[audio:http://www.wdde.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/TheGreen_07112014_EnlightenMe_UDAfrica.mp3|titles= Delaware Public Media's Tom Byrne interviews Young African Leaders Initiative fellows Keke Haina and Neo Musangi .]
Catherine Anite advocates for freedom of expression on behalf of muzzled journalists in her native Uganda, and now has a new commitment to freedom of the press, thanks to a six-week program at the University of Delaware.
Anite, 29, said she will return home to renew her fight to introduce a bill in the parliament of her East African country that would make it easier for reporters to cover corruption and other politically sensitive subjects without fearing for their jobs or their personal safety.
After sharing experiences with 24 other young civic leaders from Africa in the UD program, Anite said she is energized by the knowledge that many are dealing with more repressive regimes that impose even greater restrictions on press freedom than exist in Uganda.
By comparison with some other African countries, Uganda is in fact “fairly democratic,” she said.
The participants, from 17 African countries, came to UD as part of the national Young African Leaders Initiative. For the first time, this event brought 500 activists, aged 25-35, from across the continent to 20 U.S. universities to engage in a program of academics, leadership skills training, community service and cultural immersion.
The aim of the program, launched by President Obama in 2010, is to enhance democratic governance, promote peace and security across Africa, and build economic growth by working with participants who are judged to have the best chance of creating U.S.-style institutions in their own countries. Some 50,000 people applied for a place, officials said.
UD’s program, which ends on July 26, focuses on civic leadership, while other U.S. colleges train participants in business and entrepreneurship or management of public institutions.
The Delaware program included visits to local institutions including Dover’s Legislative Hall, where participants met with Gov. Jack Markell, and Philadelphia’s National Constitution Center, where they got a lesson in the history of U.S. civics. In Wilmington, they visited the city’s Renaissance Corp., an economic development nonprofit organization, to learn about fundraising strategies for urban renewal.
Training also examines the role of media, especially social media, in the work of civic organizations, and looks at ways of ensuring personal safety when working for civic goals that oppose those of government.
The UD participants include an economist with the central bank of Zimbabwe who advocates for people with disabilities; a Congolese journalist who founded a non-governmental organization to support orphans and victims of sexual violence, and a development specialist for child-focused agencies in Zambia.
Colin Miller, director of the UD program, said the program “internationalizes the campus further, and creates opportunities for additional engagement. It’s about the exchange of ideas.”
As part of its community-engagement program, the group visited Wilmington, where it discovered similarities with some African cities in terms of the challenges of poverty, Miller said.
Delaware Senator Chris Coons, chairman of the Senate’s Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs, and a leading promoter of U.S. ties with Africa, said the program also aims to promote U.S. business with the continent.
While news headlines about Africa are often dominated by wars, famines, or environmental disasters, the continent represents an often-ignored opportunity for American businesses, including those in Delaware, Coons said in a speech to participants.
He said seven out of the top ten fastest-growing economies in the world over the last decade have been African.
“We’re trying to help Delaware recognize the enormous opportunity in Africa,” Coons said.
He said the presence of the young leaders in Delaware and beyond should help the U.S. transform its relationship with Africa from one of providing aid and relief to one of trade and development.
“It can help grow American companies, it can help grow American jobs, if we renew our engagement with the emerging companies and countries of Africa,” he told WDDE.
He admitted, though, that many U.S. businesses are loath to do business in Africa because of widespread corruption, and because of a U.S. law that makes it illegal to do business with regimes that take covert payments in return for approving deals.
And he acknowledged that, in trying to promote democracy on the continent, the U.S. is increasingly challenged by China which is investing huge sums of money to exploit the continent’s natural resources without seeking assurances on human rights from client countries – unlike the U.S., which presses African business partners to safeguard institutions like a free press, he said.
Establishing democracy is “hard work” that can take decades or centuries to embed itself in a national culture, and it must work to overcome regional rivalries, Coons said, noting that some residents of the southern U.S. still resent the Confederacy’s defeat by the Union Army in the U.S. Civil War some 150 years after the fact.
In seeking to spread democracy to Africa, the U.S. should not pretend that its own system is or has been perfect, Coons said, noting that it took almost a century after the abolition of slavery for civil rights to become firmly established.
Calling the U.S. system “close to apartheid” before President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, Coons sought to deflect any criticism that the Young African Leaders Initiative represents the U.S. asserting moral superiority.
“For us to preach about how perfect our democracy is, let me say we have a lot to learn,” he said.
In a challenge to Coons after his speech, Uganda’s Anite asked him to explain the recent U.S. decision to reduce aid to her country to signal its disapproval of a new law that imposes tough penalties for homosexuality.
She called the new U.S. policy “regressive” and suggested that it is inconsistent with the fact that 33 U.S. states still have laws banning same-sex marriage.
Coons contended that most U.S. aid to Uganda remains in place, and noted that the U.S. continues to support countries like Zimbabwe, despite their shaky record on human rights, in the hope that aid will promote free speech.
Velaphi Mamba, a human-rights activist and pro-democracy campaigner from the tiny kingdom of Swaziland in southern Africa, said he had come to Delaware to find ways of creating a more open society in his native land.
Mamba, a former teacher, called Swaziland’s system of governance “archaic.” He said political parties have been banned since 1973, and said positions of power are occupied by those who are connected with the monarchy. “The power to govern lies with the king,” he said.
On his first visit to the United States, Mamba welcomed the opportunity to experience the American system but criticized the U.S. for inviting undemocratic African leaders—including his own king—to a Washington summit in August. Only a few leaders, including Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe, have been excluded from the event, while many others who operate repressive regimes will be attending, he said.
“The application of foreign policy must be consistent,” he told WDDE.
Mamba, 33, also accused the United States of failing to live up to some values, such as equality, that it advocates in Africa.
“America itself should be seen to be fulfilling the values and the virtues that it stands for,” he said. “For a particular sector of the American population, it is clear that it does not.”
He cited the poverty witnessed by the UD group during a visit to Camden, NJ, and the high national rate of incarceration for black men, as two flaws in the American system. “I was quite shocked,” he said. “That speaks to a serious underlying social issue that the country needs to address.”
Mamba denied arguing that America has no business trying to introduce democracy to African countries, but said its credibility in doing so would be enhanced by fixing some of its own social problems.
“America has a responsibility to make sure its own ducks are in a row before it engages from a moral platform with African countries,” he said. “In order for it to be fully effective in African countries, it needs to make sure that it starts from a premise that gives credibility in terms of protecting the rights of all its peoples.”
Photo Courtesy: Kathy F. Atkinson/Univ. of Delaware