economic frustration led to the desperate act that “started it all.” Eventually, people and organizations began to rally around the greater issues of corruption and political freedoms as well .
Tunisia’s revolution is now described in the media as one focused on democracy, a fight against corruption and underrepresentation. But at the very beginning, news sources reported on the unrest over food prices, not political freedoms. Food prices were clearly seen as the main issue by the government; Ben Ali promised on national television to lower food prices in an attempt to calm the storm .
Egypt
Egypt, the only other country that has had an official change in leadership as a result of the 2010-2011 actions, began publically with the January 25 Revolution. Protestors, through a series of marches and mainly nonviolent civil resistance techniques (including demonstrations and labor strikes), demanded the resignation of Hosni Mubarak. They won it February 11 . Egyptian protestors suffered from complaints of food price inflation, unemployment, and low wages; however, the protests have been portrayed as mainly political . The events of Tahrir Square have captured the hearts and imaginations of the Western people and international media. Egypt’s protests became purely about democracy and political freedom for most academics and news sources. There are, however, a few sources that have acknowledged the role of food prices, most notably NPR, reporting the ideas of New York University economics professor Nouriel Roubini .
Kenya
Protests in Kenya have been focused on commodity prices , particularly maize. The Kenyan government recently reduced the tax on fuel, but citizens are protesting the cuts were not large enough. Protestor Yash Pal Ghai, an expert in constitutional law, cited both prices and corruption as causal factors for the protests. Pal Ghai says that the irony and inappropriateness of luxury cars driven by politicians traveling to debate rising food prices is not lost on the starving Kenyan public. “It is amazing there has not been a rebellion by now” . Economists warn that if rising prices are not slowed soon, inflation will hit double digits .
Uganda
Like Kenya, Uganda has seen protests primarily over food and commodity prices . The media does not present the Ugandan protests as democratic, even though two opposing presidential candidates have been arrested. Instead, a news article details the increase in commodity prices, citing the fact that “staples such as soap, rice, and cooking oil have gone up by more than 40 percent since the beginning of the year” . Instead of highlighting the political nature of the protests, articles discussed “walk to work” protests, pushing back against rising fuel prices .
The 1970s Food Riots
In 1972, bad weather across the globe (harsh winters, droughts, typhoons, and changing ocean currents) drastically reduced production while population – and therefore demand – was soaring. The year’s harvest was 3% short of supplying demand and world reserves hit a twenty-two year low . Famine hit the globe. In Africa, Asia, and Latin America, an estimated ten thousand people died each week in 1974 .
People rioted around the globe. Violence and unrest ruled. Instead of organized protests demonstrating specifically against the government, most of the unrest occurred between people, physically fighting over resources to survive.
Conclusions
The way the international media portrays the recent events in Africa, protests in Kenya and Uganda seem more like the 1970s food riots than the movements in Tunisia and Egypt. That movements in the North African countries (those viewed by the West as “Arab” and belonging more to the Middle East than to Africa) were portrayed as pro-democracy and anti-corruption, while protests in sub-Saharan countries have been depicted and interpreted as unorganized complaints over food prices, which furthers the false dichotomy created by Westerners between the “Arab” and “African” worlds. The language further patronizes the abilities and agency of Africans. That the Tunisian and Egyptian protests have been titled the “Twitter Revolutions” gives credit to Western technologies for the spread of democracy rather than the Arab people themselves.
This is not to say that information technology has not played a large role in all of the movements. Proponents of IT aid to developing countries cheer at this demonstration of its power; cynics criticize Western media for crediting Western technologies with the spread of democracy rather than the African people themselves. Both positions are probably too extreme. The protestors themselves have repeatedly highlighted the important role of technology in organizing the activities and mobilizing support. Through increased access to mobile phones and media sources, people across Africa have been able to follow the events in Tunisia and Egypt. The fact that protestors in sub-Saharan Africa nickname their protests “Tahrir” indicates the inspiration seemingly successful movements have had. Websites have aided organizers in making their activities and demands public. But it is important to note that information technologies have played a facilitative, not originating, role in each of these movements. Facebook did not cause the unrest in Tunisia anymore than the English cannon caused the Hundred Years’ War.
There has traditionally been a division in Western understandings of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and those of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA): problems in MENA are governmental and military; SSA’s issues are about poverty and hunger. The dichotomy created by international media as they have portrayed the recent events further buys into this division. But food and water security are a massive problem in the Middle East and North Africa, and corruption and anti-democratic systems have tremendous negative effects on sub-Saharan Africa. By characterizing the MENA protests as about democracy and the SSA protests as about food and poverty, the international media has missed a potential opportunity to reverse this harmful dichotomy. The MENA protests could have been used as a chance to encourage international aid to focus on food security in the region and international organizations to help Africa develop stronger democratic systems. Instead, the media has taken the easy way out and continued furthering misconceptions and a harmful, patronizing dichotomy.
There is a great deal of similarity between the events in North and sub-Saharan Africa, much more than allowed by the international media. The way in which the protests have been reported is biased and problematic, furthering Western misconceptions about both regions. If there is one thing we should learn from the 2010-2011 uprisings, it is that the people of Africa – all of Africa – are ready to take on responsibility for their own lives. In fact, they demand it.
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