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Leon Sullivan: Summits and
Opportunism
By Omoyele Sowore
There is no doubt that when the
African-American, Reverend Leon H. Sullivan dreamt up
the idea of African Summits, he did so with the noblest
of intentions. Having fought apartheid all his life, he
wasn’t content on just the idea of political freedom for
the continent. He thought it was a great idea to get
international political and business leaders together to
dialogue about Africa and its various needs and to act
on the consensus reached at these Summits.
There have been six Summits so far.
These were in Abidjan (1991), Libreville (1993), Dakar
(1995), Harare (1997), Accra (1999) and Abuja (2003).
Curiously, the seventh Summit has already kicked off in
Abuja again and is scheduled to last till July 21, 2006.
But Reverend Sullivan has been dead for five years now
and today, there is increasing doubt as to whether his
heirs are actually pursuing his principles, even though
they claim to be doing so in his name. Indeed, when one
assesses the activities and associations of the key
personnel of the Leon H. Sullivan Foundation, you can’t
help but see vestiges of family aggrandizement and crony
capitalism.
Hope Masters (nee Sullivan) is the
President and CEO of the Foundation. In an elaborate
ceremony sponsored by President Olusegun Obasanjo in
Abuja, Nigeria, this daughter of Rev Sullivan married
Carl Masters, Co-Founding Partner (with Andrew Young) of
the Atlanta-based Goodworks International, a firm of
lobbyists permanently retained by President Obasanjo (on
a $60,000 monthly fee) to supposedly do public relations
job for Nigeria in the US, even though the country
operates an embassy and two consulates there.
Mrs. Hope Masters and Andrew Young
are the only members of the “Leadership” of the
Foundation, while there is the ceremonial list of board
members of big names, one of whom is former President
Bill Clinton. In every function organized by the
Foundation, Mr Carl Masters, even though not formally
listed on the website as a member of the Leadership
actually is the Secretary to the Board. The relationship
between President Obasanjo and his Goodworks
International friends seems to overshadow whatever it is
the Foundation is supposed to be doing. In fact, one
wonders why Obasanjo has to host another Summit
consecutively when there are literally scores of African
venues outside Nigeria to do this.
Obviously, the leaders of the
Foundation today are only paying lip-service to the
principles of self-help, social responsibility, economic
empowerment and human rights – principles Rev Sullivan
himself espoused. Today, the reverend’s heirs are more
interested in feathering their own nests in cahoots with
tainted political operators in Africa. Rather than
championing corporate responsibility in Africa, they’re
actually exploiting its absence.
For instance, they feel
no scruples receiving millions of dollars in donations
from Shell, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Chrome Petroleum, Sea
Petroleum and the like, while the Niger-Delta burns and
their environment destroyed by callous oil exploitation.
They take the money but feel no responsibility for Obasanjo and the oil companies’ unwillingness to truly
show transparency with regard to proceeds from the oil
revenues.
One of the most blatant abuses of
their position was perpetrated by Carl Masters last year
when he presided over one of the worst cases of abuse of
office by Obasanjo as the chief organizer and fundraiser
for the latter’s library project. It wasn’t just that a
sitting president found it morally justifiable to set up
a library in his name that rankles, but the fact that he
did this by more or less coercing public and state
officials to donate towards this project. We are talking
of a country notorious for the corruption of its public
officials and its President used his incumbent position
to collect supposed donations from well-known pilferers
of public funds, both serving and retired, to serve his
private ends. They raised a whooping $50 million and
Carl Masters, a Jamaican-American, was not ashamed to
preside over this, even as Gani Fawehinmi, the
irrepressible advocate of public propriety is in court
challenging the affair.
In fact, the largest single
donor to the project, Mr Mike Adenuga, a local business
magnate with extensive political connections, was
recently arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC). He’d since been released, but up till
now the reason for his arrest remains a mystery, as
neither him nor the government are saying anything.
But anyone who’s followed Young and
company and their careers wouldn’t be surprised at what
they’re doing in Africa, which is to cash in on Reverend
Sullivan and Mr. Young’s statuses. As an ‘icon’ of the
civil rights movement, a former mayor, ambassador and
recognized elder in the African-American community, Mr.
Young leads his acolytes on a mission to convert this
status to cash by betraying his people’s trust to the
highest bidder. Anyone who doubts this mission only
needs to note the job that first catapulted Goodworks
International into the big time in 1997.
At a time when the world was waking
up to the appalling atrocities being committed by Nike
in its Asian shoe factories, Young and Masters took the
Nike commission to burnish their image. Young produced a
seventy-five page full colour report on Nike’s Asian
operation. He concluded that there was “no evidence or
pattern of widespread or systematic abuse or
mistreatment of workers” in the twelve operations he
examined, filling up the pages with doctored pictures of
smiling, ostensibly happy workers.
But a few weeks
after, the accounting firm, Ernst & Young visited some
of the same places Mr. Young claimed to have visited and
put a lie to his report by detailing the unsafe,
terrible and subhuman conditions under which these
people work. But to Messrs Young and Masters, the
principle is why let the truth get in the way of a big
fat cheque? Goodworks International is on the map and
they are now “international business consultants”, so
what the heck!
In February this year, true to type,
Goodworks International continued its betrayal with the
announcement that Mr. Young is now chair the Working
Families for Wal-Mart. The world’s largest retailers,
with a stinking reputation amongst women and minorities
now have as their spokesperson an African-American civil
rights icon – just for a few dollars! In fact, Wal-Mart
proudly announced they were funding Young and Goodworks
International, because they belong to a group of people
“who understand and appreciate Wal-Mart’s positive
impact on working families in America”. Of course, it
matters not that Wal-Mart discriminates against
minorities and women, pay poverty-level wages and are
pushing competitors out of business.
As this Summit opens and close once
again in Abuja with highfalutin jives and no action,
Nigerians, nay Africans must be weary of these so-called
do-gooders. Andrew Young and Carl Masters can use their
friendship with Obasanjo and other notorious Africans to
feather their own nest at the expense of the ordinary
people of Nigeria and the continent while Rev Sullivan
turns in his grave, but we mustn’t allow them to sell
their snake oil as some kind of solution to African
problems.
Evidently, they do not care about
democracy, constitutionalism and the rule of law,
because if they do, they wouldn’t have supported
Obasanjo’s attempt to subvert the Nigerian constitution
towards his third term agenda. If they care, they
wouldn’t be gallivanting in Abuja, laughing into their
wines as their friend and benefactor, Olusegun Obasanjo
presides over a repressive fascist and neo-military
regime that cares very little about the welfare and
economic well-being of Nigerians or the African people.
African-Americans must also begin to
take people like Young to task for cynically cashing in
his Freedom Movement chips. It is not the dream of
Martin Luther King, Rev Sullivan, and Black America that
their icons use the same putrid principles their
oppressors used against them to fleece their African
brethren.
It is time for Africans,
African-Americans, and Blacks everywhere to take a
closer look at these Summits and ask the right
questions.
Omoyele Sowore is a citizen reporter and Nigerian
pro-democracy activist based in New York. He publishes
at
www.saharareporters.com * *
* * *
Leon Howard Sullivan
(October 16, 1922 - April 24, 2001) was a
Baptist minister, a civil rights leader and social activist
focusing on the creation of job training opportunities for
African-Americans, a longtime
General Motors Board Member, and an anti-Apartheid
activist. Sullivan died on April 24, 2001, of
leukemia at a
Scottsdale, Arizona hospital. He was 78. . . .
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Sullivan organized the first Summit
in
Abidjan,
Côte d'Ivoire in 1991 as a result of a number of
requests and conversations he had with African leaders
seeking an honest dialog among and between leaders of
African countries and government officials and leaders
from developed countries. Since then, the biennial Leon
H. Sullivan Summit has brought together the world's
political and business leaders, delegates representing
national and international civil and multinational
organizations, and members of academic institutions in
order to focus attention and resources on Africa's
economic and social development. Their mission was
inspired by Rev. Leon H. Sullivan’s belief that the
development of Africa is a matter of global
partnerships. It was particularly important to Rev.
Sullivan that Africa's Diaspora and Friends of Africa
are active participants in Africa’s development.
The Leon H Sullivan Summit is now
organized by the
Leon H Sullivan Foundation which is headed by Leon
Sullivan's daughter Hope Sullivan.—Wikipedia |
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* * *
 |
African Film: New Forms of Aesthetics and Politics
By Manthia
Diawara
In this book
Manthia Diawara, a renowned scholar on Black cinema,
literature, and art brings readers up to date on the
exciting changes taking place behind and in front of
African cameras. Contributions by filmmakers,
scholars, and producers as well as profiles of
thirty important African directors and their films,
provide valuable insight into recent developments.
The volume comes with a DVD containing several
interviews with filmmakers conducted by the author.
Scholars, students, and anyone interested in
cinematic and African cultural studies will find
much to discover and celebrate in this
authoritative, fascinating look at new trends in
African filmmaking. |
* * * * *
|
In Search of Africa
By Manthia
Diawara
Manthia Diawara
is able to see Guinea with a nostalgia that doesn't
turn a blind eye to the nation's faults, pointing
out what needs to be done without falling prey to
"Afro-pessimism." In one heartfelt passage,
recalling his upbringing in revolutionary Guinea,
Diawara writes: "My life began when the new nations
were born, in the late 1950s. We had been full of
hope then, determined to change Africa, to catch up
quickly with the modern world, to show that black
people could use their culture and civilization, as
other people did, to lead them into modernity." But,
as Diawara relates throughout the book, that didn't
happen. He painfully recounts how he and his family
were forced to leave Guinea and how the country sank
into a Marxist-oriented dictatorial nightmare. |
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While not overlooking the
horrible historical impact of the slave trade and European
colonialism, Diawara also blames internal corruption and
dangerous African ethnic customs, like female genital
mutilation, for his country's underdevelopment. Ultimately,
however, he remains confident that this people will one day
ascend to their full political, economic, and cultural
potential: "Our desire to be modernized has been awakened, and
it cannot be denied. Women want liberation from traditional
oppression; we all want access to education and material wealth;
and we are tired of being ignored by the world."—Amazon
Review
posted 31 July 2006 |
