Allow me to express my gratitude to Prime Minister, Dr Hage Geingob and the government and people of Namibia as well as PACON for organising this annual seminar dedicated to fanning the flame of Pan Africanism that swept through the continent decades ago.
Is the theme “Africa Rising” a statement of fact or is it an expression of hope?
They say colonialism is dead, yet an unjust world economic order still puts Africa at a disadvantage.
African nations are independent and have the institutions of democracy – parliaments, elected representatives, judicial systems, etc. – yet to what extent are these mere facades which do not touch the lives of our people in a meaningful way?
African economies have grown, some of them at spectacular rates, yet the gap between rich and poor continues to widen. We are endowed with the highest percentage of untapped natural resources but our rural poor still live under abysmal conditions.
Many Africans have access to formal education yet the quality of that education varies widely from place to place and according to the social class of the child.
Corruption continues to drain our national economies at all levels. Money, which should be used to help our rural farmers become more productive or to provide decent shelter and basic infrastructure for our urban poor, leaks and bleeds into the pockets and bank accounts of the greedy and undeserving.
With the attainment of independence, the energy with which we fought against an external enemy is all too often diverted to internal conflict between ethnic groups, religions or rival political groups. And significantly many of such conflicts are instigated, influenced and fuelled by external forces that feed money and weapons in their quest to monopolise and manipulate our resources to their selfish benefit.
I could continue with this depressing litany of all the negative factors, which erode the advances, which Africa has undoubtedly made. But what would that achieve?
All the ingredients, which are necessary for Africa to truly rise – governance, prudent management, accountability, efficient administration, sustainable development, etc. – depend on trust. And trust can only be earned by integrity.
I know that we have men and women of proven integrity of the highest order and I am sure that the great majority of our people are not inherently corrupt.
However, when corruption has infiltrated our society, it requires courage and determination on the part of individuals with credibility to avoid being drowned in the abyss. Is it possible to have a moral revolution?
It is certainly not easy, but it must be our aim if all the good things about Africa and all the progress we have made, are not to be eroded.
I have said at various forums that the wholesale importation of the Western form of democracy has impacted rather negatively on our culture and society and created a competitive political structure that is alien to us.
The primary challenge for democracies in Africa is our failure to acknowledge the inherent flaws of Western democracy and encourage a system of democracy on our continent that is dynamic, home grown and imbued with the socio-cultural backgrounds of individual African states.
Many of our societies still look up to traditional authority for moral fortitude while our ‘imported’ democratic and secular leadership is seen unfortunately as synonymous to immorality and corruption. With such perceptions how do we expect our emerging democracies to evolve?
One of the biggest misconceptions in embracing Western multi-party democracy is the argument that it comes with economic progress.
It was a tragedy when in May 2013, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, one of the pillars of the anti-Apartheid struggle, announced he was no longer going to vote for the ANC because of inequality, violence and corruption. He sadly questioned the capacity of the ANC to manage South Africa.
What Archbishop Tutu said was a reflection of the way multi-party democracy is working in some parts of Africa. Our continent has and continues to be plagued by instability, violence, intolerance and a host of other unfortunate incidents.
As new as South Africa was in gaining her independence, seeing where she was coming from and what had become of those of us who had gained independence earlier and what she was going to inherit – a country that had most of all the infrastructure in place and was virtually economically independent – It seemed too obvious that they will be the ones to offer a glimmer of hope, to rekindle and re-teach the rest of us how to manage multi-party democracy without the huge challenges that some of us had encountered elsewhere on the continent. Archbishop Tutu’s verdict sounded a death toll on how we had adopted the multi-party process without customising it for our purposes – adapting it to fit into our socio-cultural and socio-political settings.
One of my biggest heartbreaks is the failure of the African continent to carry a unified voice on global issues.
It is quite refreshing to note the resolve of most of the regional bodies such as ECOWAS and SADC to rapidly tackle problems that crop up in member countries.
The dictates of globalisation means we cannot extricate ourselves from happenings elsewhere. When war and misfortune affect countries, the economic fallout spreads across the world and usually Africa with its frail economy, is hardest hit.
Developments in Ukraine since the removal of Viktor Yanukovych as President in February this year after the West supported protests over his refusal to join the EU, have exposed the dangerous precipice the unipolar control of the world by the West has taken us to.
The recent escalation of violence in Gaza is another sad reflection of the gross inequalities that still persist at global level. I spoke extensively on these issues at the University of Education in Ghana last month and I will reiterate much of what I said.
Historically, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the brutality by the Apartheid South African government remained a blot on the conscience of the international community for a considerable period.
We cannot and should never forget that an American president or government, a British Prime Minister, monarchy or government did not rescue Mandela. Long before Mandela’s release Africa and humanity the world over had been condemning the apartheid regime and calling for the release of Mandela and others.
Mandela, the freedom fighter and an advocate for racial equality had been branded a communist and a terrorist by the US government and was to remain incarcerated and may well have remained so, in spite of the global changes that were taking place perceptively towards a more democratic and just world.
No amount of international appeal the world over was going to affect any change in the American and British governments’ attitude.
However, the catalyst that triggered events leading up to the release of Nelson Mandela was when the citizens in the United States of America began to take to the streets in New York. Then and only then did President Reagan decide to pre-empt what could have turned out to be one of the biggest demonstrations that America and the UK were going to witness in relation to a foreign personality and some aspects of their own foreign policy.
President Mandela had by then and subsequently become the great international voice of conscience whose moral authority could galvanise people enough to override the authority of their own governments especially the Western governments responsible for his incarceration.
While Madiba was alive and a healthy president and I was also in office, President Zuma who was by then in charge of South Africa’s intelligence called on me. In a very sombre and sober moment I spoke to him about the need for us to do everything possible to protect President Mandela’s, African voice of conscience that spoke for humanity. The “savagery of capitalism” to quote Pope John Paul; the savagery of the emerging global economic impunity was going to feel threatened by that noble voice of
Today the world is being made to believe that the American public is finally beginning to change its opinions on the brutal treatment of the Palestinians at the hands of the Israelis in their conflict. Since history has demonstrated that the voice of the world cannot change America’s position on this issue, can we expect that the voice of American citizens will bring enough pressure to bear on their government to bring true freedom and justice to the Palestinians as they did with Apartheid South Africa?
Several weeks ago when President Obama was speaking at his usual White House press briefing on developments in Ukraine and Gaza he expressed so much sympathy for those who lost their lives in the Malaysian air crash in Ukraine and yet within that same breath he made mention of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and not a word for all the innocent women and children who were being killed and injured in the Gaza. I watched in dismay.
This was the same Obama that not only America but also the world welcomed with such warmth and comfort. In those days some of us felt that if he did not utilise his national and international strength and popularity to contain Israel’s grip on America then no one else could.
The Western governments and their media simply couldn’t exercise any restraint in the outrageous charges being levelled against Russia, Putin and the Ukrainian separatists. There was a daily barrage of these charges and all kinds of absurd accusations, clearly designed to make Putin and his country look evil. This tragedy took place in a war zone. The stresses of war and security alertness, creates an opening for men to indulge in excesses. I do not, however, believe that either side in the Ukrainian conflict would deliberately attempt to bring down a civilian airliner.
Recently, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour true to her political nature and modus operandi recounts the downing of a South Korean passenger airliner by the Soviet Air Force. What she, however, isn’t saying is that on that September 11 2001 on the day when the two airliners were flown into the Twin Towers by hijackers, the US Air Force was also given instructions to down any airliner that breached the rapidly created no-fly zones in Washington and New York. What she also is not saying is that the South Korean airliner had flown into Soviet airspace and had defied the instructions of the Soviet Air Force.
She is also reticent about the fact that prior to that tragedy, the US raised tensions in Eastern Europe by attempting to deploy intercontinental ballistic missiles in the then West Germany, targeting strategic targets within the Soviet Union. However, they ran into massive demonstrations by the German public and were therefore forced to abandon that exercise. Interestingly soon after the Korean Airliner incident the United States deployed the Intercontinental missiles and there was hardly any public protest from Germany because the Soviet Union was made to look evil by that unfortunate incident.
The current conflict between Pro-Western Ukraine and Pro-Russia Ukraine has led to hundreds of deaths. The government in Kiev has over the past few months mounted heavy attacks on the Pro-Russia side leading to severe civilian casualties. Is it not such a contradiction that the Pro-Western media has been muted on details of the heavy civilian casualties that have arisen from the Ukraine conflict since the onslaught by Kiev?
It is indeed a pity that Russia’s attempt to convey relief items to Ukraine was met with negativity from Kiev and the West, branding it as a ploy to transport weapons to secessionist groups. That was the most inhumane and criminally insensitive posture the West could have taken. When Russia suggested a ceasefire in Donetsk in early August she was rebuffed and accused of using the request as a pretext to invade that territory.
We cannot overlook the huge collateral damage caused by drone strikes for instance. A widely circulated UK report confirmed that, as at January there had been over 390 drone strikes over the past five years with 2 400 casualties. The West refers to it as war on terrorism but the question is how does one justify the hundreds of civilian deaths that have arisen as a result of such strikes?
Israel’s bombardment of Gaza led to over 2 100 deaths, 11 100 wounded and more than 300 000 displaced persons. Whole families were wiped out but not once did the United States or its allies seek to treat Israel’s disproportionate response to Hamaz’s rocket strikes as an act of unbridled aggression and terror.
United States is a great nation with many credits to its name but its reticence over Israel, has been costly not just in terms of lives but to America’s image.
The unipolar authority created by the collapse of the Soviet Union brought in its wake a sense of hope that the absence of tensions between the United States and Soviet Union will bring peace and sanity into world affairs. The West has failed miserably and directed us into a dangerous curve.
President Carter, the former President of the United States of America has himself indicted his country when he said America has abandoned the moral high ground.
America has done a lot for mankind. A lot more will be required of her but she will first and foremost have to seize and regain the moral high ground that won it respect across the globe.
The innate sense of global right and wrong suffered a severe blow during the Iraq invasion by Bush and Blair.
In one fell swoop, the right of might was made to supersede and almost destroy the sacred might of right.
Prior to the invasion of Iraq, Dick Cheney who was then Secretary of Defence in Bush Snr’s government said: “America’s interests supersede issues of morality.”
As individual countries they have preserved the essence of moral values but in their dealings in other countries their interests are what count not the morals of greater society.
Did it have to take President Carter’s words of the USA losing its moral high ground to give credence to this reality? We have known it all along, we have lived it, but it appears that our words have little value, so let us use his words.
There are glaring examples of the callousness of certain developed countries.
In some parts of the world where the institutions and administration of justice are so weak, this was an open licence to continue to kill or to continue killing, and my country was no exception.
During that suspenseful moment of the display of power as they entered Iraq, Bush and Blair literally gave marching orders to two West African Presidents to visit Zimbabwe and literally ask the President to abdicate his office. But the heads of the SADC region walked them out.
Having failed to achieve the objective against President Mugabe, Charles Taylor who was then living in Nigeria with President Obasanjo became the next convenient target.
Africa also sat and watched France misuse UN troops to oust a patriot out of Ivory Coast.
All Africa is asking for, is the boldness to defy that, which is wrong and is an affront to our sovereign African right and authority. Unfortunately, a few too many of us on this continent have allowed the West, with their double standards to intimidate us. If they were intimidating us from a position of right, it would be easier to tolerate. There is a loss of international morality and values. There is a monetisation of morality.
Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings the former president of Ghana made these remarks at the seminar with the theme, “Africa Rising” that was hosted by the Pan African Centre of Namibia in Windhoek on 12 September 2014.