States of Independence

Today is Nigeria's 50th Birthday. Or, to be more accurate, it's the 50th anniversary of Nigeria declaring political independence from Great Britain. Nigeria is 1 year and 2 days older than me.

A lot of African Nations are marking 50 years of independence from European rule this year: Chad, Benin, Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Central African Republic, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Togo, Zaire, Somalia, Congo, Gabon, and Cameroon.

Next year, during MY "Golden Jubilee," Sierra Leone will follow suit. So will South Africa, though Black South Africans had to wait another 30 plus years for Nelson Mandela to get out of jail and help end Apartheid before they began to feel anything vaguely close to "independence."

Anyway, I'm thinking about this because it's pretty ironic that I'm almost the same age as all of these Independent African Nations. I was born in America around the same time leaders in these countries got fed up with Europeans calling the shots and claiming the spoils and booted them out. I've been called a rebel in my day, so maybe there was something swirling in the cosmic mix in the late 50's and early 60's, and somehow I caught the bug.

But it's actually kind of sad that all these years later, there's still so much poverty, dysfunction and despair in many of these countries. Someone on the radio just said he had hoped African leaders would "surprise" their citizens with stable leadership and prosperity at this historic juncture, but all they're really getting is fireworks.

I'm not suggesting things would have been much better if the Europeans were still in charge. I just wonder what there is to REALLY celebrate, when so many people on the continent are still suffering, and so many governments are "functioning" on a razor's edge.

Oh well, 50 years is a mere blink of an eye compared to America's 234 years, or the 1,259 years since Pepin the Short was elected "King of the Franks" (France.) You could say African nations are still in the "growing pains" phase. After all, I still consider myself relatively young, no matter what the calendar says.