What is this thing called the G8?

I was with a friend of mine recently and we tried to engage in global affairs and our discussion touched the just-concluded G8 Summit that took place on June 17-18, 2013 in Northern Ireland.My friend asked me a question that caught me unaware, “by the way what is G8?” “You are not serious David; you mean you don’t know the meaning of G8?” I retorted. I confidently told him that G8, stands for the great eight nations in the world, great in essence that they are rich and industrialised, which meet periodically to shape global affairs for the better. David gave me a ridiculous look and told me I was wrong. He instead told me that G8 means the Gang of Eight mighty nations in the world which meet periodically to gang-rape and terrorise small and weaker nations through unfair policies. He further informed me that the G8 plays a very important role in global governance. That through the G8, member countries make deals and compromises with one another and then form powerful alliances to exert influence and control on international institutions like UN! He continued that through their huge resources and military superiority they ensure continuous instabilities in most of the smaller nations, they sow seeds of hatred and play smaller nations against one another and later on come in as powerbrokers-they are super powers indeed! I flatly rejected his position and he decided to take me through the history of super powers and how they have terrorised the world since time immemorial. He began his narration with a quotation from Stanley Kubrick that “great nations have always acted as gangsters and the small nations like prostitutes”. After this quotation, my friend told me that despite the very limited membership of the group (the G8), it’s at this forum that global affairs are decided, including world economic order, political systems and all other fundamental issues that affect the human race. Never mind that owing to the stiff criticisms we now have a docile of G20, including South Africa that represents African nations. My friend David told me that the most causality of such well orchestrated world injustice is Africa stretching way back to the times of colonisation when African affairs were being decided upon from the round table negotiations in European capitals like the one held in Berlin in 1884. It was from such conferences that European super-powers decided who takes which countries as a colony without the latter’s consent. Anyway, that is history and as we say let bygones be bygones, but what is hurting is that Africa seems to have learnt nothing and forgotten nothing from the status quo. For the super powers it’s in their best interest to control the world affairs. But when will the Africans learn to be the masters of their own destiny and stop behaving like prostitutes as referenced from Stanley’s quotation above? We are either looking to East or West, why can’t Africa say enough is enough, let us look for solutions from within? Why can’t Africa know that all these big men come draped in the sheep skin, but when they are actually wolves inside? Africans should know that we are victims of European colonisation, America killed us through imperialism and surely now China is coming to bury us. As Africans we should know that this renewed ‘scramble for Africa’ is largely for gaining access to increasingly scarce natural resources such as minerals, oil and natural gas. The fact that Africa is home to some of these resources and it remains one of the poorest continents. But what is even more disheartening is the fact that these super powers through alliances and conspiracy theories work to destabilise weaker nations so as to continue ‘eating!’ What is happening to the Great Lakes region today is an example of such forms of powerful alliances where great nations continue to gang-rape and terrorise smaller ones. Ironically, as victims we keep on looking for the help from the orchestrators of the same vices– talk of global injustices!The writer is an educationist, author and publisher.