by Anonymous for African Arguments, part of the Guardian Africa Network

We are not anti-poverty fighters who are going back to help translate the new growth into meaningful redistribution.

In the New Rising Africa, no one is apparently hungry. Hunger is a road stop on the journey to infinite riches. The girl on the rubbish heap is actually a budding entrepreneur searching for plastic bags to sell which in less than a generation will transform her “business” into a recycling plant. She is not unique, as in this new African place everyone can succeed. She is on her way to becoming one of the richest women in the world. Just.You.Wait. You go see her rise. No capital, education, equality measures, wealth distribution policies or useless aid. Sister is doing it for herself.

The story goes on. Africa is rising. No dark continent. No begging bowl continent. Home is on the up. Entrepreneurship is on the rise, malls are on the rise, as are Nigerian banks, the Black Stars, and Afro-European infused fashion. Don’t forget Azonto! Go Afrobeat! There is also supposedly an “African green revolution” on the way; just around the corner in fact. Well, turn left after that and walk down a few thousand miles, then viola – an Africa that can feed herself and easily most of the world too. At apparently virtually no cost to herself or even more conveniently; anybody else. Because land is going cheap. Everyone wants a piece of our land pie; name it- the west, Brazil, India, China, etc. and etc. Oh China, China. She is giving us something for our lovely pie. We are not quite sure what this something is; but boy, it is so nice to stick two fingers to the old west and their hypocritical neo-colonial, stupid aid ways. All hail China. No one is going to cheat us ever again.

With all this action; it is no surprise the Afro diaspora is now getting involved. As we are the anointed brain drain of the continent; its essential grey matter; it is startling indeed that the continent has managed to grow thus far without our concerted influence and guidance.

Still, rather late than never. Growth has finally come and we must go back to eat the food the leftover bits of the African brain cooked as we drained away to the west. We must show pride and return to lead. And we are wanted back. A few African leaders have done the diaspora “come home” tour circuit in New York, London, Paris, urging us to come out, come out, come home wherever we may be. I found myself back home recently on a work trip listening on the radio to the president’s address to group of diaspora folk in New York. The great leader spoke about how wonderful home was, especially in the capital city, where the commercial hub is operating efficiently and is now free of the hawkers who have a knack of thrusting their wares into the faces of exhausted drivers in the city’s lumbering traffic jams. By coincidence, I was sitting in traffic in the very area our great leader was exalting. I was at that moment buying some oranges from a very tired 13-going-onto-50 year old hawker boy. It was a confusing and painful moment for us both to realise our dear leader was spinning a little bit of a yarn.

My “home” city, like many others across the continent, pulsates with such undesired hawker activity. Supermarket on the street. Lines and lines of poor and increasingly angry young boys, selling anything from toilet roll to world maps. Refugees from rural areas where the green revolution has not arrived or is taking it’s time in getting to the Poverty Over stage. Tired of waiting, the boys come to the city in the hope of a bit of the Africa rising pie. To become an entrepreneurs with no capital, aid, wealth distribution or equality policies. Just arriving should be enough in the new Africa. They hustle, hustle, and hustle some more. Still Poverty Over no come. Yet Africa is apparently rising.

Well, for some, back home it is. And it is rising for those of us who have had enough of this cold place and have a little money tucked away or have connections with those back home holding the knife that slices the pie. So we are starting to return and to reclaim our proper place – at the top of the pile. A place we have always occupied anyway. We have always been the elite. Yes, Africa is rising but let’s not kid ourselves that everyone, indeed that most Africans, are able to ride this rising wave. We are not anti-poverty fighters who are going back to help translate the new growth into meaningful redistribution. We are New Africa’s rich and upper middle class. Let’s not insult anyone or ourselves by pretending otherwise.

The full article can be read on The Guardian.

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