The only info I am getting is that an African Diplomat said it but nothing else. I want to use it for the Xi Jingping section of my research paper for Political Science, I think it would add a nice bit of “flavour” for introducing the topic of Chinese relations with African states.
A little web searching suggests it’s usually attributed to “a Kenyan official,” but no one has managed to place it, and consensus has resigned to calling it apocryphal.
Was it that video where the diplomat [Namibian president] shuts down the British [German] guy criticising China’s influence in Africa? I vaguely recall them sitting [next to] in a yellow /red/orange [flag] room on those short, squat, square armchairs. That’s not much to go on but I have a feeling I watched it around Spring 2023.
Edit: this is close but not quite what you’re after: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=Jw2BOG57_2M
Iirc Mbembe did an interview with News with JingJing. He might’ve said it in that one. Here’s a clip: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=GwH0b07LVNU [Edit 2: here’s the full interview, I think: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/391298]
This is the video I was thinking of, with Hage Geingob, President of Namibia: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=t89AP1TRyN0 — but it’s not in this one, either. Geingob died recently. Just before he died, he challenged Germany’s support for Israel in the ICJ case. I can’t comment on his politics in general. But I’ve got to respect what appears to be a lifelong dedication to not putting up with Germany’s bullshit.
Sounds about right, we can’t even get a hospital built in the UK without getting shafted by some Private Finance Initiative scheme (private company builds hospital, school, etc and Government or local authority are stuck in a decades long contract paying for it). What is built is usually shit and immediately starts falling apart but government is “seen to be building stuff” and because there’s no debt just decades of contractual payments to be made the national debt doesn’t increase.
The “Kenyan official” should be glad just to get a lecture and not a fucking rip-off scheme like the Great British Public is getting. :D
Iirc, the first time I saw it it was in a tweet of an African official responding to a British political person when the Brit said something along the lines of “Africa is being enslaved by China” (that was the gist at least). Probably the Brit deleted their tweet afterwards, which also deleted/hid the replies. I’m pretty sure I saw a screenshot of it on GenZedong
