Africa amid a raging world

A NEW era is dawning and flickering on the universe’s giant movie screen like a new blockbuster hit, starring all of the 7.4-billion people on Earth.

There is little doubt, as Malcolm Gladwell said, that we’ve reached a tipping point — but this one is on a global and historical scale and it’s reshuffling the entire card deck of humanity, jokers and all.

The whole world has been swept down a raging river by a highly charged emotional current that is simply too strong to fight. And with most of civilisation praying with their thumbs to the social-media gods on their smartphones, it seems as though everyone, everywhere is as mad as hell — and they’re broadcasting it live and in colour for all to see.

The daily news cycle usually leads with an unbelievable atrocity in which dozens, if not hundreds, of people are killed in a bombing or attack.

This past weekend in New York, a bomb went off in midtown, injuring 29 people, and there was a mass stabbing in a Minnesota shopping centre as well.

In 2015, there were 11,774 terror attacks killing 28,328 people across the world according to the US State Department. Now we’re all waiting for the big one to hit. And it will.

The world is imploding all around Africa. One country after the other is struggling to balance a full plate of foreign policy crises in nearly every corner of the planet. National self-interest and self-preservation has hijacked a frightened Western mind-set as governments are trying — and failing — to protect their citizens.

If things continue to spin out of control, will Africa remain relevant within the broader dialogue or become an afterthought? African leaders and governments have somehow missed this very relevant subtlety as we sink deeper into the expanding quicksand. The balance of power is shifting. Allies today may be gone in five or 10 years, as countries adjust to a new world order and new foreign policy priorities.

PEOPLE are killing each other in extraordinary numbers across the world over ancient religious beliefs that have been barbarically perverted and distorted. Combatants now use internet technology, state-of-the-art firepower and the spectre of black-market nuclear weapons. That’s the ultimate endgame.

The transformation under way will likely relegate Africa to a cheap balcony seat from which all she can do is watch. the US is undergoing a considerable ideological shift that is shaking the country to its core. But it’s not like in the 1960s — this is faster, more severe. It is technology-driven and blinking and beeping all day long on smartphones.

The US is so divided politically that the country is moving to both the left and the right simultaneously. The once highly prized “centre” of the political spectrum is dissolving as demographics undergo a grinding metamorphosis that would make Kafka’s cockroach pale in comparison. Internationally, the US has essentially excused itself from the dinner table under President Barack Obama, and never quite returned from the rest room.

An emboldened Russia has taken its seat at the dais and is aggressively reasserting itself on the world stage as it takes advantage of a weakened and largely disinterested US.

The Middle East has given birth to a pair of grossly disfigured children, Islamic State and al-Qaeda, that are blowing up and beheading anyone who doesn’t believe what they believe.

Then there’s Iran; the big, bad pugnacious bully in the classroom that has bamboozled the international community, largely because most countries are afraid they’ll get beaten up by them in the schoolyard.

Meanwhile, while nobody was watching, China began constructing faux-islands in the middle of the Pacific to further solidify its position as the proverbial gorilla in the room. No one wants to pick a fight with the Chinese and their military of 3.5-million fighters.

The most colourful joker in the deck is Kim Jong-un of North Korea. Dear Leader, as he is known, shows his everlasting love for his people by brainwashing them, making them live without electricity in much of the country and burning his generals to death if they disagree with him. He has his jittery finger on the nuke button at all times.

EUROPE is flat out disintegrating and it is anyone’s guess what crumbs will be left on the bottom of the plate when all is said and done. Bloody terror attacks and an influx of a million-plus migrants from the Middle East have given rise to a surging nationalism not seen since the Second World War.

Without the considerable amounts of foreign aid, infrastructure investment and military support from Europe, the US and China, there is no telling where Africa will end up.

Save for commodities and its strategic positioning to fight terror, Africa is a giant net importer of assistance. In business parlance, it’s a cost centre.

Food, medical, humanitarian and military aid are central to Africa’s ability to operate and survive. Without it, many of its countries would essentially malfunction like a car engine with a broken fuel pump. In 2014, the US gave Kenya $560m, Tanzania $588m, Nigeria $703m, Uganda $489m, SA $490m, Mozambique $406m, Ethiopia $489m and the Democratic Republic of Congo $272m — among other countries in Africa.

The human race is grinding and shifting like Earth’s tectonic plates and Africa’s wellbeing could take a back seat to everyone else’s. It may not even be in the conversation.

From its allies, Africa will get policy-driven lip service, maybe. But not much else. China is just picking away at its commodities like a raven picking at a dead rabbit. And when it is done eating, China will distance itself. It may have already started.

In 2015, China’s commodity imports from Africa were down nearly 40%. When China catches a cold, Africa gets pneumonia. The US and the EU are fighting everyone, everywhere on some level, while trying to figure out how to protect their own citizens. They’ve clearly got other concerns.

Sooner or later, Africa will have to start doing more for itself and rely less on others. Because at some point in the near future, she risks losing significance among her peers as the world becomes more tenuous and as Africa offers little to the overall solution. Essentially, much of Africa risks losing relevance.

Maybe, by being forced to carry more of its own weight, Africa can start to wean itself off its allies’s good graces and over time, develop functioning, well-governed countries that can provide for their people. The continent cannot sustain its current course indefinitely.

The next 50 years will be nothing like the past 50 years and the economic and military-aid dependent models that were used to help see Africa through postcolonialism will no longer be applicable.

Africa will need to do for herself. Provide for herself. Take responsibility. Govern and conduct herself with dignity. Grow. And that’s really not a bad thing at all.

• Levin is a managing partner at Nexus Capital Markets