By Mike Smith
19th of April 2016
Professor Ali Mazrui of Kenya was an intelligent man. As an African “Clasical liberal”, he was as critical of Communism as he was of Global Capitalism. As a devout moderate Muslim he was also anti violence, anti terrorism and believed that Sharia Law was incompatible with democracy.
However, in his 1980’s BBC series called “The Africans: A triple heritage” he said three things were influencing Africa: Western Colonialism, the spread of Islam from the East and the own black African culture.
Nevertheless he blamed a lot of African problems on the Western World saying to his critics, “In a fair telling of history, the western world shouldn’t be expected to come out looking good from the African perspective.”
He also believed Africa should find its own solutions to its own problems and he believed there were six paradoxes central to understanding Africa and finding solutions:
1) Africa was the birthplace of man, but is the last to be made habitable in a modern sense.
2) Although Africans have not been the most abused group of people in modern history, they have been the most humiliated.
3) Africa is the most different from the West culturally, but is westernizing very quickly.
4) Africa possesses extreme natural wealth, but its people are very poor.
5) Africa is huge, yet very fragmented.
6) Africa is geographically central, but politically marginal
So Mazrui believed that if you could get around these paradoxes, Africa would and should be prosperous. Easier said than done.
Mazrui also believed in “The internal re-Colonisation of Africa”.
He believed that the strongest country in each of the continents four regions – South Africa in the south, Egypt in the north, Nigeria in the West and Kenya or Ethiopia in the east - should assume responsibility for establishing order, democratic rule and economic upliftment in its region.
Good idea, big words, but of course at the time Egypt had a dictatorship under Hosni Mubarak, Nigeria had a military dictatorship under Sani Abacha, Kenya was plagued by misrule and corruption, Ethiopia was in a brutal civil war and South Africa had Apartheid with unrest.
But then things changed. South Africa had Mandela and Thabo Mbeki as vice president running the day to day show.
Mbeki had big dreams of uniting Africa. At least that is how it appeared on the surface at first. He wanted to be for Africa what Jan Smuts was for the United Nations.
And so it was that from this original idea of Mazrui that Thabo Mbeki got his idea of an “African Renaissance”.
And this is where the alarm lights started to flicker, because Mbeki attempting to “think” and come up with “plans” can only spell disaster.
Nevertheless, sipping Johnny Walker Blue late at night, Mbeki set out to draw up a kind of ”Marshall Plan” for Africa which he called the “Millennium Partnership for the African Recovery Programme” (MAP).
At the same time, President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal proposed the “OMEGA Plan” for Africa developed.
In 2001 the Organization for African Unity OAU (now AU) decided that the MAP and OMEGA plans should be merged and thus came about what we know today as NEPAD
NEPAD set ambitious goals. It spoke to the West and asked for Western investment. The four primary objectives were: to eradicate poverty, promote sustainable growth and development, integrate Africa in the world economy, and accelerate the empowerment of women.
NEPAD pledged a commitment to good governance, democracy, human rights and conflict resolution. It wanted to create an environment conducive to investment and long-term economic growth.
In July 2002 the AU held a summit in Durban and supplemented NEPAD with a Declaration on Democracy. It stated that NEPAD ‘believe in just, honest, transparent, accountable and participatory government and probity in public life’.
The signatories committed themselves to the “rule of law; the equality of all citizens before the law; individual and collective freedoms; the right to participate in free, credible and democratic political processes; and adherence to the separation of powers, including protection for the independence of the judiciary and the effectiveness of parliaments.”
They even went as far as introducing an “African Peer Review Mechanism” APRM, a kind of “carrot and stick” approach, that would put sanctions on rogue countries and rewards on those complying with NEPAD commitments and the NEPAD Secretariat was/is based in Midrand, South Africa.
Sounds nice…Good objectives, big words, big commitments, but from the start Thabo Mbeki discovered that all these African leaders so committed to NEPAD were all talk. Everybody wanted to meet at expensive hotels, and eat expensive food, but nobody wanted to fork out any money towards NEPAD. So South Africa (white taxpayers) ended up being the major donor and sponsor.
Further…all these promises of “democracy” and “good governance” were just the kind of things that would convince the liberal idiots in the West to throw money at Africa…and boy how they did. They poured billions into NEPAD…about US$ 64 billion a year.
Between 2005-2007 the Dutch government alone poured US$ 14.5 billion into two NEPAD programs one, an APRM in Ghana and the other, the totally useless South African institute of International Affairs that is supposed to ensure “good governance” in SA, but under whose watch Jacob Zuma and the corrupt ANC stole the country into bankruptcy.
Who is Deputy Chairman of the SAIIA? None other than Thabo Mbeki’s brother, Moeletsi Mbeki.
Yet if you ask the average Dutch person if he knows what NEPAD is, he won’t be able to tell you, neither does he have the foggiest idea that his government is pouring his hard earned tax money down a bottomless pit in Africa, because nobody in government ever asked him if they could. They just do it and the citizens just have to shut up.
Yet when Jan Hollander is old and goes on pension he finds out that he is living on the bread line, his pension is not enough, because his government pissed money down a black hole in Africa. Thousands of old people in the Netherlands are living on a starvation pension and has to turn every cent around whilst corrupt black leaders in Africa are wasting their money away.
The Dutch aren’t the only ones. The Danes, the Germans, the British, the Canadians, the Norwegians…are all funding SAIIA and therefore NEPAD.
What did NEPAD achieve up until today? Simply put…Fuckall. Good governance in South Africa? Don’t make me laugh.
Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, one of the original drafters and supporters of NEPAD, accused it of wasting hundreds of millions of dollars and achieving nothing. He doesn’t even go to their meetings anymore. Senegal president slams NEPAD
"Expenses adding up to hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on trips, on hotels. But not a single classroom has been built, not a single health centre completed. NEPAD has not done what it was set up for," he said.
See? NEPAD was never supposed to succeed. It is a racket…a criminal scheme to separate Western liberal fools from their money.
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I realized this when Allister Sparks interviewed Thabo Mbeki about his “Quiet Diplomacy” towards Mugabe driving 4000 white farmers off their land. (Mentioned also in Beyond the Miracle; Inside the New South Africa, pg327). “What about NEPAD?” Sparks dared to ask Mbeki, because according to NEPAD Mbeki should have brought Mugabe to heel.
Mbeki responded angrily saying that Zimbabwe was a preoccupation of white racists…”because white people died, and white people were deprived of their property.”
When Sparks told him that Zimbabwe was a test for the credibility of NEPAD… Mbeki continued foaming at the mouth,
“A million people die in Rwanda and do the whites South Africans care? Not a bit. You talk to them about the disaster in Angola, to which the apartheid regime contributed, and they’re not interested. Let’s talk about Zimbabwe. Does anyone want to talk about the big disaster in Mozambique, from which it is now recovering? No. Let’s talk about Zimbabwe. You say to them, “Look at what is happening in the Congo”. No, no, no, let’s talk about Zimbabwe. Why? It’s because 12 white people died! I am saying Zimbabwe is a big obsession in this country. It isn’t anywhere else on the African continent.”
Actually it becomes clear who has the obsession with what. Mbeki is a total racist with a hatred and an obsession with whites bordering on the fanatical.
He had no problem with Mugabe killing 20,000 Ndebeles (Matabeles) and he had no problem with 4000 white farmers being chased off their land causing the economy to collapse and making Zimbabwe the poorest country in the world with millions of blacks starving to death.
The only thing he is happy about is that Mugabe showed those damn whites who is boss!
Mugabe is a total psycho and narcissist. Watch how Mugabe bows down to his own portrait but Mbeki loves him and the EFF proclaims that Zimbabwe remains an inspiration to the SA liberation struggle . Blacks love Mugabe. They don’t care if all the blacks starve to death, as long as the whites are gone.
That is the reality of Africa. Despite fancy words, phrases and slogans, all the plans of the Africans are and always will be useless failures just like NEPAD.
That is, when they can stick to the plan, but when it comes to admitting the failure of the plan they rather shift the blame to “white racists”.
For instance, you can see it in all the excuses the ANC have for the low turnout at their election manifesto launch in Port Elizabeth. “Bad logistics, the heat, internal sabotage…”
The plan failed, but it is never them. It is never their bad governance or misrule. It is never their corruption or their shenanigans with the Indian Mafia. Always someone else. Always whitey.
Instead of doing some introspection and bettering themselves, anybody trying to complain about them not honouring their own commitments, undertakings and sticking to their own plans is simply called, “a racist”.
Just as the ANC couldn’t stick to NEPAD, they couldn’t stick to their own Freedom Charter and least of all…they couldn’t stick to the Constitution.
No matter how clever they think they are. No matter how intelligent they believe they are, they have proven over and over that they cannot make any plans, they cannot stick to any plans and that they cannot govern with plans. Totally useless at everything. That is why the ANC has to go.