Analyzing the GOP Convention for References to Africa

We’re hear­ing the rum­blings about jobs, tax cuts, abor­tion, immi­gra­tion, and the like as the 2012 U.S. pres­i­den­tial elec­tions enter full gear.

We’re also hear­ing much talk about ener­gy pol­i­cy, defense, and such things, from Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma as well as from his Repub­li­can (GOP) chal­lenger, for­mer Gov­er­nor Mitt Romney.

As Democ­rats con­vene in Char­lotte, North Car­oli­na for their con­ven­tion, we take a look back at what tran­spired dur­ing the GOP con­ven­tion in Tam­pa, Florida.

In this analy­sis, our inter­est is, of course, Africa.

Africa is an impor­tant for­eign pol­i­cy issue that can­not be ignored in any dis­cus­sion about U.S. pol­i­tics vis-à-vis its for­eign pol­i­cy and super­pow­er sta­tus in the twen­ty-first century.

First, let’s look at where African-Amer­i­cans fit in with­in the con­ven­tion talk.

After the GOP con­ven­tion in Tam­pa con­clud­ed, one thing still echo­ing with­in the media cham­bers is talk that the GOP event was the “least diverse,” accord­ing to Ray­nard Jack­son, a reg­is­tered repub­li­can and polit­i­cal consultant.

Writ­ing in the Wash­ing­ton Post, on August 28, Jack­son cites a recent NBC/Wall Street Jour­nal poll which showed zero per­cent of African-Amer­i­cans show­ing sup­port for the GOP pres­i­den­tial can­di­date, Mitt Romney.

In his arti­cle, Repub­li­can Nation­al Con­ven­tion: Where are the African Amer­i­cans, Jack­son laments: “I am embar­rassed at the lack of diver­si­ty at this con­ven­tion. Have the Repub­li­cans not noticed the demo­graph­ic changes that are tak­ing place in this country?”

On anoth­er note, Alan Green­blatt of George Pub­lic Broad­cast­ing (CPB News) thinks “The GOP’s effort to show an inclu­sive face in Tam­pa has itself trig­gered the par­ti­san argu­ment.” Read more here.

In a Reuters news sto­ry pub­lished on the GOP web­site, Deb­o­rah Charles writes: “Black vot­er turnout could be the swing fac­tor in November”

Rice Missed the Oppor­tu­ni­ty to talk about Progress in Africa 

Dig­ging deep­er into the sub­ject of the GOP con­ven­tion, there was, at best, scant men­tion of a sub­ject increas­ing­ly crit­i­cal for Amer­i­ca’s suc­cess in the twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry, Africa.

Ana­lyz­ing the speech made by Con­doleez­za Rice, the for­mer U.S. Sec­re­tary of State made ref­er­ences to Ugan­da and Zimbabwe.

“It has been hard to muster the resources to sup­port fledg­ling democ­ra­cies and to inter­vene on behalf of the most des­per­ate. The AIDS orphans in Ugan­da, the refugee flee­ing Zim­bab­we, the young woman who has been traf­ficked into the sex trade in South­east Asia,” Rice said.

Part of Rice’s speech also touched on issues about Amer­i­can excep­tion­al­ism, immi­gra­tion, as well as China.

Besides Rice, there were no oth­er high pro­file speech­es with ref­er­ences to the con­ti­nent, not even in the speech­es of Gov­er­nor Rom­ney or Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Paul Ryan

Rom­ney talked tough on Chi­na, Israel, and Rus­sia as follows:

“Pres­i­dent Oba­ma has thrown allies like Israel under the bus, even as he has relaxed sanc­tions on Cas­tro’s Cuba. He aban­doned our friends in Poland by walk­ing away from our mis­sile defense com­mit­ments, but is eager to give Rus­si­a’s Pres­i­dent Putin the flex­i­bil­i­ty he desires, after the elec­tion. Under my admin­is­tra­tion, our friends will see more loy­al­ty, and Mr. Putin will see a lit­tle less flex­i­bil­i­ty and more back­bone. We will hon­or Amer­i­ca’s demo­c­ra­t­ic ideals because a free world is a more peace­ful world. This is the bipar­ti­san for­eign pol­i­cy lega­cy of Tru­man and Rea­gan. And under my pres­i­den­cy we will return to it once again. You might have asked your­self if these last years are real­ly the Amer­i­ca we want, Amer­i­ca won for us by the great­est generation.

Does Amer­i­ca want to bor­row a tril­lion dol­lars from Chi­na? No.”

A speech by Ryan made men­tion of Europe, Greece, and the debt cri­sis, but noth­ing of Africa.

Apart from the con­ven­tion speech­es, the offi­cial GOP con­ven­tion plat­form had plen­ty to say about Africa.

On the issue of human rights, the con­ven­tion plat­form states:

“Reli­gious minori­ties across the Mid­dle East are being dri­ven from their ancient home­lands, fanati­cism leaves its bloody mark on both West and East Africa, and even among America’s West­ern friends and allies, pas­tors and fam­i­lies are penal­ized for their reli­gious con­vic­tions. A Repub­li­can Admin­is­tra­tion will return the advo­ca­cy of reli­gious lib­er­ty to a cen­tral place in our diplomacy.”

On the issue of for­eign aid, cap­tured under the theme, “America’s Gen­eros­i­ty: Inter­na­tion­al Assis­tance that Makes a Dif­fer­ence”, the GOP plat­form strives for lim­it­ing for­eign aid as a way to keep tax­es down, which in turn “frees more resources in the pri­vate and char­i­ta­ble sec­tors, whose giv­ing tends to be more effec­tive and efficient.”

“For­eign aid should serve our nation­al inter­est, an essen­tial part of which is the peace­ful devel­op­ment of less advanced and vul­ner­a­ble soci­eties in crit­i­cal parts of the world,” the plat­form doc­u­ment stat­ed. The GOP plat­form endors­es the efforts of the Mil­len­ni­um Chal­lenge Cor­po­ra­tion (MCC) set­up by the U.S. Con­gress in 2004 with a Mil­len­ni­um Chal­lenge Account (MCA) and respon­si­ble for deliv­er­ing “ smart U.S. for­eign assis­tance by focus­ing on good poli­cies, coun­try own­er­ship, and results.”

On this sub­ject, the plat­form stated:

“U.S. aid should be based on the mod­el of the Mil­len­ni­um Chal­lenge Cor­po­ra­tion, for which for­eign gov­ern­ments must, in effect, com­pete for the dol­lars by show­ing respect for the rule of law, free enter­prise, and mea­sur­able results. In short, aid mon­ey should fol­low pos­i­tive out­comes, not pleas for more cash in the same cor­rupt offi­cial pockets.”

Accord­ing to 2010 sta­tis­tics from the Unit­ed States Agency for Inter­na­tion­al Devel­op­ment (USAID), a major con­trib­u­tor of U.S. assis­tance to for­eign coun­tries, sub-Saha­ran Africa received the largest share of U.S. “eco­nom­ic assistance.”

In 2009, Ethiopi­an-born Daniel Yohannes was nom­i­nat­ed by Pres­i­dent Oba­ma and con­firmed by the U.S. Con­gress as CEO of the MCC.

The GOP plat­form finds fault with the effec­tive­ness of the Oba­ma administration’s approach on the issue of for­eign aid, link­ing it to the admin­is­tra­tion’s “cul­tur­al agen­da”, which impos­es on oth­er coun­tries, and legal­ized abor­tion and homo­sex­u­al­i­ty.  The plat­form states:

“The effec­tive­ness of our for­eign aid has been lim­it­ed by the cul­tur­al agen­da of the cur­rent Admin­is­tra­tion, attempt­ing to impose on for­eign coun­tries, espe­cial­ly the peo­ples of Africa, legal­ized abor­tion and the homo­sex­u­al rights agenda.”

While the man most praised for his efforts in fight­ing HIV and AIDS in Africa, for­mer pres­i­dent George W. Bush, was vis­i­bly absent from the con­ven­tion in Tam­pa, ref­er­ences to the President’s Emer­gency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) which Bush start­ed, is high­light­ed in the GOP platform.

Under the sub­ject of “Advanc­ing Hope and Pros­per­i­ty in Africa”, the plat­form stated:

“ PEPFAR, Pres­i­dent George W. Bush’s Plan for AIDS Relief, is one of the most suc­cess­ful glob­al health pro­grams in his­to­ry. It has saved lit­er­al­ly mil­lions of lives. Along with the Glob­al Fund to fight AIDS, Tuber­cu­lo­sis and Malar­ia, anoth­er ini­tia­tive of Pres­i­dent Bush, it rep­re­sents America’s human­i­tar­i­an com­mit­ment to the peo­ples of Africa, though these are only one aspect of our assis­tance to the nations of that con­ti­nent. From Peace Corps vol­un­teers teach­ing in one-room schools to U.S. Seabees build­ing vil­lage projects, we will con­tin­ue to strength­en the per­son­al and com­mer­cial ties between our coun­try and African nations. We stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with those African coun­tries now under assault by the forces of rad­i­cal Islam and urge oth­er gov­ern­ments through­out the con­ti­nent to rec­og­nize this threat to them as well. We sup­port clos­er coop­er­a­tion in both mil­i­tary and eco­nom­ic mat­ters with those who are under attack by forces which seek our destruction.”

Mean­while, Cologne, Ger­many-based broad­cast­er Deutsche Welle (DW) reports that there is lit­tle enthu­si­asm in Africa about the 2012 U.S. pres­i­den­tial elections.