Daily Inspiration Quote by Omar Bongo

Calling Africa a "victim" of September 11 is a deliberately jarring reframe, and Omar Bongo knew it. In the immediate post-attack climate, sympathy and geopolitical attention flowed overwhelmingly toward the United States and its allies, quickly hardening into a security-first agenda. Bongo's line tries to reroute that attention: not by competing with American grief, but by expanding the definition of harm to include the places that would be affected indirectly but decisively.

The key move is the phrase "important to stress", a diplomatic signal that the obvious story is swallowing other realities. Bongo is speaking as a statesman from a continent often treated as peripheral to global crises unless it can be cast as a source of instability. By insisting on Africa's victimhood, he flips that script: Africa is not simply a terrain where counterterror policies will be tested, or a suspected pipeline for shadowy networks; it is a stakeholder with legitimate claims.

The subtext is pragmatic, even transactional. Post-9/11, aid flows, debt relief, and investment priorities were poised to shift toward the "war on terror", while tourism, commodities, remittances, and foreign direct investment faced shocks from a tightening global economy and heightened risk aversion. There's also a quieter warning: securitized responses can land hardest on weaker states through border restrictions, surveillance partnerships, and the rebranding of local conflicts as terror threats.

Bongo's intent is to argue for inclusion in the moral ledger and the policy conversation. If 9/11 reorganized the world's priorities, he is demanding that Africa not be written out of the consequences.