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| Many Africans See U.S. As Distant Savior |
| 2005-02-22 |
| As President Bush visits Europe this week, he is up against a continent brimming with hostile public opinion. But while Americans have grown used to being condemned as global bullies, at least one region has people looking to them for salvation. For many of the young people who take to the streets in protest in Lome and other blighted, overlooked capitals across Africa, only one distant power seems great enough to defeat the local forces of tyranny: the U.S. military. "Tell George Bush to send us guns," young protesters screamed last weekend in Lome, capital of Togo, where the dictator of 38 years had just died, only for his son to succeed him by military appointment within hours. "We need American troops to deliver us from this regime," young men shouted. America's export of democratic ideals, along with the hard-core rap music and imagery that has suffused African youth cultures, has made it seem like a beacon to Africa's downtrodden — or at least better than France, former colonial ruler and lasting influence in much of West Africa. That was evident amid the tear gas and riots in the former French colony of Togo, when thousands protested against the military's appointment of Faure Gnassingbe as president. Young people, many in American-branded jeans and baseball caps, begged Western journalists to send the message that they wanted the U.S. Marines to come in stop a new dictatorship from blossoming. That was before pressure at home and abroad elicited a pledge from Gnassingbe late Friday to hold presidential elections within 60 days, and matters may yet be resolved peacefully. Similar pro-American sympathies have been noticeable in other places wracked by civil war, ethnic hatred and disease. In Ivory Coast, where pro-government mobs attacked French families last year and clashed with French peacekeepers, any foreigner could win immunity and cheers simply by producing an American flag — or even a red-white-and-blue car air-freshener. Demonstrators waved posters appealing to Bush for help. The French, whose soldiers, traders and technocrats are still deeply engaged in West Africa, get the blame for much that goes wrong here. The United States keeps a much lower profile. French criticism of the Iraq invasion only adds to Washington's luster. So while the educated classes of Africa debate the rights and wrongs of U.S. policy, at street level Americans are often seen as knights in armor who would surely ride to the rescue if only they knew how bad things were. As U.S. troops rolled into Baghdad in 2003, many people of eastern Congo, 3,000 miles away, were being slaughtered in ethnic massacres. Over and over, frightened Congolese were heard demanding American intervention. Months later, rebels descended on Monrovia, Liberia, a country founded by freed slaves returned from America. Deposed President Charles Taylor finally agreed to step down — but not until U.S. troops arrived. The 100 soldiers who joined a West African peacekeeping force were the first U.S. military mission on African soil since 10 years previously, when the killing of 18 U.S. soldiers in Mogadishu, Somalia, doused any American appetite for further African interventions. Yet many Somalians say the American troops are still the only ones who can deliver their city from warlords and drug-addled gunmen. In the former French colonies, the call for American firepower usually comes in the same breath as vitriolic hatred for the French — delivered in French, the lingua franca inherited from colonial times. During the demonstrations in Lome (pronounced low-MAY), Togo's beach-front capital, protesters confronted journalists shouting, "Are you French? If you are, we will kill you." A French radio journalist was doused with gasoline but escaped unharmed. Few listened to the funeral dirges and electronic anthems droning out of state radio in ceaseless homage to the dead president. In neighborhoods full of restless, unemployed youth, Busta Rhymes and DMX blared from a distant boom box, near a mural honoring slain rapper Tupac Shakur. "People are hungry and dying here," said a 24-year-old calling himself LL Cool J, after the American rapper... |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #9 You know, I wish the beautiful people of Africa all of the peace and happiness in the world - but that place is such a mess that it's hard to even know where to begin. |
| Posted by: 2b 2005-02-22 3:43:52 PM |
| #8 Problem is Africa had been built along the lines of colonization districts, ie the colonial power subdivided its empire according to conveniency: if such tribe was easier to reach from town A than from town B then it went into A even if B was populated with friendly tribed and B with mortal ennemies. Not a problem since the colonial army would go after anyone causing trouble. But independence meant the minority tribe had to deal with an army formed by its ennemies, with politicians who did their utmost to prevent their economic success and unfair judges. So the first step would be to break the artificial states norn from colonization whose mere artificialness voids any attempt to implement democracy and rule of law. This precludes economic progress: people will not do business if they fear the other guy will not fill his part of the contract hoping an unfair judge will rule for him. |
| Posted by: JFM 2005-02-22 3:40:39 PM |
| #7 Sorry, people. I'm in a foul mood... |
| Posted by: Ptah 2005-02-22 3:24:02 PM |
| #6 Interesting perspective moose. I'm one those who has given up on Africa. Nothing seems to work. I think it was Blair who recently appealed for a 50Billion fund to fix Africa. If I thought it would make enough of a difference I would support it, but more aid hasn't worked to date and I see no reason it will work in the future. I have no idea what to do about Africa and I don't see anyone else who does. The latest depressing news was a huge jump, nearly 60%, in South African mortality rates over the last 6 years. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2005-02-22 2:11:05 PM |
| #5 Ptah: Don't write off Africa so easily. There are one heck of a lot of Africans who are the very models of enlightened western civilization. And they are not such just as individuals, but as a class in their native countries. In all fairness, if you saw Americans as only inner-city gangsters, Indians living in abject poverty on some reservation, and the Amish, you could easily believe that America is a very primitive place. So what Africa needs, more than anything else, are the institutions that inexorably lead to democracy. Institutions that are taken for granted in the US. To be given the same "nation building" support that has been given to Iraq. But here's the irony: when an African nation makes even the least movement towards such a situation, towards these institutions, it immediately becomes the destination for everyone else on the continent! Because there are vast numbers of Africans who want it, however they can get it, even in what to them is a foreign country. And they are willing to relocate. Enlightened democracy often fails there because it is too popular. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-02-22 1:31:46 PM |
| #4 Ptah, I honestly don't know what the f**k to say ... (re: them, not you. You, I'm cool with.) |
| Posted by: Edward Yee 2005-02-22 1:27:04 PM |
| #3 No. The whole freakin' continent, not to mention a good share of the adjoining ones, are damned shizoid: One moment ya want us to come ridin' in and rescue you, the next you want us out, the next after that, if we're not out the previous moment, you wanna kill us, and the next after THAT, you're screaming that we left too soon and are to blame for the ensuing bloodshed. No F*ck*n' thank you! We love our troops because they're willing to die for their country, and their country is OUR country. And we're is democratic enough to know, without a doubt, that our country is US, which means that they're willing to die FOR US. We will NOT throw them away to save idiots, bigots, racists, the bi-polar, liberals, or whales. I'd tell ya to go to Hell, but you've already got the French. |
| Posted by: Ptah 2005-02-22 12:43:48 PM |
| #2 "...the former French colony of Togo..." "Are you French? If you are, we will kill you." Ahhh, the legacy of the superior French culture. |
| Posted by: Tom 2005-02-22 12:05:46 PM |
| #1 Somebody better tell these folks not to hold their breath. Or to start building nukes. |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2005-02-22 11:59:57 AM |