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You’re No
Muhammad Ali…
Since the election of President-elect Barack Obama on 4 November 2008, I have been
speaking to Senegalese, Nigerians, Cameroonians, Gabonese and Southafricans in
Tuscany in order to canvass their responses to this out-of-the-ordinary occurrence
which has transformed the political atmosphere of the DUS. Most of the
individuals with whom I have conversed are, naturally, pleased that an
Afroamerican is president. Nevertheless, there does not exist any exceptional
fervour for BO whom they regard as a wait and see entity who really still has to
explain to us just what he is all about. One Nigerian commented so: “Listen,
Obama isn’t even 100% black! He’s a mix of white and black ancestry!” What do
Africans think about whites? “Cautious optimism,” obviously! Let it be said that
if the DUS’s State Department and Central Stupidity Agency were banking on BO to
haul in lots of African fifs (funny inside feelings) for the good of “democracy”
and dog-eat-dog capitalism, they had better go back to their global drawing boards
and start from scratch.
Africa, with its 61 territories and 53 countries and 1,000,000,000 people, covers
20% of the Earth’s total land area. It is of keen interest to industrial and
developing countries bent on making use of Africa’s gold, timber, palm oil,
minerals, cocoa, oil, cotton and other natural resources which have always been
sought-after commodities. Arab nationalists and European imperial powers in days
gone by ravaged the enormous landmass of much of its reserves. In fact, before
colonialism Africa, the oldest inhabited territory on Earth and the most polyglot,
possessed 90% of the world’s gold. The atrocious Arab and Atlantic slave trade
that is said to have imprisoned perhaps up to 50,000,000 Africans, remains fixed
indelibly in the hearts and minds of the African people. Today, the place which
is said to be the origin of the human species, is the poorest continent on Earth.
(What do we mean by poor?)
For all of us, Africa’s times gone by have been non-edifying—to say the least.
During its colonial times, it was hacked up into myriad portions at the whim of,
principally, the Belgians, British, French, Germans, Dutch, Italians, Portuguese
and Spanish. Cruelty and carnage were the order of the day. European cultural,
economic and political powers wielded heavy-handedly, arbitrarily and
disproportionately. Africans had little to say concerning their destinies.
Besides enduring tropical diseases, slave trade, corrupt European governments,
botched central planning, international trade regimes, despotism and illiteracy,
they also had to contend with their own quandaries of superstition and tribal and
military conflicts which stunted any hope the Africans possessed. Worse—for the
most part a pastoral people—they were forced to subscribe to the agricultural
techniques of their European marauders who even sometimes performed upon them
quasi-scientific eugenic experiments and employed techniques of social engineering
to compel Africans to submit to the customs and values of their often bloodthirsty
trespassers. The partition of Africa by colonial and imperialist nations today is
the inherent cause of much of the civil wars and tribal clashes that continue to
rage wrathfully often fuelled by those arms sold to African political factions by
the same states that at the start hewed Africa into territorial chunks!
The African people—as did others around the world who had been duped by the
Harvard and Chicago Boys—reacted ferociously when they comprehended that the
radical economic policies foisted upon their often corrupt leaders were, in fact,
greedy attempts to force feed them Western economic, political and cultural ideas
and mores. A bitter taste was left to savour, and Africa’s plight, by now
burdened even more by the AIDS virus rampant throughout its land, appeared dimmer
than it did before. These days, Africans think twice and thrice before jumping on
the financial bandwagons of slick university professors, their prodigies, and
bankers and financial counsellors representing those countries which, often
before, set about exploiting their material goods and dignity. In fact,
continent-wide unification organizations are taking root ever slowly but surely.
Africans are wary of others, understandably, but with the exception of one country
that has stood above the fray…
China. If Africa is the grandest developing continent with the largest number of
countries, China is the hugest developing country. Sino-African similarities do
not terminate there. In 200 BC, the Han Dynasty had contacts with China. Trade
and commerce between them is not something new-fangled. Africa and China, “the
two birthplaces of mankind,” both have been beset by colonial aggression, and they
have engaged in battles against imperialism and exploitation by a stronger country
of a weaker one throughout their histories. They have also brawled for national
liberation—freedom from the fetters of foreign oppression.
Especially after 1989 China, too, drew more diligently nearer to Africa searching
for those natural resources needed to sustain its turbo economy, a strategy
wittingly adopted to nourish the West’s addiction to the theory that an increasing
consumption of goods is economically beneficial—that presumption which is now
debilitating and throwing into disarray most Occidental industrial nations. China
approached Africa on a new footing. It pressed the notion of co-development
between the two nations. Both of them are attempting to construct what is called
“a new kind of equality and mutual support” said to be unparalleled in the history
of international relations. China has encouraged Africa to find its own way, make
its own choices, and follow the path considered best in the interest of its own
populaces. China refuses to palm off any newly-conceived “political model” or one
such as the supercilious Western countries’ Judeo-Christian capitalist democracy—a
course of action which predisposed many African countries to humiliation after the
fall of the Berlin Wall.
What is unique about this pact is that it is not based on any “historically
accumulated rancour” which normally stultifies any concordat reached with an
African nation say by France or England or any of the other states which traipsed
through Africa to purely manipulate it. China and Africa have no chronicles of
bloody battles to have to sublimate. They are beginning with a clean slate. They
have no grave motivations to have misgivings about one or the other. This
atmosphere of cooperation is akin to some all-directional independent diplomacy.
The Chinese and Africans are disgruntled with the old Western colonial regimes,
and are determined to seek an honourable and evenly balanced international order
among all peoples. They realize that bipolar politics (Soviet Union-DisUnited
States) belongs to the Past. We live in an age of multi-polarization, and even if
there exists one “superpower”—for now!—there are also several big powers occupying
the international stage and with which the DUS must now deal with in a more
unassuming, open-minded and studied manner. Let us hope.
The point here is that China, with all the disadvantages of language and culture
that it possesses when transacting politics and business in Africa, has stated
that it is pursuing a policy of peaceful neutrality and nonalignment while
strictly respecting the sovereignty of all African nations. Equality, mutual
benefit, the relief of the burden of poor countries, and peaceful coexistence are
the order of the day, and it only remains for us to see whether these standards
will be adhered to vigorously enough or buried forever beneath the Babylonian
Weeping Willow of political rhetoric.
Onto this mesmerizing African mainland will be plonked one day the President-elect
of the DisUnited States of America, Barack Obama, who will become president on
Inauguration Day 20 January 2009. BO will be lugging three dirty laundry bags
with him when his Air Force One lands on the world’s most underprivileged
continent:
The Democratic Party. As much as BO thinks his party is the most democratic and
viable political force in the DUS, it is not. There is not one. If we go back in
modern history, it is easy to assess that the demerits of this cluster are rather
extensive. Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt steered the DUS out of the 1929
Depression. He manoeuvred the country through World War II, and some say he was a
cause of that conflict. Harry S Truman dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, and he
did not seal, by doing so, any harmony of mutual respect between the DUS and The
Rising Sun for the years that went after his tenure. HST’s diplomatic blunders
also included the Korean War. Democrats John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson piloted
the DUS out of the 1962 recession and escalated the Vietnam “War.” Democrat
William Clinton baulked on sending troops to quell the slaughter between the Hutus
and Tutsis—an act that surely would have won for him the admiration of most
African people. Will Democrat Barack Obama be harked back to for his leadership
efforts during World War III/Universal War I?
The Democratic Party’s political machine in Chicago is well-known for its
opinionated shenanigans and sleaze, and it is the mechanism that pushed JFK over
the finish line when he was elected president. Big money is the talk of the town
among Democratic Party officials as it is with their opposition, the Republican
Party.
BO is a product of the Chicagoans’ politics and served on the faculty of the
University of Chicago.
When all is said and done, even if BO is the pristine pure Democrat he claims to
be, most Africans are going to look askance at this proud Democrat—if only for his
party’s Past.
Yes, we can join hand in hand with China to help Africa lift itself out of abject
poverty! Yes, we can join nations from all over the world and build more
hospitals and schools for the African people! Yes, we can demonstrate to the
world that the DUS is not keen on only imposing its resolve upon the people of the
Dark Continent! Yes, we can start off on an accurate foothold this time and seek
fairness and parity for all African people! Yes, we can stop selling arms to
African nations! Yes, we can! Alleluia! Alleluia!! Alleluia!!!
R E M A R K S
The Truth-o-Meter
Where did the financial funding for your effort come from?
Each and every receipt.
Thank you.
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