Lately the “Africa rising” narrative is causing great excitement amongst Africans. What remains unclear is if this perceived rise is real or a myth or if its excitement can be sustained. To analyze why Africa has been a sleeping giant and project her future, I narrate a story about Africana, a daughter of a deceased wealthy craftsman.

Once upon a time, there lived in a remote village called Africa, a craftsman with amazing talent and wealth, Africano. Little is told about his family life except that he had one child, a daughter Africana, for whom he sadly died suddenly and left in her blossoming adolescent years. Africana was a girl of irresistible and tempting beauty. Africana brought up by her father’s poor relatives and friends. As soon as she turned twenty years, they left her to be on her own and manage her late father’s wealth and business. Prior to his death, Africano had raised his daughter under strict traditions and she was never exposed to any external influence.

Her beauty and social status scared off natives who did not have the confidence to approach her. It however attracted three men, full of lust, from Europe: France, Britain and Germany. These unlike, Africana’s neighbors, had confidence and privileged socio-economic background. They all approached her at the same time and confused her, all seeking a love relationship. Being the unexposed and easily trusting girl that she was, she accepted some and hesitated upon the others, but was consequently compromised to engage with all. She had to break African traditions and maintain all the three relationships while she remained in her father’s house. Incredible!

The three men praised Africana’s beauty with obnoxious flattery so that she would feel loved. But to kill the confidence of a socio-economically privileged girl raised up in a village so remote and whose neighbors had sunk deep in poverty, they brought her artificial European presents, to blur her mind and asked her to throw away all the prided crafts she had inherited from her late father. In her naivety, she agreed. They also built a way over which a huge metallic box would later rail and raid Africana’s inherited wealth.  That was the entry point. They had her under their control!

Soon, she got a child with each of these men. Meanwhile, for them, they had left families in back in Europe and would soon take their African children to meet and study their European step siblings. They became abusive to Africana, a fact that her children also saw and were not happy about because they knew their mother had been exploited. But also as would be expected from children of step parentage with different culture and interests, they soon conflicted and the only cause that would later unite them was to dismiss all their fathers so their mother would be happy.

Africana grew wane and frail and while her children were now giving full attention and working to mend their differences, she blundered again. Amidst her anger and frustration, another man from America, Americana, took advantage of frustrated Africana, sired a child with her and also plundered Africana’s wealth and laborers! She descended further in depression. It would take her great time to nurse her disappointment. She hated men and decided to take care of her children and settle for single motherhood. But these always hanged around under the pretext of finding out if their children were well. They would make visits and plead to be allowed back in. Africana refused.

The surviving elders of her father’s time cautioned her about any further exploitative relationships. She was advised to harness her remaining wealth and groom her own children to take care of the business empire later as adults. Luckily, her children had attained elementary education sufficient for them to build upon. She agreed but thought it would take long to realize that alone. She still believed that she needed a better partner. She was fed up with Europeans and Americana. She needed a fresh and different breed!

Aware of Africana’s dilemma, some Asian men led by one man called China, coined a new approach – not to seek a permanent marriage relationship, but a relationship without strings. China has children whose mother is not well known. He proposes that since Africana’s children are grown, it would be hard to abandon them for another marriage but she could still be intimate with him and allow the children to mix freely and learn from each other. China’s plan is clear: Africana will provide raw materials and China will bring tools and expertise and they can make a flourishing mutually beneficial business. But Africana is a bit hesitant and is not sure where this, too, will end up hurting. China says they can sign contracts on how they will equitably share the dividends but the contracts are signed in the bedroom on the first visit without involving all Africana’s children. The elders insist Africana must be careful, wait and censure China’s motives. She has mixed feelings. She needs help. What should she do?

Africa rising

It is a myth to imagine that Africa will never develop, or that her current rise is a myth! A more reckless myth is to contend that Africa will continue to rise hinging upon the same resources and using the same rudimentary tools and approaches she engaged years ago. It would be worse to think that the growing interest of Asian countries to massively invest in, and partner with Africa is purely a gesture meant to develop Africa. It's critical that Africa first exploits her indigenous alternatives and engage Asia with great calculation that gives a better bargaining position and win-win engagement.

Frantz Fanon in ‘The Wretched of the Earth’ (Penguin edition, p. 251-252) notes that: “…the European game has finally ended; we must find something different. We today can do everything, so long as we do not imitate Europe, so long as we are not obsessed by the desire to catch up with Europe...Yet it is very true that we need a model, and that we want blueprints and examples. For many among us the European model is the most inspiring. We have therefore seen in the preceding pages to what mortifying set-backs such an imitation has led us. European achievements, European techniques and the European style ought no longer to tempt us and to throw us off our balance.”

Are the nine nations said to be part of the world's fastest growing economies a sufficient deduction that Africa is rising?

Ama Biney in Is Africa really rising? observes that in the past decade, nine countries in Africa: Ghana, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Niger, have had their  annual growth rates rise over five percent, making them part of the world’s fastest growing economies. Indeed, as earlier indicated, prospects to back this allegation show that  Africa’s GPD will rise from the current $2 trillion to $29 trillion by 2050, and will equal that of the USA and the EU combined in today’s money and, and begin to outstrip the Asian growth rates. But who is measuring this rise? Which model are they using? Does a rise in GDP necessarily point to an increase in Per Capita Income as well?

In “Africa rising - but who benefits?”Alexis Akwagyiram observes that: “The continent's future appears to be bright, but do growth figures reflect an improving quality of life? ...beneath the surface of what appears to be a good news story in a part of the world previously portrayed in the Western media as being ravaged by war and famine, questions remain.”

In a continent of fifty four nations, how far behind are the remaining forty four countries when only nine are considered to be ‘rising’?  What percentage of people (even) among these nine nations have had their quality of life improved because of this rise? Isn't it only a tiny wealthy African middle class who are benefiting from this rise? More importantly, what is the measure of this rise? As Frantz Fanon forewarned, wouldn't it be wiser for Africans to question the model of development upon which these ‘rising’ economies are committed to? What does this ‘rising’ entail? Economic development? Socio-cultural development? African peoples’ psyche and aesthetics?

Is Africa’s economy controlled by the greatest number of ordinary people rather than the minority? Africa must rise with the greatest majority of its people – particularly the unemployed youth; those living with disabilities and those ostracized and stigmatized by cultural taboos and attitudes like the albino and HIV Aids victims. As Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere wisely observed in his book, “Uhuru na Maendeleo,” if real development is to take place, (all) people must be involved, and to measure a Country's wealth by Growth National Product is to measure things, not satisfaction!

Is Africa ready for take-off?

Does Africa’s surge represent a one-time event? Will its rise be like what happened when the continent’s growth picked up during the oil boom of the 1970s but slowed sharply when oil and other commodity prices collapsed during the subsequent two decades? Wars, natural disasters, or poor government policies could halt or even reverse gains in any individual country.

The massive investments by Asian countries and crave for partnerships with Africa leave a lot of unanswered questions especially about their sincerity and motives in view of Africa's rise! Is it a kind gesture to uplift Africa or another plunder of African resources but this time with Africa's own permission attained through blindfolding? As Oscar Rickett observes in “Is This the Century of Africa's Rise?” that “Africa’s real rise will only come about if resources can be taken control of by Africans and used to lessen inequality and spread wealth.” Another quote attributed to Parselelo Kantai in the same article reads: “What is happening on the continent economically is a new era of massive resource extraction,… it's a process where the continent's elites, the Chinese and Westerners, are the only people who benefit. I don't see why it shouldn't be called by its real name: the Second Scramble for Africa.”

Africa’s governance

Research indicates that countries that achieve an average of $10,000 per capita income become ‘immortal democracies’ – in other words, they do not revert to autocracies. Botswana and Mauritius are already there and several more countries are about to join them. ...corruption is inversely linked to national income – the lower it is, the greater the amount of corruption. Many African countries are now reaching national income thresholds that are resulting in dramatic drops in corruption levels. While corruption will not be wiped off the continent by 2050, it is expected to become negligible over most of the continent, barring the least developed countries.

There have also been substantial improvements in the provision of education and healthcare, and a spate of infrastructure projects, including roads, railways, port and airport expansions, and large-scale housing. A number of new purpose built cities, like Tatu City in Kenya and King City and Appolonia in Ghana, are already in the process of being constructed. (www.global-briefing.org/2013/10/out-of-africa-the-rise-of-the-african-economy/)

However, the presence of Robert Mugabe, Paul Biya, Teodoro Obiang, Jose Eduardo Dos Santos, and Yoweri Museveni, who have been in power in their respective countries for over 25 years, doesn’t indicate the presence of a “rising” generation of African politicians. Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo is an Equatoguinean politician who has been President of Equatorial Guinea since 1979. Yoweri Museveni has been President of Uganda since 1986; Robert Gabriel Mugabe has been the President of Zimbabwe since 1987; Paul Biya has been Cameroonian politician who has been the President of Cameroon since 6 November 1982; and José Eduardo dos Santos has been President of Angola since 1979. And there is also Field Marshall Omar Hassan Ahmad Al-Bashir who has been Sudan' s president since 1993. Incredible!

What aids Africa’s rise?

The key reasons behind this growth surge include governments' action to end armed conflicts, improve macroeconomic conditions, and undertake microeconomic reforms to create a better business climate. To start, several African countries halted their deadly hostilities, creating the political stability necessary to restart economic growth. Next, Africa’s economies grew healthier as governments reduced the average inflation rate from 22 percent in the 1990s to 8 percent after 2000. They trimmed their foreign debt by one-quarter and shrunk their budget deficits by two-thirds. (www.mckinsey.com/insights/economic_studies_africas_growth) Without such structural adjustments and policies, it is clear that Africa would never have risen.

However, these evils were not completely wiped out. African governments still have to completely eradicate armed conflict and deadly hostilities, trim foreign debt burden, advance technology, end inflation, and improve education and health.

Conclusion

Until Africa realizes that the power (potential to rise and sustain herself) in her is greater than the strings (Negative Mental Conditioning about self), she’ll hardly rise to her destiny and the little rise so far realized, may easily be negated!

As American professor in governance and foreign affairs Robert I. Rotberg, puts it in “Africa Emerges”: Consummate Challenges, Abundant Opportunities (2013), there may still be a long way to go for the continent to reach the success that Asia has achieved, but there is great hope for Africa’s political and socio-economic future. With about 65% of Sub-Saharan Africa’s arable land, largely favorable climate, improving consciousness about independent management African affairs and general pacification of the continent, the speed may be slow but every little step taken is one in the right direction towards Africa’s rise and to pretend otherwise isn’t sustainable! The rise may not be significantly felt, probably because it's still negligible, but Africa is really rising and unless otherwise interrupted, she will continue to do so! I rest my case!

By Patrick Katagata

The author is Director, Dreams Educational and Management Services Ltd.  Kampala, Uganda.