During his appearance before the house of Armed services committee on 21st March 2024, general Michael Langley claimed that they (the United State of America) are being drowned out by Russia’s propaganda campaign in West Africa and majority of the African continent.
This claim is contrary to what President Putin of Russia recently said, that the west controls all the biggest Propaganda Platforms in the World.
A closer look at the matter from an African perspective also tells us something deeper. In Oct 2023, Gallup published a survey in which it found that people in the United States have lost confidence and trust in western media. The survey indicated that trust levels stand at a paltry 39% while those confident in the media are just 32%. Although reality points in a different direction within the imperialist camp, Washington has chosen to allege otherwise.
What General Langley and majority western neocolonial establishment overlooks or ignores is not only the effect of technological penetration within the African continent, but also the increased literacy rate in Africa which currently stands at 70% at the lowest end. This indicates that more Africans are aware of the colonial history as well as the events post-independence in which the United States participated heavily, and in most cases led the elimination of patriotic African leaders like Patrice Lumumba and Kwame Nkrumah, replacing them with unpatriotic elements who towed to what Washington and Brussels call ‘their interests’.
This approach indeed has a racist connotation to it, general Langley though a black person, his racist assertion seeks to suggest that Africans have no minds of their own, they therefore wait for influence from Russia or the West, if it doesn’t come, Africans have no capacity of analysing, understanding, and reaching a conclusion on who has been oppressing them.
The United States hoped to escape the rage leading to accelerated French expulsion from the Sahel even though they are operating the same neocolonial exploitation. The U.S finds it easy to burry head in the sand and pretend that Africans are dumb therefore, it is propaganda, even though facts point otherwise.
This not only speaks to policy failure which should be celebrated by all revolutionaries but is as well an opportunity for Pan-African Forces to accelerate the sensitisation of our people on the importance of a single African Government, urgently.
©Kwame Gonza is a Technologist, Industrialist, Railway engineering consultant, geopolitical analyst and Pan-Africanist member of the ACUP-African Continental Unity Party.
