It seems we are back to the cold war days. But this time it is not blatantly over the ideology politics that deployed thousands of spies working for either the US-led Western bloc and those for the Soviet-led Eastern bloc to hunt each other down in virtually all the cities of the world.
The imposition and support of the most obnoxious, bloodthirsty and corrupt dictators on African nations also characterised that era.
Those of us who were born and grew up in that time (and could read English) were raised on a literature menu of spy thrillers by the likes of John le Carre, Frederick Forsyth, Robert Ludlum, Tom Clancy, Ken Follet, Len Deighton and Graham Greene.
These books not only gave us insights into how the cold war “things” were done but also gave us mental/ intellectual entertainment in some of our countries that were under bizarre management.
Those days of Socialism versus Capitalism are now over and have given way to a race between Capitalism and capitalism, an undisguised fight for resources and markets or to put it honestly, for money.
We can have a Capitalism that is practised by many enterprises under their country which practises political pluralism and capitalism that is executed by capitalist states that don’t yet practise political pluralism. The first category has Europe and America while the second has Arab monarchies and China.
The old political bipolar race of Nato and Warsaw has finally given way to that of Brics and Bretton. But there is an emerging multipolar world race, though the biggest runners for now are Team Brics bloc founded by Brazil, Russia, India and China then plus South Africa which has taken on Team Bretton for the traditional West. They have all the right to do their thing. And Africa is expected to choose which of the two to follow.
So we ask, must Africa have to choose between the two economic blocs? The need for the choice was understandable during and soon after colonial times.
An African country either remained closely attached to the former coloniser or crossed over to the other camp that had helped its struggle for independence.
But six decades after independence, is there still a compelling justification for Africa to identify with a foreign bloc? After the complete decolonisation of Africa, foreign media sneered that the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) had run out of business. And when the Soviet Union expired, the sneer resurfaced saying the Non Aligned Movement -NAM had run out of business.
Now we are back to Africa having to choose. Africa with its one and half billion people, with the largest arable land on the planet is being guided to choose which bloc to patronise it.
It is the same Africa with huge mineral wealth, including the strategic metals that will make the energy transition possible, to save the planet from the non-African countries that started the global warming.
Africans no longer believe what the colonialists wanted them to believe that they are less capable of thinking. So if there must be economic blocs or spheres on the earth, shouldn’t Africa create its own? Fine, the African Union is an economic grouping of sorts.
So why can’t it constitute a group that can agree how to handle international trade and finance? Must Africa choose between Bretton and Brics? We say, Africa should cooperate with both.
Let Africa not choose between Bretton and Brics.
The AU can evaluate Africa’s strategic minerals and create a bank out of them -where they are- then start lending to all countries of the world.
The borrowers would include African countries that would use them for investing in energy transition industries. That is just a crude idea, one of many that can be improved on by thinking Africans, many of whom have been to Harvard, Oxford and other such great centres of learning.
Admittedly, Brics has made a smart choice so far. The membership from Africa, though just three so far, connects the eastern side of the continent from the Mediterranean with Egypt, in the middle with Ethiopia and down the southern tip where the Atlantic meets the Indian Ocean with South Africa. That couldn’t have been a random choice.
The three countries have undergone major political upheavals, which did not divert them from their economic trajectory. Even the other little matter of a dam between Cairo and Addis can easily be resolved at the Brics table.
These three should be persuaded to agree to rally Africa. We may not like the other British Empire builder who wanted to build a Cape to Cairo Road or rail, but we like his idea.
