OF THE « DISEASED » NATION

By Hama Tuma  

As time goes by, we observe in an inescapable déjà vu that there is one tendency that unfailingly yearns for the mythic “good old days” and another that steadfastly goes against the very likely and hopes for change. In between the two float the callous and the cynic, the forever confused, the pseudo intellectuals wallowing in their own self serving mire, turning their noses at the masses, at the proverbial “unwashed millions”. But do things really change or do they stay the same the more they seem to change?  

One look at George Bush and we are unwillingly pushed to conclude that little does change. Back in June 14/2001 the American president told the world that “Africa is a nation that suffers from incredible disease”. No one knows if Condoleezza Rice and his other officials told the fellow that Africa is made up of more than 50 nations and the incredible knowable disease also afflicts the USA. But George Bush, who was surprised to see black people “everywhere” when he landed in Senegal during his first visit to Africa, has not much changed this time around when he visited six selected African countries. No one has explained why he avoided his favourite puppet in Addis Ababa but the man who assured us that human beings and fish can coexist peacefully must have surely realized that his foot soldiers in the so called war on terror are unsavoury and instable fellows after all. Yet, Bush was confidently saying “we do not deal with leaders who steal from the people. We deal with those who are compassionate and honest”. Is the fellow real or his politics as hopelessly bad as his attempt at the Soukous dance? 

America’s allies in Africa are mostly hopeless and inveterate dictators. Up North we have Mubarek who is desperately trying to do a Kim IL Sung or an Assad on the people of Egypt by making his son his heir. In the Horn and Great Lakes, allies of Washington are cruel dictators, some glib with their tongue as the fellow in Kampala, some just crude tyrants like Meles Zenawi. The “democrat” in Kampala changed the Constitution to be able to continue with his rule and jailed his rivals to stop them from challenging him in the election. ( Paul Biya, the French puppet in Cameroon, is trying to do the same and to name himself Life President). Meles Zenawi lost the election of May 2005 and with the help of Washington stayed in power illegally. Kagame in Kigali, where Bush was on his recent visit with little said about America’s condemned inaction during the genocide, is accused of tyranny by quite a few people. Gelleh of Djibouti ran against himself and won the “election” and is continuing his murderous ethnic war against Afars but he is America’s new found friend (more than a thousand American soldiers are stationed at a military base in Djibouti). America likes Kabila jr.—after all even the late Mobutu did not sell the Congo so cheap (please do not mention the 4 million dead in Eastern Congo in the process). Nguema of Equatorial Guinea is as bloody as a latter day Idi Amin but he is also an oil rich ally. And so on and on. Bush went to Senegal, Liberia, Rwanda, Benin Tanzania and Ghana in what was termed a good feel trip, for the American president to enjoy programmed and ordered out ululating and clapping crowds. But down in Dar es Selam or Kigali, tomorrow promises not much to be happy about. 

The “avoided” dictators still enjoy the praise of America and its institutions. For the World Bank and the IMF, economic progress in Ethiopia is dazzling. This is a country where hidden and unacknowledged famine is affecting hundreds of thousands even in the capital city.  A kilo of meat costs 45 Birr, one chicken 60 Birr and let us not talk of sheep, pity please (the average Ethiopian earns one US dollar per day and a dollar is worth almost ten Birr). A friend who recently was in Addis Ababa told me that city dwellers stand for long minutes outside butcher shops and fondly stare at the meat to deal with their yearnings and this brought to my mind the poem by Robert Pinsky ( Samurai Song) in which he wrote: 

              “When I had no roof I made

                 Audacity my roof. When I had no food

                 My eyes dined.” 

Millions of people in Africa dine with their eyes as they go hungry and this is what the IMF and the World Bank call economic development and Bwana Bush hails as progress. As Bush said in Liberia “it is easier to destroy than to build” and he spoke from first hand experience in Iraq. Africa’s attempt to reclaim itself in a way has been blocked in the past by colonial powers and this time around by neo colonials or “globalizers”.  With their surrogates doing the dreary dirty work, call them Meles, Nguema, Mubarek, etc. The destruction of Africa is a continuing process, ethnic division is being fanned by the West itself (Ethiopia and Congo are examples), dictators are favoured over democrats, and tyrants are armed and given all round backing. America knows full well that billions of dollars belonging to the African people have been stolen by the multi nationals and the tyrants and most of it is stashed in Western banks. Yet, America rushes to label those who struggle for their rights as “terrorists” even though George Bush did say “first, let me make it very clear (that) poor people aren’t necessarily killers”.  

The diseased “nation” is definitely not Africa though Africa’s malady is admittedly both local and foreign. George Bush asked former Brazilian president Cardoso (in 2001): “do you have blacks too?” but blacks are not Africa’s problems though some pseudo intellectuals did preach that colonialism did Africa a lot of good and if Japanese and Israelis had been Africans the continent would have been developed. Africa has many problems that were caused and aggravated by the West in general and America in particular. Meles Zenawi came to and stayed in power thanks to the backing of Washington and London. This is no paranoia at all but a very true and hard fact.  In other African countries, it is a tattered colonial power, France that still messes up the destiny of millions. Not more than a thousand French troops using the imperial might of France saved Idris Deby from impending demise just recently. Of course, the divided rebels helped in their own clumsy way as they did not agree previously who amongst their leaders would replace Deby. “Modern” African guerrillas are bizarre creatures requiring a more detailed analysis as they seem to be hardly ever spurred by lofty ideals, ideology or national interest. In Ethiopia, for example, the politics of capitulation and the worship of a foreign “devil” masquerades as “modern politics”. Yet, it is sad and benumbing to witness again and again the fate of Africans being decided upon by cynical foreigners who do not have the interest of Africa at heart. 

Talk of compassionate leaders and it comes to mind that “compassionate conservatism” was not coined by George Bush but it was his baby for a while and he still hankers after it. That is why he tried to convince Africans that he deals only with “compassionate” African leaders like the confirmed tyrants who are America’s friends. Explaining this strange concept, Bush chief speechwriter, Michael Gerson, said: “compassionate conservatism is the theory that the government  should encourage the effective provision of social services without providing the service itself.” And this is what has endeared George Bush to Africa’s tyrants– this concept of declaring that services must be given without giving the service itself. African dictators have been promising democracy without ever providing it, they have been “providing” food verbally while only the eyes of the famished people dined. Compassion indeed! Olansky wrote in “Renewing American Compassion”: “Man is sinful and likely to want something for nothing…Man’s sinful nature leads to indolence…appetite and lust and idleness”. The poor are so because they are idle and who is the African tyrant who does not gloat at such a conclusion? Another theoretician, M. Magnet, warned of “paralyzing the poor with thoughts of their own helplessness” and declared that the poor need to “know that they cannot blame the system for their own wrongdoing.  Gems of wisdom for African dictators. Do not blame us or the system, you are poor because you are indolent and sinful. No wonder African dictators feted George Bush junior. Does he still consider Africa a nation with an incredible disease? He did not say so outright this time but neither did he admit that the disease is foreign. The circus goes on…and the “compassionates” local and foreign shall revel as starving and oppressed Africans cry for justice and dine with their eyes.