BRICS is Source of Inspiration for Africa, Pan-Africanist Says

Sputnik’s series of interviews with African representatives on the sidelines of the second Russia-Africa parliamentary conference is continued by Kemi Seba, a pan-African activist and head of the NGO Urgences Panafricanistes who was at the event.

Speaking from the conference, Seba argues that the "democratic states" of Africa which emerged as a result of the end of colonization by the West are not truly of African origin. This, he claimed, led to the political degeneration of African elites as they do not understand how to adapt to the reality of African peoples.

"When you build states based on the Western model, that corresponds to realities which completely contradict the history of our populations, where ethnicity or tribe matters, where culture matters," the activist states.

In this context, he refers to the grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS), which he describes as a "source of inspiration" for African countries as it behaves differently from the West. According to Seba, BRICS countries have sufficient "political and economic intelligence to avoid in certain aspects the same colonial reflexes as the West."

In his opinion, the member countries of BRICS implement a different approach which is deeply linked to “economic logic and the logic of co-advantages, advantages for some, advantages for others."

"BRICS is a source of inspiration, but before it existed, we already had our sources of inspiration with our founding fathers who spoke of this real and fundamental unity which had to operate through the federal state of the African continent,” Seba says.

For the activist, BRICS is an alternative and can serve as a symbol on many points. However, "all the symbols in reality are within our ranks."

"We must refocus the debate on endogenous solutions to get out of these exogenous chains that are in the process today to slow us down and prevent us from developing as we should," he sums up.

He also takes aim at Paris as one of the manifestations of Western neo-colonialism, proposing that the idea that Francafrique is over is mere “hypocrisy.”

"To say that […] France is ready to drop Francafrique is a chimera, […] hypocrisy, a strategy of linguistic diversion aimed to dribble us to continue in reality to always score goals in the bottom of our nets for its own interests," concludes Seba.

As such, media like Le Monde, Liberation, or Le Figaro serve as "the media arm of French neo-colonialism strategy," he continues.

"French military bases, which are strategically installed in places like the Ivory Coast, like Senegal, like Niger, like Chad, and so on. And Benin, too, prove in abundance that the neo-colonial power has never been so present," says the activist.

He laments that some elites "are completely subject to the cannibalistic West somewhere, which eats our bodies, but above all eats our minds."

However, a new vision is currently forming on the black continent that may allow it to oppose the "cannibalistic West," he argues. Changes are possible, he says, especially thanks to the youth which is one of "the most awake and the most informed."

According to Seba, African self-determination must be based on many aspects, including military, monetary, cultural, and linguistic sovereignty.

"It turns out that our armies have been under the colonial system for too long so that we cannot defend ourselves against external destabilizations and so that colonial powers come to pretend to be sheriffs in order to actually secure their access to resources," explains the activist.

Seba also emphasizes the significance of the financial aspect to fight Western neo-colonialism.

It is important to have "a currency which is brought in line with our local economies," since the euro "annihilates any process of competitiveness," he states.

For the African peoples, according to the activist, the restoration of cultural sovereignty is combined with the removal of the "Western colonialist" and goes towards "knowledge of [their] own identity," that is to say of the civilizational home, of the original spirituality."