China: Africa's newest baby sitter By Timothy Kalyegira (email the author) Posted Sunday, September 2 2012 at 00:00 IN SUMMARY
A Chinese TV series on the large infrastructure projects in Africa reveals the embarrassing backwardness of Africa. For a week, starting Monday August 27, China's state-run CCTV English news channel had been broadcasting a series titled "Brothers: Hand in Hand with Africa" on their Storyboard documentary programme. The series documented the various projects the Chinese government and various Chinese companies are carrying out across Africa, from roads in Kenya to mobile phone infrastructure in Ethiopia, schools in Ghana, water treatment facilities in Cameroon, stadiums in Angola, government buildings in Uganda and on and on, at all levels of heavy infrastructure. What was most fascinating about the series was how it revealed what China thinks and is experiencing about Africa. We are used by now to seeing most products around us "Made in China". But how do the Chinese themselves view the Africa they are increasingly dominating? Through the eyes and lenses of CCTV, the viewer was able to see a continent that has either not yet developed or if it once was developed, later regressed back into primitive and impoverished conditions. To us, modern houses with tiled roofs in the cities and major towns, traffic jams in the cities, flashy cars on our streets, Africans walking about with mobile phones, wearing jeans and suits, with flat screen TV sets in our homes and satellite dishes on the roof is what we largely define as "success". The Chinese are not impressed by our TVs and smart phones, most of which anyway are manufactured in Chinese factories. They estimate Africa as a continent that is not yet part of the world economy. Africa just a jungle? To the Chinese, Africa is a continent that is next to being a jungle. The few nice houses in Westlands in Nairobi, Bole Road in Addis Ababa or Muyenga in Kampala are not enough to make these cities modern or a sign of "Africa rising". To the Chinese, Uganda and Rwanda are the same; Ghana and Gambia, Kenya and Somalia, Angola and Chad, Ethiopia and Libya, Gabon and South Africa all the same, none an "emerging economy" or a star performer. All are in need of Chinese help. The Chinese are building Africa almost from scratch, from highways to mobile phone networks, water purification plants and sports stadiums, airports and government offices. Everything an African government is supposed to do, the Chinese government is doing on our behalf in Africa. The West used to be the provider of loans and technical advice to Africa. Now China has become the latest baby sitter of Africa, spoon-feeding the helpless African people and nations, changing their diapers, washing their baby bottles and bathing them. The series reminded one of the Black and White photos and wood etchings of 19th Century explorers and missionaries making their way for the first time into Africa, cutting their way through malaria and River Blindness-infested Mangrove swamps and tropical jungles. Africa, as seen through China's eyes, lives in conditions of the 1920s. What was Africa doing for 60 years? The embarrassing images on CCTV made me think afresh about our last 60 years as a continent. What, exactly, were we doing? We grew up listening to and reading stories of our great African heroes. Chief Albert Luthuli, Emperor Haile Selassie, Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Nelson Mandela, Kenneth Kaunda, Govan Mbeki, Julius Nyerere, Desmond Tutu, Walter Sisulu, Ignatius Musaazi and all the other names that contemporary African history praises for their role in our liberation. In more recent years, Paul Kagame, John Garang, Laurent Desiré Kabila, Yoweri Museveni, Issayas Afewerki, Meles Zenawi were labeled a "new breed of African leaders" for having risen to power by military means but later pragmatically embraced free market economic policies. But what did they achieve on economic front? That goes for us too, the white-collar professional middle class and blue-collar working class. When we rise up every morning and go to work, attending meetings, getting paper work done, switching on machines, loading products onto lorries, queuing up in banks and eventually retiring home at the end of the day, what in real terms have we accomplished? Right now, the contest for the leadership of the opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) political party is underway. In light of what I saw on CCTV, I ask: What would, what can, Geoffrey Ekanya, Nandala Mafabi or Maj. Gen. Mugisha Muntu do that Museveni and Kagame failed to do or before them Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere failed? Africa spent the last 60 years since the early 1950s focusing most of its resources, time, energy and interest on politics and forgot or failed to develop its technical capacity, infrastructure and economic sector. In 1960, the city of Rehovoth in Israel hosted an international "Conference on Science in the Advancement of New States." Among those presenting a paper was W. Arthur Lewis, Principal of University College, Jamaica. Lewis made an incisive comment on the pervasive attitude in Africa, still common even in 2012, in which newspaper pages, radio and TV air time and national interest is focused mainly on politicians and politics: "Politics is exciting to young countries, and politicians in these countries have attracted to themselves all the glamour formerly reserved for priests and kings --- not excluding the military parades, the salutes of guns, the yachts, and the country houses. We must resign ourselves to the fact that most of the new countries will be too preoccupied with other matters to give to economic development the priority it needs." When one listens to Uganda's FM radio stations and reads the newspapers, the impression one is left with is that this society still believes politicians are the answer to everything, there are daily and frequent appeals "calling upon government" to do or fix this or that problem. Science a boring topic? Science still takes up very, very little space in the media, social discourse and interest in our countries 52 years since Lewis made that observation. Thus, ask any African school child to name five African heroes and legends and they are most likely to be politicians like Nkrumah, Kaunda, Nyerere, Nasser or sportsmen, musicians and anti-apartheid activists. Most of Africa's society is still structured that way, with politics, the literal arts, the performing arts and sports the dominant areas. CCTV, on Thursday, focused on Africa's arts scene and most images of Africa on CCTV, BBC TV, and thousands of travel brochures and country profiles invariably portray a continent of people always smiling, dancing, playing and interacting. There is little in terms of highly complex, technical, scientific, research, mechanical living to be found in most of Africa and that is what the CCTV series have shown. All that Africa has to show the world is smiling faces, vigorously dancing villagers, sportsmen, performing artists and its green scenery. In the TV series, the main feature in this supposedly "equal partnership" between China and Africa was comments by Africans interviewed for the documentaries whose main comments were to thank the Chinese for building this or that road, school, stadium, presidential office, hospital and water treatment plant. And so, 50 years since Uganda and most other African countries attained independence, a new era of colonial rule has began, this time at the hands of the Middle Kingdom from the Far East of Asia. And unlike in the phase of European colonialism where some African countries were ruled by Britain, others France, Spain, Germany and Portugal, China's colonisation of Africa is taking place across the board, with both Francophone and Anglophone African countries ruled from the same capital, Beijing. [email protected] <mailto:timothy_kalyegira%40yahoo.com> Thé Mulindwas Communication Group "With Yoweri Museveni and Dr. Kiiza Besigye Uganda is in anarchy" Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi "Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni na Dk. Kiiza Besigye Uganda ni katika machafuko"
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