And Another Thing…

The understanding of the fundamental fact – that Africa’s present development failure is because its survival mechanism has not evolved to cope with the changed global environment – throws light on a number of mysteries about mankind’s behaviour in the continent.

One of the most important and contentious of these is the mysterious proliferation of HIV-AIDS there. Less remarked on is the correlation between development and HIV-AIDS; it thrives in those countries with better education and higher urbanisation. The reason becomes clear when we consider a key component of the survival mechanism of African societies – the bride price or lobola. Remember that this is returnable if the bride fails to produce children, a sine qua non in a society whose survival hinges on quickly replacing the enormous number of pre-puberty deaths amongst children before that society is wiped out.

This comes hard up against the principal fact of development – to quote from the first point in this blog - Development is a specific transformation, from a population composed largely of impoverished subsistence farmers to one composed largely of a relatively prosperous urban bourgeoisie. There is no other model; a development strategy that operates on the premise that there is some kind of a ‘third way’ that does not involve this transition is going to fail.

So, in Africa cities appear, and grow and grow. Young women go to the towns to work, and are no longer in an environment where a relationship is cemented by a transfer of livestock to the bride’s parents – and their return and the break-up of the marriage if she cannot conceive. (It may well be that the groom is the problem of course, but it seems that was, and is, a difficult concept for the culture). So these girls, away from their rural constraints, have to demonstrate their fecundity without the formality of lobola. Not promiscuity, procreation. Just check on the numbers of unmarried mums around you.

The solution is for Africa to become rich, and given the Western formula of honest government and inviolate private property rights, it can. With this will come the replacement of wives, children and livestock as the marks of prestige by the status symbols of societies who are no longer driven by the need to reproduce to the maximum. So expect serial monogamy – trophy wives – and the trashy, flashy assets of big houses and fancy motorcars. And small families with spoilt brats, every member of which is HIV negative. Check around you in Zimbabwe today; underneath the economic chaos this transformation is already happening in its cities. The government’s claim that HIV-AIDS is on the decrease in this country may even be true.