Reflecting on Western Instability and Uncertainty from Africa

 Introduction

Observation is an empirical art influenced by complex variables connected to different  observers. Nevertheless general patterns do emerge over time despite the fact that they are limited in terms of offering specific answers to current facts on the ground. Using long durée approach, patterns of less than 500 years old carry lightweight. This is the case with observing the West i.e. United States including her protectorates (Germany, Japan, South Korea etc), United Kingdom and her underlines (Canada, Australia, New Zealand etc). Viewed from Africa, these states loom larger than life with an almost intellectual and metaphysical suffocation disconnected from reality. A critical reflection of the same data from Africa (of the rolling 500 years) in the last decade (contrary to daily fake news) reveal patterns that have been in place all the time suggesting that these capitals and their chancelleries are rather expressions of enduring human condition.

After 2011

2011 is an important year for Africa and Africans because this is the year when the last shred of collective dignity and potent sovereignty evaporated with the murder of Col Ghaddafi and the destruction of Libya. The result has been a reinforcement of regressive unjustifiable leadership across the continent but also an explosion of enormous pressure on the minority voices clamouring for true enduring change for the majority.

The intellectual class formed on uncritical ideas and poisonous hand-me-down theories from western thinkers continue to froth passionately their assumed solutions without evidence. Most in the religious sphere excluding indigenous religions continue to peddle their conflation of fake Christianity with rationalist European mantra plus gaps in true Islam. For these, salvation is Western Europe and United States. Alternative voices continue to struggle to be heard despite the absence of clear ideological footprint. Prior to 2020, celebration of stagnation and consolidation of ontological poverty turned into national treasure in Egypt, Senegal, Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia, DR Congo and South Africa.

On the economic front the capital sin of international trade took a divine right posture where domestic currencies are eliminated for the enthronement of the dollar and euro. In the case of Nigeria, headlines bloom with findings of billions of foreign currency in officials’ homes. Evidently the owners validate their inability to redirect resources for common good. Capital flight is most evident from the same officials that wire huge number abroad to invest in foreign economies for the wellbeing of foreigners. Apparently, governments don’t work so anything the powerful elite do in private suffices. Nothing trickles down and none will trickle down. Is it just an African problem? The same human right champions of the West look the other way as their affirmation of ‘justice’. Let us see how they have performed so far?

Western Unravelling

As Africans continue their’ suffering and smiling’ in victimhood imposed by their own leaders over the decade, the Western elite radically advanced the integration of African economies through financial technological means. This consolidation of capital accumulation and financialization is underpinned by unlimited exploitation of Africa’s mineral resources. Geopolitically, the so-called independent states were further balkanised without fixed geographies to enable seamless illegal transfers at the cost of millions of lives. All profits, blood money, capital and precious resources go north. This is the pattern. Even the French-speaking countries must obtain Paris’ approval on their central banking, fiscal and monetary policies. A comfortable place to be across generations!

Then came December 2021 when Moscow sent 2 treaties to the United States to codify the cessation of NATO eastern expansion. Moscow was rubbished with condescending impunity. This is the same smart elite that ran with legs touching the back of their heads from Kabul earlier. From February 2022 a new mechanism arrived through the barrel of the gun, the first peer-to-peer exchange between nuclear powers in the battlefield. A geoeconomic settlement of accounts rather than a geopolitical consolidation by means of war!

With the onslaught entering its 3^rd year the gloss has worn off digital pretence. This is the first conflict where the profits yield in limitation for the US. It is certainly making profit off its European vassals and satraps. Its vaunted weapons, military tactics and strategic initiatives have unravelled. In the economic heartbeat of Europe, the German elite stabbed their national interest with radio silence at the Nord Stream pipeline destruction. United Kingdom is hollowed out by funding NATO conflict while France’s compounding problems improved with expulsion from former African Sahel and the first sacking of a prime minister in generations. In South Korea recently, the president rushed to martial rule in the absence of credible national threat.

Plain Truth

Africans are observing these emerging patterns with complex dispositions. They are real and undenied. Many questions, numerous lack of answers and certain volume of daze. What is the difference between Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire and Olaf Schulz of Germany? What is the line between Kier Starmer of UK and Mohammed Said Barre on Somalia? What is dissimilar between Jean Bokassa of CAR and Emmanuel Macron of France? Nothing. They are united in unleashing destruction on their country and peoples.

This is the point that most Africans need to recover from fast. There is no such thing as civilised people, advanced populations, superior nations and all sorts. Human dignity human condition are universal. Both are irreducible. Error, impunity, corruption, glory, abuse and excellence are never up for monopoly. Development can never be imported. The first development law is the admiration of one’s being, family and people rather than material derivatives. No people need permission to stand up, to remain standing and to die standing. The same western elite that seem invincible to Africans have no qualms subjecting their own peoples to oppression and death in the name of national interest.

This is the simple lesson of our reflection.