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The Continuing Centeredness of Africa in Global Affairs

Akwasi Osei

Updated: Jan 1, 2022

I have recently read two long pieces on Russia’s climb back to global power status. (Read them here and here)


More interesting to how Russia did it was where Putin has chosen to demonstrate the return of its global muscle: on the continent of Africa. This is not unusual; from millennia, peoples from all over have chosen to go to Africa, mostly to get the best of humanities God-given endowments.


Our peoples have always understood their importance to humanity, and have been open to playing host to the world. These relationships were mostly on their own terms; they traded, related, and sometimes fought against those who were wont to subdue and conquer. Cultures and religions came and went from the continent, leaving their marks, but with our peoples always in charge of their lives.


In the middle of the Fifteenth Century, however, the nature of these relationships began to change. Within about half a century, circa 1450-1500, the fortunes of the continent changed for the worse. In two generations, African peoples who had been peacefully dealing with outsiders—in their capacities as members of empires and civilizations--gradually became the objects and articles of ‘trade’ themselves. A new identity as ‘Africans’ began to take shape, especially in the new, scattered Africa.


By the beginning of the Sixteenth Century, large numbers of ‘Africans’ were being transported across the Atlantic as a direct result of the ‘Columbus effect’. This seminal, transforming era in ‘African’ History began with Columbus’s lost journey to Asia and was quickly followed by a host of other Europeans who came in his wake to engage in that great transfer of wealth and booty to Europe and the new Americas.


From the African perspective, therefore, this globalization of the Atlantic encounters has largely continued into contemporary times. This has been accompanied by the creation of a true global hierarchy of cultures that has had the continent at the bottom. The other side of this equation is, of course, the concurrent, simultaneous rise and growth of the political economies of Europe and the United States. This represented two sides of the same coin: the gradual de-development of the continent on the one hand; and the political-economic take–off of Europe. The lesson: the continent has been central to global growth to the exclusive advantage of everyone except Africans the world over!


Where are the colonies for Africa to exploit and flourish for 500 years much as the current global ‘leaders’ did on their march to their current ‘developed’ stages!


With the latest meeting in Sochi, Russia has taken a leaf from the Chinese playbook. China began the concept of inviting all African nations to meet in one place, with the first Forum on China Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in 2000. Since then, Japan, India and the United States have had their own ‘forums’ with African nations. 43 out of 55 African heads of states are in Sochi!


That Africa is attracting all this attention should serve to educate these leaders. They should act as one as they have these meetings. Their predecessors met in Addis Ababa in 1963 to create a true African union. In 2019, they should do everything to cement this. It is the only key to liberation and growth for Africa and Africans.

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