So, winter is over spring is here. The weather is warming up, days are getting longer and we have a glorious summer to look forward to. In the north of the continent, the spring is well and truly over, yet they have much, much more to look forward to. The Arab Spring has come and gone, and left in its wake the deposed leaderships of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, Zine el- Abidine of Tunisia and, most shocking of all, Brother Leader, The King of Africa- Muammar Gaddafi.
The revolts in these countries, and reforms in others, including Morocco, have ended the decades-long rule of many African leaders, and the world looks on with anticipation to see whether democracy will triumph in the Arabian Gulf, or if one oppressive, corrupt regime will be replaced by another, perhaps worse one. It may turn out to be a case of better the devil you know. We all hope not.
While the world celebrated, with some trepidation, the fall of tyrants who had ruled their states with iron fists for far too long, the uprisings inevitably cast light on the leaders of other, non-Arab countries on this crazy continent we call home. There are far too many despots in Africa. The people of this continent, for some unknown reason, tolerate these egomaniacal thugs and allow them to rape and plunder the countries that they “lead”.
The continent’s tyrants are split into two groups. You have your everyday autocrats, such as Paul Biya of Cameroon, who has been in the hot seat for 29 years. Not the nicest fellow around, but not the worst either. He is joined in the “lesser oppressor” ranks by Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, who has been in power for 25 years. Perhaps his worst crime is allowing his ministers to introduce the death penalty for homosexuality. Oh, and being horribly corrupt and physically unable to relinquish power, but what dictator isn’t? While these “leaders” are of course repulsive excuses for human beings, their crimes pale in significance when compared to the real heavyweight dictators of the dark continent.
The real baddies, the evil axis if you will, is comprised of Téodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea, Omar Al-Bashir of Sudan and of course, the Tyrant King- Robert Gabriel Mugabe of Zimbabwe. These three have carried on the fine tradition of Idi Amin, Hendrik Verwoerd, Pol Pot and Adolf Hitler before them. Mbasogo has ruled Equatorial Guinea with absolute authority for the past 32 years and in this time has racked up quite a list of achievements. In 1979 he overthrew his uncle, and has spent that time accumulating billions from the sale of his country’s oil reserves, money that the impoverished people of Equatorial Guinea desperately, and I mean DESPERATELY, need. His government is seen as one of the most corrupt, ethnocentric, oppressive and undemocratic in the world (courtesy of GQ Magazine).
Next on our list is Omar “the Basher” Al-Bashir. He is responsible for the ethnic cleansing in Darfur, the one that all the celebs love to talk about. He is the first sitting head of state to be charged with genocide, no mean feat. He truly is a mean son of a bitch and one of the West’s biggest enemies.
And finally, the one you’ve all been waiting for. The grand daddy of depravity, the sultan of slaughter and the king of bat-shit crazy. The one, the only, Robert Mugabe. Uncle Bob is the world’s most famous dictator. He is guilty of so many crimes, it is hard to know where to start. I suppose his forced removals of white farmers must rank pretty high, not only for its patent racism and lack of humanity, but mainly because it was one of the clearest cases of cutting off one’s nose to totally fuck up one’s country that the world has ever seen. That one decision turned Zimbabwe from being Africa’s breadbasket to its basket case, a country with widespread, needless famine and the highest infant and maternal mortality rates in the world. I guess it’s fair to say that Mbeki, and now Zuma’s policy of quiet diplomacy hasn’t exactly achieved the desired results. Or maybe it has.
The point of this article (there is one, I promise) is to show you that, although we don’t know what will happen in Egypt, Tunisia or the Ivory Coast, we do know that for better or worse, there will be a change. In a speech to the South African Parliament in February 1960, Harold Macmillan-the British Prime Minister- said “The wind of change is blowing through this continent”. I suppose it was more a zephyr; a light waft than a wind, and it sure is taking its time to blow through the continent. But blowing it is. The time has come for the whole of Africa to stand up and say no more. No more will we take shit from old men who are raping and pillaging this rich continent to fill their pockets and egos. No more will we allow them to traipse off to some luxurious existence once they have done all they can to impoverish their people. No more will we allow the slaughter of innocents in the name of profit and power. It has been said that evil occurs when good men do nothing. Africa is an evil place, and the good men of this continent need to start doing something to change this, or Africa will forever be the laughing stock of the world, the place of disease and despair, child soldiers and kwashiorkor, landmines and warlords. In the words of Mahatma Ghandi, we all need to be the change we wish to see in this world.
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