“There are times when one tragedy tells us how a whole system works behind its democratic façade and helps us understand how much of the world is run for the benefit of the powerful and how governments often justify their actions with lies.” – John Pilger, renowned Australian-British journalist
What was the biggest news story in Africa last week? Perhaps the re-election of Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari who beat former vice president Atiku Abubakar?
The Standard dedicated a short, monotonous editorial to the poll. The usual boilerplate homilies about free and fair elections, blah, blah.
“Should Nigerians renew their trust in President Buhari, well and good. Should they, however, express their displeasure over unfulfilled promises, it will be a boost for democracy on the continent,” the paper said on February 25.
What is that? If Buhari wins, well and good. If his opponent takes the job, fine.
Well, the correct answer to the question about the biggest African news of the week might be, who cares? Here is why.
To begin with, there is so much happening in Kenya every hour that apparently no one has the time or desire to follow what’s unfolding beyond our borders.
We are murdering women all the way from Dandora in Nairobi to Kapsoya in Eldoret. Daily. No single government project is untouched by theft of public money. None. Who still follows these scandals? And the smoke and mirrors “war” on corruption?
Second, the spirit of Pan-Africanism that once pumped the adrenalin of liberation movements across the continent, inspiring vivid dreams of freedom and prosperity, is all but dead.
On February 11 while attending the AU Summit in Addis, President Uhuru Kenyatta said: “I am a Pan-Africanist who believes that African peoples have a common cultural heritage and historical experience that we must understand if we are to have clearer sight of our desired destination.”
Not many people – particularly the younger generation – understand or care about what that means. How can they when they are fed a chipo-and-sausage education whose primary objective is to find a place in the job market? When they are told all that matters is science and technology and entrepreneurship? If they are jobless, how can they relate their predicament to the aspirations of Pan-Africanism they have never heard of? What do they know about Black history?
And third, the mainstream media has no interest in covering Africa. Lack of resources is an excuse. You do not need to be a multi-billion-shilling media house with a reporter on every African capital to adequately cover the continent.
KTN News tries to give a round up of world news in its programme Bottom Line Africa. The newspapers do a bit better. They have fairly extensive coverage of world news daily. But most of it is about Trump, Teresa May, Macron. And of course the down side is that all those reports are from foreign news agencies. Radio listeners interested in international news can only get it by tuning to foreign stations.
Anyway, by far the biggest African story last week was about a place possibly only a handful of Kenyans have heard of: Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean. They are Britain’s remaining colony in Africa.
Yes, it is 2019 and the Queen of England still claims a piece of Africa! And we talk about human rights, really?
And what do those “Pan-Africanists” go to do at the AU rituals when a portion of African territory is still colonized?
Chagos was all over international media last week after the International Court of Justice in The Hague handed down a momentous ruling: Britain’s colonial authority over the islands is illegal. The islands should be handed back to Chagosians.
It has been a long, bruising struggle. In the 1960s, the British government of Prime Minister Harold Wilson cut a deal with the Americans to give Washington Chagos Islands to build a military base.
Britain embarked on brutal expulsion of the entire population of at least 1,500 people from the Chagos Islands to make way for the American military base on Diego Garcia, the largest of the islands. The expulsions began in 1965.
The famous Australian-British journalist John Pilger did an acclaimed documentary on Chagos, titled Stealing a Nation, in 2004. Last week, he wrote:
“People were herded into the hold of a rusting ship, the women and children forced to sleep on a cargo of bird fertiliser. They were dumped in the Seychelles, where they were held in prison cells, then shipped on to Mauritius, where they were taken to a derelict housing estate with no water or electricity. Twenty-six families died here in brutal poverty, there were nine suicides; and girls were forced into prostitution to survive.”
It is an episode that echoes the heartless shipment of African slaves by the same people who lecture us about human rights.
Diego Garcia was turned into one of America’s biggest military bases, with more than 2,000 troops, bomber runways, 30 warships, facilities for nuclear-armed submarines and a satellite spy station. Iraq and Afghanistan were bombed from the African island.
But the exiled Chagosians, in the sacred liberation tradition of our people, rose up to fight empire. They were few. They had nothing that could bring down their imperialist oppressors. But they were willing to die standing on their feet rather than live on their knees.
In 1982, Britain tried to calm the Chagosians with a measly compensation paid to them in exile. But they pressed on.
In 2000, the Chagosians won a case filed at the High Court in London, which ruled that their expulsion was illegal.
But the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair (who “loves” Africa and is an adviser to certain governments on this continent) invoked an archaic law, which empowers the government to ignore Parliament and the courts (They lecture us about the supremacy of Parliament and independence of the Judiciary!)
Blair’s government appealed the High Court ruling on Chagos Islands and won. Observers said it was a political decision.
Now, the ICJ has ruled the UK’s occupation of Chagos and the expulsion of its inhabitants is illegal. That, of course, makes the US military base at Diego Garcia illegal as well.
But will empire honour the court ruling? ICJ’s decisions are advisory. The court has no means to enforce its orders. Empire will likely ignore last week’s ruling – even as it continues hectoring the rest of the world about the rule of law.
But the Chagosians have won their right to their homeland. It is a confirmation, once again, of the African fighting spirit that reminds us of the slaves in Haiti who created the first Black republic in 1804.
The Observer just the other week urged the media to take its educational role seriously by providing better coverage of international affairs. That is what gives the bigger picture and context of most local public affairs. Such coverage is critical to the ongoing struggles for Africa’s total liberation. We renew that call.
