Trump, White American Nationalism and Implications for Africa

[caption id="attachment_55433" align="alignright" width="600"] Ademola Araoye[/caption] By Ademola Araoye With about 70 per cent of male white America voting Donald Trump into the Oval Office last Tuesday, 11/9, October, 11, 2016, white America has repossessed what it had always perceived as its America. They were joined by a considerable number of white women, the 53 per cent of white women, who put aside Trump’s deplorable misogynistic behaviour as well as his lewd remarks concerning women. Hypocritical Christian evangelicals, fuzzy protestants, disoriented fundamentalists and the wide constituency of America’s beleaguered white trash overlooked Trump’s thrice married status as well as his Epicurean values and voted for him. The Ku Klux Klan formally endorsed him. The common denominator bringing this very disparate constituencies together is their white colour and hatred for all non-whites in the United States. The cause common to them was to make America white again. [caption id="attachment_58563" align="alignright" width="640"] Trump[/caption] Earlier attempts to cleanse America of non-whites had failed. In 1816, a group of white Americans founded the American Colonization Society (ACS) to deal with the “problem” of the growing number of free blacks in the United States by removing and resettling them in Africa. President Thomas Jefferson publicly supported the organization’s goals, and President James Madison arranged public funding for the Society. But many abolitionists, both black and white, ultimately rejected the removal of blacks from America and rejected the implied notion that it was impossible for the races to integrate and therefore did not support the idea of an African-American colony in Africa. President Monroe, in whose honor Liberia’a capital is named was a racist who feared blacks would contaminate white through miscegenation. He could not wait to rid America of the black problem. So, last Tuesday, 94 per cent of black women and 68 per cent of Hispanic voters lined behind Hillary Clinton to avert the ascendance of white and Christian nationalism represented by Donald J Trump. That did not suffice to stop the bigoted next POTUS-President of the United States. Today, the instrument of cleansing America of non whites is white American Christian nationalism: an ideology of hate and bigotry underpinned by sick interpretation of the bible. In this, the constellation of forces advancing a coherent white hegemony, would be an improbable force only two decades ago as America’s ascendant liberalism, associated with the North (of USA), steamed toward its crescendo. This gale force of white nationalism has repudiated the consolidation of the evolved post Reconstruction quintessence of the American spirit in the race, color and class blindness of America’s liberty and equality for all. But as noted, there had been tensions all through America’s national life between the illiberal forces, ensconced, just as in South Africa’s Apartheid, in American Christian fundamentalism, and purveyors of America’s humanism coinciding with liberalism located mostly in society, that led to the civil war. Yet, it was this tortured American spirit that propelled the son of a Kenyan father and an American woman to the highest office in the land. America’s nationalism, distinct from white American nationalism, founded on a racist view of the world that privileges white supremacy over all things else, had remained racialized and factionalized early in the founding of the republic and since the end of its civil war up to contemporary times. The USA never healed. Its cancerous sore simmered barely under the skin. It was only inevitable that in time a new champion for the vastly disgruntled white America would emerge. Donald John Trump Snr. is the nightmarish white knight of racial bigotry since Adolf Hitler. It is against this turbulent undercurrents of America’a political life that eight years of a black Presidency left white America angstful and fearful. The paradox is that Obama’s election, representing the apogee of the grinding and turbulent evolution of liberalism in post civil war America, at the same time, elicited the worst banality of the unresolved challenge of what to do with black freedmen of the reconstruction era-the immediate post civil war America. For white America, the legacy of that black impostor, Barrack Obama, including the many progressive strides in legislation and social equity, must be erased. That challenge from the reconstruction era has lingered in the subconscious and remained a subterranean element in the national life of the United States of America since 1865. In 2016, about a century and a half after, the turbulent subterranean has intruded into conscious reality as America’s deceptive and yet not so calm facade has been shattered. This brings to ruins all the mythical reputation of the exceptionalism of the city on the hill. Neo-Nazis, racists, anarchists, fundamentalist, supremacists, Christian religious fundamentalists in a vast coalition of deplorables have distilled into a voice and captured the instrument of the most powerful state in the world. These are all infused in the person of Donald Trump. America is thrown into a perilous future of an inglorious past. The period following the end of the American Civil War, known as the reconstruction, was a time of great pain and endless questions as the nation began rebuilding the United States. It failed to mend its tattered social fabric. Some of the major questions facing the period included on what terms would the Confederacy be allowed back into the Union and what was to be the place of freed blacks in the South? Did Abolition of slavery mean that black men would now enjoy the same status as white men? Reconstruction had the character of a war. The victorious north wanted to abolish the southern way of life, including retention of slavery. Black freedmen were soon to find out that freedom did not necessarily mean equality. To ensure this, three Constitutional amendments were instituted with a view to altering the nature of African-American rights. The Thirteenth Amendment, passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified on December 6, 1865, formally abolished slavery in the United States. The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified on July 9, 1868, and granted citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States,” which included former slaves recently freed. The FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT granted the right to vote to African-American males. Ratification of these amendments became a requirement for defeated Southern states to be readmitted into the Union. Although these measures were positive steps toward racial equality, their enforcement proved extremely difficult. Blacks, including those who had recently been freed, received the right to vote, hold political offices, and become judges and police chiefs. But these rights were implemented only under federal bayonets as some state administrations and governors refused to implement those federal laws. These challenges that have simmered throughout the national process since then have been constructively managed with political correctness in the public sphere and accommodations. The legitimacy of the liberal sentiment was enhanced with defeat of Nazi Germany and fascism post World War II. It was in this context that the emerged hegemon of the post WWII insisted on decolonization that forcefully impacted Africa’s destiny through independence beginning in 1957. Social engineering programs, often in this age championed by the Democratic party administrations including the Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, were introduced, including Affirmative action. The concept of multiculturalism was to bring forth a new American humanity in an increasingly post modern world characterized by post statism, post nationalism, post materialism and post realism. Post modernism did no gain any foothold in the United States. The country held on to the values and mores of an antiquated nationalism of the ancien regime. A sad paradox for the leader of the free post World War II new world. It is important to highlight that, in more recent times, neo-conservative America of George Bush did not buy into the ascendant liberal ideology. The rise of the likes of arch conservative Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld coincided with the emergence into the public sphere of erratic Alaska former Governor Sarah Palin led Tea party. The Tea party was mobilized by Christian religious extremism. It is thus no surprise that 81 per cent of White, Born Again, Evengelical Christians voted Donald Trump. Mormons are the most heavily Republican-leaning religious group in the U.S., while a pair of major historically black Protestant denominations – the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church and the National Baptist Convention – are two of the most reliably Democratic groups, according to Pew Research Center. The thrice married Trump’s 65-percentage-point margin of victory among voters in this group – which includes self-described Protestants, as well as Catholics, Mormons and others – revealed the hypocrisy of the fundamentalist Christianity of white groups who have mostly only recently reluctantly acknowledged the full humanity of blacks. Sarah Palin’s Tea party was thought to be full of fringe elements with its core in the bible belt of the South. Religious fundaments such as the Mormons of Utah linked up with racists of the South who had in recent times been on the back foot defending the still potent residue of American southern way of life in the retention of the confederate flag in public places in the old South. The public activities of racist establishments such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) have been accentuated since Obama’s victory. In fact, they formally endorsed Donald Trump, who has metaphorically adorned the white gown and emerged as their voice. White America is thus poised to institute Jim Crowe 202. These developments have unfolded in the era of globalization: a process that has assaulted the concept of the national economy and undermined the co-terminus of state boundaries and with the national economy. Globalization has meant the movement of finance and labour across boundaries. It has implied outsourcing of production by American companies to labour cheap third world countries where less protective labour laws have enhanced profits. On the other hand, it has meant the importation of cheap labour to Agricultural states of California and Texas. American elites have run their homes with the help of underpaid illegal immigrants from south of the borders. American barons of capital smiled to their banks as they cheated Uncle Sam through evasion in tax havens and expert dodging of taxes for which Donald Trump had become a poster image. The vast constituency of untrained white America found their scapegoats in Hispanic immigrants working lowly jobs that white trash would not consider. In these circumstances, the emergence of an Obama was only a part of the nightmare for white America. Accordingly, denouncing the legitimacy of Obama’s Americaness was Trump’s entry point into the national political process. This is especially so as Obama has sought to change the fundamentals of production away from fossil fuel and more importantly radically shifted the paradigm of state engagement with the citizenry. He called for a more humane American face in its interaction with the world. He entered into trade agreements with America’s neighbours to the north and south. Not quite a globalist, he moderated reforms that threatened the notion of a white hegemonic United States. In foreign policy he even accommodated France, after the nasty disagreements under the Bush administration. [caption id="attachment_50747" align="alignright" width="600"] Buhari[/caption] [caption id="attachment_46367" align="alignright" width="400"] Jacob Zuma: survives no confidence vote [/caption] Domestically, Obama’s election to office and his administration policy of inclusive America had shattered crucial canticles of limited equity of blacks and minorities embedded in a still hegemonic White Anglo Saxon Protestant America (WASP) mindset. The original WASP of white America reluctantly eventually accommodated southern Europeans, like the Irish, Italian, Greeks, Portuguese etc in limited integration as they were considered inferior. Blacks were perceived sub human. Blacks were perceived as sub human. Thrown out of its elements with threatening transformations, White America has profound angst. What we see in the election of Donald Trump is the Whitelash against the ascendance of the perceived inferior Other. The situation of white America has been rendered more complex by demographic changes, mainly of the Hispanic, threatening the population structure of the United States, especially the domination white America. Estimates of the United states population at the middle of the 21st century vary, from the U.N.’s 404 million to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 422 to 458 million. The Pew Research Center highlights that Americans are more racially and ethnically diverse than in the past, and the U.S. is projected to be even more diverse in the coming decades. The center continues that by 2055, the U.S. will not have a single racial or ethnic majority. Much of this change has been (and will be) is thought to be driven by immigration. Nearly 59 million immigrants have arrived in the U.S. in the past 50 years, mostly from Latin America and Asia. Today, a near-record 14% of the country’s population is foreign born compared with just 5% in 1965. Over the next five decades, the majority of U.S. population growth is projected to be linked to new Asian and Hispanic immigration. The latter consideration comes in the context of perceived white fears of Mexico’s long term threats to repossess territories that had been forcibly acquired by the United States. In 1848, Mexico ceded to the United States areas consisting of present-day U.S. states of California, Nevada, Utah, most of Arizona, about half of New Mexico, about a quarter of Colorado, and a small section of Wyoming. Under the terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, which was signed in Mexico City on February 2, 1848, Mexico ceded to the United States approximately 525,000 square miles (55% of its prewar territory) in exchange for a $15 million lump sum payment, and the assumption by the U.S. Government of up to $3.25 million worth of debts owed by Mexico to U.S. citizens. Here again, the challenge of the full humanity of blacks surfaced. The defeat of Mexico had another significant outcome. On August 8, 1846, Congressman’s David Wilmot rider to an appropriations bill stipulating that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist” in any territory acquired by the United States in the war against Mexico was blocked by Southern senators. Africa must begin to instigate processes that should in the medium to long term lead to the consolidation of the fictive sovereignties of its 56 mostly rag flag states into ideally one continental state that would be taken seriously by the world. Meanwhile, all African states should liberalize their citizenship to accommodate all blacks from anywhere in the world. Meanwhile, Nigeria and South Africa, working together with a few progressive states, should establish a Concert of Progressive of African States, whose membership should be strictly based on very high and ethical parameters of the public spheres of these countries. The defeat of the Wilmot proviso elicited a political firestorm. The question of whether slavery could expand throughout the United States continued to fester until the defeat of the Confederacy in 1865. These historical factors, the unresolved challenges to the full humanity of blacks and suspicions of Mexico’s intention around its territories annexed by the United States in 1848, provided an enabling psychological environment for mass white nationalism and bigotry. These white fears put in the White House an unapologetic white nationalist with an unvarnished fervour in its rejection of the liberalism of post World War years. Meanwhile, the emergence of Africa, the construction of its many unviable rag flag pretend sovereign states system and its subservient locus as mainly dependencies of hegemonic forces has been the outcome of the liberal post war dispensation that arose out of the ashes of Nazism and fascism. Internally the United States never resolved fundamental challenges of the status of the negro freedmen. It thus accommodated lingering sentiments round the continued belief in the inferiority of the black. However, despite its internal contradictions, the logic of the defeat of the Nazism and fascism meant America, as the leader of the so called free world, had to encourage the dismantling of old empires founded on the perceived inferiority of black humanity. It challenged the fundamental assumptions of mission civilatrise and the acculturation of inferior peoples. This transformation in the dominant official sentiment of the post World War II hegemon, the United States, played a large part in the granting of flag independence to the 56 African unviable states. [caption id="attachment_55433" align="alignright" width="600"] Ademola Araoye[/caption] Africa’s flag independence process was thus more driven by the strategic landscape of post World War II and the dominant anti colonial policy of the United States than the rambunctious nationalist rabble rousing of local heroes, who largely turned out to mere opportunists who have largely taken Africans for a ride. Unfortunately for Africa, sixty years after, the politics unleashed by Trump’s campaign is here to stay and his ascent to power locates the United States at the front of a global right-wing surge. The global pendulum wing to the right has caught Africa, dominated by unending line of egomaniacs with visions of self and family glory, with its pants down. Africa has been led by mostly controversial and kleptomaniac characters leading dubious political entities that have failed in their pretentious claims to statehood. These states have survived mainly as dependencies and only at the grudging extensions of hands outs from the stolen loot of African looders (looting leaders) from liberal Europe. African states, its states system and undiscerning society are thus not primed to face the challenges of a right wing Euro-America. In the face of tectonic shifts in political orientations, Africa is vulnerable as presently constructed and led. The failure of the 56 mostly African rag flag states has rendered Africa prostrate and largely unprepared for the terrifying realities of the ascendancy of white nationalism in the United States of America and the rolling back of liberal sentiments in Europe. The construction of the social spaces, in particular the acquired religious orientations of Africa, poses existential challenges, given the disturbing realities set in motion by the rise of Trumpism and Islamic militancy with our contemporary day and times. Already, Africa, including Nigeria, has suffered from the ascendance of radical Islam. The so-called fundamentalist Christianity, along the lines of which most African charismatic spiritual money mongers are modeled, are the same forces advancing the inferiority of black humanity. So Africa is in double jeopardy in the systemic clashes of hegemonic faiths. It is also potentially in jeopardy with the rise of white extremism in the political and social realms. At the political level, Africa must radically alter itself structurally by consolidating its weak systems to build a modicum of collective capacity to confront the evolved danger. Africa must assert its autonomous character and its distinctive being from both the destructive claims of Arabo-Islamic and Christian hypocritical affinities with black Africa. This would be integral to the holistic emancipation of the people of Africa. Africa must begin to instigate processes that should in the medium to long term lead to the consolidation of the fictive sovereignties of its 56 mostly rag flag states into ideally one continental state that would be taken seriously by the world. Meanwhile, all African states should liberalize their citizenship to accommodate all blacks from anywhere in the world. Meanwhile, Nigeria and South Africa, working together with a few progressive states, should establish a Concert of Progressive of African States, whose membership should be strictly based on very high and ethical parameters of the public spheres of these countries. In the immediate term, Nigeria and South Africa should create credible joint platform constituted not by the usual political jugglers and bureaucratic jobbers but serious African and black analysts from all over the world to engage more closely in developing common interpretations of global developments. Global pan-Africanist black platforms should proliferate to provide legal and political direction. These analyses, including the outcomes of the investigation of non Governmental think tanks should provide critical inputs into comprehensive policy templates to guide Africa’s navigations of this new uncharted terrain. The two countries must at all costs avoid the temptation to go it alone in the name of their largely fictive sovereignties. The evolved situation calls for a solid front from a more serious Africa. In fact, one would expect that Abuja and Pretoria would have by now undertaken tentative preliminary assessment of the evolved post Obama situation. It is expected that by now they would have set their policy advisors, in direct contacts with South Africa, to work on developing a common template to confront this millennial challenge. African civil societies, including Think Tanks endowed and funded by black individuals of means in and out of the continent, and corporate African institutions and foundations, should be established. These bodies with an explicit mandate to advance the cause of black humanity would establish close linkages with black and progressive Afrocentric bodies at home and in the Diaspora with a view to developing concrete platforms to engage and articulate policies on the way forward for African states and societies to counteract the activities of anti black movements both in the Diaspora and in Africa. For example, an enlightened appreciation of the historical role of the Church of Latter Day Saints, the Mormons, in dehumanizing black humanity should have ruled it out from Africa. Yet, there are African Mormons! Talk of an anti Semitic organization with a branch in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. The evolved situation calls for a solid front from a more serious Africa. In fact, one would expect that Abuja and Pretoria would have by now undertaken tentative preliminary assessment of the evolved post Obama situation. It is expected that by now they would have set their policy advisors, in direct contacts with South Africa, to work on developing a common template to confront this millennial challenge. The role of an African media is primary in this struggle. A pan African newspaper with continent wide coverage and circulation is imperative. An African Al Jazeera or CNN is an inevitable institution in meeting the challenges of the black humanity of our age. Its first task would be to disabuse black humanity of its sense of the inferiority of his comprehensive being: his understanding of the cosmos and the re-appropriation of his worth. The African does not need the hyped validation of any foreign god to live and prosper. Self repudiation, a pervasive virus in Africans, is the single most debilitating impediment to the holistic emancipation of black humanity every where. It is this our alienation from our true selves that is fueling the feelings of superiority of the all the external global Others, Europe, Asia, over Africans. Perhaps though, as Christian nationalism is a euphemism for Apartheid, the question arises as to the locus of black humanity in the warped Christian Cathedral. As John Mattison notes, all the key theoreticians of racial separateness are agreed that by suddenly breaking up people into language groups, God revealed his will that people should live in separate cultural-ethnic units. Ultimately, that is the foundational biblical theology of Trumism. With its travails in the encounters with the hegemonic Other, Africa should be the first to sniff the danger in the polluted air of humankind! Ademola Araoye is a former Nigerian diplomat and a retired official of the United Nations. Currently a Visiting Professor associated with the SARCHi chair on African Diplomacy and International Relations at the University of Johannesburg, Araoye is author of critically acclaimed books including Cote d’Ivoire: The Conundrum of a Still Wretched of the Earth and Sources of Conflict in the Post-Colonial African State. He is a regular contributor to TheNEWS magazine