Nigeria doesn’t offer the comparative symbolism to the U.S. civil-rights movement that made the fight against apart-held in South Africa so galvanizing for African-Americans. “This is not a Nelson Mandela situation,” says Molefi Kete Asante, chairman of the African-American Studies Department at Temple University. For Randall Robinson, executive director of TransAfrica, the influential U.S.-based lobbying group that launched the new Nigeria campaign in March, the decision to challenge Nigeria was a compelling one-regardless of race. “We believe that you judge human rights by one yardstick: when it’s wrong, it’s wrong,” Robinson says.
Nigerians have long suffered under dictatorial rule; the country has been governed by its military for 24 of its 34 years of independence. But Robinson says Gen. Sani Abacha’s rule has been especially ruinous, noting that his regime has plundered the country, leaving it near financial collapse. Robinson turned to the Nigerian issue now because he had time and resources available, His past targets–apartheid and the Haitian military–had been routed.
Robinson concedes that it is “disquieting and uncomfortable in a racist environment” for blacks to denounce black leaden, even vile ones. That’s a problem every hyphenated American minority group faces: how much dirty laundry to expose to outsiders who are not always sympathetic. Gwen McKinney, president of a black public-relations finn in Washington, says that ostracizing Nigeria is a “double-edged sword.” While protesters march, Congress is putting foreign aid to Africa on the chopping block. Will the protests encourage the aid cutters? Will the campaign unintentionally reinforce negative stereotypes of the “Dark Continent”? Steven Barboza, a New York writer who follows international affairs, is appalled by the situation in Nigeria. Yet he is reluctant to support an economic embargo because that puts an African nation on the same footing as Iran, a supporter of international terrorism.
Africa has taken on a romanticized status for many black Americans who, understandably, would prefer to blink at some of the continent’s harsher realities. Clayton Riley, a former New York talk-radio host, says U.S. blacks need to see Africa for “what it really is as opposed to the myths and the dreams.” That’s hard to do, while the neighbors are watching.
