By Munashe Masiyiwa
A radical and urgent forum for reconsidering extractivism, justice, and African sovereignty was brought together by the People’s Dialogue. One thing is evident from this meeting: the so-called green transition’s current course runs the risk of turning into a transformation for capital rather than for people.
The realities on the ground are uncannily like the rhetoric of sustainability that dominates global headlines: the ongoing super-involvement of capital in determining national resource agendas, state subsidies for multinational corporations, and the marginalization of working-class and community voices. “We do not mine to meet social need but to satisfy private greed,” as one comrade correctly stated.
A major issue brought up throughout the Dialogue was the way big finance-dominated transition narratives are ignoring affordability, a fundamental leftist value. While our lands are being targeted for resource extraction to power that very transformation, the so-called clean energy future from solar panels to electric vehicles is becoming unaffordable for most of the global south.
In contrast to Africa’s primarily export-focused critical mineral policy, the Mexican example of nationalizing lithium was highlighted as a potent declaration of resource sovereignty. It emphasizes how urgent it is for African nations to regain control and value addition—not just as a development tactic, but also as a decolonization act.
The author, second from left (in spectacles), together with social justice activists at the People’s Dialogue
The Polluter Pays Principle was also contested by participants, who pointed out how businesses take use of legal loopholes, underreport emissions, and transfer environmental costs to communities while continuing to receive tax incentives, inexpensive energy, and land. This discrepancy reveals the institutional impunity that characterizes a large portion of the extractives industry.
The necessity of putting labor at the center of the transition was highlighted by key insights from the Workers’ Inquiry and movement-building talks. These included the following questions: What does a just transition look like for future generations, women in impacted areas, informal merchants, and mine workers?
As the People’s Dialogue moves forward, the call is to build and strengthen the movement. This includes extending the People’s Dialogue’s name and mission to represent its anti-imperialist and Pan-African goals better; aiming higher for the people we converse with, challenging authority rather than merely talking among ourselves.
Above all, additional places for in-depth political education should be established so that workers, communities, and young people can collaborate on ideas, questions, and planning.
We cannot outsource the future for which we fight. The populace itself must envision, construct, and defend it.