Africa in a way corresponding to her vital statistics on the map of the world carries a question mark in her heart. This is a question within herself, and a question about her to the rest of the world. The reason for the question is that Africa is just passing through the birth-throes of a new life. She has suffered for centuries. Her illness has been written of as chronic and her sickness as sick as that unto death or, at best, something that would leave her more dead than alive. She has suffered so much because she has been callously and frequently raped and despoiled by the strong ones of this world who adepts in the art of benevolent exploitation and civilized savagery. Even now there are organs of her body, which are under torture and cruel assault, and consequently, she is still more or less a sick personality. Nevertheless, she is not without friends. There have been those who have been given their lives, their time, or their substance in order to heal her ‘open sore’, which have various manifestations. Such friends are still few and far between, and the quality of friendship is often a baffling question.
There are those who have graciously given her a place in the newly imagined ‘third world’ which stands in contrast to the ‘first world’ of Europe and the ‘second world’ of America. Even those are divided in their attitude towards her: should be accorded the title of corporate personality worthy in her own right to stand on equal footing with any other continent? Is she not still too immature or crude to be recognized fully as a sister continent? And her sons and daughters, whatever their education, achievement, or status, would they ever be admitted across the subtle but palpable line of demarcation which separates the elder (the stronger world) from the younger (the weaker world ‘coloured world’ ones)? One thing is certain is that while there are die-hard enemies of her life because they think that her death or chronic infantilism is of benefit to them, she is an unfailing fund of condescending patronage and generous patronage. Where she behaves her self according to prescription and accepts inferior position, benevolence, which becomes her poverty, is assured, and for this she shows her self deeply and humbly grateful. If for any reason she takes into her head to be self-assertive and claim footing a of equality, then she brings upon herself a frown; she is called names; she is persecuted openly or by indirect means; she is helped to be divided against herself.
