Africa’s Moment is on the Way

My generation grew up when everything great came from America – from movies to music, sophistication and technological advancement and most of all, the biggest, most sophisticated weapon arsenal which was only put to good use against enemies of freedom. The American soldiers were always the ‘good guys’ while the Russians were the ‘devils’, the Vietcong were the small wicked fellows. Rambo and Arnold Swarzenegger – the actor not the Governor, typified the American story. The United States was a super power that watched over every corner of the world like a big brother. Nobody could dare America in war, even the Soviet Union, America’s foe during the cold war folded up like a park of cards in the late eighties, in the process casting in stone the good American guy – bad Russian guy story. After the fall of the Berlin wall, we thought there would only be one power, the USA and that would be it for a long time. Today, we look in horror as the mighty state hobnobs from one crisis to the other. I never thought that I would live to see a real economic crisis in the USA with a record unemployment. It all sounds so African. Today, we see a China that can make sure that a climate change conference on which the legacy of a black American president depends, fails just to emphasize the apparent shift of world power east wards. America used to be everywhere, now China is everywhere, chasing after every major trade deal in Africa, be it road construction or irrigation project. China has even got into the business of charity. Recently, the biggest hospital ship in the world called the Peace Ark arrived at the port of Mombassa to provide free medical services and training on the ‘Harmonious Mission 2010’ aimed at improving friendship and cooperation between China and other countries. If the west depended on the industrial revolution and technological innovation to rise higher on the scale of world power, China has done it on the sheer leveraging of a huge cheap labour force, a cunning ability to adapt available technology and reproduce massively and cheaply thus effectively destroying the west’s monopoly of innovation. On any street in Africa, you will see a Chinese phone, car, road project, fabric, watch – name it and it comes really cheap. Today, you would be surprised not to realize that America’s economic gurus spend all their time thinking about the Chinese currency and how it has been unfairly pegged to the dollar thus ensuring that Chinese exports are cheap and vice versa. Every successful traditional manufacturer in America and Europe must now set shop in China to remain competitive in the global market. The shift of world power has also empowered the Asian tigers and surprisingly, of all countries India. Germany, which at first appears as the last economic bastion in the west has its own problems. Gone are the days when America’s Motorola and Finland’s Nokia defined high-tech mobile telephony – now it is the like of South Korea’s Samsung and India’s LG and a phalange of Chinese duplicates. Asian countries have turned their head count into a money minting machine, while the west is suffering from an aging population crisis and acute shortage of qualified labour. Now, China can afford to spread its wealth on culture the way Hollywood defined the good guys and bad guys two decades ago, by exporting movie clips, soaps etc. Look how Star Times, a digital television provider is slowly spreading its wings across Africa. The proof of the pudding however is in the eating. The appetite at which emerging world economies are struggling to gobble up investments in Africa is what should point to a future economic renaissance in Africa. In fact, it has already begun. Just as the west is scrambling into China, China is instead looking for the next big thing – Africa. With new oil wells sprouting out of every corner of the continent while the traditional sources of oil are predicted to reach exhaustion, the powers that be will and must dip their hands in the black gold to retain their influence. The water wars scenario is fast becoming a possibility other than fantasy, where the Great Lakes region remains with a huge advantage. The mobile phone revolution has astounded many in the west as Africa rapidly increases its penetration even in the remotest corners. Pariah countries like Iran are eager to venture into Africa on their own terms at a time when western countries that used to be the pied piper no longer call the tunes but instead struggle not to lose face in the faces of their former colonies. Nations like Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa are turning from behemoths of sub-Saharan slums and poor villages to centres of world innovation in business and technology with wide markets that offer financial sustainability to innovation. Smaller countries like Rwanda and Botswana are choosing specific industries like diamonds and Livestock for the former and ICT and eco-tourism in the latter to exercise a local vantage. Perhaps instead of brain drain, Africa will soon have a brain gain as Africa’s brightest return to seek a share of the home-made pie. Africa can only go in one direction – up! kelviod@yahoo.com