AFRICAN ECONOMIC

CHALLENGE

THE ECONOMY has fallen behind because its people, despite their historical abilities in science, have not done this in an organised manner. 

The more the western world was able to invent and innovate in the past 300 years, the more "civilised" it became. And as Africa, in comparison, remained closer to nature and was dominated by natural phenomena, the more "primitive" and backward the continent seemed.

Western science led to the invention of gunpowder and other superior military weapons that outclassed bows, arrows and spears. Combined with the development of shipping transportation, the west became intrepid explorers of the world, developed a world-view of racial superiority, which led it to achieve military and economic conquests that resulted in transatlantic slavery and colonialism.

Emerging Africa by Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu. Photograph: Penguin

Evil as that epoch may have been, it was the product of world-views – world-views that were based on, and achieved because of science and technology. Asia has learned and applied the same lesson to economics, and its rising wealth is the result.