Editor
In her preface to “Hands Off Africa”, a new book written by Catholic Pontiff, Pope Francis, Nigerian feminist author Chimamanda Adichie, makes critical inferences that speak to the heart of Africa’s challenges in its socio-economic relationship with the Western world.
Pope Francis in the book – a collection of speeches during his “Pilgrimage of Peace” visit to Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Sudan – asks Europe and the rest of the world to end their predatory relationship and allow Africa become the protagonist of its own destiny.
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Chmamanda Adichi, in writing the Preface of the book, described the collection of the Pope’s and other speeches as “a small silver of hope for Congo.”
Hands Off Africa she says, “brings me a small silver of hope for Congo, and for the beloved and broken-hearted continent that I call home.”
Chimamanda Adichie On Pope Francis
The award-winning author in the forefront of campaigns for Africa reparation and return of historic instruments illegally removed from Africa during and after the colonial era says: “The Pope’s message is not merely that Congo – and, by extension, Africa – matters but that it matters for one reason only. Not for its resources, which the global North depends on, not for fear that the continent could become again the scene of Western proxy battles as happened during the Cold War, but simply because of the people. Africa matters because Africans matter.”
Pope Francis’ Pilgrimage of Peace In DRC, South Sudan
Pope Francis’s visit to the DRC and South Sudan from 31st January to the 5th February of this year – a week-long visit he referred to as a “Pilgrimage of Peace” – was to promote reconciliation in conflict-ridden countries and their independence from foreign interference.
Chimamanda Adichie in her preface of the Pope’s new book focused on his trip to DRC and described it as “a country whose resources have long been exploited, a country desperate to be made whole again.”
She says the greatest tragedy of the situation is “not the internecine conflicts but the silence of the world,” which “speaks to the continuing devaluing of African humanity by a world that nevertheless eagerly consumes African resources.”
She sees the Pope Francis’ visit to the DRC and his “potent” messages there as “a necessary rebuke” to wealthy nations. She argues
