A synopsis of Africa’s history tells us that Africans developed indigenous sustainable agricultural methods, herbal medicines, governance based on cultural rules, and creativity in arts long before the colonialists invaded the continent in the 1860s. Africans militarily defended their territories against the invaders with self-made war utensils and enormous courage until the invaders’ weapons of destruction inflicted genocide that forced Africans to submit. The colonialists imposed their culture and government system on Africans for almost a century. But Africans never relented in their efforts to gain independence, which practically all African colonies had achieved by 1960.
Since independence, while African countries have witnessed some economic gains, they are facing many challenges. The agricultural sector has suffered a huge setback due to drought, war, and most importantly, the discriminatory import restrictions the industrial world applies to African agricultural products. The African manufacturing sector, plagued by power shortage and mismanagement, is not creating enough jobs to absorb the increasing population. Now, the second-largest economy in the world, China, is seizing the chance to expand its economic territory by acquiring land in African countries, investing in infrastructure, as well as building manufacturing plants that are managed by the Chinese. The presence of the Chinese is very vivid in African countries. They are in control; they are gradually becoming the new colonial “partners”. At the same time, many Africans are risking their lives to cross over to Europe as refugees. Like Okonkwo, a bold warrior in Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart” who committed suicide, which was against his culture, when he realized that his folk was not ready to fight against the invaders, the African refugees are ready to die in their effort to seek asylum in Europe. They see no chance of escaping poverty in their own countries, where foreign multi-national firms have taken control of the economy and collaborated with corrupt local politicians to create a nefarious exploitation system continuum.
The overwhelming technological, military, and economic power of the invaders has crushed the defensive boldness and the fighting courage of many Africans who have lost hope of living a decent life where they culturally belong. They are leaving their countries through dangerous routes despite all known risks. They have given up their countries to the invaders, autocrats, dictators, and fraudulent politicians. But they are also aware that they cannot break all ties to their countries. They have family members and friends they are responsible for in one way or the other who remain in their countries and need their help. The family members and friends hope that the refugees will gain employment in the industrial countries and will be able to help financially. In this paradox, Africans are escaping the invaders’ exploitation in African countries by taking strenuous, fatally risky routes to seek asylum in the homelands of the invaders to gain employment. The irony is that Africans have demonstrated their unique creativity throughout human history. In fact, in the modern era of information technology, Africans ingeniously used the social media platform, Facebook, to create small groups of networks that disseminate and replicate information very fast to millions of people connected on the internet, thereby mobilizing masses to achieve the revolutionary “Arab Spring”. This strategy was later emulated and misused by the Russian agents to attack Hillary Clinton and spread favorably erroneous news to support Donald Trump in the 2016 American presidential election, according to the former Chief Security Officer, Alex Stamos. This activity is an example of an industrial country utilizing the ingenuity of the people from developing countries to achieve its goal; in this case, to help Donald Trump become the 45th president of the United States of America.
The Arab Spring revolution had extensive coverage of masses taking to the streets demanding democracy. But the novel strategy implemented by Africans in a positive way, leading to the revolution, was not explicitly credited to Africans. The strategy was only made public through the result of the investigation carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in connection with Russia’s interference in the presidential election. It should be noted that Zuckerberg, the co-founder and CEO of Facebook, initially disputed that the spread of intentionally manipulated information and heinous, distorting, false news (fake news) happened on the social platform. He later publicly apologized for disputing the fact after the Facebook security team scanned the platform to reveal millions of fake news as well as fake users. American security experts, including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) confirmed the interference of the Russian information technology experts or hackers in the 2016 US presidential election by using Facebook for extensive campaigns employing the strategy of creating networks that bombarded millions of users with fabricated alternative facts. In the end, Trump supporters silently marvel at Russia’s expertise, which was the destructive form of the Africans’ original strategy to initiate a revolution.
It is undeniable that Africans are creative and resilient. Thousands of years ago, Africans built pyramids with architectural and geometrical professionalism that researchers around the world still strive to understand how they were built. Africans lived in concert with nature and have survived devastating and incredibly harsh weather conditions. The archaeological excavation of the oldest skeleton of humankind in Africa is a testimony that Africa is the origin of people from all nations today. Unfortunately, the heavy load of internal conflicts and diverse forms of external economic exploitation is too much for many Africans to bear.
afritopic®