Africabeat

I’ve been getting my feet wet in non-academic writing again.  Here’s a piece for ISN in Zurich on fifty years of Françafrique and a short interview on RFI English.

This year makes 50 since France granted independence to its African colonies. On the whole, the moment has inspired little fanfare, perhaps because there is precious little to celebrate. If you were born in an African country, and the country you were born in happens to have once been a French colony, you are significantly less likely than your counterparts in anglophone Africa to reach your first birthday. If you do, you are less likely to go to school or learn how to read, and the country you live in is, on average, poorer and less democratic. The Internet revolution, shallow though it still may be, is being absorbed by your anglophone brothers at an exponentially faster rate, who also enjoy both higher initial stocks as well as well as faster expansion rates of telecommunications infrastructure like fixed telephone lines and mobile phones, as well as physical infrastructure like roads, electricity and rail.

Fifty years after independence, in just about every measure of human well-being and progress, there is clear evidence for a ‘francophone effect.’ Less clear is why.

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France, a former empire reduced to merely ordinary and still struggling to make the mental adjustment, plays out its colonial and postcolonial psychosis in the most bizarre and often criminal ways.

Walking through the genocide memorial in Kigali, France’s fingerprints were everywhere, from their unwavering support of the Hutu power government measured in diplomatic love and machine guns, to numerous decisions to abandon Tutsi to be slaughtered by roving militia (apparently the French forces missed the memo that there was a genocide going on), to their role in creating a safe corridor to Congo for genocidaires to fleeing the advancing RPF (We all know how well that turned out), to the painfully slow pace with which they have pursued homicidal priests that sought refuge within their borders. 

Of course the irony is that in its misguided attempts to fight the anglo-saxon invasion–in East Africa–the French have all but assured Rwanda’s anglicization.

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I was having dinner with a French-British Afrophile journalist friend here in Kigali the other night.  It involved a lot of shouting and righteous anger even though we agreed with each other.  Again the topic turned to aid.  My journalist friend said something along these lines.  I’ve elaborated:

France, 1788:  The countryside is plagued by major food shortages.  Mobs are lynching tax collectors.  The government, which has squandered all of its tax revenue on foreign wars and luxury goods for the ruling elite, asks the international community for assistance.  The World Food Program starts distributing grain.  They are a major success!  They save the lives of thousands who may have died of famine or malnutrition.   (Had they known how many would have died under the blade of the guillotine, they would have given even more food.)  The Bourbons live to see another day, and the international community implores them to be nicer.  They run training workshops to sensitize the peasants on their rights as citizens.

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Howard French, The New York Times correspondant in Shanghai, explains France’s waning power in Chad and the increasing influence of the Chinese:

How did things reach this pass? During the long tenure of Jacques Chirac, France underestimated Africans and China alike, while mistaking America as its rival in a part of the world where Washington has never had grand ambitions or even much vision. (Read more)

I was watching the official announcement of the 2007 French Presidential Election along with about 200 French expatriates in a bar in Beijing on Sunday; my presence there was unplanned, but there I was, and then there Nicolas Sarkozy was, delivering his acceptance speech live on the big screen.

I’ve written elsewhere about how I appreciated Sarkozy’s gallantry in saying he respected Segolene Royal and her ideas.  Maybe the French Left collectively rolled their eyes, but it was a gesture I appreciated, if only because I’ve forgotten what it’s like to have a president who acts presidential.

But then there was the last part of the speech, the part the nearly made me spray my drink on innocent spectators standing in front of me.

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French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin is in Africa this week, prepping for the upcoming Franco-African summit.  He first stop was in Chad, where he offered additional troops (Fr) to help prop up Idriss Debby’s government, whose situation is now precarious in light of major gains made by rebel forces.  De Villepin is off to South Africa next.  (His visit to the Republic of the Congo was cancelled after Denis Sassou-Nguesso, the president, slipped and hurt his back.)

The biannual summit, to be held in Paris this coming February, will undoubtedly elicit comparisons to the October summit in Beijing. The international media have already been talking about rising powers like China (and India) stepping into Europe’s "backyard" and a France desperately trying to hold on to her "waning influence."  High drama makes for good copy and gives new angles to stale or
overreported stories.

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