AFRICANGLOBE – It was not surprising when American President Obama told Africans in Kenya to go homosexual. Meanwhile it was only in June 2015 that America legalised same sex marriages. This implies that Africans cannot think for themselves
US President Barack Obama’s speeches on his recent visit to Kenya and Ethiopia did not show any sign that the American government’s condescending policy towards Africa has changed. His lecturing African leaders on “democracy” and “values”, was reflective of the old policy of dictating to non-Western nations on how they must conduct their national affairs.
Obama seemed also to be very poorly informed on Africa. He said he came to Africa at this time “because Africa is on the move”. It was not clear to whose benefit “Africa is on the move” because he was the one giving lectures to Africans about things they have known all along and they are part of the continent’s pan-African agenda.
It is indisputable that Africa still has to do a lot more on the educational advancement of her people. It is something many African leaders planned to do even before they defeated European colonialism. It was colonial governments’ agenda to keep Africans uneducated.
Commenting on education many years ago, James E. M. Aggrey famously known as “Dr Aggrey of Africa,” said: “The surest way to keep a nation down is to educate men and neglect women.”
As early as 1946 Jomo Kenyatta built 324 schools for 600 000 children in Kenya in those darkest colonial days.
At Kenya’s independence in December 1963, there was not a single university in Kenya. The moment Kenya freed itself from British colonialism President Jomo Kenyatta’s government built the University of Nairobi. Today there are 22 state universities in Kenya plus 26 private ones. In Ghana at independence there was one university. Today Ghana numbers 50 universities. Nigeria has 100 universities. Tanzania had no university during German and British colonial rule. It has now 10 state universities and 16 private ones. Zambia had no university during British colonial rule. It now has eight public universities and several private ones.
In Rhodesia which is today Zimbabwe there was only one university, mainly for whites. Today Zimbabwe has 17 state (and private) universities. African universities are for both men and women. This is just a sample. It is puzzling how this progress in education in Africa was overlooked by President Obama. In fact, the African Union has a protocol on education. It is intended to intensify rapid education in Africa and develop the continent economically for its people.
Zimbabwe has not only provided its girls with education, but many girls are pilots. The most shining ones are Captain Emilia Njovana and Captain Chipo Matimba. They were girls in Zimbabwe high schools. Emilia Njovana was the first female commercial pilot in Zimbabwe. Today she trains women and men to fly jets and helicopters. Captain Chipo Matimba was a cadet and trainee pilot in 1994.
The course involves gruesome military training. It produces pilots who can fly aeroplanes in good and bad weather. She too trains men and women to fly.
The impediment to rapid education and gender equality in Africa is not the African “backward culture” which President Obama seemed to imply while speaking in Kenya. The main cause is the continuation of economic stealing of Africa’s resources by America and its Western allies.
Pope Benedict XVI spoke the truth which many Western leaders are hiding. The Pope declared in July 2008, “Our Western way of life has stripped Africa’s people of their riches and continues to do so.”
Corroborating this fact, a member of the Scottish Parliament, Mark Ballard, said: “Our relationship to Africa is an exploitative one. The West no longer needs standing armies in Africa to strip Africa’s resources, because it can do it more effectively with multi-national companies.”
Barack Obama spoke at great length about corruption. African people condemn corruption in all its forms. It is not their way of life. In Africa democracy must be liberatory for the poor economically, socially and educationally. For an Africa that has emerged from centuries of European slavery, colonialism and racism, democracy is not just a matter of the vote or periodic elections. People do not eat a vote. A vote that does not translate into the material needs of the people – things such as food, decent housing, education, employment and accessible good healthcare – is not good for Africa.
Democracy must be a means to the good things of life for a truly liberated nation. People must repossess that which was taken from them, especially in countries such as South Africa, Kenya and Namibia. Vast land and resources in these countries are still the monopoly of the beneficiaries of colonialism and European minorities. America kicked a big storm when the Zimbabwe government seized land that was theirs in the first place and had been expropriated from Africans through terrorist colonialism by Britain for its own colonial settlers.
The American government imposed economic sanctions on Zimbabwe. It never did so during many years of colonialism in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) even when Ian Smith, the rebel colonial leader, had killed many civilians. Zimbabwean people had to die in thousands fighting a war of liberation that finally ousted the colonial settler government. As a result of American sanctions on Zimbabwe the economy there has been badly affected. There is also a time when Zimbabweans died of cholera in numbers because there was no foreign exchange to buy drugs that cure cholera. This is tyranny and naked dictatorship to African nations. It must be noted that a number of corrupt regimes in Africa have been tolerated by American governments.
A glaring example in Africa is that of Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo) under Mobuto Sese Seko. American governments assisted this soldier to rule Congo for 32 years while the democratically elected Prime Minister Lumumba was assassinated within six months by Belgium allegedly with the involvement of the then American government. But there is a more disturbing kind of corruption that has been reported in Africa. The American government must contribute a solution to it, if it truly cares for the welfare of Africa’s people. Between $1,2 trillion and $1,4 trillion has left Africa. According to very credible researchers, this is roughly equal to Africa’s current domestic product. It surpasses by far the money Africa has received as “aid.”
This flow of money has been transferred to America and elsewhere. It is generally generated from corruption in the form of tax evasion, bribes and cross-border smuggling. Researchers have complained that Western media has hardly reported this killer-nation crime. The African Development Bank has described this kind of corruption as “The illicit haemorrhage of resources from Africa (and) is four times of Africa’s current foreign debt.”
Barack Obama lectured African leaders in Ethiopia about relinquishing their positions when their term of office is over. He is right. But African people know this.
Recent examples are Burkina Faso and Burundi where they opposed leaders who wanted a “third term” which was not provided for in their national constitution. Africans have, however, a problem when governments favoured and many times put into power by America rule as unconstitutionally as they like as long as they protect American interests. Some examples are Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Mobutu of “Zaire” who even changed the name Democratic Republic of Congo.
American governments have also gone out of their way to overthrow governments they do not like in Africa and elsewhere.
The Somalia debacle began when the American government got involved in the internal affairs of Somalia in the name of “democracy.” They fled after the Battle of Mogadishu also known as Day of Rangers which was between the Somali forces and the American soldiers in October 1993.
It was the then American President Bill Clinton who admitted: “We had gotten to a point . . . where we kind of thought that we could intervene militarily without getting hurt, without our soldiers getting killed. The incident which I call ‘Black Hawk Down’ certainly disabused us of that.” Unfortunately this American mess has badly destroyed Somalia and affected Africa’s political stability.
In its pursuit to impose its own kind of “democracy” on other nations America has persisted on this dangerous route for world peace. America together with its allies such as Britain and France invaded Libya. They did not like Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s government. Today Libya is in tatters. It is on the brink of a “failed state.” This imposition of American “democracy” also led to Saddam Hussein of Iraq being accused of possessing “weapons of mass destruction” and killed.
He had never possessed these weapons but oil. Iraq’s American “democracy” is today a field of graves of innocent children, women and men.
The “democracy” that the American government established in Iraq has given birth to ISIS. This has ushered into this world unprecedented terrorism that is daily causing deaths, destruction and much suffering in the Middle East and spreading. The West has been pushing the whole world to go homosexual, especially Africa; and threatening to withhold its aid if African countries do not legalise homosexuality. It was not surprising when American President Obama told Africans in Kenya to go homosexual. Meanwhile it was only in June 2015 that America legalised same sex marriages. This implies that Africans cannot think for themselves. Their role in life is to be copycats of America and do as they are told. This is despite the obvious moral degeneration of Western countries, that signal that sooner than later they will declare incest and sex with dogs as a “human right.”
President Uhuru Kenyatta, the son of the “Burning Spear” Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, would have abdicated his responsibility to defend Africa, if he did not tell the American president, “There are some things we do not share (that) our culture and our society don’t accept. It is very difficult for us to impose on people that which they themselves do not accept.”
By: Motsoko Pheko
