When Will The Africa Giant Rise?

“China is a sleeping giant. Let her lie and sleep, for when she awakens she will astonish the world." - Napoleon Bonaparte

“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion […] but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.” - Samuel P. Huntington.

Apart from their pervasive ignorance-engendered arrogance, the main problem I had with relating to Europeans when I sojourned among them is their peculiar insularity. They lack curiosity in anything non-European.

A lot of them strike me as self-indulgent and narcissistic bunch, thoroughly overfed by the make-me-feel-important ideas planted in their heads by the ideological institutions they call universities.

To their feeble minds, the world revolves around Europe, and nothing will shake that belief.

They know little but, alas, they don’t seek to know better.

Their acute ignorance of the world is matched only by their arrogant belief that their wretched political, social and economic systems are the best in the world.

Europeans measure everything by their narrow and very shallow standards.

What is worse is the haughty manners they display towards things that their one-dimensional minds cannot comprehend.

Modesty certainly wasn’t/isn’t their forte.

It will not be a problem if Europeans proclaim their supposed superiority after they made some efforts to look beyond their noses.

No, they feel too superior to make attempt to study or understand other cultures, yet they believe that the ideas generated in their small patch of mother earth are the best in the world. Like that were not egregious enough, Europeans also assign themselves the divine right to impose them on the rest of humanity.

Like immature children, Europeans felt inadequate unless they constantly dance to their self-generated lullabies, and constantly tell themselves how superior to the rest of humanity they are.

They claimed to have invented psychology, yet they appear incapable of understanding the simple fact that one must feel totally inadequate if it becomes necessary to constantly remind everyone about one’s superiority.

It will not be a problem if Europeans are contended with restricting their arrogant beliefs to the tiny enclave they called a continent, alas, no, they must travel far and wide to evangelize and to impose them.

Not only that, they will crush any and all oppositions either through economic sanctions, assassinations or unprovoked war of aggression.

The Crusade never ends with them.

It is this incredible narcissism that makes it possible for Europeans to build a Fortress Europe, where foreigners are welcomed only after they have committed cultural harakiri, stripped themselves of every vestige of their native cultural identity, while simultaneously going to great length to force European values on an unwilling world.

Again, it will not be a problem if Europeans attempt to win people over with superior arguments or philosophies, unfortunately, that has never been the case. Since they cannot logically defend their beliefs by force of superior reasoning, Europeans attempt to impose their wretched values by force of arms.

That explains why without any hint of irony they can invade countries, destroy lives, while they claim to be spreading democracy and human rights.

That the rest of humanity are fed up with listening to sanctimonious lecturing and hectoring from Europeans have done little to dampen their enthusiasm to dance (robotically, one might add) to their self-generated silly dances.

Europeans, a people totally bereft of humility, exported their arrogant dispositions to all part of the world they successfully colonized, after they committed unspeakable genocide on the native populations.

Frantz Fanon brilliantly captured it when he observed: ““Two centuries ago, a former European colony decided to catch up with Europe. It succeeded so well that the United States of America became a monster, in which the taints, the sickness and the inhumanity of Europe have grown to appalling dimensions.”

It is difficult to understand why Europeans think that the rest of us have forgotten the well-documented atrocities they perpetrated against us.

Their unbridled and boundless arrogance probably made them think that the rest of humanity suffer from general amnesia.

How else do we explain the noises the West constantly makes about China and Russia and Iran, the three countries that have successfully weaned themselves away from Western domination, and are determined to chart independent paths to national development?

Luckily for the rest of us, the sun no longer revolves around a European orbit. Europe no longer holds any special appeal to anyone apart from the brainless and mindless vassals they imposed in the colonies, mostly in Africa.

Thanks to China and Russia, the Western Hegemon has been stripped bare. The West no longer possess the wherewithal to impose its diktats on the world without challenge.

Iran, Russia and China no longer pay any heed to the noises emanating from Brussels and Washington, they actually not only dismiss them derisively, in many instances they are hitting back hard.

A case in point was the recent incident when the chief of China’s foreign affairs commission, Yang Jiechi, angrily took 16 minutes to lambast the new uppity American Secretary of State, Blinken.

Mr. Yang spoke with the confidence of a man who recognized his country’s new immense powers when he told the arrogant American: “So was this carefully all planned and was it carefully orchestrated with all the preparations in place? Is that the way that you had hoped to conduct this dialogue? Well, I think we thought too highly of the United States. We thought that the US side would follow the necessary diplomatic protocols. So for China, it was necessary that we made our position clear. So let me say here that... the United States does not have the qualification to say that it wants to speak to China from a position of strength.”

The senior Chinese official was correct to dig into Blinken. Mr. Jiechi was stating a fact when he affirmed that the United States lack the qualifications to lecture his country.

The Russians also appeared to have had enough of Deep State provocations!

Addressing lawmakers and senior officials in his annual state of the nation address, the no-nonsense Russian strongman, Putin said His country would respond swiftly and harshly to moves against its interests.

This is what he said: “The organisers of any provocations threatening the fundamental interests of our security will regret their deeds, more than they have regretted anything in a long time.”

Until arrogant Westerners decided to unilaterally changed the rules, the essence of diplomacy was to meet and politely exchange views with the expectation of reaching accords both parties find acceptable.

Again, until very recently, diplomats were among the most decorous and polite operators, at least in public.

We were not told why westerners invested themselves with the powers to dictate fiats to people and impose sanctions on those who refuse to abide their imperial diktats.

Whichever way we consider it, the Chinese deserve our salutations. Here is the reason: until Chairman Mao liberated his country from the clutches of foreign plunderers, China was a beaten, confused, underdeveloped, and backward country foreign colonialists considered a fair game for exploitation.

Since they liberated their country from foreign domination the Chinese have worked assiduously to ensure that the calamity of foreign conquest, domination and oppression never befall them. They will do anything to safeguard their hard earned sovereignty.

The ordinary meaning of sovereignty is the power of a nation (big or small) to manage its affairs on its own terms.

Again, it is the arrogant Westerners who refuse to accord other people the elementary courtesy of conducting their affairs as they see fit.

To put things into context, modern China gained its independence in 1949 while Ghana and Nigeria gained theirs in 1957 and 1960 respectively.

Whereas the Chinese have picked themselves up and dusted themselves up to master all that they surveyed in practically every aspect of human endeavors we care to examine, Ghana and Nigeria are still struggling to get the basics right.

Unfortunately, rather than make use of their independence to build themselves up, both countries led by a succession of clueless, visionless, inept and otiose elite continue to be besotted by a fixation on their colonial masters. I exclude the immortal Kwame Nkrumah.

Rather than to forge ahead by charting independent path to development, both Nigeria and Ghana continue to grovel at the altar of the historic oppressors of their people.

Sadly, unlike the Chinese, the Russians, and the Iranians who have elected to chart independent avenues to national development, the misrulers we have in Africa continue to be enamored with their colonial masters. They continue to play enthusiastic vassals and quislings to their Euro-American masters.

After over sixty years of ostensible independence the Fossil who is supposed to be leading Nigeria still play medical tourist in London hospitals. Meanwhile in Ghana, four months after our people danced themselves into stupor because their candidates won elections, citizens are roaming around with jerrycans in search of water, while electricity remains a major production!

©️Fẹmi Akọmọlafẹ

Fẹmi Akọmọlafẹ is a writer and author