During last months some events have been showing the African way towards future. Unfortunately, the projection is quite negative indeed.
In Nairobi a terroristic attack destroyed a luxury hotel, hurting 44 people and killing 14 of them. The attack was claimed by Al Shabaab, a Somali terroristic group which hit Kenya in the anniversary of Kenyan armed attack against Somalia in 2011. We must consider that in Kenya Islamic terrorism does not exist. Most people are catholic or protestant and, among all sub Saharan countries, Kenya is considered the most “western” one.
Another attack was even more severe and less clear: Silvia Romano, a young volunteer of a little Italian NGO, was kidnapped almost 2 months ago. They say her kidnappers are from Al Shabaab – I think, to make the story more “terroristic”, as it seems to me they kidnapped her only to ask for money, and negotiations are taking time.
We must add the recent kidnap of the Italian architect and his Canadian girlfriend in Burkina Faso.
Moreover, there is the murder of a Canadian engineer in Burkina Faso, who was executed by an Al Qaeda group.
And then an everlasting series of violence: thousands of deaths during elections in Congo and hundreds of attacks in other countries, from Egypt to Somalia, from Zimbabwe to Nigeria.
Italian press doesn’t talk about these facts, so they don’t exist for us. But they happened and we can’t ignore them.
In the meantime – and that is a thing our press talks about – people keep on emigrating from Africa and on dying in the sea, in front of Europe’s absolute indifference and of Italian government’s inhumanity.
I have taken all these facts together to make some conclusions.
In Africa demographic growth brings more poverty and poverty leads to revolts. Desperate people often use kidnaps and attacks to attract and push media and to confirm their images and their reasons to exist, creating a climate of terror. This is especially true for countries with a massive Muslim presence – in Africa 40% of people, especially in the north, are Muslim.
My second point is about migrations, which are not going to stop. It’s not ONGs’ fault that people keep on migrating. And we can’t blame humanitarian boats sailing Mediterranean sea if these poor people from Africa are running from dictatorships or from starvation and decide to take the (huge) risk of dying to try and find a new life and some hope.
The real question is: “Will this situation come to an end?”. The answer is “No!”. It won’t stop, on the contrary it is going to increase. How can we stop this phenomenon if on the other side of Mediterranean sea there are 1.3 billion poor people, who are going to become 2.5 billion in few years? It’s impossible.
If these people are hungry – and they will be hungrier, as African economic development won’t be able to support all children who are going to come – migrations are and will getting more and more noticeable.
A European plan would be necessary. And I am really shocked by European politicians not suggesting it, as if the problem didn’t exist and we didn’t have to find a solution.
This is political hypocrisy from all European countries and politicians, from democrats to souveranistes.
