Recolonize Africa The Only Solution?

Recolonize Africa The Only Solution?

Africa’s population is increasing fast. It’s now 1.5 billion in what is essentially a hostile land (from desert or ferocious jungle). The solution of course is war, and wars all over blossom. Just contemplate Ethiopia-Eritrea: so many deaths there, so many wild beasts eating the corpses, so much administrative mayhem, one has not even an idea of how many people were, and are killed. So great is the chaos that the Nobel Prize winning leader is now accused to be an active war criminal (a bit as in Myanmar, but way worse).

I grew up in Senegal, I saw the situation decay. Decolonization was an illusion. If anything many colonized countries went from colonial administration protectorates to plutocratic exploitation. This is not my choice of words: countries such as Senegal have switched from the abusive concept of colonization which didn’t really happen, as there were not too many “colons” to the concept of “protectorate”: throughout West Africa, “colonizer” France was paying for one hospital with free service every one hundred kilometer. After France was removed, so were the hospitals. Deprived of contraceptive services, Niger went from a population of 3.4 million in 1960 to more than 28 million now in what is essentially a desert.

When Africa was integrated in the “colonial “ systems, there was free trade of goods and people. The French constitution of 1945 was partly written by African MPs (say Leopold Sedar Senghor). Many Africans were de facto citizens of Europe. Investment flows were directed to Africa. Now many European powers feel it is wiser to direct investments towards Eastern Europe, Ukraine, Turkey. Up to recent times, even Russia and China profited from Euro-US investments. But it is dawning on everybody that maybe it’s wiser to invest only in democracies.

Direct administration, as in old times, is the only solution. A few decades ago, my own father, an African born geologist, who had personally discovered Algerian oil and gas, no less, was put in charge by the United Nations to oversee international fossil fuel searches in several African countries (Cameroon, Kenya…), to lessen corruption…. 

If superior Euro-American minds do not feel that recolonizing Africa with the idea of justice is a solution, Putin’s Wagner Group and Xi will happily oblige. Inferior Euro-American mind will be happy with “colonizing” Ukraine…

Patrice Ayme

Mayhem will concentrate where the population does… With the possible exception of historically democratic Senegal… A place that was already with French citizenship in the 17C….