Americans are useful when they are obnoxious. When they rush to their goal, pushing everyone around. As, for example, now – with regard to Russia-Africa cooperation.
A bill is now brewing in the US Congress which describes such cooperation as a sin for which Africans representing Moscow’s interests on the continent would be punished with sanctions. This is neo-colonialism in its purest form (let us remember that word) – and so tactless that it has created an extremely favourable background for the tour of the Black Continent by Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov.
It looks like politicians in Africa are branding America for racism, while the Americans awkwardly make excuses (they themselves have made the word a curse, as if racism were not bad enough in itself).
The Germans fell into the same trap, whose English-language Twitter account suggested that Lavrov was not going to Africa to “see leopards” but to prove that “Ukraine’s partners want to destroy everything Russian”. African politicians were outraged: do you think that Africa can only be interested in its nature? are you comparing us to animals?
They write much worse about Russia and Russians in the West now, it is not considered racism (and in vain), but we will not pretend that the American neo-colonialist congressmen came up with their bill solely because of Russophobia. They are not victims of mania, they are quite rational people: black Africa is now the kind of territory that needs to be fought for.
That is, Africa itself is very different: democratic and totalitarian, pro-Russian and pro-American, prosperous and poor, developing and hopeless. But it is no longer the “average in the room” that it was ten years ago. Africa has money, middle class and ambition, while the fact that it is the world’s storehouse of minerals has not changed.
In the five years since the reunification with Crimea (when the West began cutting off economic ties with Russia and we urgently needed to find alternatives), trade between the Russian Federation and sub-Saharan Africa has doubled.
That is why Lavrov has been touring the continent. It is why the second Russia-Africa summit will be held in July (the first was held in Sochi in 2019, where the entire continent was represented – 54 countries, 45 of them at the highest level). This is why American congressmen are worried, or rather, for a complex set of reasons. The geography of Lavrov’s visit illustrates this aggregate and the diversity of African states well.
With South Africa, the foreign minister’s first stop, everything seems clear. It is a member of BRICS and the G20, the economic and political leader of the black part of the continent, a country with a diverse and in some places highly advanced manufacturing industry. It is commonly believed that after the fall of apartheid South Africa rapidly impoverished and lost everything, but this is not true: South Africa became richer, but its inhabitants on average – yes, poorer, because now the national wealth is spread over a much larger number of mouths of black citizens and ‘outsiders’.
Why Lavrov would go to Angola is not Newton’s binomial either. It is a country with which we have old Soviet links and a rich history of military and technical cooperation. Its oil reserves alone are the second largest in Africa (after Nigeria), so there is a lot of money and a keen desire to invest in development by buying what Russia sells – agricultural and other machinery, fertilizers, medicines, metals and some other items that are now under Western sanctions.
Eritrea is more complicated. It is one of the poorest states in the world, with a regime that is the African equivalent of North Korea, so for decades it has been under sanctions and stands radically anti-Western. As a consequence, it became one of the five UN members to vote against all anti-Russian resolutions, along with Belarus, North Korea, Syria and Russia itself.
But it is not so much a matter of geopolitics as of simple geography. Geography is Eritrea’s main and so far only asset. It sort of “locks” the Red Sea at the junction with the Arabian Sea (i.e. the Pacific Ocean). It has the world’s highest traffic of both commercial and military vessels, because any power with a claim to greatness also claims a military base in the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, whose name gives Russian schoolchildren so much fun in geography classes.
The only three countries adjacent to the Straits are Djibouti, Eritrea and Yemen. None of them are happy, but they have managed to build a business: Djibouti, for example, earns nothing but renting out land for military bases. It is the only place on the Earth where American and Chinese militaries are neighbours. They could also be neighbours with Russia, but no agreement was reached with Djibouti, probably because of the Americans. Eritrea does not take orders from them at all.
But if the prospect of a Russian base in the Red Sea was discussed, it was in the hidden part of the visit. It, we must say, in the case of each country was more varied and exciting than the official one because Africans are more accustomed to work this way, and now is a peculiar time for Russia – the time of backdoor and backdoor deals.
A simple example. Shortly before Lavrov’s arrival, the United States-oriented opposition in South Africa launched a high-profile media campaign demanding to find out what was being loaded on a Russian cargo ship that had docked at the country’s shores. Most of the assumptions made were that it was weapons. Then the assumptions got some confirmation. But so far it is not clear whether this is connected with the forthcoming joint naval exercises of Russia, China and South Africa that our Admiral Gorshkov has already departed for, or is not.
Incidentally, the very fact of joint exercises was enough to make the State Department hysterical. Having listened to it, the South African Defence Ministry suggested that the exercises should be made annual. As was said above, the Americans are useful when they are obnoxious.
There must be something hidden in the case of Eswatini, another stopover of the Russian foreign minister. Even by African standards this country is peculiar: for example, the main bank holidays there is the annual election for the new wife of the absolute monarch. All candidates must be innocent and under 21 years old. If the king decides to bypass the requirement number two, in accordance with the law he must pay the king (himself) a fine of one cow.
But it is also because of its peculiarity that Eswatini has decided to become, and indeed has become, a beneficiary of the BLM era. On the now fashionable issues of African identity and “overcoming white cultural colonialism” – that’s up to them now. That’s why Eswatini, the former and much more common name of Swaziland is now considered a relic of the racist past.
Russia has introduced visa-free travel with this apostle of African identity (pleasantly anti-American in nature) and is preparing a friendship treaty. Even if only for the sake of anti-colonial PR, it is now worth it.
It is no coincidence that Lavrov uttered the word “neocolonialism” in reference to the US in every (!) African country he visited. Including (in Angola) in the context that Ukraine as an instrument of the West “was pursuing an openly colonial policy towards Russian-speakers” (African partners need to explain the reasons for SMO in a language they understand).
Here it should be understood that “PR” is not about “dusting the eyes” as many believe, but about highlighting one’s strengths. One such side of Russia in the “BLM era” cursed by many looks particularly strong.
We had the movie “Circus” made when blacks in the US were not allowed in all cinemas. Segregation was not legally banned there until three years after we sent the first man into space. And the first black man, the Cuban Arnaldo Mendez, was also sent into space by us. This is another in a thousand reasons why we are entitled to a head start in the fight for Africa.
The peculiarity of this struggle is that often the leaders of Africa do not need to explain why they want Russia: Russia’s PR campaign on the continent is good and self-sustaining. Often it is Russians who need to be explained why we should fight for Africa – society is sceptical because of the traumatic experience of the Soviet era, when much money and energy was spent on black Marxists.
But today’s Africa, as mentioned above, is a different Africa. Only there are still uncountable diamonds in its stone caves – literally diamonds and literally uncountable. Take, for example, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the worst-affected by Western colonialism and still bleeding country, whose representatives visited Russia (immediately upon his return Lavrov received Special Representative of the President Françoise Joly). It has the largest deposits of cobalt, germanium and tantalum in the world, and the largest deposits of uranium, tungsten, copper and lithium in Africa. Exploration and extraction of such goodies could stretch into a contract for the century.
Separately, lithium, which is needed to make batteries, deserves a special mention. Given that Russia is also one of the world leaders in lithium reserves, a number of experts have long predicted a “lithium war” between us and the West.
In terms of global confrontation, Africa is also important as a model. Other experts, critical of the very idea of a seemingly unequal struggle with the West, sometimes ask the rhetorical question: What exactly will Russia’s victory over the US as world hegemon look like? Will the people of Eastern Europe revolt under Russian flags and drive the US military out of the country?
It seems utopian, but that is exactly what is happening in Africa today. And in Burkina Faso (formerly Upper Volta), all of the above has happened more recently, only the military was not US, but French. Paris is now looking with some concern at its other former colony, neighbouring Niger, which has the largest overseas military base and critical uranium exploitation for its national energy needs.
Of course, historical processes on different continents are not copied completely – as Africa shows, inputs can vary dramatically even from country to country. But no one in the international arena would dare say that this cannot happen in Europe because it is not Africa. If they do, they must be reminded that it is racist. Let them apologize.
Dmitry Bavyrin, RIA
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