It is not uncommon for ocean waves to crash violently against
the cliffs of the Ghanaian town of Elmina. Some speculate that
the violent seas are a manifestation of the anger of the spirits
of countless Africans who endured unspeakable tortures or violent
deaths at a slave trading castle that still stands on the Elmina
shore. It would not be surprising if those waves were crashing
more violently than usual when Tony Blair stood before the world
recently and announced that he, on behalf of Great Britain, will
lead a western campaign to save Africa from itself.
For those who are uninformed, Blair’s
hopes for increasing foreign aid to Africa by an additional $25
billion per year may seem not only reasonable, but commendable.
The proposed foreign aid increase was suggested in a report by
Blair’s Commission for Africa that, among other things, urges
Africa to reform itself, and for the Western powers to be more
sensitive to the continent’s plight. However, the absurdity,
even outrageousness of Blair’s piety and the implication that
Africa made its own mess, are apparent only when one understands
that, in this instance, Great Britain is not unlike an individual
who offers to help pay the medical expenses of a crime victim
when the good Samaritan is actually the person who perpetrated
the rape, robbery and humiliation of the patient.
England was among the most notorious
colonizers of the African continent. For an extended period, England
was directly involved in the slave trade, sending inestimable
numbers of Africans into Caribbean plantation hell. The workers
in England’s colonies in Africa were paid unconscionably low wages
that were often immediately reclaimed as “taxes.” African land
was taken by force, as was the labor of thousands of African peasants
in Sierra Leone who were forced to build that country’s cross-country
railroad.
England thoroughly and completely underdeveloped
countries like Ghana, which had the capacity to become agriculturally
self-sufficient. However, the sweet tooth of “Mother England”
resulted in the dedication of numerous acres of farmland to the
production of cocoa, which in turn caused a need for Ghana to
import agricultural products of other types that the country could
have otherwise grown for itself. The damage done to Africa by
England and other European colonizers is simply unquantifiable.
It is against this backdrop that Blair has the nerve to offer
his “help” as though the country he leads is blameless.
This is not the first time that England
has piously assumed a posture of holiness during disingenuous
efforts to “save” Africans. Back in the 19th Century, England’s
was a leading voice in the call for the abolition of the slave
trade. The country’s abolitionist posture had nothing to do with
humanitarian impulses, and everything to do with facilitating
England’s entry into a then newly-emerging global free market
that promised larger profits. To understand this, consider that
England built its Industrial Revolution on an exclusive mercantilist
trading relationship with its Caribbean colonies. This ensured
that West Indian planters had a guaranteed market for their agricultural
products, and “Mother England” had a guaranteed market for its
manufactured goods. But when it became clear that greater profits
could be obtained by negotiating for cheaper raw materials from
other suppliers, and by placing manufactured goods on the open
market, England sought with a vengeance to crush the Caribbean
planters by cutting off their supply of the slaves who were indispensable
to the islands’ agricultural operations.
England was never forthright about
the true reasons for its opposition to the slave trade. Similarly,
Blair is saying nothing that suggests that he has anything other
than humanitarian concerns. However, the truth may have something
to do with the fact that, to all appearances, Great Britain’s
influence on the African continent has been eroding at an ever
increasing pace. When Blair suspended Zimbabwe from the British
Commonwealth, there were other African states that were not at
all intimidated. In fact, many politicians and grassroots activists
throughout Southern Africa were emboldened by Zimbabwe’s defiant
response. Inspired by Zimbabwe’s stubborn determination to pursue
its land reclamation program (which drew British ire in the first
place), Africans in other countries have begun to demand, in ways
that cannot be ignored, that their own governments take a similar
approach to the land issue. This is particularly true in Kenya.
Add to this the continuing efforts to promote African self-sufficiency
through the African Union and otherwise, and it becomes clear
that England is becoming ever more irrelevant to a continent that
it once dominated in the way that a parent dominates a child.
We can all watch with some amusement
as Tony Blair pathetically makes the rounds trying to persuade
the world that he is still the Great White Father, and that Africans
are his ever-dependent children. We should watch with even greater
amusement George Bush’s bewilderment with Blair’s pleas that the
U.S. join him in this enterprise. By his actions, Bush has at
least honestly affirmed that he has never cared about Africa,
and he is not about to start just because Blair suggests that
he should. In the end, it may be a difficult pill to swallow,
but Blair and those who share his perspective need to come to
terms with the fact that the sun has set on the British Empire.
If Blair really wants to do something for Africa, he should receive
with grace a bill for reparations and restitution for all that
England took from its African colonies and the enslaved individuals
forced into the Diaspora. After England pays that bill, Blair
should just back away from Africa and shut up.
Mark P. Fancher is the author of "The Splintering of
Global Africa: Capitalism's War Against Pan-Africanism."