The re-posting of a few of my reflective articles in this November 2024 is motivated by several recent events of global importance that demands from Africa more leadership and less cheftainship. Events in Mozambique, where the youth is saying BASTA, events in Kenya where the youth also said BASTA. Events in West Africa, Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, that are talking the same language and reclaiming sovereignty, with or without the old guard. Far away, events in french New Caledonia, in New Zealand parliament, in Australian parliament on the reception of the King of the wealth that he considers common. Back in complex Africa: events in South Africa, (1) with anti-black racism expressed by blacks who have hijacked the role of the relevant Minsiter dealing with "illegal foreigners", (2) now the closure of spazzas under the pretext of food poisoning coming from there - there is suppressed proof that the poisoning comes from homes (watch who is waiting on the sidelines to take over the space violently vacated), (3) the exclusive white town, (4) the starving to death of the Zama-zamas desperately eeking out aliving in abandoned mines, and (5) the expulsion of people who are not born in Eastern Cape (in fact, people from Western Cape), meaning, once you have killed and chased away all foreigners, you will have nothing left but to now turn on your brother and neighhbour fo decades. A maelstrom that shows the dire need for leadership in Africa. To seize this global movement. The article
Note that I persistently avoid calling you, our Presidents, leaders. I look at you more (and mostly) as chiefs.
I already wrote you a letter[1]. Here is another one.
The first time I was hit by the massive contempt with which all Africans are held by the white world was the funeral of the last queen of England (and of the Commonwealth). The pomp and pageantry was the most important part of the worldwide broadcast of the whole ceremony, designed to show how great Great Britain still is. It also showed another uglier face: the BBC messaging insisting on the exclusion of one of the children of the queen, and the herd protocol reserved to African Presidents.
May I begin with the Commonwealth: I always wondered and I now belatedly understand how come the wealth is common. And how Africa continues to be bamboozled into thinking that it is good for us to pull our wealth together and call it common. But, I digress, to show that my disgust is compounded. We are treated as the global warehouse of resources. Hence the Common/wealth.
How the Presidents from Africa were treated without respect, as voiced by President Ruto of Kenya! Now I understand that this gentleman also talks from both sides of his mouth! Because, forgetting his talk to please the gallery, he went right ahead and repeatedly submitted to the same treatment: Africa-Italy summit, France-Africa summit, and now China-Africa summit. Some thirty heads of state rushing to meet one benevolent head of one state on the other side of the table. There was Japan-Africa, US-Africa, Russia-Africa, South Korea-Africa. Indonesia is also said to be preparing a similar summit serenade with the whole of Africa and as things stand, we will see more of these. Perhaps even Portugal-Africa!
Our Presidents are one or several of three things:
Ignorant of the fact that the protocol accorded to them is not for their being important as individuals, but because they represent an entire people of their country.
Tone-deaf to the voice of the youth that is revolted with the position of Africa in the concert of nations. The youth no longer recognizes the so-called “International Community” that dictates rules they themselves are exempt from observing. The peoples are tired of being in a subordinate international position. The order must and will change, to the peril of an old generation that is not getting the message.
Paralyzed by international bribes and threats from imagining a different configuration of the relations: while still satisfying generous invitations, manage to preserve a dignified protocol and ensure that individual country interests are still forcefully pursued. Lack of imagination, paralysis, or inferiority (or all three?)
There are several recent events that involve African Presidents which are simply flabbergasting. Not just the collective treatment of Presidents. I am for instance negatively surprised that the young President of Senegal, whom we hoped could join his voice to other calls for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Africa, is actually publicly begging for Europe to come and occupy the Sahel military space to help combat terrorism in West Africa. In the same West Africa from where French, American, German, European forces were forced to leave!
Did he hear what the French military establishment said: that they need to come back to Africa, not as France, but as Europe, and reestablish military presence, to strengthen African governance, prevent chaos and prevent migration northwards?. In other words, restore indirect governance, recolonize.
Did he hear the French strategy of positioning themselves in a manner that “we make ourselves invited”?
Does he feel the pain of the Senegalese fishermen who are getting, in Senegalese territorial waters, the shorter end of the fishing deal with the EU?
Does he follow statements from Blackwater mercenaries’ chief on the need to recolonize Africa?
Our leaders ought to remember, and see through decisions taken by their peers, that the white man is just looking for Trojan horses, and these they will find among African Presidents willing to bid for foreign military adventures that will cost us a lot of blood and human lives, and with it, our dignity.
Do African leaders realize that the African youth has long understood that “our king is naked”?
Do they see the contradiction of an ECOWAS summit where they promptly admit as observers more European and other Caucasian representatives, while they ostracize their brothers Niger, Burkina, and Mali?
Do they see how white the African Union Summit is, where France, the EU, America, and other Caucasian representations at war in Ukraine sit pretty, while the same AU ostracizes brothers such as Sudan, Mali, Burkina, and Niger?
Does the AU realize that what is happening in these three West African countries will determine the future of sovereignty in Africa?
By extension of thought: Is the AU actually relevant to Africa in its present construct?
Back to our summit invitations. If I were the President of Mozambique would I dare be absent? You would ask (do not come after me, because I absolutely have no wish, nor energy for political ambition). I would say: put the question differently: would Mozambique be absent? Put this way, the question accomplishes two things: (a) to clearly demystify me as President and remove any tendencies of a suzerain behaviour, answering to no one and (b) to make me avoid the impulse to go anyway. Mozambique would be represented. But not necessarily by me. And if I were to be present, I would prefer to be part of a smaller representative group, in such a manner that every country could participate, but not at the Presidential level. And how would I achieve that?
I would first discuss collective representation through SADC and AU on overarching regional issues. Then I would consult my neighbouring countries on which President would insist on going. The option I would put on the table to my peers would be: one AU representative, the SADC, ECOWAS, ECCAS, EAC and IGAD Presidents, so there should be no more than eight Presidents and still honour the invitation. I would then insist that Mozambique be represented by my Prime Minister, let the gentleman do some legwork. If all five or six African regions did so, no less than ten Presidents would still honour Mr. Ping. After all, Mozambique is no China clearly, and despite the 21-gun salute I and Ping deserve, that does not make us equal. All that makes us equal is the fact that we represent our respective peoples. There the similarities end.
Definitely, my people deserve that I insist on reciprocity of treatment as a diplomatic principle. I can always visit China on a bilateral initiative.
These lopsided major events demonstrate repeatedly that we have a cemented mental limitation. China has an African strategy. Does any African country have a China strategy? Does Mozambique have a strategy for China, America, for the EU, for France, for Rwanda, for any country partner that is active in our country, or we are just waiting to read their strategies on us (if at all we look for them to read)? Put it differently: what is the remit of our diplomatic representations abroad? Perfunctory, or assigned a specific task of helping define a national strategy on that country? I am sure part of the China Africa strategy has a chapter on Mozambique. Perhaps we are too diverse and dysfunctional because we are overwhelmed by foreign interests forcing themselves on our priorities to be a united front or think continental. But these many questions should begin to shape policy.
It is time we conducted international relations more in consultation, and insist on reciprocity of treatment, respect and mutual benefit. Our peoples expect and will get that reciprocity, with us leaders, or despite us. Seven centuries of mental limitations of a slave who became free is enough. That is what the youth said in Kenya, in Nigeria, and will be saying so soon somewhere else in Africa. They have shown that the youth can do what they mean, what they say, as they dramatically did what they said in Burkina, Mali, and Niger.
Finally, two small notes:
Nothing wrong on the way our Presidents were treated in China recently, or ever. There is something wrong just on the way we organize ourselves to respond to the invitation. Clearly we do not at all organize ourselves. We are aware that big power competition is and will continue to be played in Africa. We are still treated with more respect by China than by any other big partner.
Remember the recent visit by Vice-President of the USA, Kamala Harris to Zambia? The arrogant and at the same time ridiculous figure she presented to us: she landed on a Chinese rehabilitated airport, drove on a China-built road and met government officials in a China-built conference hall, to tell Zambia, possibly through Chinese sound systems, not to cooperate with China. How much more off the mark and illiterate can one be? And why somebody else's enemy should be my enemy? (good old Nelson Mandela).
Canhandula
Tete, 19 September 2024
[1] https://www.canhandulatete.com/post/open-letter-to-our-Presidents-meeting-at-the-au-summit-this-week
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