Africa: The Final Frontier

I'm a scifi writer. I have seven novels to my name. They are okay, but never made me any money. I don't like space operas, beyond their purely visual thrill. They aren't science. When you do the math on C (speed of light), all your dreams of conquering space? Destroyed. If you're the least bit realistic, C wrecks any value in space exploration beyond its trite silliness, pictures of the surface of the moon or Mars, some satellite passes of Jupiter's Moons. Its pretty, but really, space is not very useful beyond astronomy observations helping high energy physics. Space is entertainment with occasional science and profound boredom most of the time.

When Star Trek announced that Space is the Final Frontier, we were just starting the Vietnam War and hadn't yet been defeated by a third world country with IEDs and shitty commie rifles and human wave attacks. We still thought Manifest Destiny was a Thing. It wasn't. Evidence proved that thought very wrong. When we fled Vietnam, we ended Star Trek for the next 20 years and numerous re-runs got us Jean Luc Picard and the following series' of Star Trek before it was destroyed utterly by Scott Bakula and the terrible writers of his series. Space is NOT the final frontier.

Africa is. Africa is a difficult place to civilize, not just because the population has really no interest in wasting their time with YET ANOTHER con man trying to get them to work for free on another attempt at civilizing the Dark Continent, as described by Josef Conrad in Heart of Darkness aka Apocalypse Now, we'll almost certainly finish smoothing over the roughness in South America, paving its roads, installing its drainage grates and putting in those little signs "Drains to Sea, be kind to fishes!" they put on grates here. Even with the tons of radioactive water flowing through Fukushima's basement every day and the six winged butterflies and 5 eyed fish in the sea right outside the leaking nuclear reactors reminiscent of a Simpson's episode polluting the Pacific sea life and making sushi a tad more risky than before, even then, Africa is the final frontier.

Africa is very difficult, and offers many promises. It used to be half of South America. That's not an exaggeration. The Congo basin is the Amazon Basin. The continents split hundreds of millions of years ago. The central lake drained, leaving the big river basins.

Africa is difficult. The people don't want to give up their freedom or rights or do anything at all like work if they can keep living easy and dying young. They don't care that much. They are like Russians, in their indifference to death.

In Africa, you can still get eaten by a crocodile getting water for the day at the local river. This would be easy to prevent with a hose, much less actual water treatment plant, pipes etc, but Africans would rather die than pay for that. So they do. Naturally, there are countries with water treatment plants in their cities, and not every river has crocodiles, but still, this remains a realistic cause of death. How do you civilize a continent like that? Now throw in their casual approach to HIV and you're dealing with a continent intent on dying off. While China is there now, the rest of the world is sort of ... watching them end. The Muslims in Saharan Africa can't seem to stop the violence, which isn't any good for stability either, and will cost them dearly at the negotiating table later. Africa is the Final Frontier because it refuses to civilize, not due to its animals or lands but due to its people. It is the people who are the main obstacle to modernization. Why? Because they're been exploited and betrayed so many times, for most of a thousand years, that they just want nothing to do with foreigners. Trouble is, it isn't up to them. The world is coming in, whether they like it not. It is not a Democracy. It's Capitalism. Even the Chinese are playing Capitalism. You really can't stop that by doing the "talk to the Hand" gesture of contempt. They'll just shoot you, or mace you because you aren't worth the cleanup of a bullet impacting. How lame do you feel now, Africa? China is aiming at Africa and has taken all of the East and South and is coming up the West, every 24 hour convenience market, every shop. Its Chinese owned and backed with money and guns. Africa just can't keep up. It will be speaking Szechuan and Canton and Mandarin soon enough. Say goodbye to the natives. No, that isn't nice at all, but its happening. And we're wondering about Honey Boo Boo and the latest Internet Fad celebrities. Are we terrible people to ignore Africa? I wonder.