International
Europe must relinquish the illusion that it possesses superior values
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The
incessant lectures on democracy and human rights are underlain by the
assumption that Africans are caretakers of what belongs to others
In
an interview this week, France 24 journalist, Marc Perelman, asked
President Kagame whether his decision to help fix Europe’s immigration problem
– in the UK and potentially in Denmark also – isn’t aimed at appeasing
Europeans to tone down their criticism of him with regard to human rights and
democracy. Similarly, in the lead-up to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting
(CHOGM) held in Rwanda in June, most European media claimed that by agreeing to
hold the event in Rwanda, Europe was giving legitimacy to a dictator, Kagame,
who apparently doesn’t measure up to “commonwealth values.”
Togo
and Gabon were also castigated for not deserving membership due to the
so-called values. The twin issues of Europe’s responsibility to confer
legitimacy to African leaders and its supposedly superior values invite closer
scrutiny.
The
British Commonwealth of Nations was founded in 1926 as a platform for
discussing affairs of “newfound lands” represented by colonial administrators.
This history of pillage and plunder of the British Empire doesn’t need
elaboration. Suffice it to say that it serves as an essential reference and
starting point for any genuine discussion of the values upon which the
organization was founded.
It
was Britain’s thirst for legitimacy and relevance after the Americans told them
to pick their bags and leave the colonies that pushed them to rebrand the
organisation to drop any reference to the British Empire and presumably also to
distance themselves from colonialist values. The fact that they stated that
henceforth membership would be among “equal and free” member states speaks
volumes about their own admission of what the founding values were. In this
regard, the British media is certainly right to claim that Kagame can never
live up to such values.
What
Kagame can, however, do is that he can help relieve Europeans of the burden of
this history, if only they have the humility to accept the idea that they too
need to learn from others whose perspectives are valid.
“We
are all committed to the values of the Commonwealth; no question. But it’s not
for one group to define and measure who lives up to them [the values]” President Kagame told the
mainly British media present at the press conference held to close CHOGM 2022.
Kagame
has been consistent in this message, which was a key theme in his engagement
with President Macron. The
French president was smart enough to concede that his administration has set a
new tone in its relations with Africa based on mutual respect. Macron
even went as far as acknowledging the resistance from some of the elite in
France who are not ready to engage Africa on such terms due to this very
historical baggage. In the same way, this history conditions Africans to an
inferiority complex; it does the opposite to Europeans. The superiority complex
clouds their minds and explains their current failure
to grasp the consequences of a changing world.
Consequently,
the Europeans speaking through their media are convinced that it is them who
confer Kagame legitimacy as their ancestors did for colonial chiefs. In their
view, Kagame has to appease them in order to get legitimacy. The superiority
complex has clouded their minds so much so that the beneficiaries of a history
of plunder and pillage find no irony in virtue signalling, lecturing their
victims on “values” that include human rights.
Who
owns the colonial state?
The
incessant lectures on democracy and human rights are underlain by the
assumption that Africans are caretakers of what belongs to others. As a result,
mutually reinforcing behaviors have emerged to the detriment of governance in
Africa. African leaders act in a way that appears to validate the assumption:
they act as caretakers without responsibility to alter the state and its
institutions in ways that serve the interests of Africans. In turn, foreign
actors in government, NGOs, academia, and think tanks have taken up the
responsibility to provide oversight over Africa to ensure that nothing changes
fundamentally. They clamour for policy space and complain over political space
when they are squeezed out of this oversight role by any leadership that seeks
to transform the state in the interest of Africans. This self-appointed
oversight role is most obvious during elections when they send election
monitors to determine the credibility of the election and of African leaders
whose legitimacy would depend on the reports of this non-voting outsider
constituency. In other words, even the elections are theirs and Africans are
mere caretakers.
This
possessiveness on the part of the Europeans (to say the least of the nagging
and stalking of the mediocre who claim expertise on African matters but remain
irrelevant in their own societies) suggests that they do not recognize
independence even when they can’t come out and state it. Otherwise, it ought to
be obvious that their actions are aimed at sabotaging the very independence
they claim to have bequeathed to Africans more than 50 years ago and that their
supervisory role neither promotes democracy nor human rights. On the contrary,
the righteous indignation expressed when African leaders dismiss their lectures
suggests that they believe that Africa belongs to them and the African
caretakers are not allowed to transform it; that Africans may be granted
approval from the ‘real owners’ to pursue cosmetic alterations.
These
mutually reinforcing attitudes that suggest that Africa belongs to Europeans
have meant that, naturally, there is an insufficient sense of ownership on the
part of most African leaders to transform their states. It follows therefore
that African
governance has continued to retain different forms of colonial governance.
Ironically,
this failure to transform the state to serve the interests of Africans has
often been evidenced by the external constituency insisting to have more say in
the running of African affairs. If the state is theirs, and if only they know
how best it works, the argument goes, then only they can run it effectively. In
other words, rather than promote democracy and human rights, the role of
external supervision is to act as a subtle reminder that the colonial regime
was a valid alternative to self-governance. It is no wonder that some Africans
suggest that Africa was better off during the colonial era and justify
entitlement to continued western tutelage. It serves the delusion that
Europeans possess superior values when evidence points to the contrary; it
explains the narcissism that fuels Europe’s tendency to lecture when they
should be learning, to demand when they should be appeasing.
The
Africa that Africans want cannot have it both ways. It cannot be independent
while accepting that colonisers dictate how the state is run. Similarly, it
cannot accept membership in colonial institutions without assuming the
obligation for dismantling the value systems responsible for the suffering of
Africans and replacing the logic of plunder and savagery with more humane
values that can drive healthy and mutually beneficial relations.
In
other words, ownership is key. If the colonial state is yet to be African, it
is because there has not been an adequate sense of ownership. Indeed, if the
Commonwealth is a colonial institution, it is because it insists on a single
group defining for the rest what their values should be. Both can be saved. But
only by Europe relinquishing the illusion that it possesses superior values.
Which
begs the question: Who is legitimizing whom?
Source:
https://panafricanreview.rw/