Sub-Saharan Africa (1955), or sSA for short, means Africa south of the Sahara. In practice it means all of Africa except for the countries in the very north – Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Western Sahara. It is a way to say “Black Africa” and talk about black Africans without sounding racist. The term is beloved by the United Nations, the IMF, the World Bank, The Economist, CNN, American think tanks, anthropologists and others. It goes back to the 1950s but did not drive out “Black Africa” and “tropical Africa” and come into its own till the 1980s. From what I have read sub-Saharan Africa is: A place of Aids – above all else. A place of dying mothers, economic outlooks and weak governments. A place of poverty – with most of the world’s reserves of gold, platinum, chromium and cobalt. A place of hunger – that grows flowers for India, wheat for South Korea, bad-tasting tea for Lipton and biofuels for machines in China. A place in constant need of foreign aid, American strategies, population control, sad comparisons with other parts of the world and endless statistics. A place where outsiders think they know best.
Posted on: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 11:20:37 +0000