How times change. This may be a tired cliché but still true. Who would have thought that in the twenty-first century African political and intellectual classes would compete for honours in self-hate and self-doubt?

Sadly it is happening, especially in the management of our societies.

It is, of course, true that most things from the West are taken as the measure of quality, from fashion to football, from democracy to love of dogs, thought patterns to even the way we regard ourselves.

This standard includes what we must aspire to and the limits of our aspirations.

When you reject this definition of the self by others and insist on who you are and what you want and your worth as a nation, as Rwandans have done, you are seen as deviating from the norm and must be brought back in line.

It has never been clear to me why, if we must copy, we do not copy the really good attributes – confidence, industry, conviction in the correctness of one’s ideas and being right, and so on.

Well, we don’t and the results are what we see, a sense of self-denigration that undermines efforts at creating prosperity. Debate has degenerated from a discussion of competing ideas and alternative views to threats and intimidation.

For instance, when governments do things the opposition do not like and are unable to challenge, they resort to threats: we will refer you to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

It is a lazy tactic to immobilise leaders by threats of taking them before a foreign court. In this sense the scare of the ICC has replaced the responsibility to provide a programme-based alternative to the government in power.

The ICC was supposedly created to punish impunity and give justice to the victims of violence. It gained prominence during the wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the post-election violence in Kenya in 2008.

It was not initiated by the African political and intellectual classes, but by Western governments and Non-Governmental Organisations.

But it has really never served the purpose for which it was reportedly formed. Instead it has been used by outsiders and internal political rivals to settle political scores or exert control.

Similarly, when countries take an independent course designed to take their people to prosperity, they are threatened with sanctions. Interestingly, these threats do not come from the people who have the power to do so, but from Africans who think they read the mind of donors.

This is a media-generated reaction that our people pick up and amplify. The media, both foreign and local, never fail to remind that most of our budgets are financed by aid and if we don’t want to see it cut, we should behave.

A good example is the recent constitutional amendment in Rwanda. Because some Western countries had expressed opposition to it, even Rwandan writers speculated about sanctions being imposed.

A third case of misrepresentation that our reporters pick and repeat is the supposed turning away from the West to the East (meaning China). First it is presented as if Africa is tied to the West and needs its permission to look elsewhere. Second it is made to appear as if it is not possible or even wrong to have relations with both.

A lot was made of President Kagame’s recent visit to Abu Dhabi as a new turn to the East. Similar comments have been made about African leaders’ visits to China. Yet every major Western leader has been to China more than once in the last decade and not much was made of it.

There is a simple reason for repeating the narrative crafted elsewhere. It is driven by a different sort of political activism, by civil society organisations, most of which are not home-grown but planted and funded by outsiders.

Many of these organisations are allied to opposition groups and both work to subvert the government of the day..

Well, he who pays the piper calls the tune. Or they are simply listening to their master’s voice and reproducing it.

It makes one long for the time when African political and intellectual classes had the conviction of true believers.

There was a time when advancing the African cause was all that mattered.

Most of that time coincided with anti-imperialism activity. Of course, there were romantics and even mad men and charlatans, but on the whole, people were united and certainly did not have to grovel before anybody or repeat messages of self-hate.

Ultimately, it is all a question of dignity.

jorwagatare@yahoo.co.uk