• Home
  • About us
  • Contact Us
  • Date/Time
  • Login
  • Subscribe

logo

  • Home
  • Politics
  • Economics & Finance
  • World
  • Arts & Books
  • Life
  • Science
  • Philosophy
  • Subscribe
  • Events
Home
  • Home
  • Blogs
  • Politics
  • Economics & Finance
  • World
  • Arts & Books
  • Life
  • Science
  • Philosophy
  • Subscribe
  • Events
  • Home
  • Magazine

What Africa is really like

The continent is getting more prosperous and democratic by the day

by Alex Perry / October 15, 2015 / Leave a comment
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Linkedin
  • Email

Published in November 2015 issue of Prospect Magazine
Aid is distributed in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu. © Warsame, Omar B/ICRC

Aid is distributed in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu. © Warsame, Omar B/ICRC

Between October 2010 and April 2012, a quarter of a million people died in a famine in Somalia. Even in the war years, no one had seen dying like it. In a few weeks in mid-2­011, half a million people abandoned their homes in the south of the country and walked across the desert to Mogadishu, an exodus of hundreds of miles marked for eternity by thousands of shallow graves. In the camps the survivors erected out of brushwood and plastic bags in the war ruins of Mogadishu, hundreds were dying every day. When cholera and measles swept the camps, that number accelerated into the thousands. The living and the dead soon found themselves competing for space. Mothers would return to the graves of children they had buried the day before to find a camp had materialised on the same spot over night. By the end of the catastrophe, one in 10 of the children in southern Somalia aged five and under was dead.

Maybe you remember it? Perhaps you gave money to the aid agencies who blanketed newspaper front pages and billboards in London with pictures of starving Somalis? The campaign was one of the biggest of the last decade, raising £1.2bn in months, about £400 for each of the three million Somalis in need. That figure, however, poses a question. With all that money, how did 258,000 people still die? The answers are an excruciating testament to how badly we in the west can get Africa wrong.

The truth about famine in Africa is that it hardly eve…

YOU’VE HIT THE LIMIT

You have now reached your limit of 3 free articles in the last 30 days.
But don’t worry! You can get another 7 articles absolutely free, simply by entering your email address in the box below.

When you register we’ll also send you a free e-book—Writing with punch—which includes some of the finest writing from our archive of 22 years. And we’ll also send you a weekly newsletter with the best new ideas in politics and philosophy of culture, which you can of course unsubscribe from at any time







Prospect may process your personal information for our legitimate business purposes, to provide you with our newsletter, subscription offers and other relevant information.

Click to learn more about these interests and how we use your data. You will be able to object to this processing on the next page and in all our communications.

11977021905c69e37e0a0a29.45814077

Go to comments

Related articles

A new party sounds attractive—but the oddballs who start them spell trouble
Anne Perkins / August 18, 2018
New plan, old egos
Both sides now: inside the rise of Sajid Javid
Rachel Sylvester / January 27, 2019
From humble origins, Sajid Javid is travelling light to the top
Share with friends
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Linkedin
  • Email

Comments

  1. Graeme Stewart-Wilson
    January 18, 2016 at 16:11
    Hi Alex, Fantastic article. I'm curious how you would respond to the charge that you, as a foreigner, are also "presuming to tell Africa's story on its behalf"? How can a story with a title like "What Africa Is Really Like" be written by anyone but an African? Was this irony intentional? Best, Graeme
    1. Alex Perry
      April 12, 2016 at 11:35
      Hi Graeme -- sorry to reply so late. Very good point, and in fact the book on which this article is based begins with a kind of apology: it shouldn't be me writing Africa's story; and, beyond that, foreign correspondence of the kind that gets to define Africa to the outside world, rather than Africans themselves, is a very unfortunate colonial hangover. I did look, for two years, for an African through which to tell the story of the continent, but in the end I had to conclude that the place was so huge and varied that I was the only person I had come across who had been to all the places I wanted to write about. So I'm in the book, but more as a narrative device than anything else and, as I say, with a fair amount of misgiving. The good news is that this is changing. One of the fundamental human rights that Africans are demanding be returned to them by the outside world, and big part of their reclamation of their freedom and their furious self-assertion, is the right to tell their own story. And in the number of young journalists, film-makers, novelists and activists now coming to the fore, as well as African businessmen and politicians, you can see that that's happening.

Prospect's free newsletter

The big ideas that are shaping our world—straight to your inbox. PLUS a free e-book and 7 articles of your choosing on the Prospect website.

Prospect may process your personal information for our legitimate business purposes, to provide you with our newsletter, subscription offers and other relevant information. Click here to learn more about these purposes and how we use your data. You will be able to opt-out of further contact on the next page and in all our communications.

This Month's Magazine

Perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus.

Prospect is the leading magazine of ideas. Each month it is packed with the finest writing on politics, culture, economics and ideas. Subscribe today and join the debate.

Subscribe

Most Popular

  • Read
  • Commented

The invigorating strangeness of Friedrich Nietzsche

The naïve optimism of Liam Fox

Why I bet £1000 that a no-deal Brexit will trigger recession

Labour's Remainers could be a ticking time bomb for the party

The Duel: Has modern architecture ruined Britain?

Ruling out no deal is the wrong sort of red line

6 Comments

The Conservative Party has a problem—it’s no longer conservative

5 Comments

The overlooked dynamic at the heart of the Brexit “culture war”

2 Comments

Arlene Foster’s DUP still holds the balance of power in Westminster—so what’s their next move?

2 Comments

The impact of Brexit on services has not received nearly enough attention

2 Comments

About this author

Alex Perry
Alex Perry is an author, foreign correspondent and contributing editor at Newsweek's international edition. His latest book is "The Rift: A New Africa Breaks Free"

Next Prospect events

  • Details

    Prospect Book Club—Diarmaid MacCulloch

    London, 2019-05-20

  • Details

    Prospect Book Club—Sue Prideaux

    2019-04-15

  • Details

    Prospect Book Club—Andrew Roberts

    2019-03-14

See more events

Sponsored features

  • Reforming the pension system to work for the many

  • Putting savers in the driving seat: getting the pensions dashboard right

  • To fix the housing crisis we need fresh thinking

  • Tata Steel UK: Driving innovation for the future of mobility

  • The road to zero

PrimeTime

The magazine is owned and supported by the Resolution Group, as part of its not-for-profit, public interest activities.

Follow us
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google+
  • RSS

Editorial

Editor: Tom Clark
Deputy Editor: Steve Bloomfield
Managing Editor (Arts & Books): Sameer Rahim
Head of Digital: Stephanie Boland
Deputy Digital Editor (Political Correspondent): Alex Dean
Creative Director: Mike Turner
Production Editor & Designer: Chris Tilbury
US Writer-at-Large: Sam Tanenhaus

Commercial

Commercial Director: Alex Stevenson
Head of Marketing: Paul Mortimer
Marketing and Circulations Executive: James Hawkins
Programme Coordinator: Oliver James Ward
Head of Advertising Sales: Adam Kinlan 020 3372 2934
Senior Account Manager: Dominic Slonecki 0203 372 2972

  • Home
  • Advertising
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Acceptable Use Policy
© Prospect Publishing Limited
×
Login
Login with your subscriber account:
You need a valid subscription to login.
I am
Remember Me


Forgotten password?

Or enter with social networking:
Login to post comments using social media accounts.
  • With Twitter
  • Connect
  • With Google +
×
Register Now

Register today and access any 7 articles on the Prospect’s website for FREE in the next 30 days..
PLUS find out about the big ideas that will shape our world—with Prospect’s FREE newsletter sent to your inbox. We'll even send you our e-book—Writing with punch—with some of the finest writing from the Prospect archive, at no extra cost!

Not Now, Thanks

Prospect may process your personal information for our legitimate business purposes, to provide you with our newsletter, subscription offers and other relevant information.

Click to learn more about these interests and how we use your data. You will be able to object to this processing on the next page and in all our communications.

×
You’ve got full access!

It looks like you are a Prospect subscriber.

Prospect subscribers have full access to all the great content on our website, including our entire archive.

If you do not know your login details, simply close this pop-up and click 'Login' on the black bar at the top of the screen, then click 'Forgotten password?', enter your email address and press 'Submit'. Your password will then be emailed to you.

Thank you for your support of Prospect and we hope that you enjoy everything the site has to offer.

This site uses cookies to improve the user experience. By using this site, you agree that we can set and use these cookies. For more details on the cookies we use and how to manage them, see our Privacy and Cookie Policy.