Africa in 2108: A Strategic Plan

Abstract

What will Africa look like in 2108? Following the present trend, four developments may be in place. First, given the rate of AIDS, conflict and starvation, the population (which is already very small) might be exterminated. Second, extermination of the African population will make room for other people to settle on the continent thus fulfilling Leonard Barnes’, Stanislave Andresky’s and Stephen Smith’s predictions. Third, resources will be exhausted which might mean the end of conflict. Fourth, ‘tribal clashes’ which result in genocide of threatening ethnic groups may become the norm. This paper argues that these four developments will not occur. Instead, neo-liberal policies which are forcing Africans to live in inhumane conditions will be so dehumanizing that in the end they will provoke Africans to search for genuine development alternatives, regardless of the cost (a process that is already in place). Similar to the days of slavery when conscious citizens throughout the world fought against it, in the age of technology these citizens will not sit by and allow any institutions to implement policies that relegate Africa to a ‘4th world’ where conflict, disease, starvation and undevelopment (loss of earlier economic development achievements, for example, education and healthcare as well as the rise of inequality, and moral decay) become the norm. While current trends tend to marginalize institutions, especially the state in development, we argue that for Africans to overcome the destiny carved for them by globalization – as labourers and bystanders in their own development – they have to reconstitute their institutions based on their culture and history. Only a united Africa can harness its resources for development and fair trade in an age of endemic exploitation and corruption. This paper argues that Africa’s future will depend on a revision of state borders, increase in population and the creation of a Federation of African States based on five states. In this article a strategic plan is presented by way of ‘Fundi wa Africa: Toward a New Paradigm of the African state’.