Bruce Dixon on Rwanda Day in Atlanta
KPFA Evening News, 09.20.2013
In this case African governments have a few million ripped from the hide of their suffering people to spend on PR, y'know. And the Black political class wants a cut of that. -Bruce Dixon
KPFA Evening News Anchor Cameron Jones: The City of Atlanta hosted the fourth international Rwanda Day today, at the Georgia International Convention Center.
Sign held aloft outside Rwanda Day in London, 2012Rwanda Day celebrations were held in Chicago in 2011, Boston and London in 2012, and Toronto in 2013. Rwandan and Congolese exiles and refugees have appeared to protest each time, as they did again today. Rwanda's sizable public relations apparatus bills Rwanda Day as a celebration of Rwandan culture and recovery from the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, and a chance to invest in Rwanda, which means, in large part, investing in Rwanda's illegal trade in the resource riches of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Bruce Dixon, Atlanta resident and Managing Editor of the Black Agenda Report, attended the protest and produced a flyer stating that "Rwanda's Paul Kagame did NOT end a genocide in 1994. He brought the genocide with him and then brought it to Congo." KPFA's Ann Garrison spoke with Bruce Dixon.
KPFA/Ann Garrison: Bruce, I know that Atlanta has one of the highest concentrations of both Black Americans and Black immigrants from African and the Caribbean, and that today's protest was organized by both Friends of the Congo and The Committee for the Unity of Black Immigrants and Americans. Could you talk about how you discussed this with these various African communities who might not know the recent history of Rwanda.
Bruce Dixon: Somebody needs to explain to folks what's going on when you've got a thing here from the government of Rwanda, and why should we be suspicious when the Black Caucus or the mayor opens his doors and invites African dignitaries in, and with supposedly representatives of the do-gooder organizations here in the United States there at the same table. What's really happening here? Is it sweetness and light and acknowledgement of our African heritage? Is that what's going on? Or is there something sinister going on? And how do we explain that? So, this has been an interesting series of lessons and I'm going to try to address some of that in the piece that I'm doing. What are the ties here between our Black political class and the representatives of African states who are here? And what do those ties mean? In this case African governments have a few million ripped from the hide of their suffering people to spend in PR, y'know. And the Black political class wants a cut of that. They wanta do that.
And then of course you've got the examples of people like Jendayi Fraser and Susan Rice, and that whole core. And, I've never heard Susan Rice speak to Black people, but I do know that some of the people in academia who are here at Georgia State University and Emory, they'll go around and mumble words about Pan Africanism, while they try to get a contract with the DRC government, or the Kenyan, or Ugandan or Rwandan government. And then they'll turn around to Black Americans, and the Africans, and mumble some BLEEP! about Pan-Africanism and the good of the motherland and how they're serving all this kind of bull-BLEEP!
KPFA: They're tryiing to get PR contracts?
Bruce Dixon: These are multinational companies here, that are doing business. When the affirmative action thing was up before Congress, and Republicans were marshaling their forces against it, and then what happened was, the Pentagon came forward and lots of Fortune 500 corporations came forward. And the Pentagon says ''Wait wait wait, wait, we need high ranking, well-educated, accomplished Blacks and Latinos to front for what we're doing here, for our long term plans. We can't be an all white military and carry on what we've gotta carry on in Africa.' And the companies said, 'Wait wait wait, wait, there's emerging markets here that we wanta control, and African and Latin American and Asian governments that we gotta deal with. We can't look like we're all white. We can't do that. We gotta have Black faces. And it's important to our long term survival and viability.' This is an empire. Y'know? This is an empire and the empire needs Black faces representing it.
For Pacifica, KPFA and AfrobeatRadio, I'm Ann Garrison.
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