Africa, my first love

I recently fell in love with Africa,for the first time...
Don't get me wrong, i've always liked Africa, i mean i was born in Africa. Southern Africa to be exact, though i actually didn't know much about the continent as a whole, certainly nothing about Western and Northen Africa.Nothing about African politics or the plight we are in. The cold war is over,our colonisers are long gone, though we are apparently still in chains, shackled still, if you will. Until recently i didn't care about any of the 53 countries, about civil wars,or growing poverty. I was simply content in my ignorance,how did the civil war in Angola affect me? What was the whole fuss over oil in Nigeria? Why couldn't everyone just get along. That all changed when i picked up Roert Guest's A shackled continent. What started off as a lazy read had me up until the early hours, laughing out loud and then so gripped with fear and a genuine sense of loss.
Where had we got it wrong? Why did we beg the western world for aid we are apparently 'entitled' to and then use it for our personal extravagances? Yes im referring to our presidents and everyone else in power. On a quest for more answers, i read Phillip Gourevitch's, We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families... a reporters account on the genocides in Rwanda. Then i read Ken Wiwa's memoir of his father, Ken Saro-Wiwa and couldn't believe i'd never heard of him.
One thing was certain though, the root of the problems we have in Africa is because we don't like each other as people. Different tribes just don't get along, the stereotypes our colonisers used to divide us still prevail. In Zambia if you're Tonga, you are considered lazy and foolish. in Zimbabwe you can't be Ndebele, In South Africa if you're Zulu, you're a killer. Further afield in Nigeria if you ain't Wazobian then forget it.

Why has Africa had so much civil war? In all other regions of the world the incidence of civil war has been on a broadly declining trend over the past thirty years: but in Africa the long term trend has been upwards. Of course, every civil war has its ‘story’ – the personalities, the social cleavages, the triggering events, the inflammatory discourse, the atrocities. But is there anything more? Are there structural conditions – social, political or economic - which make a country prone to civil war? Might it be that the same inflammatory politician, playing on the same social cleavages, and with the same triggering events, might ‘cause’ war under one set of conditions and merely be an ugly irritant in another?

Surprisingly, the dominant factors are economic. Three factors matter a lot for the risk of civil war: the level of income, its rate of growth, and its structure. If a country is poor, in economic decline, and is dependent upon natural resource exports, then it faces a substantial risk that sooner or later it will experience a civil war. As was the case in Nigeria, after researching further i discovered there was one major civil war after independance and then a few substantial in the Delta after Ken Saro-Wiwa's fate. Typically, such a country runs a risk of around one-in-seven every five years. Like Russian roulette, things might go well for a while, but then some conjunction of circumstances – the personalities, the triggering events – ignite violent conflict. Of course, when this happens, the media focus on the personalities and the triggering events. These are indeed the proximate ‘cause’ of the conflict. But the big brute fact is that civil war is heavily concentrated in countries with low income, in economic decline, and dependent upon natural resources.
The prolonged viability of UNITA in Angola and the RUF in Sierra Leone; the violent gangs of the Nigerian Delta; and the successful rebellions of Laurent Kabila in Zaire and of Denis Sassou-Nguesso in Congo Brazaville, were all assisted by one or the other of these methods of natural resource financing.

For the best part, i am PROUDLY African and for all the wrong that happens in Africa, merely being born here is priceless. The weather is amazing,our smiles endearing. We are generally helpful to each other and have the warmest hearts. Thanks to my inquisitive streak, i can now safely say i have Zimbabwean, Zambian, Namibian, Ethiopian,Kenyan, Malwian,Nigerian, Mozambiquean, Sierra Leonian and recently added Senegalese friends. Oh and the guy who does my beaded bracelets... he's from Togo.
For the most part Africa will come right, one day.