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Africa-Vision

Africa doesn't measure its history in centuries, only in millennia and I shouldn't think that after the American Age we will see the African Century... But one wonders what do we mean when so often we speak about globalism?

Our immediate future has many new features. One of them -- the new technologies. Production of knowledge doesn't require developed industrial infrastructure; service, yes. In fact, the movement of money, energy and talent is an interesting migration.

Traditionally it was westward only. There is an obvious trend for manufacturing moving away from the West; it's cheaper. So-called international companies do not have nationality and business never had national loyalty.

Perhaps we should remind ourselves that fifty years ago India couldn't feed itself, but today we do not hear about starvation of the East. The dynamics of world development should be examined closely -- what do we really mean by "developing countries"? Could it be that the West is not developing?

History is cruel. The great civilizations rise and fall. Triumphant cultures vanish... and from nowhere arrive new ones. At the break of WWI many Europeans knew that the powers would go somewhere else. Some knew where -- America. They knew that Europe is too "European" -- a closed structure next to something like US. I see that the American Age comes to a closure. Not the country, which is still full of energy, but the culture or the spirit (attitude), which gave birth to it, has nowhere to go. America kills herself; very much like Europe did before.

The country became "judgemental" -- instead of valuing experience (and therefore experiment as it was before) America mentally limits itself. Politically, America made its choice and it's only a matter of time before the true creators of American wealth, innovators and enterpreneurs, will make up theirs. This is not news, Kennedy or Blumendale wrote about it, but who in America would like to believe in it?

I wouldn't see this African future if not for my two years in New Russia and a few months in Ethiopia.

I saw nothing "new" in the post-communist Russia. On the contrary, I saw very old Russia, the tired nation which sought a resurrection in communism and found none. Russia doesn't want to think. And it was a revelation to me, who came from America, hoping that the nation in crisis would strive for new visions and could pick up the American spirit which America lost.

Intellectually, Africa is completely removed from considering itself in history. The continent is run by the warlords, regardless of what they call themselves. I do not expect that Africa will grow to some political maturity. Well, this is not the main force which will shape Africa's future. The presence of the global community will do it.

I have my own take on colonialism and the post-colonial era. Africa was and still is up for grabs. The Great Powers let it go because it became obvious that "territories" mean little in postmodernity. When the colonial powers were gone, the local open force filled up the vacuum.

Africa has no directions and perhaps this is the best feature. It's good that the governments and nations of the world lost interest in Africa, because another source should come in -- the people. That is how the new is always born.

Since we came to Addis Ababa almost straight from Moscow (with a few months in between in New York City), I continued to think about what Ethiopia doesn't have to become the next step of the big history. Roads, education, money? Yes, all of it is missing. And there is something else -- the Ethiopians.

Africa is not our mutual past, Africa is our common future.

from Antiquity Page @ Sellassie WWW

...Look back at the 1990s and what do you see? A decade of unparalleled prosperity, broadly enjoyed more than any boom of the past. A burst of entrepreneurial zeal unmatched in history. The smashing of socialist dystopias and the discrediting of planned economies. And a flowering of free market capitalism not seen since the Industrial Revolution.

Why? Because the engineers have sprinted ahead and the politicians can't keep up...

This is the answer to everything political!

Fewer than half the eligible voters in this country participated in the last presidential election. This is not a sign of apathy; it is a triumph of reason.

Walk away. Go back to work... it is far better to focus on building a better future with your own two hands than to squander your moral sanction by bestowing mandates on leeches.

"Ideas + Discussion = Loyalty + Traffic"