Summer                                                                    Recovery Moon

Obama is in Africa.

Africa. In college I took a considerable number of courses related to Africa: geography of Africa, history and pre-history of pre-European contact Africa, physical anthropology courses including human evolution, ethnography of African peoples. Almost enough for a minor, but I already had two majors.

At the time Jomo Kenyatta , Patrice Lumumba, Kwame N’Krumah were active, Kenyatta in founding the modern state of Kenya and N’Krumah the modern state of Ghana. N’Krumah was a pan-Africanist and man of clear vision. Kenyatta, both strongman and visionary, did have the broad view of N’Krumah, but he did seek strong African nations and strong African economies. Lumumba led the fight to break the Congo away from its notoriously regressive Belgian colonial government. All three of these men inspired me and gave me hope, back in the late 1960’s, that Africa would soon shake off its colonizers and take its place as the mother continent, the literal cradle of humanity.

We know that didn’t happen. Numerous factors explain the dream delayed: boundaries drawn by European colonizers, ancient tribalism, all too frequent corruption, the competing demands of global competitive economics and the often socialist aspirations of these first generation post-colonial leaders.

Obama has been speaking to the dream delayed during his Africa trip. I hope he succeeds in shaking up the difficult political climate of the continent. Africa, a place I have not yet been, in addition to the specific places where the human species arose from its common ancestor with the primates, has great natural resources, among them flora and fauna found nowhere else in the world. Why must this huge continent spend any more time in the waiting room of nations?