Bwana Blair's spin in Africa

The self-chosen prophet of the World's self-anointed 'Political God' (paraphrasing President Mugabe's recent blunt remarks at the UN General Assembly) otherwise known as Tony Blair, British Prime Minister, is on a mercy mission to Africa. Yesterday he was in Sudan to add whatever is left of British diplomatic and political pressures and his hugely depleted arsenal of personal influence on the Al Bashir regime to stop killing its own citizens. It is very difficult to know who the Khartoum government really responds to, therefore all kinds of pressure needs to be brought to bear from all corners. Why they would listen to Blair I don't know but it gives good footage for Blair's public at home who have become too suspicious of their Prime Minister.

From Sudan Tony moved on to Addis-Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia and head quarters of the African Union. He is attending a meeting of the Commission that he had set up to advise him on his missionary interest in Africa: Blair Commission for Africa.

It is very unAfrican not to show empathy to a man who had recently been hospitalized (Tony has just undergone a 'minor' heart operation) who cares so much about Africa that he did not put off this meeting even though people would have understood if he did. So I must say Pole, Bwana Blair! Karibu Afrika!

I hope the lights in the various rooms where he would be meeting his African hosts will be brightly lit and he would be putting on the best magnifying lenses that Her Majesty's Health service can provide so that he can distinguish between these Black people in suits! We would not want him to make the same 'mistake' as his hapless Foreign Minister, Jack Straw, who had shaken the hands of President Mugabe at the UN General Assembly apparently without realizing it was him! One would have thought that given the priority the British government had disproportionately given to encouraging 'regime change' in Zimbabwe and demonizing President Mugabe the British Foreign Minister will recognize him, lit room or unlit! Perhaps David Blunket, the British Home Office Secretary and enforcer of tough immigration rules and other authoritarian law and order regulations, is not the only member of the cabinet visually challenged. I am hoping that Mr. Blair, a great believer in spin that he is would have committed to memory the image of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, President Benjamin Mkapa, the ECA Executive Secretary, Dr KY Amoako and other eminent dark people on the Commission that he will be meeting. Maybe they could make it easier for him by wearing nametags!

The Addis meeting is the first the Commission is holding in Africa since Blair set it up. But holding this session in Africa does not detract from the cynicism that has continued to dodge this commission which many believe to be yet another liberal-do-gooder interventionism manufactured in Europe (London, or more precisely NO 10 Downing Street, in this case). Africans did not decide the agenda and terms of reference of the commission. Blair did not bother to ask many Africans if they wanted yet another Commission on the challenges of our development. If analysis, good intentions and promises alone can deliver, every African will be living in paradise. Why did Blair have to set up another Commission when he was one of the G8 leaders who had encouraged Mbeki and Obasanjo and the other so called Group of 5 African states to be running around with NEPAD (KNEEPAD to critics like me) from one G8 meeting to the other. The African leaders are still on their knees while Blair has removed his pad and has now moved on to his own Commission.

The initial cynicism by many was countered by supporters of Blair's missionary activities as too pessimistic and too hypercritical. They also point at the prospect of Britain and Blair (if he is still British Prime Minster) heading both the EU and the G8 next year as providing opportunity to put Africa at the center stage internationally.

I have no doubt that in his own way Blair does care about Africa (after all did he not declare us 'a scar on the conscience of the world' in a famous triumphalist Labour party conference speech a few years ago). It is what that care translates into that worries me. Does he care more for African children and women than he does for those Iraqis that he and his American gangster boss, Bush, are killing everyday in the name of liberation? It should worry us that his tunnel vision of the world is being transplanted on to Africa. This is a man who believes that he is always right and even when he is proven to have lied or be mistaken he (allegedly the most openly religious Prime Minister in modern British politics) is unwilling to say sorry, let alone show remorse and ask for forgiveness. To be fair, many Africans will recognise that 'know all' mentality in many of our own dealers who like to call themselves leaders across this continent.

Therefore even if one is to suspend disbelief for the time being and give the Blair Commission a hearing because it is coming from Blair, the credibility deficit will not go away. Why should Africans and the rest of the world believe in the innate goodness and honest motives of a Prime Minister distrusted by his own party and country? The messenger has become the message.

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa