Former US President Donald Trump.
In 2018, Donald J Trump — who was then US President — called Haiti, El Salvador, and African states “sh**hole” countries. An uproar of anger, disbelief, and disgust erupted. One fact is common in all the states insulted by Mr Trump — they are either black or brown states. But mostly black.
In any language, Mr Trump’s epithet was textbook racism. After all, the President of the United States is the official spokesperson of the most powerful nation earth. Was Mr Trump expressing an unwritten policy, or belief, of the US government? Was that unspoken policy of the US Department of State, America’s foreign ministry, and its embassies around the globe? Was that what white people in America believe about Africa and Africans?
More importantly, was there any truth to what Mr Trump had said? Did the description actually fit African countries? Can one make a distinction between “sh**hole states” and “sh**hole people”? In other words, can people who aren’t “sh**hole” live in such a country or state? Or does it necessarily follow that countries that fit this description are created by such people so that there is a hierarchy of races in which some races are “sh**hole” and others aren’t? You know where I am going with this. Are some races superior to others? Is the world built on the inequality of races and peoples? Does it follow that some races have a “right” to colonise, or exploit, others? Can this unjust and corrupt world be changed?
We live in a hypocritical world governed by a scandalous international legal and economic order. Let’s take the Charter of the United Nations itself. The UN, according to Article 2(1) of its Charter, “is based on the sovereign equality of all its members.” What, exactly is the meaning of that vacuous provision? The UN’s two main organs — the General Assembly and the Security Council — are a contradiction in terms. The General Assembly is a toothless talking shop because real power lies in the Security Council. Get this — every state sits in the General Assembly but only 15 states sit in the Security Council. A minority of 15 rules the majority 193 in the UN structure.
It’s actually worse than that because within the Security Council there is blatant inequality. Of the 15 members, five are permanent members. The General Assembly gets to elect the 10 “others” who rotate off every two years. These 10 are non-permanent. The five permanent members have veto power, meaning that if only one of the five objects to an issue, that matter dies there and then.
UN charter
The five permanent members, who took the UN hostage at its founding are the United States, the People’s Republic of China, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom. Nothing happens in the UN without their say-so. The Charter of the UN can’t even be amended unless they all consent. Is that sovereign equality?
That’s why I wasn’t amused when Kenya spent beaucoup cash to lobby to become a non-permanent member of the UN. I don’t think Kenya got anything out of that futile exercise. The money would’ve better spent to build a bridge across Enziu River in Mwingi, where a bus plunged into the swollen river, killing 33 souls. In liberal theory and philosophy, the key tenets are formal equality and abstract autonomy. It’s the struggle to put substance into “formal” and “abstract” that renders the nirvana of liberalism elusive and fictitious. In reality, equality and autonomy are fictions. But these are fictions we must aspire to because the opposite is unthinkable. We cannot accept a society built on explicit inequality.
Back to Mr Trump, the buffoon. By “sh**hole” countries Mr Trump meant that white people must have dominion over black, brown, and yellow peoples. In other words, the master race — Caucasians — must rule the world and the rest of us must serve them, or exist for their use, abuse, and pleasure. We are supposed to be the pit latrine for white people. Today, you can see this plainly and clearly in Kenya. The unjust international economic order has rendered African countries “client” states of the West, and now increasingly Asian states like China and Japan. Kenya believes that it will collapse without handouts from Washington, London, Beijing, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Our leaders go there to beg.
For how long shall we live on our knees rather than die on our feet? Let me give you one poignant example of our beggarly existence and its humiliating consequences. It’s diplomatic practice for states to exchange envoys or ambassadors. I have lived in America for decades, but I have never heard of an African ambassador going to the White House to lecture the US president on democracy, let alone publicly criticise Washington. African ambassadors in Washington DC are happy to wine and dine in the capital of the world’s empire without raising a fuss. That’s the exact opposite of what Western, usually white, ambassadors do in Nairobi.
Makau Mutua is SUNY Distinguished Professor and Margaret W. Wong Professor at Buffalo Law School, The State University of New York. @makaumutua.
Source: Sunday Nation today.
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