Yonela Mlambo – Siphenathi Khunyana
University of Cape Town – SOUTH AFRICA
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Siwaphiwe Potelwa
University of Western Cape – SOUTH AFRICA

This is an analysis paper of post-COVID-19 impact on African political economy and is indebted to the conversation the author had with Siphenathi Khunyana, and Siwaphiwe Potelwa in our self-isolation at Primavera, Brackenfell, Cape Town in South Africa during the Lockdown period.

COVID-19 manifestation is a predicament to postmodernists and furthermore a call for them [postmodernists] to be critical in their approach. Postmodernists diachronic approach and appraisal of how modernism assaulted its subjects through the denial of their ontologies, makes it reach its limitations.

For modernists to deny the Othered subjects their ontologies for not embracing their telos, qua universal ontologies, in one way or another, engendered and at the same time rendered postmodernists to be critical not in their approach in their quest to rehumanize their subjects. For instance, there are certain animals in the world, regardless of religious reasons, are considered to be wild animals because they have deemed them
undesirable to be domesticated and to be eaten, be it for health reasons, hazard or other reasons. However, guided by a particular logic, if a certain ethnic group and/or race, for reasons peculiar to them, decide out of their own volition to domesticate and eat particular wild animal/s, postmodernists would defend such ethnic group from being condemned for eating that particular wild animal claiming its their ontology. Postmodernists need to be critical in their approach and begin to encourage their subjects to also be critical to avoid the outbreaks of pandemic emanating from eating certain wild animals deemed not desirable to be eaten, be it for either health reasons or any other hazard they might pose for human consumption.

History informs us that the world has witnessed many pandemics emerging from certain animals and the turbulence they caused to world economy and this nullifi es any disconcerting attempts to ascribe CoVID- 19 to any particular nation and/or race. Nevertheless, here in this paper we are not going to be diachronic like postmodernists, rather- we delve in our analysis of post CoVID-19 pandemic impact on African economy and by and large to her people.

Many people are losing their lives in particular in Italy, China and United States of America and that is going to have grave and dire effects to their economies and the world at large and
that is going to necessitate a salient need for cheap human capital for economic recovery. China has relatively recently ensued their brain drain endeavors and/or plunder of Africa through employing African graduates and because of high unemployment rate in Africa, China brain drain has been embraced by the young African graduates. Nonetheless, China might defend itself that it offers bursaries to young Africans albeit such gesture by China can be said to be mutatis mutandis. The less is said about the Europe brain drain history of Africa, more time is saved and the quicker we reach our argument; post CoVID-19 impact on Africa political economy.

Given CoVID-19 phenomenon and many people losing their lives in Italy and elsewhere pandemic is prevalent, these countries will need human capital for the sustainability of their economies. Nevertheless, they might face obstacles in sustaining their economies and such obstacles will emanate from the phenomenon that CoVID-19 pandemic claimed many lives notwithstanding that the virus mostly claimed old people.

For China, Italy and other countries where CoVID-19 pandemic claimed many lives, Africa with cheap human capital would be a preferred continent to get labor for the sustainability of their economies. Nevertheless, one might argue that the populations worse affected are the senior citizens therefore assertions that these mostly affected countries won’t be shaken, thus the previous point is to be discarded. However, during this pandemic the normal economic activities are interrupted because of the lockdown, then the business sectors will target low income countries’ human capital to maximize their profi ts. With high unemployment rates in Africa, such plunder of its human capital by China, Italy and other countries, worst affected by CoVID-19, such human capital plunder would be met with no resistance by the populace.

Prior to putting the pen to rest, it is worthy to highlight CoVID-19, in one way or another, can be comparable to a “non sequitur” to the raising populist anti-immigrants’ wave in certain European countries and elsewhere in the world. This is because for world economic recovery economic nationalism, we have witnessed advocated by the President of the United States
of America, and the uneven international system, needs to be respectively waived and marginalized by the world leaders and the private sector, and simultaneously level the uneven
international system.