America Chooses
The President himself has promised or threatened that "you ain't seen nothing yet" and the whole world can only hold its breath until his 'nothing' is unfurled for public view, during his four years.
The whole world cannot help but take an interest in what the United States of America does because the reverberations are felt in all parts of the world, even in those parts where President Reagan can never quite manage to pronounce the name of the leader or whose position on the globe the President never seems to be sure of.
In much the same way as foreign names and countries seem to befuddle President Reagan, it ought to be said that some of the new trends in American political behaviour amaze the rest of the world, to put it quite mildly.
We understand, for example, that Americans believe that theirs is God's own country and that their way of doing things is the best way, that is only to be expected, everybody else feels that way about his country. But to stretch that to the proposition that everything else that is not American or in the mould of America is evil, is, again to put it mildly, difficult to take.
The whole world cannot live in the United States of America, God's own chosen country though it might be, and the US Immigration Service is currently overworked trying to keep out prospective members. The worrying aspect is that America, which used to be the inspiration for the good in differences, should now want the whole world to be the same.
Some of President Reagan's rhetoric gives the definite impression that everything that is different from what he endorses is wrong and evil. For other world powers like the Soviet Union, such a stance only hardens their determination not to trust the Americans, for the smaller nations which include all the countries of our own sub-region, the reaction ranges from bafflement to impotent rage.
As a Reagan official explained to a group of African journalists, Africa has not been an issue in the American elections. However, now that the elections are over, the repercussions will be felt very much in Africa.
There is the problem of the economic difficulties that face all African countries, the fact that the interest payments on all the debts have quadrupled many times over because of the American deficit and the strength of the US dollar. There is the reality that no African country can get any meaningful and sympathetic hearing from the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank or any of the financial agencies without US help and support. There is the US threat to pull out of UNESCO, which, for all its failings, has been a source of practical help to many African countries and which might not survive the financial difficulties that a US withdrawal will mean.
There is the problem of drought and famine which many African nations face and the fact that if the US had the will, the problem can be solved quickly.
There is the very pressing and long-running problem of Southern Africa and of Namibia in particular. While Africa might not have been an issue and might not be considered as a priority item for the US, there is no question but that the intransigent South African position draws its strength from United States support.
The defeat of apartheid will be that much nearer if the US would match its official rhetoric with practical help. American actions in Southern Africa, however, give the clear impression that the apartheid regime in South Africa would continue to be propped up. The result being that those who would be friends with the US on the African continent are more often than not, left in the very embarrassing situation of seeming to support the friends of Apartheid.
There is also the reality of the history of the various governments in Africa that have openly supported the United States - they have never seen the hand of friendship in their hours of need. Invariably when their soldiers take up arms against them, a few months after they have been guests in the White House, those who overthrow them are back in the White House after an indecent interval, being entertained. It has not been lost on many people that US help only seems to arrive after a few Libyan troops and Soviet advisers have paid a visit to their countries.
Possibly that lesson will be learnt. Whether that will make the US adopt a more realistic attitude towards Africa is another matter altogether, what is true is that it might very well lead to the formation of a US African policy.
In the meantime, Americans have made their choice and no matter how strange it might look to the outside world, we should, and do, congratulate President Reagan on his re-election and wish him all the best in his next four years.
By which time, as the whole world has been told repeatedly, he would be 77 years old, and he is already now at his re-election, the oldest American president.
Strange that America which used to worship youth should now be celebrating their oldest President, and Africa, which used to revere age, should now be engaged in vilifying all its old people and placing its destiny in the hands of its fiery, young and revolutionary people.
The difference, maybe, is that America has chosen and most of Africa has been forced.
