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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to Africa was billed as an
attempt to bring a neglected continent into the international
mainstream. The fact that Clinton’s tour came about three weeks after
President Obama’s trip to Africa was supposed to highlight the
importance that the US attaches to Africa. But behind these explicit
explanations lay two unspoken ones: first, that this was a gesture, or a
favor to Africa on the part of the US; second, that it was a move to
further US interests in Africa. It is not hard to see the potential
problems between the two unspoken explanations, between altruism and
self interest. But the administration decided to package Clinton’s trip
this way because it fit with its own agenda. The Obama administration
seems to have calculated that the altruistic part of the trip would win
it points among Africans, African Americans, white liberals, and appeal
to the humanitarian instincts of the American people; whereas the part
of the trip that has to do with securing access to African oil and
minerals, challenging China’s inroads into Africa, fighting terrorism
and other geopolitical considerations would take care of the concerns of
conservative leaning Americans.
Initially, the two aspects of US foreign policy seemed to work smoothly
together. The Secretary of State went about lecturing Kenyans on
government accountability and good governance while wasting no time in
ensuring that Kenya remains the center of US operations in Africa. The
Kenyans did not seem to mind as long as she danced around the issues
that led to the blood bath between the Kikuyus and Luos. The Kenyans did
not mind either that Clinton used their country to host Sheikh Sharif,
the supposed president of another country, Somalia, because that country
really does not exist as a unified country and is too dangerous for
Clinton to go there. Furthermore, the Sheikh Sharif meeting was an
opportunity to show the Obama administration’s commitment to fight
against terrorism (never mind the fact that Sheikh Sharif only controls
a few blocks of Mogadishu and that most of south-central Somalia is run
by terrorists).
But cracks immediately began to appear in the narrative that Clinton was
trying to peddle. An offer by a Kenyan man to marry Clinton’s daughter
Chelsea for 40 goats and 20 cows that was supposed to provide a
light-hearted moment only highlighted the cultural divide between
Africans and Americans. Then came Bill Clinton’s journey to North Korea
which overshadowed Hillary Clinton’s visit to Africa. The spectacle of
Hillary Clinton having to answer reporters’ questions about her
husband’s trip to Korea rather than her own trip to Africa, made this
abundantly clear. From there on, and despite a few favorable images of
Hillary Clinton holding hands with Africans and sometimes dancing with
them, her trip was in trouble, but up to this point, it may still have
been salvageable. However, her angry response to a mistranslated
question by a student in the Congo sealed the fate of her trip. Here was
America’s top diplomat visibly agitated by a question and showing
psychological insecurity about her status in international diplomacy vis
a vis her husband. It was a sorry sight. Questions about the purpose of
her visit to Africa and her performance increased exponentially. By then
such liberal stalwarts as Dan Rather were talking about “No go Congo”.
Other commentators bemoaned her “interminable trip” to Africa. Her
defenders tried to play up the humanitarian angle, how she is focusing
attention on African issues that normally don’t get much attention in
America, issues like mass rapes in eastern Congo, the AIDS epidemic,
corruption and bad governance. Chris Matthews, a liberal talk show host
and supporter of the Obama administration, tried to create sympathy for
her by emphasizing how she is visiting “unpleasant countries” and
exposing herself to danger in order to reciprocate the goodwill that
ordinary Africans have shown toward the US. It did not work.
So when she made the comments in Nigeria about the American 2000
election which incensed American conservatives, it was all over. The
trip was perceived as a failure. And the main reason it was seen as a
failure was because it did not convey that US interests were being
pursued, instead it often gave the sense of a public relations exercise
gone awry.
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