OPINION-EAST AFRICAN-NAIROBI-KENYA
Monday, February 17, 2003
BY MAKWAIA KUHENGA
As the World Speaks Out, Why is Africa Silent?
In the old days, Tanzania was often referred to as the "moral conscience" of Africa. Is it still so today?
Likewise. whenever the Americans or the British were up to some mischief somewhere on the continent or outside it, one used to hear or read about demonstrations and protests around Africa and the rest of the Third World. But there is dead silence on the continent these days. Why?
One remembers a dramatic incident in the 1980s when Benjamin Mkapa, then Tanzania�s foreign minister, received his French counterpart M de Gauringaud on an official visit. At the airport, the French minister was met by a militant crowd of students waving placards demanding a halt to French sales of arms to apartheid South Africa.
Furious, at this type of hospitality, the Frenchman there and then demanded an apology from his host. Replied Mr Mkapa: �No, Mr Minister. What you see is only normal in your country, isn�t it?�
But the French minister still pushed for a formal expression of "regret," threatening to call off his trip if it were not forthcoming. He was told bluntly: "Your demand, M le Ministre, is absolutely unacceptable..."
The Tanzanians subsequently wished him bon voyage, reminding the French minister that Tanzania was not another Gabon or Ivory Coast. A source has since confided to me that then President Julius Nyerere told his foreign minister: "Well done! Your stance has just saved your job!"
There are many such instances of courageous acts of self-dignity from the Tanzanians and, I believe, a number of post-independent African states. Kwame Nkrumah�s Ghana, Sekou Toure�s Guinea, Patrice Lumumba�s Congo and Gamal Abdel Nasser�s Egypt have all written proud pages in the book of Africa�s Uhuru.
What pages are we turning today?
Here we have George W. Bush, the President of the United States of America. In a policy statement he has publicly named Iraq, Iran and the Democratic Republic of Korea as an "axis of evil". He has made no secret of the fact that he wants to overthrow their governments. For Iraq, he has gone public to the effect that he wouldn�t mind if its president, Saddam Husssein, were assassinated. In other words, a president of a sovereign country has announced his wish to see the death the president of another sovereign state, a fellow member of the UN!
At this hour, Anglo-American armies are poised to invade Iraq � it is just a matter of time now. Bush has indicated clearly that even without the authorisation of the UN, he is ready to attack Iraq unilaterally. These are acts of brinkmanship and piracy not witnessed since the days of Adolf Hitler.
But what is even more stunning in the face of this scenario is the indifference and business-as-usual attitude of most of Africa or the Third World for that matter. Most governments are silent and if at all they have the temerity to stand up to the rampaging Goliath they confine themselves to timid statements expressing concern about "economies" being adversely affected in the event the Americans and British attack Iraq.
A statement along these lines was issued by the African Union from Addis Ababa.
The "moral conscience" of Africa, Dar es Salaam, was nowhere to be heard, in the vocal way people had become used to in the past. Only 10 years ago, in the heat of the Gulf War, when the same forces attacked Iraq, it was the late Mwalimu Nyerere as a person, and not the Tanzanian government, who spoke out strongly against the war.
Only Nelson Mandela, the founding president of the New South Africa, has done Africa proud; he did not mince his words in describing the president of the sole superpower as a man "unable to think properly" and indeed unconscious of the onerous responsibility his nation has been bestowed in the 21st century.
The question, therefore, is: Why are African governments and Third World governments in general unable to question, or even to grumble politely, in the face of such outright thuggish behaviour?
It is my considered view that Africa and most of the Third World are suffering from an illness which can be diagnosed as Aid Dependency Syndrome. The constituencies of our politicians and leaders these days are no longer the people who elected them to office. It is the "donor" community. The speeches of ministers, prime ministers and presidents are invariably tailored to suit the taste of "donors" in Europe and America.
Even where the audience is Kenyan or Tanzanian, where Kiswahili is a language understood by most people, our leaders choose to speak in English.
At a seminar in Dar es Salaam to discuss politics and religion in Tanzania, the participants, who included sheikhs and pastors, were obliged to speak in English on issues affecting the country. When I asked one of the organisers why, I was told that an ambassador of a European country that had funded the seminar was in the audience!
"Was it not possible to find a translator for him?" I asked. I got no satisfactory response.
So, states that in the past were described as imperialist have become our "donors" and "development partners" in an unequal world trade system where our products are bought cheap and resold to us dear by those more economically powerful, the whole thing being rationalised as "globalisation." What is worse, our best minds are going about trying to formulate a beast called "globalisation with a human face."
Under the circumstances, with the aid dependency disease raging, it is not difficult to see why the majority of our leaders are issuing statements urging our "donors" to use "moderation" against that "outlaw" (Saddam), not well argued, strongly worded statements calling people like Bush exactly what they are, as Mandela did the other day.
But what about ordinary Africans? Across the world, from Europe to Asia, from Honduras to the Philippines, from Washington to Rome to Seoul to Jakarta, ordinary people are demonstrating against the coming apocalypse; 10 million turned out last Saturday!
Our leaders are not even able to mobilise the youth wings of our "Westminster-style" political parties to demonstrate against Bush the Bully and then tell the donors: "Please bear with us. As in your own countries, we have these hotheads in our parties..."
Makwaia wa Kuhenga runs a Dar es Salaam TV talk-show Je, Tutafika? (Will We Make It?)
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