Archive for Africa

The Fall of Europe and the Contest for Africa

Posted by: Ion | July 27th, 2008 · 3:44 PM

As we’ve previously discussed here on PP, we believe the 21st century will be conditioned by two major economic, political and military events which would have sounded preposterous only twenty years ago (and which still do to many today). The first is the Steynian atrophy and demographic collapse of (coherent) European power, through a lethally toxic combination of mass immigration and low domestic birth rates. Although we won’t live to see a “Eurabia” those forces will destabilize and damage European prospects for effective competition on the world stage to a vast degree in this still young century.

The second and even more unexpected event, will be the rise of Christian sub-Saharan Africa as an economic, military and political power of substantial consequence. While most people in the West focus on Africa’s manifest problems with disease, poverty and unstable autocratic governments, these problems have never looked more like pre-war Asia than they do today.

Africa is changing and changing rapidly. Despite the horror stories you hear, Sub-Saharan African economic growth routinely doubles or triples Western European rates, unlike Europe its population is still growing prodigiously, its governments there are increasingly transforming into more stable market-states and the population is consolidating under a new faith: In 1900 Africa’s Christian population was 8%, today it’s 45% and still expanding. It is already roughly equal to the Muslim population of North Africa and is poised to leave it far behind.

But those events are a long way away. At present, the contest for Africa has a different locus. As with Asia in the 20th Century, resources and labor needs are driving the great powers into Africa. In the 21st century “great powers” means the United States and China.

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Productivity & Christianity in Africa

Posted by: Ion | July 24th, 2008 · 9:16 PM

We’ve often written about how radically the introduction and spread of Christianity is changing sub-Saharan Africa, culturally, politically and economically (for the better, in our opinion). Something that is almost totally ignored by Western media. But too often we tend to focus on the Protestant side of this effect. It should be said that Catholic evangelists are also pushing at these trends with often equal vigor.

Archbishop James Odongo supplies a representative example of this sort of thing in Uganda. Here he was speaking at the Martyrs Cathedral near Tororo, on Catholic Youth Day:

Archbishop Emeritus James Odongo has cautioned the youth against engaging in homosexuality, lesbianism and using vulgar language. He said such behaviour was unacceptable not only in the Christian teachings, but also in the African culture.

He urged the youth to work hard instead of spending time in social gatherings and being influenced by philosophies that state that ‘when something is done, it must, therefore be right.’

Odongo told the youth to preserve the integrity of their faith and be responsible for their actions and thoughts.
(AllAfrica)

Apart from extremely self-confident social conservatism, one of the most striking things one encounters when reading Christian African sermons, is how strenuously they focus on work ethics and increasing worker productivity through strengthened moral resolve.

Sub-Saharan Africa remains the lowest man on the global totem-pole in terms of worker productivity, but is gaining faster than other regions. It should be observed too, that the only region of the world where worker productivity is actually falling is in the Muslim Middle East (excluding Israel).

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The Southern Bulwark

Posted by: Ion | · 8:20 PM

I didn’t see this report on CNN, but wish I had:

Therefore, when recently the CNN Inside Africa crew went to chat with them on the streets of Cairo, their views were expected as all the respondents rejected the notion of being Africans in the first place. It must be emphasized that this same view is shared by all North Africans from Cairo to Casablanca.
(Friends of Ethiopia)

As a matter of physical and ethnic geography this is roughly equivalent to Colombians claiming they are not South Americans. As a matter of national and political identity, it’s quite close to the truth. Above the Sahel is Empire Arabia, the domain of Islam conjoined at the heart to Mecca and the customs and convulsions of the Arab world, through unified religion and language. Wherever Islam goes in Africa, African identity is riven apart from the land. Such is Islam’s marriage to maps.

One of the interesting things to consider, is whether the modern efforts of Arab leaders in Sudan, Libya and elsewhere to expand the zone of Arabization south into the continental interior –efforts which have met with so much failure– would have proven more successful had the rise of Christianity in the 20th century not been so rapid and expansive beneath the Sahara. For force of effect, here’s a compelling little table illustrating how significant this change has been:

(Christian History Institute)

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No Lesbos for the Chicago Diocese

Posted by: Jason | November 11th, 2007 · 12:48 AM

(image: trinitycleveland)

You’d think the shortcoming of lesbian Episcopal Rev. Tracey Lind in becoming bishop to the Chicago diocese today would be something to celebrate among faithful Christians. But don’t tell that to Rev. William D. Persell, the would-be bishop she would have replaced had her bid been successful.

Says the outgoing bishop:

The election “should not, in any way, be seen as a vote against a gay or lesbian person.” He said women make up a third of the rectors and vicars in the diocese, and that gays and lesbians are “some of our most creative clergy.” He added, “We’re committed to full inclusion”.

Simply amazing… The Episcopal Church never ceases to find new boundaries to cross the line on with regard to this issue. Is it any wonder that half its masses are scattering to find real leadership from places as far as Nigeria?

Perhaps as American Christians continue to discover the fresh feel and the returning of first principles found within the evangelical and third world sects of the faith, two brands which constitute the real future of global Christianity today, liberals like Rev. Persell who want to rewrite God’s law will continue on with their deserved path towards irrelevance. Judging by today’s events and his comments supporting Ms. Lind and other gay and lesbian clergy, that day couldn’t come any sooner.

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Race and Sticks in China

Posted by: Ion | September 23rd, 2007 · 3:59 PM

(photo: Sami Salminen)

Word today from China that police went on a racist rampage in the Sanlitun district of Beijing last night. Entering the neighborhood in force, the police accosted and beat every person with a black face, allegedly as part of a general crackdown on narcotics trafficking.

There’s a bit of a stereotype in China that contends that all black people are drug dealers, based on the truism that all drug dealers in China tend to be black. The penalty for dealing being death, destitute African immigrants are generally one of the few demographic groups willing to run the risks for quick wealth.

As Jennifer Brea relates:

“I have not really ever seen anything so brutal,” my friend told me. “There was blood all over the street. I will not sleep well for a long time.”

Police also beat up the son of the Trinidadian (some say Grenadian) ambassador, until he was able to pull out his ID between blows Witnesses say as many as twenty black men were arrested, although many were quickly released.

My friend said the police seemed to take quite a lot of pride/joy/sadistic pleasure in their work. For no apparent reason, one of the police reportedly opened the door of a taxi cab and smiling, punched the driver (Chinese) in the face.
(Africabeat via Travellers’ Tales)

Photographic evidence of the event might prove hard to come by, as the PRC authorities followed the violence with their customary confiscations of cameras.

“Nothing to see here folks…but even if there was, you didn’t see it.”

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The Price of Lunch in Zimbabwe

Posted by: Ion | September 22nd, 2007 · 3:56 AM

Lunch for eight people costs a diner six million Zimbabwean dollars (about $18 US).

(Daily Mail)

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Confronting Mugabe

Posted by: Ion | · 3:53 AM

Nancy Reyes has a source telling her that former Archbishop Pius Ncube –the key figure in Zimbabwe’s internal opposition– may indeed stand for election against Mugabe himself:

“Pius is determined to fight Mugabe on the political front. All along he has been supporting other candidates, but none of them has been able to topple Mugabe. So this time he is taking the bull by the horns.” Ncube has so far made no direct statement of his intentions. I spoke to him at the weekend, and he told me: “I will issue a statement to answer your questions very soon.”
(Mugabe Makaipa)

This is a welcome event, if it turns out to be true. Elections will (probably) be held at some point next year. Of course, as James Kirchick warns, the odds that even a Ncube win would be a Ncube win, are remote:

The bare fact is that Robert Mugabe will never cede power. He is a totalitarian through and through, and will kill as many people—through slow starvation (as he has been doing for the past several years) or outright murder—as necessary to stay in charge. If, as in 2000, 2002, and 2005, it appears that ZANU-PF will lose at the polls, Mugabe will simply rig the vote, expel poll watchers, imprison and torture domestic opponents, and curse the West. He has done this every time even the slightest threat to his power emerged, and the world community has allowed him to get away with it for the past 27 years.
(Commentary)

In related news, British Labour MP Kate Hoey, in applauding Gordon Brown’s new attention to the situation in Zimbabwe, has a very relevant point:

Besides, the UK and other donor nations are all stakeholders in this crisis. Zimbabwe is a country that under a democratic regime with an efficient economy could easily feed itself with surplus for exports so why should we be expected to foot the bill for feeding a third of the population of Zimbabwe and yet be denied the right to engage in finding a solution?
(Yorkshire Post)

Brown’s hardline stance against Mugabe has come in for some criticism from the African leaders who through indifference, or just an old habit for colonial grievance politics, have been enabling Mugabe for decades. As well as from the usual suspects of the European Left who are still so ashamed of long gone empires that they’ve made a permanent apology for anyone who appoints himself the representative of Victim Africa™.

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Protest and Pessimism in the Maghreb

Posted by: Ion | September 10th, 2007 · 7:08 PM

The left-leaning (if allegedly nonpartisan) 501(c)(3) group Americans for Informed Democracy (AID), has taken exception to our reposting from June, of SnappedShot’s enormously amusing Islamic Rage Boy project. AID notes that there seems little interest on our part by contrast, in heartening nationwide demonstrations in Algeria to protest Al Qaeda’s brutal terrorist operations there.

The weekend protests staged mostly by Muslim women, had some of the better chants you’ll read this year:

The crowd, which was made up mainly of women, chanted slogans such as “Terrorists are not Muslims” and “the Algerian people reject terrorism and support President Abdelaziz Bouteflika
(BBC via Americans for Informed Democracy)

This peaceful popular revolt is coming on the heels of the revelation that Al Qaeda is in acute crisis in North Africa, following the surrender of Benmessaoud Abdelkader, a key zonal emir of Al Qaeda (formerly of the notorious GSPC). Under debriefing by Algerian authorities, Abdelkader portrayed an encouragingly chaotic situation within the organization, perhaps conditioned by the July death of Sid Ali Rachid, the mastermind of AQ’s more spectacular attacks on the Bouteflika government.

In this context, AID was using us in a general and cynical rebuke of conservative (or at least anti-salafi) blogs and their zeal for pillorying the fanaticism of Rage Boy, at the expense of a more sympathetic Muslim majority (the extraneous component of the Rage boy’s unfair argument). But since I first read about the demonstration on