Focus 580; A Continent for the Taking: the Tragedy and Hope of Africa

In the first hour of the program today will be talking about Africa and our guest is Howard French. He's a senior writer for The New York Times. He has connections with Africa that go back some ways to both personal and also professional after teaching at the University of Ivory Coast in the early 80s. He began his journalism career writing about Africa for The Washington Post for African news. The Economist and other publications and since 1986 he has a reporter for The New York Times from a number of places including Central America the Caribbean. Also West and Central Africa Japan Korea and now China. In 1997 his coverage of the fall of Mobutu Sese Seko won the Overseas Press Club of America's award for best newspaper interpretation of foreign affairs. He now makes his home in Shanghai. He is visiting here and spending some time. But then it did then. Comparable States and for example in the Far East and so when the Europeans came and fought to do that the Europeans took over

much of Asia. Well China is a good example but the Chinese already had under their belt many hundreds of years thousands of years indeed of existence that has a unified unitary state and therefore were able to that that becomes a very powerful rallying point and a source of resilience culturally and politically for a people. Africans in places like Ashanti in places like the homie which is in present day Benny and in the Congo empire which I described at some length in my book were relatively new when the Europeans came and destroyed them. And because the roots had not yet grown so deep. Resilience became a much more difficult proposition. One of the things that we see happening all all over as a result of colonialism is you're the European powers look at some particular place and they look at what was there for them and they decided either formally or informally that they would divide it up.

And in many places what they did was they simply took out a map and put it down on the table and got out a ruler and started to draw lines in complete disregard for any kind of divisions either former or or informal there that already existed political ethnic or otherwise. And we see it in Africa and we see a lot of other places that you have to say at least some of the the conflict and the difficulty that we have today can be traced to those decisions that were those lines that were drawn by Europeans for their purposes without any regard for for what kind of reality there was on the ground already. Indeed. You know I think almost everyone who's ever thought even a little bit about Africa has a grasp of this idea at least superficially that Africa was the victim of European mapmakers and that the Berlin conference in the late 19th century. All of the European

powers of that day sat around literally a big table and decided what you know shaped African countries would take and who would have which pieces of real estate there. There's a lot behind this that needs to be understood better and want to try in my book to help people understand what this means in practice. A bit more. One one good example I think is Nigeria which is not simply it's Africa's most populous country by the way and a country that sells a lot of oil to the United States. I called my book a continent for the taking and that implies the European exploitation of the continent but also present day exploitation of the continent sort of having our way cheaply in Africa notion. But anyway back to Nigeria this is a very large West African country that had indeed protests. States exist that when the imperialism began one of them was called one of them was the house state in the northern part of the country. The year of the British specifically roped

three very large and very sort of strong willed cultures together in one in one artificially created entity which we now call Nigeria. That would have been bad enough had it not been for the fact that the British decided that they wanted to use the house the people from the northern part of the country as military material. So the military very consciously through an effort by the British turned into a house the institution the education became concentrated in the south part of the country and a bit more. Some people would say in the eastern land known now known then and now often called the boat land. And the Western southwestern part of the country became the commercial center of the country and the administrative capital of the country had the political capital of the country and that was euro buy land. So the British not only robbed three different very different people together who were sort of almost natural rivals.

But they quip to them differently to face this. Prospect of modern nation statehood and Nigeria Africa's most populous country on an almost guaranteed path of explosion by creating by sort of feeding these rivalries in this way. And this was not something that is just the British did or the other colonial powers in other places did the same thing though indeed as they looked at the countries that they had created in the territory that they mapped out. And they said well we in order to rule this place we're going to use the people that are there. We have to have people on the ground that we can trust that we can rely on to be our bureaucrats and our enforcers. And what they did was that they created rivalries that either didn't exist before or that might have have existed but were magnified because of the the way that the colonial powers handed out essentially handed out power. For people for Indigenous people to rule over other antigens That's

exactly right. And the examples abound. The most famous recent example perhaps is Rwanda where the Belgians decided and the Germans also who were active in that part of the world decided that the sea reminded them somehow of Europeans that they had an act Aqua line forms to their faces and that therefore they must be disappear your group never to be represented and represented about 15 percent of the population and the Brits the colonial powers sort of created and inforce an idea of difference and of differentiation and hierarchy that did not exist in that society certainly not anywhere to the degree that that we've seen in that sense. And that set Rwanda on the path to the genocide which occurred 10 years ago and by the way Burundi as well the exact same experience of these two countries have had repeated genocides as a result of this. I could go on. Country to country and

give your example like this. And then perhaps connects to one other legacy of colonialism and that is having colonial powers having set up these kind of conditions that you would say were setting up the possibility of conflict then at the periods where various places and times where the colonial powers then left. They really did nothing to try to help those people to equip them to move on to some kind of independence. Essentially I think in most places they just said Well so long and left and and this so we shouldn't really be surprised that then there might have been conflict if they set up conditions for it and then they did nothing to try to make things go any smoother they simply just pulled up stakes and left. Right I pose the question the rhetorical question in my book I say you know many people look at AFF. Through the headlines and in our in our newspapers today and say you know what is wrong with these people is there any hope can there be any hope for this

continent why can't they get it together and you know that part of the history lessons that I or one of the history lessons that I tried to work out clearly in my book is if you follow this the steps that you've just gone through Imperial control which knocked out sovereign political processes which were well on their way in many places toward creating what we would think of today as a modern state. And then the imposition of colonial rule by the British or by the Belgians or by the French or by the Portuguese or by others in which Western institutions were slapped on these artificially created hastily slapped onto these artificially created countries and administered not by Africans allowing them to gain. Yes sufficient experience in in alien ways but by European administrators who are who are administrating these countries very much for the profits of

Europe and of Europe's economies. Mind you the colonial period concept of this coincided with World War 1 and World War 2 and Europe was one raking with administering Africa as cheaply as possible and raking off everything it could to fuel the extraordinary turmoil and competition that existed between European countries during that time. And I say raking off. Many people don't know that but Africans fought in great numbers on behalf of European countries back then who you know Africans brought to European battlefields to fight on behalf of Europe and in Europe conflicts. Anyway the colonial period lasted all of a couple of generations and then Europe decided right after World War Two a bit exhausted a bit prodded by the United States which wanted to increase its own access to markets. The wise and politically due to various parts of the world Washington had decided that colonialism was a thing of the past and this

married very well with our own self-image and rhetoric as a champion of democracy. So the Europeans very hastily walked off having created this flap. Administrative structure not having really trained Africans to run it or ever creating created any sovereign sense among Africans of something that really belongs to them or is appropriate for them. And then they walked off and they admitted throughout Africa. Is that about we're not all break up but the African troops fighting in Europe in World War what it take in the is that we think about the war in Europe and. It's a world war case

we do You did indeed see African troops fighting in Europe. Yeah you know Africa a continent for the taking. Part to be part of the world par excellence which we wish to use for our own purposes. Craftily we can get away with with as little cost as possible to us. And the examples start from the earliest trade in slavery which is recounted in the encounter between Portugal of the Congo empire in my book to the colonial experience which I've just explained to you to a very modern contemporary times in which Western oil companies rake off huge amounts of profit in Africa and simply pay pay for the oil production that they're buying from countries like Angola Nigeria and other big producers on the continent. You know not even sending the money to the central

bank but paying through all kinds of career. Uptick in transactions involving political elites in these countries not really worrying about the consequences because it's more expedient to do business that way. Coming back to World War Two thing though. WORLD ONE thing though it's another thing that very little known as Africa served as the headquarters of the Free French after the fall of France to the German de Gaulle and its forces played their headquarters in Brother Ville Congo which is one of two countries called Congo that one being the former French colony and the African troop where you could help win back friends then to help fight the war in Europe in World War Two and in even greater numbers than World War 1. We are almost a midpoint here I think I probably should introduce Again our guest or anyone who might have tuned in last 10 15 minutes or more. Howard French is a senior writer for The New York Times. He has written about a number of places around the world

for the times. He has reported from Central America and the Caribbean from Japan Korea now China and also West and Central Africa and he's the author of a book that is part a part history part journalism part memoir about his experiences writing about Africa. It's titled A continent for the Taking The Tragedy and Hope of Africa and it's published by Knopf and questions are certainly welcome. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free. Hundred to 2 2 9 4 5 5 0 here and in this country I think for some time there have been some African Americans who have tried to make a point of saying to two other African Americans that it is important for not only all Americans but particularly for black Americans too to pay attention to Africa to know what's going on there to recognize that they have a stake in that. And one name that just leaps to my mind is Randall Robinson the man who now I guess a couple of decades ago started

this group called Trans Africa which was was both and kind of educational effort and also a lobbying effort. And part of his interest was indeed to interest African Americans in Africa. So I just want to you can talk about that but I also am interested intent of turning that around a little bit and having you talk a little bit about your experiences in and getting to know Africans and whether indeed they feel some sort of kinship or some sort of connection with African Americans. That's a very complicated question and there's not really a yes or no answer I'm an African-American but I happen to be a very light skinned African-American and I'm recognized as an African-American almost everywhere I go in America. But sometimes an opera. I'm not recognized as someone with African blood and that is because and Africans don't by and large have the same history.

Well certainly they don't have the same history of ownership by white slave that that African-Americans have. Having said that I think Africans are not you know it is a little caution needed here. Anytime you begin a sentence saying African states or Africans that you refer to I think something foolish and that's that's really something that I try to be well up in my book. And I'd like to be careful of if I speak to you but Africans by and large I think that's not a romantic notion of here are my long lost brothers let me embrace them. But there is a very will readily sense of welcome and appreciation for the curiosity and sense of kinship that many African-Americans when they visit Africa convey I think Africans very often are impressed

by that and are touched by that and it makes for a very special experience. I should also say that there's another foolish sounding sentence beginning with Africans. But in my experience African in one part. Because from one thought to another tend to be some of the most hospitable people I've ever encountered. I mean here is a continent that has suffered extraordinary woes and where hardships abound in many places and people have a right to be angry certainly about the way the West has treated them. And yet the sense of up with reality that almost immediately offended almost wherever one goes is really extraordinary. We have a caller to bring into the conversation let's do that I believe the caller is in Chicago and on our toll free line right here. Hello. Hi I wanted to make a couple of comments and then I had a question. The first comment is that to continue the discussion of World War 2

I don't know if this is true for West Africa but certainly East Africa gave the British interest free loans and to support their war effort and so these colonies were not only producing raw materials for the war but money was collected and really taxed at a very high rate so that they would be an interest free loan and I'm not sure if the loans were ever paid back. Another thing that happened is that in East Africa the colonial powers that came in after World War 1 the British they thought they were good. It's mostly through oral culture in many parts of rural Africa as as one region after another gets caught up in whether a centrally resource war is meant to gain control of exotic or perhaps sometimes even present resources. Things like timber tropical wood which is used to make the furniture find furniture that we use in America or Europe or in East Asia.

Uranium coal coal tar which is an exotic mineral that exists in eastern Congo which is the main fuel for the war in that part of the country the continent because coal time is used to make the chips that go into our cell phones and our Playstation and things like that. It's really an open question what's going to happen as a result of of these resource wars which the world is not really doing you know outside world and not really doing anything to to try to to try to solve it. Liberia a country that lost 10 percent of its population during during during its recent war. This is a country that has been has thought of it that the fight has been thoroughly scrambled. It's a country of about two million maybe a little more than two million people half of whom much of the war the countryside simply emptied out and half of the population and is up in

the city of Monrovia living in squatters essentially and many other Liberian fled and lived in the region throughout the region created a Diaspora of Liberians. This overturned up sort of turned upside down ethnic society in Liberia and flowerbeds going to sort itself out I think is is is is is is unknown up until present is there's no real answer. You know the problem is that this really is a world issue because I think it was kind of caught on to who said Africa is a gift to the world in their sense of community and society and I think the fact that in most African cultures like you said the foolishness of Signy thing that starts with Africa or Africans. But I think that you can say safely in most African cultures the whole idea is people can reach consensus. And that idea that is so firmly held by most cultures in Africa. Something the entire world needs right now. The idea that you can come together at some point I think there's a

slushie least saying that a mountain can never come together but people can and that's Africa's really at its most its biggest gift I think to the world and what the world needs right now and and if we're losing that cultures that promote this idea and the people that promote this way of life the world is suffering a lot. I agree Africa is one of Africa's great contributions to the world has an extraordinary humanism and if that's lost in Africa then then we're all lost a little bit more. I want to come back to something that you said about the way the British chose particular groups who run countries that will believe in them. Historian the distinguished British historian of Africa who I invoked a few minutes ago has basically argued you know we talk about African tribes and tribalism that's the term that I try to avoid because I think it's it's not about a terror plot anthropologically accurate most of the time and it's not terribly enlightening either. But they would think that it's the European who invented

tribes in Africa through the very process that you described. And and and and here's here's the ultimate implication of this. Someone said to me in another interview with recently you know Africa is composed. Tribal societies and tribal societies the leader of the tribe is responsible for his people that's the ultimate responsibility of a tribal leader. How can you explain that in a place where tribal societies abound. That country's leaders have become so corrupt. And I said well that's a very good question it throws us back to the Berlin Conference and the division of Africa through arbitrary borders which is which is repeated so often that we never really dig deeper to understand what this actually means in practice in practice for Africa. I said take a leader like Mobutu Sese Seko is a man who ruled the year with an iron grip. And so really it was thoroughly corrupt for 30 years placed in power by the United States and Belgium after overthrowing a priest in the home of the prime minister of Congo very briefly the first coup d'etat in

Africa and a coup d'etat against the democratically chosen government. These men like Mobutu and many many of the other recent and contemporary leaders of Africa they they do indeed have a tribal vision helped spurred on by the experience of colonialism but they don't live in tribal countries. They live in countries composed of many ethnic groups. But what they tend to begin to do is to consolidate their rule and to shower favors and riches upon. A series of concentric circles of groups starting with their own clan their own village their own tribe so to speak in their own region and then beyond. Sometimes you know ideally it gets to the notion of the entire country but usually it doesn't and Mobutu Furthermore had the example of Belgium. How could a guy like that be so corrupt I'm asked. Well there was only one example for him of a sovereign ruler of his country and the only man in

King Leopold the third of Belgium of the second of Belgium I'm sorry who who took possession of this country during the Berlin Conference and not for his own not in the name of Belgium but in his own personal name and ruled ruled the Congo as a personal property. And raked off a profit and ruled murderously want to scale that deserved comparison with Hitler or Stalin or Mao or or the work leaders of recent memory. And this is the example that Mobutu had. And so he followed the notion artificial notion of tribalism and the notion of personal property and he ruled that desires ruined with our support for 30 years. I'm really enjoying this discussion and I'm looking forward to reading your book. Thank you. Thank you very much for your question. Well and maybe I should just again take their opportunity to introduce the guests We're talking with Howard French She's a senior writer for The New York Times has written for the times on various places around the world including Central America and the Caribbean Japan

Korea. He's now in China. He's now living in Shanghai and he also for a number of years reported on West and Central Africa for the times. His book is titled A continent for the Taking The Tragedy and Hope. Of Africa it's published by coffin it's out now and we had someone call it off the air who said that they have some people I not sure what that means. Just friends or relatives but that they have people that are going to Togo for the Peace Corps and were interested in if you could talk a little bit about anything you could say about what's going on there. Coco it is a very interesting country and it's good good sort of example for the purposes of discussion about this continent that has been exploited in the various ways that I've described. It's a very small country you can drive the breadth of Togo in in an hour it has been ruled by the same man since the 1960s a man named them eyes the name of the president and he took it up and have a whole lot of

natural resources to offer. But France's policy of the former French colony France's policy in Africa had been killed very recently. To corral all of its former colonies into a kind of loose not a loose end to a political association with France in which these countries would serve France's purposes at the UN and other international fora and in exchange France would fly to the rescue of their leaders whenever they got into trouble. This man has ruled dictatorially for I believe he's the longest serving present ruler in Africa. Togo is at peace now but it has had turmoil in the last 10 years or so every time there has been a motion by the opposition leader to try to bring about democracy in the country it put down through stolen elections and through mass arrests and sometimes through

great brutality. You know I don't wish turmoil upon the country like Togo and it's very good. I think it's a safe country to go to as a Peace Corps person. But the world needs to engage with countries like this more. France should be ashamed of itself. A shame doesn't actually move people in foreign policy very often but citizens can move their governments to be ashamed of themselves or to to to rectify their course in foreign policy and that's partly why I write a book like this to get citizens interested in more. Make them more knowledgeable and more involved in terms of the direction of our foreign policy toward Africa. And before I end this question I'd like to come back just very quickly to this question. You asked about African-Americans. I think that one of the great sort of lost opportunities for Africa is the big divorce that slavery created in Disc country between African Americans and Africans. We as African-Americans have

by and large lost almost all of our cultural memory of Africa certain things still persist braids and kinds of songs and and certain cultural practices. But by and large unlike any other large immigrant group we have no more real. Vital connection with the cockpit. In fact you know through a form of self-hatred that racism in this comes in fourth in the earlier decades of the last century African-Americans were encouraged not even to think of them as coming from Africa. This is a great tragedy for us as African-Americans for us as Americans and for Africa. And my book isn't directed at an African-American audience per se but I particularly welcome the reconstruction of the sort of constituency and of the sort of knowledge and awareness of the

link that should never have been allowed to die or never allowed to fade to the extent that it has. In this particular region that we've been talking about and and where you reported there has been a lot of conflict in the last decade going back to the Rwandan genocide but also the kinds of fighting that we've seen in places like like Liberia Sierra Leone Congo. And there has been a great deal of criticism aimed at the governments of Europe and the United States and I know particularly you you have some very strong things to say about the Clinton administration and Rwanda but generally criticism of the West for failing to intervene or intervening when it was almost too late. Why. Why do you think that is in war. Why is it that it seems that when when there is conflict that it takes so long for us in the United States or for Europeans to decide that we have some some interest

there and he is in our interest to become involved. Well that's a longer term answer and a shorter term answer and I'll start with the shorter term answer which is that at the end of the Cold War there was suddenly no region of geopolitical competition for us for it to remain active and involved with Africa during the Cold War. Our involvement was largely negative and destructive. But the Cold War ended and there was no more ideological or economic competition competition for Africa. And so we walked away. Then came the debacle and the Lalia in which we were mounting rather clumsily a humanitarian effort in Somalia and some American troops were killed and the political lesson became less and I should say in quotation marks that Africa is not worth a thing of American life that any American president would be foolish to risk any political capital by putting American lives at peril for Africa.

The consequence of this lesson was that the Clinton administration very much knowingly averted its eyes from the Rwandan genocide for bayed the use of the word genocide while the genocide was happening by some administration officials. Because if you acknowledge a genocide you are then almost morally obliged to become involved. Certainly for a superpower the Clinton people just literally averted their eyes from it and thereby facilitated the genocide. The longer term reason is I think coming back to the title of the book that we as Westerners. Meaning from the earliest European contact with Africa until now. I have a very deep tradition of regarding Africa and Africans as sort of beneath. Beneath not meriting our full regard and being a place that is a let's say lacking in civilization

lacking in redeeming values but rich in resources and thereby this sort of creates a certain way of looking at at Africa ignoring its problems ignoring any political responsibilities and yet seeing it as a great place where great Bonanzas can be had and there's a very very long tradition of this and I try to recount a lot of that in my book as well. How did this begin. That's a philosophical question and I'm afraid I can't answer it. It drives me to distraction thinking about it because I think we see Africa or we as Westerners as the quintessential other. And we had thereby managed to exclude it from our everyday concerns. The some title of the book as I mentioned a couple of times is The Tragedy and Hope of Africa. We spent a lot of time here talking about. The tragedy let us talk about the hope is there. Is there reason for hope and where. Where does that come from.

Well there is really there is reason for hope. There's reason for hope in terms of things that exist on the continent itself right now. I would cite the emergence of a very vibrant democracies a number of countries one of which is covered extensively in my book and that is Mali. But there are many other examples. Gonna. Been in Kenya Botswana South Africa of course the famous example there. And there are other examples which I won't name here. This is a source of great hope and we need to be present in making having done so much to promote dictatorships in Africa that that that democracy can thrive in Africa. Democracy allows people to make rational choices about the use of resources and about the direction of society. And Africa needs that Africa is actually rich in terms of many in many ways. Resources being a primary among them but it's poor because this wealth is used so poorly. Another source of hope again retold mostly through the example of Mali but also.

I discussed some writers and other artists in the book. Another source of hope for me is just the cultural resilience of Africa the deep sense of pride even in some of the poorest countries of their own culture and history. This is the seed as I see it for the rehabilitation of Africa that you have to start with a feeling of worth that you have to be able to if you if you can't if you don't value yourself and your own existence in your own tradition you can't build upon anything. And the fact that this sense of worth it was very much just justified sense of worth exists. So vibrantly in so many places I think is a source of great hope. Finally the source of hope that I think must be addressed to an American listenership and readership is. The hope of that would come from turning a wound the way we deal with Africa. You know there's no political constituency in the United States I understand as regrettable as it

is to spend a great amount of American fortune in redeveloping or redeeming Africa economically speaking. But that's OK as regrettable as it as it is it's OK if we change the way we do business with Africa we are spending. George Bush ran for president saying that there were Africa did there was no vital American interests in Africa. Africa was not a strategic area for the United States at the time he made that statement. Any of the four regions of Africa west south north east traded more with the United States than the entire former Soviet Union. Very few Americans knew that George Bush perhaps know it 12 percent of Americans approximately trace their ancestry to Africa. We can change the way we do business with a continent in in it so as to ensure that the great mineral resources are used for the benefit of Africans. We have major oil companies. Africa is a great place of sort of the

frontier of the oil industry right now it's the place where all of the majors are becoming more and more active thinking that we get too much oil from the middle middle east and there's untapped reserves that need to be brought online from Africa. We can sit down with our allies the Japanese with the Western Europeans and our friends the Chinese and say what's happening in Africa is a human tragedy. It's not an African tragedy it's a human tragedy. And the least we can do is make sure that when we buy billions of dollars of oil those revenues are used are placed into the state budget that they're not used to spend on arms not used to go into private bank accounts for the leaders in Switzerland or elsewhere. That's the force of great hope. If we can muster the will to do it we have another caller who want to try to get in. Make sure we get him before we find ourselves out of time in listening in Indiana. Line number.

For so long you broached what I was going to ask you going on since you've already said what you feel about the Clinton administration and I totally agree with you was one of the worst things I had to go through. Terms of being a liberal. It was how they did what they did. You've mentioned a bit about the Bush people and since it's pretty clear that oil is as important to this group. Could you make any more comments about the Bush administration. But I'm sure you know the Bush administration has. It would appear I'm not an expert on the Bush administration but certainly by reputation the great ties to the oil industry and in Africa the United States is pursuing oil diplomacy. We are beginning to get behind sort of lining up. Diplomatic ties and support for countries that have great promise in terms of petroleum production and thinking of little countries like equitorial Guinea or Tommy and Nigeria isn't a big

country that we're becoming much more involved with in economic terms. And the Bush people seem to be setting it up as America for another round of tragedy in Africa by basically saying that any country that sells We simply want good relations with any country that sells us oil. We don't care what happens there in terms of democracy human rights or anything else. We we will bring them into arm brace at a political level because the oil the important due we don't apply any of the other political or crises or human human criteria that would apply in most other parts of the world. And what you will begin to see I fear in many of these countries is resource wars among corrupt leaders who are going to vie for the the seat basically a top of the mountain of it. You know the pot of gold in each of their countries. You know who's going to control the oil exports.

Billions of dollars in tiny little countries like equitorial Guinea one of the most corrupt places in the world. And you know we're not really concerned with the political processes there. Long as we get the oil that's really a tragedy in the sense that we could make we can use our dollars in buying the oil as leverage for a better political process. We can't rule these countries but we can influence them if we take them in. If we if we show some concern and it seems we're not doing that. One thing that we haven't really touched on is is AIDS which has been identified by the U.N. And I think generally recognized as probably the biggest threat to the country's development while subsaharan Africa is the region that has been the most hardest hit. It certainly is a problem for all of Africa. And again another opportunity where it seems that there could be positive intervention by the United States and by Europe what's happening on that front.

Very good question new to the Bush administration and it's one sort of major dipping initiative toward Africa announced a little over a year ago I think it was that it was going to spend a huge amount on AIDS fighting AIDS in Africa. It then failed to appropriate the amount of money that it suggested it would and wanted to reach has recently heard very little about this. I'm very suspicious. I'm suspicious in part because what I hear is that the appropriate the moneys that were to have been appropriated and may still not have been. We're going to come out of a fairly small pot of aid that that we give to Africa as it is. We throw around terms like compassion fatigue as if we aid Africa and great you know with great sums of money and and and we sort of wonder why they can't get their act together the fact is we've given very little to Africa to take from the very little we give to Africa and then pat ourselves on the back as

being generous for aid. It is really I think shameful. There are other areas of health which I get into in my book one very sort of a chilling example the equivalent of seven Boeing 747s crashed into my Mount Kilimanjaro each day. That sort of that that that's meant to illustrate the extent of the number of people who die each day in Africa of malaria most of those are children. Malaria is a disease we don't do enough about primarily because it doesn't strike. It doesn't live it. It's a tropical disease. And the people who suffer it are mostly poor people most of them in Africa. So we could fund science against malaria we could become much more involved in water borne illnesses a whole there's a whole series of illnesses in Africa that we could do by helping Africans cope with this problem. We would be helping them make a giant step forward economically politically educationally in every other way.

We will have to stop there because we use the time for people who are interested in reading more. And once again the book who we have talked about is titled A continent for the taking It's published by come off by our guest Howard French. He's a senior writer for The New York Times Mr. French Thank you very much for talking with us today. Thank you thank you for the conversation.