Africa is not celebrating for US absurdity; she is simply saying “the Emperor is finally naked.”

By: Mweusi Karake

Wednesday 6^th January 2011, will go down in history when the world biggest empire was left naked. The whole world watched shocked, some amused, others bewilder that what we were seeing in TV screens was happening in the so called leader of “ free world”’, the  dis- united State of America. Its good news though that the House of Representatives impeached President Donald Trump for “incitement of insurrection”.

Between 40 and 50 thousands white men and women ( mainly men) invaded Capitol Hill. Call it what you want, but “capitol hill is the seat of both American Congress and Senate. It is where American laws are “democratically” debated and enacted. In Western democratic headquarters it would pass by different names. “Westminster Palace” in Britain.  Assemblée nationale in France, German Bundestag etc, and in Africa, apart from some imaginative natives like Gaddafi who coined “the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya” several other African countries simply copy and paste those western names.

Capitol Hill is therefore, ceteris paribus, one of the most protected buildings on planet earth. So how on earth did 50 thousands white men and women plan, and execute that mission? Were security agencies taken by surprise or they were accomplices? These are some of the questions that lawmakers have to find answers in the coming days to avoid another siege of the Capitol Hill.

Imagine (although that is beyond imagination) that 50 thousand African Americans had attempted to storm Capitol Hill; mind you Washington DC is majority black. Do I really need to tell you what would have happened? They would of course have been met with “Fire and Fury”. The same would have happened of any persons of color , be they Latinos or Asian American. Haven’t we seen in Trump’s America Latino kids in cages!

An African American, an African resident in America is more likely to be killed by law enforcement agencies in the US for violating traffic lanes than a white man or woman violating the holy of holies Capitol Hill!

Africans are not rejoicing on the mess the US finds itself in right now. But fed up with useless superior complex lectures, “Africans are responding to the chaos at the US Capitol with irony, sarcasm and humor. #Trump started trending on Twitter in places like Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya the platform blocked the US president”, a twitter user commented.

In South Africa, Floyd Shivambu, deputy to Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party leader Julius Malema, sparked lively discussion with his many tweets.

“If these domestic terrorist and extremist activities were happening in any of the countries in the Global South, these imperialist nations would have condemned and threatened intervention by now. Where are our leaders in the African Union?” one of them read. 

Twitter users responded to Shivambu with calls for the AU to send peacekeepers. 

Others pointed out that Africa doesn’t always come out worse when it comes to supporting democratic institutions. 

“Worth noting that when former South African President Jacob Zuma made similar noises ahead of being ousted, South Africa’s military very decidedly came out in favor of law and order,” local commentator Verashni Pillay wrote.

Romanus Msigala in Tanzania,meanwhile, just appeared perplexed: “Do the US security forces not exist?”

In America, a headline by an online publication Politico read, “Trump’s America becomes one of those ‘shithole countries.”

From what I have read is that some of those ‘civilized’ white supremacists who stormed the capitol Hill  literally defecated in the building and smeared their shit on walls and furniture’s all over the building. Some of them even deliberately soiled their shoes with their shit so as to leave shit footsteps in the building. Would it  be surprising if Africans countries that have been referred to as “ shit hole” countries at the minimum be giggling that Capitol hill was for a number of hours  literally a ‘shit hole”

To be fair to Donald trump, he probably does not know whether Africa, is in South America, Arctic or Antarctic, or even on Mars.

However that does not matter to Africa, America has held ordinarly Africans, peasants, women and children hostage just because of their countries leadership. A case in point is Zimbabwe , Eritrea and The Sudan.

So, much as America does not care about what Africa thinks at least some Americans care about what Europe thinks. In the words of the French writer and philosopher Joseph de Maistr,  “Every country has the government it deserves.”

Fours years ago Trump lost the popular vote  by 3 millions votes, but based on American system created to favour the rich and powerful he became President.  This time he lost both the electoral and popular vote. This was a knockout. Where on earth does a looser of a boxing match dispute results when it is through a knock out?

But let us also face the fact that 74 million Americans most of them Christian Evangelicals, 65% white women voted for Trump. What does this say about so called “ American Values” being exported to the lesser beings?

Several analysts including the famous film maker Mike Moore, insist that the successful invasion of Capital Hill had inside collaborators. European security officials believe the same.  “The supporters of President Donald Trump who stormed the Capitol on Wednesday to stop the ratification of President-elect Joe Biden’s election victory were attempting a violent coup that multiple European security officials said appeared to have at least tacit support from aspects of the US federal agencies responsible for securing the Capitol complex, Africa business insider wrote.

Can you imagine statements that would be coming from State Departments if what happened at Capitol Hill had happened in Africa? Africans are not celebrating Americans folly, but they feel finally the Emperor is naked. The Ghosts of Patrice Lumumba, Kwame Nkrumah, Abdel Nasser,Somora Machel , and other African leaders victims of American imposition of their so called values must be laughing in their graves.

Mweusi Karake is a veteran journalist and former head of Public Relations/Corporate Communication at the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA).

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