As Ethiopia’s fascist invasion in 1936 galvanized an international response in support of the Ethiopian people, so does the current neocolonial machinations against Ethiopia to impose a kind of American-led covert invasion that is supported by Western powers and being implemented by proxy forces. The game might have changed but the rules of the game remain the same. Regime change is both the objective and one of the new tools of ensuring US hegemony in Africa.
For most of the last decades, Pan-Africanism as a practice seems to be in a sleeping state. Almost a century after its birth, the philosophy and practice of Pan-Africanism has not yet achieved its stated objectives, namely securing the political, economic and social liberation of Africans from the vestiges of colonialism and neocolonialism.
A conventional definition of pan-Africanism would be a “philosophy that is based on the belief that African people share common bonds and objectives and that advocates unity to achieve these objectives. In the views of different proponents throughout its history, Pan-Africanism has been conceived in varying ways. It has been applied to all black African people and people of black African descent; to all people on the African continent, including nonblack people; or to all states on the African continent.”
The philosophy of pan-Africanism emerged as a reaction to colonialism in Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries. “It developed as a reaction to the impact of European colonialism in Africa on peoples of African descent. In the mid-20th century, activists in Africa adopted Pan-Africanism as a rallying cry for independence from colonial rule. Some African Pan-Africanists sought to unite the continent as one independent nation.”
Why are we talking about neocolonialism and Pan-Africanism today? This is because both neocolonialism and Pan-Africanism are alive although mutating into new forms and manifestations. The chief protagonists of neocolonialism are now stronger than ever on the continent. They consolidate and provide generous assistance to pro-Western political forces and work hard to undermine anti-Western and anti-American or radical forces that say no to all round Western hegemony on the continent. Western and American neocolonialist forces have one objective in mind and that is the perpetration of their control over Africa in all areas of life. And one of the targets of American neocolonialism is the domination and subjugation of Africans in general and people of the Horn of Africa in pursuit of their strategic objective of ensuring that this part of Africa fully falls under the control of American neo-imperialism and neo-colonialism.
Why is Ethiopia presently the target of Western and American covert neocolonialist strategy? There are many reasons for this. The first one is the fact that America is acting as a wounded beast. It has lost any of the contemporary wars of invasion that it fought in many parts of the world. It fought in Iraq to control its oilfields but the country has refused to fall under American protectionism. The US sought to defeat Syria and put it under its umbrella.
The second reason is American frustrations caused by the prospect of losing economic upper hand globally. China is advancing economically in the face of a declining America. This makes the White House nervous and extremely agitated. Any strategy that helps America keep its economic domination would be welcome, including at the cost of the sovereignty and dignity of critical and emerging regional powers like Ethiopia unless they break their economic links with China in favor of US aid assistance, the control of global banks and the penetration of Western multinational corporations.
The third reason is the inherent weakening of America as a global power because of its dysfunctional institutions, unethical media that propagate fake news and the corruption of its politicians. America is electing to the White House presidents with mediocre calibers and devoid of America’s political and moral values who are bullying their own citizens and institutions as well as foreign countries that are not accepting their diktat. Iran, Russia, China, Syria, Korea, Cuba, Libya, Eritrea, Ethiopia… you name it.
In Afghanistan, the US not only lost the war but also left the country in humiliation. America destroyed the former Soviet Union and expected to turn Russia into its vassal state in the name of democracy and free enterprise. Instead of that Russia is now up on its foot as a major competitor in the economic and military spheres. The US is losing the economic race with China that has become the second most powerful economic powerhouse. In the coming twenty or thirty years, the US is bound to lose its number one economic and military position and this is giving reasons for the hawks in the US administration to concoct “strategies” for regaining its lost positions or undermine its immediate competitors.
As a matter of history, the Horn of Africa has become a bone of contention among the great economic powers of the world and Ethiopia is the biggest and most significant entity in this region. Chinese economic influence in this region is quite obvious and the Americans don’t want this as it threatens their long-term political hegemonic ambitions. Ethiopia being the critical component of the Horn, it is crucial to win it over the side of the Western and American powers.
If this does not work, the alternative scenario is to destabilize the country, force a regime change and put a puppet government that will play both the anti-China card for them. The worst case scenario, is to let Ethiopia descend into Libyan-style chaos. In case that fails the US wants a regime change that would bring to power rapacious elites that would play the role of Trojan horse for American overall hegemonic strategy.
American cannot directly invade Ethiopia. As always, it wants a pretext for invasion or someone else to do the work for them. And as a matter of convergence of interests, the TPLF is here to take up that mercenary role and turn itself from a band of killers and looters into an American puppet paid in American dollars. This was the role in which it had excelled in when it was in power for the last 27 years. The TPLF fought the so-called anti-terrorism war in Somalia and elsewhere against lavish American secret payments for its services from which its elites benefitted immensely while the masses became further impoverished. This was the basic contradiction that exploded into its face and led to the popular revolution back in 2018.
Neocolonialism is therefore raising its ugly heads as a many-headed hydra under such political circumstances. A hydra is a many-headed monster. In Greek mythology it is a monster that has nine heads and was killed by Heracles. When one head was cut a new one grew instantly in its place. Neocolonialism has also many heads. Its first head was imperialism that gave birth to colonialism and then to Imperialism and now to globalism and neo-imperialism. Its parents originated in Europe and more particularly in England where capitalism developed first and started to stretch its ugly tentacles in search of markets everywhere particularly in Africa. the second head of the hydra was born and its name was colonialism.
In the 20th century, the new colonies in Africa started to feel the suffocating holds of the hydra and began rebellions to get rid of its deadly holds. By the first half of the century, many of the hydra’s heads were cut off and colonies started to breath a fresher air. But this only lasted for a couple of decades after which the third head of the hydra started to make its presence felt not openly, directly or in daylight. It manifested itself covertly, indirectly and in the dark. This tentacle of the hydra soon produced offspring across the colonized continent, so that when it will be time for the parent hydra to go, it could hand over its legacies to its heirs or direct descendants.
The new African post-colonial elites were the heirs that took up the unfinished works of their parent hydra and worked hard to prove themselves worthy heirs of their parents. The other head of the hydra that was born from the union between the parent hydra and the elite hydras was baptized neocolonialism because it looked like its parents while it had new features before the facial features of a real hydra. Neocolonialism in its turn gave birth to neo-imperialism and now it has a new offspring to take care of whose name is globalism. So, the metamorphoses of the original hydra is continuing to shed off its old skins and grew new skins like those of snakes.
In fact, the hydra of colonialism has given birth to two kinds of elites: elites that looked exactly like the original prototype and others who looked differently from the venomous species of elites that helped in the sucking of the blood of Africa and its peoples in the mineral mines, cotton fields, oils fields of north Africa, the coastal areas and the highlands of East Africa, in the dense forests of central Africa, and many other resource-rich parts of the continent.
The weapon of choice for Ethiopians and Africans in this part of the world is therefore not sophisticated technology but a potent philosophy of African militancy as expressed in Pan-African solidarity. In its hegemonic bid, America wants to subjugate not only Ethiopia through a puppet government headed by the TPLF, if at all that proves feasible. Its objective is to dominate the Horn of Africa. A year or so ago, the TPLF was dead and buried. America is now trying to resuscitate it by giving it a second life, which is both impossible in human life as well as in Ethiopia politics.
If successful in Ethiopia, the US hegemony is bound to expand towards the neighboring or adjoining countries of Djibouti, Somalia, and Eritrea to link up with its East African strategic objectives. The peoples of the region will therefore have to form a bond of solidarity between them on the basis of African Unity or Pan-Africanism since an injury to one of them will sooner or later turn into an injury to all of them. Their battle cry should be Pan-Africanism under a new covenant among the popular forces to protect the continent against the neocolonial hydra and its collaborating elites and their domestic ramifications.
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD DECEMBER 3/2021
