---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 6 Nov 2000 19:08:56 EST
From: [log in to unmask]
Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
To: [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask],
[log in to unmask], [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask],
[log in to unmask], [log in to unmask],
[log in to unmask], [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask],
[log in to unmask]
Subject: [AfricaMatters] Does Africa matter to the US?
November 6, 2000
Does Africa matter to the US?
By PAUL EJIME
Dakar, Senegal (Pana) - On Tuesday, Americans will elect their 43rd president
since the nation's declaration of independence from Britain in 1776.
Expectedly, the election process that produces the occupant of the most
powerful office, presiding over the world's sole super power, that prides
itself as the land of equal opportunities and a model of democracy, generates
so much interest across the globe.
Not least in Africa, which shares a long political history with the
plural-cultural and ethnically diverse America, the so-called "God's Own"
country of 50 federated states and more than 250 million people.
To be sure, American politics is incomplete without the mention of African
Americans like Dr. Luther King Jr, Marcus Garvey, WB Dubois, or Rev Jesse
Jackson and former chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Collin Powell.
But it remains a paradox that after more than two centuries in a developed
nation, the majority of the more than 35 million African Americans, who
constitute more than 13 percent of the US total population, are still
struggling against inequalities and marginalisation that blunted the
potentials of their forebears.
The extraordinary diversity in America's population is acknowledged by the
Census Bureau, whose 1992 figures showed that 620 912 or 4 percent of the
total firms in the US were owned by African Americans.
While the white majority non-Hispanics population form 73 percent of the
population, the Hispanics with 11 percent, control 5 percent of US businesses.
Available figures also show that American Americans contribute more than they
are getting out of the US economy, in terms of political, economic and social
opportunities.
The disproportionate lack of "duty of care" for Africans in the Diaspora is
replicated in even greater dimension to their cousins in mother Africa, to
the extent that African issues seldom figure in crucial US affairs, such as
the presidential election.
The lobby-system plays a major role in US polity, especially the intricate
decision-making process of American foreign policy formulation, yet Africa
gets no more than a glossary mention, if at all, in this process, dominated
by powerful pressure groups like the Jewish community, which does not match
the African Americans in numerical strength.
It is irreconcilable that in the 21st century America rife with segregation
and racial tension, where a Guinean cab driver can be slain with 41 bullets
by trigger-happy police, and black-owned churches are burnt by racists, the
Torch of Liberty still welcomes the world to the "Land of Freedom."
The election campaigns of the two contestants have not disappointed sceptics,
either.
Apart from vote-catching non-committal statements at states with strong black
population like Louisiana, neither Republican candidate George W Bush nor his
Democrat counterpart, Vice President Al Gore, is on record to have made any
concrete commitment to Africa in their electioneering.
Apologists would argue that American elections are domestic-issue driven, but
such arguments cannot be sustained by the fact that several candidates have
either won, lost the race to the White House because of foreign policy
successes or failures.
A speaker at a policy forum sponsored by the International Peace Academy in
New York this week quoted Bush as having said that "Africa is a very
important continent" but one in which the US had "no vital interests."
Gore, for his part, was said to be a "progressive internationalist" in favour
of the use of government power to promote social change overseas, including
Africa.
Africa probably mattered more during the Cold War era, in the reckoning of
American policy makers, but international relations experts believe that the
continent deserves more than the passive treatment it continues to get from
America.
This is not so much in sympathy for the continent's internal conflicts,
hunger, disease and poverty, accentuated by the debt burden, as the fact that
the US owes Africa a moral obligation, if not for the past, but for
contemporary efforts of blacks in America and at home.
According to Dr Emmanuel Oranika, a Nigerian engineer in Montgomery, Alabama,
the widely held myth that Africa is only exporting raw materials to the West
and the US has been punctured by emerging facts. Africa, he says, is also
exporting talented human resources to Europe and America, with one million
Africans working outside the continent.
It is estimated that one third of the African education budget is a
supplement to the American education budget, and the result, albeit an irony,
is that "Africa is giving developmental assistance to the United States."
So much can be said about the US Africa Growth Opportunity Act passed in May,
which has been lampooned by economic exports, on grounds that it would only
turn African countries into conduits for products to American market.
President Bill Clinton's unprecedented two trips to Africa by a sitting US
president could equally be counted as part of US concern for Africa, and so
is his belated action to cancel the debt of "poor African countries."
But observers still point to a huge gap between promises and what America
can, and should do for Africa.
Critics even view the lip-service often paid by successive occupants of the
White House to African issues as ingratitude to a people, who are denied
restitution for the iniquities of slavery.
If the Jews can be compensated for the holocaust, why is Africa refused
restitution for the millions of its people sold into slavery, including to
America?
It was not for nothing that Powell, despite an impressive popularity rating
after the Gulf war declined to run for the American presidency.
With the benefit of hindsight and the vision of a retired general, he figured
that as happened with Jesse Jackson's presidential ambition, the US is not
yet ready for an African American President.
Today, Powell is being tipped as a front-runner for the key post of US
Secretary of State, should Bush clinch the presidency, but such
"concessions," even if granted, are considered too little to undo decades of
damage of African neglect by Washington.
from MISAnet/Pan African News Agency
-------------------------- eGroups Sponsor -------------------------~-~>
Create your business web site your way now at Bigstep.com.
It's the fast, easy way to get online, to promote your business,
and to sell your products and services. Try Bigstep.com now.
http://click.egroups.com/1/9183/5/_/192352/_/973555746/
---------------------------------------------------------------------_->
To the extent possible, please keep postings concise. Our archives are at : http://www.egroups.com/group/us-afr-network . To Post a message, send it to [log in to unmask] . Tell others to subscribe by sending a blank message to [log in to unmask] . To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: [log in to unmask]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask]
if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your full name and e-mail address.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
