While key players of the global South rush to snap up fresh opportunities across the black continent, Arab countries seem asleep at the wheel, writes Gamil Matar* The race over Africa is on again. This time white men are not the main competitors, even if the white man's presence continues to permeate the continent, albeit in many guises: the "war on terrorism" and the hunt for "Al-Qaeda", controlling nuclear power, peacekeeping and preserving stability and promoting democracy. Today, men and women of other hues -- Asiatics from China, Indians and Brazilians, and whites of a different sort, namely Turks -- are flocking to Africa. The first race over the "dark continent" occurred in the closing decades of the 19th century. It was fired by many motives and developments, some of which we do not find in textbooks edited by historians influenced by European versions of the past. Foremost among such factors are the following: - The vast amounts of capital accumulated from the slave trade had to be recycled in new markets and investment activities. - The unification of the German and Italian states into single nation gave rise to a new balance of power in Europe. As this stabilised, regional expansionism inside Europe ground to a halt, but potent reserves of expansionist energies still needed an outlet in order to avert further outbreak of inter-European warfare. - The European exploration drive was also still alive, and this was aided by advances in maritime transportation and, specifically, the invention of steam powered vessels that could navigate African rivers, enabling Europeans to penetrate into areas they had never been before. - Simultaneously, the exploration industry had undergone an important development. Whereas explorers were initially inspired by such quixotic goals as discovering the legendary city of Timbuktu or reaching the source of the River Niger, it was not long before they became the agents of European states and kingdoms, empowered to conclude commercial pacts and register broad swathes of "discovered" lands in the names of European companies and kings and princes. Sir Morton Stanley, who was in the employ of King Leopold II, epitomised the ruthless and brutal explorer. His campaign to claim the Congo for the Belgian monarch set into motion a train of violence and bloodshed that has not stopped since. Stanley set the model for Karl Peters, another German adventurer, and others. - The European encroachment into Africa was also aided by advances in science. Notably, the medical victory over malaria made portions of West Africa, known until then as the "White man's graveyard", much more accessible. As a consequence of the foregoing factors, by the end of the 19th century the whole of Africa had fallen into European hands, with the exception of Ethiopia and Liberia. At the beginning of that century, a mere 10 per cent of the continent had been colonised. The second race over Africa differs from the first one in many respects. For one, this one was not inaugurated by a conference such as that which was held in Berlin in 1884 and 1885 with the purpose of setting the rules and distributing the roles for divvying up Africa, and to establish a more "civilised" model for Germany and Italy's colonialist predecessors, Portugal, Spain, Holland, Britain and France. Another difference, as mentioned above, is that the new competitors are not from Europe. The vast majority of the newcomers are from China to the east and from Brazil to the west, with India, Iran and Turkey (if we discount it as a European country) also engaged in the contest. In other words, for the first time in history the rivals for the wealth and markets of Africa are countries of the South. The significance of this development should not be lost on us. As Brazilian President Lula da Silva put it, his country together with other countries from the South have begun "to realise the dream of the generations who had been subjected to European colonialism, which is to work together to break [their] Western shackles and to found a new global order." The new set of competitors is driven by another declared aim, which is to realise the mutual material interests of both sides. None of them claim or pretend that they are on an evangelical mission, and certainly not one inspired by racist doctrine, such as "white man's burden". Nevertheless, there might be a taint of something similar in the Iranian bid, which mobilised clergymen in Nigeria who studied in Qom and Tehran, such as Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky, and who have begun preaching an extremist version of Shia doctrine in northern Nigeria. More surprising is the fact that Turkey encouraged Fethullah Gèlen, founder of a religious doctrine that bears his own name and that has millions of followers around the world, to establish Turkish schools in Africa, starting in Tanzania. This is not to suggest that there are no points of similarity between the first and second scrambles over Africa. By far the most important similarity is that the movement was most frequently spurred by steady growth in the activities and holdings of transnational corporations based in competing countries. Spearheading the Brazilian drive into Africa are the Petrobras petrochemical firm and the Vale mining company, both among the most powerful international corporations. Turkey's policy in Africa received a tremendous boost when hundreds of Turkey's leading financial figures and more than 1,000 African businessmen and officials met in Istanbul. There followed the first Turkish-African summit in August 2008 attended by representatives from 59 African states. It was the Mumbai-based TATA motors company that set into motion India's "Focus: Africa" programme, leading to a programme of development loans to Mauritius, Kenya and Ethiopia, and to the dispatch of 500 farmers from Andhra Pradesh to Kenya and Uganda under an agreement that would allow them to cultivate land as owners for 99 years at the rate of $3.75 per acre. In all cases, without exception, political leaders in the competing countries played a key role in initiating and supporting an intensification of their relations with Africa. In Iran, Mohamed Khatami and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani inaugurated the process, after which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad assumed the follow-through. In July, Ahmadinejad visited West Africa. The tour marked the Iranian president's third visit to Senegal, whose president has visited Iran six times since 2003. It is not difficult to understand the Iranian interest in West Africa, and especially Niger, one of the foremost sources of uranium in the world. Da Silva visited Africa no less than 11 times in his eight-year term, calling on 25 African nations. As a result of his bold and courageous policy, backed by his personal efforts, the volume of Brazilian-African trade has risen to $25 billion, positioning Brazil as Africa's second largest trading partner after China. Mauricio Càrdenas, director of the Brookings Institution's Latin American Initiative, sees Brazil's African drive as clear proof of the strong relationship that the socialist-oriented Lula has built with the Brazilian business community, and as an indication that the Brazilian-African relationship will continue to grow, even after da Silva leaves office in January. One salient commonality among the 21st century competitors in Africa is their efforts to demonstrate either a shared past in that continent or other types of bonds between their peoples. However, the strengths of their demonstrations vary considerably. Iran has by far the weakest case; it has little to say about a past in Africa, although one imagines that Iranian policy advisors and formulators are still scouring the history books. Turkey has sought to remind Africans that it does have a record of experience in African affairs, the proof of which is that large parts of the continent, from Eritrea, Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Sudan in the east to Libya, Algeria and Tunis in the north, and Niger and Chad to the south of the Sahara, had once been subject to the authority of the Sublime Porte. It may not, however, have been the wisest move for Ankara to bring up that phase of Ottoman history. The Brazilians were much more successful in making a case for their bond with Africa. With 76 million inhabitants of African origin out of a total population of 190 million, Brazil is home to the second largest African population in the world after Nigeria. This demographic reality manifests itself in many facets of Brazilian culture. China, as always, was innovative. At this very moment, a team of Chinese archaeologists is engaged in a search for a Ming-Dynasty ship believed to have sunk off the coast of Kenya during an exploratory mission in 1418. That was 80 years before Vasco da Gama set sail on his famous journey around the Cape of Good Hope, arriving at Mombasa on the Kenyan coast in April 1498, meaning that Chinese trade ships had reached the African coast long before European ships. Chinese officials say that the sunken ship, which was under the command of Admiral Zheng He, who was Muslim, had been on a mission of peace and friendship. Last week, Arab and African leaders met in Sirte. There were no specific economic and commercial programmes or projects put forward for consideration. There were no Arab businessmen or manufacturers on hand. Proceedings concluded with an eloquent statement that has no practical value in terms of the current race for Africa, the huge opportunities for investment, and the increasingly close network of relations that countries of the South are weaving with this continent. The African-Arab summit drew little attention in the Arab world and Africa, and it failed to convince the international media that it merits a prominent place in the press or a significant amount of airtime on satellite television. * The writer is director of the Arab Centre for Development and Futuristic Research.
