The Dark Continent - The Wise World Traveler: Becoming a Part of All that You Meet - page 349

governance with the clear intent to maintain control and suppress any internal political op-
position. Across most of Africa, dictators emerged and then proceeded to focus on staying
in power and increasing their own personal wealth, rather than advancing political parti-
cipation and economic development. Ruthlessness became the norm and violence became
commonplace, in many cases greater than that experienced during the colonial era. Most
dictators were from the military, and the latter became the instrument by which the auto-
cratic leaders remained in power. Meredith relates that over one extended period, only six
of 150 rulers voluntarily left office. [298]
ECONOMIC IMPERIALISM
Economic development took a back seat in favor of self-serving political maneuvering in
the early post-colonial era. And the economic development problem was complicated by
the residue of colonialism, which had left countries with no competent national economic
infrastructure and ruling class, with little or no local ownership of industry and other busi-
nesses, and with a heavy dependence on the former colonial power for international trade
and investment.
EARLY 1970S PROBLEMS
Then came the travails of the early 1970s. Already underway in Africa was a rising popula-
tion growth rate, brought on by a sharp decline in death rates because of declines in infant
mortality rates (a consequence of well-intentioned intervention by global governmental
and non-governmental organizations). [299] Birth rates in the developing world had always
taken into account that a high percentage (by comparison to the west) would counteract a
high death rate as life was tough throughout Africa. But when death rates declined dramat-
ically without a corresponding drop in birth rates, population grew fast, creating a much
higher than usual group of young people who were not ready to contribute economically
to society. They had to be fed, housed, educated, and rid of disease before they were ready
to enter the economic marketplace. This took badly needed government capital, which, if
it existed at all, had to be diverted from projects to increase a country's GDP through eco-
nomic investment of some kind. The end result was that economic growth did not keep
pace with population growth, resulting in economic stagnation or even a fall backward on
the economic growth scale.
At the same time food production fell because of two major reasons. First, African
weather, which had been rather conducive to food production, took a turn for the worse in
the early 1970s. Add to this was the dramatic rise in the cost of energy at the same time, the
consequence of OPEC's increasing the cost of oil by 400 percent in response to the west's
support of Israel in the Arab-Israeli wars of 1967 and 1973. Decreased rainfall meant an
increased need for agricultural inputs like irrigated water as well as energy-based fertilizer.
Again, badly needed capital had to be diverted from fueling the economy to simply try-
ing to keep pace with increased costs without any impact on economic growth. As a con-