Africa’s successes struggle to eclipse weary old tropes of suffering continent
|
Version 0 of 1. “It has never, ever been a good bet to bet against America, and America is betting on Africa. The idea, and the reality, are just tantalising. The possibilities are immense.” These were the words of the US vice-president, Joe Biden at the biggest gathering of African heads of state ever assembled by the White House. It was now, Biden insisted, an equal partnership. “The question was always what can we do for Africa? That’s no longer the question. The question is what can we do with Africa?” Amid the tub-thumping and cheerleading that Africa’s time has come, it took his boss, Barack Obama, to sound a note of caution. The United States’ entire trade with all of Africa is still only about equal to its trade with Brazil, he pointed out. Of all the goods the US exports to the world, only about 1% goes to sub-Saharan Africa. The US-Africa leaders summit in August 2014 was a line in the sand: a recognition of Africa’s arrival as an economic force, a theatre of trade rather than aid, a “continent of limitless promise” (in Biden’s words) that the world wants to do business with. It also represented the slow awakening of the US to the threat posed by China, which overtook it as Africa’s biggest trading partner in 2009. Some would say the summit happened a decade too late. Perceptions But there was a telling aside during the Washington conference. Broadcaster Charlie Rose asked Jakaya Kikwete, the president of Tanzania, about the outbreak of Ebola. Kikwete, taken aback, replied: “Right now the epidemic is in west Africa; Tanzania is in east Africa.” He added pointedly that “the whole of the African continent is being perceived as if everywhere, everybody is suffering from Ebola.” The exchange illustrated how many in Africa still feel, often correctly, that they are perceived as a single morass, and one that is associated with disease, famine, poverty and war. The Ebola outbreak is the worst in history and has killed more than 7,500 people, but has been mainly concentrated in three countries: Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Yet the response in the US and elsewhere has bordered on hysterical. A teacher in Kentucky was forced to resign after taking a trip to Kenya. Two Rwandan children were denied access to their school in New Jersey. A restaurant in Minnesota that specialises in African cuisine took Liberian food off its menu because people might fear it was tainted with Ebola. Fearful tourists cancelled their holidays in Kenya, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Then came Do They Know It’s Christmas?, a charity single by Bob Geldof and other singers to mark the 30th anniversary of the original song. Its rewritten lyrics included: “There’s death in every tear / And the Christmas bells that ring there are the clanging chimes of doom.” Critics said the song played on the old tropes, treating Africans as a hapless, homogeneous whole in need of a “white saviour” – the antithesis of Biden’s question. The episode exposed the fragility of the gains made so far in the 21st century, both in cultural perceptions and hard economics. The IMF predicts GDP growth of 5.1% in sub-Saharan Africa this year, rising to 5.8% in 2015. But it warned that Ebola would have “dramatic consequences” for west Africa if it continued to spread. Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have seen recent economic gains wiped out and health systems overwhelmed. Nollywood Nigeria’s economy is forecast to expand 7% this year and 7.3% next, according to the IMF, although the worldwide drop in oil prices could hurt Africa’s top producer. And 2014 was the year that saw Nigeria surpass South Africa to be recognised as Africa’s biggest economy. This followed a recalculation of Nigeria’s GDP data, which had not been properly reviewed since 1990 and now takes into account emerging sectors including manufacturing, telecommunications and the Nollywood movie industry. In some ways Nigeria’s duel with South Africa for continental supremacy parallels that of China and the US on the global stage. Although China appears poised to become the world’s biggest economy, Americans are far wealthier per capita. Similarly, Nigeria has a long way to go to bring absolute poverty down to South African levels, and anyone who has passed through the international airports in Lagos and Johannesburg can have little doubt which nation still holds the upper hand in infrastructure and tourism potential. This was illustrated brutally in April, when nearly 300 schoolgirls were kidnapped in the northern Nigerian town of Chibok by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram. The mass abduction generated worldwide revulsion and spawned a social media campaign with the Twitter hashtag #BringBackOurGirls. The girls’ families are still waiting. It was just one of countless atrocities perpetrated by Boko Haram as it switched from hit-and-run attacks to seizing territory. The old Africa was always in the rearview mirror. Another Islamist group, al-Shabaab, continued to kill in cold blood in Kenya and Somalia despite losing its leader. Civil war raged in South Sudan, the world’s newest country, with a death toll thought to run to tens of thousands. Sectarian fighting continued in the Central African Republic despite the efforts of Catherine Samba-Panza, Africa’s third female president (the second, Joyce Banda of Malawi, lost an election after a corruption scandal). Human rights But at every “Africa rising” conference, all designed to woo investors, the mantra is “don’t mention the war” and two names were on everyone’s lips: Ethiopia and Rwanda. Both were hailed as models of growth and development 30 years after the former’s famine and 20 years after the latter’s genocide. The words democracy and human rights were barely mentioned. South Africa marked a 20th anniversary of its own, but reflections on the demise of apartheid in 1994 provoked disquieting questions about whether the promise of Nelson Mandela had been fulfilled. The governing ANC endured a slight dip in support at a general election that saw the emergence of a new party, the Economic Freedom Fighters, determined to pick at the scabs of corruption and inequality. All this was overshadowed in the media by the trial of the Paralympian Oscar Pistorius, who after a televised trial was acquitted of murdering his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, but convicted of culpable homicide and jailed for five years. The coming year will see a crucial election in Nigeria, anxiety over commodity prices, vital for many economies, and the known unknowns of Africa’s own war on terror. But no one here wants to turn back the clock. Ali Bongo Ondimba, president of Gabon, said in May: “We’ve read so many articles telling us how doomed this continent was, in a dark future, that one has to remain optimistic about the future of Africa. “Look at the past, the recent past, the last 50 years. Despite all the problems that we’ve run through and we encountered, no continent has moved faster in 50 years than Africa, and that is grounds for optimism in the future. On the internet you can chat, you can tweet, and on Facebook you have many friends all over the world. “So African people know what they want and they know what they don’t want,” said Bongo Ondimba, whose father ruled Gabon for 42 years. “The more we move on, the more Africans will not accept or tolerate dictatorship.” |