OF MAGGOTS AND URINE
“ EATING A CONTINENT TO ITS BONES ”
A long long time ago a French agronomist wrote a book called False Start in Africa and it did not take long for African bashers to argue that Africa had not even started going anywhere and the continent was doomed as Lewis Carroll said in “Alice” : to “run just to stay in the same place”. Decades later, today, it would not be Afro pessimism on our part if we affirm that the decline of Africa is undeniable and accelerating. The continent is being eaten to its bones by local and foreign predators or thieving cannibals.
The usual culprits are of course there. Africa is plundered and hurled into the pit of war and carnage by those greedily going after its wealth. The war in the Congo that has cost more than 4 million lives is a war for the resources of that country. Murderous militia have been financed and armed by mining corporations and multi nationals from the West and even UN’s so called peace keeping forces have been involved in the rape and pillage. Sierra Leone was all about diamonds. The French President is forced to visit poor Niger to counter the Chinese influence there and to control the uranium resources of that country (the French nuclear energy body Areva has been accused of backing the Niger government’s anti Tuareg war and of polluting the region). At the end of the day, Darfur is oil, Angola is oil, Equatorial Guinea is oil, Chad is oil, and the Niger Delta is oil. Africa has been plundered and bled by its predators, by colonialists old and modern.
The modern scramble in Africa concerns above all oil. Western companies are enjoying the benefits while the Africans are getting nothing from their own wealth. The Chinese are in the game and they are voracious and without scruples. An attempt by people of the Niger Delta to oppose this led to brutal killings and the hanging of Ken Saro Wiwa. Angola’s economy boasts a 15% increase every year but Angola is, according to a UN survey, one of the worst places on earth to be born as a child. Angola receives food aid, Gabon’s oil has been already sold off to a French company that has paid Bongo personally 45 million euros every year. Impoverished Chad got America’s attention when oil was discovered there in the late 80s. As in Equatorial Guinea, American oil men have their special compounds and privileges and have built a 700 mile pipeline that ends at a tanker a few miles off the coast of Cameron. Yet, Chad remains one of the poorest countries on earth (of the 9 million Chadians more than 7 million earn less than a dollar a day) while the GDP has reportedly grown and Idris Deby and family have become millionaires. Oil in South Sudan has meant no fortune for Sudanese—Sudan, Angola and Chad continuously need food aid. The misery of the poverty stricken populace of the two Congos exposes the plunder and pillage of Africa. The militias of the various forces that rape and plunder in the DR of the Congo earn more than $150 million each year by selling off the tantalum (coltan), tin, gold and tungsten that Western companies need among others for their cell phones and Blackberries, MP3 players, Digital computers, TV monitors, etc.. The miners in the Congo do not earn more than $1 to $ 4 at best per day. The needs of the companies of the West fuel the Congo war that has now claimed the lives of more than 4 million people.
Nevertheless, the responsibility of African politicians and tyrants is not to be under estimated in all this disastrous decline of the rich continent. And there comes the issue of maggots and urine, the stinking reality of many African dilapidated cities from Luanda to Lagos to Addis Ababa, of open sewers, horrible toilets if at all present, of maggots and the pervasive smell of excrement and urine. The reactionary Pope who recently visited Africa and riled against the use of condoms in the AIDS ravaged continent did say some sensible things in Luanda against the indecent riches of the few and the stifling poverty of millions. An oil rich country like Angola has had to face famine and most of its people are depressingly poor and the stink of Luanda a big shame on the corrupt leaders. Talk of corruption and the picture is as dirty as the millions of street children in almost every country of the continent.
Let us take the case of Gabon’s Omar Bongo who was married to Edith Lucie Sassou-Nguesso, daughter of Congolese president Denis Sassou-Nguesso. (Edith died in Morocco recently). Bongo and his family are said to own 39 properties including luxury villas, 70 bank accounts and nine luxury cars in France. According to the British Sunday Times one report, the late wife of Bongo, Edith, used a cheque, drawn in the name of “Paierie du Gabon en France” (part of the Gabon treasury), to buy the expensive Maybach car. Bongo’s daughter Pascaline, 52 , used a cheque from same account for a part-payment of s £29,497 for a £60,000 costing Mercedes. Bongo bought himself a Ferrari 612 Scalglietti F1 in October 2004 for £153,000 while his son Ali acquired a Ferrari 456 M GT in June 2001 for Sterling pound £156,000.
Sassou Nguesso of Congo Brazzaville and his family own 24 apartments in France and 112 bank accounts. Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea and his family own one posh apartment and eight cars in France. Obiang Nguema’s son has faced the court in South Africa over two luxury villas he owns there. Obiang Nguema himself also had problems in 2006 over a $35 million California beach house he owns there and had close to 700 million dollars in Washington’s Riggs Bank. A former postal worker, Bongo has been ruling Gabon since 1967 while Sassou Nguesso, 63, ruled Congo from 1979 to 1992, and then returned to lead the country after a coup in 1997. According to reports Bongo’s family spends more than 65 million US dollars every year. Nigeria’s corrupt leaders are also world famous.
It is not only the tyrants of the rich African countries that are corrupt but also those ruling over poorer ones too. From Burkina Faso to Ethiopia to Kenya the ruling elite is robbing the people blind. As millions starve and the countries go to ruins the likes of Meles Zenawi, Mwai Kibaki, Compaore and others are amassing millions in Western banks. And the so called First Ladies are not far behind, corruption is a family affair and in some places like Ethiopia the wives of the tyrants are the more voracious thieves. Azeb Gola, the piranha wife of Meles, owns properties in the USA where she has stashed millions in a New York bank, has control of several businesses in Ethiopia itself including the sale of Khat and has recently become the deputy head of EFFORT, the ruling Tigrean party’s economic conglomeration. Kibaki’s wife Lucy not only slaps journalists but partakes in the plunder of Kenya. Anna Mkapa down in Tanzania has used her husband’s presidency to amass huge wealth. And so on and forth-- heartless men, cruel wives, robber families.
Corruption is not exclusively African say many African corruption giants. General Abacha denied till death that he had stolen at least five billion dollars from the people of Nigeria. Bongo and Sassou are not admitting that they are thieves even though they are now being formally accused and some of Bongo’s assets in France have been frozen. The wily Biya in Cameroon has little that is directly his or in his name but the fact remains that he has stolen millions from Cameroon. What about other tyrants? No questioning really necessary. Africa has declined not only because it is being plundered by the rapacious West and China ( with India trying to jump in along with Arab millionaires) but also because its own so called leaders have been mercilessly fleecing it too. The cities of oil rich countries are “maggot filled and urine soaked”, hundreds of thousands of people sleep under bridges, in hellish slums, and millions continue to starve. The World Bank and IMF plaster news of unbelievable economic growth while regimes claiming food surplus and economic miracle stretch out their fat hands asking for food aid and this not for the famine stricken millions but for their own benefit. Not enough drinking water, electricity rationed, the health systems down and out, price of basic goods beyond the reaches of the vast majority, misery aplenty.
Of course, there is the other way of seeing or considering the whole problem as a non problem. As Mobutu was reported to have said you do not expect an African president to live in a hut. Palaces are needed not only in Africa but especially abroad. Why do we expect an African president or his wife not worthy of luxurious cars? Even a half Kenyan in the White House with no history of inherited wealth or royal parentage is chauffeured around in a $300,000 “Beast” of a car And for those who came by the barrel of the gun (in most cases via the coup as Sassou Nguesso and others did) the argument can be made on “we did not fight to remain poor” basis. If the African presidents or prime ministers are the embodiment of the Nation then the personal wealth of the ruler is by proxy a source of pride for his people. In the Ethiopian case, Meles Zenawi and his Tigrean gang have made it clear that they hate Ethiopia and so why shouldn’t Meles and his family rob the hated country blind and substitute gold plated iron and brass for the gold in the National Bank? As Indira Gandhi once said, we can also say corruption is a world wide phenomenon and we ought to live with it. Or echo the late Peter Ustinov and declare corruption is nature’s way of restoring our faith in democracy, Or as the Chinese officials said in one African country, corruption can be taken as part and parcel of business. And yet again, we can imitate Meles Zenawi who blamed the Ethiopian famine on the West and accuse the West of fanning corruption by sending its tempting foreign aid and corrupters. Didn’t Tony Blair appoint the corrupt Meles as head of his Africa Commission and didn’t Britain refuse to hand over the money General Abacha stashed in British banks? Isn’t the European Union sending money after money to dictators in Africa? Isn’t there one rich man called Mo Ibrahim who is trying to pay the tyrants money as a bribe/incentive/ to make them practice good governance? But, one wonders why they should consider his one million dollar prize when hundreds of millions are there for the taking in the national treasury.
As they say, the more corrupt the State, the more the laws and thus almost every African country has an anti corruption commission that has proved in most cases to be the nest of corrupt vipers itself. The AU has declared zero tolerance for corruption—it is like hardened thieves declaring robbery is no good and then going right back to their thievery. In the end, one goes to the palace to eat and for no other purpose and this can also be trumpeted as a noble African (if not world) tradition. You just do not hassle, torture, plunder and kill to reach the biggest “Eating House” and then renounce eating, do you?
OF A ROYAL PARDON AND FRENCH DENIALS
“…the African man has never really entered history”
Nicholas Sarkozy, the French President, in a speech on Africa made in Dakar, Senegal on July 26th, 2007
To be fair, Nicolas Sarkozy did say Africa deserves to be happy just like other continents. But in the above quoted speech in Senegal he did say also: “The (Africans) have never really launched themselves into the future," and Mr. Sarkozy did add "the African peasant, who for thousands of years has lived according to the seasons, whose life ideal was to be in harmony with nature, only knew the eternal renewal of time ... In this imaginary world, where everything starts over and over again, there is room neither for human endeavor, nor for the idea of progress. The problem of Africa ... is to be found here. Africa's challenge is to enter to a greater extent into history ... It is to realize that the golden age that Africa is forever recalling will not return, because it has never existed."
The Sarkozy speech caused a lot of stir in Africa though many “France Afrique” members (or if you want to put it crudely many French neocolonial puppets) did not utter any strong protest. From far away South Africa, Mbeki, the faux pas man par excellence, wrote to Sarkozy and praised him as a citizen of Africa. "What you have said in Dakar, Mr. President, has indicated to me that we are fortunate to count on you as a citizen of Africa, as a partner in the protracted struggle to achieve the renaissance of Africa within the context of a European renaissance and the rest of the world," Mr. Mbeki wrote. And Mr. Sarkozy was reported to have written back: "You have been kind enough to highlight the 'courage and truthfulness' of this speech. As you very well know, Africa needs truthful friends in order for her to meet the challenges she is facing." Sarkozy did also say colonialism did not exploit anybody echoing a revision of history that is becoming fashionable in France and some other European former colonial countries. The speech of Sarkozy is now headline news because his rival, the Socialist Segolene Royal, who happened to be born in Senegal, went back to her birthplace and offered an apology for Sarkozy’s slight on Africa. Apologies, apologies for those humiliating words that should have never been uttered in the first place said Madam Royal and the whole French right wing establishment has gone ballistics against her accompanied by that Bush loving nominal Socialist shameless Bernard Kouchner who is the current foreign minister of the right wing French government. The Royal apology has engendered a royal bashing while ordinary Senegalese and many Africans are delighted.
France has definitely a lot to apologize and atone for. As one of the notorious colonial powers, it is responsible for heinous massacres in the Malagasy Republic, Indochina and North Africa. French colonialism was a curse for Africa and did not have much to envy from Belgian or British colonialism when it came to barbarism or exploitation. The French war against Algerians and Indochinese has gone down in history for its atrocities. After the colonial Empire collapsed France maintained its neocolonial grip on its former colonies (stationing Foreign Legion troops in Djibouti, Chad and other places), staging coups, brazenly exploiting resources (the oil of Gabon, etc..) and acting as an arrogant overlord. Yes, France does have a lot to apologize for but then again asking the colonized victims pardon is not in vogue. Instead, blaming the victims themselves, calling them terrorist when they try to resist is what is fashionable. This is why the French establishment riled against Segolene Royal. This said, one can also go the politically incorrect path and join the Mbeki fellow who praised Sarkozy and perhaps wonder if the African has indeed entered history. Did the African only know the eternal renewal of time? Was the African even aware that time changed given that his agricultural activities have been dismal? Maybe he planted in summer and stayed in his hut during winter? Africa had no golden age said Sarkozy but did it have a bronze one even? No wonder the henchmen of Sarkozy felt humiliated and shamed by the apology of Royal in Senegal. How can “golden- aged” France apologize to an Africa that had no golden age at all?
Forgetful of the world by which they were forgotten the Ethiopians slept for three thousand years, wrote one European historian. This was worse than Senghor’s “the great sleep of the Negro”. Sarkozy has upped the ante—the African has never entered history in the first place. Where on earth was this black giant wandering? From Songhai to Axum to Zimbabwe to Kingdoms of Mali and Ghana, to Kilwa Kiswani and the Gambia and Timbuktu, etc, we are invited to forget Africa and her civilizations and asked to wonder where Africa was roaming in the wild unable to find the door to History. It is not only rabid racists who claim that colonialism did wonders for Africa and that Africa’s main problem is not anybody else but the African himself. Many raise the question that resource starved Japan is advanced while resource rich Africa is not and that the main difference is that Japan has the Japanese people. No one has explained in detail whether this refers to the shape of eyes or the color of skin but the general take is that Africans are lazy no good song and fun loving “darkies”. We Africans know otherwise of course. The ordinary African toils from dawn to dusk and more but the fruit of his labor has always been taken away from him by robbers from afar and near. After all, the African was brutally taken away from his land as a slave and has built Europe and the Americas and even Middle Eastern countries and therefore all talk of sloth is nonsense. Sarkozy’s paternalist and veiled racist comment denies this basic fact and casts negative light on the speaker himself.
Yet, one can still say the African has not entered history if by history one means the history of Monsieur Sarkozy. Otherwise, Africa had its history and as any Ethiopian would proudly assert Africa was the birthplace of humanity itself. How history--imbued can one be in the light of that? Sarkozy’s claim that the imaginary world the African lives in has no room for human endeavor is hard to grasp given the fact that the African people have been endeavoring and sweating to their bones to make progress and change their lives if only they had not been hindered by France and other colonial and neo colonial powers. Africa has also an ailment called her own leaders. But if we take Gabon, Chad, Congo Brazzaville, Djibouti, Cameroon where France crushed the nationalist struggle of Ruben um Nyobe of the UPC (1955), etc and ask the toiling peoples who is behind their unending misery we will find out that the black calloused fingers would be pointing to the direction of Paris whose dirty streets still get cleaned by African workers who are treatedless humanely that the littering dogs. And did Africa lack “an idea of progress”? Little Nicolas was not even born when Africa had bright ideas of progress. Actually, the struggle for independence waged by Africans, the resounding NO of Sekou Toure, the Pan African and “Africa should be free” vision of Nkrumah and Lumumba, of Felix Moumie killed by France, and more were all loud and clear visions and ideas of progress stifled by France and other neo colonial powers. So, how can the Sarkozy fellow sanctimoniously blame Africa of having no idea of progress and of living in an idealist naive babies land?
Still, if we want to be the devil’s advocate and feel sympathy for both Sarkozy and Mbeki we can ask where the African was all these years shut outside the doors of history. Imagine if there was no Sarkozy to tell him there was never ever an African golden age and the African should wake from his thousands years long “sleep of the Negro” and try to enter history! Disaster! But where is the key to the door of history? Who holds it? America or France? Will they give the African the key since they are already taking his resources for free? The Sarkozy fellow did not elaborate on this but we must ask and wonder about this. As we do this, the Royal plea of pardon does warm our heart. After all, as lazy Africans we want to blame others, we still fail to understand that colonialism was good for us, that no one rally did exploit us, that we are actually our own worst enemies and we just dream of a non existent golden age that will never really come in the future. And so, when Segolene Royal came back to her birth place and said sorry for the humiliating speech of Sarkozy we say thank you lady for the kind words even if we still have no idea of how to enter into the history the Frenchman talked about. Is it as Mbeki suggested through a European renaissance? Will they allow us to tag along or will they continue to chase us out of their continent and their so called renaissance? Mbeki is no longer in power and cannot answer us and Sarkozy has no ears for us Africans with no idea of progress. All this said, I would still be happy if Sarkozy or any other person would enlighten me on where the African was roaming all these centuries when he was said unable to enter the door of history
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