East Africa had a notoriously foul reputation all along the Indian Ocean coast. On one hand, its colonial activities had indeed been bloodier than those of traditional colonial powers like Britain and France. On the other, with Britain's loudspeaker blaring away, even if East Africa truly had been a White Lotus, it could not have earned any good name. Fortunately, East Africa was indeed no White Lotus.
A country's hegemony was built from a combination of military strength, economy, public opinion, and other factors. Just like the Middle Eastern region in the previous life: when Western countries truly murdered, set fires, stole oil, stirred up conflicts, sold arms in vast quantities, and toppled legitimate governments in the Middle East, it was all supposedly to spread "democracy," safeguard "human rights," and combat "extremism" and "terrorists."
If a country did not belong to the Western order, then even if it genuinely conducted fair business with Middle Eastern nations, Western countries would still go all out to smear it. "Everyone in that country is bad enough to ooze oil; this is economic colonialism."
Of course, the Middle East was also a hopeless Adou that could not be propped up. However hegemony preached, they truly followed the hegemon's baton.
East Africa was clearly not a country easily subjected to "moral kidnapping." After all, there had been no morality to begin with in East Africa's rise.
Learn from the barbarians to control the barbarians. Naturally, East Africa would not sit idle and wait for its competitors to "slander" it and expose its shortcomings. Over the years, East Africa had also controlled and built up its own mouthpieces in the Middle Eastern region to whitewash itself and shift blame.
The essence of a war of public opinion was not explanation or self-justification, but dragging one's opponent