Africa Rising 21st Century

            The global population recently reached eight billion people.   Sometime early on November 15, the eight billionth person – a baby girl in a Manila hospital – was born, reaching the new global population milestone.   Of course, this is an estimate as there also was an infant born the same day in the Dominican Republic. Whichever child was first, the designation was merely symbolic anyway. Among developing countries, five of the nine countries with the largest anticipated populations in 2100 are in Africa: Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Egypt.   For quite some time now, there has been an organized effort to reduce what is incorrectly assumed to be an African population bursting at the seams.   However, my colleague. Kwame Fosu, in his landmark 2011 study of depopulation efforts in Africa, Depo Provera: Deadly Reproductive Violence Against Women , reported that the overpopulation of Africa is...

                 When the Marvel Studios film Black Panther hit theaters in 2018, it created a couple of sensations. The first, of course, was that a major movie featured not only a mostly black cast but credited that cast for portraying an innovative, futuristic African society based on their natural blessing of vibranium, a mineral that fell from the sky in meteors and allowed that society to advance into the technological society we witnessed. The second was the prospect that the mythical country and society of Wakanda could be recreated in real life.             The popularity of the second film in this franchise – Black Panther: Wakanda Forever – was confirmed by the $180 million opening weekend revenue in North America. The sequel set a record for a November opening in North America, besting the previous high-water mark of $158 million set by 2013’s  The Hunger Games: ...

             The announcement of a so-called “permanent” cease-fire agreement in Ethiopia’s Tigray war sparked optimism among those outside Ethiopia, as well as those clinging to hope inside this beleaguered country. War in Ethiopia’s northern region has continued for nearly two years exactly. There have been ceasefires attempted previously, but none of these efforts lasted because they depended on whichever side felt a halt in fighting suited them at the time, while success on the battlefield made the aggressor at the time less likely to want to halt its momentum.             After a fragile cessation of hostilities gave hope of the conflict ending several months ago, clashes between the Ethiopian army and forces from the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) erupted around Kobo, a border town in the Amhara region to the south of Tigray.          ...

                 Pollution has been significantly diminished in developed countries due to the use of less polluting energy sources such as unleaded gasoline and natural gas. As a result, the skies over cities in developed countries are much clearer today than they were decades ago. Still, there continues to be pollutants that many are concerned will lead to a global catastrophe. The countries and regions seen as contributing the most: China, India, North America and Europe are constantly engaged in discussions over how to mitigate this threat. Climate change is real; the source and the most effective mitigation strategies are still uncertain.             The United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) current Global Environment Outlook report says that Africa must act now on the environment given the continent’s population growth. “Africa faces a great challenge of sustaining ...

               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...