Democrats and Republicans Promise to Work with African continent

The Repub­li­can (GOP) and Demo­c­ra­t­ic nation­al polit­i­cal con­ven­tions were inter­est­ing. Of equal inter­est was the near absence of any­thing African in them.

More broadly—while the con­ven­tions illu­mi­nat­ed the vast dif­fer­ences between Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans in Amer­i­ca, at least with an unusu­al nom­i­nee on the GOP side, they spelled out where both par­ties would like to take the coun­try when it comes to domes­tic and for­eign pol­i­cy matters.

I have been par­tic­u­lar­ly curi­ous to find anything–the con­no­ta­tions, sub­tleties, cor­re­la­tions, anec­dotes, par­al­lels, and ref­er­ences to the African con­ti­nent, while the two dom­i­nant polit­i­cal par­ties in Amer­i­ca held their big nom­i­nat­ing conventions.

The pur­pose of these con­ven­tions is to select or con­firm the per­son to lead each par­ty into the Novem­ber election.

Now that the pri­maries and con­ven­tions are over and as we head into the Novem­ber elec­tion, what can we infer from what was said or not said by par­ty affiliates?

As I sat on my porch, far from the crowd, tak­ing in the con­ven­tion via radio, tele­vi­sion, and print, a few things con­tin­ued to ignite my curios­i­ty. Let’s begin with the Republicans.

With elec­tion 2016, it’s been easy to bash Repub­li­cans, because, as I’ve found out, every­one is doing it. I hear it is because of GOP stan­dard-bear­er, Don­ald Trump. Trump has been a light­ning rod on the cam­paign trail, anger­ing many peo­ple. Even Repub­li­can faith­ful have refused to endorse or sup­port him.

But I won’t focus on that in this post.

What I am con­cerned to find is what was in the speech­es and dis­cus­sions made by GOP faith­ful in Cleve­land, Ohio to con­nect to the African con­ti­nent and the world out­side of America.

In his accep­tance speech that con­tained more than 4,000 words and went on for more than an hour, Trump said every­thing he thought was wrong with Amer­i­ca, with sev­er­al men­tions of Libya and Egypt. He ref­er­enced “rad­i­cal Islam” and the ques­tion of fight­ing ter­ror­ism at home and abroad. This is some­thing that, as Trump says, under­pins his for­eign policy.

“Amer­i­ca is far less safe—and the world is far less stable—than when Oba­ma made the deci­sion to put Hillary Clin­ton in charge of America’s for­eign pol­i­cy. I am cer­tain it is a deci­sion he tru­ly regrets,” Trump said. “Her bad instincts and her bad judgment—something point­ed out by Bernie Sanders—are what caused so many of the dis­as­ters unfold­ing today.”

For the most part, Trump talked about the “sav­age killers,” ISIS, the chal­lenges the U.S. is con­front­ed with with­in the Mid­dle East, as well as what he described as “pover­ty and vio­lence at home, war and destruc­tion abroad.”  The GOP can­di­date, in oth­er state­ments, sig­naled he would dis­en­gage from the world, includ­ing pos­si­bly mak­ing alter­ations to U.S. com­mit­ments in the North Atlantic Treaty Orga­ni­za­tion (NATO).

To some ana­lysts, the Trump speech was “dark” and full of pes­simism. The Econ­o­mist mag­a­zine said it was “a dan­ger­ous­ly good speech.”

The sub­stance of his remarks was not very sur­pris­ing though. As I not­ed ear­li­er dur­ing the pri­maries, the GOP ignored the rest of the world, includ­ing the African con­ti­nent, in this election.

The Trump web­site is lack­ing infor­ma­tion per­tain­ing to glob­al part­ner­ships. The offi­cial Repub­li­can plat­form, the par­ty’s posi­tion on many of the sub­jects dis­cussed at the con­ven­tion, shows a marked improve­ment from our ear­li­er analysis.

With spe­cif­ic ref­er­ence to the African con­ti­nent, the plat­form says, “Both the Unit­ed States and our many African allies will become stronger through invest­ment, trade, and pro­mo­tion of the demo­c­ra­t­ic and free mar­ket prin­ci­ples that have brought pros­per­i­ty around the world. We pledge to be the best part­ner of all African nations in their pur­suit of eco­nom­ic free­dom and human rights.”

“The Repub­li­can Con­gress has extend­ed to 2025 the African Growth and Oppor­tu­ni­ty Act, and Pres­i­dent George W. Bush’s health ini­tia­tives — AIDS relief under PEPFAR and the Glob­al Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuber­cu­lo­sis, and Malar­ia — con­tin­ue to save mil­lions of lives.”

Before the con­ven­tion, there was a lack of any sub­stan­tive GOP pol­i­cy posi­tions, vis-à-vis what I’ve called the “rest of the world.” The rest of the world includes devel­op­ing coun­tries in the Asia-Pacif­ic region, Latin Amer­i­ca, and the African continent.

It’s true the U.S. is the world’s only super­pow­er with enor­mous influ­ence. Yet, we live in a world that is inter­con­nect­ed, where we are each oth­ers’ keep­ers. In oth­er words, Amer­i­ca alone does not make the world go around and Amer­i­ca alone can­not solve all of the world’s problems.

On the Demo­c­ra­t­ic side, I stat­ed ear­li­er that the Democ­rats edged out the GOP on mat­ters of glob­al part­ner­ships based on our own look at this issue. We see this in the dis­cus­sion of a broad­er U.S. for­eign pol­i­cy that takes into account a glob­al­ized world, that prob­lems abroad affect the Unit­ed States in fun­da­men­tal ways.

The sub­ject of AIDS is an exam­ple and we heard a lot of ref­er­ences to HIV/AIDS in the speech­es deliv­ered by lead­ers and activists at the Demo­c­ra­t­ic con­ven­tion in Philadel­phia, PA.

In the area of U.S. glob­al lead­er­ship the 2016 Demo­c­ra­t­ic Plat­form, a set of prin­ci­ples and pol­i­cy posi­tions the par­ty stands for, states what Democ­rats will do on issues of AIDS and refugees. Addi­tion­al­ly, the plat­form states how it plans to engage with the African continent.

“We will engage our African part­ners on the full range of glob­al chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties, and we will con­tin­ue to strength­en demo­c­ra­t­ic insti­tu­tions and human rights, fair trade and invest­ment, devel­op­ment, and glob­al health,” the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Plat­form par­ty Com­mit­tee said.

In her open­ing remarks, Hillary Clin­ton, the Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­nee, quick­ly charged that Trump want­ed to divide America.

“He wants to divide us; from the rest of the world and from each oth­er,” Clin­ton said.

Speak­ing about America’s ene­mies and with an indi­rect ref­er­ence to ear­li­er state­ments from Trump about NATO, Clin­ton stat­ed: “I’m proud to stand by our allies in NATO against any threat they face, includ­ing from Russia.”

Now that we have heard and read some­thing, scat­ter­shot as they are, about where each par­ty would like to go on these mat­ters, isn’t it time that we actu­al­ly push for some­thing to hap­pen come Jan­u­ary 2017?

For some­thing to hap­pen requires action. What would Trump or Clin­ton do about the reduc­tions in the glob­al fund­ing for HIV/AIDS that have hap­pened in recent years, for exam­ple?  More than this, it’s impor­tant for those who are con­cerned, whether Repub­li­can or Demo­c­rat, to vote in this elec­tion to make their voice heard.