A Congolese Opposition Figure Told The West What It Must Do To Remain Competitive In Africa

Too many Westerners wishfully imagine that their de facto bloc can either bribe African leaders into dumping the Sino-Russo Entente for the Golden Billion, encourage military coups if this fails, or rely on Color Revolutions as a last resort. They condescendingly regard African countries, their governments, and people as objects to be manipulated instead of independent subjects to cooperate with like they actually are. This neo-colonial approach is responsible for all of their strategic failures over the years.

The US-led West’s Golden Billion has gradually begun to acknowledge that they’re losing influence in Africa to the Sino-Russo Entente, which could ultimately end up being a game-changer in their New Cold War competition over the direction of the global systemic transition. More insight into the preceding concepts can be obtained by reviewing the hyperlinks embedded in the prior sentence, while the present piece will focus on drawing attention to what can realistically be done to shift these dynamics.

Too many Westerners wishfully imagine that their de facto bloc can either bribe African leaders into dumping the Entente for the Golden Billion, encourage military coups if this fails, or rely on Color Revolutions as a last resort. They condescendingly regard African countries, their governments, and people as objects to be manipulated instead of independent subjects to cooperate with like they actually are. This neo-colonial approach is responsible for all of their strategic failures over the years.  

What’s urgently needed for the Golden Billion to remain competitive in Africa amidst the rising appeal of the Entente and India, which share the same multipolar goals but go about them in different ways, is to finally treat Africa as their equal with the respect that it deserves. Financing “NGOs” and opposition groups to put faux “bottom-up” pressure on them, impeding agricultural exports, threatening sanctions, and waging information warfare will only push these countries further away.

Jérémy Lissouba told the West what it must do to reverse this trend in his debut article for Politico late last week warning that “Relations with Africa, Asia are on brink of collapse — to Russia’s benefit”. Described by that outlet as “a member of parliament for the main opposition party in the Republic of Congo…a deputy judge in the country’s High Court of Justice and an alumnus of the Obama Foundation’s 2018 Africa Leaders Program”, there should be no doubt about his Western-friendly worldview.

He truly wants the West to amend its counterproductive policies in order to remain a force to be reckoned with in Africa, presumably for the purpose of balancing other countries there like the Entente, India, and even Turkiye, which has recently made impressive inroads over the past decade. What makes Lissouba’s suggestions credible is that he didn’t shy away from candidly criticizing the West’s hypocritical approach towards the continent, which should earn him respect from all observers.

Here's what he advises they should do as soon as possible in order to regain some of their soft power:

“Specifically, we need a change in thinking, and for the West to understand that developing nations are not oblivious to the many contradictions of rhetoric and practice that characterize the world as we know it — whether that be a system of aid and trade that nourishes the imbalances and ills it purports to address; a discourse on international law and values that crumbles in the face of past transgressions and current drives for reform; or even negotiations on climate finance in which urgency stops when Western economic interests begin.

The Western world can only reverse this trajectory by seeking out a genuinely new footing in its relations with the countries of Africa and Asia, challenging its own understanding of what a respectful partnership between equally legitimate nations truly means.

This isn’t about the fact that paying lip service to ideals is struggling to remain convincing, nor is it about entirely conceding these ideals on the altar of economic pragmatism. It’s about accepting a due share of responsibility for the current state of affairs, understanding expectations for the future, being willing to make real concessions, and aligning discourse with dollars and deeds.”

These tough truths deserve to be reflected upon by Western policymakers.

Lissouba correctly identified the root cause of their failures in Africa, which is directly attributable to their condescending attitude towards its countries, governments, and their people. The West must realize that it can’t lie to them any longer and that continuing to do so will only accelerate the decline of its influence there. Just like Lissouba candidly addressed Western policymakers, so too must they and their supporters do the same every time that they engage with anyone in Africa going forward.

The unstated prerequisite for doing so is critical, deep, and long introspection into how everything got to the point where the West’s relations with that continent as a whole are literally on the brink of collapse as Lissouba accurately described them without any exaggeration. If this isn’t done right away, then that de facto bloc could lose almost everything, thus leading to it either becoming irrelevant to African affairs or being forced to play the spoiler out of desperation at the expense of regional stability.

Everyone would benefit from the West treating its African partners as equals with the respect that they deserve, which could then lead to them being able to bargain between the Golden Billion, the Entente, India, and the rest of the Global South for the best deals in all respects. The inevitable outcome would be that all stakeholders compete in a friendly, gentle, and non-hostile manner to improve Africans’ lives together with strengthening their states’ sovereignty, thus stabilizing the global systemic transition.

Those like the West which remain deluded with zero-sum fallacies influenced by the paranoid fear of their rivals squeezing them out of Africa will only ruin everything for everyone the longer that they cling to their outdated notions. Resorting to playing the spoiler out of desperation in the event that they lose almost all of their soft power like Lissouba warned might soon happen could entail innumerably high financial and strategic costs in the long run, not to mention humanitarian ones too.

The West’s New Cold War-driven destabilization of Africa could provoke large-scale refugee crises that worsen security along Europe’s southern flank and even within its hinterland if terrorists infiltrate there, which could prompt talk of conventional interventions aimed at preemptively thwarting these flows. In order to responsibly avert this series of worst-case scenarios, it’s of the highest urgency that Western policymakers deeply reflect on the suggestions shared by Lissouba in his latest article.