It’s intriguing to watch Obama’s stature fade in the rest of the world. Just like Americans bought the Obama “Hope and Change” brand, so to was Obama greeted with considerable enthusiasm in most world capitols as an end of Bush-era unilateralism and bellicosity. We know how that movie turned out.
An Obama tour of Africa is likely to provide a marker of he is perceived in the rest of the world, although any negative reports are unlikely to get much play in our lapdog media. But since Obama was shunned in the recent G-8 conference, it’s going to be interesting to see how his African hosts muster up the appearance of enthusiasm during his visit.
The NSA scandal has only confirmed increasingly negative views of Obama overseas. He now has what looks like a “too little too late” tour of Africa, which looks intended to reverse growing Chinese influence there. The Middle Kingdom is Africa’s largest trading partner has been acquiring agricultural and mineral resources. And African countries may regard China as a much better ally than the US. Nicholas Shaxson in Treasure Islands described how Africa was perversely, despite its relative poverty, a capital exporter to advanced economies (read the US and the UK) due to tax avoidance by corporations operating there. The US has also allied itself too often (as in Latin America) backed authoritarian or repressive regimes, so it’s hard to imagine we are well liked on the Continent, and Obama hasn’t made any noteworthy breaks with our imperialistic practices. Even if China is engaged in a land-grab, it isn’t hard to look like a lesser evil with American and past European colonialists as the benchmark.
From the Real News Network:
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Does anyone else notice the delicious irony of a protest against BHO by South Africa? I bet those old Boors are having a good laugh about this, wherever they are holed up.
But perhaps they are only protesting his White half?
10+3! The Boers were definitely booring.
But were they both booring AND booring?
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=booring
(Russell Brand: “When I was a kid, Thatcher was the headmistress of our country. Her voice, a bellicose yawn, somehow both boring and boring – I could ignore the content but the intent drilled its way in.”)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/09/russell-brand-margaret-thatcher
There may be a difference in the reaction and attitudes of African elites and the African population in general, particularly if those elites benefit from working on behalf of the US and the West and/or China.
Whether or not something looks like a “land grab” depends on whose land it was before and how much one gets to grab oneself.
Excerpts from Keith Hart interview at Theory-talks.org
“So for me, the question has always been whether Africans, in seeking emancipation from a long history of slavery, colonialism, apartheid and postcolonial failure, might be able to change the world. I still think it could be and I’m quite a bit more optimistic about the outcome now than I have been for most of the last fifty years. We live in a racialized world order where Africa acts as the most striking symbol of inequality. The drive for a more equal world society will necessarily entail a shift in the relationship between Africa and the rest of the world. I have been pursuing this question for the last thirty years or more. What interests me at the moment is the politics of African development in the coming decades.
Africa began the twentieth century as the least populated and urbanized continent. It’s gone through a demographic and urban explosion since then, doubling its share of world population in a century. In 2050, the UN predicts that 24% of the world population will be in Africa, and in 2100, 35% (read the report here, pdf)! This is because Africa is growing at 2.5% a year while the rest of the world is ageing fast. Additionally, 7 out of the 10 fastest growing economies in the world are now African—Asian manufacturers already know that Africa holds the key to the future of the world economy.”
And also signs of Africa as the last big growth opportunity for foreign investment.
”
The political dispensation in Africa—the combination of fragmented states and powerful foreign interests and the predatory actions of the leaders of these states on their people — especially the restrictions they impose on the movements of people and goods and money and so on – is still a tremendous problem. I think that the political fragmentation of Africa is the main obstacle to achieving economic growth.
But at the same time, as someone who has lived in Africa for many years, it’s very clear that in some countries, certainly not all, the economies are very significantly on the move. It’s not–in principle—that this will lead to durable economic growth, but it is the case that the cities are expanding fast, Africans are increasing their disposable income and it’s the only part of the world where the people are growing so significantly. Africa is about to enter what’s called the demographic dividend that comes when the active labor force exceeds the number of dependents. India has just gone through a similar phase.
The Chinese and others are heavily committed to taking part in this, obviously hoping to direct Africa’s economic growth in their own interest. This is partly because the global economy is over the period of growth generated by the Chinese manufacturing exports and the entailed infrastructure and construction boom, which was itself an effect of the greatest shift from the countryside to the city in history. Now, the Chinese realize, the next such boom will be—can only take place—in Africa.”
http://www.theory-talks.org/
“And also signs of Africa as the last big growth opportunity for foreign investment.”
Sibel Edmonds would disagree. The other undeveloped area of natural resources is Central Asia. Rumsfeld was just in Kyrgyzstan with his Rumsfeld Foundation.
“The efforts of the Rumsfeld Foundation are primarily focused on Central Asia and, with the help of its partners, the organization reaches out to more vital regions.” Ya…uh-huh.
http://www.eurasianet.org/node/67154
More like: “Rumsfeld’s educational foundation is in the business of grooming future puppet leaders. This procedure always follows more or less the same script, as outlined by Sibel Edmonds:
“The location – always a resource rich country or one strategically crucial to resource rich countries. A viable candidate (sometimes candidates) chosen based on the exact same set of criteria – such as degree of corruptibility, and degree of atrocity or criminal tendencies.”
http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2013/06/23/the-new-great-game-round-up-june-23-2013/
…good of you to raise Sibel Edmonds from her imposed “gag order” condition..
Germany thought the same thing, in 1885. The result was WWI.
The Chinese are more than 100 years behind the imperialism curve.
Protesting the first Kenyan president?
Ouch, thay’s got to hurt!
/snark
Ha ha…. good one.
So your saying that the doctrine of “American Exceptionalism” hasn’t made it to Africa yet? Well, I hope Mr. Obama will be sure to inform them. Once they understand that we are special, anointed by God, and therefore superior to all other nations and peoples of the planet, I’ll bet they’ll forgive and forget in no time.
America: We’re Special. Get Over It.
African leaders who met with Malcolm X to define western imperialism, more sophisticated today, having experienced such longer, recognize the symptom:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQ_VWpJj0Dw
The United States has been a big, aggressive, imperialistic global power for three quarters of a century. That’s nothing new. But popular global support for the US in various parts of the world during its ascendancy was partly linked to the idea that the US model was leading the world toward social and economic progress and prosperity.
The US socio-economic model now looks like a failure – a recipe for corrupt, insecure, anti-democratic plutocracy and inequality. The good parts of the US system have already been copied. The bad parts are things only Americans like. So there is little basis for cultural influence any more.