All The Rage About Darkest Europe & Africa's Nightmare

Darkest Europe and Africa's Nightmare: A Critical Observation of the Neighboring Continents

Reviewed by Ogova Ondego
Published January 20, 2008

Akinyi Princess of K'Orinda-Yimbo's book

Though Darkest Europe and Africa's Nightmare: A Critical Observation of the Neighboring Continents was published shortly before the much discredited December 27, 2007 presidential election charade that was marred with fraud and has ended up sending some Kenyans to an early grave, robbed hundreds of thousands of their livelihood, spewed some across the border into Uganda as refugees and created a wide rift of suspicion and mistrust among those still standing, this book appears to be describing the Kenyan situation. It even casts doubts as to who is in control in this eastern African nation that had been for a long time described as an island of peace in a troubled ocean. OGOVA ONDEGO reviews the book.

Upon being elected president in 2002 on 'zero-Tolerance' on corruption, Mwai Kibaki appointed John Githongo as his advisor on corruption. When "he unearthed security contracts by government officials to non-existent companies worth as much as $1 billion", Kibaki demoted him, "publicly, on television, on June 30, 2004, announcing that Githongo 'had been transferred from the Office of the President to the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs."

It later transpired that, the writer quotes Githongo's 91-page report, "someone had surreptitiously inserted my name into the wrong place in the President's speech and therefore my transfer was not meant to have happened at all". This makes the writer to wonder: "How on God's earth can the president of a nation announce the transfer of one of his closest and most senior staff members, who reports to him each day or even many times a day, without realizing what he is doing? Couldn't the name John Githongo alone, and the details of 'Office of the President to the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs', make something click in the president's brain?" And this poses the question as to who is in control in Kenya. It certainly is not Kibaki.

Like a loving African grandmother who reprimands her grand child in an effort to nudge him in the right direction, the Kenya-born author who holds diplomas from the London School of Economics and the London School of Journalism states that Africans are the only people on the planet who seem to be convinced that they do not deserve any happiness whatsoever.

Accordingly, the most audacious and unimaginable things—like presidential oaths being empty rituals that one goes through if only to identify with the Prime Minister of Britain or president of the United States—happen only in Africa. No sooner is an African president sworn in than he starts ruling by decree, unleashing police and military terror on the public.

Saying many parts of Africa are ruled by absolute despots with the ordinary citizen bereft of any legal defense against oppression by the government and officialdom in general, the writer correctly opines that the police are viewed not as friends but 'terrorists' in many sub-Saharan African nations.

"When African soldiers, militia and police are set loose on innocent demonstrators, they seem to lose their humanity.
Whether unleashed on university students or ethnic groups that have been deliberately incited to butcher each other by politicians motivated by dubious ambitions, these armed forces kill their own fellow human beings with feral abandon...it is also their anger and frustration in having employment that regularly stock them with weapons and uniforms but does not pay them regularly and well enough to feed their families. They kill fellow human beings as if they were butchering wild animals because their superiors expect them to, or else they may lose their jobs to a "stronger" rival. They seem to lack the human moral conscience that would make them command empathy."

Having said this, Akinyi Princess of K'Orinda-Yimbo then moves on to describe how slavery, colonialism and post-independence dictatorship have traumatised Africans.

"Africans", she writes, "are the psychologically lost branch of humankind" due to a physical and psychological brutalisation that she says lasted five centuries. However, this Bavaria-based writer argues that slavery and colonialism be not used as excuses by Africans for "retreating towards archaic forms of living" while the rest of the world gallops ahead. She contends that Africans are the only human beings whose average lifespan is declining while other human beings are living longer and healthier than ever before and that unless urgent measures are taken, one in three Africans will not see one's fortieth birthday over the next decade!

The author accuses most African leaders of suffering from 'acquired narcissism'. "They are drowned in infatuation and obsession with themselves...they display a chronic pursuit of personal gratification and attention, infantile verbal abuse and insulting of each other in the media and during parliamentary debates...feel omnipotent...feel themselves to be almighty."

Despite this perceived 'invincibility', the author writes, "they cannot develop a sense of security" as their 'narcissism' "is garnished with the largest dose of paranoia". Consequently, they do not tolerate any opposition.

The writer then looks at contemporary political, humanitarian and economic trends. She considers the World Bank, WTO, G8 and the IMF to be the long arms of the world oligarchies.

The West, Darkest Europe and Africa's Nightmare points out, deliberately keeps Africa poor and warring through 'aid' disbursed through the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs).

Princess Akinyi writes that "While the per capita GDP in sub-Saharan African countries continues to drop, the NGOs are proliferating". In other words, the 'aid' industries do not want to solve the problems plaguing Africa if the solutions would jeopardise their vested interests. The writer further says the aid-dependence the West creates in Africa renders African countries unable to negotiate effectively in world trade. This dependence encourages governments to relax instead of working out viable economic strategies for their citizens. The aid industry further undermines the struggle of Africans to be independent economically, socially and politically.

But it is startling that about 75% of the money aid agencies collect is spent on the administration of their own organisation. The World Food Programme, for instance, spends more than a million dollars per day (75%-80% of which is spent in the administration of WFP alone) for southern Sudan.

As Africa loses because some of the cures prescribed by the NGOs are worse than the disease, Akinyi Princess of K'Orinda-Yimbo argues, "The whole world makes a fortune in Africa except the ordinary Africans themselves."

The author thus views NGOs as a menace to Africa while serving as a job-creation to the rich Western nations. She suggests the aid industry dissuades Africans from defending their turf while foreign corporations scoop up all the resources. At the same time, the author equally reprimands not only the predator politicians and elite of the African continent but all Africans for their passive resignation to a fate they can change through affirmative action.

She says that "under the cruelest and most dehumanizing conditions", Africa, since the 16th century, has assisted and made it possible for the West to accumulate its incredible wealth.

She wonders why these same Africans are now—in the 21st Century—willingly allowing themselves to be dehumanised by forces of neo-colonialism, globalisation and China.

"All members of humankind are born with innate pride, dignity, self-worth, self-esteem, protection for the self and those of one's family when there is a common enemy. And the will to fight to the death to maintain these virtues, however poor one is. So why this abject submission by the majority of Africans?"

Though China comes to Africa posing as “equals, with no colonial hangover, no complex relationship of resentment, no outward show of hegemonic clout”, Darkest Europe and Africa's Nightmare argues that this 'Middle Kingdom' nevertheless has an agenda which African nations should beware of and “should make sure that this agenda tallies with the African one.”

In an unflattering exposition, the German-based Akinyi Princess of K’Orinda-Yimbo argues that China is “making a fortune on Africa’s natural resources without addressing the African people’s poverty” and that she demands “no good governance, adherence to human rights, an end to corruption, environmental rules…and democracy.”

Author Akinyi Princess of K'Orinda-Yimbo

Instead of African governments allowing the Chinese to “dig, shovel, saw, clear and carry away the rubble themselves," the author argues that the Chinese be made to mentor Africans as "Africa does not need a Chinese bricklayer or ironing person". Everybody in Chinese businesses in Africa is Chinese, right from the engineers to the office messengers, she writes, adding that no African gets employed in any position whatsoever in any Chinese projects.

Globalisation, on the other hand, is demarcating and fragmenting the world and its people besides pushing the world back even further than the pre-historic barbarism. Princess Akinyi says Africans are opposed to globalisation because it devalues cultural mores and conceptions of the world and humankind. "Africans are not as 'ready to be freed' from their traditions as Westerners are," she writes. "The West is on a rapid course of socio-cultural and spiritual degeneration."

While arguing that Africans have suffered serious psychological damage from slavery and colonialism, the author, who considers globalisation the fourth stage in the penetration of Africa by world powers, nevertheless contends that this "can no longer be a legitimate explanation of all of Africa's underdevelopment in the 21st century."

For an author who studied in England right from pre-school to college, she has good command of the English language which she puts to good use in her writing. I may not agree with her on every point she raises—humans evolving from apes, for instance—but I find her writing style quite appealing.

This book is available in trade paper, hard cover and e-book formats from amazon.com and other stores and online outlets.

China Blames the West for Post-Election Violence in Kenya

Article by Bobastles Owino Nondi
Published January 18, 2008

Chinese president, Hu Jintao, with his Mozambiqan counterpart, Armando Guebuza

China broke her studious silence on post-election violence in Kenya on January 14, 2008 by blaming western-styled democracy. Through The People's Daily, the official mouth-piece of the ruling Chinese Communist Party, China contends that democracy is a recipe for disaster in Africa, citing Kenya as an example of this. BOBASTLES OWINO NONDI, like Africa Have Your Say—an interactive programme of BBC World Service that on January 16, 2008 discussed this contention by China—examines this claim further and concludes that indeed, Africa and China share a shameful history.

As Kenya went to the polls on December 27, 2007, representatives of western and African nations monitored the process to ensure the outcome was free and fair. But China, a permanent member of the UN Security Council and a leading business partner of Kenya and Africa, kept away.

China did not say anything even after Mwai Kibaki’s government banned live media coverage and demonstrations that turned Kenya into a police state soon after being secretly declared winner and hurriedly sworn in as president at night as independent observers, human rights bodies, the civil society and the presumed winner, Raila Odinga, declared the presidential poll a sham and a massive fraud.

Even as the United States, Britain, the European Union and African Union tried their diplomacy in Kenya, China remained conspicuously absent as if it was business as usual in Kenya. So far, 14 western nations—United Kingdom, United States, Canada, the European Commission Delegation to Kenya, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Denmark—under the Development Co-operation Group umbrella are considering aid withdrawal from the government unless the political crisis bedeviling Kenya were addressed and the government committed itself to good governance, democracy, the rule of law and human rights. The European Parliament is even considering economic sanctions against Kenya. Yet China remains unconcerned.

But going by China’s history in Africa, expecting to hear her speak against 'violation of human rights' (what is that?) would be expecting too much. How can she when the ghosts of the pro-democracy demonstrators her troops massacred at Tiananmen Square in 1989 still haunt her?

Akinyi Princess of K’Orinda-Yimbo

Akinyi Princess of K’Orinda-Yimbo, in her 2008-published book, Darkest Europe and Africa’s Nightmare: A Critical Observation of Neighboring Continents, argues that though China comes to Africa posing as “equals, with no colonial hangover, no complex relationship of resentment, no outward show of hegemonic clout”, she nevertheless has an agenda which African nations should beware of and “should make sure that this agenda tallies with the African one.”
In an unflattering exposition, the German-based Kenya-born Akinyi Princess of K’Orinda-Yimbo argues that China is “making a fortune on Africa’s natural resources without addressing the African people’s poverty” and that she demands “no good governance, adherence to human rights, an end to corruption, environmental rules…and democracy.”

“Ever since the Communist Party of China (CPC) became China’s ruling party in 1949,” says Zhong Weiyun of the CPC Central Committee in ChinaAfrica magazine, “it has engaged in active and frequent exchanges with ruling parties in African nations.”

Nigeria’s ruling party, People’s Democratic Party, established in 1998, is one of the African political parties that have conducted several inter-party exchanges with CPC. Nine years later, PDP is entrenching itself in power amidst claims of election rigging, cronyism and corruption.

Praising the ‘ruling parties’ in Africa for withstanding the onslaught of the western-styled multi-party democracy of the 1990s and for “maintaining their ruling party positions and gaining strength during the process, despite heavy pressure from external intervention”, China attributes this ‘success’ to the close ties of these parties with CPC.

But these ‘ruling parties’ are not in power by any other means but popular mandate.

Kenyan is a good example where an incumbent president refuses to relinquish power by manipulating the Electoral Commission to tilt the poll in his favour, is purportedly sworn in back to office at sun-set privately and immediately unleashes police and military terror on the ‘opposition’ and the Kenyan public.

Curiously, China is one of the few countries that Mwai Kibaki visited during his first term in State House in 2005, and where he signed ‘business deals’ worth hundreds of millions of US dollars, with the eastern economic power snatching most government contracts for defence, telecommunications, medical and construction sectors from western countries. Could it be that during this visit Kibaki met CPC stalwarts who took him through an induction of ‘How to Remain in Power at All Cost’ as has evidently been the case with African ‘ruling parties’?

Ethiopia’s People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, which came to power through armed struggle, is cited by CPC as having been “enlightening” for having stayed in power for 16 years, and “maintaining close ties with the masses”.

Andrew Manley writes in BBC Focus on Africa magazine, “The last months of 2007 have seen continuing [Chinese] concentration on Nigeria, Angola and other resource-rich countries, but also a worrying lack of positive policy initiatives on Darfur crisis in public at least—which appears to be allowing the el-Bashir government to continue what human rights organisations denounce as ethnic cleansing in the region.” Indeed, Darkest Europe and Africa’s Nightmare reports that the weapons used in Darfur are manufactured either in China or in Chinese companies in Khartoum. The book also says that the machetes used in the Rwandan genocide of 1994 were manufactured in China.

Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe reiterates that “China is Zimbabwe’s top cooperation partner”. In 2006, bilateral trade volume between Zimbabwe and China reached $270 million, and the figure is expected to hit $500 million in 2008, Zimbabwe’s 15,000% plus annual inflation, and 80% unemployment, notwithstanding.

While western countries, the World Bank and IMF would demand that the governments they work with and fund in the developing world be accountable, rule justly, invest in its people and possess economic freedom, China believes that such demands would be unfair.

Writing in ChinaAfrica, Li Anshan, deputy director of the Centre for African Studies of Peking University, says, “it has been China’s persistent policy since the 1950s to supply unconditional foreign aid to developing countries and not to interfere in their internal affairs. Given that there is the African Union, why should China, or any other world power, interfere in African affairs?”

Perhaps for the same reason, China would rather Africans slaughter themselves to the last man, so long as they acquire business contracts on post-war reconstruction, or sell crude and sophisticated weapons to the warring factions, or let political leaders swindle every penny from the continent so long as it ends in China.

For instance, China only became active in Congo-Kinshasa in the post-conflict reconstruction, building roads such as the National Road No.1 which links Kinshasa and port of Matadi. The same has happened in Sierra Leone, Uganda, Liberia and Sudan’s Darfur region.

And, even in areas where Sino-Africa activities are concentrated, there is a rising discontent among the local populace for what is considered China’s “preference for its own expatriate labour on capital projects and the alleged dumping of low quality Chinese products.”

Akinyi Princess of K'Orinda-Yimbo contends in Darkest Europe and Africa’s Nightmare that the Chinese “dig, shovel, saw, clear and carry away the rubble themselves…no African gets employed in any position whatsoever in any Chinese projects. Everybody is Chinese from the engineers to the office messengers.”

Such disquiet among locals—and matched by studious silence among the ruling elite—has been witnessed in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, China-Zambia economic and trade cooperation zone in Lusaka, Zambia, Juba in Southern Sudan, and Algeria and Liberia among other countries. All these are resource-rich countries with Zambia-China Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone located in Zambia Copper Belt Province.

As Africa’s natural resources are exploited, its people are steadily marginalised, writes Mwesiga Baregu of the University of Dar es Salaam in BBC World Focus on Africa magazine.

The just-published book that examines the travails of Africa at the hands of world powers

A poor human rights record and clampdown on press freedom are some of the evils that the Chinese authorities are struggling to hide under the carpet despite frequent criticism, and that are now threatening to rear their ugly head at the August 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The ‘Free Tibet’ campaigners and China’s domestically dispossessed are hoping to use 2008 Beijing Olympics as platform for voicing their grievances.

While Tibet remains largely off-limits, domestic media are tightly controlled in China. And, in dealing with a possible protest, Chinese government is reported to be detaining dissidents it fears could embarrass the country.

As is widely touted by African and Chinese diplomats, ‘the continent Africa and China have a shared history’. A close interrogation into this might just reveal that this is shamefully true.

Additional reporting by Ogova Ondego