By Dr. David Matsanga in London
I pen this article very inspired by what I heard from the President of Kenya HE Dr. William Ruto during the frank discussion in Paris France. Today I feel liberated that at least there is a voice coming out to help and save Africa from the French exploitation.
This is the direction I have always liked as a Pan African. I wish Africa had more of the type of the Kenyan President. Mr. President we are together on this route of changing Africa.
Back to my subject of the treatment of our leaders in the world forums. Every five or four years citizens of Africa go to polls to elect their leaders who must be respected by Western countries at all meetings like the way we respect theirs.
The Ukraine-Russia peace trip is the epitome of the type of embarrassment and humiliation of our leaders. It was a historic matrix of humiliation for our leaders.
But what worries me is most of the African leaders don’t speak out enough or condemn the treatment they undergo while overseas.
I was shocked that African leaders who went to Ukraine and Russia seem to have an infinite capacity to humiliate themselves and our continent. But my hopes came back this week in the Paris conference when I heard the real voice of Pan Africanism coming out without fear. Another Nyerere growing on the continent.
I believe that in the hierarchy of society, plebeians can never be patricians and vice versa. The recent African leader’s peace delegation to Ukraine and Russia, to me was nothing short of an overstretched, misplaced diplomatic lurch that ought not to have happened.
Merely a week has passed, and no vestige or impact of their apocryphal trip can be seen or felt. The type of crude tokenism that i have stood against for many years. My own country delegation was smoked out of Ukraine and our flag mistreated.
If anything is to go by, the recent events have underscored the ineffectiveness of these efforts, as Russia brazenly launched missiles on Kyiv during their visit, as though boisterously telling them ” stay the heck off of this fight”, and further exacerbating the crisis.
I fervently believe that the verve and resources deployed to such extravagant diplomatic endeavors would be better utilized to address pressing domestic issues. South Africa with load shedding of electricity and yet two planes had to take a journey to nowhere?
The resources would succor millions of Africans languishing in abject poverty. In doing so the leaders from Africa save themselves rather than act as self-appointed decemvirs of a conflict they hold a teensy-weensy sway about.
To me, amidst the backdrop of escalating tensions between Russia and Ukraine, the involvement of African leaders in mediation seemed both ill-timed and misguided, no side would have trusted them at first instance.
The urgency to confront the humanitarian crisis unfolding in our own backyard demands immediate attention and substantial financial investment than what they purported to be trying to solve.
Rather than allocate resources to mediate a conflict thousands of miles away, they would have prioritized initiatives that could enhance food security, job creation, and economic stability within our own nations. You cannot go sweeping your neighbor’s doorstep, when your own is dirty. Charity begins at home in Sudan.
While African leaders engage in fruitless diplomatic efforts abroad, Sudan is disintegrating under the ponderous clamour of the conflict tearing the country apart while the rest of Africa watches. Such an ignominy by every stretch of imagination, bizarre to be precise.
The futility and the eventual walk of shame of African leaders’ mediation efforts in the Russia-Ukraine conflict has not only exposed a disheartening lack of strategic vision and misplaced priorities but also how lowly we are looked down upon by the West.
The more I ponder upon it, the more I feel ashamed on their behalf. Truthfully speaking, the trip was completely unnecessary.
But on 23rd June 2023 my hopes were raised by the Kenyan President who hit so deep in the imperial territory of France.
He told them that Tokenism must end.
Like Fidel Castro the Kenyan President HE Dr. William Ruto so hard. This reminded me of Fidel Castro who used hit the USA in 1970s in the UN on the American soil.
Thanks
The Writer is a Political Scientist & International Relations expert based in London United Kingdom.A conflict Resolution expert and writes regularly on African Affairs. Twitter @matsangaDr
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