OUT OF AFRICA

AT THE TURN OF THE 21ST CENTURY when journalists were asking all and sundry for predictions about what might come to pass in the hundred years to come, many political voices seemed to favour the idea that this was finally going to be "Africa's turn", as it was so put at the time. A brief glance at the history of statements about Africa will show that nothing was new about these statements: indeed, as long ago as 1960, the somewhat ill-fated British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan stated that a "wind of change" was "sweeping through Africa".

 

THIS WIND OF CHANGE OF MACMILLAN'S may perhaps be likened to what was said only a few years ago about the so-called "Arab Spring", which would apparently bring democracy, happiness and general lovey-doveyness to nations which had previously been run by tyrants with a taste for the noose, garrotte, lash, scimitar, stone pit, cauldron of oil and, when feeling generous, the firing squad.

 

ALAS, IT WOULD APPEAR THAT THERE has not been a great deal of democratic advance in the North African and Middle Eastern countries covered by the term "Arab", nor has Africa stepped up to the plate to claim its so long announced new dawn of prosperity, with only Tunisia attempting to cut the mustard as a democracy while the other Mediterranean-bathed states have been using pepper spray to stave it off.

 

ONE WONDERS WHETHER THIS IS BECAUSE the African Union, a parallel to our own, much-beloved, European Union, might not be fully enacting its stated aim to "bring peace, prosperity and welfare" to the nations of Africa. The Union in its early days was run by people we now know to have been less than honest, when it is now apparent that its leaders ran a coach and horses through the spirit of its aims. Fortunately it is now in better hands, as my picture shows.

THERE ARE MANY REASONS BEING put forth as to why so many Africans and citizens of the Middle East are fleeing in such numbers, most of whom are relatively well-off males who have paid vast sums of money to smuggler chaps to transport them, instead of staying in their own countries, investing in an AK-70 or any of the easily-available weapons with which the African continent is awash and setting forth to storm the palaces of the disgraceful people who are subjugating them. If someone tells me that 60,000 healthy young men have left a country and spent two years trudging over savannah, Sahara, sea and Italian bureaucracy in order to get a job plucking turkeys in Suffolk, leaving eight children behind with their wives, then I can only see this as an acceptance of the regime in their country of origin.

 

IT HAS BEEN SOME TIME SINCE I HAVE dealt with one of my themes from the past when I wrote columns about the state of the world for a newspaper of some repute, but I feel obliged to return to the issue of the hamburger. In my columns several years ago I mentioned the pernicious effects of the hamburger, and particularly of hamburger gas, a scent released into the air wherever one of the main hamburger-producing "restaurants" were active.

 

I NOW BELIEVE I HAVE EVIDENCE of an even more destructive effect of the hamburger in world migratory terms. Countries which do not have any "franchise representation" for McDonald's include Afghanistan, Eritrea, Somalia and Libya. Countries which have their full allocation of McDonald's restaurants include Cyprus, Malta, Lebanon, Jordan, Greece and Italy.

 

TO MY MIND THERE IS NO DOUBT that the hamburger gases are being wafted over the waves and air routes to the Middle East, encouraging these young men to want to move to Europe and work as slaves, with no contracts, and in permanent fear of being sacked and deported. Yet playing their part in the great new economic success that is the European Union.