Giant_and_Dwarf-FIN

Giant and DwarfA Few Words in ClosingThis book was written from the summer of 2011 to the summer of 2012. Over thatshort period of time so many events related to the contents of the book took place onthe African continent and in the neighboring Arab world. When I began writing, a faminewas spreading through Somalia and neighbouring regions of Ethiopia, Kenya and Eritrea.When the book was finished, hunger was spreading along a wide swath of the Sahel fromSenegal in the west to the Sudan in the east with 18 million people in danger of starvingin May 2012. Civil war and the West’s military intervention in Libya caused the Berbersand other ethnic groups to migrate into Niger and Mali, leading to a military coup andlater the northern half of Mali being cut off by rebel forces. There was talk of the risk thata “West African Afghanistan” was forming in Mali. Libya itself is giving the impression thatit is about to collapse into two or three separate sections. Nigeria almost experienced itsown “jasmine revolution”. Anti-Western and anti-British rhetoric in Uganda took on anuncommon dimension thanks to widespread support among Ugandans for laws to punishhomosexuals for their sexual orientation, which came up against the Western concept ofrespect for human rights. The economic and social situation for inhabitants in the northof the continent slowly but surely continued to worsen and the Arab revolutions progressivelyled to simmering frustration, economic collapse, political stress and bloody protestsin the streets. Million went hungry in Yemen and Syria which have been fully engulfed incivil war and famine.Developments across Africa like nowhere else in the world cannot be separated fromthe current events in other countries around the world. The world’s food prices remainedat record high levels the entire time I was writing this book. Oil prices records were alsosmashed. CO 2emissions and concentrations in the atmosphere increased. The financialand economic crisis in Greece, Portugal, Spain and other countries continued in earnest,casting more doubt on economic growth around the world and hope for assistance providedto the poorest of countries.264