By: ALLAN BRIAN SSENYONGA
PUBLISHED: April 19, 2015
A decade ago, The Economist described Africa as a hopeless continent. As expected we spent nearly a decade denouncing the description as unfair and inaccurate. Then a decade later the same magazine declared that Africa was indeed rising. Like the biblical story of Saul turning into Paul, we all embraced the new tag and ran with it.

The basis for the statement lay in new developments such as the discovery of more natural resources like oil and natural gas in several countries that had endured years of poverty. There was also the spread of democracy, which is often just referring to frequent peaceful elections where incumbents lose and concede defeat even when there is no significant improvement in the welfare of the voters.

The new resources have seen the continent getting new suitors like India and China. This has inevitably threatened the previous condescending relationship that Africa has endured with the west. China for example stands out with its unprecedented infrastructural and financial support to the continent without having to prescribe how the receiving countries should conduct themselves.

What seems to bother me lately is that the Africa rising song does not seem to say much about the value attached to the dignity of the lives of Africans. Recent events around the continent have compelled me to worry that indeed the value we attach to an African life is not really rising that much.

My fears are buttressed by ongoing worrying events in three countries that are spread across the continent. To the north we have Libya that has not only been reduced to a war zone but also the departure point for thousands of African immigrants risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean Sea seeking a better life in Europe in a journey that has literally turned the sea into an African graveyard. Why do we still have people willing to risk their lives fleeing a continent that is rising?