Africa needs action, not platitudes

Last Sunday Tristan Voorspuy, a white Briton, was shot dead at his private ranch in Laikipia, Kenya. The suspects are believed to be pastoral herders.

This is a story from the history of southern and east Africa - where the politics of land remains mixed with the politics of race. In Zimbabwe, whites cling on to their property at the risk of violence; in South Africa, there is now a threat to seize land without compensation. These are the bitter fruits of empire, for sure, but the empire is long gone. Africa has to build a new racial and economic consensus.

Kenyan independence was partly a fight over soil. The UK colonists stole the most fertile earth, helping to create the destitute Mau Mau army that broke into farms to stake their claim with knives. In January 1953 a gang murdered the white Ruck family - Roger, Esmee, their African servants and, to the horror of the world, their six-year-old boy in his nursery.

The photographs of his blood-stained toys announced the end of the happy valley. War came, then freedom. There were around 60,000 whites living in Kenya on Independence Day, 1963. Today, the figure is probably closer to 20,000 - often to be found partying hard in the gated mansions of Karen, an exclusive suburb of Nairobi.

Many Europeans think the story of Africa's development ended when they left. This is ignorant hogwash. For a continent that has been so exploited, Africa's achievements in the past few decades are impressive. According to the World Bank, the share of Africans who are poor fell from 56% in 1990 to 43% in 2012.

Since 1995, literacy has risen four points and newborns can live up to six years longer than their parents. Growth has been strong, an impressive 5.9% averaged out across seven years in Kenya, and some countries have stopped qualifying for British foreign aid. Commodities, telecommunications - there are fortunes to be made.

The problem is, to quote the World Bank, "while economic growth is critical for poverty reduction, it is not sufficient".

As in the days of empire, wealth remains concentrated in the hands of the few. Freedom fighters often came to power on the promise that, when the whites were dethroned, Africans would benefit.

But Zimbabwe today is an economic basket case; youth unemployment in Kenya is high. About 10% of South Africans own between 90% and 95% of their nation's assets - and joblessness is larger than it was at the end of apartheid. No wonder the ghost of anti-white populism has returned.

Recently, President Jacob Zuma said his country's constitution must be rewritten to allow Africans to appropriate white land without paying for it. In a speech he spoke of his own ancestral lands that were taken by the invaders. Now, when his people want to visit family graves, the white owners say no.

One can understand why Zuma is angry about that. But one can also understand that he is furious at his party's bad show in last year's elections and that he is exploiting African resentment in a bid to stay ahead of the game.

Europeans and Americans should be careful about passing judgment. They must never forget their own sins. It has taken the US nearly 200 years to address the legacy of slavery, and it still falls short today. Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia haunt Europe.

Moreover, US and European problems shrink in comparison to the desperation of Africa's new nationalists. To Westerners, climate change is an academic debate about the thickness of the Arctic ice. In Africa, millions of human beings face starvation. They are already dying in Somalia, where bad droughts used to hit once every 10 years but now come every five.

West of Somalia, in Kenya, drought has also hit the Laikipia region, that sad place where Tristan Voorspuy was shot dead. Herders looking for land on which to graze have driven their cattle on to private ranches owned by blacks as well as whites. Tourists have been evacuated; at least a dozen people have been killed. It's reported - with depressing inevitability - that local politicians are encouraging this violence to win votes. Each one presumably fancies himself as a little Mugabe.

This has to cease. Racial resentment of the type that Robert Mugabe used to cling on to power in Zimbabwe is not only immoral but also as outdated as colonial nostalgia. Increasingly, it is the black middle class and global corporations, not the old imperial elite, that dominate southern and east Africa's post-agricultural economies. And millions of Africans know that. They're already searching for higher ground. The party that terrifies Zuma, the DA, is multiracial and liberal.

But if progressives want to be the voice of Africa's future, they must not make the mistake that European liberals made of choosing platitudes over action. Africa is in danger of splitting in two. The vast gulfs in riches and power have got to be closed with a mixture of education, capitalism, environmentalism and even wealth redistribution. With land comes peace, with peace comes true freedom.

- ©The Daily Telegraph