A Continent for the Taking: The Tragedy and Hope of Africa

This book, combined with "The Shadow of the Sun" by Ryszard Kapuscinski illuminates a part of the world that most Americans who think they follow current events well (like myself?) really don't know much about. I recommend reading the Kapuscinski book first as it will give you a better understanding of the events related in Mr. French's book. Both are excellent and worth reading to understand what happens in Africa.

It would have been a gigantic undertaking to write Howard W. French's kind of book about all of Africa. Africa is, after all, a large continent with the greatest diversity in species, ecosystems, peoples, languages and histories. French does not attempt such a challenge. His primary focus is the part of Africa that he knows best, Central Africa, and its complex history since independence. While he draws some general conclusions for Africa, resulting from the colonial carving up of the continent, his concern are the events in "the heart of Africa". Given the common misconception that Africa can be regarded as one unitary region, the title "A Continent for the Taking" strikes me as somewhat unsuitable and the subtitle as misleading. Only a few chapters relate French's travels in other countries, all in West Africa, and almost all struggling with their own post-colonial catastrophes such as Sierra Leone and Liberia. One notable exception is Mali where recent history has demonstrated that democratic development is possible despite political, environmental challenges and severe poverty of the vast majority of the population. Here, French finds some of hope among the tragedies. French feels privileged for his position given his personal background and family connections in and to the region. As West Africa representative for the New York Times between 1994 and 1998, he traveled extensively in the region. The book records one major political crisis after another: most of those happened to occur in Zaire in the last years of Mobutu's reign. French complements his current affairs coverage with reflections on the impacts of colonial history and political power play during the Cold War. While he places the responsibility of much of the ongoing crisis in the region at the feet of the former colonial powers, especially Belgian's King Leopold, his outspoken critique is particularly poignant regarding the US and its philosophy of "African Solutions for African Problems". Supporting authoritarian strongmen and dictators, he argues, has been more important for American foreign policy than promoting nascent democracy and the protection of human rights. Despite the known brutality and rampant frauds of Mobutu's regime, he was only dropped from the list of "acceptable" African leaders when another equally ruthless strongman, Laurent Kabila, stood at the gates of Kinshasa, the capital. French was also a close and disparaging observer of the US welcome for Kabila as the new president. French writes with great empathy and passion for the peoples living in Central Africa, the two Congos, one of them the former Zaire, as well as the displaced refugees from Rwanda. They are the real victims of the regimes and the continuing power plays by western governments. These are more interested, he suggests, in the exploitation of rich natural resources, oil, diamonds and metals, than in good governance and democratic participation by the population. For example, F

Reporting from the ground in several trouble-prone nations, Howard French explains how sub-Saharan Africa is still being subjected to the whims of the outside world. Former rounds of slavery and colonialism are simply continuing under a new form of domination based on facilitating far-off political games, and enriching multinational corporations through the shameless appropriation of natural resources. All the while, the people of Africa continue to be exploited and forgotten by the rest of the world. French does find one (partially) happy success story in Mali, whose hardworking people have started a homegrown move toward democracy with nonexistent interest or support from outside. However, much of this book covers the violence and mayhem that still afflict much of Africa, displaying the lingering legacies of colonialism and economic exploitation. Included here are quick examinations of the relentless political corruption in the potentially successful Nigeria, which has a strong population and political culture but also the corrupting influence of Western corporate profiteering; and the sorry subversion of democratic progress by violent local warlords in sleepy Congo-Brazzaville. French writes many pages on the catastrophic civil war in Liberia, fueled by drug-addicted teenage soldiers and genocidal competing dictators. In the process French devastatingly debunks the rebel leader Charles Taylor, who has become a supposed American poster boy for democratic reform. The greatest part of the book is based on French's knowledge of events in Congo (formerly Zaire), including stirring eyewitness accounts of the 1997 insurrection that toppled the despicable lifetime dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, who had also been an American favorite. The best aspects of this book are French's very well informed (though sometimes bitter) examinations of American policy toward Africa's ceaseless problems, which are often based on pillow talk about democracy and capitalism while actually supporting bloodthirsty dictators and weaseling out of taking action during humanitarian catastrophes. This illuminating and occasionally gut-wrenching account of Africa's continuing misery does offer some rays of hope, in that there could be salvation for Africa if the outside would simply stop exploiting the continent and try to truly understand it. [~doomsdayer520~]

A well written work that delivers unusual insight into the peculiar political situation in Africa. Howard French brings to bear his deep understanding of the continent. This book is a must-read for anybody seriously interested in understanding the true socio-political dynamics of Africa. Unlike most books about Africa that are written by foreigners, it avoids the condescending know-it-all attitude that gets many Africans mad.More importantly, French is not shy about pointing out the role played (and still being played) by many western powers and multinational corporations in fostering the instability and and conflict that has plagued Africa.The one criticism I have is that the book deals so much with the Congo crisis and with conflicts in Africa in general, but does not adequately address key positive developments that also took place. Perhaps, Mr. French will address those in a second volume. All in all, Mr. French deserves commendation for writing such an honest and deeply incisive book.

I became so immersed reading this book, I missed my subway stop to transfer uptown. The 7 train took me into Queens. This is a must read for anybody who wants to learn more about Africa. If we all appreciated and built on the real hope of Africa, there wouldn't be so much tragedy.