THE
DIASPORA AND THE AFRICAN
CONTINENT.
Diaspora means the process by which people of a particular race or country
are scattered and settled in other countries. The lexicon definition of diaspora is given as a situation where a national or religious groups living outside their country of origin still maintained their cultural identity.
African people were diapered all over the world through different means. The most noticeable of them all was the slave trade. This is the beginning of the Diaspora of African origins all over the world. The Africans were first taken to Lisbon before they were to the new found land to work in the plantations as slaves.
The slave trade no doubt has far reaching consequence on the African
continent, these could be divided into economic, psycho-social and political effect on the Africans and their beloved continent. Economically, the slave trade that lasted for about 400 years took away more than 25 million able-bodied African men and women that would have helped to
develop the continent since the major occupation of in the Continent as at then was farming. Secondly, as they where taken away the able-bodied men and women of Africa to develop their own land, they took also along with them the natural resources of Africa there by living the unproductive aged and infant people left behind with nothing to develop themselves. It wont be gain saying to say that the best brains of Africans where taken to the other parts of the world. Socially, it resulted in the break up of so many families that was once united, it created the low profile status given to the black today when compared to the white man. Psychologically it makes the black man see him self as inferior to the white an as such he was forced to the background among other human race. Politically, it leads to the losses of independent of the African nations and the introduction of colonial rule.
The diaspora in all its ramifications contributed in no small way to the underdevelopment of Africans and the African continent.