Online Reporter
Gibson Nyikadzino
IMPERIALISM remains an irrational force. The reactions from the western world in particular led by the USA about South Africa’s Expropriation Act have shown that imperialism does not need time to weigh facts and separate them from fiction.
Such reactions have been done at the back of lies and other extenuating factors to “punish” South Africa, in particular how the US felt disappointed with the former’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ); that it is a member of the BRICS+ alliance; and was once suspected of sending military hardware to Russia to defend its security against Nato provocation through its proxy, Ukraine.
Additionally, US President Donald Trump’s advisor, Elon Musk, spread lies, disinformation, and what Trump used to call “alternative facts” to give traction to their pre-truths that South Africa is committing a genocide against white South African farmers.
What is only impressive to the Western establishment is the happiness of the white while being disinterested with the case of the landless Africans. This is how dangerous imperialism is. Musk even went to extremes and labelled South Africa’s Julius Malema as an “international criminal” for his radical views on land expropriation without compensation.
Imperialism, hence, relies heavily on lies, force (physical, cultural, economic), distortions and labelling leaders who stand for the total liberty and liberation of their people. It is so that during Zimbabwe’s agrarian reform, the West labelled the late President Robert Mugabe as the “black Hitler”, that despite holding South Africa’s Nelson Mandela in high regard, they considered him a “terrorist” until 2008 as he was on their terrorists’ list; and that Zaire’s (now DRC) independence leader Patrice Lumumba was the “head of Communism in Africa that had to be crushed”.
Even so, the way Western media portrayed through illustrations and cartoons the m-pox virus, how the legacy media in western capitals pushed an anti-immigrant narrative targeting Africans was empirical to project how knowledge production systems can push imperialist or racist agendas.
Therefore, the recrudescence of imperialist ideology is something people and leaders from the Global South should be wary of. To think that imperialism and colonialism are over is a luxury that cannot be afforded, especially at a time knowledge structures are tilting and off-balancing others to favour another.
A good example comes to mind on what Global South citizens, especially from Africa should remain conscious. Today the Americans are talking about dominating the world in a four-dimensional way as they aspire their superiority. They want to dominate the world on land, on sea, in the air and in the cyberspace.
The 20 July1969 mission by US astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin comes to mind as they became the first humans to walk on the moon. Also, the space field is soon to be dominated by billionaires like Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk who are speaking of “space tourism”. In the case of Musk, he has hinted the need to send humans and “invade and colonise the galaxy”, a particular reference to Mars.
However, in relation to the space race as a domination field, the Russians, Chinese and recently Indians, have strongly competed with the Americans in many domains, but only for at least two continents, Latin America and Africa.
To Africa, for purposes to counter the hegemonic superiority of other players, it has not found itself as a competitor. Even so, little nautical research has been done in Africa to test the continent’s preparedness in challenge domineering powers on sea.
Having knowledge of maritime, space and air activities for Africa underscores the significance of attaining supremacy to govern, for instance, essential sea lanes, safeguard trade routes, and project global power, positing the continent as a formidable union. That is indispensable for the continent’s comprehensive power and security, and the strategic importance of geographic positioning for achieving maritime dominance.
However, the African Union’s “2050 Africa’s Integrated Maritime Strategy (2050 AIM Strategy)” only consists of the overarching, concerted and coherent long-term multilayered plans of actions to enhance maritime viability for a prosperous Africa. The processes of implementation have not been adequately outlined.
Without showing commitment in our quest to be regarded as an “equal player”, Africans will remain on the lower part of the food chain in the race to global survival. Imperialism is at work and should not be understated. Imperialism and neo-colonialism cannot be defeated only by strong words without strong social, political, cultural, industrial and technological organisation.
When non-African or superpower states or leaders make pronouncements, they must not only be read as mere political rhetoric, but as critical statements that have impact to disrupt the international system.
The anxiety and apprehension that gripped the world following recent utterances by US President Donald Trump have disturbed both friends and foes. He wants Canada to be the 51st state of the US; to rename the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America; taking back the Panama Canal; imposing tariffs on Germany; and annex Greenland from Denmark. Of late, he wants Palestinians to be expelled from their land and be resettled in other Arab states. This is not Pax Americana; it is imperialism being reintroduced in ways that some had not experienced.
These policy goals can be read as only a mechanism to pacify allies and alternatively coerce them to fold their challenges to the US which they cannot confront militarily, politically or economically.
To the Africans, challenging Western domination is a painful process that will present great difficulties that are equally problematic as the domestic problems many African States face.
During colonialism, resistance movements rose and defeated imperialist and colonial forces because they were organised. In the same manner, the people need to be organised to enhance their moral compass with alertness and be able to detect when imperialist machinations try to creep into the realm of Africa’s independence.
It is equally dangerous for people to romanticise with colonial history as something that was meant to bring “enlightenment” to Africa. Rather, the moral urgency of explaining to today’s Africans and imperialist forces why colonialism and imperialism were and remain fiercely laden with horrors that cannot be put aside.
As long as we do not work hard to contribute to levelling the field that has been corrugated by imperialism, there will continue to be the interruption of Africa’s complete evolution and many of the continent’s aspirations will not be able to flower.
It is high time to see what imperialism is through Rudyard Kipling’s writings when he said “part of the defining discourse of colonialism and imperialism is to re-inscribe cultural hegemony and the cultural schizophrenia that constructed the division between the Englishman as demi-God and as human failure, as coloniser and semi-native”.
It has to be known that imperialism itself is a cultural project of control, it is not over yet, but all over. At every turn one faces, there is an institution of imperial reminder which is enabling conquest and is also reproducing it in some ways.
