When will West ever learn history lesson

Chen Sha / China Daily

The salvos from British state media network BBC against China are intensifying again. But the BBC is not the only one shooting from the hip, which has prompted many people to ask why some Western media continuously demonize China and its role in Africa?

There seem to be several reasons for this.

First, the level of brutality unleashed against African people by European countries and the United States is forcing them to look for a fellow culprit.

In the past 200 years, European powers have committed heinous crimes in Africa. They range from the massacre of more than 7 million Congolese by Belgians during the reign of King Leopold II to German genocide in today's Namibia, British massacres in eastern and southern Africa and Italian crimes against humanity in Ethiopia. In fact, no country in Africa escaped being crushed under the boots of European colonialists and the people of every country had to endure their cruelty, humiliation, slavery and even extermination.

China has ventured into Africa as a friend. This has forced the West, aware of its crimes, to sit up because it knows that it could now "lose the continent". Demonizing China is now the main goal of Western propaganda. The West is promoting its own politico-economic system as the only one possible in the world.

But China is a socialist country despite its market economy. It doesn't copy the Western development model. What the Western media are doing reflects how unwilling Western countries are to share the profits with non-Western nations.

Wherever China offers a helping hand, and that is of course the case in Africa, Western governments and media accuse it of following its own interests, exploiting the rich natural resources in the continent and "working with local dictators".

To the Western media, there is nothing China can do well. When China wants to build a railway, "it is trashed for wanting to plunder natural resources". The same accusation is leveled when it builds roads, too. When it wants to build state buildings, Western propaganda mills begin spinning yarns that it is "corrupting local governments".

But when China lends a helping hand to indisputably charitable and humanitarian deeds, like fighting malaria in East Africa, the Western media suddenly become silent. In fact, many anti-Chinese propagandists in poor and developing countries are actually funded by the West. Members of the academia and media who undergo frequent "training courses", are flown to the United Kingdom and the United States, paid princely amounts of money per day - in short, they are pampered. In countries where many journalists live on $100 a month or less, a trip to Europe or North America could mean an increase in the standard of living for years to come.

Most of the NGOs in the developing world (and that includes Africa and Southeast Asia) are expected to be antagonistic to China or at least not to follow China's example or discuss the success of the "China model" of economic development.

"Write one critical paragraph on the Dalai Lama and you are out and no funding", I was recently told by one Malaysian NGO staff member. The same happens in Africa.

The West is actually well aware of China's good intentions. China is "dangerous" precisely because it is different and it is not doing what the Western powers did in Africa.

African people are confused. I have spoken to many Africans working on Chinese projects in Kenya and elsewhere, who said they were grateful to the Chinese. Many of them even said that this was the first time they were being treated like human beings by foreigners. At the same time, local people read reports in their own media (most of them do nothing else but spread Western propaganda) relentlessly criticizing China.

The Western media, skillful as they are, know where to sting. They have perfected their skills over long years and are particularly effective in Africa, over which the West ruled for centuries. Europeans know well the mentality of the African people and how to manipulate it.

For the West, to attack China on African issues is nothing less than a war for survival - or more precisely, for the survival of its global order and its colonial control over the continent.

Since the West is defending its control over the lives of the African people and plundering of resources, China should not hold its punches. It has to speak louder and clearer, on behalf of its people and the country and on behalf of those around the world who for centuries had no voice. And it should start asking the West some uncomfortable questions.

The author is an American novelist, documentary filmmaker and investigative journalist.

(China Daily 10/26/2011 page9)