Opinion: India and Africa
"India's relationship with Africa is like the banks of a river. They do not touch one another but they always belong together." Geopolitics can sound beautiful as in this message by the Indian delegation to Africa. Only six months after a gigantic India-Africa summit, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi has now ended his trip to Africa, which added weight to the proclaimed realignment of Indian foreign policy.
It was no coincidence that Modi's trip took him to East and South Africa, where there are large diaspora communities - more than a million in South Africa alone. Evening events attended by thousands of jubilating Indian exiles, such as one in Johannesburg, formed an integral part of Modi's tour.
Modi's main reasons for being in Africa were trade and investment. The Indian leader had half a billion euros ($1.11 billion) in his bag in investment volume. In return, Modi is interested in the rich oil and gas resources of the African continent. The Indians are already deeply involved in Sudan, whose leader Omar Al-Bashir was duly courted at the India-Africa summit, despite being indicted by the International Criminal Court.
India's geopolitical interests
However, the real focus of Modi's geopolitical attention lies beyond the often mentioned race between India and China for African markets and resources. India sees Africa as a natural partner in the laborious process of reforming the United Nations Security Council. This is at least as arduous as the exile of Mahatma Gandhi in South Africa, which Modi recalled in the coastal city of Durban, where there is a strong Indian influence.
In India, as in parts of Africa, there is a strong feeling (not entirely unjustified) that the current constellation of permanent members of the Security Council - France, Britain, China, Russia and the United States – is outdated. Nuclear power India wants to join the illustrious circle. Since South Africa has similar aspirations, the two get along perfectly.
This is irrespective of the fact that concrete bilateral policy formation between the two - as in the South-South BRICS club - remains static. Apart from this, the Indians have several very concrete strategic requests for Africa: foremost among them, a reinforced and considerably more professional form of security cooperation, for example, in maritime traffic or the containment of global terror.
Lesson for Germany
All this is perfectly legitimate and that's the reason why Germany should learn from the Indians' offensive in Africa (and also from the Chinese engagement, which despite an economic crisis has barely slowed.)
A few years ago, the head-to-head race between the Asians spurred Berlin to look towards Africa. The neighboring continent was celebrated in countless conferences as the continent of opportunities. There was a ceaseless procession of German politicians between Cape Town and Cairo, who then back home set to work drafting a new German policy for Africa.
Two years and several hundreds of thousands of African refugees later, Germany's Africa policy has mutated to one of defense and rejection. Germany's interior and development ministers now travel not to investment countries but to states regarded as future "safe countries of origin."
It's easy to criticize the far from delicate manner in which the Chinese and Indians are acting in Africa. It would be better to cast off such negative feelings and instead take advantage of the great confidence Africans have in Germany and German products and utilize it for mutual benefit. Creating new jobs could also create real incentives for young Africans to stay in Africa. Or, in the words of the Indians: to link both river banks with a stable bridge.
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