African Union: ‘Accelerating youth disempowerment for sustainable dictatorship’?

So we’ve just witnessed two big farewell parties in Tunis and Cairo within less than a month’s time. The third party is still going on and it’s not too far to see the fireworks to be staged in the streets of Tripoli celebrating the fall of the giant of the Arab world and African dictators. Parties for freedom and justice! Maybe some of his fellows are still thinking that he’s too big to fall, but time will tell him soon that he is too nasty to stay. Africa is not only endowed and blessed with great natural resources beneath its soil but is also cursed with its antique dictators who even celebrate their senselessness and meaninglessness through a gathering twice a year under the flagship of ‘Pan-Africanism’. The honorary host of the next gathering is another great dictator from the only Spanish-speaking country in the continent, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea. He’s been given the chair (2011–12) of the African Union General Assembly and he’s proudly preparing to host the 17th General Assembly under the theme ‘Accelerating youth empowerment for sustainable development’, in the last weeks of June in Malabo. President Obiang has been in power since August 1979 and he always scores an A+ in the dictatorship games. This includes his undying efforts in creating a personality cult for himself, the outrageous corruption and looting of state resources, the unlawful detentions and killings of citizens and of course staging crappy but ‘periodic’ elections like the last one, where he secured 97 per cent of the vote.

Six months after the youth of Carthage and the sons and daughters of the pharaohs put their generational fingerprints into the world and African history, African dictators will be gathering to discuss about their ‘empowerment’ – even how to ‘accelerate youth empowerment’. Wait a minute here! Do they seriously think they have the moral ground to discuss youth empowerment in Africa? If you are telling me how to co-opt and manipulate the youth through job opportunities, economic benefits and the creation of a number of structures – which subdue their interests like the current Pan-African Youth Union and the youth assemblies and associations in their respective countries, which are channels of indoctrination and control – then you can call it ‘Youth disempowerment!’ The Tunisian and Egyptian youth become heroes and heroines of their nation and the continent because they didn’t expect and wait for the moment to be empowered. In fact, both Ben Ali and Mubarak might have tried their best to establish youth structures to ensure the pseudo-representation (numerical) of the youth in their system because they are doomed to see things beyond their personal egos. I feel that there has to be a way to make something out of this coincidence!

You may say that there are others too, but for me the African Union is the most hypocrite institution that I’ve ever heard and seen. I remember in June 2007 when the ‘highly anticipated’ AU General Assembly was held under the theme ‘the grand debate’ in Accra, Ghana, to discuss the political and economic integration of the continent and establishment of the union government, so many weird things were still happening. A group of us who were advocating for freedom of movement for African citizens across the continent and a single African passport find out that Kenya and Senegal are still under the will of their colonial masters for their citizens to travel to either of the two countries. For instance, a Kenyan (for that matter any African who is in Nairobi and needs a visa to Senegal) who wants to travel to Senegal would go to the French embassy in Nairobi and present his files for application. And the British embassy in Dakar does the same thing for a visa to Nairobi. For your surprise the embassies sometimes reject an application. Can you think of an African who wants to travel to another African country but is denied a visa by a British or French embassy officer? I saw a rejection stamp in my eyes on one of my Senegalese friend’s passport. So, how come you stage a debate about establishing a union government in a context where two governments are still in a colonial-period mentality? Actually, the AU just completed its last session under the theme ‘Towards greater unity and integration through shared values’ in Addis Ababa – can you think of the shared values that Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni? Yeah, you’re right, this would be ‘winning’ a ‘periodic’ election before the actual election takes place through an extensively stretched, controlling state machine. Of course, the Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade and the ex-Egyptian (dude :) ) Mubarak had something in common to share – replacing their sons on their seat. What about the Algerian Abdelaziz Bouteflika and the Eritrean Isaias Afwerki? Of course, they can share a lot about extending the state of emergency decree for an indefinite period of time (though Bouteflika just responded to the call from his people).

So, how should we deal with the upcoming AU summit under the chairing of another antique dictator, President Obiang? Shall we just let them do business as usual? I’m sure it’s gonna be a great show-off for some of them to prove how their egoistic mentality is being reproduced in the minds and souls of their young worshipers. At least I can imagine how the Ethiopian government would ‘represent the Ethiopian youth’. We need to keep the momentum from Tunisia, Egypt and Libya if we want to make something tangible out of this coincidence. There has to be a way to deal with the odds. I can’t just think of the details right now but I feel that it is the time. For now I have a simple suggestion for the African heads of states if they can think of an alternative summit theme, something like ‘Accelerating youth disempowerment for sustainable dictatorship’. I can think of some of our dudes who wish the theme of the summit is this in the back of their tiny but dictatorial mind!

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* Eyob Balcha’s blog is available at www.eyobafrikawi.blogspot.com.
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