When Edomite(White) Financial Institutions Impoverish the Children of Israel (Jacob): Fifty Years of Failure: The IMF, Debt and Austerity in Africa

 

AS THE IMF / WORLD BANK MEETINGS TAKE PLACE IN MARRAKECH,

ALL ACTIONAID COUNTRY DIRECTORS IN AFRICA CALL FOR AN END TO DEBT DISTRESS AND

AUSTERITY

https://actionaid.org/sites/default/files/publications/African%20CDs%20-%20a%20political%20statement%20for%20Marrakech%20-%2011%20OCT.pdf   

Fifty Years of Failure: The IMF, Debt and Austerity in Africa

https://actionaid.org/publications/2023/fifty-years-failure-imf-debt-and-austerity-africa  

 6 October 2023

 

ActionAid’s report ‘Fifty Years of Failure: the IMF, Debt and Austerity in Africa’ is based on new research and powerful personal testimonies from across 10 African countries. It is timed to coincide with the first IMF / World Bank Annual meeting to be held in Africa for 50 years. The report documents how the IMF imposes austerity policies, undermining health, education and wider development across the continent. Rather than seek systemic solutions to the mounting debt crisis in Africa, and rather than exploring obvious alternatives such as progressive tax reforms, the IMF continues to enforce cuts to public spending that hurt women and disadvantaged groups most acutely.

 

This new research covers Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. And shows that 8 out of 10 countries have recently been advised to cut or freeze public sector wage bills. Indeed ,all ten countries were effectively advised by the IMF to target spending on public sector wage bills that would leave them spending under the global average on frontline workers in health, education and other sectors. This has resulted in recruitment freezes, even in countries with acute shortages of teachers and health workers, salary freezes despite rising living costs, and even the firing of frontline workers in some countries. Women have been most affected as they make up the majority of frontline public sector workers and tend to be on the most vulnerable employment contracts.

Despite following the IMF’s advice for decades, 19 of Africa’s 35 low-income countries are in debt distress or facing a high risk of debt distress.  Most countries are now facing an acute cost of living crisis and rising debts, largely owing to external factors such as Covid, the war in Ukraine and rising global interest rates, over which they have had no control.  The amount African governments are forced to spend on interest payments is often higher than spending on either education or health. Yet there is no serious effort being made to find a systemic solution to the debt crisis. Countries have to negotiate on a one-by-one basis as if the fault is all theirs and the people who end up paying the price tend to be those who have the least.

 

In Fifty Years of Failure ActionAid shows that there are clear alternatives for transforming the public finances of countries across Africa, especially through ambitious and progressive tax reforms that target the wealthiest individuals and companies. The IMF’s own staff analysis suggests that the best way to finance the Sustainable Development Goals would be for countries to increase their tax to GDP ratios by five percentage points. However, the IMF never offer this advice in practice at country level and instead advise austerity policies, cutting public spending rather than raising more revenue. When the IMF do offer advice on taxes it is usually to recommend regressive taxes that place the burden on those least able to pay.

Matters are made worse by the fact that African countries still have very little say in decision-making in the World Bank and the IMF with less than 10% vote share in the IMF board - and the 46 countries in sub-Saharan Africa are represented by only two executive directors. Indeed, the fundamental voting structure at the IMF dates back to before most African countries were independent.

This report builds on a cycle of previous reports including Who Cares for the Future(2020), The Pandemic and the Public Sector (2020), The Public Versus Austerity (2021) and The Care Contradiction - The IMF, Gender and Austerity (2022). Each of these provided compelling evidence of the need for the IMF and African governments to change course and as the IMF meetings happen on African spoil for the first time in fifty years, now must be the time for action.

In the light of this new evidence, the report calls for action from the IMF and from African governments:

• We call for the IMF to definitively move away from the failed neoliberal economic model and stop imposing austerity policies and constraints to public sector wage bills. Instead, the IMF should support debt cancellation and ambitious and progressive tax reforms nationally and internationally
• We call for African governments to coordinate collectively for a resolution to debt crises, based on radical renegotiation or debt cancellation, including through advancing this case in climate negotiations. It is time for African governments to pursue alternative economic paths that place quality public services, social and economic justice at the heart of building sustainable and truly sovereign states.

GOD IS BLACK: THE VERSE ABOUT THE COLOR OF GOD THAT WHITE EDOMITES DO NOT WANT YOU TO KNOW

 

And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald.(Revelations 4:3)

 

And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald. .(Revelations 4:3)

 

 

And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald. .(Revelations 4:3)

 

 

And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald. .(Revelations 4:3)

When white Edomites pretend to refute the blackness of Jesus by ignoring all the scriptures that state categorically that Jesus was Black man

 

¹⁴ His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; ¹⁵ And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.(Revelations 1:14-15)

 

 

 

⁶ His body also was like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like in colour to polished brass, and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude.(Daniel 10:6)

 

 

¹⁴ His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; ¹⁵ And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.(Revelations 1:14-15)

 

 

⁶ His body also was like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like in colour to polished brass, and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude.(Daniel 10:6)

 

First, it is important to remember that the Bible nowhere gives a physical description of Jesus. The Bible does not say anything about Jesus’ height, weight, skin color, hair color, or eye color(https://www.gotquestions.org/was-Jesus-white.html).

 

Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

MUST READ:

GOD IS BLACK: THE VERSE ABOUT THE COLOR OF GOD THAT WHITE EDOMITES DO NOT WANT YOU TO KNOW

https://watchmanafrica.blogspot.com/2025/02/god-is-black-verse-about-color-of-god.html  

 

Africa Wake Up! You're God's Chosen People: Bible & Real Jews

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6QXTYNbmDw 

The Bible is indeed black History: Bible verses that show that God is black and Black people are the true biological Israelites: The white man and the devil do not want you to Know these scriptures

https://watchmanafrica.blogspot.com/2024/05/the-bible-is-indeed-black-history-bible.html  

 

History of the origin of the white race called Edomites

https://watchmanafrica.blogspot.com/2025/02/history-of-origin-of-white-race-called.html 

 

… the Bible does mention black people, although the Bible does not explicitly identify any person as being black-skinned.( https://www.gotquestions.org/black-people-Bible.html )

 

My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with heat.(Job 30:30)

 

There you go. Job was Black

 

For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt; I am black; astonishment hath taken hold on me.(Jeremiah 8:21)

 

 

Judah mourneth, and the gates thereof languish; they are black unto the ground; and the cry of Jerusalem is gone up.(Jeremiah 14:2)

 

Our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible famine.(Lamentations 5:10)

Was Jesus black?

https://www.gotquestions.org/was-Jesus-black.html  

 

 There are some groups, usually affiliated with some form of the “Black Hebrew” movement, who vehemently argue that Jesus was black/African in skin color/appearance. While this goes directly against the fact that the Bible declares Jesus’ Jewishness, meaning He likely had light to dark brown skin, ultimately, the discussion/argument misses the point. Does it really matter that we know the color of Jesus’ skin—whether He was black, yellow, brown, or white? Though this may be a controversial issue for some, the truth is that we simply don’t know what the color of Jesus’ skin was. While there are countless references to Jesus being Jewish as that was His heritage, the Bible provides little, if any, description of what Jesus might have looked like.

 It is the prophet Isaiah who gives us the best description of the physical appearance of Jesus: “He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him” (Isaiah 53:2). If Jesus’ skin color and complexion were important, then God would have told us about them. Furthermore, to presume that Jesus is of one color or another is to speculate on information not found in Scripture. Such conjecture is useless and can lead to unprofitable quarrels (1 Timothy 1:4; Titus 3:9). The point is that it does not matter in the whole scheme of redemption what color of skin Jesus had (Ephesians 1:7; Colossians 1:14).

So, what should we concern ourselves with when it comes to Jesus? Peter tells us, “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness” (2 Peter 1:3). In other words, Christ has called us to a life of glory and moral excellence, both here on this earth and in heaven. We are to live pure and righteous lives for His glory. The message of this passage is clear: it is His glory and goodness that attract man to seek life and godliness in Him. It has absolutely nothing to do with the way He looks or the color of His skin.

Peter also tells us that God “does not show favoritism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right” (Acts 10:34–35). When Jesus calls for us to go into all the world and teach the gospel (Matthew 28:18–20), He is telling us that there are no cultural or racial barriers, that we are all one in Christ Jesus. Paul echoes this in his letter to the churches in Galatia: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). The color of our Savior’s skin has no bearing on our sharing the gospel. Nor should our neighbor’s skin color have any bearing on our imparting the gospel message to him (Romans 1:16). The apostles of the first-century church adapted to the cultures of the foreign countries, but they never did so at the cost of their fidelity to the law of Christ (1 Corinthians 9:19–23).

Paul may have changed his method of teaching whenever he entered a new culture or foreign land, but he never changed his message. He kept preaching the same things he had always taught, regardless of the color of his listeners’ skin. What mattered was that they received the good news of Christ. The truth is that the message of the gospel of Christ worked then and the gospel still works today! It still reaches into the hearts of those who yearn to know God, whether they are black, white, yellow, or brown. It’s not the color of Jesus’ skin or the color of our neighbor’s skin that matters in our eternal destiny. But what does is that “salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

 

Was Jesus white?

https://www.gotquestions.org/was-Jesus-white.html 

In much of Western art, Jesus is portrayed as having white skin and light hair. Is that what Jesus really looked like? If not, why is He so often portrayed that way?

First, it is important to remember that the Bible nowhere gives a physical description of Jesus. The Bible does not say anything about Jesus’ height, weight, skin color, hair color, or eye color. Such things are not important to understanding who Jesus is. The closest the Bible comes to describing what Jesus looked like is a non-detailed sketch of what Jesus was not like in Isaiah 53:2: “He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him” (ESV). Essentially, Isaiah 53:2 is saying that Jesus was ordinary-looking. The description of the glorified Jesus having white hair and bronze skin in Revelation 1:14–15 should not be understood literally unless you also believe Jesus has seven stars in his right hand, a sword in His mouth, and a face as bright as the sun (Revelation 1:16).

According to the Bible, Jesus was a Jew, a.k.a., a Hebrew or Israelite. Jesus lived in the Middle East and was of Semitic descent. As a result, He very likely would have had light- to medium-brown skin, brown eyes, and dark-brown to black hair. While Middle Easterners occasionally have light skin, comparable to that of Europeans, such skin tones are rare in that part of the world. Was Jesus white? The answer is that He was very likely not white.

So, if Jesus likely was not white, why is He so often portrayed that way? If you examine artists’ portrayals of Jesus from around the world, you find that they often portray Jesus in a way similar to what people look like in that particular culture. Europeans portray Jesus as a European. Africans paint Jesus as an African. Asians illustrate Jesus in a way that makes Him look Asian. People prefer to picture Jesus as looking somewhat like them, or at least like people they are familiar with.

Is it wrong to do this? Not necessarily. As long as we do not allow our preferred image of Jesus to become an idol, there is nothing in the Bible that speaks against imagining Jesus looking a certain way. Jesus is the Savior for “all nations” (Matthew 28:19; Galatians 3:8). No matter a person’s skin color, race, ethnicity, or nationality, he or she can experience forgiveness of sin and reconciliation with God through the crucified and risen Christ. The love of Jesus transcends skin color. Having no physical description of Jesus, people naturally imagine the Son of Man to be like themselves.

So, we should not be dogmatic in our preferred image of Jesus. The fact that the Bible nowhere gives a physical description should serve as a caution against arrogance and presumption on this subject. What Jesus looked like does not really matter. His physical appearance has absolutely nothing to do with His being the Savior of the world (John 3:16).