And the Most Popular African Leader for the Last 25 Years Is...

Two the first things Nelson Mandela did once released from prison in 1990 was visit Libya and Cuba to give personal thanks to Muammar Qaddafi and Fidel Castro respectively. He understood that both played significant roles in his release and the victory over racist apartheid in his country.

Wait for it.  Are you ready?  Its not Nelson Mandela.  Certainly, its not some silly answer like Barack Obama.  Not even close.  Of course, we don't claim to have done a formal survey on this.  We haven't conducted a scientific experiment on this question.  Our assessment is going to be entirely based on our understanding of African politics over the 25 year period in question and informal discussions with Africans everywhere.  

Our answer to this question is unquestionably, without a moment's hesitation, Muammar Qaddafi from Libya.  Why Qaddafi?  Wasn't he a dictator?  First, let's define dictator.  What is the point and/or benefit to having complete control of a country?  To controlling all of a country's human and material resources?  To preventing people from doing anything to challenge your power grip on the society?  

We would argue that to be a dictator, someone has to do all of the above.  And the purpose for doing all of those things is to ensure that you can maintain your personal power.  In Africa, dictators, and there have been some, have been so as puppets of Western imperialism.  In other words, people like Mobutu Sese Seto (from 1964 to 1997) in the Congo, and some of the present day problem leaders like Paul Kagame from Rwanda, controlled their countries at the behest of imperialism.  They have been permitted to maintain that control, despite whatever terror they reap on the populations, as long as they use their ruling apparatus to ensure Western business interests in their countries are sustained.  In the case of the Congo, that is the most mineral rich area of the entire planet.  Gold, diamonds, and the $600.00 USD per pound columbite tantilite (coltan or cobalt) which every electronic device you use that gives and receives a signal relies on to function, are all in plentiful supply in the Congo along with uranium, copper, and other necessities. 

What is constantly reported to you and me is that the constant strife and conflict in the Congo is the result of tribalism.  The truth is these multi-national corporations recruit and arm militias to fight each other for territorial control of the coltan mines with equipment and training supplied to them by Western imperialist countries, with the U.S., as always, leading the way.  In return for protecting these vital resources for imperialism, the despot dictators like Mobutu are provided wealth to the extent that during his reign of terror, Mobutu was always one of the richest people in Africa, despite him having only a low level experience as a military officer in his background.

Although Mobutu, an actual real live dictator, had almost 20 Rolls Royce luxury vehicles for his personal use while he was being puppeted to pillage the Congo, Qaddafi had 0 vehicles in his personal possession.  He was never focused on having material possessions.  In fact, when the U.S. bombed the you know what out of Libya in 1986, Qaddafi was living in a tent.  This is where his daughter was killed, in that tent. Even the people who killed him in Washington D.C. never tried to accuse him of stealing Libya's wealth for his own benefit. This is ill-refutable.  He wasn't interested in wealth that way.  What he was interested in was using Libya's massive oil wealth to provide free education and health care to the Libyan people.  He was interested in providing every Libyan family with financing to establish their families within Libyan society.  He was interested in supporting the project to build the Wasra dam throughout the Sahara Desert which provided potable water to millions in Chad, Ethiopia, The Sudan, Niger, the Western Sahara, and other parts of that region.  What he actually did was provide material support to every liberation movement in Africa, and around the world, including the American Indian Movement and other movements outside of Africa.  

The reasons indicated above are the exact cause Qaddafi was the most popular leader in Africa during this period and his most important contribution was actually the one that cost him his government and his life.  He initiated a project in 2003 to create one financial currency for all of Africa.  He always acknowledged that doing so wasn't his idea.  The idea came from the leaders of African independence and recent Pan-African leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah.  Qaddafi always recognized this.  The idea of an African currency was discussed by Nkrumah, Sekou Ture, Modibo Keita, Chekh Anta Diop, Julius Nyerere, and others because without this and other steps geared towards uniting Africa, she will always be in the subordinate position to Western imperialism.  

Every country's currency is just paper money right?  What makes some currencies more valuable than others is what's backing them.  In the case of the U.S. dollar, it has value, just like the British pound, the French Franc, etc., because these currencies are backed by gold and other wealth of these empires.  In other words, because of this wealth, you know you can take this currency into any bank and/or business anywhere in the world and they will accept it because of the financial wealth of this country.  The people accepting the money know that this country is in the best position of existing countries to continue to exist, so the money from here maintains its value.  The fact this "stability" exists solely because of imperialism's theft from Africa and other places is never broached. 

n Africa, its the opposite. Due to imperialist manipulation which produces the type of neo-colonialism described through Mobutu in the Congo, there's no political and economic stability in African countries.  Consequently, the currency isn't backed by anything that anyone anywhere has faith in.  This is true even from one African country to the next.  They won't accept each other's currencies.  What Libya was doing between 2003 and 2011 was laying the groundwork to create an African currency called the dinar that would be backed by Libya's massive gold wealth.  Libya, then the most stable economic country in Africa outside of imperialist supported and maintained Azania (South Africa) had the punch to back a currency like the dinar.

Today, you can't find an economist anywhere who won't admit that the dinar would have turned the world economy completely upside down.  Now, all of the sudden, you have to deal with Africa on the world market.  And, the dinar was simply the first step to uniting and consolidating African control of the resources the currency is used to protect.  To understand it better, imagine if you lived in a world with two other people.  One of those people had the capacity to produce products and the other had the capacity to buy and consume those products.  You, had no capacity to do either.  Your entire existence was dependent upon what either or both of those entities did.  If you figured out a way to come to the table in a way where you had to be dealt with by both in an economic sense, that would clearly change the power dynamics.  That's what Africa having its own strong currency would look like in the world today. 

The imperialists knew this and that is the reason the Obama administration decided to bomb the Libyan Jamihiriya (the Libyan government with Qaddafi) completely into submission.  And, Hillary Clinton's own emails apparently confirm that for all who doubt the truth and for those who continue to try and paint a positive picture of Barack Obama.  He was the president who was responsible for taking down the most productive government in Africa.  Chew on that because all the anti Qaddafi propaganda you try to stand up with to defend Obama cannot refute those truths.  And, that's without us even talking about his administration's role in building a massive US. military presence in Africa to protect imperialism.

If you study African politics and talk to people in the know (that last part is important because we are so intellectually lazy, some of us will suggest that any random African born in Africa is an expert on everything happening in Africa), you will find out that contrary to the capitalist media in this country and the other capitalist countries, the Libyan Jamihiriya was loved by all of Africa.  When the U.S. led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO - all the Western imperialist countries) was destroying Libya in 2011, there were millions of people protesting it around the world, but most of us don't know that because we aren't paying attention to Africa.  Most of us don't know those protests are still happening and growing everyday.  Africans recognize that Qaddafi was their friend and most of you are not.

So, Qaddafi is loved in Africa and the only reason that's relevant is because imperialism always believes that they can kill the idea by killing the person, but they are wrong.  If you think you have heard the last of what Qaddafi was doing, very soon, the joke is going to be on you.