Meet The New Republic Writers Who Hate Africans

To Amy Westervelt, Geoff Dembicki, Molly Taft, Michel Tomasky, and The New Republic: 

So you've finally noticed us. It's about time. In the spirit of “All Publicity is Good Publicity,” I’ll start by saying thank you for writing about Atlas Network—and including a paragraph about me—in your recent article, "Meet the Shadowy Network Vilifying Climate Protestors." 

It’s just a shame you couldn't get your facts straight before hitting ‘Publish.’

Your article was riddled with inaccuracies. And while I’m only going to point out five of your inaccuracies in this article, I can’t help but wonder: is this shoddy journalism the new standard for The New Republic? Has the once-revered TNR adopted the journalistic ethics of InfoWars?

Let’s begin. 

1. You wrote that I "frequently cite de Soto as an inspiration for her take on Africa and climate change." I have to wonder where you get this. While I certainly cite de Soto's work on the obstacles of doing business in poor nations, I've never mentioned him in any sense related to climate change. I don't know if he has ever even mentioned the issue. This is simply careless journalism.

2. You wrote that I "refused to engage with the fact that African climate activists are being arrested at an alarming rate." This is absurd. I have never "refused to engage with the fact" at all. Indeed, this is the first I've heard such an allegation. 

3. It is truly baffling how you connect "climate activists are being arrested at an alarming rate" to the Amnesty International story titled "Uganda: Authorities must stop criminalizing activists for protesting cost of living." It is beginning to look as if you randomly grabbed something that was completely irrelevant in an attempt to connect me to your main thesis. Those arrested individuals were "protesting inflation, high prices of essential goods and the continued detention of Kizza Besigye, the leader of the political pressure group People’s Front for Transition." It literally had nothing to do with climate activism.  

4. One of the apparently blameworthy deeds you accuse Atlas Network of being associated with is the ousting of Hugo Chavez ( "Decades later, CEDICE was instrumental in ousting Hugo Chávez.")  Oddly enough, in 2009, TNR described the Chavez administration's attack on CEDICE as "thuggish."  At that point, TNR was celebrating CEDICE against Chavez.  Different editorial direction since then? Maybe you should put disclaimers on your own past content.

5. Your interpretation of Hayek is that he "blamed socialism for all of society's ills." Yet, Hayek is best known for his argument that government-controlled economies are a disaster. Are you in favor of Chavez's Venezuela? Cuba? North Korea? The Soviet Union? The Soviet dominated East bloc? Mao's China?

You have accused me of allegedly ignoring African climate activists, yet your article ignored the key issue at hand: the well-being of an entire continent. The four of you spit in the face of a billion Africans in the name of writing a hit piece. Who's the real villain?

Unlike the four of you, I am an African who has dedicated her life to helping the people from my homeland. So let me share some facts with you to help you understand why your focus was so wrong.

For starters: African business environments are among the worst in the world. On the 2020 Doing Business ranking, only four African nations make the top half: Mauritius, Rwanda, Zambia, and Botswana. 

But most of the 54 African nations are in the bottom quarter, such as: Mali, Benin, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, The Gambia, Guinea, Algeria, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Sierra Leone, Burundi, Cameroon, Gabon, Sao Tome and Principe, Sudan, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Angola, Equitorial Guinea, Republic of Congo, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, South Sudan, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia (the last two are the only two nations worse than Venezuela).

Africans need economic freedom to achieve prosperity. In other words: We must have world-class business environments in order to escape poverty for good. 

My questions for the four of you: 

Do you believe Africans do not deserve business environments as good as New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Denmark, and Korea (the top five)?

Do you understand the relationship between bad business environments and prosperity?  Bad business environments and corruption? Prosperity and child and maternal wellbeing?  

No? 

Okay, maybe you can understand this: Senegalese routinely die at sea trying to get to Europe. Other Africans are bought and sold as slaves, sometimes in their own nations, or as they try to get through Libya to get to Europe. For $300 you can buy your own slave in 2023!  

This, by the way, is why good jobs for Africans are so important to me.

Here’s the biggest thing you failed to touch upon in your article: Africans deserve prosperity! Affordable and reliable energy is an essential component on the path to prosperity. World class business environments and economic freedom are essential to African prosperity. 

And while you might hate Atlas Network for your own reasons, here’s another truth you left out: Many of the organizations making up Atlas Network are leading advocates for African prosperity. As such, I'm proud to serve as Executive Director of their Center for African Prosperity.

Your rhetorical hit job relies on "right-wing" being a term of opprobrium.  For many years, I would have fallen for that rhetorical trick myself.  But since I discovered how the impossibility of doing legal business in Africa is a foundational reason for African poverty, I can no longer respect anti-capitalists who don't support a path to African prosperity.  If the left is not willing to support African prosperity, then the left no longer holds the moral high ground.  

Once you acknowledge the moral importance of working towards African prosperity, then we can begin a sane conversation on climate policy. If you believe that Africa needs to remain poor because of what you regard as "the climate emergency," then we have a real problem.  What, China and India can become middle class by means of fossil fuels, but we Africans need to stay poor? If you believe that sending billions to African governments by way of "climate justice" is going to do much to help actual African people, then I'd like you to live as a regular citizen in a recipient country and see what life is like after receiving the billions.  Most of it will go to Western companies and into the pockets of African elites, “climate justice” as another mansion in the south of France.

To wrap up, I’ll leave you with two more facts you failed to include in your hit piece:

1. A million African women die from indoor cooking every year. 

2. Access to propane is the fastest way to save their lives. 

Are you against access to propane cooking for the global poor? 

Either they accept solar stoves, or they die?

If you think you can lecture me on African prosperity while promoting narratives that keep them poor and dying, you're mistaken. I fight for real solutions, not empty rhetoric.

To the four of you: Amy, Geoff, Molly, Michel. I invite you to a public debate, where we can have a recorded conversation to discuss these issues.  In your hit piece, you did not take any of the arguments I make seriously. Do you have the courage to argue against me face to face? Or are you shadowy types who run from the light of day?

You can talk about the moral importance of the civil rights of the protestors of the Extinction Rebellion and Last Generation ("They must be allowed to throw soup at famous paintings!  They must be allowed to lie down in front of traffic!").

And I'll talk about the moral importance of working towards African prosperity through entrepreneurial capitalism and affordable, reliable energy.  

We’ll see how well your arguments hold up when you’re face to face with an African who cares about the future of Africa.

Email me at magatte@magattewade.com to schedule our conversation. I’m standing by.