Certainly, such an outlook is comprehensible in light of the importance of history in the definition of foreign policy priorities.

In advancing this argument, I would classify these priorities in three major concentric circles, which in part underscore implicitly the reach and limits of our engagement with the world.

First, we attach (logically that is) importance to our foreign policy on Africa as a consequence of not only geography, but also history.

But even if much of what we do in Africa is largely rhetorical (with the exception of South Africa and Angola) and is informed by our common history against colonial oppression, our relations tend to be limited in scope.

They are limited in the sense that while we seek to dismantle the colonial and imperialist architecture, our African relations perpetuate a colonial outlook because they focus primarily on Anglophone Africa.

Admittedly, such an approach may be a pragmatic choice in view of our own limitations when it comes to diplomats trained in foreign languages.

But for a country that tries hard to pride itself on its Pan-African credentials, and in particular more than twenty years on, a foreign policy outlook that is a continuation of a colonial outlook of Africa is simply unacceptable.

Therefore, there is a lucid contradiction between our ambitions to make Africa the centrepiece of foreign policy while we maintain and confine our relations strictly speaking, to English-speaking Africa.

On that score, we are not putting our actions (perhaps also money) where our mouth is.

Second, even if we are politically in denial, a closer peep at our diplomatic representation in the world potently reveals that we attach unparalleled meaning to our relations with the West (London, Paris, Washington and Berlin), including institutions shaped by western civilisation (the United Nations, the WTO etc.), perhaps even more than those in the developing world.

By doing so we still perpetuate a colonial outlook or western-led hegemony of international relations.

Evidently, we are pragmatic here because (even if rhetoric tries to mask this reality), as a developing country we need euros, pounds and dollars and institutions shaped by American hegemony to develop our country.

It does suggest that we should decolonise our relations with the West and move beyond the cheap anti-imperialist mockery in our politics.

It is retarding our ambitions, notably our soft-power status as one of the democracies on the continent to the point where we rejected incomprehensively the NEPAD Peer Review Mechanism as an imperialist approach to issues of governance in Africa.

Third is a circle that I refer to as the "rest that is rising".

Here I am referring to Asia, particularly China's increasing weight in our foreign policy actions.

While China looks at us in pragmatic economic terms, of course using their support for our cause during the liberation struggle as bait, we have been unable to look at this relationship outside those very liberation terms.

China is a strategic partner in counter-balancing our relations with the west through a regional shift.

But we should also tame China strategically by attaching importance to Japan in our relations in Asia.

On the whole, what needs emphasis here is that our diplomacy should redefine its engagement with the three circles that I have just raised, while looking beyond those by adding new priorities.

High politics remain the centrepiece of foreign policy, but as a developing country we need to emphasise more the low politics of trade and investment.

It would mean that we should look proactively at the oil-rich Gulf states and other rich small states such as South Korea and Singapore as strategic partners in our development efforts.

The redefinition of priorities would also mean that we should do more with less.

Doing more with less suggests that we should cut on staff in embassies that don't perform core functions in line with our national developmental priorities.

As a case in point, it makes little sense to have solidarity embassies in Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Zambia while we have only one embassy in the whole of Francophone Africa, which represents more than half the membership of the African Union.

It is also odd that we don't have any diplomatic or a trade and investment office in the Gulf, while this is one of the fastest growing regions in the world.

Certainly, we won't do well if doing more with less does not emphasise merit in the recruitment of diplomats who are multi-skilled and multi-lingual.

Here I am of course talking about Mandarin, French, Spanish and Arabic.

Also, doing more with less does suggest that we need to move toward increased and better co-ordination between the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

The time is ripe for the fusion of these two ministries.

And to conclude, it deserves mention that our foreign policy in current form is more driven by wishful thinking as opposed to any clearly defined and consistent interaction with our national objectives.

* Alfredo Tjiurimo Hengari is a PhD fellow in political science at the University of Paris- Panthéon Sorbonne, France.

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