PART Two
Biden administration’s “White Man’s Burden” and the Ethiopian “half child, half devil”
I had little problem with Donald Trump when it came to Africa policy. Trump did not mince his words.
For Trump, Africa was a continent of “s**t hole” countries. What makes a country/ continent “s**t hole”? According to Trump, Africans live in poverty, war and conflict, disease, and starvation. That is why never visited or paid any attention to the “s**t hole” continent of Africa.
Trump believed the “s**t hole” continent of Africa is not worth saving. His attitude was, “Let them kill each other. Who cares? Leave them alone.”
Biden and his crew believe they are divinely ordained to save the “half devil, half child” Ethiopians from themselves.
Rudyard Kipling, the foremost apologist for European colonialism penned a special poem in 1899, “The White Man’s Burden”, exhorting the United States to colonize the Philippine Islands.
Take up the White Man’s burden—/ Send forth the best ye breed—
Go bind your sons to exile…/ Your new-caught, sullen peoples,/
Half devil and half child…
In 2021, Joe Biden, Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, Jeffrey Feltman, Samantha Power, and their underlings bark out their orders to the “half devil, half child” Ethiopians from their White Man’s Burden high horse.
Robert Jensen in the “Heart of Whiteness” (contrast with Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” about the use of the fiction of racial superiority to legitimize imperialism and empire-building in the Congo), exposes the liberal platitudes that conceal the depths of racism among whites with a messianic mission to save black people.
Jensen advises, “The world does not need white people to civilize others. The real White People’s Burden is to civilize ourselves.”
The Biden administration could not save Afghanistan let alone Ethiopia. We saw how Biden saved the tens of thousands of Afghans who helped Americans in Afghanistan.
It is said, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”
When the going got tough in Afghanistan, the Biden administration got into its plane and flew out like a bat outta hell.
When Blinken testified during his confirmation hearing that Ethiopia will be one of three countries (Uganda, Cameroon) in Africa that will be a special target of the U.S. policy of “active engagement”, what he really meant was that he will make an example of these three “s**t hole countries” for the rest of Africa.
When Blinken commanded in a tweet on November 19 (certain in the belief he will be the next Secretary of State), “Ethiopian authorities should take urgent steps to end the conflict” in Tigray, he shows not only disrespect for Ethiopian sovereignty but also contempt for Ethiopia’s leadership.
He means that he can push around the sovereign government of Ethiopia and get them on their knees begging, “Please uncle… Uncle Sam!”
The Biden administration’s morbid attitude, fascination and obsession with Ethiopia remind me of what Dr. Martin Luther King said about “white moderates” in his Letter From Birmingham Jail: “I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate…”
White Citizens Councilor, White Man’s Burden, two sides of the same coin.
The paternalism and condescension of the self-appointed liberal white supremacist saviors of Africa cum empire-builders does not surprise or disappoint me.
When the people stand up, imperialism’s feet of clay crumble. The people of Ethiopia are standing tall against the white supremacist imperialism of the Biden administration.
What saddens and deeply disappoints me is the fact that African Americans drunk with the illusion of power should line up behind the empire-builders and become willing instruments of implementation of the mission of the White Man’s Burden in Ethiopia and the rest of Africa.
African American Congressman Gregory Meeks, Chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, African American Congressman Karen Bass, African American U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield led by overseer Susan Rice parrot the gospel of the White Man’s burden in Ethiopia and the rest of Africa.
These African Americans in “power” are just as quick to demonize and dehumanize Ethiopians as “half devil, half child” as those afflicted by the White Man’s Burden syndrome.
Despite my disappointment, I understand how the oppressed drunk with the illusion of power or the pursuit of profit can oppress the oppressed. Just like the drug dealer in the ghetto who enriches himself unconcerned about the lives of his people in his community.
As Bell Hooks observed, the “term ‘white supremacy’ enables us to recognize not only that black people are socialized to embody the values and attitudes of white supremacy, but we can exercise ‘white supremacist control’ over other black people.”
Hit the road Jeff and don’t you come back any more…
On September 11, 2014 (9/11/14) then- United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman met with Afghanistan’s two presidential candidates, Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani, the same Ghani who skipped Kabul town in August 2021 with a $169 million in cash.
Following the meeting, Feltman said, “I was here to reinforce the message to the two candidates, on behalf of the Secretary- General, to please move forward… And if there are things we can do to help them, we’re willing to do it; but this, obviously, is an Afghanistan decision about Afghanistan’s future”.
What is good for Afghanistan ought to be good for Ethiopia but not so? Feltman never said, “I am in Ethiopia to reinforce President Biden’s message. If there are things we can do to help the Ethiopians, we’re willing to do it; but this, obviously, is an Ethiopian decision about Ethiopia’s future.’
Feltman’s declared mission was to force Ethiopia to “commit to an inclusive dialogue”. That is code for arm-twist Ethiopia to negotiate and restore the terrorist TPLF to power.
Feltman and his bosses insist Ethiopia negotiate with the TPLF terrorists on penalty of sanctions and other punitive measures. There will be inclusive dialogue with the TPLF on the Twelfth of Never after hell freezes over and pigs fly!
It’s time for Feltman to hit the road and go back to Brookings Institution. I wish Feltman bon voyage with a song. Paraphrasing the lyrics of the great Ray Charles:
Hit the road Jeff and don’t you come back
No more, no more, no more, no more
Hit the road Jeff and don’t you come back no more to the Horn of Africa
What did I say?
Hit the road Jeff and don’t you come back to the Horn of Africa
No more, no more, no more, no more
Hit the road Jeff and don’t you come back no more, no more… to the Horn of Africa!
Perhaps Feltman would prefer I bid him farewell paraphrasing Michael Jackson’s song “Beat it”:
Jeff Feltman, don’t you ever come around here in the Horn of Africa
Don’t wanna see your face, you better disappear
The fire’s is in the eyes of the Ethiopians and their words are really clear
So beat it, just beat it the hell outta the Horn of Africa…
BY ALMARIAM
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD SEPTEMBER 8/ 2021
