Taking the Macron challenge

There are several ways of reacting to Emmanuel Macron’s civilization outburst to the lack of an African Marshall Plan at the end of the G-20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany. One is to simply say that Macron is naïve – after all, at just 38, he could have been the grandson of some of Africa’s old-boned […]

There are several ways of reacting to Emmanuel Macron’s civilization outburst to the lack of an African Marshall Plan at the end of the G-20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany. One is to simply say that Macron is naïve – after all, at just 38, he could have been the grandson of some of Africa’s old-boned ruiners who attended the summit dressed in their slave wears with their invisible proverbial caps in hand. 

You could say that Macron, the candidate of inclusion now aligns with the age-old stereotype that sees Africa in the image of the Ethiopian famine or of the post-Siad Barre era in Somalia. You could genuinely doubt that Macron understands the result of the French misadventure in Algeria, Morocco and other parts of Africa in which his forebears used the ruse of assimilation to cover heinous crimes against the assimilated. You could say that all he understands or sees now are the results of that assimilation process on the carnage in Lyons or the fire burning in Marseille?

But Macron’s image of a blighted Africa is not limited to these images alone; contemporary images of Africa defy rationale logic. Images of gaunt corpses littering the landscape of the Sahara desert with scores ever more determined to reach the Eldorado portrayed by years of western cinema. Images of thousands of men, women and children defying those odds as they migrate to lawless Libya, dumped into the hands of inhumane traffickers who arrange for them to be drowned off the coast of Lampedusa. You could blame Macron’s predecessors for how Libya came to become lawless and ungovernable. 

You could argue that, if those gory images were of starving Europeans children or those of the ‘civilized’ world, the migration would have stopped. However, as you read this, hundreds of those who escaped the baking death of the Sahara are arranging to board dingy boats or inflatable rafts hoping that the illusions of hope would outride the tidal waves of Atlantic and ferry them to Europe – that boundless land of opportunity daily portrayed on television. Illusions where sheer determination is the helmet needed to ride against the odds to success. The cinematic abstraction they have been fed convinces them that a better life must be found beyond the jungle of despondency and despair that they leave behind.

Yes, Africa has a civilization problem. A civilization problem that should be redeemed from within. A civilization problem that should make us feel that there should be more to life than the excuses we have made over the decades – excuses hinged on colonization, because we were not the only land that was colonized, others have managed to move on. We have a civilization problem daily displayed on television from Jerry Springer through the Maury show to the Jeremy Kyle display – the African displays a colourful badge of shame and genital recklessness.

Yes, Africa has a civilization problem without a Marshall plan of redemption from the wants and needs that continue to distance its citizenry from a better life. Africa needs a civilization that subjugates the best and brightest among us to the isms and schisms that our ruiners have imposed on us. One of Macron’s foot soldiers is a young lady of West African descent who would not have been anything but a mother of eight-baby factory if she had remained at home. In a French hospital somewhere, one patient is being discharged with a certificate of hope to pick up the pieces because an African doctor or nurse tended to him or her. Their services are needed at home but they have no home to return to. What should have been used to develop their talents at home is used to purchase chatteau in France and other lands.

 Africa needs a Marshall plan to deal with the problems of almajirci that provides willing tools for recruitment into brigandage – from kidnapping to ritualism to religious extremism. If Africans have the number of children they could adequately cater for, we could probably police this vast continent and make it easy to travel, live and work in as it is in Europe.

If the Africa Union, ECOWAS, IGAD, and other groups were to harness the resources within the continent for the development of the continent and not act as beggars switching allegiances from the colonial powers to the Chinese; if those who have no plan for governance would not foist themselves on their nations using parochial means and let those who have plans lead, Macron would not be spitting on our heads.

But no, we keep doing the same things and expecting something miraculously different – and it never happens. We keep displaying our ineptitude and lack of shame jetting across continents begging people to solve our own problems and they insult us. Then we turn back and shout ‘racism’ expecting sympathy from pityland. If Africa wakes up, it has enough resources within and without to stand up and be counted and prevent little boys from insulting us. If you don’t want to be insulted, stand up and fight for your rights Africa!