40 per cent of the young men in Gabon are unemployed, and 34 per cent of the population is in absolute poverty, yet the ruling family is so fabulously rich from the country’s oil that it once imported fake snow for Christmas. In 2015, President Ali Bongo paid Lionel Messi €2.5 million for a one-day appearance. There are only 2.4 million people in Gabon. Every one of them should be rich. Yesterday, they decided that they would no longer tolerate being poor.
France still taxes 14 of its former colonies for “the benefits of colonisation”, and forces them to use a currency that it issues, the CFA franc. That is pegged to the euro and so on, for be assured that, for all the cheap jokes about French military cowardice, their utter ruthlessness in Africa is an integral and important part of “the rules-based international order”, the rules of which are such as these. The French and the Americans alike maintain a huge military presence in those countries. They are not there as rivals.
With that backing, Omar and Ali Bongo ruled Gabon from 1967, 10 years before Emmanuel Macron was born, until yesterday. A single individual, the 90-year-old Paul Biya, has been President of Cameroon since 1982, the year that Macron turned five. And so on. Oil-rich Gabonese starve. France has the world’s fourth largest gold reserves but no goldmine except in French Guiana, while gold-rich Mali has no reserves. France has the world’s highest rate of nuclear energy but no uranium, while only 18 per cent of people in uranium-rich Niger have electricity at all. But not the least of Africa’s overflowing natural resources are a median age of 18.5, a mean age of 19.5, and a birth rate of 4.2 per woman. And the youth is in revolt.
That Russia and the Wagner Group will want their cut is not, for now, seen as a problem in Africa. The Russians never colonised the place, they were the lynchpin of its liberation struggle, and they still are. By contrast, the United States did and does support the colonial powers and oppose the liberators. Whether as the Russian Federation or as the Wagner Group, the Russians will be welcome to a share of the spoils of the liberation as far as Africans were concerned. Russia earned them in the last stage of The Struggle, and it has already begun to earn them in this stage. That is how things are seen there.
France is not the only bad guy in Africa, and this uprising has notably begun under its first ever Anglo-style centrist President. Hence the silence of the likes of Black Lives Matter. Those are wholly owned subsidiaries of the Democratic Party, which is the most successful white supremacist organisation in history based on how and for how long it ran the South, and of its intercontinental network of wannabes. Including Macron’s Renaissance. And including all main parties here.
I basically consider myself a non-interventionalist but if anything your response only highlights how difficult global diplomacy actually is. I’m just curious if you think Africa would be a better place if the French and Americans just left their sphere of influence?
The relationship does need to change root and branch, yes. And now, it might.
N Satori
8 months ago
Would it be intemperate of me to suggest that such a crude and brutal use of power, all too common in sub-Saharan Africa, demonstrate that black patriarchy is far, far worse than the much-maligned white patriarchy.
It makes me wonder if Africa can ever be saved from, not just the Chinese and the French and others, but from itself.
I have so many friends that have emigrated to the US from Africa, in fact I am having dinner with two of them tomorrow, that I wonder if any intellectuals will be left to help shape the future.
It is sad, just sad. So many people I know from different parts of that continent, all lovely, interesting, hard working people. WHY are they fleeing and why is that continent so unable to settle itself on a productive path?
Two reasons. Firstly Africa is in many cases just as divided against itself as anywhere in the conflict zones in south eastern Eurasia – Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh (and the Trans-Caucasus), the former Yugoslavia, Afgnanistan and so on. Whether it be tribalism, ethnicity, religion or whatever, groups just hate one another and are happy to see their “enemies” suffer. When my parents were leaving Kenya in 1956 (unwilling to live with the Mao-Mao), the local tribe begged them not to, because they knew they would be targeted by another tribe; and they were. A few years later, Nigeria was belligerently accusing its former colonial masters of racism whilst busy slaughtering the tribe living in Biafra. And so on.
Secondly, as David Lindsay explains, they’re being really messed up by a lot of shadowy non-African rival interests, as they have been ever since open colonialist occupiers officially left. The USA has been preaching against colonialism throughout, but has always practised its own form of economic colonialism, backed up by force (and bribery etc) as needed to ensure compliance. France has largely managed to keep its role out of the public eye, whereas Russia has not had to bother much.
This toxic mixture of tribal loyalties and exploitation by outside forces (think of the Horn of Africa) isn’t anything we onlookers can realistically do something about, sadly. But its no wonder so many who can seek a better life elsewhere do so. The desperation of the non-intellectual people who risk everything crossing hostile lands and seas (and being exploited every inch of the way) is testimony to the past and present, alas.
Am I the only one who is absolutely astonished that someone could actually be called President Ali Bongo?
Or have I been reading too much Kipling perhaps?
Ali’s family name was originally the double-barrelled Bongo-Bongo, but his grandfather befriended Ramsey MacDonald at Oxford and took his advice this was too aristocratic, and the simple ‘Bongo’ would be considered much more proletarian.
There was a Saturday morning kids programme back in the 1970’s in which a magician called Ali Bongo appeared. It was on BBC1 but I can’t recall the name of the programme. Otherwise it’s a fascinating article and discussion from which I’ve learnt much so thanks to all contributors.
The first head of state of the newly independent Zimbabwe in 1980 was President Canaan Banana! Banana was found guilty of eleven charges of sodomy, attempted sodomy and indecent assault in 1998.
Lillian Fry
3 months ago
I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Ivory Coast in the late 60s. When I read about west Africa today I see that sadly not much has changed in 50 years.
The US and others today are trying to force Africans to leave their fuel resources in the ground and run their electric grids on “renewables.” “Green colonialism.” Some are refusing and I hope that movement spreads. Africans need abundant cheap energy if they are to modernize.
40 per cent of the young men in Gabon are unemployed, and 34 per cent of the population is in absolute poverty, yet the ruling family is so fabulously rich from the country’s oil that it once imported fake snow for Christmas. In 2015, President Ali Bongo paid Lionel Messi €2.5 million for a one-day appearance. There are only 2.4 million people in Gabon. Every one of them should be rich. Yesterday, they decided that they would no longer tolerate being poor.
France still taxes 14 of its former colonies for “the benefits of colonisation”, and forces them to use a currency that it issues, the CFA franc. That is pegged to the euro and so on, for be assured that, for all the cheap jokes about French military cowardice, their utter ruthlessness in Africa is an integral and important part of “the rules-based international order”, the rules of which are such as these. The French and the Americans alike maintain a huge military presence in those countries. They are not there as rivals.
With that backing, Omar and Ali Bongo ruled Gabon from 1967, 10 years before Emmanuel Macron was born, until yesterday. A single individual, the 90-year-old Paul Biya, has been President of Cameroon since 1982, the year that Macron turned five. And so on. Oil-rich Gabonese starve. France has the world’s fourth largest gold reserves but no goldmine except in French Guiana, while gold-rich Mali has no reserves. France has the world’s highest rate of nuclear energy but no uranium, while only 18 per cent of people in uranium-rich Niger have electricity at all. But not the least of Africa’s overflowing natural resources are a median age of 18.5, a mean age of 19.5, and a birth rate of 4.2 per woman. And the youth is in revolt.
That Russia and the Wagner Group will want their cut is not, for now, seen as a problem in Africa. The Russians never colonised the place, they were the lynchpin of its liberation struggle, and they still are. By contrast, the United States did and does support the colonial powers and oppose the liberators. Whether as the Russian Federation or as the Wagner Group, the Russians will be welcome to a share of the spoils of the liberation as far as Africans were concerned. Russia earned them in the last stage of The Struggle, and it has already begun to earn them in this stage. That is how things are seen there.
France is not the only bad guy in Africa, and this uprising has notably begun under its first ever Anglo-style centrist President. Hence the silence of the likes of Black Lives Matter. Those are wholly owned subsidiaries of the Democratic Party, which is the most successful white supremacist organisation in history based on how and for how long it ran the South, and of its intercontinental network of wannabes. Including Macron’s Renaissance. And including all main parties here.
I basically consider myself a non-interventionalist but if anything your response only highlights how difficult global diplomacy actually is. I’m just curious if you think Africa would be a better place if the French and Americans just left their sphere of influence?
The relationship does need to change root and branch, yes. And now, it might.
Would it be intemperate of me to suggest that such a crude and brutal use of power, all too common in sub-Saharan Africa, demonstrate that black patriarchy is far, far worse than the much-maligned white patriarchy.
No it wouldn’t and I think the late Charles Darwin would have been among the first to agree with you.
We really need Mr C Socialist to answer this.
Or Carl Valentine, they’re sisters I gather.
It makes me wonder if Africa can ever be saved from, not just the Chinese and the French and others, but from itself.
I have so many friends that have emigrated to the US from Africa, in fact I am having dinner with two of them tomorrow, that I wonder if any intellectuals will be left to help shape the future.
It is sad, just sad. So many people I know from different parts of that continent, all lovely, interesting, hard working people. WHY are they fleeing and why is that continent so unable to settle itself on a productive path?
Two reasons. Firstly Africa is in many cases just as divided against itself as anywhere in the conflict zones in south eastern Eurasia – Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh (and the Trans-Caucasus), the former Yugoslavia, Afgnanistan and so on. Whether it be tribalism, ethnicity, religion or whatever, groups just hate one another and are happy to see their “enemies” suffer. When my parents were leaving Kenya in 1956 (unwilling to live with the Mao-Mao), the local tribe begged them not to, because they knew they would be targeted by another tribe; and they were. A few years later, Nigeria was belligerently accusing its former colonial masters of racism whilst busy slaughtering the tribe living in Biafra. And so on.
Secondly, as David Lindsay explains, they’re being really messed up by a lot of shadowy non-African rival interests, as they have been ever since open colonialist occupiers officially left. The USA has been preaching against colonialism throughout, but has always practised its own form of economic colonialism, backed up by force (and bribery etc) as needed to ensure compliance. France has largely managed to keep its role out of the public eye, whereas Russia has not had to bother much.
This toxic mixture of tribal loyalties and exploitation by outside forces (think of the Horn of Africa) isn’t anything we onlookers can realistically do something about, sadly. But its no wonder so many who can seek a better life elsewhere do so. The desperation of the non-intellectual people who risk everything crossing hostile lands and seas (and being exploited every inch of the way) is testimony to the past and present, alas.
Martin Meredith’s book provides all the answers one needs to explain and understand why sub-Saharan Africa is made up of failed states, including South Africa. Africans are adept at externalising blame for their problems (colonialism, modern exploitation, etc.) and appear incapable of accepting responsibility for their own actions and shortcomings, historically and currently.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/State-Africa-History-Continent-Independence-ebook/dp/B005ISPV5I/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2NZ77A9SY2E1R&keywords=martin+africa+history+independent&qid=1693651456&s=digital-text&sprefix=martin+africa+history+indepdent%2Cdigital-text%2C80&sr=1-1
Am I the only one who is absolutely astonished that someone could actually be called President Ali Bongo?
Or have I been reading too much Kipling perhaps?
Ali’s family name was originally the double-barrelled Bongo-Bongo, but his grandfather befriended Ramsey MacDonald at Oxford and took his advice this was too aristocratic, and the simple ‘Bongo’ would be considered much more proletarian.
Brilliant! Thank you so much.
I must admit it did rather remind me of this song I heard some years ago in Madagascar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfLIlP-GAmg
There was a Saturday morning kids programme back in the 1970’s in which a magician called Ali Bongo appeared. It was on BBC1 but I can’t recall the name of the programme. Otherwise it’s a fascinating article and discussion from which I’ve learnt much so thanks to all contributors.
The first head of state of the newly independent Zimbabwe in 1980 was President Canaan Banana! Banana was found guilty of eleven charges of sodomy, attempted sodomy and indecent assault in 1998.
I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Ivory Coast in the late 60s. When I read about west Africa today I see that sadly not much has changed in 50 years.
The US and others today are trying to force Africans to leave their fuel resources in the ground and run their electric grids on “renewables.” “Green colonialism.” Some are refusing and I hope that movement spreads. Africans need abundant cheap energy if they are to modernize.