West gonna go to war before they take they foot off Africas neck. If a resource rich black continent could sell their goods at fair market value world would look way different.
Not neccesarily. The west has no permanaent enemies and they will gladly reach out and support allies who are convnenient to them even if they were enemies beforehand. For example, Diplomats immediatly got dispatched and got all buddy-buddy with Venezuela the minute Russian sanctions kicked in on oil. Venezuela , a sworn enemy of US/Euro supremacy became way too convenient an ally for them to leave alone.
A similar thing could be said for Rwanda who became incredibly convenient to the UK when the UK was having a migrant crisis. Now Rwanda is being propped up globally, and money is flowing in to their nation from the west. Same could be said for vietnam , who had an antagonistic relationship with france, the us, and the brits due to historic colonial factors. The minute china started bucking its chest , vietnam immediatly got the western stimulus package.
So the common thread with all these instances is that once you have something to offer that is conventient to the west , they have no problems bending over backwards to not only relieve their foot from your neck, but to also uplift you. And no , selling rocks from your backyard is not the solution for african nations. It requires much more critical thinking than that, it needs to be something that is a polititcal pressurepoint in the capitals of these western nations. And cobalt and diamonds wont cut it. (no pun intended)
My issue is that african nations have been abysmal at engineering these convenient relationships with the west. All it takes is a little bit of crirtical thinking by african leaders. For example, look at colombia which had no prioir bussines in the defence sector until their people wisley started making kevlar vests to restock western stockpiles as they gave to ukaraine. Why couldnt a heavily militarized african nation like Algeria or Burkino Faso do the same? Its a failure to both create and pursue such convenient relationships with the west that plagues africa.