Michela Wrong has tried everything to smear Rwanda and is puzzled and "depressed” – her own words – by her failure to change the world’s perception of the country. She laments her depression to the discredited Peter Fabricius in the article titled "Pretoria has submitted to ‘bullying’ by Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame.” Fabricius used to write about anti-Rwanda fabrications while using the Institute of Security Studies as a source of credibility. But it appears that he has done enough damaging of the reputation of the Institute and can no longer drag it into his smear campaign, this time as an echo chamber for the similarly discredited Michela Wrong.
In this drivel, Wrong tells Fabricius, how Rwanda has survived her smear campaign – a sponsored racist trope of a book – which was supposed to be the stroke that broke the camel’s back but turned out to be another flop which she nevertheless references on every occasion. Reading Wrong’s lamentations, one gets the impression that Rwanda has mysterious super powers and that Africans only exist to serve western interests.
"South Africa, like most countries, is failing to stand up to the bullying of Rwandan President Paul Kagame,” Wrong bemoans, expressing her contempt for South African authorities who apparently are supposed to conduct foreign policy that prevents Wrong from descending into depression.
In the eyes of Wrong’s ever divisive colonial mindset, their commendable efforts to normalize relations with another African country should be rebuked. How President Kagame actually bullies South Africa’s leaders into normalizing relations between the two countries is never explained.
Yet, Fabricius, who presents himself as an analyst on foreign policy issues, doesn’t care to ask Wrong to elaborate. Readers are expected to swallow without chewing and believe that Rwanda has some mysterious ways – that Wrong will soon explain as African witchcraft – of making South Africa’s leaders do things they would normally not do.
In order to curtail what she perceives as Rwanda increasing influence in Africa and dim the light of its leader, "the dynamic African leader par excellence,” Wrong thinks that the size of a given country should determine the place it holds in terms of moral leadership.
"In matters political, strategic and diplomatic, Africa should surely be looking to South Africa and Nigeria, the continent’s giants, for moral leadership and guidance.” If Wrong actually believed this, she would advocate the same for her country, the UK, and even urge Europe to look up to China or even Russia for moral leadership and strategic guidance.
"So he’s a problem-solver,” Wrong’s depression takes a turn for the worst as she’s forced to acknowledge the leadership credentials of the man she hates most. In her toxic white supremacist worldview, even when Rwanda contributes to solving African security issues, it is for the benefit of the West. "You have a problem, we can solve it,” was Rwanda’s persuasive offer to Western governments, Wrong says.
"This included Rwanda’s readiness to send its efficient military and police to Mozambique, Darfur, South Sudan, the Central African Republic and Mali — places where Western governments had no desire to send their own troops,” she sobs. Neither Wrong nor the "expert of foreign policy issues” are able to imagine a world in which Africans pursue their own interests and take actions that primarily benefit them.
Only someone who still views Africa’s as the West’s backyard would suggest that western governments should be sending their troops in African countries and that anyone else doing so is simply doing the West’s biding. These are people whose mindsets have failed to leave the 20th Century – the golden age of racism – behind.
Wrong, like the racists who came before her, is not only up against Africa’s agency, she also seeks to deny hero status to Africans. As Fabricius notes "[Wrong’s] book chronicles Kagame’s remarkable success in persuading the world that the RPF are still the heroes who came to the rescue of Rwanda’s Tutsi minority when they were being slaughtered by Hutu extremists in 1994.”
It is white supremacy on steroids to read that the world needed to be persuaded of its own impotence in the face of the attempted extermination of Rwanda’s Tutsi. One wonders who else other than the RPF heroes stopped the genocide and transformed a devastated country into the extraordinary efficient machine that now keeps Wrong on her toes, stalking any action or event as a pretext to say or write something about Rwanda. If Fabricius had any analytical skills commensurate with his claims of expertise, he would surely note Wrong’s obsessive tendencies and conclude that something has definitely gone wrong, hence the depression.
"My country is certainly not standing up for the values it professes to cherish,” Wrong says regarding the upcoming Commonwealth Summit in Kigali, expressing regret that Rwanda has been chosen to host the event. On this point, Wrong is half right.
She is mistaken when she points to the decision to hold the summit in Rwanda (or even the UK government’s recent decision to process immigrants in Rwanda) as illustrations of her country’s failure to live up to commonwealth professed values. If anything, these decisions are encouraging signs that the UK government values its relationship with Rwanda and perhaps the time to build a mutually respectful relationship is now. Unless the commonwealth stands for something else other than mutual respect amongst member states.
What Wrong should point to when she seeks to demonstrate her country’s failure to stand up to values is in regards to its refusal to extradite or bring to justice genocide fugitives, "a guilty secret which should worry all decent people who care about its [Britain’s] role in the world” as British MP Andrew Mitchel reminded us. As if to add insult to injury, the UK government remains one of the two countries in the world which continue to challenge the terminology "Genocide against the Tutsi” which was adopted by the UN general assembly.
The time will certainly come to discuss these issues as they relate to the commonwealth values during the summit in Kigali or elsewhere in the not-too-distant future. If Wrong doubts this she should ask France how self-respecting Africa roll.
In the meantime, Wrong whose existence has found purpose in smearing Rwanda, will certainly find another ungifted analyst to try and amplify her incoherent outbursts as a coping mechanism for a self-induced depression that she can overcome by letting go her obsession with a country that is busy rebuilding the lives of its people. The self-promoting Fabricius is pursuing a selfish agenda by exploiting a sick person in need of urgent professional help. This is deplorable.