The West is Dead!
egc...@africaonline.co.zw
The West is Dead!
Recently I attended the Annual General Meeting of Afreximbank in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria. I was there to sign a deal which involved the Bank helping us finance a study related to a proposal that will create one of the largest solar power stations in Africa, floating on Lake Kariba, still the largest manmade dam in the world.
The meeting was attended by several thousand stakeholders and while the Banks directors dealt with the business of the day, we met in a large convention Centre where we heard talks by invited experts. A mixed bag but there were several talks that were memorable. One of these was delivered by an academic from Singapore.
He started the presentation by saying “The West is Dead”. It was the start of a presentation on current global affairs and trends and their implications for Africa, completely absorbing. In the next 40 minutes, he made three main points, the west was no longer leading the world, its growth rates meant that living standards are declining. Instead, he said the countries of Asia were growing fast, witnessing rising standards of living and making huge strides in all fields.
Africa, he said, was on its own in this new world order. We could no longer expect largesse from western nations, Asia had no such traditions, they looked after themselves and would exploit Africa if allowed to do so. Africa was on its own in a cruel world that thought little of the needs of others. We had to pick ourselves off the ground and work hard to get our economies working properly.
He pointed to the example of China, still an autocratic State but essentially a meritocracy where leadership has to prove itself before being promoted. A State where GDP had doubled 130 times in 50 years, lifted over 1,4 billion people out of abject poverty, become the top industrial state in the world. Now threatening the hegemony of the USA and strangely leading in fields such as free trade, open opportunity and science, all fields where the West was the leader for over 300 years. He also said we needed to recognise that all of Asia was moving towards the same goals.
He ended his lecture with the words, “Africa, you are in a cruel world and must now find your own way into the future”.
I sat there in that vast auditorium and thought, wow, he is absolutely right. Now today we are witnessing the Asean Nations gathering in a Provincial town in China with India and Russia in attendance, shortly we will witness a massive demonstration of Chinese military power and technology. We will watch thousands of troops in uniform marching is disciplined unison. It is already the largest maritime power in the world. Second largest GDP in the world, soon to be number 1. This is the new world order, a Chinese President who can say that China is once again the center of the new world order and a stabilising force in the face of an American leadership that was destabilizing the world and even attacking the economic interests of its friends.
But there is much more to this than just economic and military might. The West has died spiritually, and this is reflected in how it is managing its affairs. The industrial revolution in Europe and the United Kingdom was founded on a spiritual revival that swept through Europe in the Reformation. It is impossible to measure what this did to the communities that it influenced. It transformed the politics of the region, eliminated slavery, gave women equality and generated enterprise and initiative on a scale never seen before. Fueled by coal and then oil and now electricity, these economies achieved in a few centuries what had been denied the world since time began. Feudal societies became democracies and world trade boomed.
The religious traditions of the West enabled the world community to rebuild Europe and Japan after the Second World War, created the global institutions of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation. Missionaries spread out across the world spreading Christianity to every corner of the Globe. In Africa they brought education and health, and under their influence the rich countries of the West transferred aid on an unprecedented scale to poor countries. When we in Zimbabwe went into a severe food shortage in 2005 to 2008, unasked, the West fed 75 per cent of our population.
Now all of that is gone. Europe and America are rearming and preparing for conflict in Europe. Almost every country in the west is preparing to stop migration from the poorer countries, even though every State in the west has thrived on migration for centuries. Aid budgets have been slashed, and millions face starvation in a world where we have more than enough to feed everybody. Divorce is destroying the family; moral values are no longer important and half the children in the west are being raised in single parent homes.
The Asian world has become wealthy on the back of free trade policies and the transfer of technology. They have democratized from the ground up and selected leaders from the best. Christian values and norms have been adopted and enforced by these countries. Divorce is frowned upon or even banned, strong families promoted because experience has shown that this is better than the alternative. Free enterprise has flourished supported by a ruthless and efficient State. Billions lifted out of poverty while all forms of corruption have been not only frowned upon but dealt with very harshly. But the underlying culture is not Christion, it is self-centered nationalism.
The world these trends have created is not pretty. Our Singapore Academic called it a “cruel place”. One in which weakness is not tolerated, one in which the only measure of progress is money, and an unequal society is the norm rather than the exception. “America First” is not just a slogan, it’s a way of life and its application is the norm, east and west. What has happened to the America that gave us the Marshal Plan for Europe and demanded nothing back. What has happened to the free trade policies of the west that transferred wealth and opportunity to poor countries like Lesotho, Bangladesh and China? What has happened to the US who demanded that the troops occupying a defeated enemy in Japan would not eat food that was not available to the Japanese?
The truth is we need a spiritual revolution or else, the world we all call home will become not just a cruel place but even unlivable.
Eddie Cross
Harare, 2nd September 2025