Africa Is Growing

What's very quietly happening in Africa these days is quite noteworthy. The continent is growing up. Some of it reads like gallows humor: The Post, of Lusaka, Zambia, reports that the members of the African Union successfully prevented Sudan from obtaining its rotating chairmanship, and instead formed a committee to look into the Darfur crisis. The second half of the article is devoted to the C.V. of the new committee chairman:

President Sassou-Nguesso, backed by Angolan troops, grabbed back the presidency in 1997 in a brief but bloody civil war that left a legacy of political and militia violence. The civil war lasted only a few months but destroyed much of the capital Brazzaville. Some 10,000 people are thought to have died during the war and up to a third of Congo's 2.7 million people were driven from their homes.

Meanwhile, more violence in Darfur is reported, government troops vs. rebels. And at the same time, direct foreign investment (that's not aid, it's money that corporations consider wisely invested) jumped an arresting 65% for the continent last year, and growth of 5.5% is expected.

All this comes to you, of course, from AllAfrica.com. If you don't read it now, I suggest you start: you're missing the adolescence of a continent.

Note: This article is patronizing. I haven't yet decided whether it's justified or necessary to be patronizing, but I think an above-board patronage is better than an insidious pretense of equality.