Africa, The Miasma Of A Failed Continent - The Exile Of Donald Trump To N'Djamena

Chad may not the most corrupt country in Africa, but close.  Africa, being the most crooked, poorly governed, blighted continent in the commonwealth of nations, there is no room at the top. Mobutu and Idi Amin robbed their countries blind, ruled for decades and were courted by the West for their vast mineral wealth and geopolitical place in international affairs.

African dictators have a long and sorry history of corruption.   Idris Deby, the dictator of Chad played the US and the World Bank for fools, duplicitously agreeing to a gas-for-reform agenda and then reneging completely and continuing his despotic rule over one of the poorest countries in Africa..  The lionized Kagame presides with a repressive regime which muzzles opposition.  He has lied or distorted reports about his support of anti-government clandestine military operations in the Congo.  There are many more examples.

Ethiopia's tyrant Meles Zenawi who either died or more likely was murdered was a brutal dictator whose misdeeds rise to the level of war crimes in his counterinsurgency in Ethiopia's Somali region. Despite years of misrule, was the beneficiary of billions. Biya of Cameroon matched Meles in aid receipts and their predictable disappearance into personal and private coffers. 

Other African strongmen were equally gifted with Western largess only to enrich themselves and leave their countries in constant shambles - Lansana Conté in Guinea ($11 billion), Paul Kagame in Rwanda ($10 billion), and Yoweri Museveni in Uganda are just a few. 

There are more.  Togolese President-for-Life Eyadema ruled for decades until his death in a suspicious air disaster:

President Eyadema died while on board an airplane en route to France for treatment for a heart attack. Papa Gnassingbé is said to have killed more than fifteen thousand people during his dictatorship. His son Faure Gnassingbé, the country's former minister of public works, mines, and telecommunications, was named President by Togo's military following the announcement of his father's death. After the announcement of the results of an election, tensions flared up with hundreds of people killed.  

The Central African Republic which endured decades of despotic rule by Bokassa, emerged from that period by fits and starts

Mr. Patasse beat nine other candidates to become president again, but there were allegations of electoral fraud. He was overthrown in a coup and went into exile in Togo.

Illegal weapons proliferate across the CAR, the legacy of years of unrest. Armed groups are active in the volatile north. The unrest has displaced tens of thousands of Central Africans; many of them have crossed the border into Chad.

Another threat has appeared - the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels of neighboring Uganda, whose insurgency has spread to the wider region, including CAR. LRA activities forced the populations of several towns and villages to flee, while government forces struggled to contain the gunmen.                           

The story today is no different.  All sub-Saharan countries with few exceptions are still morasses of corruption and poverty.  Kenya's recent elections featured two politicians both called before the International Court for crimes against humanity.  South Africa, a country of significant potential thanks to the wealth, infrastructure, and economic development left at independence by Britain, has become a political, tribal mess.  

Ghana, perhaps the only country with some semblance of democracy still can't make it out of universal poverty.  Mozambique, once having shown some post-independence promise is now once again in the midst of civil war.  Angola, perhaps the country with the most significant resources in energy, rare earth materials, and gems is still a failed state. 

The 2021 Transparency International Index shows continuing rates of corruption and misrule in sub-Saharan Africa, among the highest in the world with no signs of improvement. Mali, Equatorial Guinea, and Nigeria are among the very worst with high levels of endemic political, financial, social, and economic rot. 

Why is it, then, that black Americans still want 'African' as part of their national identity.  What did that continent ever do for them? Tribal chiefs rounded up captives from perennial tribal wars and sold them to European slavers.  Without these African suppliers, the slave trade could not have been possible,  No white European would have risked decapitation and cannibalism up the Niger River. 

The continent remained Paleolithic for centuries, but after independence people had hope.  On the contrary, countries declined from the standards established by their colonial rulers.  The rule of law, justice, administration and management applied by France and England disappeared.  The big men who replaced colonial governors wanted the same riches the white men had and an open air bazaar was opened, treasuries plundered, and access to the wealth of natural resources limited to them. 

After more than sixty years of independence, colonialism can no longer be indemnified as the reason for Africa's failure.  The failure is now national, local, and endemic.  A combination of persistent tribalism, venality, and stubborn resistance to or inability for reform have kept Africa dark. 

Yet Africa is lionized and the African American raised to the top of the human pyramid.  His native tribal roots give him a dignity, a communing with and understanding of nature, a natural communitarianism that white Europeans and their American descendants will never have.  Where did this notion come from?  History shows nothing but the diametric opposite. 

Morgan Freeman, well-known black American screen actor says he refuses to be called African American. 'I am an American, purely and simply, and am proud of it'. Affirmative action, lionization, and racial idealism are confining, corrosive and finally destructive initiatives. Yet the majority of black leaders, co-opted by white liberals who see racial identity as the defining characteristic of any person, persist in looking to the miasma of Africa for legitimacy. 

So it is to this place of virulent, endemic corruption - Africa - to which Democrats want to exile Donald Trump, recently convicted of financial irregularities. While many want to see him rot behind bars, others find exile in one of Africa's worst, most abusive, most anti-democratic countries the most fitting punishment for a man who has been heading in the direction from the start. 

Trump, a man whose dictatorial, insurrectionist, abusive ambitions have been clear since he first appeared on the American political stage, deserves nothing more fitting.  He belongs in the lands of Mobutu, Deby, Meles, Amin, and Eyadema.

Not only that, but exile solves the electoral problem.  Trump can run for president from an American prison and can even run the country from there; but if he is exiled to say, Chad or Mali, he will be out of sight, out of mind.

The Africans of course may not want him.  They probably would slam him into one of their own prisons and let him be buggered and bled there; but if the price were to be right....Corrupt to the core, any African leader worth his salt could not refuse a generous emolument from the Democratic party and the promise of hundreds of millions in foreign aid. 

Well, the trial process here in America is far from over, and Trump’s conviction may well be overturned on appeal, but Democratic party partisans are trying to assure that that will not happen. They were successful in having Trump tried by a partisan, anti-Trump jury, prosecutor, and judge who wanted the man done and gone from the start, so it should not be hard to do it again.