Is Africa the last grand stand for humanity?
On July 8, 1497, the day Vasco da Gama sailed away from Lisbon with 170 men in four ships in search of new spice routes, the world tilted westwards. But to the people of Africa, whom the Portuguese would soon encounter, that day was a bad omen, heralding centuries of slavery, plunder and misery.
Half a millennium later, being black is still a great liability in this world. This is often a well-guarded secret, hinted only through statistics. But when the guards are down, like when England loses a football match because some black kids missed their penalties, that’s when you appreciate how hateful people’s attitudes of black people truly are!
A quarter of Brazil’s population is black. In a city such as Salvador, blacks make up to 80 percent of the population, but a visit to its magazine stands would reveal that blacks are hardly represented on cover pages of those magazines. It is a common message: To sell magazines, avoid blackness. Unless it’s Halle Berry or Tyra Banks, of course.
Nations such as Singapore, Malaysia, UAE, Qatar, and Japan often allow scores of low-skilled workers to enter their nations when needed, but however smartly they frame their policies, black people end up being excluded. Even when Africans are imported, you will often find that they are not from sub-Saharan Africa.
In the US, the nation that invented racial-based slavery to keep black people in perpetual poverty, blacks are the largest racial minority. There one can find members of other racial minorities occupying top positions in all manner of companies, including Google and Microsoft, but not blacks. In Fortune 500 companies, there are only four Black CEOs, and a third of them don’t have a single black board member!
From the dark alleys of Harlem to the ghettoes of Soweto, wherever you go you find black people who have been dealt with a remarkably bad hand by fate. Blackness is often a symbol of mediocrity and ugliness, or as George Hegel opined in the 18th century, “total darkness”.
Now, I usually don’t spare blacks of their fair share of criticism – in many ways, they have had it coming. Behind every smart American, Indian, or Chinese operator are educated African fools selling their peoples’ heritage for peanuts. That said, though, the world needs to deal with its Afrophobia now because, thanks to those vivacious ebony females, the future is African.
Consider this. By 1950, Africa had only 180 million people, a third of Europe’s population. But by 2050, Africa will have three times the population of Europe, with 2.2 billion people. To highlight this, Tanzania has added more people to its population in the past 15 years than Germany, France, United Kingdom, and the Netherlands combined! And, with the exception of Mauritius, Botswana, and Cape Verde, high birth rates are true across Africa.
This will have massive ramifications for the rest of the world as nations, cultures, and demographics are dramatically transformed. And probably no one paints that picture as starkly as Mark Steyn, the author of America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It.
Steyn starts by stating that none of the doomsday scenarios – through nuclear war, oil running out, overpopulation, climate change, etc – have not panned out. Then he said: “Russia (and essentially Europe) is collapsing and it’s nothing to do with deforestation.” He continued: “…it’s not the tree, it’s the family tree. A people that won’t multiply can’t go forth or go anywhere. Those who do will shape the age we live in.”
Fortunately or unfortunately, it is Africans who will do so, and the world just has to get used to it now. Given a median age of 19 years, the majority of Africans are not even parents yet. This demographic momentum is unstoppable.
Thus, by 2100, one in 3 humans will be African. This will make them indispensable to the sustenance of future economies, communities, and nations. They will also form the largest market in history, one which no one can ignore.
It is, therefore, time for nations to open doors for more Africans to migrate to their countries to study and work. Schooling is an excellent way to assimilate people into new cultures and, considering what many blacks have had to overcome to get to where they are, there is no doubt that African students can compete at top levels when given the opportunity. The more skilled they are, the better they will be able to serve the world.
Similarly, nations should provide bigger quotas for African migrants. In multiple waves of immigrants to Europe and Asia, few of them are from sub-Saharan Africa. This is true of China too, which isn’t as welcoming as it can be, despite its attempt to position itself as an active strategic partner for Africa. Having more Africans around is necessary to build a more cosmopolitan world where people of different cultures will thrive.
Finally, invest in Africa. A massive but largely poor population is not good for anyone. Instead of looking at this burgeoning population in Africa as a curse, nations can look at it as an opportunity. As it stands, FDIs to Africa remain pitifully low. In per capita terms, Israel gets 67 times more FDIs than Africa. While it’s imprudent to begrudge others for being competitive, that difference highlights the limitations that Africa faces in developing its people. FDIs can change nations, and Africa needs more of that now.
At the end of it all, reproduction is a matter of survival. Any development that leads to the end of humanity is misguided. So, whatever people think of Africans, in a sense, they are making the last grand stand for humanity.
