On July 24, Russia’s overseas minister Sergey Lavrov landed in Cairo, Egypt, at the beginning of a five-day tour of Africa meant to strengthen his nation’s ties with nations on the continent.
He started his four-nation expedition – overlaying Egypt, Ethiopia, Uganda and the Republic of the Congo – by promptly reminding the world that the regime he represents merely can’t inform the reality.
There’s “a typical understanding of the causes of the grain disaster” he claimed at a press convention in Cairo, unashamedly making an attempt in charge Africa’s deepening meals disaster – indisputably triggered by Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine and its Black Sea fleet’s blockade of Ukrainian ports – on “Western sanctions”.
And what he stated in Cairo was not even the primary – and by any measure the worst – lie he advised throughout his go to to Africa.
Simply earlier than departing for Cairo, Lavrov wrote an op-ed to be printed in newspapers in African international locations he was as a consequence of go to claiming Russia has “not stained itself with the bloody crimes of colonialism”. The op-ed blatantly rewriting Russia’s historical past was printed on July 22, simply two days after Lavrov’s personal announcement that Russia has expanded its goals in Ukraine past the jap area of the Donbas and was now in search of to annex even more territory from the embattled nation.
In the identical article, he additionally claimed that Russia “doesn’t impose something on anybody or tells others learn how to reside”, regardless of the Kremlin presently being engaged in a struggle of aggression which is, by its personal admission, geared toward producing regime change in a sovereign state.
The overseas minister additional asserted within the op-ed that “the speculations of Western and Ukrainian propaganda that Russia allegedly ‘exports starvation’ are utterly unfounded”. Mockingly, only a few hours after newspapers containing the article hit newsstands throughout Africa, Russian cruise missiles targeted the Ukrainian port of Odesa – a important gateway for grain exports that assist feed many countries internationally, together with these in Africa. So as to add insult to damage, the assault got here only a day after the signing of a brand new deal to open Black Sea ports.
All through his go to, not one of the African political leaders or civil servants he got here head to head with even tried to problem Lavrov’s lies. Sadly, Africa’s seemingly enthusiastic acceptance of Russia’s “different truths” throughout this go to was not in any approach stunning.
Disinformation and propaganda have lengthy been instruments expertly utilized by Moscow in its geo-economic battle towards the West. Certainly, alongside strategic investments, commerce incentives and profitable power offers, Russia’s capability to assemble narratives that paint the Kremlin (and particularly the present Putin authorities) because the defender of countries towards Western colonial ambitions and aggression gained it numerous allies and supporters internationally for a few years.
And lately, Africa turned one of many important targets of Russia’s post-Chilly Struggle offensive on the reality. Between 2019 and 2022, for instance, Twitter and Fb eliminated Russian disinformation networks that focused Madagascar, the Central African Republic (CAR), Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Sudan, Libya, South Africa, Nigeria, the Gambia and Zimbabwe.
And because the starting of the invasion of Ukraine, Russian efforts to realize favour in Africa via false narratives went on overdrive. In March, for instance, {a photograph} supposedly displaying a younger Putin coaching Mozambican freedom fighters in a Tanzanian navy camp in 1973 conveniently emerged on African social media and generated undeserved reward and pleasure. The picture was additionally posted on Twitter by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s son. After all, the picture isn’t actually from the Nineteen Seventies, and the person presupposed to be Putin isn’t the Russian chief. Nonetheless, it has been efficiently used to justify African help for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
However why are Africans so prone to Russian propaganda?
In response to Dmitry Gorenburg, an affiliate on the Harvard College Davis Heart for Russian and Eurasian Research, Russia has established 10 important narratives that inform its strategic messaging across the world. And for a mess of historic and cultural causes these narratives appear to resonate particularly properly in Africa.
Amongst these, portraying Russia as “a bastion of conventional values”, in distinction to a “decadent” West, for instance, appeals to conservative and homophobic segments of African society that regard sexual liberties promoted and guarded by Western nations as “immoral”.
Russia’s frequent use of “whataboutism”, as defined by Gorenburg, to deflect consideration from its struggle crimes in Ukraine and past additionally play properly with audiences in Africa. It is because an awesome variety of Africans maintain the West, and solely the West, accountable for the wars, conflicts and instability devastating the International South. Many Africans, for instance, view the US-led invasion of Iraq, which reminds them of comparable assaults by the West on their nations as a criminal offense and welcome what they see as Russian efforts to forestall Western whitewashing and counter Western hypocrisy.
One other messaging software Russia makes use of in its struggle of narratives towards the West, specifically calling consideration to the US’s historical past of intervening within the home affairs of sovereign states, additionally resonates properly with Africans who’re nonetheless struggling the outcomes of Washington-instigated or supported coups throughout the continent, or mourning the US-assisted assassinations of their independence heroes, such because the DRC’s founding Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba.
And presenting Russia as a champion of “multipolarity” on this planet additionally sits properly with Africans who had suffered massively below US dominance and are eager for his or her nations to have their voices lastly heard within the worldwide enviornment.
All in all, there are numerous explanation why Africans cherish and help narratives pushed by Russia that underline the West’s historic and present crimes, aggressions and missteps in direction of the remainder of the world.
Nonetheless, nothing can legitimise or justify Africa’s acceptance of Russia – a colonial belligerent in its personal proper that has inflicted and remains to be inflicting incalculable ache on nations inside its instant area and past – as an anti-colonial saviour. Past acknowledging their ethical duty to categorically stand towards Russia’s brutal and illegal assaults on Ukrainians, Syrians and lots of others, Africans additionally want to grasp how dangerous their uncritical acceptance of Russia as a benevolent drive for good could possibly be for the continent.
As its confrontation with the West escalates, Russia is doubling down on its neo-colonial ambitions in Africa. Because it expands its financial and political affect over the continent, there may be little cause to count on it might behave in another way right here than it does in its conventional zone of affect. Simply because it did in Ukraine, Georgia and lots of different nations in its periphery, it won’t chorus from interfering within the home affairs of African nations to additional its pursuits. It’s already closely concerned in home politics in Sudan, CAR, DRC and Mali. Russian paramilitaries, notably from the notorious Wagner Group, are combating in a number of African conflicts. Strengthening ties with Russia, at a time when it’s clearly in want of latest “buddies” to use to feed its struggle effort, wouldn’t be excellent news for Africa.
All this, after all, is to not say solely Russian propaganda poses a menace to Africa. Western propaganda and manipulation have been a serious supply of grievance for a lot of African nations since independence. And the West remains to be working onerous to unfold its false or incomplete narratives on the continent to additional its pursuits to the detriment of Africans – and the reality. For instance, the state-run Voice of America (VOA), supposedly overseen by the “unbiased” United States Company for International Media, has lately been accused of blatant pro-government bias in its protection of Ethiopia’s civil struggle by its personal African journalists.
Africans have each cause and proper to be suspicious of the narratives pushed by the West. However this could not result in the uncritical acceptance of Russian narratives and whitewashing of the Kremlin’s many well-documented atrocities.
It’s time for Africa to be taught to not be manipulated by the West and Russia – for the good thing about Africans themselves, and all the opposite peoples of the world who’ve been affected by both the West or Russia’s neo-colonial ambitions.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
