McDuffie, Obama, the World, and Africa, Souls 2012

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Obama, the World, and Africa
Erik S. McDuffie
a
a
Department of African American Studies, University of Illinois at
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The Election Issue
Obama, the World, and Africa
Thoughts on African American Politics
and the 2012 Presidential Election
Erik S. McDuffie
The article discusses President Barack Obama’s troubling
foreign policy as it relates to Africa and the Arab Spring;
the apparent disinterest amongst African Americans in
U.S. military intervention in Libya and unrest in Mali; and
the need for building new, internationally focused Black
movements in the United States as we look to and beyond
the 2012 presidential election.
Keywords: 2012 presidential election, Africa, Arab Spring, Barack Obama, inter-
national solidarity, Libya, Mali, Muammar Qaddafi
But today I see more clearly than yesterday that back of the problem of race and
color, lies a greater problem which both obscures and implements it: and that is
the fact that so many civilized persons are willing to live in comfort even if the
price of this is poverty, ignorance and disease of the majority of their fellowmen;
that to maintain this privilege men have waged war until today war tends to
become universal and continuous, and the excuse for this war continues largely
to be color and race.
—W. E. B. Du Bois, ‘‘Fifty Years After,’’ in The Souls of Black Folk (New York:
The Blue Heron Press, 1953)
I thank Barbara Ransby and Prudence Browne, editor and managing editor, respectively, for the
opportunity to contribute to this issue of Souls. This article benefitted from comments from the
anonymous readers, as well as conversations with Gretchen Bauer, Marlah Bonner-McDuffie, P.
Gabrielle Foreman, Michael Gomez and his on-line KeepitTight Africa Circle forum, Brian J. Purnell,
Gilberto Rosas, Elaine Salo, and Sidney J. Toombs III.
Souls
Souls 14 (1–2): 28–37, 2012 / Copyright # 2012 University of Illinois at Chicago /
1099-9949/02 / DOI: 10.1080/10999949.2012.720205
Downloadedby[UniversityofIllinoisatUrbana-Champaign]at19:5405November2012

Colonel Muammar Qaddafi was dead. Lurid images of his bloody,
lifeless body flashed across television monitors around the world on
October 20, 2011. Crowds of jubilant, gun-toting Libyan rebels
rejoiced, as the man who had ruled Libya for forty-two years
was now gone. Later that day, President Barack Obama issued a state-
ment about Qaddafi’s death from the Rose Garden at the White House.
‘‘One of the world’s longest-serving dictators is no more,’’ Obama
declared. He acknowledged the key role the United States and North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military forces played in top-
pling Qaddafi’s regime. Charging Qaddafi with violating the human
rights of the Libyan people, Obama claimed that the West responded
militarily to avert a humanitarian crisis after Qaddafi threatened to
violently suppress the rebellion. Placing Qaddafi’s death within the lar-
ger context of the popular uprisings across North Africa and the Middle
East that have come to be known as the Arab Spring, Obama lauded
young people across the Arab world for overthrowing dictators. The
president called attention to the death of Osama bid Laden and U.S.
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as further examples of the U.S. commit-
ment to championing democracy globally. Looking toward the future,
Obama acknowledged that Libyans would face challenges as they
moved toward democracy and their ‘‘liberation.’’ But he expressed con-
fidence that they could now ‘‘look forward to the promise of a new day.’’1
This day has yet to arrive. Libya remains politically unstable.
Several rebel groups have failed to recognize the new national
government. Violence marred recent elections. Rebels have indis-
criminately harassed, raped, and killed Black Libyans and West
Africans living in Libya before and after Qaddafi’s death.2
Moreover,
unrest in Libya has spilled over to Mali. Heavily armed Tuareg com-
batants from Mali who fought for Qaddafi in Libya returned to Mali,
rebelled against the national government, and declared independence
for the northern half of the country. In Timbuktu, radical Islamists
who participated in the rebellion have destroyed ancient tombs and
shrines designated by the United Nations as World Heritage Sites
on the grounds that they were un-Islamic. Mali has descended into
chaos. Some African diplomats have expressed fear that Mali could
become the ‘‘Afghanistan of West Africa.’’3
The Economic Community
of West African States (ECOWAS) and the African Union are contem-
plating sending military forces to Mali to put down the rebellion. But
nothing has happened so far.4
Indeed, the Obama-backed violent
overthrow of Qaddafi seems to have destabilized Libya and plunged
West Africa into a serious political and humanitarian crisis.
Curiously, these troubling events in Africa have mostly elicited
silence, ambivalence, and confusion from Black America. While a
small group of Black leftists, nationalists, and academics denounced
The Election Issue ^ 29

Obama and framed U.S. military action in Libya as a racist and
imperialist move, they seem to be the exception. Most members of
the Congressional Black Caucus supported giving Obama authoriza-
tion to launch U.S. military action against Qaddafi. There were no
major protests called by African American civil rights groups to
condemn these actions or to criticize the president. Libya and Mali
seem to have generated little discussion in barber shops and beauty
salons. Certainly some of this reaction can be attributed to Black
America’s reluctance to criticize the first elected Black president
and to defend him in the face of a virulent, racist white right-wing
backlash against his presidency.5
Still, the silence about this unrest
in Africa is significant given the longstanding tradition in which
Black Americans have understood their destiny and status as inextri-
cably linked with Africa, the Diaspora, and the Third World.6
This article offers critical analysis of President Obama’s foreign pol-
icy towards Africa as it relates to the state of African American poli-
tics as the 2012 presidential election approaches. I posit three main
points. First, the Obama administration’s foreign policy toward Africa
marks a significant attempt to enhance U.S. imperialist domination
of the continent. This policy complements his embrace of neo-
liberalism and his failure to advance an agenda that benefits Black
America as well as working and poor people at home.7
I define imperi-
alism as an ideology and form of modern capitalism through which
states and ruling classes seek to exploit resources and labor; maxi-
mize the profits of finance capital; and eliminate rival social and polit-
ical forces that threaten a specific state’s and social formation’s quest
for global economic and political hegemony.8
I define neoliberalism as
an ideology and political practice based on the belief in unregulated
free markets and the dismantlement and privatization of the social-
welfare safety net as the best way to promote democracy, economic
prosperity, and human fulfillment.9
Second, the silence about Libya and Mali amongst African
Americans reveals a deeper political crisis in Black America, namely
a declining sense of international solidarity with Africa, the Diaspora,
and the Third World. Historically, global forces such as capitalism,
slavery, migration, white supremacy, economic depression, world
war, and decolonization have been crucial to shaping Black America.
Black spokespersons such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells, Paul
Robeson, Claudia Jones, and Malcolm X, as well as organizations such
as the Universal Negro Improvement Association, Council on African
Affairs, Sojourners for Truth and Justice, Black Panther Party, and
Combahee River Collective understood the Black Freedom Movement
in global terms. For them, the struggle for the full freedom of Black
America was inseparable from liberation struggles in Africa and
30 ^ Souls January^June 2012

beyond. We forget these lessons at our peril.10
Third, rekindling a
sense of international solidarity amongst African Americans and a
concern for Africa, I argue, must be re-centered to the Black Freedom
Movement as we look to and beyond the 2012 presidential election.
The Black Imperialist President
Ironically, the first elected U.S. Black president, who is the son of a
Kenyan, has played a critical role in expanding U.S. imperial power on
the continent. This is most evident in his role in taking took down
Qaddafi. To be clear, Qaddafi was no saint. He ruled Libya with an
iron fist. He invaded neighboring Chad and supplied arms to dubious
forces across the continent during the 1980s. Inspired by the Arab
Spring, Libyans in the eastern portion of the country rebelled begin-
ning in February 2011. Qaddafi posed a dilemma for Western powers.
In recent years, he became a darling of the West after he renounced
weapons of mass destruction in 2003 and opened Libya’s vast natural
gas and oil fields to foreign investment. At the same time, he remained
defiant against the West. Calling for Pan-African unity, ‘‘Brother
Leader,’’ as he liked to be called, bankrolled and served as president
of the African Union and advocated for a ‘‘United States of Africa.’’
Critics rightfully questioned his motives. Still, Qaddafi symbolized
opposition to Western power in Africa.11
Arguably, humanitarian concerns were not the driving force behind
U.S. intervention in Libya. Washington has had no problem support-
ing repressive states across the Middle East. These include Saudi
Arabia, Bahrain, a U.S. ally that brutally suppressed a domestic upris-
ing inspired by the Arab Spring, and pre-revolutionary Egypt. The
United States has stood by Israel as it expands its Apartheid-like set-
tler colonial occupation of the Palestinian territories. Plus, the Obama
administration has remained ambivalent about the Arab Spring. U.S.
officials fear that these popular uprisings could threaten U.S. strategic
and economic interests in North Africa and the Middle East. Given
this, U.S. military intervention in Libya, I contend, was an effort to
destroy a quixotic, intransigent, oil rich regime; co-opt an Arab
Spring–inspired rebellion; and protect American economic, political,
and military interests in Africa and the Middle East.
U.S. involvement in Libya represents an important piece in the
growing U.S. military presence in Africa. This began before Obama
took office. But it has gained momentum under his administration.
This is evident in the recent statement by Jeffrey P. Breedan, an
official in the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). He
proclaimed: ‘‘We see Africa as the new frontier in terms of

counterterrorism and counternarcotics issues.’’ He added: ‘‘It’s a place
that we need to get ahead of—we’re already behind the curve in some
ways, and we need to catch up.’’ The U.S. plans to deploy DEA com-
mando teams to fifteen West African nations to interdict drug traffick-
ing.12
This is troubling news. The U.S.-led ‘‘War on Drugs’’ has
unleashed unprecedented violence in and destabilized Mexico and
Colombia, along with several other nations in Latin America and
the Caribbean. Recently, a DEA commando team killed several inno-
cent civilians in Honduras.13
It seems hard to imagine how this same
pattern of violence will not be replicated in Africa. Moreover, we can
not ignore how the U.S. ‘‘War on Drugs’’ has decimated Black America.
This campaign has played a key role in the mass incarceration of Black
people and in creating the prison industrial complex, a racialized and
gendered system of social control birthed by slavery.14
The horrific
slave dungeons at Cape Coast Castle and Elmina Castle on the West
African coast are a testament to this. In this light, the proposed U.S.
‘‘War on Drugs’’ in Africa represents a legacy of slavery, colonialism,
and racism.
Meanwhile, the United States has expanded its military presence in
the Horn of Africa and Central Africa during the Obama administra-
tion. Under the guise of fighting Al-Qaida and delivering humani-
tarian relief, the United States has deployed military forces to
Djibouti and Uganda. The United States has launched deadly drone
strikes from Djibouti against alleged Al-Qaida targets in Yemen. In
addition, the United States has backed bloody military campaigns
launched by Ethiopia and Kenya against Islamists in Somalia.15
In
October 2011, Obama announced the deployment of one hundred
U.S. Special Forces to Uganda. He claimed that they were sent to cap-
ture Joseph Kony, the infamous leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army
(LRA), whose forces have ravaged northern Uganda.16
Critics charge
that this move was a cover for U.S. military intervention into Africa.
They add that Obama sent U.S. troops to Uganda to counter the
growing economic and political presence of China on the continent.
These charges seem plausible. China has emerged as the leading
geo-political rival to the United States. In terms of Africa, China
recently has become the continent’s leading trading partner. This
development threatens U.S. imperialist interests in Africa. China
has signed bilateral trading agreements with several African nations.
For example, China has pledged billions of dollars to the Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC) to improve the nation’s infrastructure. In
return, the DRC will supply China with millions of tons of copper
and cobalt, precious minerals essential to the production of weaponry,
electronics, and computer technology. China is also investing heavily
in oil production across the continent in order to fulfill the country’s

growing energy needs.17
The Obama administration has publicly criti-
cized China’s growing influence in Africa. During her visit to Senegal
in August 2012, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared that
the United States was committed to advancing economic development,
democracy, and human rights in Africa, while an unnamed trading
‘‘partner’’ was concerned solely with exploiting the continent’s
resources for its own benefit. The veiled reference to China was not
lost to the Chinese. Xinhua, the Chinese state-run news agency, took
exception to the comments, declaring that Clinton’s statements were
‘‘cheap shots’’ and ‘‘a plot to sow discord between China [and] Africa.’’18
Given that both the United States and China see Africa as an
important source of natural resources for their respective nations,
some observers fear that this rivalry could spark a hot or proxy war
between these nations on the continent. Such a conflict would
undoubtedly devastate the people and resources of Africa.19
What is
certain is that U.S. military intervention in Libya and elsewhere on
the continent already has resulted in the death and misery of African
people. Due in no small part to the first elected Black U.S. president,
Africa has suffered tremendously.
The Decline of International SolidarityAmongst African Americans
Global and domestics developments over the past thirty years
explain the apparent disinterest in recent unrest in Africa and the
declining sense of international solidarity amongst African Americans.
As discussed, African American reluctance to criticize Obama certainly
is an important factor in explaining the silence from Black America
about Libya and Mali. But this is not the only explanation. Inter-
nationally, the collapse of the Soviet Union and radical Third World
states, together with the ascendency of neoliberalism and corporate
globalization since the 1990s, seemingly discredited leftist agendas
and removed counter-hegemonic forces from the geo-political stage.
Domestically, a white conservative backlash against the Black
Freedom Movement ushered in by Ronald Reagan has significantly
moved the United States toward the political right since the early
1980s. White conservatives and the mainstream media have sought
to discredit the internationalist Black Freedom Movement and distort
its legacy. Erasing its expansive view of democracy, militant demands
for full citizenship, and its global vision, conservatives have framed
Black struggles of the 1950s and 1960s as campaigns for voting rights
and affirmative action. The dismantlement of the welfare state, mass
incarceration, deindustrialization, and structural inequalities have
devastated Black America. Given this, it makes sense many Black

people are more concerned with making ends meet, keeping their
homes, finding work, and surviving than in international events.20
Political shifts within Black America also explain the apparent
decline of concern for international events. African Americans remain
the most progressive constituency in the United States. However, seg-
ments of Black America have moved toward the political right. Some
Black Americans support the U.S. empire. For example, delegates at
the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP)’s annual convention in June 2012 in Houston cheered loudly
when Vice President Joe Biden in a fiery campaign speech trumpeted
the death of Osama bin Laden as an important accomplishment of the
Obama administration.21
This reaction is revealing. It seemingly was
inspired by a thirst for revenge, political opportunism, disregard for
international law, and the historical amnesia about the U.S. role
in the making of Osama bin Laden and stoking violent jihadism in
Afghanistan to defeat the Soviets that blew back on the United States
on September 11, 2001.22
To be sure, this response demonstrates that
global events continue to impact Black America.
Where DoWe Go From Here? Thoughts on the 2012 Presidential Election
and beyond
The 2012 presidential election poses a serious quandary for those of
us committed to Black liberation, peace, democracy, and justice for all
people globally. As I have argued, Obama has continued an imperial-
ist foreign policy toward Africa that has brought further misery to the
continent. The war in Afghanistan rages on. Domestically, he has no
agenda to address the deep structural inequalities and persistent
racial injustice in this country that oppresses and immiserates Black
and Brown people. Simply put, Obama is no progressive. He never
has been; he probably never will be. Waiting or hoping for the day
when he turns towards the political left and embraces a progressive
agenda committed to racial and social justice, women’s and lesbian,
gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) rights, labor, the
environment, immigrant rights, and peace is foolhardy.
So what should Black America and progressive social forces do in
November? I agree with Bill Fletcher’s analysis in this issue of the
meaning and implications of the coming presidential election. This
election should not be viewed as a referendum of Obama. Instead,
we need to take a long view of the struggle. The Right understands this
election as an attempt to dismantle what’s left of the New Deal, elim-
inate the gains won by social movements of the 1960s, and pursue a
foreign policy even more retrograde than Obama’s. A fanatical racism

drives their anger toward Obama and what he apparently symbolizes
to them. Given that there is no viable third party candidate and
no time to find one, the logical decision is to vote for Obama. In this
light, voting for ‘‘Obama in not an affirmation of Obama and his rec-
ord,’’ as Fletcher writes, ‘‘but is actually a vote for time and space.’’
A victory for Obama would buy Black America and progressives
time to regroup and to begin building grassroots social movements
and coalitions to challenge the neoliberal, racist, sexist, imperialist
order of our time.23
Rekindling a sense of international solidarity amongst Black
Americans and concern for Africa are critical to this project. Black
America must demand that the United States end its military inter-
ventions and proxy wars in Africa (and around the world) and pursue
a foreign policy committed to mutual respect, non-intervention, and
international law. In terms of the Arab Spring, we should demand that
the United States allow history to take its course and respect the Arab
world’s quest for self-determination. For those of us committed to this
vision, we should argue that changing U.S. policy toward Africa and
the world will save Black lives and redirect resources towards
realizing the full potential of all people. For example, the billions of
dollars that would be spent on counter-terrorism, counter-narcotics,
and fighting proxy wars in Africa could be spent on social programs,
healthcare, housing, and education at home. This money could fund
sustainable development and infrastructure, and fighting AIDS in
Africa and globally. We should raise awareness in Black America
about the proposed U.S. ‘‘War on Drugs’’ in Africa and its connections
with the mass incarceration of African Americans. The discourse and
practice of criminalization and mass incarceration of Black Americans
will surely inform the proposed U.S. drug war in Africa. Black Amer-
ican personnel will invariably be deployed and killed in Africa. African
immigrants in this country will lose family and loved ones in their
homeland as a result of U.S. military interventions. This suffering is
avoidable. Whatever the outcome of the 2012 presidential election,
Black America cannot forget the lessons of our foremothers and
-fathers: our fate is inseparable from the status and well-being of
Africa. The struggle continues.
Notes
1. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/20/obama-muammar-gaddafi-dead_n_1022106.html
(accessed July 18, 2012).
2. http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/205516/20110829/libyan-gaddafi-rebels-tnc-blacks-african-union.
htm (accessed July 25, 2012); ‘‘US and NATO-Supported Libyan ‘Rebels’ Continue Persecution of Blacks
in Libya,’’ Black Agenda Report, http://blackagendareport.com/content/us-and-nato-supported-libyan-
rebels-continue-persecution-blacks-libya (accessed July 25, 2012).

3. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18427541 (accessed July 24, 2012).
4. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/07/20127533425563880.html (accessed July 25,
2012).
5. For a more thorough discussion of Black America’s refusal to criticize Obama, see Bill Fletcher Jr.
essay ‘‘‘What happened?’: Obama, Demobilization and the Challenge of the 2012 Elections’’ in this issue
of Souls.
6. Gerald Horne, ‘‘One Historian’s Journey,’’ Journal of African American History 96, no. 2 (Spring
2011): 248–254; Erik S. McDuffie, Sojourning for Freedom: Black Women, American Communism, and
the Making of Black Left Feminism (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011); Edward Eugene Onaci, ‘‘Self
Determination Means Determining Self: Lifestyle Politics and the Republic of New Afrika, 1968–1989’’
(Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois, 2012).
7. Fletcher. ‘‘ ‘What Happened?’ ’’; Tariq Ali, The Obama Syndrome: Surrender and Home, War
Abroad (London: Verso, 2011).
8. V. I. Lenin, Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1970);
Kwame Nkrumah, Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism (New York: International Publish-
ers, 1966). I should add that racism and sexism were central to the making and working of modern
capitalism and imperialism. For further discussion of this topic, see Claudia Jones, ‘‘An End to the
Neglect of the Problems of the Negro Woman!’’ Political Affairs 28, no. 6 (June 1949): 51–67; Cedric
Robinson, Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition (London: Zed Books, 1983);
McDuffie, Sojourning for Freedom; Carole Boyce Davies, Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of Black
Communist Claudia Jones (Durham: Duke University Press, 2008); Dayo F. Gore, Radicalism at the
Crossroads: African American Women Activists in the Cold War (New York: New York University Press,
2011).
9. Neoliberalism emerged as the prevailing global economic order by the 1990s following the demise
of the Soviet Union, Eastern Bloc, and militant Third World regimes. Kean Birch and Vlad Mykhnenko,
eds., The Rise and Fall of Neoliberalism: The Collapse of an Economic Order? (London: Zed Books, 2010);
Ali, The Obama Syndrome, 3–4.
10. Horne, ‘‘One Historian’s Journey,’’ 249; Robin D. G. Kelley, ‘‘‘But a Local Phase of a World
Problem’: Black History’s Global Vision, 1883–1950,’’ The Journal of American History 86, no. 3
(December 1999):1045–1077.
11. Jonathan Offei-Ansah, ‘‘Gaddafi’s Ghost will Haunt Libya’’; ‘‘End of an Era’’; Desmond Davies,
‘‘Wither the ‘New’ Libya,’’ all in NewsAfrica, November 30, 2011.
12. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/22/world/africa/us-expands-drug-fight-in-africa.html (accessed
July 25, 2012).
13. Ibid.
14. Angela Y. Davis, Abolition Democracy: Beyond Empire, Prisons and Torture (New York:
Seven Stories Press, 2005); Ruthie Wilson Gilmore, Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and
Opposition in Globalizing California (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007); Michelle Alexan-
der, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Globalization (New York: The New Press,
2010).
15. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2011/10/20111017171543493140.html; http://www.nytimes.
com/2011/10/27/world/africa/kenya-planned-somalia-incursion-far-in-advance.html (both accessed July
30, 2012).
16. Kony gained international notoriety following the internet release of the deeply problematic film
Kony 2012 produced by the American charity Invisible Children.
17. Chika Ezeanya, ‘‘US’ Africa Invasion,’’ NewsAfrica (November 30, 2011): 17; http://www.chinafrica.
asia/angola-laudable-oil-trade-with-china/ (accessed August 4, 2012).
18. Financial Times August 4=5, 2012.
19. Chofamba Sithole, ‘‘The Great Kony ‘Con,’ ’’ NewsAfrica (30 April 2012): 24, 26; Ezeanya, ‘‘US’
Africa Invasion,’’ 17; http://allafrica.com/stories/201207260922.html; http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/
90778/7649195.html (both accessed July 26, 2012).
20. Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua and Clarence Lang, ‘‘Strategies for Black Liberation in the Era of
Globalism: Retronouveau Civil Rights, Militant Black Conservatism, and Radicalism,’’ Black Scholar
29, no. 4 (2000): 25–47; Tim Wise, Color Blind: The Rise of Post-Racial Politics and the Retreat from
Racial Equity (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2010), 27–62.
21. http://www.cleveland.com/nation/index.ssf/2012/07/vice_president_joe_biden_tells.html (accessed
July 26, 2012).
22. Noam Chomsky, 9-11 (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2001); John K. Cooley, Unholy Wars
Afghanistan, America,and International Terrorism (London: Pluto Press, 2000);http://www.democracynow.
org/2011/5/2/did_pakistani_govt_know_where_osama (accessed July 26, 2012).
23. Fletcher, ‘‘ ‘What Happened?’ ’’

About theAuthor
Erik S. McDuffie is an Associate Professor in the Department of
African American Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign. He is the author of Sojourning for Freedom: Black
Women, American Communism, and the Making of Black Left Femin-
ism (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011).

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