From Silicon Valley to Swaziland, Rick & Wendy Walleigh [i love reading books .txt] 📗

Is There Any Hope for Africa? Yes!

One month after we returned to the United States, Kenya had a very close presidential election with sufficient voting fraud to have swayed the outcome. Violence erupted around the country, and by the time it was put down, over a thousand people had been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced. This was a tremendous shock to anyone at all familiar with Kenya. Everyone thought that Kenya was a well-established country with citizens who generally respected the rule of law. No one thought that Kenya was a replica of the United States. It still had significant corruption and was primarily controlled by a group of old politicians who had grown up in the Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel Arap Moi era, but to have this level of violence bordering on insurrection and a potential civil war was unthinkable. But it did happen, and the events were broadcast globally on the evening news.

As we discussed these events and our recent African experience with our friends, we repeatedly got the question, “Is there any hope for Africa?” As we have told our friends, the answer is absolutely there is hope. Overall, Africa is moving in a very positive direction, and we should help those who are trying to improve their countries. Of course, in getting to an “overall,” many serious problems are averaged out by many success stories, and much progress comes in the form of three steps forward, two back. But this is progress, and it does continue. More and more African countries are becoming democratic. Many African countries are experiencing economic growth rates well above the developed countries. New generations are moving into the halls of power in both commerce and politics, and these younger people are not tainted by the cold war, a belief in Marxism, or alliances with old political machines. They have new visions for their countries that include true representative democracies and true market-oriented economies.

Because they are starting so far behind in per capita income, African countries will not soon be at parity with the west, but they are making great progress, and we should help and encourage the good ones. We should also chastise and apply pressure when countries slip into old patterns of corruption, favoritism, manipulated markets, and oppression of minorities. We must be very careful with our aid directly to governments because it can be seen as a “prize” for corrupt administrators to pursue. Even our support given directly to the people has to be carefully administered to prevent a culture of dependency.

African growth and development will come primarily from the efforts of Africans, but we can and should influence and accelerate their economic growth and development of democracy. We should not give up hope when we hear stories of corruption. One only has to go back a hundred years (or much less) in the history of the United States to read stories about pervasive corruption and oppression of minorities. Yet we have survived and thrived. So will Africa.