Africans
United In Rejecting
European Arrogance
By
Sukant Chandan
11 December,
2007
Countercurrents.org
The
recent summit between African heads of states and the EU has shown that
some Europe has failed to move beyond their colonial-era past-times
of economic and political bullying. The African delegates gave Europe
an unmistakable cold shoulder on the two big issues of the conference:
trade, especially the European proposed Economic Partnership Agreements,
and European political interference in African affairs, centered on
British arrogance towards Zimbabwe.
This African-EU
Summit in Lisbon was possibly Portugal’s most important international
meeting in its history. The intention of the summit was to discuss peace
and security, human rights, international trade and climatic change.
40 presidents - 5 from Europe and 35 from Africa - and 27 prime ministers
- 15 from Europe and 12 from Africa – took part in a summit which
summed up the state of African-European relations today.
To give some
background to the events in Lisbon, it is worth taking a short look
at the history of these summits. The first African-EU Summit took place
in Cairo in 2000 at the initiative of Egypt’s President Mubarak
and the then President of the African Union Algeria’s President
Bouteflika. Ever since then Britain has been unable to get over itself
on the issue of Zimbabwe. From the first summit Blair refused to attend
in protest at Mugabe’s presence. Already back in 2000 Britain’s
puerile games on the issue of Mugabe was given a firm rebuttal by Africans
when they insisted that Britain had no right to dictate who should or
should not attend the summit. There should have been a second summit
in 2003 but failed to materialise and was postponed indefinitely after
the imposition of illegal sanctions on Zimbabwe by the EU and due to
Britain’s continued objection to the attendance of President Mugabe.
So the Labour Government’s attitude towards Zimbabwe and the rejection
of it has been an on-going issue in European-African relations ever
since.
The British
mainstream press likes to present the problems at the summit as the
fault of the Africans, rather than the reality which is it is the behavior
of former imperialists who, engaged in fruitless antics, results in
them looking the fool on the international stage. Countries such as
Britain and Germany seem to put more importance on dictating to Africa
on how it should deal with its internal affairs than grappling with
the critical issues of African development and progress. Britain has
turned what is essentially a bilateral political rift between itself
and Zimbabwe into an international issue in the face of opposition by
Africa. Even the head of the Commonwealth, Mr Don McKinnon while being
a critic of the Zimbabwean Government agreed that President Mugabe must
be allowed to attend. José Manuel Barroso head of the EU commission
expressed the Portuguese position which has consistently argued that
the prospective rewards of closer ties between Africa and the EU are
more important than the problems between Britain and Zimbabwe. Barroso
made the headlines when he scolded the British apropos their pre-conditions:
“If you are an international leader then you are going to have
to be prepared to meet some people your mother would not like you to
meet. That is what we have to do from time to time.”
Portugal’s
position has been appreciated by Africa. This past weekend’s summit
was in itself in question if it weren’t for Portugal’s insistence
that it should go ahead. The Africans at the summit, the African Union,
the Southern African Development Countries, and South Africa’s
President Mbeki have held firm to the view that Zimbabwe must be represented
by Mugabe despite the EU travel ban on him. Without Mugabe in attendance
the whole of Africa would boycott the summit.
This stand
of African unity in the face of what Mugabe rightly calls European ‘arrogance’
is a sign that Africa cannot be pushed around like it had been for centuries
by countries from which they have gained their independence in the last
five decades. As an indication of the strength of feeling on the issue,
Uganda's president Yoweri Museveni told Brown last month “Mugabe
is a revolutionary who fought to emancipate his people. When you are
dealing with a revolutionary, you listen to his points, rather than
give him orders.” Indeed Mugabe has a valid point when he reportedly
said at the summit that it was Africans that taught the British about
democracy when they won their fight for democracy against British-backed
Apartheid colonial-settler states.
Whatever
one’s view of Mugabe and the internal situation in Zimbabwe, Mugabe’s
stance and the defence of him by African leaders resulting in a row
of British red faces, could not but be an inspiration to those who believe
in the Pan-African strength of the continent in its struggle for independence
and development. Western pressure on Zimbabwe’s ZANU-PF government
is unlikely to gain any popularity with African governments as the controversy
centers around the emotive issue of land distribution to the indigenous
peoples, land that was forcibly taken by European colonial settlers.
There maybe problems in the details of the land distribution process
in Zimbabwe, but the main problems are at root ones that can be traced
back to the failure of the British to honour their commitments. This
being the case, Africans are not going to back down from defending a
fellow African state that is the main target for annihilation by the
West. When the same interests who are supporting regime-change in Zimbabwe
are behind all kinds of intrigue to grab more wealth from the land and
people Africa, such as the plans for a coup against Equatorial-Guinea
led by Mark Thatcher in 2004, it somewhat exposes the real meaning behind
Western clamours about ‘human rights’ and ‘democracy’.
And Thatcher’s coup plans are merely the very tip of the ice-berg.
It is in this context that closing of ranks by Africans at the summit
can be understood.
When Africans
show an effective united front against neo-colonialist behavior, there
will always be a few Africans who, conveniently for the British, pop
up to assure Western white society that these African upstarts are just
being wholly irrational. While the British media occasionally and reluctantly
admitted that all the Africans are behind Mugabe, the Archbishop of
York John Sentamu attempted what must have been seen as a pathetic attempt
to cover up the big issues at the summit by removing and cutting up
his dog collar in protest at Mugabe on Andrew Marr’s politics
program on BBC1.
There was
one final humiliation for Britain at the summit after the British government
decided to send Lord Amos as an ‘advocate’ of its interests.
Former Labour Development Minister Clare Short stated on BBC Radio 4
that the only reason that this “pseudo-minister” was being
sent was that she was black. Foreign Minister Milliband retorted on
the same program that this was not fair; rather Lady Amos was being
sent because “she has a lot of knowledge about Africa”.
This highly amusing exchange must be highly embarrassing for Lady Amos
and the British government, with Lady Amos perhaps thinking ‘is
it because I is black?’
The debates
around economic relations between the two continents also did little
to create the impression that Europe is moving on from its colonial
past. Europe wants to replace old trade agreements with EU-proposed
Economic Partnership Agreements that have been widely criticised by
African states and anti-poverty groups. Certain trade privileges exist
between European countries and their former colonies but have been declared
illegal by the WTO which is demanding that they be scrapped. These new
EPAs would open up African markets to European competition which will
have the effect of further devastating African economies. African Union
commission president, Alpha Oumar Konaré denounced the EPAs and
stated: “No one will make us believe we don't have the right to
protect our economic fabric … It is time to bury definitively
the colonial past. We can no longer be merely exporters of raw materials.
We can no longer accept being solely an import market for finished products”,
and if anyone was in any doubt about African attitudes to the EPAs Senegalese
President Abdoulaye Wade told reporters: “It's clear that Africa
rejects the EPAs.” There was no agreement on this issue, however
this did not stop Barroso from saying that the EU would go ahead with
the imposition of tariffs on all but the poorest countries if they do
not meet the deadline for accepting the EPAs. So much for Europe exorcising
it’s colonial past.
Europe’s
ulterior motive behind the summit was candidly admitted by the Financial
Times which stated on Sunday 9th December that it was “meant to
showcase a new partnership to counter China’s growing influence
in Europe’s former colonies.” The BBC News website too has
conceded that it is China which is one of the primary reasons for Africa’s
new found confidence, which is ‘cause for worry in Europe’.
The twin causes for worry in Europe being both an influential China
and an increasingly assertive Africa.
Since China
became independent and socialist in 1949, it has enjoyed especially
close relations with Africa. Many newly liberated African states joined
Chinese Premier Chou En Lai at the historic Afro-Asian Bandung Conference
in 1955, which initiated the Non-Aligned Movement, and where Africans
demanded that China be a member of the UN Security Council. This relationship
of solidarity saw China directly assisting African states in their liberation
struggles and also lending all manner of support in helping the development
of the newly liberated African nations, as Chinese Premier Hu Jintao
stated at the historic Forum on China-Africa Co-operation in Beijing
November 2006: “China did what she needed to do to help ensure
that Africa freed herself from the yoke of colonialism and apartheid.”
Ever since
1949 Chinese strategies of development and foreign policy have been
controversial across the political spectrum in the West. China’s
post-Mao era has been no exception, with many liberals, leftists and
right-wingers all united in their opposition and criticisms of China’s
development and meteoric economic rise. Notwithstanding the inevitable
problems that a massive underdeveloped country like China faces in progressing
by means of a mixed economy, it has achieved rates and levels of poverty
reduction hitherto unseen in the history of mankind. Apart from winning
UN awards for poverty alleviation in lifting over 200 million people
out of abject poverty in the last two decades, China’s economic
rise has also enabled Third World countries to develop political and
economic strategies that many would not have perceived possible during
the years of the Washington Consensus of the 1990s. There is another
rather important advantage of favouring relations with China in comparison
to the West: China will not criminalise you, starve your country with
sanctions and possibly blitz and occupy your country, whereas the West
might. China’s strict policy of non-interference and what it terms
‘win-win’ relations with other countries is winning it ever
more friends.
The internal
and external effect of China’s development is possibly the most
important political question in the world today. It is a crucial issue
for those who are confronting the challenges posed by aggressive Western
unilateralism and hegemony and those of developing a multi-polar and
peaceful world. As in Latin America, Africa’s relation with China
is enabling it to develop a new-found confidence in lifting itself up
in the world, and as China rises ever further it allows Africa to free
itself from the negative relationship with its former colonial masters.
In comparison to the West, China has an incomparably better deal to
offer Africa leading President Wade to comment at the summit that “it
is very clear that Europe is close to losing the battle of competition
in Africa.” Therefore Africa is able to put into affect the non-aligned
method of getting the best deal it can between bigger powers, although
there is no indication that Europe is about to back-off from its unpopular
policies towards Africa, although some observers like the BBC’s
Mark Doyle know that Europe has to address its problematic relationship
with Africa, especially in the face of China’s growing prestige:
“African trade with China is forcing Europe to take Africa more
seriously and not just as a collection of former colonial possessions.”
It is argued
from left to right-wing circles in the West that China is merely a new
neo-colonial power replacing the old ones in Africa. This is an issue
that has been rigorously raised in the Western mainstream press. This
media offensive is unsurprisingly having some success in affecting the
attitudes of the political classes in the West, but the West is sadly
mistaken if this is argument is going to turn Africans against China
in appealing to their anti-imperialist sentiments. Chinese involvement
in Africa is warmly and broadly welcomed. Nevertheless, the Chinese
are keen to argue their case in response to what they see as hypocritical
slurs. It was on this subject that Chinese Commerce Minister Bo Xilai
spoke at a news conference last year about China’s share of total
oil exports in China the previous year of 9% compared to 36% for Europe
and 33% for the US. The minister asked: “If an 8.7 percent share
could be suspected as an act of plundering resources, then what about
36 percent and 33 percent?” In the chorus of attacks on China
as a neo-colonial power, there are very few African voices to be heard,
it is the West which is so vocal about losing its opportunities in Africa.
The African
states at the summit showed great strength in standing up to Europe,
with the latter so far unable to move away from its intransigent positions
which are pushing the Africans away from the West in an eastwardly direction
towards China. The way Britain and Germany treated Mugabe, and the unanimous
defence of Mugabe by the Africans shows that Africans are in no mood
to shift one inch from their positions of unity and respecting their
sovereignty in African affairs. The consensus amongst Africa is that
if there are any problems in any African state, it requires an African
solution. The Mugabe issue should be seen in connection with the disagreements
over the EPAs, as both these issues represent African demands for non-interference
in their affairs so they can find their own ways of resolving and progressing
from the problems which have been sown by colonialism in Africa. Maybe
not in this writer’s lifetime, but perhaps a time will come when
European countries can disengage from its colonial past and find new
ways in developing a mutually respectful relationship with the Third
World. In the meantime, while the US is tied up in Iraq as well as in
Afghanistan, Third World countries from Latin America to Africa are
taking the opportunity to steam ahead with development and ‘South-South’
co-operation, of which China is arguably the most important component
part. While Africa may not be seeing the type of social movements and
struggles taking in Latin America, the current rising confidence of
Africa is surely a necessary precursor to further developments in the
struggle for social and national liberation.
Sukant Chandan is a London-based freelance journalist,
researcher and political analyst. He runs two websites: http://ouraim.blogspot.com/
and http://sonsofmalcolm.blogspot.com/
and can be contacted at [email protected]
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