Norris McDonald | ‘White Malice’: America’s attempt to re-colonialise Africa

Africa is being bullied by America to take the side of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the Russia-Ukraine war. This is a war, His Excellency Pope Francis said, “was provoked by NATO barking at Russia’s door”.

Except for America’s Western European allies, most countries have remained neutral and have refused to condemn Russia.

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan recently said that his government was “overthrown by America” with a vote of no confidence, after he went to Russia and met with President Vladimir Putin.

If true, it shows how much the world is becoming crazy if even a nuclear power like Pakistan is not safe from America’s hegemonic bullying.

South Africa has, however, taken a firm stand and refuses to be bullied, cajoled, or blackmailed by an America that did not want to sanction the racist apartheid regime, but now threatens to impose punishment of freed African nations that do not jump and dance to America’s imperialist, ‘Yankee Doodle’ tune.

“No country’s national interests are more important that it can be used to oppress other nations,” South African Defense Minister Thandi Moise recently said.

AFRICA’S PRIORITIES

South Africa is one of the many countries that strongly object to America’s underhanded behaviour. They have strong strategic ties with Russia and refuse to cut these ties.

They are a part of the BRICS group of countries that include Russia, India, China, and Brazil.

They have maintained military, political, and economic relations and, like India, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Hungary, and China – as major countries – refuse to cut Russian ties.

The priority of America and the West is to maintain their historical hegemony over the world. And they are shocked to see how the Russia-Ukraine war has increased political tensions between them and the rest of the world.

But why is Africa being singled out for this unjust treatment and bullying by America?

Why not punish Saudi Arabia, India, China, or Turkey, who all maintain trade relations with Russia?

The recent defeat in Afghanistan by the Taliban, after a 20-year war, has left American foreign policy and global political influence in tatters. This was the same moral and political identity crisis America faced, in the 1960s, after the same humiliating defeat in the Vietnam war.

Now we have the Russia-Ukraine war which is sharpening political and economic tensions, as well as class and racial conflicts in the world.

Economic hardships are rising in Europe and there have been massive demonstrations in several European capitals demanding the abolishment of NATO.

Meanwhile, over 1.3 billion Black Africans in diverse countries face rising foreign debt payment, drought induced hunger, poverty, and health crisis. In addition, almost eight million children under five in 15 hunger-crisis hit countries are at risk of death from malnutrition and wasting, UNICEF says.

Africa’s priorities are clearly different from that of America or Europe. But the only thing America cares about is political bullying.

There have been no serious efforts to focus on African priorities aimed at improving living standards.

What we have instead, my dear friends, is a perpetual pattern of political coercion, through pseudo-legal means, along with other hegemonic actions.

NEOCOLONIALISM

The Countering Malign Russian Activities in Africa Act, H.R. 7311 obviously doesn’t care one red cent what happens to poor black people in Africa.

This bill, sponsored by Gregory Meeks, Democrat, New York, aims to “identify African countries and government officials and other individuals and entities” that facilitate trade and/or business relations with Russia that America regards “prohibited activities”.

In short, yet another hegemonic attempt to impose American law on the rest of the world. In this case, Africa is being singled out for special punishment by the global, imperialist overlord.

Africa is not able to get grain to alleviate hunger brought on by years of drought, famine, debt-crisis, and general lack of economic development.

Russia has said it is willing to donate 300 tons of fertiliser stuck in European ports to African countries if the Western countries lift their blockade, but they have refused to do so.

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres says he supports Russia’s generous proposal, but despite his appeal for African countries to get economic assistance, Europe and America refuse to budge.

PAN-AFRICANISM VS ‘WHITE MALICE’

Documentary evidence shows that America does not care about the needs of African people. Indeed, the US has been waging a perpetual war, it appears, to destroy the national liberation movement in Africa.

Evidence exists that since 1958, the pan-African, National Liberation movements have been targeted for destruction by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Murder of African leaders, the violent overthrow of their government and the sponsoring of undemocratic political leaders in Rwanda, Angola, The Congo and most recently in Sudan and Libya are just a few examples.

In just the last year and a half, US-trained military officers “have led seven coups and coup attempts in Africa”, the March 2022 online edition of The Intercept says.

My dear friends, historian Susan Williams tells a chilling tale of the CIA drive to stop the pan-African movement.

‘White Malice: The CIA and the Neocolonialization of Africa’ by Susan Williams (2021) exposes America’s nefarious role, using the CIA, in an attempt to strangle and destroy the African Independence movement.

“The United States, watching the Europeans withdraw from Africa, was determined to take control,” she writes.

One problem America faced, Williams says, was that pan-Africanism “was inspiring African Americans fighting for civil rights”.

Their solution was to try and brutally suppress the Black power and Civil Rights Movement in America; while abroad, use the CIA to wreak havoc and violence in Africa.

Given all this, if there are “malign activities in Africa”, it is based on America’s past bad behaviour in the way the CIA was reportedly used to murder African leaders and wage war against pan-Africanism. And in the present attempts to undermine the sovereignty of African nations.

Therefore, the challenge Black nations face today is not to allow neocolonialist to divide and conquer us or break our progressive, independent spirit.

That is just the ‘bitta’ truth!

Norris McDonald is an economic journalist, political analyst, and respiratory therapist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and miaminorris@yahoo.com.