Many people, including on this continent, have been aghast at what they see as the moral failure not just of African governments, but also of individual Africans, to outrightly condemn Russia for its clear and unwarranted aggression, as well as its imperial and colonial designs on another people’s land, with which they should be all too familiar.
Africans, including myself, who have pointed out the racist hypocrisies of Western media, governments and societies evident in the response have been accused of a convenient whataboutism which blinds us to the suffering of Ukrainians. Further, others have suggested that Africans are guilty of similar hypocrisies to those they accuse the West of, seemingly more concerned about events and crises thousands of miles away but happy to ignore the many crises on their own doorstep.
Much of this is true. At the UN General Assembly, African countries formed a significant proportion of countries either abstaining from or opposing a resolution to condemn the Russian actions.
