September 5, 2008 Archives

Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe was heckled and jeered by a feisty opposition as he opened parliament recently.

The decline of Mugabe, an odious dictator in a class with Kim Jong Il and the Burmese generals, will give a seal of good-product approval to a continent that, despite persistent catastrophes, finally looks to be the beneficiary of a series of positive global trends.

Even without Mugabe, governance will be dicey throughout Africa. Just a few weeks ago, a military junta overthrew Mauritania's first democratically elected president. Off the coast of Somalia, piracy -- the maritime extension of anarchy on land -- is worse than anywhere in the world, including Nigeria. The governments of Liberia, Ivory Coast, and Chad still need United Nations peacekeeping missions to monopolize the use of force. Kenya and Sierra Leone, the victims of ethnic and tribal-based rebellions, are healing but remain fragile. At the root of many of these problems are a youth bulge and high rate of young male joblessness: over 40 percent of the population in most sub-Saharan African countries is younger than 15. African countries still dominate the bottom ranks in all human-development indices. On no other continent are institutions so weak or nonexistent.