Yesterday we looked at some facts and figures from Richard Dowden's Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles, showing how Asia has progressed since the end of the colonial era. On Monday we saw how, during the same 40-50 years, Africa has regressed.
The book is full of examples of Africa "going back to bush". It's actually quite a depressing read, especially for those who believe, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, that we are all created equal. Here's Dowden's observation of a small west African country, a long-time British colony now suffering from the "benefits" of independence.
Sierra Leone seems to be turning away from modernity and retreating into the Iron Age. I had felt the same sensation in Uganda, in Congo, Angola, Mozambique, Nigeria, Sudan, Ghana and even in some countries like Senegal and Kenya that had not suffered a complete political breakdown.
It is as if everything manufactured -- bricks, cars, engines, paper, plastic bottles, oil cans -- had been carried into Africa on a tide that is now retreating. The strange imports lie like rusting and rotting flotsam beached on an alien shore. Africa is strewn with buildings and machinery that were supposed to bring development but somehow got adapted or transformed into something else or now lie broken and useless in the sun.
And it is not just things. Sometimes the very nation states themselves, with their borders, flags, airlines, presidential palaces and government offices, seem to be disintegrating and dissolving.
I hear a wise old African saying with a polite smile: "Thank you for these things but they do not last long and they really are not suitable for Africa. It is better we rely on what we know, mud and wood, fire and a little smelted iron."
Exactly. Africa is going back to the iron age because that's all Africans know and that's what they are comfortable with. The problem with Africa, which The Economist called "the hopeless continent", is Africans!
Yes, yes, I know that'a a sweeping generalization, but that doesn't make it untrue. Nor does saying so make me a racist. I lived in Africa for six years and saw firsthand the effects of African ignorance, incompetence and corruption, as described in Mr. Dowden's wise, compassionate and understanding account.
Dowden is not a racist. I am not a racist. We are just realists. That is the way Africa is!
It has always been so. Travelling in Europe and Asia you see, in the architecture alone, evidence of civilizations and cultures which have subsisted for thousands of years. In sub-Saharan Africa there is virtually nothing.
Of course there's the odd exception, like the Great Zimbabwe ruins, which may have been built by Africans...or not. But until the Europeans came there was virtually no infrastructure, no written language, no government or social structures beyond the tribe or small "kingdom". African society before the advent of the white man was primitive.
What the white man did was to attempt to graft a skin of civilization over the raw body of African society. It didn't take. And now that the doctor is gone, the patient is rejecting the treatment, just as the "wise old African" says.
No comments:
Post a Comment