A season of diplomatic dances

The current drama of German-driven harvesting of technologically skilled refugees from Syria recalls waves of Euro-American reaction to Mao Zedung’s adaptation of  Vladimir Lenin rejection of insistence by European ‘’Marxists’’ that society’s progress will come about from the death not of Christ but ‘’industrially ripe capitalism’’; followed not by the triumph of Christ over death […]

The current drama of German-driven harvesting of technologically skilled refugees from Syria recalls waves of Euro-American reaction to Mao Zedung’s adaptation of  Vladimir Lenin rejection of insistence by European ‘’Marxists’’ that society’s progress will come about from the death not of Christ but ‘’industrially ripe capitalism’’; followed not by the triumph of Christ over death incited by greedy traders but violent revolt by workers faced with starvation as    robots they created with their brain power take their jobs.  Lenin deposed feudal Czarist rule. Mao fought a guerrilla war with rural poor he trained with socialist principles.
Mao defeated a genocidal Japanese army and pro-Euro-American Kuomintang rulers; inspiring similar victors in North Vietnam; Algeria; Cuba; Southern Africa and Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde in West Africa. A new road to democracy discredited Euro-America’s model of development.
Two Political Scientists made brilliant inventions of a social weapon for a Euro-Americans to fight back. John Armstrong predicted that two engineers, Brezhnev and Kosygin, would emerge as leaders of the Soviet Union; while minority ethnic groups resented domination by ethnic Russians. Crawford Young claimed that ethnic anger is more potent than class-based anger. NATO’s secret services used these insights to provoke the collapse of the Soviet Union.
They also adopted Mao Zedung’s secretive mobilisation of hearts and minds to undermine Communist parties in Ukraine, Poland, East Germany and the Baltic states. In 2011, mass demonstration seized streets and paralysed uses of state violence from Tunisia to Syria.  In Egypt, however, the military deposed Morsi and crushed protesting members of the Muslim Brotherhood with tanks.
That tool has recently reappeared against the BRICS states. President Putin in Russia has awakened Russian patriotism and deflated street power. China wore down demonstrators in Hong Kong. Brazil had a first wave before the Olympic Games; while a new challenge to corruption in the oil industry is hungry for the overthrow of a democratically elected government.  Faced with a government elected by the arithmetical superiority of the poorer classes who are benefitting from social services, NATO-inspired critics have lost faith in ballot boxes and vastly expensive election campaigns for winning power.
The xenophobia that hit South Africa and sought to scare away skilled migrants from other African countries; while diverting anger against unequal wealth by white groups and multinational corporations, would also wreck a BRICS member state. Russia and Brazil are also hit by huge declines in income from oil. NATO’s counter-offensive has rolled into a panic following China’s economic charm offensive across Asia, Africa and South America. Her apparent rejection of a Swedish proposal for a joint Euro-China exploitation of Africa is bound to draw fangs.
Africa must join the current dance of diplomacy. One productive initiative would be to critically examine China’s current reform of her state-owned enterprises. These firms currently constitute 56 per cent of global top 500 companies. They are to retain monopoly of ‘’public goods’’, notably:  education, health, water, electricity, and transport ‘’whose supply is critical to social stability’’ and public happiness. Massive innovation and invention of technology is beckoning as a frontier for absorbing talents of Africa’s  60 million unemployed youths; while capital to fuel effective self-reliant, manufacturing and fabrication of technology must be provided by African states.
This initiative must correct wreckage by Structural Adjustment Programmes in socio-economic warfare against African societies. Its attack on state-owned enterprises in Africa should be reversed with subtle creativity. NEPAD’s ‘’African Peer Review Mechanism’’ (APRM) should use its participatory process to drive a renaissance of state-owned enterprises.  This must avoid ‘’privatization’’ by their managers through personal graft. Joint ownership should be with large local private capital and the ‘’informal sector’’ by individual SMEs and cooperative communal enterprises. This would pool entrepreneurial talents and counter a drive to recapture Africa’s economies.
As an illustration, as many as ELEVEN American multinational corporations in collaboration with government departments in charge of energy, commerce and banking have ‘’invaded’’ the Nigerian power sector. They have loaned funds into the distribution sector; and solar power plants. Without a strong state-owned enterprise to compete in the power sector, this vital sector will arouse massive social instability. In Nigeria, angry consumers are already mounting protests.
Another pan-African diplomatic dance would tie Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya in building railway and road systems that run from Maiduguri to Lamu Port on the Indian Ocean. The existing Maiduguri to Port Harcourt rail line would link the Atlantic Ocean with the Indian Ocean.  As a partly labour-intensive project, it would tap the vast unemployed energy in youths across these countries. China is building the Juba to Lamu section soon.
Pan-Africa must avoid rigid deification of ‘’two-term’’ presidential tenures to destabilise patriotic African leaders. Service to public good is primary.