Do you remember those maps in school history lessons showing how sailing ships used the trade winds to deliver human cargoes from Africa to North America, American to Liverpool and then back to Africa? The Slave Triangle.

Looking today at weary eyes in a photograph of black Africans crowding a fishing boat bound for Europe, I was reminded of the inhumane and cramped conditions on the slave sailing boats in history. Then they were forced on board, now they are desperate to get on board. Ironic.

After the abolition of the slave trade, many stayed on in the Caribbean and North America. Even in modern America, this once cheap labour force is now a thorn in it’s side, demanding not unreasonably, equal rights. They were, after all, a driving force in making the United States of America. The America Civil War dead might have made the victors value what they fought for more.

Odd too, that after the slave trade, the European nation states, carved up Africa for their own. Instead of being transported, which was clearly wrong, Africans became slaves in their own countries. On the positive side, the Colonial powers replaced the mineral wealth they stole, with roads, railways, schools, hospitals, churches, law, government. Even today, some Africans recognise the old colonial state boundaries rather than tribal or other delineations, when voting.

When the colonial powers left Africa in the middle of the nineteenth century, new national flags fluttered proudly above public parties that went on for several nights. And yet, and yet, in the decades leading up to the present day, Africa and African States have failed in most respects to bring prosperity to Africans. That’s a generalisation I know, but the impact of the colonialists and their status as an easy focus for blame when things go wrong, has allowed African politicians to not try too hard. That last phrase is instead of saying what they have really done since. Even where brutal and unlawful white regimes have been replaced by black majority governments, such as the African National Congress in South Africa, during their decades of government, living conditions have hardly moved on, promises forgotten.

And all of this in a land mass bigger than Europe, the United States of America and China. Why is not Africa the wealthiest and healthiest continent? It even avoided communism – and has had so much free money donated by the rest of the world that a new phrase of ‘donor fatigue’ is being heard.

Whatever has been going on, the stretched out lines of bodies in the rubber boats heading for Europe, show that some Africans are desperate enough to leave their homelands and risk their lives in that attempt.

It’s a continent consisting of diverse nation states, diverse tribal loyalties, unworthy leaders, disease, extreme weather and environments, all inhibiting it’s human and animal populations to prosper. And yet it has so much potential, natural wealth, rich farming, education and emerging liberating technologies, that it’s future has to be good.