there's a bit of a paradox here. the very resources that provide immense wealth in africa also provide the heart-wrenching toyin alludes to. if south africa didn't have those mines, how different it would have been. no one is fighting to the death for "peanuts,"
actually the major crop in senegal where the litany of corrupt and oppressive presidents seen elsewhere has largely passed them by. (i could say a lot more on this, but will button my lips).
in rwanda and burundi now, since the genocide of 94, things have calmed down., one country has an authoritarian govt, but the president aspires to something like plato's philosopher king, although he's not afraid to use the gun, and used force in the drc that
resulted in vast fighting. in burundi an uneasy truce between hutu and tutsi parties, at times more repression and attacks, resulting in vast migration. but with the new president, i have hopes for much improvement.
but cross the border into the land of timber, coltan, diamonds, gold, and all sorts of minerals, you can see maybe 126 or more militias, there to fight over their piece, or to take others' pieces. there to import the guns to enable them to rule. and who gets
the wealth? the indonesians? the chinese? israelis? east europeans? the list keeps shifting; the fighting in the kivus goes on forever; last year 2 million people displaced! the govt and monescu incapable of imposing the rule of the state. truly, what toyin
falola said, it is there that we can see this anomy clearest, a season that has not ended, now going on a quarter century.
ken