By Modern Muhereza,
#MuherezaWrites
“Africa as a nation and one endowed with the natural resources that the west and east are scrambling and panting for needs to pursue a multi_alignment policy,” says Muhereza
A lot of events have shaped the world ever since Russia invaded Ukraine in what it dubbed a special operation. The west has come out to lambast Russia calling this an imperialist move to bully a weaker nation.
They (the west) retaliated by slapping a lot of economic sanctions on Russia that have since backfired with a furnace of consequences including an outrageous increase in food and commodity prices all over the world including in Africa.
As a result of the war, the world is being hauled into a paradigm shift of the existing world order and geo_politics. This is evidenced by the events unfolding including the state visits by US and Russia’s political superintendents in different countries.
In May, US President Joe Biden visited Tokyo, and in the same month Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov visited Riyadh. In July Biden visited Israel and Saudi Arabia to repair ties and a week later Russia’s President Vladimir Putin was in Iran to forge a new economic alliance with the country.
This was followed by visits to Africa by the foreign ministers of both countries in South Africa, Rwanda, and DRC by the USA’s Anthony Blinken, and Egypt, Ethiopia, and Uganda by Russia’s Sergei Lavrov.
If these moves are to be divulged, they are a geo_political struggle by these two countries to set rules of global conduct. Each of the two countries is selling its political dogma to countries mainly African countries to align with them and isolate the other. This signifies the start of another cold War that ceased in 1991 after the fall of the soviet union. But in all this, what is in for Africa?
Africa as a continent has been at the receiving end of these contentions between Russia and the west specifically the US. They have caused Africa’s dilapidated economies and loss of lives by financing rebellions and conflicts in the name of installing puppet leaders that should forward their best interests. Wars like the 1960 congo crisis, the 1966 Namibian war, etc were triggered by the cold war.
Africa as a continent and one endowed with the natural resources that the west and east are scrambling and panting for needs to pursue a multi_alignment policy. It’s time for Africa to play that hot beautiful woman in the village that is loved by every man but refuses to commit to any but still gets her interests satisfied by the two working parties.
It’s time we chose to move our best interests as a continent by having multi_lateral ties with whom fit our interests not being aligned to the faction that will start dictating for us what our best interests should be. Like how president Museveni said, Africa needs to be let to do its own mistakes.