The key to the modernization of Africa is an African renaissance, says Dr. Tseggai Isaac, associate professor of at Missouri University of Science and Technology. Isaac has recently co-authored and edited a collection of essays on the topic.
The book, was published by Nova Science Publishers. In it, Isaac and his collaborators examine African civilization, analyze the formidable roadblocks to its modernization and provide suggestions for African rejuvenation.
The essays study the crippling effect of successive domination of Africa, first by the Arab invasion and subsequent Islamization of Egypt and North Africa, Isaac says.
“Islam began the practice of African slavery and Europe combined slave trade colonization to inflict crippling blows on Africa,” he says. “The effects of slavery and colonialism devastated African societies until slavery was outlawed in the 19th century and colonialism ended in the 1960s. Post-colonial Africa was liberated in the 1960s, but homegrown dictatorship by African tyrants aborted any hope that Africans anticipated on the eve of Africa’s liberation. As a result, there is overreaching political, economic, social, and diplomatic paralysis of Africa.
“Africa didn’t get the opportunity to blossom because of the impacts from slavery, colonialism, and predatory dictatorship by African heads of states over the long-suffering African peoples,” says Isaac. “Only democratization, education and good governance will resurrect Africa.”
Reviewed 2015-05-07