MyWeku

US presidential candidates are not necessarily expected to know an awful lot about Africa, at least not be their own electorate. However, as we pointed out a few months ago in the post – Newt Gingrich on colonialism - Newt Gingrich’s 1971 Ph.D. dissertation which he wrote at Tulane University, titled “Belgian Education Policy in the Congo 1945-1960” raises a few eyebrows.

In there he writes: “If the Congolese are to confront the future with realism they will need a solid understanding of their own past and an awareness of the good as well as the bad aspects of colonialism.”  “It would be just as misleading to speak in generalities of ‘white exploitation’ as it once was to talk about ‘native backwardness.”

Today, the NewYorker magazine has put together a rather interesting expose of what the 6 Republican candidates views are on Africa.

Here is an excerpt:

It’s evident that former Republican Presidential candidate Michele Bachmann is,  to be kind, bad at geography. In an October debate, Bachmann’s  remarks suggested that she didn’t know Libya was a country in Africa. But  where, if anywhere, are the remaining six contenders when it comes to Africa?  Foreign aid and the threat of Islamist extremism rank high on a very short list  of African issues that have come up during the campaign. But there are important  variations, and some oddities: Are most primary voters aware that, to the extent  that Newt Gingrich is actually a “historian,” he is a historian of Africa? If  Americans aren’t paying attention, many Africans—in a continent of over a  billion people that will figure heavily on the global economic and political  scenes over the next decade—are watching and waiting.

Here, then, is a guide.