By now we are all well aware of China’s “Scramble for Africa.” But did you know that Brazil is also heavily involved with trade and investment across Africa?
Many observers fear that the new wave of involvement in Africa will result in another stage of neocolonialism or clientelism. But there also exists the possibility that African states and consumers will be able to benefit from the plenitude of interests jockeying for position in Africa. The problem with colonialism, of course, is that Africans had no say in the process or in its manifestation. Colonialism was all about power. Force, coercion, manipulation, and fear — these were the hallmarks of the colonial era. Things improved, but only slightly during the Cold War, when a binary world meant that while Africans had options, those options were limited, and while the west has too often overlooked the savviness and self-interested behavior of Africans in weighing the merits of the so-called First and Second Worlds, the reality on the ground was that neither global superpower, and certainly not the United States and its allies, much cared about the fate of Africans so long as African leaders went along with the program. The result? Mobutu Sese Seku and his ilk, friends to American leaders and enemies of their own people.
So yes, history tells us that there is much to fear in a new era of outsiders coming to Africa with seductive promises. And yet absent a binary world and the various forces of coercion that characterized the past, maybe, just maybe, the presence of a country such as Brazil alongside that of the United States and China and the European Union, will force the outsiders to negotiate based on what’s best for them, sure, but also to take into account African needs.
