Africa: one continent, two worlds

This is the Maghreb, the western or "sunset" countries of North Africa. They are all Arabic countries, all Muslim. And many of them, along with next-door Egpt and other Arabic Muslim countries of the middle east, are in turmoil.

But the unrest -- dare we say revolution? -- won't easily spread through sub-Saharan Africa, even though countries such as the Congo, Uganda and Zimbabwe are poverty-stricken, chaotic and ruled by corrupt and incompetent "Big Men" who would seem to be ripe for the picking...or should we say "shooting".

Why not? The Globe and Mail's man in Africa, Geoffrey York, provides some answers in a thoughtful analysis, published today. Here's a sample of Mr. York's reasoning.

Revolution is often a luxury of an educated middle class, and much of Africa is too rural and too poor to sustain a national uprising. Dictators in sub-Saharan Africa often defend their power through a politically loyal military – in contrast to Egypt, where the troops tolerated protest.

Technology is another factor: Internet access is still relatively low in most of Africa, making it harder to organize protest. And the ethnic and religious rifts in many African countries are a huge obstacle to the organization of national protests.

Forcus on that last sentence, please, because it's the key to understanding Africa. York is saying, in another what, what V.S. Naipaul said in The Masque of Africa, reviewed here earlier this week.

The problem ... make that a problem with Africa is the culture of Africa. Underneath a thin veneer of western civilization [Is that not an oxymoron? Ed.] you find the real Africa, bedevilled by tribalism, supserstition and ignorance.

All the goodwill and foreign aid we keep throwing into the Dark Continent is not going to change that. The only hope is that the Africans will change themselves -- evolve, in other words -- and that will take centuries. Don't hold your breath.