AFRICAN CRISIS

.

African Crisis

African Crisis

Introduction

When the name of Africa rings in our ears, it usually evokes images of majestic landscapes, animals and widespread poverty. The information we receive in our Western countries about the wars are fought in it, with dizzying numbers of dead and millions of dollars spent on weapons and unsuccessful disease eradication programs. There are few rather nonexistent, references on the causes or reasons that led Africa to the current situation. What the authorities should really reflect on are the causes that have led to Africa to the current situation of poverty, disease and exodus, and try to glimpse what future is expected.

The African continent is home to the poorest region of the earth. The region is enormously rich in natural resources and with a high potential for development and improvement to its inhabitants. In the XXI century, the region is still going through a period of poverty and uncertainty (Hove, 2013). The region faces a time of transition, which should allow formal democracy which has been a slow progress; approaching true democracy and progress in the construction of more fairness, with hope for the future and in which the wealth of the region benefit their inhabitants. This requires a number of changes of varying scope, as outlined in the herein (Aidoo, 2010). To understand this, one must look to the past: in the nineteenth century, Africa began as a place for exploration and adventure, and soon evolved into an unspoilt region in which existing social systems made possible the force occupation of the territory and the enrichment of those who came. The brutal colonization, which set the current political structure of the region, slavery, world wars carried African colonies for their metropolis or apartheid regimes whose most lasting was apartheid South Africa are some of the traumas experienced by a region that has been mined from the north and built from an intense experience of pain, racism and misunderstanding (Masters, 2010).

Historical Perspective

Natural factors such as drought or pests can increase hunger and poverty in a region. However, the root causes of the current status of the African continent are the result of economic and political structures that have dominated the territory during decades of dependent, unbalanced and destructive environment. Taking in retrospect, the main root of the problems of the African continent seems clearly born in late nineteenth century, between 1884 and 1885. It was in this biennium when the most powerful country in the world, namely the USA, the Ottoman Empire and twelve Europeans countries were “handed” Africa, in totally “legal” way, with the signing of the Berlin Conference. From that moment, racism among the settlers was widely used to justify their actions in the form of jingoism and genocide (Fole, 2003).

The most striking aspect of this modus operandi was undoubtedly private land ownership as the Congo Free State from Leopold II of Belgium, although there were other many, such as the conquest of the remarkable city of Timbuktu in 1893 and the destruction of ...