Many desperate people from Africa, Asia and Middle East are now making perilous journeys to reach Europe seeking greener pastures. Italy’s and Spain’s ports have become the modern-time Kilwa, Mafia, Dakar or Lamu for Africans entering Europe as it was for European colonial agents entering Africa. Europe is grappling with the heavy load of invaders just as Africa did when Europeans invaded and colonised it in the seventeenth century.

Those poor but energetic and ambitious Africans, Arabs and Indians are called a calamity due to the danger they pose to Europe’s culture and economies. It is time to tell Europe to stop worrying for no reasons. These folks are heroes who want to help poor relatives made poor by black colonialists that are always in bed with Western ones. Africa’s economies can’t support their population thanks to serving Western economies. I fully endorse this exodus of the people. It will help all of us to see the problem as ours as opposed to Africa’s or/and third world’s.

Europe needs to open doors, borders and hearts the same way Africa did when Europeans inundated the continent seeking influence and greener pastures that later became colonies. Sadly, Europeans seem to have forgotten a simple fact that they once went to Africa, colonised her and destroyed its economy and ways of life.

What did they expect out of an unequal and inequitable trade relationship the world sees today? The migrants seeking space in the West do not have passports just like European colonial agents did not have passports when they came to Africa. The same Europeans who adversely affected the African way of life, robbed the continent  and introduced slavery fear that African migrants will dilute European standards. Europeans are the same creators of the forces forcing africans to flee their continent.

Africans are not going to Europe to rob or colonize it. They’re going there to work because they’re good workers. Africans are looking for better life and jobs in Europe after colonial monsters conspired with black ones to deny them work at home. These folks are looking for the means to live dignified and meaningful lives.

If invest in the continent increases and dignified jobs are created, you won’t see the assemblages of Africans trooping to Europe. Africa needs redress. Africa does not need exploitation. Without coltan from the DRC, all computers and cellphones will die. Without uranium from Africa, the so-called superpowers won’t have powers to threaten each other. Do you know that the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan on 6 august 1945 was made of uranium from the DRC?

There are many things from Africa that Europeans depend on. Without chocolate from Africa Western kids would cry without a soother. Without cheap coffee from Africa, coffee will become a drink for tycoons only. Without the market for their weapons, they’ll turn them against each other. Without black colonialists to steal and stash money in their banks most of their economies will come to a grinding halt.

Is there any logical reason for despising Africa? Go ask the Chinese. Their economy will be nothing if they don’t supply Africa; and be supplied by her as far as raw materials are concerned. Go asks Indians. Without Africa accommodating millions of their brethren and buying their substandard products, their economy is zilch.

Africa, the giant of giants; has been put on anaesthetics to sleep for generations. Western countries need a new way of looking at Africa. Africans who were treated as half beings for many years due to being colonised and enslaved are no longer the same today. Young people know what; and where decent life is. They know how to use internet to gain information that’s been the power that propelled Europe to success on the expenses of others.

The Dark Continent is now opening up brightly taking on those who brought it down. History has one permanent predisposition. It repeats itself. This is why today crowds of African modern-time missionaries, explorers, merchants and whatnot are taking on Europe to pay it back.

By Nkwazi Mhango

The author is a Canada-based published Tanzanian author; a Peace and Conflict Scholar and alumnus of the UDSM (Tanzania) Universities of Winnipeg and Manitoba (Canada).