From The Observer

Part XIII of these series is a speech that President Museveni delivered in Kampala on July 10, 1998.

In this first part of his speech titled “Towards a Closer Cooperation in Africa,” Museveni argues that Europe and Africa were at the same level of development 500 years ago and explains why Europe progressed and Africa didn’t.

Africa is, today, the most backward continent in the world. This is not simply an emotive statement, but a cold fact. The table below is a comparison of Africa and the European Union (EU) countries, and it graphically demonstrates my point. The infant mortality rate in Africa is 120 deaths per 1,000 live births, compared to 10 in the EU countries; the adult literacy rate is 45 per cent as against nearly 100 per cent; life expectancy is 40 years which is nearly half of the EU figure of 75 years; the GDP per person in Africa is around US $200 as compared to about US $12,500 in the EU countries.

The following is a comparison of some health and economic statistics between Africa and Europe.

Apart from the sad reality portrayed by the figures above, another way of understanding Africa’s unparalleled emasculation is to remember that Africa is the only society in the history of man which does not anufacture its tools (hoes, tractors, machine tools); does not manufacture its own weapons; and does not fully control the provision of its own food.

All other earlier societies, even the most primitive ones, always produced their own weapons, tools, food and shelter. This is the clearest indication of Africa’s ignominious capitulation to foreign domination. This domination started about 500 years ago and has not been lifted yet.

Instead, it is intensifying, and the gap between Africa and Europe is widening. With regard to tools, Africa was using the hoes and the plough when Vasco da Gama travelled round the Cape of Good Hope in 1498 and so was Europe; for weapons, Africa was using iron spears, iron-tipped arrows and swords, while Europe was using iron swords and some muzzle-loading muskets, not much better than swords.

Europe was plagued with endemic famines as was Africa; remember the Great Irish Potato famine which lasted for seven years (from 1845 to 1852); this famine also affected many other European countries; this was one of the major causes for so many Europeans fleeing Europe to other continents.

As far as shelter was concerned, Europeans were living in fire-wood-warmed houses and so were Africans, only that Africans had much less need to warm their houses than did the Europeans. The European was using the horse for transport and so was the African in the West African savannah, Egypt and Ethiopia. In other words, the difference between Africa and Europe in 1498 was not so great.

Read more at The Observer