The rules-based international order that started its manoeuvre on the heels of the end of WWII has not brought the development that Africa needs, the highly hierarchical order rather hijacked international multilateral organizations and has been using them to systematically perpetuate hegemonic relations among the wealthiest Western nations and the poorest nations of Africa.
Africa needs a renewed world order where its people can live a dignified life. The people should properly utilize their resources to extricate themselves from the abject poverty. The continent’s dearly useful youthful populations have to get the proper niche to invest their labor, skills, and knowledge for the good of their society.
Countless of Africa’s youths desperately cross the world’s dangerous migratory routes, often exposing themselves to robbery, beatings, and other inhumane treatments at the hands of brutal human traffickers. Organ traffickers too perform horrific theater on the helpless migrants. This is not to mention the scorching temperature and the death that await migrants in the Mediterranean Sea. IOM called this year the deadliest year since 2016.
Wealthier countries at times close their borders and at other times call the countries “shit holes”. Economic and political migrants and asylum seekers are often considered as sub-humans in some destinations.
The existing exploitative world order is tailored to the size of the West and is made deliberately unfit for the global South and East. The current system serves to keep poor countries poorer and poorer. A few countries that moved up through the ladder of wealth with their rigorous efforts are tagged with bad terms such as “dictators,” “undemocratic,” “despots” and what have you.
The existing world order is nothing short of institutionalizing exploitation.
The thing is embodied in the guise of “protection of human rights,” “expansion of democracy” “development” and other rosy words. Countries and governments that adhere to the dictates of the wealthiest nations are ranked top in human rights handling, democracy and development, and are sometimes called “favorite dictators” Any country and grouping that stands out of their bracket, no matter what good record it has, is “undemocratic”, “brutal”, “dictator” and the list goes on. Farsighted leaders are demonized and puppets glorified using their media.
World famous scholars, John Mearsheimer and Jeffery Sachs in a recent debate on All-In agreed that the US went to create world countries in its own image, which Sachs called “delusional.” His take is that they don’t care if one is military or democratic or whatsoever, the thing is just to project power.
Keeping Africa poor
The onset of the ordeal started in 1619. Some historians may drag it even to an earlier period. By the account of colonist John Rolfe, around 350 enslaved Africans arrived in today’s Virginia from Angola with a slave ship, the White Lion. He called them 20 and Odd Negros.
Africa’s resources, such as gold and ivory, attracted Europeans and as the demand for labor grew in the New World, up to 12 million Africans were looted and shipped to the Americas.
No doubt, African brain and labor shipped to the other side of the Atlantic shaped that part of the world greatly. Black labor and intellect have midwifed the modern world as well. William P. Jones, a professor in the Department of History in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota wrote an article on the topic. He took a quote from Du Bois’s book Black Reconstruction in America. Du Bois wrote: that black labor was a “founding stone of a new economic system in the nineteenth century.”
But we rarely observe their contribution receiving due recognition. The New World simply treated black labor as free labor. The situation made Africa vulnerable to later exploitations. The torment went unabated, at least for four centuries. From the 19th C onwards to the second half of the 20th C Africans, other than Ethiopia, were subdued in their motherland.
The current situation in Africa is, by and large, the result of the cold wartime. The global superpowers vied for influence on world affairs and rallied countries behind them, creating Eastern and Western blocs. Most African countries seized the unfolding as a blessing in disguise to get their political freedom.
The optimism and euphoria, however, quickly disappeared.
The elected Togolese President Sylvanus Olympio was killed a few months before the charter that formed the OAU was signed. A wave of coups continued in Africa ever since, often backed by external powers. “Of the 492 attempted or successful coups carried out around the world since 1950, Africa has seen 220 with 109 of them successful,” according to, Powell and Thyne’s data (see https:// jonathanmpowell.com/data/). During the stated period, 45 out of 54 countries in Africa saw at least one coup attempt.
Colonial powers deliberately sow the seeds of discord among peoples of different cultures in Africa. The evasive seeds grow here and there with their poisonous thorn. The prickle appears in the forms of irredentist and separatist as well as other civil wars, creating a favorable niche for the neo-colonialists to easily exploit Africans and their resources.
Towards a New Era
The Pan-African vision is on the horizon— the “Pan African vision of “an integrated, prosperous, and peaceful Africa, driven by its own citizens and representing a dynamic force in the international arena.”
This does not occur because we wish it to. It behooves us to work hard and smart. It requires us to make the needed sacrifices. It requires a 21st-century mindset that puts Africa’s interests first. The old way of doing things cannot and will not usher Africa in the attainment of its vision. Opinion leaders in every country in Africa should put the interest of Africa first—the guns must be silenced.
It needs partners that support the quick transfer of skillsets and knowledge. It requires friends who lend support in the effort to expand critical development infrastructure. It is time to end the rosy words and pretentious friendship and begin a “genuine” partnership.
Our needs are explicitly expressed in Agenda 2063. African citizens share widely that Agenda 2063 is a relevant development discourse. This is stated in the introductory part of the second decade of the agenda’s implementation. The ambition is to elevate all countries of Africa including the islands well above the poverty line. Africa envisions becoming a continent of middle-income countries by 2033. It needs to transfer knowledge and skills. It needs to be a good competitor in the tech world. And this demands that it channel its resources into investments that would accelerate its growth and development. First and foremost, superpowers that want to play their proxy game should stay away. And good partners should continue investing in areas that are mutually beneficial.
There is no denying the fact that there aren’t babysitting countries that feed into the mouths of Africans. No foolishness here. Countries and governments in Africa must clearly know their respective interests. They must work hard and smart to align their plans with their shared vision. If Africa is divided internally, it is given that any entity will try to fish in the troubled waters. Who is to blame then?
Current generations of Africans in areas including academia, media, power circles and other influential positions should seriously work to defend the interests of Africa. In 1619 and even before our ancestors made a grave mistake. Powerful and influential ones traded the strong Africans for tobacco, cloth, sugar and rifles raiding villages and bringing colonialists deep into Africa. We need to take care in case our short-lived gains supersede the noble cause expressed in the Agenda 2063.
BY WORKU BELACHEW
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD SATURDAY 21 SEPTEMBER 2024
