Where Climate Change and Black Lives Don’t Matter

Where Climate Change and Black Lives Don’t Matter

There was yet another coup in Africa last month. This time in Niger, where French companies extract sufficient Uranium to meet 40% of France’s power needs. But where most of Niger’s population – as in much of Africa – must resort to burning Diesel and Wood to meet their needs. These are countries where neither climate change nor black lives matter.

It’s nothing out of the ordinary for an African country to experience another coup or civil war.

What remains striking is the entrenched apathy emanating from the Western world. Africa’s struggles barely make the headlines. An unkind calculated ignorance perpetuates a cycle of suffering, whilst we blissfully signal virtues over racial sensitivity and climate activism to each other, whilst sipping a double espresso oat milk Latte.

Navigating thru the African narrative, the struggles of specific nations reveal a clear pattern of misery and exploitation. Liberia, a land once engulfed in the flames of a merciless civil war, stands as a haunting testament to the malevolence of conflict. Within its borders, its’ children are sculpted into instruments of war and their innocence obliterated. Always the hands of the Westerners dealing in arms and exploiting the nation’s resources, fan the flames of the inferno.

Of course, there are serious mandatory international investigations into each successive spate of violence, large heavily indexed reports and incontrovertible findings, weighty recommendations, criminal charges, indictments and sentences but as one cycle ends another begins. Because of multi-award winning movie, the genocidal nightmare resounds most chillingly in the case of Rwanda, where deep-seated ethnic tensions erupted into an unfathomable eruption of violence. What proved equally disturbing was the West’s hesitance, its conscious decision to stand by until the horrors of unspeakable magnitude unfolded.

The Democratic Republic of Congo also emerges as archetypical. Blessed with USD 24 trillion in untapped deposits of cobalt, diamonds, gold, copper and other mineral reserves, the DRC is a breeding ground for corporate greed. A myriad of armed militias with shifting allegiances terrorise the country. Historically, fueled by French, Italian, Dutch and South African interests competing over the insatiable demand for electronics worldwide.

It is the same in the Nigeria’s Niger Delta, the narrative of Western avarice is imprinted into the very soil itself. As vast fortunes gush forth from the earth in the form of crude oil, local communities bear the brunt of an environmental apocalypse, while Western corporate giants rake in unimaginable profits. This gaping chasm between profit and human dignity casts an unrelenting spotlight on the dark underbelly of unchecked corporate expansion.

Over in Ghana, often celebrated as a success story, paints a more nuanced picture. Beyond the glittering facade of gold exports lies a population trapped within the clutches of grinding poverty. The insatiable hunger for Western luxury, often fashioned from the fruits of African labour, sustains a vicious cycle of exploitation that corrodes the very essence of the nation.

The halls of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, Zimbabwe’s heart-wrenching tragedy assumes centre stage. Like so many other African Countries, nations basking in the promise of agricultural abundance, Zimbabwe’s downfall was hastened by Western-driven policies that favoured debt repayment over sustainable development. The aftermath has left its populace ensnared within a relentless spiral of economic distress, as it has in Zambia, Ivory Coast, Burundi, Congo, and Senegal, relegating those aspirations to the shadows.

The imperialist attack on Africa would not be complete without CIA operatives and US military bases pervading the continent. Ostensibly fighting the never-ending threat of jihadist extremists. In practice, reminding the local political leaders of their vassal status, their tenuous grip on power: don’t be getting any ideas about reneging on your debt or nationalizing resources. Foreign investors can rest easy– over another Campari.

The western public is deliberately kept in the dark. So, that the neo-colonial exploitation can continue and like the proverbial tree in the forest make no sound. It there is any path to a brighter future, it necessitates a collective awakening. The official school curriculum throughout the western world asserts that the colonial era ended shortly after the second world war. It never did. It is a myth reified by our Universities who by offering degrees in Post-Colonial studies only further feed the array of elaborate masking narratives: shelf companies, jihadists, human rights investigations, and compassionate philanthropy projects. All designed to divert, placate and effectively defang the western mind.  

So in an Africa, where climate change and black lives matter little our collective apathy perpetuates the same centuries long cycle of suffering. The western public, largely oblivious, continues to enjoy the fruits of that exploitation. We must educate ourselves, become less gullible and braver in expressing our opinions. Over to you.

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