For too long, we accepted the lie that the West is out to promote the forces of democracy, rule of law and liberalism. President Donald Trump has one virtue: He has thrown out the veneer that presented the West as the good guys. He is upfront in delivering the narrative that their prosperity depends on the seizing our resources. With that message resounding clearly, let us brush up our little red book and confidently declare that imperialism is a paper tiger and fight them so that we can use our resources for the development of our own people.
We live in interesting times in which leading imperialist countries have stopped pretending about the rules-based international order. They are now engaging in imperialist actions – without ideological cover, shame or constraint – to continue their control of the world’s resources and carrying out 19th century style gunboat diplomacy. This is what we see in the abduction of the President of Venezuela and his wife and takeover of the country’s vast petroleum resources, the murders of the Libyan and Iraqi presidents and takeover of their petroleum resources, the Syrian debacle, and now the battle to take over Iran’s resources. While the façade was the protection of the rules-based international system, the reality has been that MIGHT IS RIGHT. From the Korean war, to Vietnam, Afghanistan etc., external aggression has led to the killing of over 40 million people since the end of the Second World War under American hegemony. Extractivism has always been the guiding principle. Nonetheless, Comrade Mao tells us that American imperialism is a paper tiger.
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As Chairman Mao Zedong put it: “Now US imperialism is quite powerful, but in reality, it isn’t. It is very weak politically because it is divorced from the masses of the people and is disliked by everybody and by the American people too. In appearance it is very powerful but in reality, it is nothing to be afraid of, it is a paper tiger. Outwardly a tiger, it is made of paper, unable to withstand the wind and the rain. I believe the United States is nothing but a paper tiger.”
Imperialism has been effective in controlling Africa because from the outset of colonisation, it adopted a policy of divide-and-rule to prevent the colonised from uniting against their oppressor. It categorised Africans as tribes defined by the limitations of their communal horizons and perspectives that could not collaborate with others. They were not even considered as ethnic groups, not to speak of nations, and therefore could not lay claims to the colonial state domain, which is a civic space beyond their comprehension. As Professor Okwudiba Nnoli showed in his work, the colonial project limited Africa to the communal space that was small, narrow and kin based.
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The second phase of the colonial project was to create and or promote differences between the African people. Also, to separate groups from their neighbours and produce collaborators for the colonial regime. Binary divisions were created between indigenes/settlers, Muslims/animists, herders/farmers, leader/follower groups and so on. These divisions were then fanned by modes of inclusion/exclusion to create rupture between them. In Nigeria, for example, the aristocracy of the Fulani Emirate were presented as natural rulers, while the others were naturally regarded as fit to be ruled. In the neighbouring Niger Republic, the French colonisers looked at Nigeria and decided the Fulani Emirate rulers on their side of the border were not fit to rule, in case they sided with their brethren on the Nigerian side. The Zarma were chosen as the group with leadership qualities and were massively recruited into the civil service and army, while the Fulani aristocracy was marginalised.
The sad reality is that this abundance of natural resources has resulted in very poor governance, sustained manipulation and the promotion of violent conflicts by imperialist forces. In so many African countries, small arms and light weapons have been deliberately distributed to promote civil strife by religious bigots and ethnic militia. Research shows that the presence of valuable natural resources, especially oil and minerals, is associated with a higher likelihood of civil conflict and organised violence…
In Burundi and Rwanda, the Tutsi were defined as a royal society with regal leadership abilities, while the Hutu were only capable of being led and directed by their superior Tutsi brethren. The fact that they spoke the same language, lived together and had the same culture was de-emphasised, while their differences were promoted. The expected result was repeated incidents of violence between the two groups in 1969, 1972, 1988 and 1990. In 1994, the Hutu organised a genocide in which about 800,000 Tutsi were massacred. Since then, the Rwanda regime has been able to sustain these divisions by promoting the development of Tutsi ethnic militias in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to raid and kill as a tactic of stealing the country’s natural resources in conjunction with Americans. This was symbolically conveyed to the whole world in an Oval Office meeting in which President Trump spoke proudly about an accord to exploit the Congo’s resources, with selected African presidents clapping enthusiastically at their support of the foreign exploitation of their resources.
Africa is rich in natural resources, with vast deposits of oil, gas, uranium, rare earth minerals, lithium, gold and other strategic minerals. The continent also has a lot of arable land and water resources for agricultural development. These assets have been subjected to rapacious exploitation mainly by external actors for two centuries. Through this process of extractivism, Africans have been denied the right to enjoy and benefit from their resources. Imperial countries have used their powers to physically kill or dethrone postcolonial leaders who have attempted to correct the imbalance and use African resources for the benefit of the African people. Across many parts of the continent, these same resources have become focal points of violent contestations, rather than engines of inclusive growth.
The sad reality is that this abundance of natural resources has resulted in very poor governance, sustained manipulation and the promotion of violent conflicts by imperialist forces. In so many African countries, small arms and light weapons have been deliberately distributed to promote civil strife by religious bigots and ethnic militia. Research shows that the presence of valuable natural resources, especially oil and minerals, is associated with a higher likelihood of civil conflict and organised violence, particularly where state capacity is weak and resource revenues are unevenly distributed. Jihadi groups and ethnic militias emerge not only as instruments of economic predation but also as actors claiming to defend communal rights to land, oil fields, grazing areas, or mineral deposits. The intersection of resource competition and ethno-religious identity thus transforms distributive disputes into organised armed confrontation.
At a recent conference by Trust Africa in Abuja, a former United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa, Abdoulie Janneh, said Africa needs to quickly strategise to confront current challenges generated by global conflicts that have led to a breakdown of the international order and have direct political and economic consequences for countries on the continent that are not direct parties to such wars. He added that war is a destruction of rules and regulations. We live in a world in which one country will wake up one morning and decide that it will completely destroy another. Even the African countries that are not directly affected by ongoing promoted conflicts continue to bear economic consequences of distant conflicts, particularly through inflation and shortages of grains, fertilisers, fuel and so on.
Africa must produce more and must trade within itself and prioritise the activation of the Free Trade Agreement. The African Union must put in place mechanisms to trade among ourselves in the continent, which can help minimise the impacts of war.
Another participant, Professor Marwa El Darly of the American University in Cairo stressed the importance of collective action and civic engagement in addressing insecurity across the continent. She drew attention to the current crisis precipitated by the attack on Iran by the United States and Israel, which is currently raising fundamental questions in Egypt on the Sunni-Shiite war in the Muslim world, where people are finally realising that the real problem is American imperialism in liaison with Israel, rather than Iranian Shiism. She concluded that, “We are currently living in a world of insecurity. The solution to the issues in Africa is unity, and unity is power.”
Africa must produce more and must trade within itself and prioritise the activation of the Free Trade Agreement. The African Union must put in place mechanisms to trade among ourselves in the continent, which can help minimise the impacts of war.
For too long, we accepted the lie that the West is out to promote the forces of democracy, rule of law and liberalism. President Donald Trump has one virtue: He has thrown out the veneer that presented the West as the good guys. He is upfront in delivering the narrative that their prosperity depends on the seizing our resources. With that message resounding clearly, let us brush up our little red book and confidently declare that imperialism is a paper tiger and fight them so that we can use our resources for the development of our own people.
A professor of Political Science and development consultant/expert, Jibrin Ibrahim is a Senior Fellow of the Centre for Democracy and Development, and Chair of the Editorial Board of PREMIUM TIMES.
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