The African Union Under Mugabe Is A Union With Balls

A problematic analysis by an intellectual dwarf in Franklin Cudjoe, president of IMANI, Ghana, has come to my conscious attention.

Mr. Cudjoe is not new to making alarming statements. He is not new to accusations that are without a logical method of analysis nor does he arrive at any commonsensical conclusions. He has turned a renewed vituperative devotion to the African Union (AU), now chaired by the President of Zimbabwe, President Robert Mugabe.

So, I will take him to task. And why?

Mr. Cudjoe claims that with President Mugabe at the helm of the African Union, Africa seems to be trudging along the wrong path and avoiding to tackle ‘practical ideas for real political and economic freedoms for African citizens.’

He continues by accusing African leaders, who he claims, ‘refuse to face up to their own or their neighbours’ failures, whilst preventing ordinary Africans from using their ingenuity to build their own future.’

Mr. Cudjoe has been the head of a Ghanaian Think Tank for nearly two decades, but he is seriously disillusioned. Exactly what policy decisions have he and his small team of Empty Think Bottles propounded in his long years at IMANI?

‘Vague’ – that is the word that does not fully capture the policy proposals of Mr. Cudjoe and his team of Empty Think Bottles.

Over the years, young Ghanaians like myself, have had the singular dishonour of listening and reading about a man who, for decades and counting, has not uttered or penned any real policy statements worth discussing about in ways that would stem Africa’s frustrating under-development.

Yet, every single time Africans plunge head-deep into pragmatic efforts to move the continent forward economically or technologically, we are accorded the gross intellectual dwarfism of Mr. Cudjoe and his team of Empty Think Bottles.

Mr. Cudjoe likes to talk about the greatness of the Ghana Empire and quip about ancient Ghana’s commerce and trade routes through Egypt, calling into account ‘the life-changing power of trade’ across the continent.

But he misses the point entirely about how ancient Ghana’s trade routes in the Sahara, through Egypt and the rest of Africa were maintained when he says, it ‘has been demonstrated historically and not just in the West. At the height of their glory, many pre-colonial African states and empires found trade to be a better way to prosperity than through conquests.’

In what ways were ancient Ghana’s trade routes exactly safeguarded without a control of the passages? How were the routes of trade guaranteed without some violence?

And this is why President Mugabe’s election as chairman of the African Union baffles Mr. Cudjoe and his team of Empty Think Bottles. Why would smart African Heads of State, way smarter than Mr. Cudjoe himself, and his team of Empty Think Bottles, elect such a figure? Is that Mr. Cudjoe’s confusion?

Well, I can help.

Let’s rememeber President Mugabe’s credentials and what really happened in the 15 million strong Zimbabwe.

From 1888 until about 2000, Zimbabwe’s 1 percent white population, controlled more than 90 percent of Zimbabwe’s farm land in the name of ‘we provide 30 percent of Zimbabweans work and account for 40 percent of Zimbabwe’s exports.’

When white people exploit everyone for their prosperity, it might seem to Mr. Cudjoe and his team of Empty Think Bottles that their economic theories are sound. When in fact they are not; whites exploited African lands and human resources at every turn in Zimbabwe, and across the continent, for more than a better part of the past three centuries.

That is the singular reason why their economies look better than ours today. If the West disagrees, they can attempt this simple exercise – leave Africa alone today!

And how did the West achieve their success?

Through the barrel of the gun. Or is it not? Let’s remember that once the Asante and Dahomey Kingdoms fell to the British and the French respectively, it was looting and pillaging galore across Africa, by whites, by Europeans, by Americans, by the West.

That history and practice still continues today.

I do not advocate for war nor do I call for violence. But I call for a control of Africa by Africans! I call for a total eradication of neo-imperialist policies in Africa that only serve Western interests. We cannot develop, economically or technologically if the West at will chooses which Africa Head of State needs to be removed or enstooled and at what time.

Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah was removed from office by the US and its CIA organization because they didn’t approve of the trajectory of development that Ghana had taken after 1957. Patrice Lumumba is another painful example. Thomas Sankara comes to mind. And several others.

More recent, Muammar Gaddafi was murdered by Western military forces, in the name of western democracy, for absolutely no real democratic reasons, against any African interests. Libya, which used to be an important member of our African Union is now a sordid shadow of itself. The West continues to use violence to control Africa’s interests, trade and commerce, even on our continent.

A new shining example is the effort to discredit President Paul Kagame and his work in Rwanda. After a genocide that France invariably had caused, which it must painfully atone, where more than 800,000 human beings were slaughtered for absolutely no ‘commerce’ or ‘developmental’ reason, the priests of western propaganda have gathered once more to force Mr. Kagame out of power, even though we full well understand that he still has a Rwandan, and an African constitutional right to stand for new democratic elections.

That is not freedom. Africans like myself are stupefied by the monstrosity of western influence still present in Africa, several decades after independence. We must have the power to forge our own destiny. We cannot control a flourishing intra-continental trade if Britain, France and the US, for example, continue to pull member states in the African Union in opposite directions.

So, if you believe that patronizing nonsense about President Mugabe, written and spewed by Mr. Cudjoe and his team of Empty Think Bottles, I have to jog your memory with this other fact – the ethnic composition of Zimbabwe has closely broken down over the years as follows – 82 percent Shona, 14 percent Ndebele, 2 percent other African ethnic groups, 1 percent white, 1 percent coloured and Indian.

Why should Africans allow a 1 percent white population to control more than 90 percent of Zimbabwean land? Any land for that matter in Africa? Or, is that the kind of practical ideas for real political and economic freedoms for African citizens Mr. Cudjoe and his team of Empty Think Bottles wish to propose?

And what would we, Africans, have to show for it? Land? Freedom? A chance to ‘provide 30 percent of white people jobs in Africa and a chance to account for 40 percent of African exports?’

How would Europe feel if Africans seized 90 percent of their farm lands? How would white Americans feel if the 12 percent of African Americans in that country owned more than 90 percent of US farm lands?

I am sure the feeling would not be mutual.

The feeling here in Africa is certainly not mutual because of that. European and American abusive influence in Africa must come to an end if the African Union wishes to forge a brighter future for the continent.

Or how exactly, without the example of Mugabe, can Africa control her own trade and dominate her trading routes if we do not re-claim our farm lands, our trade routes and our ports from these imperialists, or from these white people?

Mr. Cudjoe goes wearily on about Africa’s pre-colonial past like this: ‘gold was shipped from Wangara in the Upper Niger across the Sahara desert to Taghaza, in Western Sahara, in exchange for salt, and to Egypt for ceramics, silks and other Asian and European goods. The old Ghana Empire controlled much of the trans-Sahara trade in copper and ivory. At Great Zimbabwe, gold was traded for Chinese pottery and glass. From Nigeria, leather and iron goods were traded throughout West Africa.’

What is worrying is that Mr. Cudjoe regurgitates some important facts but seems incapable – perhaps because of the burden he carries, of intellectual dwarfism – to connect the dots. How was ancient Ghana able to control much of the trans-Sahara trade in copper and ivory? With Britain and France dictating their every step of development and economic emancipation?

Clearly, Africa has not lost the ability to trade. Only we are bedeviled by the neo-imperialism of the West to the extent that President Mugabe is still ridiculed and banned from traveling in the West because he decided to enforce the African rule of law in Zimbabwe – return seized farm lands to its rightful owners!

Regardless, we do not ignore the internal challenges we face in Africa: hell, we are the most diverse populations on the planet for a reason; we speak more than 10,000 languages, and on top of that we have the scourge of our immediate past – our colonial balkanization superimposed on us – where English speaking Africa and French speaking Africa, for example, are pulled in different directions by the same West.

And for a reason.

It is true that internal and regional barriers still hobble trade within the continent, but that is no fault of our own; or that high tariffs within Africa prevent the free flow of goods and services is not an African problem alone: these are legacies of a dirty colonial imposition – a past we must first address fully and wiggle our way out of.

With President Mugabe, member states of the African Union have an experienced head at the helm, who can steer clear the continent away from such neo-imperialist oppressions. Africa is on the right track and though we may trudge tiredly along this renewed path of courage and faith, we wholly embrace the ‘practical ideas for real political and economic freedoms for African citizens’ no matter what.

There is no doubt!

But it starts with property rights, the rule of law and economic freedoms, all of which President Mugabe knows a lot about in his long illustrious years as President of Zimbabwe. Such freedoms, I agree, would allow Africans to emulate the growth of Asian countries such as Thailand, Malaysia and South Korea – countries, which were on par with African States in the early 1960s.

The African Union under Mugabe is a Union with balls. There is no doubt about the direction the Union would take!

The growth records of South Africa, Mauritius, Botswana, now Nigeria and even Rwanda, led by President Paul Kagame – an erudite – are not Black Swans. They are results of exceptional and sound economic policies that actually work all the time. Not sometimes.

And they are not economic policies based on exploiting others. They are not economic policies that would sound good because our soldiers loot and pillage other people’s countries to enrich us. These are real and fair egalitarian economic policies that serve the larger African interest.

Nothing Mr. Cudjoe and his team of Empty Think Bottles (ETBs) would know anything about! Or would they?

Kwame Nkrumah and Muammar Al Gaddafi may be dead and gone. But their spirits are still with us. We believe in the African Union. We believe it is the Union of the Children of Amun-Ra. We believe we will, like our Ancestors did in ancient Kemet, re-introduce the world to a better, more egalitarian and more peaceful way.

So, whether it is the Gradualists in Africa who believe that member states should first strive to build working economies and then integrate through regional blocs, or the Progressives who believe the African Union national authority should lead us to greater economic freedoms, we will get there, by hook or crook.

By all means, our future in the African Union will be built on pragmatic and sound economic policies; policies that are African in their nature; policies by Africans and for Africans; but they will nonetheless be underpinned by a strong ideological framework and fine concepts by Africans.

Again, this is nothing Mr. Franklin Cudjoe and his team of Empty Think Bottles (ETBs) would know anything about.