Africa’s invisible diplomats

They, thereby, echo not a 1919 meeting in Paris by pan-Africanists with visions of collective action for political freedom; building continental economic and military power, and some day waving one mighty flag at the United Nations. A taste of this diplomatic culture denied a Principal of a secondary school VISAS for two pupils and an […]

They, thereby, echo not a 1919 meeting in Paris by pan-Africanists with visions of collective action for political freedom; building continental economic and military power, and some day waving one mighty flag at the United Nations. A taste of this diplomatic culture denied a Principal of a secondary school VISAS for two pupils and an accompanying teacher to travel and attend a jamboree for youths drawn from all parts of Africa. Presumably, the little girls were suspected to host viruses of terrorism.
Alex Loverty once complained that ‘’the lack of research on African diplomats and their practices is a glaring hole in international relations’’.  In Nigeria ambassadors of European Union countries and the United States dominate visibility in the local media; readily invoking sounds of colonial governors visiting ‘’native areas’’; and dishing out curative advice. With regards to Africa’s diplomats, a national flag fluttering in the wind in front of a vehicle is often more visible.
There is something puzzling about this invisibility. Mwalimu Nyerere once wrote that in African familyhood a person is treated as a visitor for three days. On the fourth day he or she is expected to pick up a hoe and join in the work of producing food for the upkeep of the family. With a background of calls by fathers of contemporary African diplomacy to rid the continent of colonial dictatorships, brutal racism and ruthless economic looting by foreigners, the African diplomat should, from the airport, be expected to roll up their sleeves and start joining Nigeria’s liberation hustle.
In 1963 Africa’s collective vision was punctured by the ‘virus of Monrovia’ which insisted on sovereignty within territorial borders.  Kwame Nkrumah’s support for ‘’revolutionary’’ politicians in other African countries against local “reactionaries’’ was rebuffed. The virus of ‘’sovereignty’’ makes country flags in Abuja talk louder that diplomats themselves. Yet Africa’s ‘’frontline states’’ supported liberation movements across borders of European-settler ruled territories of today’s Zimbabwe; Namibia and South Africa. Portugal’s claim that Mozambique, Angola and Guinea Bissau/Cape Verde were tourists on vacation in Africa was assassinated.
 After Idi Amin took refuge in Saudi Arabia, the doctrine took root that other Africans have a duty and right to intervene in another country if its rulers are butchering the population. Yoweri Museveni is applying the ECOWAS principle of the right to shed blood on soils of another African country to save that country; and restore good governance for its suffering peoples. The African diplomat is, obviously, living with a ‘mission-in-motion’ as Africa moves from the OAU’s call to wage political struggle to the African Union’s call to build Africa’s economic power, rule of law and political unity.
 Africa’s diplomats are creating codes for ‘Diplomacia Africana’. The ‘’Vienna Convention on Consular Relations’’ to which 176 countries are signatories, is also a vigorously interventionist code. Article 5 urges a consular official to engage in developing ’’the commercial, economic, cultural, and scientific relations’’ between two countries. This is a busy road that promises high visibility for consuls. It is interesting that Burundi, Chad, Guinea Bissau, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Swaziland, Uganda and Zambia are said to have ‘’neither signed nor ratified’’ this convention. There may be a hint here from the United States refusing to be bound by the clause which allows the International Court of Justice to have compulsory jurisdiction over her. However, Charles Taylor did not benefit from Sierra Leone sitting outside its claws.
The convention does not regard consuls as ‘’diplomats’’. That may explain a complaint by a former official of the African Development Bank in Nigeria that while most African embassies are full of ‘’diplomats’’ preoccupied with empty political rituals, the embassies of European Union countries, the United States and Japan give priority to struggling for contracts and signing trade deals. Which got me thinking that with the Pope awarding Uganda with 22 Saints in one single day, that country’s consular officials should vigorously promote ‘’pan-African religious holiness’’ which would translate into hundreds of thousands of tourists attending religious worship apparitions of Saint Kizito in surging and churning waters of Murchison Falls; and float on banana-fibre mats across Lake Nalubale/Victoria.
South Africa has the ‘’Mandela Magic’’ to broadcast around Africa till kingdom come. With a Ministry of Foreign Affairs established in 1927, her diplomats carry a rainbow mission consisting of old Afrikaner greed for land and wealth, and the African National Congress’s passion for freedom, human dignity and the development of black power. The two must clash. While MTN would be tempted to ruthlessly exploit Nigerian customers, the ANC would seek to pay back solidarity during struggles for freedom.
 Some diplomats carry warts. There are bitter exiled politicians; fun-loving family relations to presidents let loose; symbolic crumbs thrown at rival ethnic groups at home, or traders in diamond, gold and drugs using the sanctity of diplomatic bags. That negative picture, however, misses the brilliant pan-Africanists working as intellectual warriors against diplomatic troops inside bureaucracies in Brussels, Ottawa, Washington, and Tokyo. They are in Vienna, Brussels and the United Nations. In Addis Ababa they constitute the ‘’Permanent Representative Committee’’; invisible builders of Africa’s renaissance. In Abuja, history waits.