What in the world is George W. Bush doing in Africa? Rarely has a world leader seemed more lost, more ill at ease than the recent portrayal of the incumbent US president strolling around in Africa. While the former occupant at the White House, William Jefferson Clinton, could boast of some personal relationships and even empathy with blacks, Bush has always seemed somewhat tone-deaf when it came to Black affairs, even somewhat clumsy.
His early campaign days took him to the southern cultural battleground of South Carolina, when the issue of the racist confederate flag was raging. Did Bush take a stand opposing the standard that flew against the forces of the Union? He did not.
When he was challenged early in his administration as to his Civil Rights agenda, he pointed to Cabinet appointments, Dr. Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State, Colin Powell and snickered, “Essentially, here’s my Civil Rights program.”
He directed the Justice Department to oppose the University of Michigan affirmative action cases then pending in a Supreme Court, calling them “quotas”.
He seemed to be doing all he could to placate the farthest right of the right wing of his party, and went out of his way to conflict with Black leaders. From his days as Texas Governor to his days as President, Bush seemed to not care what Black Americans thought of him. Then he visits one of the most sacred sites in African American memory. The last place many of the martyred millions saw, before their horrific trek into the nightmare awaiting them in the West, and quotes Martin Luther King, as if the two of them were homies. One cannot help but really wonder, what is this guy doing in Africa?
What the US seeks in Africa is what nations have always sought abroad, self-interest. European nations did not colonize the vast majority of the African continent to ‘help’ Africans, although they often claimed to do so. They leeched the life out of millions through repression, exploitation, land theft, and racist terrorism, because they could steal the wealth, whether in labor or in resources, of a rich continent.
Nigeria, one of the nations visited by Bush, is among the largest exporters of oil to the United States. Some 15% of US oil comes from there. In a decade or so, over 25% of oil will come out of there. As the US economy lurchers towards free-fall and its manufacturing jobs flee south across the US border, as cities and states slash essential services, does it seem reasonable that an American president will rush to help Africans when America faces such serious challenges?
Like a lion silently stalks its prey is how Bush stalks the African Veldt. He comes not to give, but to get. From death row, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
These commentaries are produced by Noel Hanrahan for Prison Radio.