Opinion
Why is Africa Still Held in Contempt?
By Yoweri K. Museveni
I remember 2 portions from the Christian Scripture. One is from our Lords’ Prayer. The relevant portion I am interested in says: “Thou shall not lead us into temptation but deliver us from evil.” The other one is from the Book of Isaiah Chapter 11 verse 6. It says: “The Wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the Leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and yearling together; and a little child shall lead them“.
The first quotation prays that we should not be led into temptation. Africa should also not tempt the greedy ones by being weak. The second portion talks about the Kingdom of heaven in paradise where the wolf will peacefully co-exist with the lamb. Unfortunately, we are still here on earth. We are not yet in paradise. Wolves still eat lambs here.
Africa is a continent of 30 million square kilometers or 11.7 million square miles. It is populated by people who are either similar or linked in terms of language and culture.
There are four linguistic groups in Africa. These are:
– the Niger–Congo group of languages (which include the Bantu languages and the Kwa group of languages);
– the Nilo-Saharan group of languages (which include Cushitic, Nilotic and Nilo-Harmitic languages);
– the Afro-Asiatic languages (which include Arabic, Tigrinya and Amharic);
and the Khoisan languages.
The population of Africa is now 1,033 billion people.
Africa is the origin of man, the cradle of civilization (Egyptian civilization); the founders of the three great religions – Judaism (Moses), Christianity (Jesus Christ) and Islam (Mohammed) – were harbored by the continent at some point early in their lives.
Yet, by 1900, the whole of Africa, except for Ethiopia, had been colonized by imperialist European powers, namely the Belgians, the British, the French, the Italians, the Portuguese and the Spanish.
