Something bad is happening and Africa is the bellwether. A couple specific events that I’ve chosen to discuss below in Kenya and Nigeria suggest security is failing or at least being so stressed it’s not working well.
And these events are but a drop in the ocean of what must be happening throughout Africa, likely the world. Something bad is happening.
Not so long ago I was lazily swinging in a hammock in Manda Bay. My son and his girlfriend were blithely watching the sunset over the island from their open verandah above me. Yesterday, terrorists blew up that place, now an American air base.
Readers of my blog won’t be surprised there’s an American air base in Kenya, since I’ve been writing critically about American troops in the area for nearly a decade. But what happened Sunday is a perfect example of American policy unweaving all over the place. We’re unscrewing the lid on terrorism.
Everybody knows what they don’t want, but no one is sure about what they want. That’s the news from the U.K. and South Africa and Washington, today, and it doesn’t bode well.
When Boris’ landslide was assured late last night, the committee expected to vote impeachment adjourned. The South African Rand jumped a healthy 2% on cynicism that the rich, developed world doesn’t have a clue about what it’s doing.
Trump apparently can make about a third of America believe any falsehood he imagines and do anything he asks up to sacrificing their farm for his pockets. But Trump cannot tell Mother Nature how to act.
A pitiful world conference begins today in Madrid on climate change. It doesn’t matter if there are paper ballots in Georgia or not for the future’s elections there, if there’s no soil or water. Africans find a wry twist to all of this: the greedy power-brokers are suicidal.
Last week East African countries were scolded by the IMF and World Bank for their high debt.
The EAC Monetary Protocol signed by the nine African countries in 2013 restricted them from exceeding a 50% debt-to-GDP ratio. All but Uganda and Tanzania have breached that, and those two countries aren’t far behind.
Oh by the way, in 2018 the U.S. debt to GDP rose to 110% of its GDP.
All South African Airways flights for the next two days have been cancelled. A two-day strike which is unlikely to be resolved could continue indefinitely.
In today’s big, interconnected world, only big carriers make good business sense. That’s why South African Airways is about to implode and fail.
The first news reported in South Africa early this morning after the first impeachment hearing: “Gold, silver prices score first gain in 5 sessions.”
South Africa’s economy is founded on metals. It’s not been doing well recently. The analyst at South Africa’s Investing.com attributed the rise to “uncertainty over the outlook for a U.S.-China trade deal and the first day of public impeachment .”
Today is only the 4th time in the history of America, but the third time in my life time, that impeachment begins against a sitting president. In the last several years seven African leaders were deposed by legal proceedings or mass demonstrations.
Yesterday the former leader of Bolivia fled to Mexico. Brazil’s imprisoned last president is out, rallying the troops against his incarcerators. Ecuador’s president has fled his capital. Zimbabwe’s president may soon be ousted by his Army.
Making a surprise appearance last week in London, Harry Potter author J.K. Rawlings appealed to young delegates at the One World Conference to “stop voluntourism.”
Rawlings invoked her not-for-profit, Lumos, to discourage volunteering in orphanages in Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Moldova, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Colombia, Haiti and elsewhere.
A few days ago in New York I sat down with someone deeply involved in The Sudan’s American diaspora, and I was stopped in my tracks when he affirmed with facile certainty that the diaspora thinks the current revolution will succeed.
But what do you think he said when I asked him to predict if Trump would be defeated next year?
A moment of peace in a world of war. The Nobel Peace Prize correctly heralds the young democratic Ethiopian leader, Abiy Ahmed Ali, for his efforts “to achieve peace and international cooperation, [specifically] to resolve the border conflict with neighboring Eritrea.”
But forgive my refrain, the absence of western diplomacy from “Trump” risks obliterating all the good that’s been done.
Next week the Zambian High Court might obliterate one of the last great remote wildernesses on earth.
One of the most difficult and expensive and pristine natural wildernesses in Africa is the Chiawa reserve on the Zambezi river in south central Zambia. After years of bribing, subterfuge and international challenges, this remote wild might be sacrificed for copper.
News fatigue. Scandal fatigue. Impatience fatigue. Impatience fatigue? What’s that?
The cartoon above is not from the United States. It’s by Africa’s greatest cartoonist, Zapiro, published this morning in South Africa’s widest read, provocative daily media, the Maverick. And believe me Africa has plenty of news to poke fun at. So why does a prominent African newspaper poke fun today at Trump?
The West is less trusted today than at any other time in modern history; this shouldn’t surprise anyone. What is surprising is that the mistrust extends from governments to non-governments, even into wildlife organizations.
The arrogance of Western wildlife organizations is now bared to African anger. There was always suspicion: why do “Mzungu” pay so much money to save elephants? (“Mzungu” is roughly translated from the Swahili as “white man” or “European” and less so as “non-African.”)
“Live a little, there’s trouble ahead.”