And in 2011, the US-NATO armed foreign terrorist insurgents in Libya responsible for toppling one of the last economically independent countries in Africa. The Libyan Jamahiriya nationalized oil wealth and provided Libyans with free healthcare, education, and housing. Chairman Muammar Gaddafi was a staunch supporter of African liberation movements. He also supported Palestinian resistance against Zionism and Israeli settler colonialism. For his opposition to US hegemony, Gaddafi was murdered without trial and Libya was bombed to bits. In NATO’s 2011 bombing campaign, an estimated 100,000 Libyans were murdered and 50,000 were reported disappeared. In cities like Sirte, Black Libyans were lynched and driven into exile by racist, Western-backed terrorists. Since the fall of independent Libya, evidence of terrorist elements causing chaos across Northern Africa has become impossible to ignore. Seymour Hersh’s revelation that Libya was a virtual supply station for US-NATO backed terrorists in the campaign to destabilize Syria exposes US imperialism’s role in the proliferation of terrorism in Africa.
US imperialism is the real terrorist for African people and the root of terrorism in Africa. The vision of a liberated and decolonized Africa promoted by Kwame Nkrumah cannot occur if US imperialism is allowed to exist in Africa, but the #BringBackOurGirls campaign appears not to care. The rhetoric emanating from the mainstream, corporate campaign reinforces US imperialism in Africa, which essentially is a continuation of hundreds of years of Western colonialism, white power, and neo-colonialism on the continent. US military intervention finds ideological justification in the Western worldview that claims Africa, and in this case Nigeria, is ungovernable without “aid” from US imperialism. Yet “aid” from US imperialist interests has been happening for years in Nigeria and all that has come from it is more poverty, internal conflict, and land theft. So, while some may tweet #BringBackOurGirls, the movement we really need to build is one that demands US imperialism out of Africa all together.
Danny Haiphong is an activist and case manager in the Greater Boston area. You can contact Danny at: wakeupriseup1990@gmail.com.
Article Appeared @http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/questioning-bringbackourgirls-campaign