1. Return of the Cold War
By
‘Kayode Fayemi
Living in America in the age of terror has proved to be an immensely challenging
experience. From teaching students who are blissfully ignorant of the role of their
country around the world, to reading self-aggrandising tomes from American authors
on the triumphs and foibles of the anti-terror war, to the even more insidious profiling
and harassment to which almost every “alien” is subjected at ports of entry, terrorism
or, shall I say, America‟s understanding of it has become the single most defining
characteristic of my stay here in the last five months. Given the fact that the events of
September 11, 2001 left very deep scars on the sensibilities of the average American,
perhaps it is not unexpected that terrorism has strongly emerged on the agenda.
As a student of security and development however, I have become increasingly
concerned with the way this anti-terrorism campaign is defining America‟s relations
with Africa and the lack of mainstream debate about this on the continent. Just like
the Cold war provided the clutch for United State‟s dealings with Africa in the
immediate post-independence era and in the aftermath of the Oil shock in the 1970s,
leading her to label every nationalist leader as communist, the anti-terror agenda
threatens the limited gains that Africans had won in the struggles against dictatorship
and autocracy in the post-cold war era. The evolving international environment
however complicates the future of democratisation by distorting the focus of security
policy from human security back - once again - to traditional security; reviving cold-
war partnerships with dictatorial regimes; and undermining legitimate local struggles
for group rights by dubbing them as „terrorist‟. This is a game that some African
regimes are already playing well and one, which the current government in the United
States willingly panders to and this seems to me to be the greatest threat to democratic
governance in Africa today.
It would of course have been welcome if the tragedy of September 11, 2001 had been
utilised as an opportunity to develop a strategic framework for US-Africa relations –
one that recognises the simple fact that for most people in Africa, a feeling of
insecurity arises more from worries about their daily life, than from the threat of
terrorism as defined by Americans. Unfortunately, what we are seeing is the
emergence of yet another opportunistic, capricious and harebrained idea couched as a
strategic response to Africa‟s susceptibility to terror. As the top US soldier in charge
of Africa, General Charles F. Wald recently put it, “Africa is clearly strategic to us
now. I am concerned about the large ungoverned areas of Africa that are possibly
melting pots for the disenfranchised of the world, so to speak, the terrorist breeding
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2. grounds. Al Qaeda is definitely present in Africa, and the United States can‟t wait for
the problem to get larger. I believe that we‟re going to have to engage more in that
theatre.” And believe me, General Ward and his Pentagon crowd are pre-emptively
engaged in the African theatre. Already, a base has been set up in Djibouti with 1, 800
American troops and, General Ward is still looking to make „friends with any country
ready to provide bases for operations in Africa.‟ $100 million has gone into an East
African Counter-Terrorism Initiative in the IGAD states, a Pan-Sahel Initiative has
been launched covering Algeria, Mali, Niger, and Chad and General Ward recently
hosted in Stuttgart, Germany the first meeting of Defence Chiefs from North Africa
and the Sahel States – Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Senegal, Mali, Mauritania, Chad
and Niger. There is also the Coastal States Initiative covering countries in Southern
Africa and a recent Africa sub-committee hearing in the US Congress learned that
22% of US global fund on anti-terrorism assistance programme is being spent in
Africa. Compared to the infinitesimal $1billion that was recently approved for sixteen
countries in the Millennium Challenge Account, American preference between
security and development becomes crystal clear.
While I do not mean to suggest that there aren‟t individuals or groups who might want
to fish in the troubled waters that have been further muddied by this new obsession
with so-called terror, what I find most curious is that our own intelligence agencies
are uncritically lapping up this dubious claim coming out of America. For example,
Nigeria now ranks highly in some funny documents circulating in Washington D.C. as
ripe for an Al-Qaeda take-over and there are those in the US administration who take
this view seriously, not least because they don‟t want Al-Qaeda taking over the Gulf
of Guinea that will be producing an estimated 30% of America‟s oil in ten years. In
fact, one of the documents suggests that US must be ready to set up shop in Nigeria in
the event of this threat boiling over. And, what, you may ask is the evidence of this?
A “Taliban republic” in North East Nigeria! Although this loose talk is not worth the
paper it is written on, it is even more worrying when our own veteran National
Security Adviser, Alhaji Mohammed Gusau gives an appearance of credibility to it
when he tells a recent conference of security chiefs in Abuja that attention must be
focussed on this „new threat.‟
It is interesting that the same Nigeria that provided the necessary bulwark against the
Kissinger‟s cold-war diplomacy in the mid-70s is not visible in offering a strategic
response to this error of judgement masquerading as strategic thinking. Yet, two of
the architects of our “Africa has come of Age” policy which pushed the OAU family
firmly into the MPLA fold in Angola in 1976, much against Henry Kissinger‟s
campaign – are still in the leadership of our foreign policy team today. I do not for a
moment believe that they are not worried about this inept concern with the symptoms
rather than the roots of terror in America, but I haven‟t seen a clearly defined and
coordinated policy response on the part of our Government that other African states
can line up behind. Instead, America is rail-roading African states into bi-lateral
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3. military assistance pacts in exchange for some military equipment that can, in turn, be
used to terrorise their own people. Since every little state wants to be on the “good”
and not “evil” side of America, most are signing up.
Most people agree though that to trace terrorism to some kind of “evil” Muslim
exceptionalism certainly flies in the face of logic. Yet, even here in Nigeria, the view
that poses Islam in some sort of oppositional „clash of civilisation‟ remains an
attractive one. The truth is that this view obfuscates rather than explain what is
responsible for the present dangers that are threatening this polity. And it is about
time, a more coherent, robust and mainstream intellectual response was given to this
clash of civilisation thesis. This is precisely what Mahmood Mamdani has done in his
new book: Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War and the Roots of
Terror, which is being launched at NIIA, Lagos today. By tracing the roots of terror to
America‟s actions and inactions in Africa, Latin America and Asia, he dispels the
notion of “good” and “bad” muslims and pushes the case for an American response
that is political, rather than military.
Although Professor Mamdani‟s book does not focus on what Africa‟s response should
be to the terror campaign, I still believe that it provides an excellent background for
our foreign policy elite as they grapple with a response to this new cold war in Africa.
It is my hope therefore that Professor Mamdani will not limit his discourse to
academy as he journeys through our universities in the coming weeks, but also find
time to engage our policy makers on the way forward. As the neo-conservatives in the
Pentagon reel from their recent travails in Iraq, it is time for African leaders to speak
up about this and help strengthen the voices of reason within the US administration -
those like Colin Powell and Charles Snyder of the State Department who argue that,
“…the foundation of an effective, long term strategy is not security assistance by
itself, but rather programs that promote justice and the rule of law, encourage
agricultural production and force lasting economic development. These programs,
when they are effective, create stable states that are much more effective in dealing
with counter-terrorism issues and in denying havens for terrorist organisations.” The
opportunity for such frank talk will come at the G8 Summit in America next month,
and our President alongside four of his colleagues have been invited to present
Africa‟s case. One hopes they will not mince words with Mr Bush on where Africa
stands on this.
Dr Fayemi is Director, Centre for Democracy & Development. He is currently
Senior Visiting Scholar in the Program of African Studies at Northwestern
University, Evanston, USA.
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