Firoze Manji argues that asking how Africa can stop being an “afterthought” in global negotiations is the wrong question. Africa is already central—a theater of competition between superpowers. The real issue is internal: which Africa? Three billionaires hold more wealth than half the continent, and 75% of elite wealth sits offshore. Drawing on Fanon, Manji shows post-colonial elites have simply replaced the colonial settler, recreating the Manichean divide. Giving this “Africa” more power only serves a class aligned with global oligarchs. The deeper question: What is our conviction? Integration into an unequal order—or building something new?

Transcript
Who is “Africa” in Global Negotiations

Thank you to the Institute of African Studies for this invitation. It is a privilege to share this panel with such distinguished colleagues.

The question put before us is this: How can African countries move from being an ‘afterthought’ in global negotiations to becoming co-authors of the terms that shape trade and investment?

It is a good question. But in the next ten minutes, I want to suggest that it might also be the wrong question—or at least, an incomplete one. Because before we ask how Africa can get a seat at the table, we have to ask: Which Africa? And what kind of table are we trying to sit at?

The ‘Afterthought’ Paradox

Let us start with the premise. Is Africa really an ‘afterthought’?

Look at the data. The United States has military installations across the continent—in Djibouti, Kenya, Nigeria. It imports billions under AGOA. China is Africa’s largest trading partner, with bilateral trade reaching $343 billion in 2025. Multinational corporations from Canada, Europe, and Asia are extracting resources, destroying our environment, and banking profits.

This is not the behaviour of a global system that has forgotten about Africa. On the contrary, Africa is central to the geopolitical reset. The competition between the US, China, Russia, and the Gulf states is playing out on African soil. The continent is not an afterthought; it is a theatre of operations.

So, if we are so central, why does it feel like we are being treated as an object rather than subject? Why does the language of ‘co-authorship’ feel aspirational rather than descriptive?

Who is ‘Africa’? A Question of Class

This brings me to my second point. When we say “Africa,” we must be precise. Because the continent is not homogeneous It is a terrain of intense internal contradiction.

• The top 3 African billionaires now hold more wealth than the poorest 50% of the continent’s population.
• The top 5% of Africans possess nearly $4 trillion—more than twice the wealth of the other 95% combined.
• And crucially, an estimated 75% of the wealth of African multi-millionaires and billionaires is held offshore, in the banks of Geneva, London, and New York.

So, when we speak of “Africa” gaining more influence in global trade, whose Africa are we talking about? Is it the Africa of the elite, who have mansions in Monaco or Dubai and children in Ivy League schools? Or is it the Africa of the majority, who are told to tighten their belts while the country’s resources finance luxury imports?

The metaphor of the “driver’s seat” is often used. We say Africa must be in the driver’s seat of its own destiny. But let us be honest: Africans have always been in the driver’s seat. Since colonial times, it has been African hands on the steering wheel, African sweat on the leather, African hands shining the wheels, African hands driving the elite—first the colonial administrator, now the domestic billionaire—through the potholed streets of our cities. Being in the driver’s seat means nothing if you are not the one who decides the destination.

The Manichean Inheritance

This brings me to Frantz Fanon.

In The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon described colonial society as Manichean. He meant that it was a world split into two: the settler’s town, clean and orderly, and the native’s town, crowded and chaotic. It was a physical manifestation of a moral division—the colonizer as absolute good, as epitome of ‘human’, the colonized as absolute evil, the less-than-human. No middle ground. No coexistence.

Now, I want to ask you: When you walk through the capital cities of Africa today—through Nairobi, Lagos, Johannesburg, Dakar—do you not see the same Manichean division?

You have the gated communities with 24-hour electricity and private water. And a few kilometres away, you have the sprawling informal settlements where people live without security, without services, without dignity.

The faces may have changed. The flag may have changed. But has the structure changed?

This is the uncomfortable question: Have our post-colonial elites simply replaced the colonial settler? Are we presiding over a neocolonial order where the exploitation is no longer racialized in the same way, but it is just as brutal? And if that is the case, then what good is it to give “Africa” more power in global trade negotiations, if that power is concentrated in the hands of a class that has more in common with the global oligarchy than with the people in the native quarters?

The Global Context—Re-Colonization?

We cannot have this conversation in isolation. We are meeting at a moment when the old certainties of the post-2nd World War order are crumbling.

We are witnessing the destruction and occupation of Palestine and Iran. We have seen military interventions and destabilization in Libya, Somalia, and the Sahel. We see the rhetoric of great powers treating sovereignty as an inconvenience.

Is re-colonization on the agenda? Perhaps not always in the old form of direct administration. But the logic is the same: the belief that some lives are worth more than others, that some resources can be taken by force, that some people can be sacrificed for the security and prosperity of others.

In such a world, what does “co-authorship” mean? Can you co-author a treaty with someone who holds a gun to your head? Can you negotiate terms with someone who does not recognize your humanity?

Conclusion: Conviction and Cause

I will end with a thought from Ghassan Kanafani, the Palestinian writer and revolutionary. He said:

“Everything in this world can be stolen except one thing: the love that emanates from a human being committed to a conviction or cause.”

They can steal our resources. They can rig the terms of trade. They can co-opt our elites. They can bomb our cities. But they cannot steal the conviction of a people who know their cause is just.

So, as we discuss Africa’s future amid the geopolitical reset, let us not just ask how we can get a better deal at the negotiating table. Let us ask a deeper question:

What is our conviction? What is our cause?

Is it to integrate more smoothly into a global order that is fundamentally unequal? Or is it to build something new—something that finally breaks the Manichean structure, that reunites the divided city, that ensures the wealth of the top 5% serves the needs of the 100%?

Until we answer that question, we will remain what we have always been: drivers who do not choose the destination, and negotiators who do not set the terms.

Thank you.