Africa Rising 21st Century

               Since the days of African independence, the continent has been bedeviled by internal and external conflicts – from coups like the recent one in Guinea Bissau and the many successful and unsuccessful attempts during the 1960s-70s to ongoing internal conflicts over resources such as in Nigeria’s Niger Delta and the post-election violence in Kenya in 2007. Then there are the conflicts between nations such as the Uganda-Tanzania conflict (1978-79) and those internal conflicts that involve other nations such as the current Tigray war in Ethiopia.             However, the threat of terrorist attacks is a bane to even relatively peaceful nations. When al-Shabaab attacked the Westgate Mall shopping center in Kenya in 2013, there undoubtedly was a negative impact on tourism to Kenya, especially given the 2015 shooting at Garissa University College, the 2019 hotel bombing in Nairobi and...

               For more than a century, members of the African Diaspora in America and the Caribbean have made efforts to create linkages with our distant kin on the continent of Africa. This has gone beyond those who were born on the continent or their children who maintain familial ties. Those of us born outside of the continent often have tried to create and maintain connections with those of our people in Africa – sometimes successful, sometimes not.             However, the Diaspora is far broader than just the United States, Canada, the Caribbean and Europe. Here in the United States, we do acknowledge people whose familial ties are from the Caribbean such as Vice President Kamala Harris, whose father was from Jamaica, or the late former Secretary of State Colin Powell, also of Jamaican heritage. We are sometimes fans of Caribbean-born entertainers, such as the late Jamaican singer Bob...

                It has become fashionable in the developed world community to criticize Africa for the lack of unity among its component members, as evidenced by its inconsistent efforts to get African Union members to collaborate effectively on many issues and the somewhat disjointed implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area due to the differential in political will and capacity of individual African countries. The African Diaspora also has joined in this criticism, but as the Bible says in Matthew 7:3: “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”   We in the Diaspora have enough issues with working cooperatively in achieving economic independence that we cannot criticize Africa’s lack of collaboration while ignoring our own. The Diaspora in the United States has long been divided by populist leaders who spoke for the middle and lower economic clas...

               While eyes around the world are on Russia — because of its war on Ukraine, which is negatively affecting Africa and elsewhere, the possibility of Russian nuclear arms being used in warfare and the possibility of forced regime change there – I don’t think enough attention is being paid to the long-term militarization that Russia has been facilitating in Africa.             As part of Russia’s grand strategy of establishing political, economic and military relationships with many African nations, Moscow has increased its activities in the African arms market. “ Arms sales are a central element of Russia’s foreign policy and are closely controlled by the government to advance economic and strategic objectives. Russian arms sales provide an important source of hard currency, promote Russia’s defense and political relations with other countries, and support important domestic indus...