African Wokeness: Shitholes and Safari Continent versus Pan-African Calls for Sovereignty and Second Decolonization
Quacking duck Baerbock from the point of view of the Africa Union issued another politically incorrect statement in just one week. After she had already announced that the West and Germany were not waging a proxy war, but war against Russia, she has now also angered the African Union with her leopard joke. Although not of the caliber of Donald Trump, who generally described African states as „shitholes“, Africans feel downgraded by Baerbock to a „safari continent“ where only exotic animals and plants libve, but apparently no people. All returns of colonialist looted cultural assets and artefakts are of no use either. Now one could defend Baerbock that she didn’t mean it that way, which is probably the case. especially since there could be more excitement to more important topics from the AU given the wars in Africa that have been forgotten by Western media and politicians, such as the Ethiopian war with 500,000 dead, millions of refugees and famine that was just averted, Somalia, the Sahel zone or the Congo.from the point of view of the African Union But she becomes the victim of her own post-colonial, post-modern cancel culture, which is overly sensitive to every allegedly politically incorrect syllable and every tricky word by means of a wokeness culture struggle and which puts every wrong word on the gold scales and , which just wants to take all supposed sensitivities of the Global South and minorities into account. Now, she hasn’t walked around like British royals in their best colonial tropical pith helmet outfit and hippopotamus whip, nor has she ever been on a safari, nor has she posted a monkey or banana emoji either, but a leopard, referring to the German tank, but that was seen as an affront by Africans. Erdogan also used the same sensitivities and alleged insults, including the Global South’s role as a victim of colonialism and the West, when he now insisted that Turkey should now officially should be called Türkiye and no longer be called „Turkey“, which evokes associations with the Thanksgiving bird of sacrifice, i.e. a turkey that is pardoned by the US President every year in front of the White House in Rosegarden and otherwise ends up on the plates of US citizens as a celebratory roast. It’s interesting how the otherwise so quickly outraged Baerbock, from an African point of view, as politically incorrect, white Masai, in the best colonial-speak wants to spread the German spirit to Africa and the world. She became a victim of her own wokeness and her intercultural competence is now being questioned by African wokeness.
Leopard statement backfires – African Union angry at Baerbock
In mid-January, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (42, Greens) appealed to Moussa Faki Mahamat (62), head of the African Union (AU), for solidarity against Russia. The two met in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. On Wednesday, a tweet from Baerbock’s ministry caused outrage at the AU These safari jokes didn’t go down well with everyone. With a tweet, the Federal Foreign Office under Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (42, Greens) caused diplomatic upsets in Africa. On the occasion of the visit of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (72) in Africa, the English-language account of Baerbock’s Foreign Ministry tweeted on Tuesday: „Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov is in Africa not to see [Leopards], but to bluntly claim that Ukraine’s partners ‚want to destroy everything Russian‘.“ The Russian Foreign Minister #Lavrov is in Africa, not to see 🐆, but to bluntly claim that #Ukraine’s partners „want to destroy everything Russian“. Here is a 🧵 with all of his “evidence”: 1/3 — GermanForeignOffice (@GermanyDiplo) January 24, 2023
The leopard emoji – not referring to the big cat living in Africa, but to the leopard-type tanks – did not arouse amusement at the African Union, but outrage! The AU is an association of 55 African countries. Its chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat (62) only met Baerbock in mid-January in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, the seat of the AU. Ebba Kalondo, Faki Mahamat’s spokeswoman, wrote angrily on Twitter on Wednesday about the leopard posting: „Hi GermanyDiplo (Account of the Federal Foreign Office, ed.). Her boss Baerbock visited the African Union, which is based in one of the more than 20 African countries with which Germany maintains bilateral diplomatic relations. Did she come to see animals? Or is the continent of Africa, its people and wildlife just a joke to you?” Ebba Kalondo (@EbbaKalondo) January 25, 2023 Africa just a joke for Germany’s foreign minister? Kalondo’s reference to „mutual“ diplomatic relations should be read as a reminder that African countries are equal partners for Germany – and not a safari cliché. African politicians and diplomats often react sensitively when, in particular, Western politicians from former colonial powers (allegedly) leave this eye-to-eye level.
Although such a statement will not fundamentally change everxthing, it is not exactly conducive to the hoped-for Africa closing ranks against Russia, especially since the trend is currently going in the opposite direction. While China is mainly active through the new Silk Road and investments in Africa, Russia is taking on the military security and is trying to win the resource-rich African states as allies for its Resource Empire.
“Putin triumphs over the West in Africa with Wagner’s help
Several Sahel countries throw the French troops out – and get the Russian private army to help Wagner. An analysis.
Ouagadougou – Vladimir Putin achieved a victory over the West – in the Sahel. After intensive contacts between Moscow and the government of Burkina Faso, the ruler Ibrahim Traoré asked the French troops there to leave his country within a month. It’s the second bang after the junta in neighboring Mali bid farewell to the French in exchange for welcoming Russian mercenaries. For the former colonial power, which has often regarded Francophone West and Central Africa as its “geo-strategic backyard”, the double expulsion is a political humiliation. President Emmanuel Macron had tried everything in the past few weeks to win over the putschist Traoré, who came to power in September 2022. On the outskirts of the capital Ouagadougou, 400 elite soldiers of the secret mission „Sabre“ (saber) are billeted for the purpose of eliminating Islamist terrorist bosses. They act covertly and do not intervene directly in open battles with the jihadists in northern Burkina Faso. This has met with criticism across the country. Macron’s love efforts were therefore in vain. At demonstrations where Russian flags and portraits of Putin were distributed, people chanted anti-French slogans.
Visit to Moscow: Sahel countries call in the Russian private army for Wagner’s help
It is not difficult to guess who will follow the French troops: Burkina’s Prime Minister Apollinaire Kyélem de Tambéla was in Moscow in December to „strengthen our partnership“, as he put it. In the streets of the capital, young people are already waving signs with the inscription „Merci Wagner“ – even though the Russian private army of the same name has not yet arrived in Burkina. The anti-French sentiment currently erupting across sub-Saharan Africa is in large part controlled by Moscow, where a propaganda department is flooding Africa’s social media with anti-„French colonialist“ slogans. According to the Parisian Africa specialist Antoine Glaser, the Kremlin is undertaking a concerted campaign against the West in Africa, as it was during the Cold War. In Mali, for example, one hears more and more songs of praise for the Soviet presence in the 1960s. At that time the country had just become independent and had turned to Moscow-style socialism. Vladimir Putin: The political career of the Russian head of state in pictures Putin’s Russia is trying to build on that. In Madagascar, Moscow’s agents get involved in election campaigns, in the Central African Republic they lead the presidential guard. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is lining up tours of Africa. In summer 2022 he visited Egypt, Ethiopia, Uganda and Congo; this week he was in South Africa. There he confirmed joint maneuvers by the South African, Russian and Chinese naval forces. French foreign policy has allowed itself to be taken by surprise by the abrupt change of mood in West Africa; it is too caught up in old patterns. On Wednesday (January 25), Macron received Côte d’Ivoire’s former ally, Alassane Ouattara, to warn him that anti-French agitation could spill over into Burkina Faso. Such paternalistic reflexes are no longer appropriate today, the Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe complains: In Africa, the “end of a cycle” is looming in relation to France. The African youth are rebelling because they follow social media and are politically much better informed than before.
Criticism from the general: turning point from a dominated to a sovereign Africa The head of the former French military mission “Licorne” in Ivory Coast, Bruno Clément-Bollé, echoed this sentiment in a post in Le Monde on Friday (January 27): “Historically we are at a turning point from one dominated to a sovereign Africa. Today the Africans decide for themselves; they have their own solutions and on their own terms.” The West can only survive in Africa if it accepts that. This requires modesty, trust, generosity and also political coherence: Paris can no longer teach these countries lessons in democracy and support autocrats elsewhere as it used to. The fact that it is not idealists from development work, but a general with Africa experience who is spreading such insights, of course, does not go unnoticed in Paris. Especially since Clément-Bollé specifies that French missions could also „experience further nasty surprises in Senegal, in the Congo and in Cameroon“.
https://www.fr.de/politik/putin-wagner-gruppe-europa-frankreich-afrika-demuetigung-92053613.htm
Meanwhile, France is increasingly kicked out of its francophone zone and it is likely that the UK will meet the same fate for the Commonwealth in Africa following the death of the Queen and Brexit. Meanwhile, Russia and China are benefiting, Wagner is spreading throughout the Sahel and is already looking towards the Congo. The taz also reports on a „turning point towards African sovereignty“, especially among young people in Africa, especially since the former role of China and the Soviet Union as supporters of decolonization is still having an impact and is also deliberately emphasized by both major powers in their propaganda against the former colonial masters , while China’s and Russia’s encroachment into Africa is presented as a sort of second wave of decolonization.
Well, an older video of apparently „angry white men“ warned the republic against „too many women in the house“ in addition to Merkel also against Baerbock and the associated „feminist politics“ or „feminist foreign policy“: