Reframing alliances: What African activists can learn from America's identity crisis

That was two Americas ago!

We need to stop talking and acting as if there's no difference between a Republican America and Democrat America. This is especially the case where US foreign policy is concerned, since this is what most concerns the rest of us non-Americans.

The US government has not gone back on its word.

The US government has not broken its promises to the poor people of Africa.

The US government has not even betrayed or turned against its own people.

No, what we are witnessing and experiencing is not a country that has experienced a change of heart, but an entirely different United States of America. The sooner we wrap our heads around that, the sooner we will start reducing the harm being done by Trump's America.

The sooner we (social justice agents) start seeing the events in America as the rise of a new "kingdom" rather than the unbroken continuation of an old familiar democracy, the sooner we will accept our part as the new enemies of the State(s).

I believe the reason why this new reality is difficult to accept is because we still insist on seeing democratic countries as a monolith of values across time and political parties, represented by the values of the sitting president.

If recent events have taught us anything, it is that the America that was an ally to the progressive cause is no longer the America that exists as of January 20, 2024. This is a radically different America, and we need to start looking at the values of the current president and his party as our guide to who America is (to the rest of the world) and what that America means for at least the next four years.

The America we are mourning is an entirely different America from the one we are currently confronting.

Progressive America? That was two Americas ago!

A kingdom overthrown, aka coup

As jaded as it may sound, this is the one rare moment when "a change of government" looks more like the overthrowing of a king by a foreign king. It would appear that even the natural succession of kings in a monarchy was much less disruptive than the succession of the Executive in the US. In fact, where succession happened in peace times and the throne was handed down to an heir raised by the same principles as the father's, the shift was seldom this seismic.

The first words of Trump's inaugural address were our biggest clue: "From this day forward, our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world."

This presidency was going to be a radical revolution, not a natural succession. There was no pretence of continuity here. And as he went into the details of his speech, it felt like Trump had come into the White House, not to carry the torch of the progressive American experiment, but to replace and punish the enemies he had just overthrown.

He sounded more like a rebel leader -- now turned president -- who had just overthrown an oppressive dictator. Members of the Republican party and MAGA loyalists were his rebel followers that were now the new administration about to mete out vengeance on the overthrown illegitimate leaders.

My African readers should be familiar with such regime changes. Many of our "democracies" witness successions that are best described by Michela Wrong's apt book title: "It's Our Turn to Eat." Kenyans have already been living with the effects of such a regime change for the past two years. It looks like the current president came to office and replaced all the old officers (no matter how qualified) with those who kissed the ring (no matter how unqualified).

In the same way, "it's MAGA's turn to eat" in the US, and the Democrats have to get used to being not just the opposition, but the rebels in their own country (the resistance, if you want a more familiar term). In the same way, the global human rights movement should also start getting used to being the enemies of the US government. But we should have seen this coming.

From private exporters of hate to 'public servants'

For those of us who spend our time trying to understand the nature and trends of anti-rights groups in Africa, we know that some of the most influential promoters of anti-rights laws and policies from Africa came from America. They were private American citizens. You may be familiar with organizations like Family Watch International, which is behind the annual anti-LGBT+ conference hosted by Uganda. Or you heard that the U.S. had rejoined the Geneva Consensus Declaration (GCD), an anti-choice manifesto developed by MAGA fanatics led by former Trump staffer Valerie Huber.

These groups that were once private American agents exporting hate to Africa are now government insiders in the new America. During the Biden presidency (and the Obama presidency before Trump 1.0) these groups not only exported hate, but they domesticated it in America. They are the people behind the campaigns that catalyzed the overturning of Roe v. Wade in the US.

We know them well.

But do we know what a Trump presidency (and alliance) means for their cause? It means that the US government that once stood alongside us in pushing back against the hate manufactured by these groups, is now replaced by a US government standing beside them to domesticate hate in America -- and export it.

The US government that funded progressive causes that protected bodily autonomy and promoted personal freedom has been replaced by a US government that fights against bodily autonomy and hates gender justice. And the groups that were once the fascist rebels in the Democrat US are now the new administration, with all the financial and political backing of a global superpower. The private exporters of hate are now government contractors. They are the new "public servants". Welcome to the new world order.

Disclaimer: I am not trying to be alarmist, I am simply trying to sketch the outlines of a hopeful realism... If you're hearing any alarm bells in reading these words, I hope you receive them as the alarm that wakes you up every morning to play your part in improving our world.

When USAID returns...

I am almost 100% confident that USAID is coming back. But hold your celebrations. The USAID that will come back in the next few months is not the one that was shut down a month ago. It will be a different kind of USAID. It will be US foreign assistance pegged on the interests and values of the new US government. The people that lost jobs will not be reinstated. They will be replaced by new MAGA ideologues. It seems like such an obvious point to belabour, but we are prone to miss it. Here is a snapshot of what it means for social change agents.

1. Every time you celebrated the voice of the US government condemning the enactment of an Anti-Homosexuality Law in Uganda, you were setting yourself up to face the same criticism by the new US government for supporting inclusion.
2. Every time you celebrated economic sanctions on governments that passed homophobic laws, you were setting yourself up for similar sanctions on anyone who now dares call out US government homophobia or colonial racism.
3. Every time you celebrated the US as the sanctuary for exiled queer persons from all over the world, you were setting yourself up for a US that may soon be the biggest source of queer exiles, almost putting countries like Russia to shame.
4. Every time you nodded in approval when the US president voiced his commitment to protecting the "freedom, peace, and justice" of the people of Sudan, you were setting yourself up for a US president who voices his commitment to displace the people of Gaza from their homes and replacing them with holiday resorts. Though on this one, the anti-Palestine sentiment has been disturbingly consistent in both US administrations.

We are prone to miss these obvious realities because we have become enamoured by a false sense of confidence that progressive administrations in the US are immune to revolutions. We have somehow convinced ourselves that progress is inevitable, and that the moral arc of the universe "bends inevitably" rather than being bent by collective human effort.

To make sense of the moment, I've found myself retreating to one of my favourite quotes by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who says in The Gulag Archipelago:

"The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart."

It means, essentially, that the potential for both good and evil exists within each person, and this line can shift depending on circumstances. More relevant to our moment, the line separating authoritarianism and liberalism does not usually pass through national borders, but right through the heart of a country. The line cuts across the floor of congress, or parliament. Which means that a country's potential to become authoritarian (even if that country is the US) may often depend on a single electoral vote.

But such a reality is often too disturbing to acknowledge. Yet, here we are.

The line between an authoritarian America and a liberal America passed through the November 2024 ballot boxes. The people that supported Trump, and the subset that continue to celebrate his hate, are 100% American. The sooner we acknowledge this fact, the sooner we can re-orient ourselves as the new rebels. If you thought you were the resistance, think again. Welcome to the resistance 2.0.

This means that, even if Trump reinstates USAID and other foreign assistance in April, this will not necessarily be good news for social justice. The aid that will be reinstated will flow along partisan political lines and towards the anti-rights values that Trump and his MAGA camp represent. And if our reaction will be to simply celebrate because the faucets are flowing again, then perhaps we were never really serving the cause of justice to begin with.

Reframing alliances

So what do human rights defenders do when their biggest allies turn into enemies overnight? Because this is exactly what the Trump presidency feels like to many social justice agents. Whether we are Americans or not, many of us feel betrayed because of the connectedness of our cause, and we're struggling to wrap our heads around what's happening.

I will resist the temptation to jump into one more treatise about over-dependence on foreign aid, or about why this is our moment to embrace local solutions to local problems. Instead, I will focus on the blind spot I set out to explore from the beginning of this article. Our biggest error would be to start believing that this new, different, "bad" America is equally a permanent monolith, with no dissent, no partisanship, and not prone to an equally radical change with the next electoral coin toss.

To minimize our susceptibility to this error, I propose the following reminders and caveats for how we tell our stories about progress, alliances and multilateralism in service of social justice going forward:

1. Political alliances are powerful but precarious -- say it again

It's not just about the money -- though the money helps. Every good cause needs ideological allies. Even evolution has always been shaped by the survival of those who stood together rather than apart. Everyone needs a friend. It is how the human experiment thrives.

There's something to be said about the role of diplomatic camaraderie in achieving the many national and international social justice milestones that we enjoy today. The friendship of states is an extension of the friendship of humans. When we appeal to international agreements and multilateral instruments to persuade policy makers to protect lives and livelihoods, we are often tapping from the geopolitical equivalent of shared humanity.

In light of the current shifts in foreign aid (and the inevitable shift in alliances), storytellers have a unique role to play in telling stories that make human sense of the moment. Our stories are better off confronting the difficult realities of our past, not just our present. We must also acknowledge that what makes geopolitical alliances so powerful is also what makes them precarious -- they are highly dependent on who or which party sits in the Executive office of a country at any given moment. We need to explicitly acknowledge this risk whenever we amplify the power of geopolitical partnerships.

2. Challenge internal oppression as much as external oppression

It is almost impossible to find partnerships where both partners agree 100% on every single issue, even when they agree on core values. This is because the factors (socio-politico-economic) that make one cause more effective at any one moment will often weaken another cause. This is also why, despite all the conference-talk about intersectionality, or cross-movement collaborations, we still see very little of it. So how do we value collaboration while acknowledging that our partners' priorities are not our priorities?

An even bigger challenge is when partners who seem totally allied to our cause seem to take a totally opposite stance on one particular aspect of our cause. The treatment of the Trans community among gender justice movements is a classic example. How do we navigate partnerships with feminist movements that are all about the empowerment of cis-gender women but hostile towards trans women? Or how do we amplify the US position (Biden US) on LGBTQ+ rights in Ghana while also acknowledging the horrific choices that the US keeps making on Gaza?

Just like the US is not a monolithic democracy, no coalition or movement is monolithic on every single aspect of every social justice issue. But how do we navigate this internal diversity and disagreement? Do we simply apply a self-imposed blindness to the uncomfortable bits of our friendship, or do we find a way of acknowledging the disagreement without writing off the entire partnership?

We are all works in progress, and these are very difficult questions -- many of them are easier to analyse on paper than to practice in life. But our stories have to at least attempt to acknowledge these difficulties and internal inconsistencies as an integral part of our mission.

We may not have clear answers to some of these difficult tensions. But we can at least have room for clear questions about them.

3. Our wins must have more transformed lives, and less vanquished enemies

As I've said in a previous post, our cause is necessarily people-centered. We put people first and policies and programs second. Always. We prioritize the lived experiences and perspectives of minority communities in our messages. But beyond merely illustrating harm, our stories must humanize and embody our hope -- that every person can and will live a free and dignified life free from harm and all forms of discrimination.

This includes those we disagree with. It's hard to wrap our heads around seeing the merchants of hate as the objects of our love mission. But if our social justice cause is only for the people that look and think like us, then we are just chasing our own tails. The reason why progress is often so precarious (as we are painfully learning) is because our idea of progress has often been partisan. We cared more about "countering them" and less about "encountering them".

However, until (and as) we figure out the right systemic changes (laws and policy), we will commit to protecting people. All people. Otherwise, for whom are we figuring it out if not all of us; the least of us; the most vulnerable amongst us? The path to sustainable progress must be paved with some tolerance. "I disapprove of what you say," said Voltaire, "but I will defend to the death your right to say it." When it comes to our "opponents", we are often big on disapproving, but small on defending their rights, let alone dying for those rights.

But true justice must be for all, even our ideological enemies.

If the line separating good and evil passes through every human heart, as Solzhenitsyn said, then our social justice work must always be tempered by constant mirror-gazing. The hate and homophobia you see out there is a reflection of your own human capacity for evil. Our quest for justice, then, must always be clothed in the universality of human rights. We can't just claim human dignity in our abstractions but continue to treat our ideological opponents as if they are aliens that need to go back to their planets.

These are uncomfortable tunnels to explore. But the least we can do is acknowledge their existence. Social justice work is neither clean nor tidy. But acknowledging this will only strengthen our commitment to our global mission of defending the full citizenship for all people.

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