DEJA VU

China's relentless and unnerving march towards dominance in Africa has finally started to make us Africans nervous. And so we should be, the parallel's to Europe's subjugation of the continent just over a century ago are uncanny.

The memory of brutality, enslavement, dehumanisation and the lasting effect of a scared collective sense of self worth are still fresh.

Images of arrogant Chinese business men openly defying local police, getting into fights with Ministerial delegations, disrespecting senior civil servants etc tell us the Chinese have all the traits of arrogance and self importance that the Europeans showed early on.

All this has us deeply unsettled, but the old hands at Africa meddling are also sitting up to take notice.

THE ELEPHANTS

European countries have over three hundred years of involvement in Africa in the pre-modern and modern historical era's. Their foot print on the continent has its positives but is overwhelmingly negative. The list of evils can be listed in a entire series of books each a million pages long. Europe's most lasting legacy is leaving African economies configured to serve them. Hence Europe remains Africa's largest trading partner.

The United States came to prominence too late to participate in the scramble for Africa. Post world war two however the US saw Africa mostly through a Cold War prism. Being allied with Western Europe automatically put the US at odds with the independence movements and inadvertently pushed them into the arms of the Soviet Union. To counter Soviet influence the US supported extremist white minority regime's in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Angola and Mozambique as well as despots like Mobutu in Congo. War followed in the wake of these policies.

The Grass

Africa's bourgeoise and political elite are systematically selling of their land and sovereignty to China. In exchange for corrupt luxury and cheap sovereign loans.

Africa's Prolitariate' remain the useful idiots used to legitimise their corrupt leaders every few years through often fraudulent elections.

Africa's middle class remains docile or obsessed with consumerism or disinterested in their political future. They are too few and statistically insignificant.

Africa's institution's cannot sustain a functioning state.

All said African society is in a poor shape for the wars to come.

WARM UP

Both the United States and th EU have created separate funds of around $60 Billion to grow investment, trade to counter China.

If the latest deal the EU has reached with Iran is anything to go by then the EU's foreign policy will diverge from the US's and the will pursue different tracks in dealing with Africa.

China's own $60 billion fund shows its interests are rooted for the long term.

The money being thrown around is just the first salvo, worse is to come.

WAR!!

The EU, China and the US are headed for a battle for influence similar to the scramble for Africa and the cold war conflicts. The prize for dominance is the riches and potential for Africa - too good to be ignored

But Africa is not one monolithic block. It's 54 countries and 2500 ethnicities present a unique opportunity for a miriad of intra and inter country proxy wars on a scale never seen before.

The West has long used proxy countries and rebel movements to counter the influence of rivals in an area of interest - Unita in Angola, Machar's rebels in South Sudan, Kenya against Amin's Uganda, Kagame in Rwanda, Iraq against Iran in the 1980's.

The Chinese - ever the quick learners will start to use similar tactics to get their way.

The end of result will be a continent at war, with Chinese backed governments battling US or EU backed rebels. EU backed countries fighting China backed countries.

SURVIVING THE TIMES

Though this may seem far fetched, recent history shows us it is not.

The US Vs Soviet proxy war played out in Angola with Apartheid South Africa and UNITA on one side and the Angolan government troops and Cuban troops equipped with Soviet equipment and advisors on the other. To this day Angola is scarred by the worst fighting on the continent since the allies battled the Afrika Korps in Ww2.

A coherent collective is Africa's only defence against the coming attempts to divide us. It cannot come from our corrupted leaders - only from us.