Each day, the Kung San walked long distances to the mongongo groves to collect their fruits.
Once he asked a tribesman why nobody had ever made an attempt to grow mongongo trees near some of the permanent water holes where the tribe resided. "You could do that if you wanted to," he replied, "but by the time the trees bore fruit, you would be long dead." --Anthropologist Richard Lee
(part I of two)
At independence, 50 years ago, optimism for the tropics was high. No one could have dreamed that half a century later, a massive movement for re-colonization would be afoot--led not by Africa's leaders but by her masses.
We have looked at some of the reasons that the global South wants into
Teutonic countries. But the real appeal is broader. Globally, tropical peoples are trying to migrate to lands run by temperate peoples.
Like a baby trying to crawl back into the womb, the formerly colonized are coming back to their old foreign masters and begging (or demanding) to be ruled by them again.
Why?
We propose two major reasons:
Future orientation and
Commonweal orientation. These two qualities, we argue, are plentiful in the North but in short supply in the South, where their opposites (
Short-Sightedness and
Clannishness) can be found in abundance.
Today we shall focus on the former:
Future orientation. We argue that the shortage of this trait in warmer climes has prevented these societies from developing the way they wish to. This is why, two generations after independence, millions are voting with their feet to place themselves back under Euro rule.
We also argue these traits follow tropical peoples long-term, which is why North America's centuries-old African population has never assimilated. This too, we shall show, should be a cautionary tale for European deciders on immigration.
So what is the evidence to back up our assertions?
