For the record I want you all to know that the Government, the Elites, the Colonial Masters are treating us all like a bandits and treating the bandits like a citizen. Itโs all a game for their own selfish interest. We have to fight backโฆ
@moore_ojo@General_Somto If any member of your family and friends were killed, would you have the right word to even address the issues properly. You all are hypocrites including your Government and even me too. Because we all kept quiet while innocent people are been killed.
Blinken is a front-man with no real authority or independent decision making capacity, of course. As you certainly know.
So it's interesting to think about who, and what are actually designing these policy decisions and strategies "behind the curtain", so to speak, which is a question many of us as Americans increasingly ask ourselves. Complicated answers.
So David is essentially suggesting here if China did what the US is doing with African media and politics, it would be immediately recognized as imperialism. I think he's right about that, to some extent, setting aside the general apathy which seems to have taken hold around the world where many can't seem to be bothered to recognize -anything at all- that requires analysis due to a sort of ADD but that's a topic for another day and frankly I believe African youth are much more engaged in this sense than many on other parts of the world so it's probably less of a factor for them.
Turning back to the conversation about Blinken, it's not just "him," acting with the described agenda. The desire of the current regime in the U.S. federal gov't to control and micromanage is affecting not only other countries, but our own country as well, at this point, which seems different than other moments in history. Orwellian to say the least. Just look at their lame "disinformation governance board" they tried to install domestically that was thankfully shot down last year; it's design could have been copied-and-pasted from Orwell's books.
Then it's interesting to bring China into the conversation, but that, of course, is a whole complex topic of its own. I like to try to be an optimist about China being somehow 'older' and 'wiser' than all of us in ways we may not immediately understand, considering the much longer time they've had in the business of governing compared to Western or even European governments. Then we look at some of their actions, and it can be worrisome to see where they seem to be on somewhat of a tyrannical path, (such as physically beating the daylights out of independent journalists in Hong Kong) as opposed to truly promoting peace and stability in the world.
Another example: as a kind of online pastime, over the years I sometimes intentionally engage with Chinese 'wumao' (the CCP's paid internet propaganda-spreaders, there are thousands of them on twitter) to debate political topics. Regardless of what we debate, they always end up at the predictable conclusion that 'the U.S. is responsible for all of the problems in the world' which we expect but THEN, going further to say stuff like 'the world will not know peace until the Caucasian race is eliminated.' Truly!
So I can relate to a lot of what David writes, where he consistently reaches similar conclusions as the former 'wumao' example, but I'm not sure he's gone so far as to believe in the latter conclusion described above. Hope not. Might be, though.
Regardless, it seems to be where the CCP is steering their 'wumao' digital soldiers, which is one example of why I'm still on the fence when trying to be optimistic about China's "wisdom."
Anyways, it is indeed apparent to those paying any attention whatsoever that the U.S. and China are competing politically on the African continent. So it will be interesting to see how that continues to evolve.
One point I will fish out of David's post here is Starlink. I actually do not believe the U.S. federal gov't is in control of it, at least not the current regime in D.C. but once again maybe I'm being naive. Don't think so, though. My gut is that Starlink is still "independent" from federal gov't overreach.
I guess what today's post is saying in essence is that the U.S. is attempting or in fact achieving a level of control over the flow of information in a way that threatens national sovereignty and freedom of information access in African countries.
And I think he's right about that. Not sure what can be done about it at this point. Ironically Starlink might be one of the ways around it. I don't write that to dispute anything he said, only to offer possible solutions. I guess I am not convinced Musk is a regime puppet despite his many federal gov't contracts. If you look at his actions he angers them on a daily basis.
Going beyond Starlink which some might argue is not independent (I really don't know) or not feasible for the masses in terms of pricing, even good VPN's can be incredibly useful the sense of defeating censorship. That's what mainland Chinese have been using for many years to get around the CCP's "great firewall" with a good degree of success. If I were a African tech entrepreneur I'd be out there building international points of presence and selling cheap VPN subscriptions all day in the current environment.
Finally, based on what I've observed I believe Nigeria as a country in terms of its available human resources easily has the smarts to innovate and deploy their own independent networks like Starlink even if done in conjunction with other nations (India could be one, maybe? Russia? I an clueless on African-Indian relations but they do have launch capabilities)--but the investment and organizational resources are far from being ready. I think they could be in ten or twenty years but that's a long time considering how fast everything is moving at the moment.
@DavidHundeyin The Colonial Masters never cared about Democracy rather their selfish interests.
Rules are created by the powerful to oppress the weak.. if you're powerful enough, then rules become useless.
Take a listen
I completed a training by World biggest and obviously Americas biggest cyber threat intelligence company. The course is called โ Inside the mind of an APT). This course was an advanced part of a cyber threat intelligence program.
I would like to opine that the information warfare going on currently across different theatres of engagement between the biggest global adversaries America and the Western allies vs Russia+China+Iran+North Korea, is by far, the biggest geographical conflict.
This warfare is unfortunately fought more actively in major theatres in Africa, Europe, Middle, far East and Asian Pacific.
The reason is that kinetic warfares does no longer determine control of power as it were.
Who ever controls the narratives absolutely stays unto and controls the perceived outcome.
Nations can be decimated by simply labelling them evil or terrorists or human right abusers and the world will sit and celebrate that as victory.
The information warfare is more serious than most people think or understand.
Itโs carried out through, all media and channels of influence including educational, scientific research, religious, ideological, information technology and almost everything you can think of.
For me, I believe itโs part of the evolution of mankind, quest to dominate other and prosper at the expense of others.
Itโs what it is.
If a single Chinese company controlled Africa's digital satellite TV broadcast market, and China decided that it would instruct that company to block CNN from its airwaves and only only allow CGTN Global and other China-aligned media to be accessible to its citizens, we would IMMEDIATELY recognise what that is - open, naked imperialism.
If China argued that CNN broadcasts anti-Chinese American propaganda, and that all international partners or allies of China should treat the activities of CNN in their countries the same way they treat the activities of foreign intelligence agencies, we would tell China "I'm sorry, we can't do that."
We would say that regardless of what quarrel exists between the US and China, it is our prerogative as sovereign countries to determine what we information we have access to, and what we should or should not do with it. We would (rightly) argue that this in fact, is a core premise of sovereignty - the ability to access whatever information we want and do whatever want with it.
We would (rightly) point out that regardless of whatever quarrel China has with anyone, it cannot expect us to silo ourselves away from accessing information from one of the world's great powers, simply to please another great power. We would say that we are non-aligned and we have no interest in adopting China's quarrel with America or inserting ourselves into it.
If China then passed a law in its own parliament stating that we should be made to do what it tells us to do, we would tell them "We like your ports and your standard gauge railways and your steamed dumplings, but please don't bring us into your politics. Stick to what you came here to do and quit trying to turn a country halfway around the world into a Beiing annex."
What if I told you that everything I have said here is exactly what the US has done in Africa - with zero pushback like the one described above? What if I told you that - without asking or consulting anyone in Africa - an American decided to block the entire continent from accessing information, viewpoints and perspectives from one of the world's great powers because America and Russia have a quarrel?
What if I told you that the reason you cannot watch RT on terrestrial or digital TV on the entire continent of Africa excluding maybe Eritrea, is that an American politician in Washington DC signed an order that made the European supplier of Multichoice stop streaming RT to DSTV's 20.9 million households across Africa? What if I told you that in addition to censoring this information from you without your knowledge or consent, it now wants to criminalise all alternative information that you can access via the internet?
What if I told you that your African ISP in your African country will soon be subject - by 1 or 2 degrees of separation - to Americans laws forcing them to stop giving you access to certain information? What if I told you that Starlink will not save you because it is itself a US government-backed project to control the global flow and availability of information?
What if I told you that whatever level of internet censorship China has achieved with its Golden Shield system will be child's play compared to what Anthony Blinken described on Friday as the "more resilient global information system" that the US government is building? What if I told you that all of this is written down in granular detail and is publicly accessible, but nobody will read it because people have the attention span of housefly?
What if I told you that the basic concept of sovereignty is being attacked by the US government, which thinks that it is the King and Maximum Ruler of the world, and terms like "independence," "non-interference" and "freedom" are just polite suggestions?
In the evergreen words of Hector Barbossa, โYou best start believing in ghost stories, Miss Turner... you're in one!โ