 Tech, I'm Jay Fiedel. This is Global Connections Today, and we're talking about Africa, the forgotten continent. It's not the news that much, but there's plenty happening there, and there's plenty to study there. And the primary question is, should the U.S. pay more attention to Africa? The answer is yes. We're going to find out the detail about that from Dr. Roopmati Kandekar, who is a global strategist who joins us from time to time. I'm talking about global issues like this. Welcome to the show, Roopmati. Hello, Ajay. Thank you for having me on your show, and always my pleasure, Jay. Great for you. I have a question for you. It's an overarching question that I've been thinking about in anticipation of this show. Of course, every country is different in Africa, but a lot of them were colonial colonies before and turned to their own form of government. Maybe they anticipated that would be democratic, but it turned out to be not so democratic. So my question to you is, would those countries, would Africa be better off today if they had remained colonies? Such a tough question, Jay. Such a tough question. Africa has always presented colonialism as a problem that they have inherited in their legacy. So when you say this, it does seem seeing the state of affairs of Africa today. It does seem that they would have arguably been better off under being a colony because, see, Jay, they have not emerged out of that phase. Africa is a continent, continent of 54 states. And the ancient name of Africa is Albululan, that is Mother of Mankind or Garden of Eden. Now, Jay, this is a continent which has got 60% of arable land. So that is so important in today's contemporary world of climate change when you have something of this sort of, it was known as a dark continent because of the forest cover. We have ancient civilization like Egypt over there. We have, like you said, the colonies of France, Britain, everybody coming in and ruling these places. But why hasn't Africa come into the mainstream geopolitics or the political infrastructure is the question that we are going to address so it's a very intriguing question. 54 nations lost and forgotten every day. Yeah. Well, you know what troubles me is they're not, they're not recognized, that included in international organizations. And they're always the subject of NGOs and charity, what have you, and people trying to fix what ails them. But it's clear that the global north doesn't see them as part of the global north. They are the global south and the global north sees them as somebody that you have to help out. And there are many organizations and countries that try to help them out. But even now they have so many problems. They are not experienced in civil society and democracy. They are still, even though they're not colonies, they're manipulated by businesses, by governments, by NGOs, and by sponsors of terror. And the U.S., to the extent that it wanted to do some help back when, I mean, a social level, had the Peace Corps and the Peace Corps, I don't think is there anymore. We probably need another Peace Corps. And they have diseases. They have Ebola and other diseases. And 90 people died yesterday on a ferry at Mozambique, I guess Mozambique and the mainland because they were trying to escape cholera. There are so many diseases and they have to health condition in Africa, not so good. And then you find that there are weapons in Africa and that the same suppliers of weapons, that supply weapons, the terrorists in the Middle East supply weapons to those countries. And in fact, here are two countries, they're really developing at best Tanzania and Congo. They're throwing missiles. Missiles they have. They don't have clean water, but they have missiles. And then you have, in East Africa, you have wars and civil strife in Sudan. You have civil strife obviously in Somalia. Some people consider Somalia a failed state and they provide the pirates there. It's not a civil society. You have central Africa with the Congo. And if you want to invest in the Congo, be careful because you may lose your investment overnight because of political changes. They have the resources. People want the resources, but they don't have a stable environment for investment. And West Africa, wow, Rwanda, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, all these are rife with terrorism and opportunism. You know, Russia is there, China is there, Progochian made his fortune there from Russia before he got killed. So West Africa is not so good. And Nigeria is a big country and a smart country, but you can get a graduate degree in how to do internet fraud in Nigeria. So they reach out okay, but it's not in the way you would hope. So it's not just violence, it's chaos, and it's also corruption, and it's really hard for the global north to deal with this. And one other thing I want to mention is that the news is that Jacob Zuma was disqualified from running for the president of South Africa because he was involved in some kind of crime. And he was banned from being a candidate and he was sent to jail. This was for contempt of a court commission and a conviction, rather. And they reversed that. So now Jacob Zuma is running for president and everybody knows how to spell his name. And he may very well be the next president of South Africa. You remember South Africa? South Africa was the one who brought the charges for apartheid or genocide against Israel. Boy, did that lie in their mouths that South Africa, you really wonder who's running South Africa. South Africa has been anti-Israeli for a long time. And then let's see, oh yeah, another very interesting story I found. The sub-Saharan Africa, that is south of the Sahel, which is the band between the desert and the green belt, is supposed to be on an economic improvement. But poverty is ubiquitous. And so whatever economic improvement they have is an article in Reuters about this. Whatever economic improvement they have is not nearly enough to deal with the poverty. So they're still ridiculously poor. And on top of that, guns. Guns are all over Johannesburg, which is one of the biggest cities, greatest cities in the world. And it sounds like some of the cities in the U.S., I have to say. But everybody carries a gun in Johannesburg. So what we have in Africa is a place that maybe you want to go on a safari, but you better have a security team with you. And there are so many places that are dangerous and corrupt and unpredictable and not worthy of investment. And we, the United States, isn't really there. And I think what I've described tells you why. It's so many problems. So many problems in different, different places. And each country is, you know, Latin with these problems. And like you said, the description that you gave, it's got everything and anything in it. Any problem, it's over there. And Jay, we can boil it down to four parts, political, social, cultural and military, like you said. Politically, they have not been able, no state has got a successful government or, you know, successful elections. Democracy and democratization processes have not reached the masses over there. Civil war, like you said, on and on. Economic Jay, political elite, have corruption in it. So they concentrate the money that comes in. And so the poor remains poor. And the rich corrupt people remain corrupt. And they fund the civil wars. So this instability, fueling instability is a big factor in African politics. And what you spoke about, the radicalization, militarization of Islamic fundamentalism of the Boko Haram, the Akib al-Shahab, all of these people, ISIS supporters, these people are well armed. They view Western symbols as negative and they attack it. And the predominantly Muslim population, they refuse to accept these symbols, you know, they target these symbols. So this kind of unrest that happens in society, they have not been able to come out of inequality, unrest, poverty. And like you said, every health issue is over there. And the COVID pandemic hit them even harder. Now, all this is in a continent which is the richest in mineral resources. And who else other than China and Russia to come and mint it out? And Jay, if we go to politically speaking globally, it's a voting contingent of 55 nations. So they, 54 nations, so they want these people to vote for them. You know, that crowd which stands behind you and plots, Russia and China love these people for just that. There is no development done. There is no investment, investment just for selfish reasons, but not to give in. Like you said, colonization was much better. At least they were giving something to it. But these people are just taking out everything. China has given loans, taken out land for lease for hundreds of years, their mineral rich, gold, chromium, oil, everything. It's sold out. And this is because of the leadership of Africa Jay. It's very necessary because they don't have good leaders. We had Nelson Mandela, he was a personal achiever, but something for the country or something for the African Union was not done. Or he didn't have time. We don't have a great leader in Africa. It's rich with resources. It's everything is there, but they have no order. They have no discipline. And they have not been able to implement all these things Jay. And that's why we call it the forgotten continent, because in geopolitics, when they don't have enough of economic prosperity, when will they develop military equipment and have a say in international politics? Like today's world, everything is about war and domination. When will they come and put their say in it? They're busy fighting internal rifts and within each other. So that's a very sad point about Africa Jay. Well, there's an African Union, but I don't think it means much in this context. And there are some countries that would like to do good in Africa, maybe some of the former colonial powers because they have roots there and they have language there. But there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of political or geopolitical will for them to actually build the country. And the reason I think is that it's too dangerous for that is that the people in the countries are not particularly happy with them. They remember the bad old colonial days. And so the former colonial powers are kind of at risk. They're in danger. They hang around. I mean, the French left Mali because they had to. And there are a whole bunch of countries in the region of Mali. I guess that's West Africa. Mali, Burkina Fasa, Niger, where you have terrorism, you have the influence of Russia. And you have all these competing groups that are all out to fight with everybody, and especially the Europeans. So how can you actually build a society that way? Remember, these countries have no history of democracy, no history of representative government. They only have a history of sort of this tribal competition and this tribal violence. And it just plays itself out with modern weapons. And of course, there are a lot of people there who are angry at the next, at the next tribe. I mean, I think the most interesting story is about Rwanda. The Belgians were there in Rwanda. And they created the division, the Hutsis and the Tutsis, and had these people killing each other. But they were all Rwandans. And there was an artificial division. And I guess the Belchists did that for a reason, but it was not a good reason. And the result was awful. So there are those who would like to see the divisiveness. And in Sudan, we have two warring military leaders who are both Sudanese who are fighting with each other. And in the crossfire, the civilians are getting killed. And they have no society. You want to buy a, you know, a dozen eggs? Forget about it. There's no, there's no economy at all. It's failed state. How do you, so this is what we ought to spend some time on, Rupati. How do you rebuild these countries which are headed downhill and which are, you know, proxies at best and which have weapons, disease, and disorder and have had that for years? How do you take a country like this and make it into a civil society? This may be the end of our show. I don't think there's a lot of answers, but do you have any answers for that? Jay, there are some answers. We won't let it end ever. But in the G20, Modi bought the African Union as members onto the G20. He bought them into the Bricks fold. So he kind of gets these into the Solar Alliance. So he kind of gets them into these areas where they can be prominent. And Jay, what happens with these people is that they don't really establish themselves. And it's lack of leadership, Jay, lack of a good leader who comes out and goes for it. Now, the UN went into Libya. The entire coalition went, came out, regime change. But there was no building of the Libyan infrastructure. And that's where it hurts them. So it's never going to be enough if there is no rebuilding and restructuring of Africa. And the will to rebuild and restructure has to come from within Africa. There's a lot of migration of young population, which happens on the coast. Now, you know, you've seen the Spanish coast, the Italian coast, they face migrants on such a large scale thousand, 7,000 per hour coming on every small bit of beach. So that's the kind of rate of the young population moving out of Africa. So when this young population is not there to build Africa, it's it doesn't have a future, Jay. Yeah, that's such an important point. That's such an important point. Thousands of migrants are leaving Africa, seeking in quote, a better life in Europe. And going all over Europe, even way up in Scandinavia, and finding a better life because the life in Africa was, you know, so unappealing to them, they were starving. And so they effectively crossed the desert and make their way and take tremendous lethal risks to get across the Mediterranean. And then they take all the inconvenience and risks of being arrested and detained in Europe before they can reach a destination that will accept them. This is going on for 10 years at least, at least in great numbers. I think it's a very good point. So you have to ask why are they leaving? Well, just starving you, you tend to try to find a better place. And, you know, there's maybe it's climate change. I think it is climate change. As some of these areas are no longer capable of agriculture, even south of the Sahel, you can't grow anything. So you can't eat. So you have to leave. Or it could be violence. It could be threat to you and your family. You know, you can't find a civil society and you have to go. I mean, we should completely understand that. And it runs a kind of parallel, not exactly, but a parallel to the immigrants trying to cross the southern border of the United States. They can't stand being in south of that border. They can't stand South America, many countries are really in unlivable. So the question is, you know, A, this is another show, but if you have a lot of migrants entering the EU, what ultimately happens? There was an article recently, I forget what country it is. I think it was Sweden, where some imams stood up and said, you know, in five years' time, we're going to have the majority of the population in this country. Really? In Scandinavia, are you kidding? But, you know, and then he said, we have many children, five, six, seven children per family. And if you people here in Sweden don't care to have children, that's your problem. But we are going to keep on having children. And over the next, you know, whatever years it is, you know, we will be the majority. And we are very politically conscious, and we will be in your governmental institutions also. So that's another show, but that what's happens when you have large-scale, you know, migrants. But in the South, in the global South, in Africa, with all these countries, and it's really hard to figure out which one you want to go to. Ruban, you don't want to go there and retire, okay? I just want to be clear about that. It's not what you want to do. What can we do? You know, is it in our interest to allow them to decline this way? NGOs are not enough. Government charity programs really are not enough. We have to take affirmative steps. Otherwise, you know, what happens in Africa will affect the world, don't you agree? Absolutely right, Jay. Absolutely right. And corruption, fuel is corruption. So that's why this problem of NGOs and private organizations, when they find that the political system itself is corrupt, they have a chance to also take the share in the KJ. And that happens. And nothing trickles down to the actual population. So corruption in politics is a big factor which hampers any country's development. And like we have seen in Japan, the declining population, like you mentioned, the Scandinavian problem, these people need the potential youth. That's why any country, when you measure the index of development, you also measure what is the percentage of young population. That is so important. And this migrant population coming into a country and affecting its policies and politics is a good example is Lebanon. Lebanon was a Christian country. Today it is not. In a matter of one generation time, it has changed demographics completely. So these African youth, they migrate for the sake of the same thing, economic prosperity, better prospects, how you migrate from an agrarian to an urban scenario. It's the same way they're trying to leave Africa and go to the well-developed Europe or well-developed America. But what happens is, Jay, they bring along their burden, their own burden. And that is affecting the American way of life. I was just saying a little time back that skilled migration is very good for a country, for a developed country. But unskilled migrants and migrants who are burdened to a country's economy, not in one or two years, not in five years, but in 10 years will have a very negative effect on American development, American way of life and American democracy. Jay, because what happens is these people come with a target. And like how we have mentioned the Boko Haram and all these people, they have targets of Western civilization and they want to destroy it. The same mindset, the same indoctrination is what comes with these people. And when they are frustrated and not in par with way of life in America, they will become a negative burden on American society. That's why Africa becomes important for us, that it does not bring out these negative elements, this radicalization or indoctrinated migrants or the corruption which is there. You have very good leaders coming up in the UN forums. But do those same leaders go and do the same thing in the village? It's never possible. It's rarely a possibility. They live very well in Europe. They come up in the European forums, they're in Europe. And life is sweet in Europe. But when they go back to their own country, maybe not so sweet, so they prefer to be in Europe. They prefer to participate in these forums. So this is a hard question. What do we do? If it is in our interest to build Africa or at least some of Africa, some of the countries. I'm reminded of some of these places in the Sahel and south of the Sahel where it used to be green, but it's not so green anymore. It used to be arable. It used to be a place where you could grow things and eat your produce. Now you can't. When Israel, when the Israelis first arranged their Kibbutzim, they made the desert bloom. It was a miracle. They found ways to get water. They found ways to take arid land, desert land, and make that agricultural land with some of the finest agricultural crops in the world. I mean, there's a great resource in that. There's also a resource in all these minerals you mentioned, a few of them that was also cobalt. And cobalt is very important. A lot of these are, they're critical minerals for development of technology and computers and cell phones and the like. And you've got to get them. And Africa has them. That's why Russia is there. That's why China is there. They want that. And there's diamonds and gold and all these things that people want. But you can't just take that away. These countries should have a benefit from that, right? They should participate in the profit from that. And unfortunately, they don't have the capital structures to do that. So what happens is people from far away come and just take it using violence if necessary. So the question is how do you make, how do you rationalize all of this? Let's assume for a moment this is not an easy assumption that the United States is the beacon, the city on the hill, that the United States has a morality that wraps around the need to deal with the global South and Africa. And for that matter, Latin America, because it's a parallel. So query what do we do in terms of foreign policy? What do we do in terms of incentives to business? What do we do in terms of developing a presence there? How about I know I wouldn't serve? I don't know if you would serve. What do we do about a modern day Peace Corps? Because the old Peace Corps wouldn't work now. It's overtaken by events. But something like that where we put our young people there, we try to help. We put our doctors without frontier there and try to make people healthy. We try to show them how to make money. I mean, we're not doing nearly enough. So if I ask you, what else can we do? What's your answer? Jay, it is such a big issue that we have because the diseases that come out of Africa are also so wild. Ebola was something which the body had to be buried many meters deep. So the contamination was at that level. And it was a fatal fatality rate was so high. So this kind of who has that about diseases and civil wars. And it's so rampant in Africa that then you consider a holiday, you will go for a maximum safari in Kenya and come out or Sun City in South Africa and come out. But you will not go for a tour of how we go backpacking through Europe or backpacking through the east coast of America. We will not do that because it is just a pick and choose and come out your exotic holiday is done and you come out. So Africa has become that kind of Nick pick and come out Africa as a continent Jay has got so much of potential. But you see now it's been one year since they have been in the bricks one year since they have joined G20. Where is the vocal or you know, where is the stamp of authority? Nothing. They had a weird rendezvous when they spoke about Israel being a genocide in apartheid. It was useless. It was absolutely useless. South Africa made a fool of themselves. So this kind of dormancy in international politics day, it has become a mainstay in African politics. No country wants to take the lead. No country wants to shine on the global state. Every country is trying to move day. India is trying. South Saudi Arabia is trying. Israel is trying. Small, small countries which are, you know, not even miniscule part of Africa, they try to make the economics thrive. They try to, but you don't see the drive in any of the African countries and it's sad to say that they are very fine with it as long as the rich political elite get their money. And the poor class stays poor. The tribal society is very subsistence level happy. The migrants are moving. This is the entire situation in Africa. Nobody wants to develop that. Let me give you a scenario. Okay. Let's say that Joe Biden wants to do a kind of a pivot to Africa. And he says, as a matter of American national policy, we want to pay attention. Because we're saying here, and I think it's true, that Africa is a forgotten continent. And so we're saying, he's saying in this my scenario, that no, we didn't forget. We are remembering Africa. Let's remember Africa. We have a, you know, a substantial black population in this country. We understand, you know, their background, we understand that we have a kind of historical nexus with Africa. We're going back in. We're going back in. And we're going to pick a couple of countries we think are worth spending quality time with. And we're going to be a presence there both politically, geopolitically, agriculturally, industrially investment, and we're going to make the desert bloom in that country. We're going to build great cities. We're going to make it so attractive that people will come from around the world to be tourists there. And we're going to make sure that nobody messes it up. We will not permit any terrorism. We will not permit opportunism. We will not let Russia or China take over. We will help the development of democratic government in every way we can. And we're going to show you how to do that. We're going to show all of Africa how to do that by picking some emblematic countries and working with them. And we're going to make a big deal out of this. We're going to tell everybody, we're going to show that the United States can help that continent as any continent. Your thoughts. Jay, Utopia, it would be for Africa, isn't it? And Biden would really score big brownie points with the population here itself in America by helping their motherland, like you said. But, Jay, the thing that is that they look at Africa as a, what do you say? It's not the mainland part. Now, UK, when they were thinking of building a deportation center, UK thought of Rwanda as the center for building this refugee center. They would deport the extra migrants to Rwanda. That would be the UK detention center. The thought of developing good countries in Africa would be such a beautiful prospect because everything is there. But what lacks is the democracy and the democratic infrastructure, Jay. They don't have that. And till Africa is indoctrinated, no. It brings in these democratic structures and abides by these. They have one election. They have two civil wars, three civil wars. They have, you know, one leader elected, they have one coup. So this kind of instability, political instability makes it a banana, republic, banana continent. So this kind of, if you don't have political stability, you don't get economic progress. That's the rule of the law. So this plan of Biden, like you said, if it was to take place, I'm sure the diamonds would get sold in good markets, not blood diamonds. You know, you would have good gold, the Egyptian gold being the highlight of the world again. So these kind of things would come back into prominence. Africa has got the potential, but not the guidance that works. That's what it lacks. Big time. Well, let me, I mean, maybe this is a long haul kind of thing, although I don't think, let me say that I don't think the world has a lot of time. The world needs to do things to correct these problems quickly, not over decades. But let's assume for a minute that we decide that if you want to build a democracy in any country, in Africa or otherwise, you have to educate people. You have to show them, you have to give them history to show them where it's been successful and when it's been successful and why it was successful. And then you have to give them the tools to appreciate politics, to appreciate democratic politics and to get into politics and to be a voice in shaping a better political environment. So education is every country, especially including this country right now. But what about that? Do you think that's a priority in terms of the scenario I described? I think the foundation of Africa is not democratic. You remember a long, long time back in one of the programs I had told you, that India has always been democratic. 2,500 years back, we had democratic structures in our country. So today, India is a colony which has overtaken the colonizer in terms of economic growth. We have overtaken UK in terms of economic growth because the foundation was such, we had democratic institutions, we had rule of the law, we love the people. But Africa as a continent with so many countries, their foundation like you mentioned is tribal. They have subsistence living. They depend on nature. They live in nature. They don't believe in leaders. They move around as nature guides them, where the desert goes, where the green meadows go. They move along with that. The boundaries are very immaterial for them because it's a continent connected with nature more than politics. And that's why you have these, the minerals must be useless to the tribals. But for the outside world, it is minerals and rich resources. So that's what happens there. For them, it is just part of their environment. For us, it is rich resources. And this foundation of tribal will need a lot of time to develop. And I'm sure it can just be preserved as a land and a continent rather than harnessed for its political energy because we have seen that when you harness it for political energy, it gives rise to more political unrest, more civil wars. There is more money pumped in. There is more bloodshed. Radicalization is a big, big problem in Africa and what comes out of, you know, you have these centers. We had ISIS centers in ISIS and Al Qaeda centers in Africa. So this is kind of a dangerous breeding ground for terrorists, which will affect us in any part of the world. So that way it has to be kept very sane and safe rather than developed. And, you know, what do you say? The concentration is to keep Africa as the garden of Eden. Like first we said, it has to just be kept as that. Well, you know, we've had a number of shows with Project Expedite Justice and a lot of them have dealt with these civil wars, war crimes, atrocities all through Africa, from the west to the east and the east to the west. And, you know, you talk about it, you remind me of some of those atrocities. For example, you know, the children being abducted, hundreds at a time being forced into military service, guerrilla warfare service by the terrorist groups. That still happens. It's still happening. And what happens is the NGOs and the organizations like Project Expedite Justice, they investigate and they make a big file and they prepare a case to go to the Hague. And then it takes years for the Hague to even look at that. And the standards which are actually developed in Berkeley for, you know, proof of evidence of this kind of atrocity are really hard to, you know, hard to meet. And so the result is there's not a lot of accountability. And I guess the theory behind a lot of this investigation is we need people to know what happened because in truth, a lot of atrocities in the world take place. Nobody knows. It's kept a secret. You know, here in the land of the First Amendment, we think that everybody knows everything, not true. In some of these places, nobody knows nothing and nobody wants anybody to know nothing. And so when you have atrocities and war crimes, frequently it's never revealed, never found. So these investigative commissions, truth commissions are, you know, tasked with finding out what happens so that people know what happened. But they're not so interested in accountability. It's almost rare that some of the people who are doing atrocities are actually punished. They're revealed, maybe, but not punished. And so I say to you, you know, if we want to, if we want to stop the atrocities and the civil war and the violence and the outrageous things that happen, we have got to find a way to stop them from happening. We've got to impose moral guardrails on the people who would do this. And that itself is a pretty big project. Again, you need a government that is real. But, you know, governments get corrupt and sometimes they get corrupt by people who would conduct atrocities. And so they're compromised and they cannot do anything about it. So my question, my next question for you, Rupati, is what about international organizations? You've made a reference to the G-20, to BRICS, to the United Nations, the African Union. And these organizations, are they of any effect? Could they be of any effect? Jay, all these organizations, they call the African Union as observers, as members, as, you know, as part of their meetings. But Jay, any concrete implementation does not take place because when you talk of Africa, the contributing element of Africa as a whole with 54 nations is not that much as Europe with 41 nations is or Asia, ASEAN with their members is. So Africa lacks that accountability and the domination in international politics. And all these international organizations and forums are such that unless you stamp your authority on every issue, you fall irrelevant. So African Union, with kind of it being, I told you, because of the economic problems, they don't have military domination. And if you don't have military domination, you're saying international politics gets reduced to a very large extent. It's all about war. The modern world is all about war and economy. And Africa has none of these. So that is the reason why it lags behind. And in these international forums, it just plays a voting game. You need Africa for the numbers. You need it. They look towards China as the only non-colonial partner for them. They look to Russia to help them veto. And Russia and China look to them for the gang that they give in voting. So that's the only relation that the African Union has in international forums today. And it lacks a vision for itself in the future. What is its role in climate change? Because they have not been able to economically develop. They don't have a role in climate change. But like we said, it has got the maximum arable land. It's got the maximum forest cover. It's got the maximum number of amount of minerals, mineral-rich continent. So potential is high. So climate change contribution, they can contribute the highest. But what do they contribute to if they don't have economic prosperity? So these important issues which are going on in the world, the wars, the economic prowess that each country shows, the climate change issues, these are the issues which the migration, these are the issues which dominate international politics in Africa, is right on the bottom of the list. Right at the bottom of the list. So let me ask you my Charles Dickens question. It's from the Christmas Carol story that he wrote. And Ebenezer Scrooge is forced to look into the future. And he sees the ghost of Christmas future. So I want to ask you my Charles Dickens question. What happens if we do nothing? What happens if Russia and China do what they want, that the terrorists do what they want? But the G20, the UN, the African Union, and the United States keep on forgetting. Essentially turning their backs on trying to build a new continent in Africa. New countries, new ways of life. What happens if we do nothing? That's my question. We'll have a new colony of China, which will be tribal. That is it. China has leased land and lend them so much of money. It has got leased for hundreds and hundreds of years. It's got claim on all their minerals. But they will never develop Africans to be developed. They will keep it tribal. So we'll have a new colony. That's it. Well, if you follow the Chinese model, they won't be violence. They won't permit violence. They won't be corruption because they won't permit corruption, or at least not visibly. So maybe there's a benefit in all of that. Maybe that's what they're working for so that they can control the population, control the civil society, make it a China civil society, and take all the resources. It's simple. It's transactional. Maybe that's where this is all going. Well, we're mighty kind of car. It's wonderful to talk to you and explore these possibilities. This has really been an education for me. Thank you so much for joining us here on Global Connections. Thank you for having me. We want to announce that Think Tech Hawaii is moving into a new phase and will not be producing regular talk shows after April 30th. We will retain our website and YouTube channel and will accept new content on an ad hoc basis. We are also developing a legacy archive program to provide continuing public access to our content. If you can help us cover the costs of the transition and the development of our legacy archive program, please make a donation on ThinkTechAway.com. Thanks so much. Aloha.