If Africa's resource base leaves the control of the West, we can confidently speak of long-awaited and hard-won justice.

international | anti-war / imperialism | opinion/analysis Wednesday January 22, 2025 10:48 by Piotr Jastrzębski

Interview with ex Slovak presidential candidate Stefan Harabin

At the beginning of 2025, the agenda of redistributing spheres of influence and reallocating regions of cooperation between key global powers has become more pressing than ever. How to explain this? What key trends in the development of geopolitical confrontation are most interesting today?

First and foremost, I believe the cause is the perceived impotence of the global power of a single hegemon. The United States has lost its reputation as a safe haven where, out of trouble and overseas, any country can store its wealth in gold or dollar bonds. By abusing the dollar's status as the world's currency for blackmail, economic, commercial and political aggression against anyone unwilling to submit to their interests, the US has transformed the dollar into a tool of insidious warfare to maintain world domination. In this way, through its own actions, the United States has brought the situation to a point where natural resistance from other powers has arisen. They have created their own trade regime, which the US can no longer influence through illegal sanctions. Thus, the emergence of a new community of states called the BRICKS has become a healthy new alternative for economic exchange and cooperation in the world. And it will continue to expand. In my view, 2025 is likely to be the first year of a gradual transformation of the fierce and often illegal economic and military confrontation between the US, the collective West and the BRICKS into a competition on generally accepted competitive terms. It is quite understandable that the newly emerging world order will be accompanied by a split between the financial and monetary spheres. The global dollar will certainly lose its long-standing status and remain a regional currency, supplemented by a number of new regions that will trade with each other in other currencies. This will put an end to the unjustified and outlawed imposition of economic and political sanctions by the US and its vassals on other countries.

If I had to mention at least the basic trends in this context, I would mention the offer of a new peaceful alternative in the form of equality for all states, respect for their freedom to choose their own development of society, partnership and culture, and guarantees of equal security for all, without distinction. These principles have become an attractive dominant ideological trend that has very quickly gained the respect and interest of many countries around the world. It will certainly not surprise anyone if, in this connection, I highlight in particular the patient work and policy of the Russian Federation, which, together with the People's Republic of China, is becoming the main promoter of the new order in relations between states and peoples.

Africa is considered one of the most important and resource-rich regions, where Britain and France have long reigned supreme. Today, the situation is changing and the old world is losing its influence in African countries. What is the reason for this? How do you assess the policy pursued by European countries in Africa? What are the consequences of this policy for African states? Why are African states distancing themselves from their long-standing ties with Western countries?

The dismantling of the centuries-old Western colonial system was not easy. A significant turning point came after the end of the Second World War and the adoption of the United Nations Charter, which, among other things, established the right of nations to self-determination. The Soviet Union, as the defining, fully sovereign world power of the period, was then the main advocate for the abolition of colonialism. Despite the efforts of colonised states to gain full national independence and shake off the domination of Western states, especially France, Portugal, the Netherlands, Britain and others in their domestic economy, politics and culture, these states, especially African states, failed to completely rid themselves of unwanted foreign domination. The former colonial states, claiming to have invested huge funds in the development of industry in their colonies, led to unfavourable treaties that virtually ensured the continuation of the exploitation of African states by masters in Europe.
With the advent of the new world order represented by the BRICKS, the situation is rapidly changing. The political involvement of African states in this community has led to a new vision of their own African state prospects as truly sovereign and independent equal partners with the rest of the world. In my view, the most serious reason why African states are distancing themselves from their long-standing ties with Western countries is the obvious deceitful and faithful policies of Western neo-colonial powers. The disrespect and undervaluing of African peoples as second-class human beings, the blatant, disproportionate and brutal exploitation of their national wealth at the expense of Africans, the use of terror, epidemics, corruption, extortion, coups, and the fuelling of internal unrest and violence in these states, could not be changed by reasonable agreements. Thus, Africa has rejected Western arrogance once and for all, and the process of its own liberation is proceeding apace.

While Europe is unable to cope with the influx of migrants, one of the problems African leaders talk about is the large exodus of skilled professionals and brainwashing. Is this a mistake by Western politicians or a deliberate destruction of the intellectual potential of the African region?
I am convinced that just as there are deliberately organised flows of illegal immigrants aimed at forcibly populating European countries with mainly uneducated immigrants from Africa and Asia, the luring of skilled workers to better living conditions than they would find in their home countries has a common goal. To prevent the African continent from realising and exploiting its own economic and human potential, which would put it in serious competition with the more advanced western countries of Europe. Here, too, the deep-rooted social and sick superiority of Western civilisation over Third World countries is fully manifest.

What could be the consequences of an African resource base completely out of the control of the West? How will the West deal with the resource shortage? Is there any interest in cooperation with Africa in Slovakia, both on an official level and among individual Slovak entrepreneurs?

If Africa's resource base escapes Western control, we can confidently speak of long-awaited and hard-won justice. It is, after all, unacceptable that France, for example, appropriated some 80 per cent or more of the natural wealth of its colonised territories in Africa and, as if magnanimously, left only a small part of its own national natural wealth for the standard of living and proper functioning of society in African states. The only way forward for the former colonial states of Europe, which have lived large up to now, is to begin to see the reality and adapt their carefree life of wealth at the expense of other nations to their real possibilities. Europe has an undeniably highly educated population, advanced technology in many industries and therefore has every opportunity to offer its former colonies a fair deal. Gradually, this has to happen anyway. Otherwise, African states can be expected to choose other partners. One that will not exploit them and treat them as equals. Although the new conditions and relations will result in a certain decline in the high standard of living in the Western countries, the situation, I believe, will gradually return to a state of mutual respect and beneficial mutual trade.
Slovakia had some trade relations with African countries already in the Middle Ages. Our historians have documented Slovakia's mutual trade and political relations in later periods as well, whether it is, for example, the work of Móric Beňovský in Madagascar, trade with South Africa, Egypt, Kenya, Mozambique, Somalia, Uganda, Ethiopia and other regions and countries on the African continent. I would also mention the well-known world travellers Hanzelka and Zikmund on the African continent and the many successful African students at universities in the former Czechoslovakia, which has also contributed to good mutual relations. Although the current Slovak government is very interested in comprehensive relations with all sides of the world, it must be said that the Slovak Republic is today more involved in humanitarian aid and programmes within the European Union. Therefore, it is not always about independent Slovak politics and trade relations. However, I believe that mutual trade and political relations between the Slovak Republic and African countries have good growth prospects from the current low numbers on both sides.