Don’t defile democracy in name of gifts

Ahoy! The Chinese are here with their princely gifts. Forget about the controversial loans for rail, roads or ports — these optics have already gamed the systems.

Still, China is unrelenting. It is gifting Africa with a curious gift — a construct of political architecture. Thus Chinese-donated parliament and office blocks, are straddling the hills, the valleys and plains of Africa. The icons are an enduring impression of Chinese will and whim on the continent.

Indeed, if you chance by the Addis-based African Union (AU) headquarters, the imposing and ritzy building will awe you. It oozes finesse, fortitude and focus. You will just love Africa. Your bubble, however, will burst sooner when you learn that what is supposed to be the epitome of Africa’s sprit of self-reliance and pride was built by the benediction of the Chinese.

DIGNITY

Yet, the $200 million glass and steel is nothing but a sweetener calculated to join the red dragon and Africa at the hip. Rwandan President Paul Kagame is not a proud man though about the building: “I would only have wished that in Africa we had got our act together earlier on. We should have been able to build our own building,” he told Reuters.

Indeed, the AU headquarters is supposed to be the sacred altar of Africa liberation and an embodiment of dignity, the free of the freest spaces.

But it was not long before Le Monde, A French paper, ran an exposé that the Chinese bugged the building affording them access to every secret. China and AU vehemently denied the claims.

But, it didn’t start and end with AU. Sample this: China is pouring $100 million to construct a new parliament in Zimbabwe and $50 million for Republic of the Congo. It doesn't end there. China refurbished parliaments in Sierra Leone and Lesotho and reworked government buildings in Zambia. The constellation is long and dizzying.

SYMBOLISM

Gifts are powerful. But gifts are also dangerous. Africa should ask the ancient Troys and fret at the epic of the Trojan horse. Or better still, they should consult Levi Strauss who aptly reckoned that, “gifts make slaves.” Some of these gifts are robbing Africa of its pride.

Parliaments have powerful symbolism. They express the collective will of a people. They are the embodiment of self-determination; the ultimate democratic spaces. The altar of a people’s soul, spirit and pride. Yet it is in this key lair that China too is slithering to have a space.

That so many years after independence, African countries cannot build their own parliaments, is disheartening. The dependency syndrome, which we have unwittingly embraced, is our undoing. It is clouding our sights and imagination.

Indeed, Africa should break custom and look at the gift in the mouth and remember the old maxim nothing like free lunch.

GEOPOLITICS

That is why African leaders must rise from their laziness and constructively engage China in meaningful and profitable ventures.

Interestingly, our patron saint of parliament buildings does not to subscribe to the ideals of what the French call Liberté, égalité, fraternité and critical to the rise of progressive and holistic societies. Yet, as Africa, we have chosen liberal democracy as our guiding compass for a vibrant and hopeful society.

But then, China’s rise is stellar. To a rising hegemony, geopolitics is critical. That is why it is jockeying for an influential position in Africa’s affairs. It is slowly, but surely entrenching in every facet of life from Education to commerce and now it is spectacularly conquering the political sphere where far-reaching public policies are deliberated.

Of course China has established elaborate and robust apparatuses to advance its ideological designs for soft power through CGTN and StarTimes. It has also enrolled a pretty good number of the intelligentsia and journalists to purr its praises, and it is dishing out scholarships to Chinese universities (about 50, 000 a year).

MARKETS

All good. But Africa cannot rise on handouts alone. Africa needs an ideological shift. We need a renaissance of the spirit of self-reliance and pride. China succeeded not through handouts but because it looked hard in the mirror, retreated and developed. Strange, Africa has refused to trade with itself only engaging at a paltry 15% while other blocks, trading is far robust.

To deal with China Africa need wit, charm, pride and intellect, otherwise they will outsmart us.

Thus, we need to negotiate for fundamentals like market access; currently the trade imbalance is shameful. Skewed in favour of China. Africa also needs technological transfer.

China should also be encouraged to manufacture from Africa and employ African youth and experts in critical positions. As it is, Chinese companies are discriminatory in their employment practices ignoring Africans. Just look at what is happening with the construction and management of the Standard Gauge Railway in Kenya. The Chinese are raking Sh 1 billion yearly to run the facility. Yet, millions of Kenyans are jobless.

It is the gifts too that we are receiving left right and centre that have made China to flood the continent with inferior goods. We are a mere boutique for Chinese goods. This renders nonsense the much-flouted ideal of a “win-win” as the Chinese would want us to believe.

Mr Wamanji is a Public Relations and Communication adviser [email protected]