what Africans have forgotten or do not know – Congo Indépendant

Win the Legend

Shaking the Russian scarecrow at each divergence with a Western country would it have become a fashion for all indignant Africans? When, currently, in other latitudes, the face of Vladimir Putin is gratified on the photos of the small mustache of Hitler – the “devil” incarnate – and the Russian flag put in parallel with that of Nazi Germany, the he strongman of the Kremlin and the colors of his country are, on the other hand, popular in the south of the Mediterranean. This “sentimental” blackmail by activists on the continent – it is indeed one, let’s face it – laughably resembles that of a child who is frustrated and displeased with a parent and who threatens to withdraw his affection from the latter in order to transfer it to another presumably more sympathetic, benevolent person.

The countries of Western Europe and North America constitute what is called the West. They share liberal values and thus make respect for individual freedoms, the right to difference and certain public rights a “religion”.

These countries include former colonial powers. To have divided up Africa and to have put under their domination the peoples of the continent, such is the ink which has sullied, for more than a century, the relations between the nations of the northern hemisphere and those of the hemisphere. south of the earth. A task that some believe they have erased by granting their independence (and various postcolonial assistance) to others.

But is it so easily erased, with money and material aid, the effects of a profound deculturation, of a dehumanization that began with the slave trade and, later, “softly” perpetuated through the relations segregationists who had prevailed between colonists and colonized? This explains the repression on the part of certain Africans on everything that is American-European and the scapegoat discourse – rehashed by Nathalie Yamb, Kémi Séba and others -, which is at the limit of hatred against Western whites , which accompanies it: the West, “imperialist, neo-colonialist, plunderer of the wealth of the continent”, would be, it is repeated at will, the cause of the impoverishment and the stagnation of Africa. It is thus necessary, it is estimated, to move away from it – by getting rid of all the colonial remanences including the CFA franc – and to look elsewhere, in the East, for so-called “win-win” cooperation, especially with Putin’s Russia.

But what can Russia bring to Africa that the West has never given it Money? Civilian or military technical assistance? Humanitarian aid? Democracy? Right wing state? Are the Russians those nice people, not givers of lessons, not “paternalistic”, who have not colonized any African country and who have thus not spoiled our ancestors, the new ideal partners of which Africans dream?

Wouldn’t the latter have studied the history of the world? Have they forgotten or are they unaware that Russia, although it certainly did not have colonies in Africa, was one of the great imperialist powers which had had under its domination more than a dozen countries – including Ukraine – which only gained independence after the fall of the Berlin Wall in the early 1990s, thirty years after that of the Congo granted to it by Belgium? Wouldn’t the Africans have learned that the peoples – however of white race – colonized by the Russians underwent unheard-of violence on the part of the latter made up of forced labor, constraining cultural Russification, relegation in gulags where perished , exhaustion, cold and hunger, more than four million people? Would the black peoples of Africa have enjoyed a different and tender treatment, a particular kindness if they had been under the yoke of the Russians?

Isn’t it imperialism, recolonization, what Putin’s Russia is doing today, with fallacious arguments and under the eyes of the world, by forcibly granting itself – as in the time of the colonial conquests of the 19th century – territories of Ukraine (Crimea and others)? Does the protection of Ukrainian Russian-speakers allegedly mistreated in their country give the Russian leaders the right to invade Ukraine, a sovereign country, to balkanize it and, appalling terrorism, to raze its cities and kill indiscriminately, without distinction, its civilian populations (women, children and the elderly)?

The justifications given by Putin for his invasion of Ukraine have the same resonance as those given by Paul Kagame for his military operations in the Congo where, in particular, it is a question for him, open secret, of bringing aid to the violent Rwandophone populations in the Congo ( by arming them in order to defend themselves with Rwandan soldiers as support forces) and to ensure the security of his country threatened, he says, by his armed opponents of the FDLR (Front De Liberation du Rwanda). Inclinations to balkanize the Congo are also feared by its inhabitants. Can we approve the violation of international law by Vladimir Putin and denounce that of Paul Kagame, the hegemonic wills of these two autocrats being however obvious and identical?

African states are obviously free to choose new “friends” (or “masters”) who would not come and demand the organization of transparent elections, respect for human rights, the fight against corruption, give them rigorous advice on the management of public funds, which would not come to “loot” their wealth, which would provide them (free?) with weapons and other assistance and which would come to fight in their place, to shed their blood without compensation. Don’t Wagner’s Russian militiamen pay themselves on the “beast” in the Central African Republic, Mali and elsewhere?

Relations between international partners are based on reciprocal benefits. Africans seem to forget this and confuse cooperation with philanthropy when they emotionally decide to undress Saint Peter to dress Saint Paul. The disappointments, in some time, of certain and risky options could be great.

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Win the Legend