Kamala Harris in Africa
Kamala Harris in Africa
The Corsair On Kamala Harris's Soft Power in Africa
At the risk of overthinking and overwriting about the Vice President’s African diplomatic outreach mission, I’ll do one more — and final — piece on the subject. I quite frankly find Kamala Harris as the administration’s emissary of soft power on the Continent to be too delicious to ignore. Vice President Kamala Harris and the Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff spent the first day of her weeklong mini-tour of the Continent in Ghana. In the capital she met with President Akufo-Addo and attended a banquet in her honor in at the Presidential Palace, suffused with effervescent American luminaries in education and culture that travelled overseas to join Ghanaian administrators. “In addition to officials from both countries, American celebrities, businesspeople and civil rights leaders also attended,” writes The Publics Radio blog. “Guests included actors Idris Elba and Rosario Dawson and director Spike Lee.” Also in attendance were HBCU presidents of Morgan State University, Howard University and Clark Atlanta University. The Vice President is, of course, the graduate of an historically black college and university. What, pray tell, is the meaning of all this swishy partying?
Naught else but Soft Power, dear reader.
And what exactly is “Soft Power”? Coined by political scientist Joseph Nye in the 80s, soft power refers to the ability of a nation-state to attract and persuade others to its cause, which might be why the Vice President went to Akra, Ghana with an elegant dress and cape by Monique Lhuillier and a constellation of stars. The website SoftPower30 gives us a smart, all purpose definition of the term, contrasted against hard power:
Power in international relations has traditionally been defined and assessed in easily quantifiable ‘hard’ terms, often understood in the context of military and economic might. Hard power is deployed in the form of coercion: using force, the threat of force, economic sanctions, or inducements of payment. In contrast to the coercive nature of hard power, soft power describes the use of positive attraction and persuasion to achieve foreign policy objectives. Soft power shuns the traditional foreign policy tools of carrot and stick, seeking instead to achieve influence by building networks, communicating compelling narratives, establishing international rules, and drawing on the resources that make a country naturally attractive to the world.
Gone are the days of the hard power of “White Mischief” — of a CIA run amuck among the colored, backwards natives. In the 1970s, when the non-Hispanic white population of America was over 80 percent, the “stick” approach seemed copacetic — or at least received little blowback from Establishment media of the day. CIA whistleblower Phillip Agee was considered to be an unmitigated traitor to all but the farthest left fringes. Further, it was in the late 20th century not politically incorrect to describe African and Latin American countries as “banana republics.” (see below)
The demographic pendulum swings, however. To wit: Africa today is also the youngest continent on the globe. In over 40 African countries, over 50% of the population is under 20, according to UN World Population Prospects. American demographics have similarly changed since the days of “White Mischief.” White Americans still constitute a majority, but only 61.6% of the population, according to the 2020 United States Census. African-American and non-white Latino populations have also increased significantly since the 70s, contributing to the changing public perception of the Continent and how to treat its populace.
There is also the geopolitics of the present under consideration. China and Russia — our biggest geopolitical competitors — are not tainted with colonialism or neocolonialism like the United States and Europe are. China, particularly, has been hugely influential in the last decade, with its popular Belt and Road Initiative, which has made important infrastructure investments in the Third World, without asking for democratic concessions on issues like human rights. But even that is changing, slowly. "While China has maintained a substantial presence on the continent for over two decades, the growing interest of Western powers in Africa could impact China's (Bridge and Road Initiative) strategy," Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief economist for Asia-Pacific at French investment bank Natixis, told Nikkei Asia.
Enter: Vice President Kamala Harris, 2023.
This is why Ghana, Tanzania and Zambia — the three stops of the Vice President’s Africa tour — are getting the carrot and not the stick treatment of the 70s and the Reagan, pro-Pretoria 80s. And so, here we are, on Tuesday, Day 2; Vice President Harris, the first African-American woman Vice President of the United States, gave a speech at the Black Stone Gate, which commemorates Ghana’s independence from colonialism, saying, according to the Stamford Advocate:
“We must invest in the African ingenuity and creativity, which will unlock incredible economic growth and opportunities,” Harris said, highlighting the continent's innovations to deliver emergency healthcare supplies and provide vaccines, and in farming and mineral processing.
The U.S. must be guided “not by what we can do for our African partners, but we can do with our African partners.”
Why is Ghana important to United States interests? Chris Megerian explains in the AP:
A country of 34 million people that’s slightly smaller than Oregon, Ghana is also wary of threats from instability in the region. Burkina Faso and Mali have each endured two coups in recent years, and local offshoots of al-Qaida and the Islamic State group operate in the area known as the Sahel, which is north of Ghana. Thousands of people have been killed and millions more have been displaced.
The fighting has created an opening for the Russian mercenary outfit known as Wagner, which maintains a presence in Africa despite participating in the invasion of Ukraine as well. Mali welcomed Wagner after it pushed out French troops that were based there, and there are fears that Burkina Faso will do the same.
Ghana, of course, is worried. How could they not be? As one of the most stable countries on the Continent, the appearance of bellicose Russian mercenaries at one’s doorstep is naturally unnerving — even existentially so. It was in December that President Akufo-Addo accused neighboring Burkina Faso of hiring Wagner group mercenaries with mine revenue as payment. That surprise announcement caused seismic waves in the staid diplomatic waters in central Africa.
We won’t entertain the possibility — cough, cough — that this was perhaps the reason why Vice President Harris chose Ghana as one of her three destinations. (Averted Gaze)
The Vice President is perhaps the perfect emissary of American soft power on the African Continent. And her soft power projection — of feminism, of historically black universities looking to accept African exchange students, of celebrities of color and business leaders in retinue — is formidable. Russian and Chinese universities, by contrast, can offer extensive experiences in mind-blowing racism to African exchange students. Charmed, I’m sure …
It was nothing short of brilliant of the Vice President’s office to provide the contrast in education initiatives between America’s historically black colleges and China’s and Russia’s unwelcoming ““experiences.” This is, I imagine, a particularly acute contrast when presented to a Continent where the median age is around 20.
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