By Profssor Artwell Nhemachena
WHEN Western media blamed the Russia-Ukraine war for food shortages in Africa, that reminded me of the same Western media’s campaign against land redistribution in Zimbabwe when they touted descendants of colonialists as indispensable for African food security.
The Western media depicted the descendants of colonialists who still held African land as efficient and indispensable to African food security, but there is an irony here.
If the descendants of colonialists who still hold African land are that efficient and, therefore, indispensable to African food security, the question is why is African food security still affected by what is happening in Ukraine?
In other words, if descendants of colonialists are efficient and if they justify their retention of African land in terms of their supposed efficiency, then why are they not efficient enough to provide Africa food security in spite of the war in Ukraine?
If Africans have efficient farmers in the form of descendants of colonialists who always justify their retention of African land in terms of their efficiency at farming, then why is Africa still suffering food insecurity?
The ongoing Russia-Ukraine war has exposed the lie of the West and the lie that descendants of colonialists are efficient and indispensable farmers who should retain African land.
If Africa so much depends on food from Ukraine, as is supposed by Western media which uses such reports to pillory Russia, then where are the supposedly efficient descendants of colonialists who are keeping African land?
The discourses about the supposed efficiency and indispensability of descendants of colonialists in Africa’s food security were simply techniques used by the West to forestall African reclamation of their land.
If the descendants of colonialists are really efficient and indispensable, then Africa should be a breadbasket and food exporter in spite of the war in Ukraine.
Why is Africa not a breadbasket and food exporter when it possesses efficient and indispensable farmers in the form of descendants of colonialists who retain African land?
It is time African leaders stopped parroting Western propaganda that the food insecurity in Africa results from the war in Ukraine.
The truth is that the food insecurity in Africa is a result of the inefficiency of the descendants of colonialists who still retain African land.
The falsehoods that European farmers are efficient, indispensable and unbeatable are similar to pretensions that Europeans were indomitable which were debunked when Africans saw Europeans killed and dying in the First and Second World Wars.
The problem is that we have some uncritical African leaders who parrot Western ideologies that the food shortages that Africans are experiencing result from the war in Ukraine. They fail to see that the food shortages in Africa result from the inefficiency of the descendants of colonialists who still hold onto African land.
If, as if often claimed by uncritical thinkers, including some Africans, Zimbabwe collapsed from being a breadbasket to being a basket case because of land redistribution, the question is why are all the other African countries which have not embarked on land redistribution become basket cases on a continent that takes pride in the supposed efficiency and indispensability of descendants of colonialists?
The gullibility of those Africans who uncritically believe that food shortages on the continent result from the war in Ukraine is ample evidence that African higher education institutions are not sufficiently sanitising African minds.
Western ideologies, including lies, are sadly peddled as knowledge and truths in Africa. And many have the temerity to regurgitate them, ad nauseum, to pandemic levels.
Africa needs critical thinkers capable of distinguishing truth from lies.
